Classic Film Fans's topics - tribe.net

Scarlet Pimpernel (1934)

2008-06-28T06:02:02Z

This great Leslie Howard classic is such a gem! Loved it, loved the acting. Loved Leslie Howard (born Leslie Howard Stainer) -- his foppish mannerisms were so hilarious. His looks of longing were believable. Even Merle Oberon's acting was tolerable. lol Loved how the English showed how much pomp and respect was given to the Prince of Wales.

And I was surprised to hear "Zounds!" pronounced like "sounds." As the word is a corruption of "God's wounds!"

Everybody should hear Leslie Howard say the immortal words:

"They seek him here, they seek him there. Those Frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in heaven or is he in hell? That damned elusive Pimpernel!"

posted in Classic Film Fans - 1 reply

BLACKMAIL

2008-06-26T13:14:39Z

Alfred Hitchcock's first sound film is largely entertaining. It has some rather stiff performances from the principals before the plot kicks in, but once the near-rape and resultant manslaughter have taken place, the acting seems to improve with the heightened suspense. The flighty ingenue Alice is annoying until first shock and then guilt transform her into a genuinely haunted figure. Her boyfriend Frank is more tolerable too, once love and circumstances make him an accessory after the fact. They exchange some of the most deliciously furtive and secretive glances this side of ROPE while at the breakfast table with the Whites. And once our blackmailer appears, the tension could be cut with a knife. You can see Hitch working out some themes of guilt and emotional trauma he'll explore again in his British films like SABOTAGE and SECRET AGENT, and in later films like the aforementioned ROPE and MARNIE. It's a nice diversion... highly recommended!

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

Asian Images in Film

2008-06-07T21:12:30Z

For those of you with a TV. Turner Classic Movies (TMC) is showing Asian Images in Film , Tues & Thurs all month long.
I just learned that Sessue Hayakawa was a bigger movie idol than Valentino and he had his own production company, producing 38 films. Talkies killed his career because of his heavy accent.

I'm watching Shanghi Express right now.

go to www.tcm.com for film schedules

posted in Classic Film Fans - 1 reply

So long, Richard Widmark...

2008-05-28T01:39:50Z

He was a fierce screen presence! I recently saw "Pickup on South Street" and was delighted at how fearlessly he chewed the scenery. Purely a force of nature in some of his films... raw energy. I miss him already.

posted in Classic Film Fans - 1 reply

Favorite 1939 Film

2008-05-27T05:10:59Z

1939 has been considered a golden year for films.
What is your favorite?
The Women
Gone With The Wind
The Thin Man

posted in Classic Film Fans - 8 replies

2008 remake of "The Women"!

2008-03-29T05:23:25Z

Wow! Check this out:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0430770/

What an extraordinary cast!

There is something about this story/film that just attracts top talent. Every actress seems to want to be in it. It must be a very exciting set!

What do you guys think of the casting? I can't wait to see how Eva Mendes handles Crystal Allen!
I'm a bit on the fence about Meg Ryan as Mary Haines -- let's just hope she lays off the collagen. ;)

I think Annette Bening will be a fantastic Sylvia Fowler. I can only imagine how excited she must have been to have landed that role!

I haven't heard whether this one is in a contemporary setting -- does anyone know?

I'm curious about everyone else's opinions on this.
What do you think? What have you heard about it?

posted in Classic Film Fans - 6 replies

Notorious

2008-01-25T11:29:45Z

What a wonderfully prickly performance Cary Grant gives in "Notorious." Saw it on TCM last night and marvelled, as if with new eyes, at how snarkily Devlin treats Alicia. In one tremendous sequence, he angrily defends her courage and sacrifice when a superior insults her character before she comes into the room, then he proceeds to treat her with cold disregard after she makes her entrance. It's so marvellously schizo... just what a dysfunctional love affair can do to you!

When Devlin's rudeness appears to be an awkward affectation to hide his attraction to Alicia in the begining, its forgiveable; but throughout the rest of the film, when he brims with disapproval and jealousy, his rudeness is almost unbearable. It almost makes me dislike the most cinematically likeable movie star ever! Thinking about it, what a brave performance for a silver screen heartthrob.

posted in Classic Film Fans - 2 replies

Bette Davis

2007-12-10T16:30:52Z

new tribe:

All About Bette Davis

http://tribes.tribe.net/missbettedavis

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

kids' classics recommendations?

2007-10-30T22:18:23Z

A 4 year-old I know loves the classics! yay!

So far she has fallen in love with the typical kids' classics, such as "The Sound of Music", "Mary Poppins", and "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang".
I'd like to introduce her to Shirley Temple films too.

Can anyone recommend some others?

posted in Classic Film Fans - 8 replies

Jean Simmons

2007-10-30T08:01:29Z

Just saw "Young Bess" for the first time (on TCM). A few pivotal scenes of Jean Simmon's stood out, reminding me again of how she was an 'Audrey Hepburn' with actor's chops. Does anybody else remember this wonderful performer fondly?

posted in Classic Film Fans - 3 replies

silver screen crushes

2007-10-29T01:29:09Z

Do any of you have huge crushes on any classic film stars? Does the mere image of anyone simply sweep you up into a dreamlike swoon? Do any of them make you wish you were young at the same time they were, just so that you might have a chance to win their hearts?

I've got to admit, I have screen idol crushes on Rudolph Valentino, Errol Flynn, and Gregory Peck (be still my heart!). Also Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo.

Such gorgeous creatures! *swoon!*

posted in Classic Film Fans - 67 replies

Comedic pre-quel to "Citizen Kane" on stage in San Francisco...

2007-08-16T16:19:45Z

Yes, it’s true; there’s comedic pre-quel to Citizen Kane, since; “behind every great man there is an evil sled.”

Thunderbird Theatre Company of San Francisco is presenting:
"Aaah! Rosebud"
Written by Peter Finch of KFOG radio (SF).

Known for a cult-like following for their off-beat comedies such as the pirate spoof; "Lusty Booty", and the last year's "Release the Kraken" (a mash-up of “Clash of the titans meets “clerks”), the Thunderbird brings yet another original comedy to stage.

San Francisco performances are every Thursday through Monday nights
August 23rd until September 8th.
7:30pm doors, 8:00pm curtain
Performed at: New Langton Arts
1246 Folsom Street (between 8th & 9th, South of Market)

Details, about the show at the website:
http://www.thunderbirdtheatre.com/
Recorded Info: (415) 289-6766

To give you an even better idea, read the recent (Aug. 12th) Pink Section Datebook article from the SF Chronicle:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/12/PKRPRB2RS.DTL

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

best of the 1960s

2007-07-15T19:49:53Z

The 60s was a time of huge change in filmmaking around the world...it was an era with one foot firmly planted in the classic aesthetic, and the other stepping forward into a future of new ideas and no rules. Incidentally, that is why I chose the 60s as cut-off years for this tribe -- things became so different during this era that they are almost unrelated to the early "golden years".

...but the 60s were great for film, weren't they?!? Let's talk about this exciting transitionary time in film.
What are your favorite films, directors and actors of this time period, and why?

Here are a few of mine:

Director:
Jean-Luc Godard -- A giant in French New Wave, I admire the way he used realism and grittiness, yet always combined with sensuality and romance. I consider him one of the greatest film artists.

Film:
Lawrence of Arabia -- One of the most perfect films I can think of! Gorgeous cinematography, amazing acting, unbelievable sets and locations...there is nothng ou can't love about this amazing movie. Hollywood's crowning glory.

Genres:
Exploitation films -- Political correctness aside, the sexually relaxed 1960s were incredible for films that featured scantily clad women and gratuitous boobie shots. Russ Meyer was probably the best at it, but revealing costumes and well-endowed ladies became practically mainstream across the board in mainstream film too, making women like Raquel Welch, Brigitte Bardot, and any of the early "Bond Girls" household names.

Sci-Fi -- The 1960s were such an explosive time for science and technology. People actually felt they were "living in the future" at times with all the newfangled modern appliances and products that were becoming available to the middle class. It was both exciting and frightening at the same time. Maybe this is why the sci-fi of this time really seemed to come of age during the 60s. Some of the most iconic films of this era are "2001: A Space Odyssey", "Night of the Living Dead" and the "Planet of the Apes" series.

posted in Classic Film Fans - 1 reply

7/1 Olivia Mary de Havilland

2007-07-02T03:44:09Z

Olivia Mary de Havilland (born July 1, 1916) is a two-time Academy Award winning actress and is the last surviving principal cast member from Gone with the Wind. She is the sister of Academy Award winning actress Joan Fontaine.

Early life

De Havilland was born in Tokyo, Japan, and is the elder daughter of Walter de Havilland, a British patent attorney with a practice in Japan, and the former Lilian Augusta Ruse, an actress known by her stage name of Lilian Fontaine, whom he married in 1914.

Her father was the half-brother of Charles de Havilland, who was the father of the aviation pioneer Sir Geoffrey de Havilland (1882-1965).

Her younger sister is the actress Joan Fontaine (b. 1917), from whom she has been estranged for many decades, not speaking at all since 1975.

De Havilland's family moved from Tokyo when she was two years old, settling in Saratoga, California. She attended school at Los Gatos High School and at the Notre Dame Convent Catholic girls' school in Belmont, California. Subsequently, an acting award at Los Gatos is named after her.

Career

De Havilland's career began co-starring with Joe E. Brown in Alibi Ike in 1935. She appeared as Hermia in A Midsummer Night's Dream, her first stage production, at the Hollywood Bowl. The stage production was later turned into a 1935 movie. Although the stage cast was largely replaced with Warner Bros. contract players, Olivia was hired to reprise her role as Hermia. De Havilland played opposite Errol Flynn in such highly popular films as Captain Blood and The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), and as Maid Marian to Flynn's Robin Hood in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). She would star opposite Flynn in eight films.

She played Melanie Wilkes in Gone with the Wind (1939) and received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination for her performance. She was the only one of the four main characters of Gone with the Wind to die in the film yet, ironically, in real life she outlived all the others (Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh and Leslie Howard).

In 1941, Olivia became a naturalized citizen of the United States and was becoming increasingly frustrated by the roles being assigned to her. She felt that she had proven herself to be capable of playing more than the demure ingénues and damsels in distress that were quickly typecasting her, and began to reject scripts that offered her this type of role. The law allowed for studios to suspend contract players for rejecting a role and the period of suspension to be added to the contract period. In theory this allowed a studio to maintain indefinite control over an uncooperative contractee.

Most accepted this situation, while a few tried to change the system; Bette Davis had mounted an unsuccessful lawsuit against Warner Bros. in the 1930s. De Havilland mounted a lawsuit in the 1940s and was successful, thereby reducing the power of the studios and extending greater creative freedom to the performers. The decision was one of the most significant and far-reaching legal rulings until that time in Hollywood. Her courage in mounting such a challenge, and her subsequent victory, won her the respect and admiration of her peers. The studio, however, vowed never to hire her again. The court's ruling came to be known, and is still known to this day, as the de Havilland law.

The quality and variety of her roles began to improve. She won Best Actress Academy Awards for To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949), and was also widely praised for her Academy Award nominated performance in The Snake Pit (1948). This was one of the earliest films to attempt a realistic portrayal of mental illness, and de Havilland was lauded for her willingness to play a role that was completely devoid of glamour and that confronted such controversial subject matter.

De Havilland appeared sporadically in films after the 1950s and attributed this partly to the growing permissiveness of Hollywood films of the period. She was reported to have declined the role of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, citing the unsavoury nature of some elements of the script and saying there were certain lines she could not allow herself to speak. The role eventually went to her former Gone with the Wind co-star, Vivien Leigh, who won her second Academy Award for her role. Though De Havilland continued acting on film until the late 1970s, she continued her career on television until the late 80s, which included her winning a Golden Globe for her performance in the 1986 miniseries Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna.

Sibling rivalry

Olivia de Havilland was the first to become an actress; when her sister, Joan, tried to follow her lead, their mother, who allegedly favoured Olivia, refused to let her use the family name. So Joan was forced to invent a name (Joan Burfield, and later Joan Fontaine, utilizing her own mother's former stage name).

Biographer, Charles Higham, records that the sisters have always had an uneasy relationship, starting in early childhood, when Olivia would rip up the clothes that Joan had to wear as hand-me-downs, forcing Joan to sew them back together. A lot of the feud and resentment between the sisters stems from Joan's perception of Olivia being their mother's favourite child.

Both Olivia and Joan were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1942. Joan won first for her role in Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion (1941) over Olivia's nomination for Hold Back the Dawn (1941). Charles Higham states that Joan "felt guilty about winning; given her lack of obsessive career drive..."

Charles Higham has described the events of the awards ceremony, stating that as Joan stepped forward to collect her award, she pointedly rejected Olivia's attempts at congratulating her and that Olivia was both offended and embarrassed by her behaviour. Several years later, Olivia would remember the slight and exact her own by brushing past Joan, who was waiting with her hand extended, because Olivia had allegedly taken offence at a comment Joan had made about Olivia's then-husband.

Olivia's relationship with Joan continued to deteriorate after the incident at the Academy Awards in 1942. Charles Higham has stated that this was the near final straw for what would become a lifelong feud, but the sisters did not completely stop speaking until 1975.

According to Joan, Olivia did not invite her to a memorial service for their mother who had recently died. Olivia claims she told Joan, but that Joan had brushed her off, claiming that she was too busy to attend.

Charles Higham records that Joan has an estranged relationship with her own daughters as well, possibly because she discovered that they were secretly maintaining a relationship with their aunt Olivia.

Both sisters have refused to comment publicly about their feud and dysfunctional family relationships.

Personal life

Though Olivia and Errol Flynn were known as one of Hollywood's most exciting on-screen couples, appearing in eight films together, they never had a romantic life off screen. In an interview with Gregory Speck, Olivia stated, "He never guessed that I had a crush on him. And it didn't get better either. In fact, I read in something that he wrote that he was in love with me when we made 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' the next year, in 1936. I was amazed to read that, for it never occurred to me that he was smitten with me, too, even though we did all those pictures together."

De Havilland had relationships with John Huston, James Stewart and Howard Hughes in the early 1940s. She married novelist Marcus Goodrich in 1946 but they divorced in 1953. They had a son, Benjamin, who died of complications from Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1991.

She was married to Pierre Galante from 1955 until 1979, producing a daughter, Giselle, in 1956. When de Havilland and Galante divorced they remained on good terms, and she nursed him through his final illness in Paris, which was the stated reason for her absence from the star-studded 70th Anniversary of the Oscars in 1998.

De Havilland was a good friend with Bette Davis and remains a close friend of Gloria Stuart.

Olivia today

A resident of Paris since the 1950s, de Havilland lives there in retirement and makes appearances rarely. She is reported to be working on an autobiography. She appeared as a presenter at the 75th Annual Academy Awards in 2003. In June of 2006, de Havilland made appearances at tributes to her for her 90th birthday at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences and the Los Angeles County Art Museum.

In 2004, Turner Classic Movies put together a retrospective piece called Melanie Remembers in which de Havilland was interviewed for the 65th anniversary of Gone with the Wind's original release. Then 88 years old and the only surviving principal cast member, de Havilland remembered every detail of her casting (she was in a contract with Warner Bros., and at first they refused to let her play Melanie for David O. Selznick) as well as filming (Leigh could go immediately from break to filming, and fall into her Scarlett O'Hara part, while Olivia needed 20 minutes to focus to get back into Melanie.) The 40-minute documentary can be seen on the Gone with the Wind four-disc special collector's edition.

With the death of Katharine Hepburn in 2003, many consider Olivia de Havilland and her sister Joan Fontaine to be the last remaining great leading ladies of 1930s and 40s Hollywood.

Academy awards
Wins:
1946 - Best Actress in To Each His Own
1949 - Best Actress in The Heiress
Nominations:
1939 - Best Supporting Actress in Gone with the Wind
1941 - Best Actress in Hold Back the Dawn
1948 - Best Actress in The Snake Pit

Selected filmography
Alibi Ike (1935)
The Irish in Us (1935)
A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935 film) (1935)
Captain Blood (1935)
A Dream Comes True (1935 - short subject)
Anthony Adverse (1936)
The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936)
The Making of a Great Motion Picture (1936 - short subject)
Call It a Day (1937)
It's Love I'm After (1937)
The Great Garrick (1937)
Gold Is Where You Find It (1938)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)
Four's a Crowd (1938)
Hard to Get (1938)
A Day at Santa Anita (1939 - short subject)
Wings of the Navy (1939)
Dodge City (1939)
The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939)
Gone with the Wind (1939)
Raffles (1940)
My Love Came Back (1940)
Santa Fe Trail (1940)
The Strawberry Blonde (1941)
Hold Back the Dawn (1941)
They Died with Their Boots On (1941)
The Male Animal (1942)
In This Our Life (1942)
Show Business at War (1943 - short subject)
Princess O'Rourke (1943)
Thank Your Lucky Stars (1943 film) (1943)
Government Girl (1943)
To Each His Own (1946)
Devotion (1946)
The Well-Groomed Bride (1946)
The Dark Mirror (1946 film) (1946)
The Snake Pit (1948)
The Heiress (1949)
My Cousin Rachel (1952)
That Lady (1955)
Not as a Stranger (1955)
The Ambassador's Daughter (1956)
The Proud Rebel (1958)
Libel (1959)
The Light in the Piazza (1962)
Lady in a Cage (1964)
Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964)
The Adventurers (1970)
Pope Joan (1972)
Airport '77 (1977)
The Swarm (1978)
The Fifth Musketeer (1979)

Olivia at IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000014/

Olivia at TCM
http://tcmdb.com/participant/participant.jsp?participantId=46170

Olivia at Reel Classics
http://www.reelclassics.com/Actresses/deHavilland/dehav.htm

Olivia Online
http://oliviaonline.tripod.com/

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

6/1 Marilyn is 81

2007-06-02T06:45:30Z

Marilyn Monroe (born Norma Jeane Mortenson on June 1, 1926 – August 5, 1962), was a Golden Globe Award-winning American actress, singer, model and pop icon. She was known for her comedic skills and screen presence, going on to become one of the most popular movie stars of the 1950s and early 1960s. At the later stages of her career, she worked towards serious roles with a measure of success. However, she faced disappointments in her career and personal life during her later years. Her death has been subject to speculation and conspiracy theories.

Her mother

Marilyn Monroe was born under the name of Norma Jeane Mortenson in the charity ward of the Los Angeles County Hospital, According to biographer Fred Lawrence Guiles, her grandmother, Della Monroe Grainger, had her baptized Norma Jeane Baker by Aimee Semple McPherson. She obtained an order from the City Court of the State of New York and legally changed her name to Marilyn Monroe on February 23, 1956.

Monroe's maternal grandparents were Otis Elmer Monroe and Della Mae Hogan. Her mother Gladys Pearl Monroe was born in Porfirio Diaz, Mexico, now known as Piedras Negras, on May 27, 1902 where the family had gone, so Otis could work on the railroad. The family returned to California where Gladys's brother Otis was born in 1905. Their father, suffering from syphilis which had invaded his brain, died in 1909 in Southern California State Hospital in San Bernardino County.[5] Gladys married first to Jasper Baker May 1917 and had two children, Robert Kermit Baker (born January 24, 1918) and Berniece Baker (born July 30, 1919). They were both born in Los Angeles.[6][7] After Gladys and her Kentucky-born husband divorced, the husband took the children and moved to Kentucky, according to Miracle's book My Sister Marilyn. Gladys moved there as well, to be near her children. After living there for a while, she returned to Los Angeles.

Her father

After Gladys returned to Los Angeles, she married Martin Edward Mortenson (1897-1981) on Oct 11, 1924.[8] They divorced six months into their marriage, according to My Sister Marilyn. Martin's father, also named Martin, was born in Haugesund, Norway and had immigrated to the United States about 1880 where he married Stella Higgins. Their son was born in Vallejo, California.

Many biographers, such as Donald H. Wolfe in The Last Days of Marilyn Monroe, believe Norma Jeane's biological father was Charles Stanley Gifford, a salesman for RKO Pictures where Gladys worked as a film-cutter. Monroe's birth certificate lists Gladys's second husband, Martin Edward Mortenson, as the father. While Mortenson left Gladys before Norma Jeane's birth, some biographers think he may have been the father. In an interview with Lifetime, James Dougherty, her first husband, said Norma Jeane believed that Gifford was her father. Whoever the father was, he played no part in Monroe's life.

Foster parents

Unable to persuade Della to take Norma Jeane, Gladys placed her with foster parents Albert and Ida Bolender of Hawthorne, California, where she lived until she was seven. In her autobiography My Story, Monroe states she thought Albert was a girl.

Gladys visited Norma Jeane every Saturday. One day, she announced that she had bought a house. A few months after they had moved in, Gladys suffered a breakdown. In My Story, Monroe recalls her mother "screaming and laughing" as she was forcibly removed to the State Hospital in Norwalk. According to My Sister Marilyn, Gladys's brother, Marion, hanged himself upon his release from an asylum, and Della's father did the same in a fit of depression.

Norma Jeane was declared a ward of state, and Gladys's best friend, Grace McKee (later Goddard) became her guardian. After McKee married in 1935, Norma Jeane was sent to the Los Angeles Orphans Home (later renamed Hollygrove), and then to a succession of foster homes.

The Goddards were about to move to the east coast and could not take her. Grace approached the mother of James Dougherty about the possibility of her son marrying the girl. They married two weeks after she turned 16, so that Norma Jeane would not have to return to an orphanage or foster care.

Early years

While her husband was in the Merchant Marine during World War II, Norma Jeane Dougherty moved in with her mother-in-law, and started to work in the Radioplane Company factory (owned by Hollywood actor Reginald Denny), spraying airplane parts with fire retardant and inspecting parachutes. Army photographer David Conover was scouting local factories, taking photos for a YANK magazine article about women contributing to the war effort. He saw her potential as a model and she was soon signed by The Blue Book modeling agency. In his book Finding Marilyn, Conover claimed the two had an affair that lasted years. Shortly after signing with the agency, Monroe had her hair cut, straightened, and lightened to golden blonde.

She became one of Blue Book's most successful models, appearing on dozens of magazine covers. In 1946, she came to the attention of talent scout Ben Lyon. He arranged a screen test for her with 20th Century Fox. She was offered a standard six-month contract with a starting salary of $125 per week.[11]

Lyon suggested she adopt Marilyn (after Marilyn Miller) as her stage name, since Norma Jeane wasn't considered commercial enough. For her last name, she took her mother's maiden name. Thus, the twenty-year-old Norma Jeane Baker became Marilyn Monroe. During her first half year at Fox, Monroe was given no work, but Fox renewed her contract and she was given minor appearances in Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! and Dangerous Years, both released in 1947. In Scudda Hoo!, her part was edited out of the film except for a quick glimpse of her face when she speaks two words. Fox decided not to renew her contract again. Monroe returned to modelling and began to network and make contacts in Hollywood.

In 1948, a six-month stint at Columbia Pictures saw her star in Ladies of the Chorus, but the low-budget musical was not a success and Monroe was dropped yet again. She then met one of Hollywood's top agents, Johnny Hyde, who had Fox re-sign her after MGM turned her down. Fox Vice-President Darryl F. Zanuck was not convinced of Monroe's potential, but due to Hyde's persistence, she gained supporting parts in Fox's All About Eve and MGM's The Asphalt Jungle. Even though the roles were small, movie-goers as well as critics took notice. Hyde also arranged for her to have minor plastic surgery on her nose and chin, adding that to earlier dental surgery.[12][13][14][15]

The next two years were filled with inconsequential roles in standard fare such as We're Not Married! and Love Nest. However, RKO executives used her to boost box office potential of the Fritz Lang production Clash by Night. After the film performed well, Fox employed a similar tactic and she was cast as the ditzy receptionist with Cary Grant and Ginger Rogers in Howard Hawks's slapstick comedy Monkey Business. Critics no longer ignored her, and both films's success at the box office was partly attributed to Monroe's growing popularity.

Fox finally gave her a starring role in 1952 with Don't Bother to Knock, in which she portrayed a deranged babysitter who attacks the little girl in her care. It was a cheaply made B-movie, and although the reviews were mixed, they claimed that it demonstrated Monroe's ability and confirmed that she was ready for more leading roles. Her performance in the film has since been noted as one of the finest of her career

Monroe proved she could carry a big-budget film when she starred in Niagara in 1953. Movie critics focused on Monroe's connection with the camera as much as on the sinister plot. She played an unbalanced woman planning to murder her husband.

Around this time, nude photos of Monroe began to surface, taken by photographer Tom Kelley when she had been struggling for work. Prints were bought by Hugh Hefner and, in December 1953, appeared in the first edition of Playboy. To the dismay of Fox, Monroe decided to publicly admit it was indeed her in the pictures. When a journalist asked her what she wore in bed she replied, "Chanel no.5". When asked what she had on during the photo shoot, she replied, "The radio".

Over the following months, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and How to Marry a Millionaire cemented Monroe's status as an A-list actress and she became one of the world's biggest movie stars. The lavish Technicolor comedy films established Monroe's "dumb blonde" on-screen persona.

In Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Monroe's turn as gold-digging showgirl Lorelei Lee won her rave reviews, and the scene where she sang "Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend" has inspired the likes of Madonna, and Geri Halliwell. In the Los Angeles premiere of the film, Monroe and co-star Jane Russell pressed their foot- and handprints in the cement in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theatre.

In How to Marry a Millionaire, Monroe was teamed up with Lauren Bacall and Betty Grable. She played a short-sighted dumb blonde, and even though the role was stereotypical, critics took note of her comedic timing.

Her next two films, the western River of No Return and the musical There's No Business Like Show Business, were not successful. Monroe got tired of the roles that Zanuck assigned her. After completing work on The Seven Year Itch in early 1955, she broke her contract and fled Hollywood to study acting at The Actors Studio in New York. Fox would not accede to her contract demands and insisted she return to work on productions she considered inappropriate, such as The Girl in Pink Tights (which was never filmed), The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, and How to Be Very, Very Popular.

Monroe stayed in New York. As The Seven Year Itch raced to the top of the box office in the summer of 1955, and with Fox starlets Jayne Mansfield and Sheree North failing to click with audiences, Zanuck admitted defeat and Monroe returned to Hollywood. A new contract was drawn up, giving Monroe approval of the director as well as the option to act in other studios' projects.

The first film to be made under the contract was Bus Stop, directed by Joshua Logan. She played Chérie,[22] a saloon bar singer who falls in love with a cowboy. Monroe deliberately appeared badly made-up and unglamorous.

She was nominated for a Golden Globe for the performance and was praised by critics. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times proclaimed: "Hold on to your chairs, everybody, and get set for a rattling surprise. Marilyn Monroe has finally proved herself an actress." In his autobiography, Movie Stars, Real People and Me, director Joshua Logan wrote: "I found Marilyn to be one of the great talents of all time... She struck me as being a much brighter person than I had ever imagined, and I think that was the first time I learned that intelligence and, yes brilliance have nothing to do with education."

Monroe formed her own production company with friend and photographer Milton H. Greene. Marilyn Monroe Productions released its first and only film The Prince and the Showgirl in 1957 to mixed reviews. Along with executive-producing the film, she starred opposite the acclaimed British actor Laurence Olivier, who also directed it.

Olivier became furious at her habit of being late to the set, as well as her dependency on her drama coach, Paula Strasberg. Monroe's performance was hailed by critics, especially in Europe, where she was handed the David di Donatello, the Italian equivalent of the Academy Award, as well as the French Crystal Star Award. She was also nominated for the British BAFTA award.

Later years

In 1959, she scored the biggest hit of her career starring alongside Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon in Billy Wilder's comedy Some Like It Hot. After shooting finished, Wilder publicly blasted Monroe for her difficult on-set behavior. Soon, however, Wilder's attitude softened, and he hailed her as a great comedienne. Some Like It Hot is consistently rated as one of the best films ever made.[23] Monroe's performance earned her a Golden Globe for best actress in musical or comedy.

After Some Like It Hot, Monroe shot Let's Make Love directed by George Cukor and co-starring Yves Montand. Monroe was forced to shoot the picture because of her obligations to Twentieth Century-Fox. While the film was not a commercial or critical success, it included one of Monroe's legendary musical numbers, Cole Porter's "My Heart Belongs to Daddy".

Arthur Miller wrote what became her and her co-star Clark Gable's last completed film, The Misfits. The exhausting shoot took place in the hot Nevada desert. Monroe, Gable and Montgomery Clift delivered performances that are considered excellent by contemporary movie critics.[24] Tabloid magazines blamed Gable's death of a heart attack on Monroe, claiming she had given him a hard time on the set. Gable, however, insisted on doing his own stunts and was a heavy smoker. After Gable's death, Monroe attended the baptism of his son.

Some of the most famous photographs of her were taken by Douglas Kirkland in 1961 as a feature for the 25th anniversary issue of LOOK magazine.

Monroe returned to Hollywood to resume filming on the George Cukor comedy Something's Got to Give, a never-finished film that has become legendary for problems on the set and proved a costly debacle for Fox. In May 1962, she made her last significant public appearance, singing Happy Birthday, Mr. President at a televised birthday party for President John F. Kennedy.

After shooting what was claimed to have been the first ever nude scene by a major motion picture actress, Monroe's attendance on the set became even more erratic. On June 1, her thirty-sixth birthday, she attended a charity event at Dodger Stadium.

Already financially strained by the production costs of Cleopatra, starring Elizabeth Taylor, Fox dropped Monroe from the film and replaced her with Lee Remick. However, co-star Dean Martin, who had a clause in his contract giving him an approval over his co-star, was unwilling to work with anyone but Monroe. She was rehired.

Monroe conducted a lengthy interview with Life, in which she expressed how bitter she was about Hollywood labeling her as a dumb blonde and how much she loved her audience.[25] She also did a photo shoot for Vogue, and began discussing a future film project with Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra, according to the Donald Spoto biography. Furthermore, she was planning to star in a biopic of Jean Harlow. Other projects being considered for her were What a Way to Go! (in which Shirley MacLaine would replace her), Kiss Me, Stupid, a comedy starring Dean Martin (and Kim Novak taking on Monroe's role) and a musical version of A Tree Grows In Brooklyn.

Before the shooting of Something's Got to Give resumed, Monroe was found dead in her Los Angeles home on the morning of August 5, 1962. She remains one of the 20th century's legendary public figures and archetypal Hollywood movie stars.

Marriages

James Dougherty

Monroe married James Dougherty on June 19, 1942. In The Secret Happiness of Marilyn Monroe and To Norma Jeane with Love, Jimmie, he claimed they were in love but dreams of stardom lured her away. In 1953 he wrote a piece called "Marilyn Monroe Was My Wife" for Photoplay, in which he claimed that he left her.

In the 2004 documentary Marilyn's Man, Dougherty made three new claims: he was her Svengali and invented the "Marilyn Monroe" persona, studio executives forced her to divorce him, and that he was her only true love.

He remarried in 1947. When informed of her death, the August 6, 1962 New York Times reported that he replied "I'm sorry," and continued his LAPD patrol. He did not attend Monroe's funeral.

His sister wrote in the 12/1952 Modern Screen Magazine that Dougherty left Monroe because she wanted to pursue modeling. He admitted to A&E Network that his mother asked him to marry her, and told Lifetime in 1996 that he cut off her allotment after being served with divorce papers. The 1999 Christie's auction of Monroe's estate revealed that she kept nothing from Dougherty except their divorce decree.

Joe DiMaggio

In 1951 Joe DiMaggio saw a picture of Monroe with two Chicago White Sox players, but did not ask the man who arranged the stunt to set up a date until 1952. She wrote in My Story that she did not want to meet him, fearing a stereotypical jock. They eloped at San Francisco's City Hall on January 14, 1954. During the honeymoon, they visited Japan, and she was asked to visit Korea. She performed ten shows over four days in freezing temperatures for over 100,000 servicemen. Biographers have noted that DiMaggio, who stayed in Japan, was not pleased with his wife's decision during what he wanted to be an intimate trip.

Back home, she wrote him a letter about her dreams for their future, dated February 28, 1954:
"My Dad, I don't know how to tell you just how much I miss you. I love you till my heart could burst... I want to just be where you are and be just what you want me to be... I want someday for you to be proud of me as a person and as your wife and as the mother of the rest of your children (two at least! I've decided)..."

DiMaggio biographer Maury Allen quoted New York Yankees PR man Arthur Richman that Joe told him everything went wrong from the trip to Japan on. Fred Lawrence Guiles speculated that Joe, knowing the power and hollowness of fame, wanted desperately to head off what he was convinced was her "collision-course with disaster." Friends claimed that DiMaggio became more controlling as Monroe grew more defiant.[citation needed] On September 14, 1954, she filmed the now-iconic skirt-blowing scene for The Seven Year Itch in front of New York's Trans-Lux Theater. Bill Kobrin, then Fox's east coast correspondent, told the June 26, 2006 Palm Springs Desert Sun that it was Billy Wilder's idea to turn it into a media circus: "... every time her dress came up and the crowd started to get excited, DiMaggio just blew up." The couple later had a "yelling battle" in the theater lobby.[27] Her makeup man Allan Snyder recalled Monroe later appeared on set with bruises on her upper arms.[citation needed] She filed for divorce on grounds of mental cruelty 274 days after the wedding.

Years later, she turned to him for help. In February 1961, her psychiatrist arranged for her to be admitted to the Payne Whitney Psychiatric Clinic, where, according to Donald Spoto, she was placed in the ward for the most seriously disturbed. Unable to check herself out, she called DiMaggio, who secured her release. She later joined him in Florida. Their "just good friends" claim did not stop rumors of remarriage. Archive footage shows Bob Hope jokingly dedicated Best Song nominee The Second Time Around to them at the 1960 Academy Awards telecast.

According to Maury Allen, on August 1, 1962, DiMaggio — alarmed by how his ex-wife had fallen in with people he felt detrimental to her, such as Frank Sinatra and his "Rat Pack" — quit his job with a PX supplier to ask her to remarry him. He claimed her body and arranged her funeral, barring Hollywood's elite. For twenty years, he had a dozen red roses delivered to her crypt three times a week. Unlike her other two husbands, he never talked about her publicly, wrote a tell-all, or remarried.

Arthur Miller

On June 29, 1956, Monroe married playwright Arthur Miller, whom she had first met in 1951, in a civil ceremony in White Plains, New York. City Court Judge Seymour Robinowitz presided over the hushed ceremony in the law office of Sam Slavitt (the wedding had been kept secret from both the press and the public). Nominally raised as a Christian, she converted to Judaism before marrying Miller. After she finished shooting The Prince and the Showgirl with Laurence Olivier, the couple returned to the United States from England and discovered she was pregnant. However, she suffered from endometriosis and the pregnancy was found to be ectopic. A subsequent pregnancy ended in miscarriage.

By 1958, she was the couple's main breadwinner. While paying alimony to Miller's first wife, her husband reportedly charged her production company for buying and shipping a Jaguar to the United States.

Miller's screenplay for The Misfits, a story about a despairing divorcée, was meant to be a Valentine gift for his wife, but by the time filming started in 1960 their marriage was beyond repair. A Mexican divorce was granted on January 24, 1961. On February 17, 1962, Miller married Inge Morath, one of the Magnum photographers recording the making of The Misfits.

In January 1964, Miller's play After the Fall opened, featuring a beautiful and devouring shrew named Maggie. The similarities between Maggie and Monroe did not go unnoticed by audiences and critics (including Helen Hayes), many of whom sympathized with the fact that she was no longer alive and could not defend herself.[citation needed]

Simone Signoret noted in her autobiography the morbidity of Miller and Elia Kazan resuming their professional association "over a casket". In interviews and in his autobiography, Miller insisted that Maggie was not based on Monroe. However, he never pretended that his last Broadway-bound work, Finishing the Picture, was not based on the making of The Misfits. He appeared in the documentary The Century of the Self lamenting the psychological work being done on her before her death.

Death and aftermath

Monroe's last home was in Brentwood in Los Angeles. She was found dead by her housekeeper on August 5, 1962. Her death was ruled as an overdose of sleeping pills. Questions remain about the circumstances and timeline of housekeeper Eunice Murray's discovery of Monroe's body. Also, some conspiracy theories involve John and Robert Kennedy.

There is speculation that her death was accidental,[citation needed] but the official cause was "probable suicide".

On August 8, 1962, Monroe was interred in a crypt at Corridor of Memories, #24, at the Westwood Village Memorial Park Cemetery in Los Angeles, California. Lee Strasberg delivered the eulogy.

Administration of estate

In her will, Monroe left Lee Strasberg control of 75% of her estate. She expressed her desire that Strasberg, or, if he predeceased her, her executor, "distribute [her personal effects] among my friends, colleagues and those to whom I am devoted."

Strasberg willed his portion to his widow, Anna. She declared she would never sell Monroe's personal items after successfully suing Odyssey Auctions in 1994 to prevent the sale of items which were withheld by Monroe's former business manager, Inez Melson. However, in October 1999 Christie's auctioned the bulk of the items Monroe willed to Lee Strasberg, netting US$12.3 million.

Anna Strasberg is currently in litigation against the children of four photographers to determine rights of publicity, which permits the licensing of images of deceased personages for commercial purposes. The decision as to whether Monroe was a resident of California, where she died, or New York, where her will was probated, is worth millions.

On 4 May 2007, a federal judge in New York ruled that Monroe's rights of publicity ended upon her death, thus allowing the family of photographer Sam Shaw to sell photos of Monroe.

"I think that when you are famous every weakness is exaggerated. (...) Goethe said, "Talent is developed in privacy," you know? And it's really true. (...) Creativity has got to start with humanity and when you're a human being, you feel, you suffer. You're gay, you're sick, you're nervous or whatever."

MISC Facts

Ella Fitzgerald credited Monroe with helping her launch mainstream career by securing her a gig at the then-segregated Mocambo.

Hugh Hefner purchased the crypt beside Monroe for himself.

Monroe's films made over $200,000,000 on their first run, according to her New York Times obituary.

Tiles on the doorstep of Monroe's Brentwood home bore the Latin inscription, "Cursum Perficio," commonly translated as "My journey is over." (or "I have completed my course.").

The Jean Louis gown in which Monroe sang "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" to John F. Kennedy in May 1962 was sold at Christie's auction in 1999 for $1,267,500.

In February 2007's issue of Premiere magazine Mickey Rooney claims to have given her the name Marilyn Monroe.

Many days after Monroe's death, Mrs. Eunice Murray attempted to cash her last paycheck from Monroe, and it was declined and marked "deceased." This check, one of the last that Monroe ever wrote on her Roxbury Drive Branch account at City National Bank in Beverly Hills, is today on display at the Hollywood Entertainment Museum in Hollywood, CA.

Marilyn Manson formed his name after combining the names of Marilyn Monroe and Charles Manson. It has been rumored for years and reported in Ripley's Believe It Or Not that Marilyn Monroe had 6 toes on her left foot, but this was false. The rumor started after a photo shoot in 1946 on a beach in California where a clump of sand made it appear she had an extra toe.

The horror punk band The Misfits derived their title Monroe's film of the same name, due to lead singer Glenn Danzig's interest in Marilyn Monroe. The band also has a song "Who Killed Marilyn?".

Awards and nominations

1952 Photoplay Award: Special Award
1953 Golden Globe Henrietta Award: World Film Favorite Female.
1953 Photoplay Award: Most Popular Female Star
1956 BAFTA Film Award nomination: Best Foreign Actress for The Seven Year Itch
1956 Golden Globe nomination: Best Motion Picture Actress in Comedy or Musical for Bus Stop
1958 BAFTA Film Award nomination: Best Foreign Actress for The Prince and the Showgirl
1958 David di Donatello Award (Italian): Best Foreign Actress for The Prince and the Showgirl
1959 Crystal Star Award (French): Best Foreign Actress for The Prince and the Showgirl
1960 Golden Globe, Best Motion Picture Actress in Comedy or Musical for Some Like It Hot
1962 Golden Globe, World Film Favorite: Female
Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame 6104 Hollywood Blvd.
1999 she was ranked as the sixth greatest female star of all time by the American Film Institute in their list AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars.

I posted dozens of images here http://tribes.tribe.net/vavavoom

Marilyn Monroe Collection
http://www.marilynmonroecollection.com/

Marilyn Remembered Fan Club
http://www.marilynremembered.org/

Maz at IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000054/

Maz at TCM
http://tcmdb.com/participant/participant.jsp?participantId=134087

Official MM Website
http://www.marilynmonroe.com/

I posted dozens of images here http://tribes.tribe.net/vavavoom

posted in Classic Film Fans - 1 reply

5/22 Happy 100 Sir Larry

2007-05-22T05:08:35Z

Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM (22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) was an Academy Award, Golden Globe, BAFTA and four-time Emmy winning English actor, director, and producer. Olivier's Academy acknowledgments are considerable—fourteen Oscar nominations, with two wins for Best Actor and Best Picture for the 1948 film Hamlet, and two honorary awards including a statuette and certificate. He was also awarded five Emmy awards from the nine nominations he received.

Olivier's career as a stage and film actor spanned more than six decades and included a wide variety of roles, from Shakespeare's Othello and Sir Toby Belch to the sadistic Nazi dentist Christian Szell in Marathon Man. A High Church clergyman's son who found fame on the West End stage, Olivier became determined early on to master Shakespeare, and eventually came to be regarded as one of the foremost Shakespeare interpreters of the 20th century. He continued to act until his death in 1989. Olivier played more than 120 stage roles, including: Richard III, Macbeth, Romeo, Hamlet, Othello, Uncle Vanya, and Archie Rice in The Entertainer. He appeared in nearly sixty films, including William Wyler's Wuthering Heights, Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca, Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus, Otto Preminger's Bunny Lake is Missing, Richard Attenborough's Oh! What a Lovely War, Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Sleuth, John Schlesinger's Marathon Man, Daniel Petrie's The Betsy, and his own Henry V, Hamlet, and Richard III. He also preserved his Othello on film, with its stage cast virtually intact. For television, he starred in The Moon and Sixpence, John Gabriel Borkman, Long Day's Journey into Night, The Merchant of Venice, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and King Lear, among others.

In 1999, the American Film Institute named Olivier among the Greatest Male Stars of All Time, at fourteen on the list.

Early life

Olivier was born in 1907 in Dorking, Surrey. He was raised in a severe, strict, and religious household, ruled over by his father, Gerard Kerr Olivier, an Anglican priest.[2] Young Laurence took solace in the care of his mother, Agnes Louise Crookenden, and was grief-stricken when she died (at 48) when he was only 12.[3] He was educated at St Edward's School, Oxford, and, at 15, played Katherine in his school's production of The Taming of the Shrew, to rave reviews. After his brother, Richard, left for India, it was his father who decided that Laurence — or "Kim", as the family called him — would become an actor

Early career

Olivier then attended the Central School of Dramatic Art at the age of 17.[5] In 1926, he joined The Birmingham Repertory Company.[6] At first he was given only paltry tasks at the theatre, such as being the bell-ringer; however, his roles eventually became more significant, and in 1937 he was playing roles such as Hamlet and Macbeth.[1] Throughout his career he insisted that his acting was pure technique, and he was contemptuous of contemporaries who adopted the 'Method' popularized by Lee Strasberg. Olivier met and married Jill Esmond, an actress in 1930 and had one son, Tarquin, born in 1936.

Olivier was not happy in his first marriage from the beginning, however. Repressed, as he came to see it, by his religious upbringing, Olivier recounted in his autobiography the disappointments of his wedding night, culminating in his failure to perform sexually. He renounced religion forever and soon came to resent his wife, though the marriage would last for ten years.

He made his film debut in The Temporary Widow, and played his first leading role on film in The Yellow Ticket; however, he held film in little regard.[5] His stage breakthroughs were in Noel Coward's Private Lives in 1930, and in Romeo and Juliet in 1935, alternating the roles of Romeo and Mercutio with John Gielgud. Olivier did not agree with Gielgud's style of acting Shakespeare and was irritated by the fact that Gielgud was getting better reviews than he was.[7][8] His tension towards Gielgud came to a head in 1940, when Olivier approached London impresario Binkie Beaumont about financing him in a repertory of the four great Shakespearean tragedies of Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth and King Lear, but Beaumont would only agree to the plan if Olivier and Gielgud alternated in the roles of Hamlet/Laertes, Othello/Iago, Macbeth/Macduff, and Lear/Gloucester and that Gielgud direct at least one of the productions, a proposition Olivier bluntly declined.[9]

The engagement as Romeo resulted in an invitation by Lilian Baylis to be the star at the Old Vic Theatre in 1937/38. Olivier's tenure had mixed artistic results, with his performances as Hamlet and Iago drawing a negative response from critics and his first attempt at Macbeth receiving mixed reviews. But his appearances as Henry V, Coriolanus, and Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night were triumphs, and his popularity with Old Vic audiences left Olivier as one of the major Shakespearean actors in England by the season's end.

Olivier continued to hold his scorn for film, and though he constantly worked for Alexander Korda, he still felt most at home on the stage. He made his first Shakespeare film, As You Like It, with Paul Czinner, however, Olivier disliked it, thinking that Shakespeare did not work well on film. Olivier then saw a production of The Mask of Virtue, and one thing in particular interested him about it: Vivien Leigh.

Vivian Leigh

Laurence Olivier saw Leigh in The Mask of Virtue, and a friendship developed after he congratulated her on her performance. While playing lovers in the film Fire Over England (1937), Olivier and Leigh developed a strong attraction, and after filming was completed, they began an affair. During this time Leigh read the Margaret Mitchell novel Gone with the Wind and instructed her American agent to suggest her to David O. Selznick, who was planning a film version. She remarked to a journalist, "I've cast myself as Scarlett O'Hara", and the film critic C. A. Lejeune recalled a conversation of the same period in which Leigh "stunned us all" with the assertion that Olivier "won't play Rhett Butler, but I shall play Scarlett O'Hara. Wait and see."

Leigh played Ophelia to Olivier's Hamlet in an Old Vic Theatre production, and Olivier later recalled an incident during which her mood rapidly changed as she was quietly preparing to go onstage. Without apparent provocation, she began screaming at him, before suddenly becoming silent and staring into space. She was able to perform without mishap, and by the following day, she had returned to normal with no recollection of the event. It was the first time Olivier witnessed such behaviour from her.[11]

After "Fire Over England", they appeared in two other films together, 21 Days, and Korda's epic, That Hamilton Woman, with Olivier as Lord Nelson, as well as a stage production of Hamlet performed at Elsinore Castle, the actual setting of the play. They wanted to marry, but both Leigh's husband and Olivier's wife at the time, Jill Esmond, at first, refused to divorce them. Finally divorced, they married on 31 August 1940, at the San Ysidro Ranch in Santa Barbara, California, with Katharine Hepburn as maid of honour.

Olivier and Leigh planned to star in a run of Romeo and Juliet in New York. It was an extravagant production, and was a commercial failure.[12] Brooks Atkinson for the New York Times wrote, "Although Miss Leigh and Mr Olivier are handsome young people they hardly act their parts at all."[13] While most of the blame was attributed to Olivier's acting and direction, Leigh was also criticised, with Bernard Grebanier commenting on the "thin, shopgirl quality of Miss Leigh's voice." The couple had invested almost their entire savings into the project, and its failure was a financial disaster for them.[14]

Leigh hoped to star with Olivier and made a screentest for Rebecca, which was to be directed by Alfred Hitchcock with Olivier in the leading role, but after viewing her screentest Selznick noted that "she doesn't seem right as to sincerity or age or innocence", a view shared by Hitchcock, and Leigh's mentor, George Cukor.[15] Selznick also observed that she had shown no enthusiasm for the part until Olivier had been confirmed as the lead actor, and subsequently cast Joan Fontaine. He also refused to allow her to join Olivier in Pride and Prejudice (1940), and Greer Garson took the part Leigh had envisioned for herself. Waterloo Bridge (1940) was to have starred Olivier and Leigh, however Selznick replaced Olivier with Robert Taylor, then at the peak of his success as one of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's most popular male stars. Leigh's top-billing reflected her status in Hollywood, and despite her reluctance to participate without Olivier, the film proved to be popular with audiences and critics.

They filmed That Hamilton Woman (1941) with Olivier as Horatio Nelson and Leigh as Emma Hamilton. With Britain engaged in World War II, it was one of several Hollywood films made with the aim of arousing a pro-British sentiment among American audiences. The film was popular in the United States, but was an outstanding success in the Soviet Union. Winston Churchill arranged a screening for a party which included Franklin D. Roosevelt and, on its conclusion, addressed the group, saying, "Gentlemen, I thought this film would interest you, showing great events similar to those in which you have just been taking part." The Oliviers remained favourites of Churchill, attending dinners and occasions at his request for the rest of his life, and of Leigh he was quoted as saying, "By Jove, she's a clinker."[16]

The Oliviers returned to England, and Leigh toured through North Africa in 1943, performing for troops before falling ill with a persistent cough and fevers. In 1944 she was diagnosed as having tuberculosis in her left lung, but after spending several weeks in hospital, she appeared to be cured. In spring she was filming Caesar and Cleopatra (1945) when she discovered she was pregnant, but suffered a miscarriage. She fell into a deep depression which reached its nadir when she turned on Olivier, verbally and physically attacking him until she fell to the floor sobbing. This was the first of many major breakdowns related to manic-depression, or bipolar mood disorder. Olivier came to recognise the symptoms of an impending episode – several days of hyperactivity followed by a period of depression and an explosive breakdown, after which Leigh would have no memory of the event, but would be acutely embarrassed and remorseful.[17]

She was well enough to resume acting in 1946 in a successful London production of Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth, but her films of this period, Caesar and Cleopatra (1945) and Anna Karenina (1948), were not great successes.

In 1947 Olivier was knighted, and Leigh accompanied him to Buckingham Palace for the investiture. She became Lady Olivier, a title she continued to use after their divorce, until she died.

By 1948 Olivier was on the Board of Directors for the Old Vic Theatre, and he and Leigh embarked on a tour of Australia and New Zealand to raise funds for the theatre. During their six-month tour, Olivier performed Richard III and also performed with Leigh in The School for Scandal and The Skin of Our Teeth. The tour was an outstanding success, and although Leigh was plagued with insomnia and allowed her understudy to replace her for a week while she was ill, she generally withstood the demands placed upon her, with Olivier noting her ability to "charm the press". Members of the company later recalled several quarrels between the couple, with the most dramatic of these occurring in Christchurch when Leigh refused to go on stage. Olivier slapped her face, and Leigh slapped him in return and swore at him before she made her way to the stage. By the end of the tour, both were exhausted and ill, and Olivier told a journalist, "You may not know it, but you are talking to a couple of walking corpses." Later he would comment that he "lost Vivien" in Australia.[18]

The success of the tour encouraged the Oliviers to make their first West End appearance together, performing the same works with one addition, Antigone, included at Leigh's insistence because she wished to play a role in a tragedy.

Leigh next sought the role of Blanche DuBois in the West End stage production of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire, and was cast after Williams and the play's producer Irene Mayer Selznick saw her in the The School for Scandal and Antigone, and Olivier was contracted to direct. Containing a rape scene and references to promiscuity and homosexuality, the play was destined to be controversial, and the media discussion about its suitability added to Leigh's anxiety, but she believed strongly in the importance of the work. J. B. Priestley denounced the play and Leigh's performance, and the critic Kenneth Tynan commented that Leigh was badly miscast because British actors were "too well-bred to emote effectively on stage". Olivier and Leigh were chagrined that part of the commercial success of the play lay in audience members attending to see what they believed would be a salacious and sensationalist story, rather than the Greek tragedy that they envisioned, but the play also had strong supporters,[19] among them Noël Coward who described Leigh as "magnificent".[20]

After 326 performances Leigh finished her run; however, she was soon engaged for the film version. Her irreverent and often bawdy sense of humour allowed her to establish a rapport with her co-star Marlon Brando, but she had difficulty with the director Elia Kazan, who did not hold her in high regard as an actress. He later commented that "she had a small talent", but as work progressed, he became "full of admiration" for "the greatest determination to excel of any actress I've known. She'd have crawled over broken glass if she thought it would help her performance." Leigh found the role gruelling and commented to the Los Angeles Times, "I had nine months in the theatre of Blanche DuBois. Now she's in command of me."[21] The film won glowing reviews for her, and she won a second Academy Award for Best Actress, a BAFTA Award and a New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actress. Tennessee Williams commented that Leigh brought to the role "everything that I intended, and much that I had never dreamed of", but in later years, Leigh would say that playing Blanche DuBois "tipped me over into madness".[22]

In 1951, Leigh and Olivier performed two plays about Cleopatra, William Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra and George Bernard Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra, alternating the play each night and winning good reviews. They took the productions to New York, where they performed a season at the Ziegfeld Theatre into 1952. The reviews there were also mostly positive, but the critic Kenneth Tynan angered them when he suggested that Leigh's was a mediocre talent which forced Olivier to compromise his own. Tynan's diatribe almost precipitated another collapse; Leigh, terrified of failure and intent on achieving greatness, dwelt on his comments, while ignoring the positive reviews of other critics.[23]

In January 1953 Leigh travelled to Ceylon to film Elephant Walk with Peter Finch. Shortly after filming commenced, she suffered a breakdown, and Paramount Studios replaced her with Elizabeth Taylor. Olivier returned her to their home in England, where between periods of incoherence, Leigh told him that she was in love with Finch, and had been having an affair with him. She gradually recovered over a period of several months. As a result of this episode, many of the Oliviers' friends learnt of her problems. David Niven said she had been "quite, quite mad", and in his diary Noël Coward expressed surprise that "things had been bad and getting worse since 1948 or thereabouts."[24]

Leigh recovered sufficiently to play The Sleeping Prince with Olivier in 1953, and in 1955 they performed a season at Stratford-upon-Avon in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Macbeth and Titus Andronicus. They played to capacity houses and attracted generally good reviews, Leigh's health seemingly stable. Noël Coward was enjoying success with the play South Sea Bubble, with Leigh in the lead role, but she became pregnant and withdrew from the production. Several weeks later, she miscarried and entered a period of depression that lasted for months. She joined Olivier for a European tour with Titus Andronicus, but the tour was marred by Leigh's frequent outbursts against Olivier and other members of the company. After their return to London, her former husband Leigh Holman, who continued to exert a strong influence over her, stayed with the Oliviers and helped calm her.

In 1958, considering her marriage to be over, Leigh began a relationship with the actor Jack Merivale, who knew of Leigh's medical condition and assured Olivier he would care for her. She achieved a success in 1959 with the Noël Coward comedy Look After Lulu, with The Times critic describing her as "beautiful, delectably cool and matter of fact, she is mistress of every situation."[25]

In 1960 she and Olivier divorced, and Olivier married the actress Joan Plowright. In his autobiography he discussed the years of problems they had experienced because of Leigh's illness, writing, "Throughout her possession by that uncannily evil monster, manic depression, with its deadly ever-tightening spirals, she retained her own individual canniness – an ability to disguise her true mental condition from almost all except me, for whom she could hardly be expected to take the trouble."

Wuthering Heights

Olivier continued to hold his contempt for films, claiming they were "just a quick way to earn money."[5] He got his break in Hollywood when cast as Heathcliff in Samuel Goldwyn's production of Wuthering Heights. Olivier worked with Merle Oberon for the second time (the first had been in The Divorce of Lady X), however, despite their relative tolerance for each other on the first film, sparks flew on Wuthering Heights, presumably due to the fact that he had wanted Leigh for the role, and she had been rejected.

Director William Wyler disagreed with Olivier on many things regarding his performance, in particular, the fact that he would keep yelling, a technique that was needed for the theatre, but not for film, and forced Olivier to alter his style. Olivier later admitted that this was for the better, and his performance in the film earned him his first Oscar nomination. But he was still unhappy and still felt most at home on the stage.[5] This success led to more leading roles for Olivier, including Maxim de Winter in Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca, and Mr. Darcy in MGM's Pride and Prejudice.

War

When World War II broke out, Olivier intended to join the Royal Air Force, but was still contractually obliged to other parties. He apparently disliked actors such as Charles Laughton and Sir Cedric Hardwicke, who would hold charity cricket matches to help the war effort.[1] Olivier took flying lessons, and racked up over 200 hours. After two years of service, he became Lieutenant Olivier RNVR as a pilot in the Fleet Air Arm but was never called to see action.

In 1944 he and fellow actor Ralph Richardson were released from their naval commitments to form a new Old Vic Theatre Company at the New Theatre (later the Albery, now the Noel Coward Theatre) with a nightly repertory of three plays, initially Henrik Ibsen's Peer Gynt, Bernard Shaw's Arms and the Man and Shakespeare's Richard III (which would become Olivier's signature role), rehearsed over 10 weeks to the accompaniment of German V1 ‘doodlebugs’. The enterprise, with John Burrell as manager, eventually extended to five acclaimed seasons ending in 1949, after a prestigious 1948 tour of Australia and New Zealand, which included Vivien Leigh in productions of Richard III, Richard Brinsley Sheridan's School for Scandal, and Thornton Wilder's The Skin of Our Teeth.

The second New Theatre season opened with Olivier playing both Harry Hotspur and Justice Shallow to Richardson’s Falstaff in Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, in what is now seen as a high point of English classical theatre. The magic continued with one of Olivier's most famous endeavours, the double bill of Sophocles' Oedipus and Sheridan's The Critic, with Olivier's transition from Greek tragedy to high comedy in a single evening becoming a thing of legend. He followed this triumph with one of his favorite roles, Astrov in Uncle Vanya. Kenneth Tynan was to write (in He Who Plays the King, 1950): ‘The Old Vic was now at its height: the watershed had been reached and one of those rare moments in the theatre had arrived when drama paused, took stock of all that it had learnt since Irving, and then produced a monument in celebration. It is surprising when one considers it, that English acting should have reached up and seized a laurel crown in the middle of a war.’

In 1945 Olivier and Richardson were made honorary Lieutenants with ENSA, and did a six-week tour of Europe for the army, performing Arms and the Man, Peer Gynt and Richard III for the troops, followed by a visit to the Comédie-Française in Paris, the first time a foreign company had been invited to play on its famous stage.[27] When Olivier returned to London the populace noticed a change in him. Olivier's only explanation was: "Maybe it's just that I've got older."

Later Career

Famous throughout his career for his commitment to his art, Olivier immersed himself even more completely in his work during his later years, reportedly as a way of distracting himself from the guilt he felt at having left his second wife Vivien Leigh.[1] He began appearing more frequently in films, usually in character parts rather than the leading romantic roles of his early career, and received Academy Award nominations for Sleuth (1972), Marathon Man (1976) and The Boys from Brazil (1978). Having been recently forced out of his role as director of the Royal National Theatre, he worried that his family would not be sufficiently provided for in the event of his death, and consequently chose to do many of his later TV special and film appearances on a "pay cheque" basis. He later freely admitted that he was not proud of most of these credits, and noted that he particularly despised the 1982 film Inchon, in which he played the role of General Douglas McArthur.[29]

In 1967 Olivier underwent radiation treatment for prostate cancer, and was also hospitalised with pneumonia. For the remainder of his life, he would suffer from many different health problems, including bronchitis, amnesia and pleurisy. In 1974 he was diagnosed with a degenerative muscle disorder, and nearly died the following year, but he battled through the next decade, earning money in case of financial disaster. This explains why Olivier took all the work he could get, so his family would be financially secure after his death. It also explains his appearance in the 1982 film Inchon, widely considered to be one of the worst movies ever made.

One of Olivier's enduring achievements involved neither stage nor screentime. In 1974, UK Thames Television released The World at War, an exhaustive 26-part documentary on the Second World War to which Olivier, with some reluctance, lent his voice. His narration serves as the so-called "voice of God", surveying with deep lament the devastation as it unfolds. Olivier does however make an appearance just before the episode "Genocide" to warn the viewer of the episode contains disturbing scenes and warns that this must not happen again.

When presenting the Best Picture Oscar in 1985, he absent-mindedly presented it by simply stepping up to the microphone and saying "Amadeus". He had grown forgetful, and had forgotten to read out the nominees first.[30]

In 1986, Olivier appeared as the pre-filmed holographic narrator of the West End production of the multi-media Dave Clark rock musical Time.

He died of cancer in Steyning, West Sussex, England, in 1989 at the age of 82. Lord Olivier's body was cremated, his ashes interred in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey, London. Only two actors have been accorded this honour with David Garrick being the first in 1779.

Fifteen years after his death, Olivier once again received star billing in a movie. Through the use of computer graphics, footage of him as a young man was integrated into the 2004 film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow in which Olivier "played" the villain.

Sexual orientation

Since Olivier's death, several biographers have produced books about him, several of which bring up the claim that Olivier was bisexual.
Joan Plowright has said, "I have always resented the comments that it was I who was the homewrecker of Larry's marriage to Vivien Leigh. Danny Kaye was attached to Larry far earlier than I.," in reference to biographer Donald Spoto's claim that Kaye and Olivier were lovers. According to Sir Noel Coward, sexually speaking, Olivier had "a puppy-like acquiescence to all experiences", as quoted by friend Michael Thornton. Terry Coleman's authorised biography of Olivier suggests a relationship between Olivier and an older actor, Henry Ainley, based on correspondence from Ainley to Olivier although the book disputes that there is any evidence linking Olivier sexually to Kaye. Olivier's son Tarquin disputed this as 'unforgivable garbage'. and sought to suppress them, leading Dame Joan Plowright to privately state that "a man who had been to Eton and in the Guards might be expected to be a little more broad-minded". In August 2006, on the radio program Desert Island Discs, Plowright responded to the question of Oliver's alleged bisexuality by stating: "If a man is touched by genius, he is not an ordinary person. He doesn't lead an ordinary life. He has extremes of behaviour which you understand and you just find a way not to be swept overboard by his demons. You kind of stand apart. You continue your own work and your absorption in the family. And those other things finally don't matter."

Larry at IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000059/

Larry at TCM
http://tcmdb.com/participant/participant.jsp?participantId=144656

IBDB
http://www.ibdb.com/person.asp?ID=15809

Larry.com
http://www.laurenceolivier.com/index.php

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

5/12 Happy 100 Kate

2007-05-15T05:10:47Z

Katharine Houghton Hepburn (May 12, 1907 – June 29, 2003) was a iconic four-time Academy Award-winning American star of film, television and stage, widely recognized for her sharp wit, New England gentility and fierce independence.

A screen legend, Hepburn holds the record for the most Best Actress Oscar wins with four, from twelve nominations (Meryl Streep currently holds the record for most overall acting nominations with fourteen). Hepburn won an Emmy Award in 1975 for her lead role in Love Among the Ruins, and was nominated for four other Emmys and two Tony Awards during the course of her more than 70-year acting career. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked Hepburn as the number one female star in their Greatest American Screen Legends list (AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars). Hepburn had a famous and longtime romance with Spencer Tracy, both on- and off-screen.

Hepburn's early years

Hepburn was born in Hartford, Connecticut, to Dr. Thomas Norval Hepburn, a successful urologist from Virginia, and Katharine Martha Houghton. Hepburn's father was a staunch proponent of publicizing the dangers of venereal disease in a time when such things were not discussed. Hepburn's mother campaigned for equal rights for women, and co-founded Planned Parenthood with birth control advocate Margaret Sanger. The Hepburns demanded frequent familiar discussions on these topics and more, and as a result the Hepburn children were well versed in social and political issues. The Hepburn children were never asked to leave a room no matter what the topic of conversation was. Once a very young Katharine Hepburn even accompanied her mother to a suffrage rally. The Hepburn children, at their parents' encouragement, were unafraid of expressing frank views on various topics, including sex. "We were snubbed by everyone, but we grew quite to enjoy that," Hepburn later said of her unabashedly liberal family, who she credited with giving her a sense of adventure and independence.

Her father insisted that his children be athletic, and encouraged swimming, riding, golf and tennis. Hepburn, eager to please her father, emerged as a fine athlete in her late teens, winning a bronze medal for figure skating from the Madison Square Garden skating club, shooting golf in the low eighties, and reaching the semifinal of the Connecticut Young Women's Golf Championship. Hepburn especially enjoyed swimming, and regularly took dips in the frigid waters that fronted her bayfront Connecticut home, generally believing that "the bitterer the medicine, the better it was for you." She continued her brisk swims well into her 80s. Hepburn would come to be recognized for her athletic physicality — she fearlessly performed her own pratfalls in films such as Bringing up Baby, which is now held up as an exemplar of screwball comedy.

On 3 April 1921, while visiting friends in Greenwich Village, Hepburn found her older brother Tom (born 8 November 1905), whom she idolized, hanging from the rafters of the attic by a rope, dead of an apparent suicide. Her family denied that it was self-inflicted, arguing that he had been a happy boy. They insisted that it must have been an experimentation gone awry. It has also been speculated that the boy was trying to carry out a trick that he had seen in a play with Katharine. Hepburn was devastated by his death and sank into a depression. She shied away from children her own age and was mostly schooled at home. For many years she used Tom's birthday (November 8) as her own. It was not until she wrote her autobiography, Me: Stories of my Life, that Hepburn revealed her true birth date.

She was educated at the Kingswood-Oxford School before going on to attend Bryn Mawr College, where it was rumored she was expelled for smoking and breaking curfew, receiving a degree in history and philosophy in 1928, the same year she had her debut on Broadway after landing a bit part in Night Hostess.

A banner year for Hepburn, 1928 also marked her nuptials to socialite businessman Ludlow ("Luddy") Ogden Smith, whom she had met while attending Bryn Mawr and married after a short engagement. Hepburn and Smith's marriage was rocky from the start — she insisted he change his name to S. Ogden Ludlow so she would not be confused with well-known musician Kate Smith. They were divorced in Mexico in 1934. Fearing that the Mexican divorce was not legal, Ludlow got a second divorce in the United States in 1942 and a few days later he remarried. Although their marriage was a failure, Katharine Hepburn often expressed her gratitude toward Ludlow for his financial and moral support in the early days of her career. "Luddy" continued to be a lifelong friend to her and the Hepburn family.

On September 21, 1938, Hepburn was staying in her Old Saybrook, Connecticut home when the 1938 New England Hurricane struck and destroyed her house. Hepburn narrowly escaped before the home was washed away.

Theatre

Hepburn cut her acting teeth in plays at Bryn Mawr and later in revues staged by stock companies. During her last years at Bryn Mawr, Hepburn had met a young producer with a stock company in Baltimore, Maryland, who cast her in several small roles, including a production of The Czarina and The Cradle Snatchers.

Hepburn's first leading role was in a production of The Big Pond, which opened in Great Neck, New York. The producer had fired the play's original leading lady at the last minute, and asked Hepburn to assume the role. Terror stricken at the unexpected change, Hepburn arrived late and, once on stage, flubbed her lines, tripped over her feet and spoke so rapidly that she was almost incomprehensible. She was fired from the play, but continued to work in small stock company roles and as an understudy.

Later, Hepburn was cast in a speaking part in the Broadway play Art and Mrs. Bottle. Hepburn was fired from this role as well, though she was eventually rehired when the director could not find anyone to replace her. After another summer of stock companies, in 1932 Hepburn landed the role of Antiope the Amazon princess in The Warrior's Husband (an update of Lysistrata), which required her to wear a very short costume and debuted to excellent reviews. Hepburn became the talk of New York City, and began getting noticed by Hollywood.

In the play, Hepburn entered the stage by leaping down a flight of steps while carrying a large stag on her shoulders — an RKO scout (Leland Hayward, whom she would later romance) was so impressed by this display of physicality that he asked her to do a screen test for the studio's next vehicle, A Bill of Divorcement, which starred John Barrymore and Billie Burke.

In true Hepburn fashion, she demanded an outlandish $1,500 per week for film work (at the time she was earning between $80 and $100 per week). After seeing her screen test, RKO agreed to her demands and cast her, launching her film career beside legendary actor John Barrymore and director George Cukor, who would become a lifetime friend and colleague. In one of Barrymore's many attempts to bed her, he pinched Kate's behind on the set. She said, "If you do that again I'm going to stop acting." Barrymore replied, "I wasn't aware that you'd started, my dear."

Film

RKO was delighted by audience reaction to A Bill of Divorcement and signed Hepburn to a new contract after it wrapped. But her nonconformist, anti-Hollywood behavior offscreen, which would make her one of the silver screen's most beloved stars and a feminist icon, at the time made studio executives fret that she would never become a superstar. Though she was headstrong, her work ethic and talent were undeniable, and the following year (1933), Hepburn won her first Oscar for best actress in Morning Glory. That same year, Hepburn played Jo in the screen adaptation of Little Women, which broke box-office records.

Intoxicated with her success — an Oscar followed by a smash hit at the box office — Hepburn felt it was time to make her return to the theater. She chose The Lake, but was unable to obtain a release from RKO and instead went back to Hollywood to film the forgettable movie Spitfire in 1933. Having satisfied RKO, Hepburn went immediately back to Manhattan to begin the play, in which she played an English girl unhappy with her overbearing mother and wimpy father. Generally considered a flop, Hepburn's acting in The Lake resulted in Dorothy Parker’s famous quip that the actress "ran the gamut of emotions from A to B."

In 1935, in the title role of the film Alice Adams, Hepburn earned her second Oscar nomination. By 1938, Hepburn was a bona fide star, and her foray into comedy with the films Bringing Up Baby and Stage Door was well-received critically. But audience response to the two films was tepid, and the good reviews from critics were not enough to rescue her from an earlier string of flops (The Little Minister, Spitfire, Break of Hearts, Sylvia Scarlett, A Woman Rebels, Mary of Scotland, Quality Street). With these box office flops, Hepburn's movie career began to decline.

"Box office poison"

Some of what has made Hepburn greatly beloved today — her unconventional, straightforward, anti-Hollywood attitude — at the time began to turn audiences sour. Outspoken and intellectual with an acerbic tongue, she defied the era's "blonde bombshell" stereotypes, preferring to wear pantsuits and disdaining makeup. She also had a famously difficult relationship with the press, turning down most interviews, which did not help her exposure to the public. When she did speak with the press, occasionally she fed them lies to amuse herself. On her first outing with the Hollywood press corps after the success of A Bill of Divorcement, Hepburn talked with reporters who had invaded her and her husband's cabin aboard the ship City of Paris. A reporter asked if they were really married; Hepburn responded, "I don't remember." Following up, another reporter asked if they had any children; Hepburn's answer: "Two white and three colored." Hepburn's aversion to media attention did not thaw until 1973, when she appeared on The Dick Cavett Show for an extended two-day interview.

She could also be prickly with fans — though she relented as she aged, early in her career, Hepburn often denied requests for autographs, feeling it an invasion of her privacy. However, on movie sets, she was eager to learn the ways of the grip people and befriended many of them. Even so, her refusal to sign autographs and answer personal questions earned her the nickname "Katharine of Arrogance" (an allusion to Catherine of Aragon). Soon, audiences began to stay away from her movies.

Hepburn was already reeling from a devastating series of flops when, in 1938, she (along with Fred Astaire, Joan Crawford, Marlene Dietrich, and others) was voted "box office poison" in a poll taken by motion picture exhibitors. In 1939, Hepburn was going to do producer David O. Selznick a favor and play the role of Scarlett O'Hara because he did not yet have anyone else signed for the role. Hepburn insisted that she did not have the lustful sexual appeal that the part demanded and told Selznick that his studio needed to find the woman who did. Hepburn rehearsed the lines thoroughly in case Selznick could not find anyone else suitable. The night before the deadline, Selznick finally cast Vivien Leigh. Unbeknownst to Hepburn and the rest of Hollywood, Vivien Leigh was favored for the role early on, but as a British actress she was deemed unsuitable for the part. In addition, her affair with Laurence Olivier while he was in the middle of a divorce made her a controversial pick. The vast "search for Scarlett" was orchestrated to make it seem as if no other actress could be found, thus limiting the shock of Vivien Leigh landing the role. Hepburn was later the maid of honor at Leigh and Olivier's wedding in 1940.

Yearning for a comeback on the stage, Hepburn returned to her roots on Broadway, appearing in The Philadelphia Story, a play written especially for her by Philip Barry, a year after Hepburn had starred in the film version of his play Holiday. She played spoiled socialite Tracy Lord to rave reviews. With the help of ex-lover Howard Hughes, she purchased the film rights to the play and sold the rights to MGM, which adapted the play into one of the biggest hits of 1940. As part of her deal with MGM, Hepburn got to choose the director — George Cukor — and her costars — Cary Grant and James Stewart. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her work opposite Grant and Stewart. She enhanced Stewart's performance, and in turn he received an Oscar. Her career was revived almost overnight.

Hepburn and Spencer Tracy

Hepburn made her first appearance opposite Spencer Tracy in Woman of the Year (1942), directed by George Stevens. Behind the scenes the pair fell in love, beginning what would become one of the silver screen's most famous romances, despite Tracy's marriage to another woman.

They became one of Hollywood's most recognizable pairs both on-screen and off. Hepburn, with her agile mind and distinctive New England accent, complemented Tracy's easy working-class machismo. When Joseph Mankiewicz introduced the two, Hepburn, who was wearing special heels that added several inches to her lanky frame, said, "I'm afraid I'm too tall for you, Mr. Tracy." Mankiewicz retorted, "Don't worry, he'll soon cut you down to size." As the Daily Telegraph observed in Hepburn's obituary, "Hepburn and Spencer Tracy were at their most seductive when their verbal fencing was sharpest: it was hard to say whether they delighted more in the battle or in each other."

Most of their films together stress the sparks that can fly when a couple try to find an equable balance of power. The sexy sparring over power and control is almost always resolved in an agreement to share and share alike. They appeared in a total of nine movies together, including Adam's Rib (1949), Pat and Mike (1952), and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967), for which Hepburn won her second Academy Award for Best Actress.

The pair carefully hid their affair from the public, using back entrances to studios and hotels and assiduously avoiding the press. Hepburn and Tracy were undeniably a couple for decades, but did not live together regularly until the last few years of Tracy's life. Even then, they maintained separate homes to keep up appearances. Tracy, a Roman Catholic, had been married to the former Louise Treadwell since 1923, and remained so until his death.[1]

Before Tracy, Hepburn had had relationships with several Hollywood directors and personalities, including her agent Leland Hayward. Hepburn also had a famous affair with billionaire aviator Howard Hughes. Tracy, however, seemed to have been her one true love. Hepburn took five years off from her film career after Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962) to care for Tracy while he was in failing health. Out of consideration for Tracy's family, Hepburn did not attend his funeral. She described herself as too heartbroken to ever watch Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, saying it evoked memories of Tracy that were too painful.

Hepburn figures in Martin Scorsese's 2004 biopic of Hughes, The Aviator. However, the movie is a highly fictionalized portrayal of Hepburn and Hughes' courtship, and many portions of the movie involving their relationship are inaccurate. Hepburn did not, as depicted in the film, leave Hughes for Tracy; Hepburn and Hughes had split up years before, in 1938. Hepburn was portrayed by Cate Blanchett, who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance.

Hepburn is perhaps best remembered for her role in The African Queen (1951), for which she received her fifth Best Actress nomination, losing to Vivien Leigh in A Streetcar Named Desire. She played a prim spinster missionary in Africa who convinces Humphrey Bogart's character, a hard-drinking riverboat captain, to use his boat to attack a German ship.

Filmed mostly on location in Africa, almost all the cast and crew suffered from malaria and dysentery — except director John Huston and Bogart, neither of whom ever drank any water. Hepburn, ever the urologist's daughter, disapproved of the two men's boozing and piously drank gallons of water each day to spite them. She wound up so sick with dysentery that, even months after she returned home, the famously vigorous actress was still ill. The trip and the movie made such an impact on her that later in life she wrote a book about filming the movie: The Making of The African Queen: Or, How I Went to Africa With Bogart, Bacall and Huston and Almost Lost My Mind, which made her a best-selling author at the age of 77.

In an interview in Playboy, Huston spoke of how on their days off, he and Bogart would go hunting for big game, and how one day Hepburn asked to go along. He described her as a "Diana of the Hunt", utterly fearless, and able to shoot with the best of them.

Later FIlm Career

Following The African Queen Hepburn often played spinsters, most notably in her Oscar-nominated performances for Summertime (1955) and The Rainmaker (1956), although at 49 some considered her too old for the role. She also received nominations for her performances in films adapted from stage dramas, namely as Mrs. Venable in Tennessee Williams' Suddenly Last Summer (1959) and as Mary Tyrone in the 1962 version of Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night.

Hepburn received her second Best Actress Oscar for Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. She always said she believed the award was meant to honor Spencer Tracy, who died shortly after filming was completed. The following year, she won a record-breaking third Oscar for her role as Eleanor of Aquitaine in The Lion in Winter, an award shared that year with Barbra Streisand for her performance in Funny Girl.

Hepburn continued to do filmed stage dramas, including The Madwoman of Chaillot (1969), The Trojan Women (1971) by Euripides, and Edward Albee's A Delicate Balance (1973). In 1973, she first appeared in an original television production of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie.

Two years later, Hepburn received an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Special Program (Drama or Comedy) for Love Among the Ruins, which costarred Laurence Olivier and was directed by George Cukor. Hepburn also appeared with John Wayne in Rooster Cogburn, which was essentially The African Queen done as a western. Hepburn won her fourth Oscar for On Golden Pond (1981), opposite Henry Fonda. In 1994, Hepburn gave her final three movie performances — One Christmas, based on a short story by Truman Capote, as Ginny in the remake of Love Affair; and This Can't Be Love, directed by one of her close friends, Anthony Harvey (The Lion in Winter).

Death

On June 29, 2003, Hepburn died of natural causes at Fenwick, the Hepburn family home in Old Saybrook, Connecticut. She was 96 years old. She was buried in the family plot in Cedar Hill Cemetery, 453 Fairfield Avenue, Hartford, Connecticut. In honor of her extensive theater work, the lights of Broadway were dimmed for an hour.

The book Kate Remembered, by A. Scott Berg, was published just 13 days after her death. It documents the friendship between the actress and Berg. The book bills itself as an authorized biography, but that has been called into question by The New York Times (see[1]). Berg has been criticized for inserting himself into the book too much, including by a columnist for the Hartford Courant. New York Post columnist Liz Smith called the book "self-promoting fakery," and suggested that Hepburn "would have despised it and his betrayal of her friendship".

In 2004, in accordance with Hepburn's wishes, her personal effects were put up for auction with Sotheby's in New York. Hepburn had meticulously collected an extraordinary amount of material relating to her career and place in Hollywood over the years, as well as personal items such as a bust of Spencer Tracy she sculpted herself and her own oil paintings. The auction netted several million dollars, which Hepburn willed mostly to her family and close friends, including television journalist Cynthia McFadden.

Honors

On September 8 and 9, 2006, Bryn Mawr College, Hepburn's alma mater, launched the Katharine Houghton Hepburn Center,dedicated to both the actress and her mother. At the launch celebration, Lauren Bacall and Blythe Danner were awarded the Katharine Hepburn Medals for "lives, work and contributions that embody the intelligence, drive and independence of the four-time-Oscar-winning actress."

Katharine Hepburn lent her name to some liberal social and political causes, particularly family planning. In 1985, she received the Humanist Arts Award of the American Humanist Association, presented by her friend Corliss Lamont.

There is a garden dedicated to her in New York City on East 49th Street and 2nd Avenue. Hepburn lived in a brownstone on East 49th Street. The garden contains 12 stepping stones each inscribed with quotes. One reads "I remember walking as a child, it was not customary to say you were fatigued. It was customary to complete the goal of the expedition."

To mark her 100th birthday, Turner Classic Movies named Hepburn its star of the month and has dedicated all of its evening broadcast hours to her films and documentaries on her life.

Family

In 1910, the Hepburn family lived at 133 Hawthorne St. in Hartford, Connecticut. Eight years later, they were recorded living at 352 Laurel St., also in Hartford. By 1930, Katharine's parents and four younger siblings had moved to a large eight bedroom house at 201 Bloomfield Avenue in West Hartford. As of 2006, the house is owned by the University of Hartford.

Margaret "Peg" Perry, Hepburn's last surviving sister, died on February 13, 2006, aged 85 (see [4]). Perry was a librarian in Canton, Connecticut. She was survived by a daughter and three sons, as well as a brother (who is Hepburn's last surviving sibling).

Hepburn's professional legacy is today carried on within her family. Hepburn's niece is actress Katharine Houghton, who appeared as her daughter in Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Hepburn's grandniece is actress Schuyler Grant; the two appeared together in the 1988 television movie Laura Lansing Slept Here.

It is sometimes claimed that Audrey Hepburn and Katharine Hepburn were related. This is in fact not true. Katharine and Audrey were of no blood relation. It has also been claimed that Audrey chose the last name Hepburn in honor of Katharine when she became an actress; however, the record shows that it was part of her family name for some time before she entered show business.

Trivia

Katharine Hepburn is listed as one of the descendants of the Mayflower compact author William Brewster (her family tree).

Her paternal grandfather, Sewell Hepburn, was an Episcopal clergyman, but on the subject of religion, she told a Ladies Home Journal reporter in October 1991, "I'm an atheist and that's it. I believe there's nothing we can know except that we should be kind to each other and do what we can for other people."

Peter O'Toole, her co-star in The Lion in Winter, has said in many interviews, including with host Charlie Rose, that Hepburn was his favorite actor to work with. He and Hepburn remained great friends until her death. O'Toole also named his daughter, Kate O'Toole, after Hepburn.

Constance Collier was a drama coach for many famous actors, including Hepburn during her world tour performing Shakespeare in the 50's. Upon Collier's death in 1955, Hepburn "inherited" Collier's secretary Phyllis Wilbourn, who remained with Hepburn as her secretary for 40 years.

At 5 feet, 7 inches (1.71 m), Hepburn was one of the tallest leading ladies of her time.

Several books published after her death allege that Hepburn was bisexual, and that her widely publicized relationships with Spencer Tracy, John Ford, and Howard Hughes were greatly exaggerated. According to these books, Hepburn was romantically involved with several women including American Express heiress Laura Harding (1902-1994); Jane Loring, film editor for Dorothy Arzner and other directors; and with actress Elissa Landi.

Hepburn remained a close friend with Vivien Leigh until Leigh's death in 1967.

In his book Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn (2006), Hollywood biographer William J. Mann claims that Hepburn actually had three personalities: Jimmy, Kath, and Kate. Jimmy was her true self (a boy), Kath was the female she presented to her family, and Kate was the actress and Hollywood legend we all knew

Kate at IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000031/

Kate at TCM
http://tcmdb.com/participant/participant.jsp?participantId=85052

Kate at IBDB
http://www.ibdb.com/person.asp?ID=44928

posted in Classic Film Fans - 3 replies

Social Sampler - a new social networking event

2007-05-11T17:00:24Z

Social Sampler

http://www.SocialSampler.com

Try something new... Meet someone new...
28 activities 7 rooms 6 hours 300 chairs 10,000 square feet
6 pm to 12 midnight Saturday May 26
$12 general - $6 Students with ID
each Fourth Saturday of the Month
Oakland Veterans Hall
200 Grand Avenue, Oakland CA 94610
info Scott (650) 326-6265
scottFNW@pway.com
Light refreshments. Large parking lot. Casual comfortable attire. All ages.
Average age 30. Average attendance 150 - 250.
A non alcohol event. Join, watch, or wander activities. several helpful hosts

CONVERSATION TABLES: Movies, Books, Relationships, Culture, Tech, Dining, Humor, Random Chat, Artists, Networking, Writers, Harry Potter, Pets, Weather, Vacations; DANCING: Waltz, Swing, Latin SOCIAL : Board games, Card games, Social games, Sing alongs, Script Read alouds, Costumers club, Toys, Food sampler

Conversation Tables
Each Conversation table has a different theme such as Movies, Books, Relationships, Culture, Tech, Dining, Humor, Random Chat, Artists, Networking, Writers, Harry Potter, Pets, Weather, and Vacations.

Each table has a deck of cards with a different topic on each card. Each card is turned over one at a time. People talk about the topic as they wish until everyone who wants to talk is finished. Then the next card is turned over. For example, for the Movie Table, topic cards include “Your favorite movie?” “Your favorite actor?” “Your worst movie experience?” “Your favorite theatre” “Your favorite movie snack?”. Similar topic cards decks are set on each conversation table. You may participate or just listen. You may join or leave any table at any time. There is a host at each table to answer questions.
Movies Table May 26 -a table each for Spiderman III, Shrek III, Pan's Labyrinth, movies in general.
Books Table Recent book discussion, writing, literature, business of authorship
Relationships Table Romance and Relationships discussion
Culture Table Symphony-dance-opera-ballet-theatre
Technology Table Technology, computers and science fiction
Dining Table cooking, fine dining, restaurant, food, cooking experiences
Humor Table Read Jokes, write cartoon captions
Random Chat Table There are 100 cards: "What was the oddest thing you have ever seen?""What is your worst hair day?" “What was your worst job experience?" "Most embarassing moment?"
Artists Exchange Table Exchange techniques, shows, art
Networking Table Business Networking: startups, marketing strategy, IPO, financing
The Writers Exchange Table mutual help for new writers and authors
Harry Potter Table movies, books and trivia
Pets Table cute pet stories, pet health
Vacations Table favorite vacations, budget vacations, dream vacations
Weather stories Table Everyone has interesting stories about weather. Blizzards, hurricanes, earthquakes, hail

Dancing
Waltz Dancing Dj music for Waltz, Polka, Congress of Vienna, Bohemian National Polka
Swing Dancing Dj music for Lindy, East Coast Swing, West Coast Swing, Shag, Balboa, Blues dances
Latin Dancing Dj music for Salsa, cha cha, samba, mambo, bachata, cumbia dances

Games Room
Social games including charades, acronamatic, the question game, story time, WHAT IF? There are social board games in the room: pick up a social board game, select a table, and invite other to play with you. You may leave any game at any time. All games stop after 30 minutes so that everyone can try other games.

Board games including cranium, outburst, monopoly, Pictionary. There are social board games in the room: pick up a board game, select a table, and invite other to play with you. You may leave any game at any time. All games stop after 30 minutes so that everyone can try other games

Card games including Hearts, Holmes Card Game, Magic: Mamma Mia, other. There are many decks of cards and many specialty card decks. Pick out a game, select a table, invite others to join. You may leave any game at any time. All games stop after 30 minutes so that everyone can try other games.

Social Rooms

Toys
Legos, Tinker Toys, K’nex, Erector sets, modeling clay, group jigsaw puzzles, crossword puzzle. You are welcome to play with the toys and invite others to join you.

Script read-alouds
reading aloud scripts from TV, plays, movies, such as the Simpsons, Seinfeld, Friends, Mash, All in the Family, Hamlet, Shakespeare in Love,Buffy, Coupling, American Beauty. There are many scripts on the table. Pick one that you would like to read aloud. Select a table, invite others to join in. Everyone selects a character, and start reading aloud.

Food Sampler There is a different food sampler each Social Sampler. Some food sampler themes are ice creams, chocolates, coffees, potato chips, cookies. Odd Ice Creams with be sampled for May 26: Avacado, Buko (Baby Coconut), Ginger, Green Tea, Halo Halo (Buko, Langka, Ube, Pineapple, Mongo &Sweet Beans), Langka (also known as Jackfruit, a relative of the Fig), Lychee, Mango, Thai Tea, Sweet Coconut, and Ube (purple Yam).

Costumers Club activities include swap or sell fabric, clothing, or costumes' sewing circle talk; or meet potential new clients about new costumes, tuxes, or gowns; or finish a costume in a 'stitch and bitch' session. This is a group for costumers and seamstresses who make costumes, gowns, wedding dresses, and clothing for such events as Renaissance Faire, Dickens Faire, Science Fiction costume masquerade balls, Halloween balls and events, Sea of Dreams NYE, Anon Salon events, Costume cons, Belly Dancers outfits, Greater Bay Area Costume Group events, Art Deco's Gatsby picnic, Newport Week, San Francisco Waltzing Society, Friday Night Waltz New Year's Eve formal Waltz Balls, Peers and Gaskells formal balls.

Sing alongs
Sea Shanteys are songs traditionally sung by sailors to accompany and set the rhythm for certain kinds of heavy, repetitive work on board ship—raising and trimming the sails, raising the anchor, and working the pumps.

Musicals are the songs from musical plays and movies, such as Sound of Music, Grease, Singing in the Rain, Brigadoon, Hair, My Fair Lady, Oklahoma, Guys and Dolls.

Folk songs are just that: traditional folk songs

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies