Classic Film Fans's topics - tribe.net

TCM Showing of the 1939 films

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 19:01:23 GMT

To repeat what I posted in the previous topic, TCM will be showcasing the classic films of 1939 every Thursday night in July.

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

Favorite 1939 Film

cynthia — Sat, 10 May 2008 05:33:58 GMT

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 - 13 replies

Movies About Movies

ShannonQ — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 22:19:33 GMT

It's a trend that seems to have started somewhere in the early 1950s--self-reflexive movies, that are either about the movie industry, or call attention to their movie-ness in some way.

I just saw Singin' in the Rain for the first time, which blew me away--it's so much stranger than I ever assumed it would be.

Then there's Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, and Sunset Boulevard, from roughly the same era.

What other mid-century movies about movies are there?

posted in Classic Film Fans - 5 replies

silver screen crushes

amazonika — Mon, 13 Sep 2004 17:59:47 GMT

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 - 71 replies

Night of the Hunter - what do you think of it?

Wed, 29 Apr 2009 19:05:43 GMT

I just saw Night of the Hunter on TCM the other night. Robert Osborne said it was originally panned by the critics and audiences, however it has lately seen a resurgence of appreciation, but I am not so sure I don't agree with the original critics. I found it strange, very oddly directed by Charles Laughton, and somewhat like a creepy fairy tale. What do others think ?

posted in Classic Film Fans - 6 replies

seeking new moderator

amazonika — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 07:56:18 GMT

Hi all,

When I started this Tribe so long ago, I had a lot more time to participate in discussions.
I don't anymore.

I feel it's important to me an involved moderator, and I just haven't been able to do that.
I'm looking for a replacement!

Would anybody like to take over?

posted in Classic Film Fans - 1 reply

Scarlet Pimpernel (1934)

BabeSoDelicious — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 02:38:07 GMT

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 - 7 replies

kids' classics recommendations?

amazonika — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 21:12:12 GMT

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 - 9 replies

BLACKMAIL

Joseph — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 13:14:39 GMT

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

cynthia — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 06:19:21 GMT

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...

Joseph — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 10:45:42 GMT

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

2008 remake of "The Women"!

amazonika — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 19:52:44 GMT

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

Joseph — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 08:27:43 GMT

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

DeanSF — Mon, 10 Dec 2007 16:30:52 GMT

new tribe:

All About Bette Davis

http://tribes.tribe.net/missbettedavis

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

Jean Simmons

Joseph — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 06:59:47 GMT

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

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

Bryce — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 16:19:45 GMT

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

amazonika — Sat, 14 Jul 2007 16:15:01 GMT

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

kubbie — Mon, 02 Jul 2007 03:44:09 GMT

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

kubbie — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 06:30:37 GMT

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

kubbie — Tue, 22 May 2007 05:08:35 GMT

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

kubbie — Sun, 13 May 2007 04:25:13 GMT

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

scott — Fri, 11 May 2007 17:00:24 GMT

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

5/5 Alice Faye

kubbie — Sat, 05 May 2007 05:42:57 GMT

Alice Faye (born Alice Jeane Leppert on May 5, 1915 – May 9, 1998) was an American actress and singer, remembered first for her stardom and then feud at 20th Century Fox and, later, as the radio comedy partner of her second husband, bandleader-comedian Phil Harris.

Early life

Born in New York City, she was the daughter of a New York police officer of German descent and his Irish-American wife, Charley and Alice Leppert. Faye's entertainment career began in vaudeville as a chorus girl, before she moved to Broadway and George White's Scandals in 1931. By this time, she had adopted her stage name and first reached a radio audience on Rudy Vallee's hit, The Fleischmann Hour (1932-1934), where she may have met her future husband and comedy partner Harris for the first time.

Film career

Meanwhile, she got her first major film break in 1934, when Lilian Harvey abandoned the lead role in a film version of George White's Scandals, in which Vallee was also to appear. Hired first to perform a musical number with Vallee, Faye ended up as the female lead. And she became a hit with film audiences of the 1930s, particularly when Fox mastermind producer Darryl F. Zanuck made her his protege. He softened Faye from a wisecracking show girl to the youthful but somewhat motherly figure she played in a few of Shirley Temple's hit films.

Faye also received a physical makeover, from being something of a singing version of Jean Harlow to sporting a softer look with a more natural tone to her blonde hair and more mature makeup. This transition was practically a plot point of 1938's Alexander's Ragtime Band, in which Faye's ascent (she plays a singer who moves from barrooms to fame) is dramatized by her increasingly elegant grooming.

Cast in musicals most of all, Faye introduced many popular songs to the hit parade. Considered less than serious as an actress and more than serious as a singer, Faye nailed what many critics consider her best acting performance in 1937's In Old Chicago. She more than held her own---in spite of a mild speech impediment softening her "r"s---with co-stars such as Vallee, Al Jolson, Charlotte Greenwood, and Edward Everett Horton, as well as leading men such as Don Ameche, Tyrone Power, and John Payne.

Color film flattered Faye enormously, and she shone in the splashy musical features that were a Fox trademark in the 1940s. She frequently played a performer, often one moving up in society, allowing for situations that ranged from the poignant to the comic. Weekend in Havana and That Night in Rio (atypically, as a Brazilian aristocrat) made good use of Faye's husky singing voice, flair for carrying off the era's exaggerated fashions, and solid comic and romantic timing. 1943's The Gang's All Here is perhaps the epitome of these films, with lavish production values and a range of supporting players (including the memorable Carmen Miranda in the indescribable "Lady in the Tutti-Frutti Hat" number) that camouflage the film's trivial plot and leisurely pacing.

Faye's career continued until 1944 when she was cast in Fallen Angel---whose title became only too telling, as circumstances turned out. Designed ostensibly as Faye's vehicle, the film all but became her celluloid epitaph when Zanuck---trying to build his new protege, Linda Darnell---ordered many Faye scenes cut and Darnell bumped up. When Faye saw a screening of the final product, she drove away from the Fox studio refusing to return, feeling she had been undercut deliberately by Zanuck.

Zanuck hit back, it is said, by having Faye blackballed for breach of contract, effectively ending her film career. Released in 1945, Fallen Angel was Faye's final film as a major Hollywood star.

Gossip magazines of the time speculated that Faye was fired over a reputed rivalry with Betty Grable, a claim that both women---who remained friends until Grable's death---disputed hotly enough. But seventeen years after the Fallen Angel debacle, Faye went before the cameras again, in 1962's State Fair. While Faye received good reviews, the film was not a great success, and she made infrequent cameo appearances thereafter.

Marriage and radio career

Faye's first marriage, to Tony Martin in 1937, ended in divorce in 1940. A year later, however, she married Phil Harris---the marriage became a plotline on an episode of the hit radio show hosted by Harris's then-employer, Jack Benny---and struck platinum in both her personal and her professional life.

The couple had two daughters, Alice (b. 1942) and Phyllis (b. 1944), and began working in radio together as Faye's film career collapsed. First, they teamed to host a variety show on NBC, The Fitch Bandwagon, in 1946. Originally conceived as a music showcase as well as a haven for Harris and Faye's tart comic style, the show came to center more on the couple and, by 1948, Fitch bowed away as sponsor in favour of Rexall, the pharmaceutical giant, and the show was revamped entirely into a situation comedy called The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show.

Harris's comic talent was already familiar through his long tenure on the Benny show, where he played Benny's wisecracking, jive talking hipster bandleader. Now, with their own show revamped to a sitcom, bandleader Harris and singer-actress Faye played themselves, raising two precocious children in and out of slightly zany situations, mostly involving Harris's bandmate Frank Remley (Elliott Lewis), obnoxious delivery boy Julius Abruzzio (Walter Tetley, familiar as nephew Leroy on The Great Gildersleeve), Robert North as Faye's fictitious deadbeat brother, Willie, and sponsor's representative Mr. Scott (Gale Gordon), and usually involving bumbling, malapropping Harris needing rescue from acidly loving Faye---the show was an NBC radio fixture until 1954. The Harris's two daughters were played on radio by Jeanine Roos and Anne Whitfield.

Faye singing ballads and swing numbers in her honey contralto voice was a regular highlight of the show, as was a knack for tart one-liners equal to her husband's. The show's running gags also included portraying Faye as something close to an heiress ("I'm only trying to protect the wife of the money I love" was a typical Harris gag) and occasional barbs by Faye aimed at her rift with Zanuck, usually referencing Fallen Angel in one or another way.

Later life

Faye and Harris continued various projects, individually and together, for the rest of their lives. Faye made a return to Broadway after forty-three years in a revival of Good News, opposite her old Fox partner John Payne (who was replaced by Gene Nelson). In later years, Faye became a spokeswoman for Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, promoting the virtues of an active senior lifestyle. The Faye-Harris marriage endured until Harris's death in 1995; before that, the couple donated a large volume of their entertainment memorabilia to Harris's hometown Linton, Indiana.

Three years after her husband's death, Alice Faye died in Rancho Mirage, California from stomach cancer at the age of 83. She was buried with her husband at the Forest Lawn Cemetery (Cathedral City) near Palm Springs, California. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in recognition of her contribution to Motion Pictures at 6922 Hollywood Boulevard. The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show remains a favourite of old-time radio collectors.

Filmography
George White's Scandals (1934)
Now I'll Tell (1934)
She Learned About Sailors (1934)
The Hollywood Gad-About (1934) (short subject)
365 Nights in Hollywood (1934)
King of Burlesque (1935)
George White's 1935 Scandals (1935)
Every Night at Eight (1935)
Music Is Magic (1935)
Poor Little Rich Girl (1936)
Sing, Baby, Sing (1936)
Stowaway (1936)
In Old Chicago (1937)
Cinema Circus (1937) (short subject)
On the Avenue (1937)
You Can't Have Everything (1937)
Wake Up and Live (1937)
You're a Sweetheart (1937)
Sally, Irene and Mary (1938)
Alexander's Ragtime Band (1938)
Tail Spin (1939)
Rose of Washington Square (1939)
Hollywood Cavalcade (1939)
Barricade (1939)
Little Old New York (1940)
Screen Snapshots: Seeing Hollywood (1940) (short subject)
Lillian Russell (1940)
Tin Pan Alley (1940)
That Night in Rio (1941)
The Great American Broadcast (1941)
Week-End in Havana (1941)
Hello, Frisco, Hello (1943)
The Gang's All Here (film) (1943)
Four Jills in a Jeep (1944)
Fallen Angel (1945)
Screen Snapshots: Hula from Hollywood (1954) (short subject)
State Fair (1962)
Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976)
Every Girl Should Have One (1978)
The Magic of Lassie (1978)
We Still Are (1985) (short subject)
A Century of Cinema (1994) (documentary)
Carmen Miranda: Bananas Is My Business (1995) (documentary)

A Book on Alice "Alice Faye:A Life Beyond The Silver Screen" Hollywood Legends Series
http://www.amazon.com/Alice-Faye-Beyond-Hollywood-Legends/dp/1578062101/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-7439362-1203853?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1178342983&sr=1-1

YouTube Film Clips
________________

Rose of Washington Square
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdY4svyyqpI

polkadot polka from Tin Pan Alley a busby berkeley number
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Nq_lxZbHxI

You'll Never Know
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lpVVflQAjmc

w Betty Grable singing Hawaii Lovely Hawaii in Tin Pan Alley
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJRdT9qMTaE

By the Light of the Silvery Moon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjDIFIoywJQ

Luna Cabana/Tropical Magic
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gswtKWrLvpk

Romance and Rumba
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-DgFwPEKC4

No Love No Nothing from The Gangs All Here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xq2yBJeqoAE

Alice Faye 'You'll Never Know' 1985
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6pMLoI8WJY

Songs
__________

Spreading The Rhythm Around
http://www.doctormacro-m1.com/Songs/Faye,%20Alice/Spreading%20Rhythm%20Around%20(Alice%20Faye).mp3

I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm
http://www.doctormacro-m1.com/Songs/Faye,%20Alice/I've%20Got%20My%20Love%20to%20Keep%20Me%20Warm%20(Alice%20Faye).mp3

Alexanders Ragtime Band
http://www.doctormacro-m1.com/Songs/Faye,%20Alice/Alexander's%20Ragtime%20Band%20(Alice%20Faye).mp3

Goodnight My Love
http://www.doctormacro-m1.com/Songs/Faye,%20Alice/Goodnight%20My%20Love%20(Alice%20Faye).mp3

Links
________

The Alice Faye Fanatics Tribe
http://tribes.tribe.net/alicefaye

The Alice Faye Website
http://www.alicefaye.com/

Alice at IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0269647/

Alice at ReelJewels.com
http://www.reeljewels.com/faye/

Alice at Classic Movies
http://www.thegoldenyears.org/faye.html

The Alice Faye DVD Box Set
http://www.amazon.com/Alice-Collection-Lillian-Russell-Avenue/dp/B000K7VHMS/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-7439362-1203853?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1178342042&sr=8-1

If interested in her music I suggest the disc by Living Era
http://www.amazon.com/Youll-Never-Know-Alice-Faye/dp/B00004TQPE/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3/103-7439362-1203853?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1178342042&sr=8-3

Alice at Find A Grave
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=3224

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

Betty Hutton, Yvonne De Carlo, ALice Faye

kubbie — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 02:32:39 GMT

Not much to them but I made 3 little Tribute Tribes for Hutton, De Carlo and Faye. Three of my favorites. Two of which have passed away recently. I had a lot of pictures of all three and wanted to put them somewhere. So stop by and take a look. Join if you want, I wont mind.

Alice Faye Fanatics
http://tribes.tribe.net/alicefaye

Betty Hutton's Square Social Circle
http://tribes.tribe.net/bettyhutton

Yvonne De Carlo/The Munsters
http://tribes.tribe.net/munsters

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

RIP Betty Hutton

kubbie — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 22:54:00 GMT

Diehard fans still remember Betty Hutton
By Chris Hicks

In the Hollywood lexicon, "blonde bombshell" is as overworked a phrase as any.
Leading that pantheon would, of course, be Marilyn Monroe, along with Jean Harlow, Mae West and Jayne Mansfield, followed by such contenders as Lana Turner, Betty Grable, Kim Novak, Carroll Baker ... and many other Hollywood stars who have been similarly described.

But a unique example was Betty Hutton, who died this week at 86.
In Hutton's case, it wasn't beauty or steamy come-hither looks in sexy roles. She was attractive but no remarkable beauty. She wasn't cast as a sex symbol. And she was known more for farce than romantic drama, although she did both.
When applied to Hutton, "blonde bombshell" did not refer to sensuality but rather explosive comedy.

Love her or hate her, Hutton was an unforgettable personality on the screen ... although she is, in fact, largely forgotten today except by a core of fans. Of which I am one.
Aside from a quick, unbilled comic cameo in a Martin & Lewis flick and a musical appearance in "Duffy's Tavern," Hutton made 18 features over her 15-year film career. And aside from bootlegs, only seven of those are on DVD:

• "Annie Get Your Gun" (1950) is a wonderful showpiece for Hutton — funny, romantic and serious, with those great Irving Berlin songs. She's especially delightful with "Doin' What Comes Naturally" and her "Anything You Can Do" duet with Howard Keel.

• "The Greatest Show on Earth" (1952) won the best-picture Oscar, though it is generally derided by critics today as a typically overblown Cecil B. De Mille effort. But it's fun, with a real inside look at circus life and a still-thrilling train-crash climax. Hutton co-stars with Charlton Heston.

• "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek" (1944) is by filmmaker Preston Sturges, and his sharp wit is all that kept the censors away from this hysterical wartime satire about Hutton getting pregnant and not knowing who the father is.

• "Here Come the Waves" (1944) has Hutton at her best playing two roles — one of them quite subdued — in this Bing Crosby naval comedy. (In the box set: "Bing Crosby: Screen Legend Collection.")

• "Star Spangled Rhythm" (1942) is a variety show with an array of musical and comedy talent, with Hutton in a lead role. (On a Bob Hope double-bill DVD with "My Favorite Blonde.")

• "The Perils of Pauline" (1947) is a very funny fictionalization of the silent-movie serial queen, and "The Stork Club" (1945), a lesser but enjoyable comedy, features one of Hutton's biggest hit songs, "Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief." (Available as a DVD double-bill).

In addition to her films and live nightclub performances, Hutton also had a half-hour sitcom for one season (1959-60), the 1954 TV special "Satins & Spurs" (which bears a strong resemblance to "Annie Get Your Gun," though not nearly as good), and guested on a number of musical-variety shows and a handful of dramatic shows, including "Gunsmoke" (1965).
Most critics feel "The Miracle of Morgan's Creek" is her best film, and it may be. But she is a lot of fun in a lot of other movies. And nowhere does she come across better than in her first picture.

Looking at "The Fleet's In" (1942) — a light comedy in which she plays fourth-fiddle to William Holden, Dorothy Lamour and Eddie Bracken — it's easy to see why Hutton became an overnight sensation.

Holden plays a shy sailor trying to woo patrician Lamour, and Bracken is his comical buddy. But Hutton, as Lamour's roommate, is a riot, and she handily runs away with the picture. She also gets to sing one of her biggest hits, the hilarious "Arthur Murray Taught Me Dancing in a Hurry." And her great comic chemistry with Eddie Bracken lead to their being teamed in several more films.

Alas, "The Fleet's In" has never been released on home video. Nor have most of Hutton's movies.
She's way overdue for a box set.

Hit songs
Murder, He Says (1943) (performed in the film Happy Go Lucky)
Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief
I Wish I Didn't Love You So
It Had To Be You
Hit the Road to Dreamland
Orange Colored Sky
You Can't Get a Man with a Gun
Can't Stop Talking
Blow A Fuse (Covered by Björk as "It's Oh So Quiet")
A Bushel and a Peck (with Perry Como)
His Rocking Horse Ran Away
Bluebirds In My Belfry
The Fuddy Duddy Watchmaker
Ol' Man Mose
There's a Fellow Waiting in Poughkeepsie
Arthur Murray Taught Me Dancing in a Hurry

He Says Murder He Says
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClGNm89GZBE

Betty Hutton and Fred Astaire Cant Stop Talking About Him
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv4YmL4CWmI

"I Wake Up In the Morning Feeling Fine"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ml2CkbiqLg

Betty Hutton - Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZYYqQInrDg

I'm Just a Square (In a Social Circle)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hccsA5wv_hE

Betty Hutton - Papa Don't Preach To Me
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t82S-wPbzQs

Rumble
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1y7QgCmAPo

Last public performance part 1 1983
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVee_tNgeKY

Last public performance part 2 1983
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2fTOTW44y0

Wiki Bio

Betty Hutton (born Elizabeth June Thornburg, February 26, 1921 – March 11, 2007[1]) was an American film actress and singer.

Early life

She began life as Elizabeth June Thornburg, a daughter of railroad foreman Percy E. Thornburg (1896-1939) and his wife, the former Mabel Lum (1901-1967). Her father abandoned the family for another woman and they did not hear from or see him again until they received a telegram, in 1939, informing them of his death from suicide. Hutton was raised by her mother along with her sister, Marion, who later took the surname Hutton and was later billed as the actress Sissy Jones. They started singing in the family's speakeasy when Hutton was 3 years old. Related troubles with the police kept the family on the move, and eventually they moved to Detroit. When interviewed as an established star appearing at the premiere of Let's Dance (1950), her mother — arriving with her, and following a police escort — commented, "This time the police were in front of us." Hutton sang in several local bands as a teenager, and at one point visited New York City hoping to perform on Broadway, where she was rejected.

A few years later, she was scouted by orchestra leader Vincent Lopez, who gave Hutton her entry into entertainment. In 1939 she appeared in several musical shorts for Warner Bros., and appeared on Broadway in Panama Hattie and Two for the Show, both produced by Buddy DeSylva.

Career

When DeSylva became a producer at Paramount Pictures, Hutton was signed to a starring role in The Fleet's In in 1942. She made 14 films in 11 years during the 1940s and early 1950s, including Annie Get Your Gun for MGM, which hired Hutton to replace an exhausted Judy Garland in the role of Annie Oakley. The film and the leading role, retooled for Hutton, was a smash hit, with the biggest critical praise going to Betty (her obituary in The New York Times described her as "a brassy, energetic performer with a voice that could sound like a fire alarm") but Hutton, like Garland, was earning a reputation for being extremely difficult.

In 1942, she signed with Capitol Records, one of the first artists to do so, but was unhappy with their management, and then signed with RCA Victor. Among her many films was a curious, unbilled cameo in Sailor Beware (1952) with Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, in which she portrayed Jerry's girlfriend, Hetty Button. Her time as a Hollywood star came to an end due to contract disagreements with Paramount following The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) and Somebody Loves Me (1952), a biopic of singer Blossom Seeley. The New York Times indicated that her film career ended because of her insistence that her husband at the time, Charles O'Curran, direct her next film; when the studio declined, Hutton broke her contract.

Hutton worked in radio, appeared in Las Vegas and in nightclubs, then tried her luck on the new medium of television. An original musical TV "spectacular" written especially for Hutton, Satin 'n Spurs (1954), was an enormous flop with the public and critics, despite being one of the first television programs televised nationally by NBC in compatible color. Desilu Productions took a chance on Hutton and in 1959 gave her a sitcom The Betty Hutton Show, which quickly faded. Her last TV outing was a brief guest appearance in 1975 on Baretta.

In 1967, she was signed to star in two low-budget Westerns for Paramount, but was fired shortly after the projects began. Afterwards, Hutton had trouble with alcohol and substance abuse, eventually attempting suicide after losing her singing voice in 1970 and having a nervous breakdown. She divorced her fourth husband, jazz trumpeter Pete Candoli, and declared herself bankrupt. However, after regaining control of her life through a church, she converted to Roman Catholicism and went on to teach acting and to cook at a rectory in Rhode Island.

She replaced Dorothy Loudon as the evil Miss Hannigan in Annie on Broadway for a limited run in 1980. Her last known performance in any medium was on Jukebox Saturday Night, which aired on PBS in 1983. Robert Osborne interviewed her for TCM's "Private Screenings" in April 2000. (there is a link to the interview at the botton of the page)

Marriages

The actress's first marriage was to camera manufacturer Ted Briskin on September 3 1945; they divorced in 1950. Two daughters were born to the couple, Lindsay Diane Briskin (born 1946) and Candice Elizabeth Briskin (born 1948). Ted Briskin had a brief 21-day marriage to Joan Dixon after this divorce. He died in 1980 in Los Angeles.

Hutton's second marriage was in 1952 to choreographer Charles O'Curran, and they divorced in 1955; he died in 1984.

Her third marriage was in 1955 to Alan W. Livingston, the creator of Bozo the Clown; they divorced five years later, although some accounts refer to this as a nine-month marriage.

Her fourth and final marriage was in 1960 to jazz trumpeter Pete Candoli, who was born in 1923, a brother of Conte Candoli. Hutton and Candoli had one child, Carolyn Candoli (born 1962) and then divorced in 1967 (although some accounts place the year as 1964).

Hutton lived near Palm Springs, California until her death due to complications from colon cancer at 86 years of age. Carl Bruno, executor of her estate and a long-term friend, told the Associated Press that she died on the evening of Sunday, March 11, 2007.

Filmography

The Fleet's In (1942)
Star Spangled Rhythm (1942)
Happy Go Lucky (1943)
Let's Face It (1943)
The Miracle of Morgan's Creek (1944)
And the Angels Sing (1944)
Here Come the Waves (1944)
Incendiary Blonde (1945)
Duffy's Tavern (1945)
The Stork Club (1945)
Cross My Heart (1946)
The Perils of Pauline (1947)
Dream Girl (1948)
Red, Hot and Blue (1949)
Annie Get Your Gun (1950)
Let's Dance (1950)
The Greatest Show on Earth (1952)
Sailor Beware (1952)
Somebody Loves Me (1952)
Spring Reunion (1957)

IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002149/

Betty at Turner Classic Movies
http://tcmdb.com/participant/participant.jsp?participantId=91392

You cant listen to 15 songs by Betty here And watch clips From Annie Get Your Gun, Perils of Pauline, Miracles of Morgans Creek and well as the shorts Murders He Says, Old Man Moses Is Dead, One For the Book and the TCM interview with Robert Osbourne from 2000 at this link
http://www.doctormacro.com/Movie%20Star%20Pages/Hutton,%20Betty2.htm

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

The Stranger

terena — Wed, 07 Feb 2007 06:17:28 GMT

Has anyone seen this movie, directed by and starring Orson Wells. Amazing! Check it out.

posted in Classic Film Fans - 4 replies

prime of miss jane brodie

cornel — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 19:44:19 GMT

We started watching "The Prime of Miss Jane Brodie" - unfortunately the DVD we got from blockbuster is messed up so we had to stop about 1/4 of the way into it.

Man, what a bizarre movie!!! "Jane Brodie" has an accent straight out of Monty Python, for starters. She a prig but simultaneously a flirt, she is staunchly conservative, outspokenly individualistic, disdainful of authority, and an adoring admirer of Mussolini! Where in the heck is this train wreck headed I wonder???? It looks like she'll probably end up being caught in a sex scandal with one of her colleagues, but pregnant by another - and her in-class homages to "Il Duce" are almost certainly going to get her into trouble, too. And there's lots of teenage hormonal angst roiling just below the surface while everything else is going on. On the one hand I am really curious what it's all about, but I don't want to find out more until I've seen the whole movie.

posted in Classic Film Fans - 2 replies

"controversial classics"

cornel — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 16:13:18 GMT

My Hunny and I got the boxed-set "Controversial Classics" a little over a year ago. Some of the movies in are just fantastic! In particular:

The Americanization of Emily: a light-hearted and deeply philosophical dark/screwball-comedy .... about the invasion of Normandy! Starring James Garner and Julie Andrews, written by Paddy Chayevsky and directed by Arthur Hiller. This is one of the most original ideas for a movie you'll ever come across.

Face in the Crowd. Before Network, there was "Face in the Crowd". Andy Griffith stars, Elia Kazan (yeah, I know) directs and Bud Schullberg writes. The mayor of Mayberry plays a proto-fascist demagogue who comes "this close" to taking over the United States of America. In the "special features" you get to see and hear Andy Griffith say "f*ck".

I Am A Fugitive From A Chain Gang. Paul Muni - I had never heard of him before. Wow! This is what "realism" is supposed to be all about!

"Advise and Consent" was also quite good - but not in the same league as the above three. The other three movies "Fury", "Bad Day at Black Rock" and "Blackboard Jungle" were, at best, so-so.

posted in Classic Film Fans - 6 replies

Louise Brooks essay

amazonika — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 22:15:40 GMT

Here's a wonderful essay on Louise Brooks by Kenneth Tynan:

http://www.geocities.com/debstj/tynan.html?200719

A must-read for Brooks fans and fans of the Silents!

posted in Classic Film Fans - 1 reply

M

Tue, 16 Jan 2007 06:58:55 GMT

Has anyone seen "M" recently? The restored version has been playing on cable. What a remarkable movie for its time (1931). Haunting and disturbing. An amazing film, really.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0022100/

posted in Classic Film Fans - 2 replies

book recommendation

amazonika — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 22:16:27 GMT

Taschen's book entitled "Film Noir"
http://www.taschen.com/pages/en/catalogue/books/film/all/facts/01670.htm

This is a really fantastic book for Noir lovers!
The pages are thick and shiny and full of amazing photos and stills from all of the best movies of the genre. The text is interesting and informative, and focuses not only on the obvious big names, but also on many obscure titles and directors. Many of the images I have never seen anywhere else either.

I've been using this book as a reference to rent several films I didn't know existed, and a few others that I didn't know a lot about until I read the book and became fascinated by them.

Any Noir lover would love this book.

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

favorite film noir

amazonika — Tue, 16 Sep 2003 02:03:41 GMT

I love the big name classic noirs such as Mildred Pierce, Double Indemnity, Gilda, The Postman Always Rings Twice -- anyone have any lesser-known favorites?

I think Barbara Stanwayck did her best work in noir.

posted in Classic Film Fans - 39 replies

Nightmare Alley (1947)

Thu, 11 May 2006 19:18:32 GMT

I rented an excellent noir from the local library, “Nightmare Alley,” (1947), starring Tyrone Power. Just the title is enough to provoke images of dark corridors and scary back alleys. And, the title never disappoints, even though there are no alleys or thugs with knifes in the film. In this absorbing story, based on the novel by William Lindsey Gresham, we have Tyrone Power playing Stanton Carlisle a huckster working in the carnival. He learns the tricks of mind reading from Zeena (Joan Blondell) and then dumps her. He then leaves the carnival and begins working in ritzy nightclubs as “The Great Stanton.” But his elevated status as the darling of society doesn’t last forever as his infamy, built on lies, begins to collapse.

Directed by Edmund Goulding, with the screenplay written by Jules Furthman, this excellent noir is great at portraying both the carnies and high society as corrupt. We see both as Stanton moves into the upper classes. He begins seeing a psychiatrist, Lillith played by Helen Walker who plays a femme fatal who is both unethical and dishonest.

There is a wonderful scene where Stanton visits the psychiatrist in her office and the lighting fixtures cast dark lines on the walls symbolizing a spider web and the Doctor as a spider woman trapping Stanton in her web of deceit.

Tyrone’s character is both conniving and greedy but still likeable perhaps because he’s not malicious. He is a flawed character whose pride prevents him from avoiding his downfall. His enterprise is doomed to failure as he refuses to listen to those who care about him. When Zeena looks to her Tarot cards to predict Stanton’s future she turns up both the Hanged Man and the Death Card. He blows her off exclaiming the cards are for suckers.

As great as Stanton is at his con his game can’t last forever and exposure eventually sends his world crumbling down around him. And, that possibly is the overall theme of this superb film noir: one can easily fall apart and wind up in despair. Perhaps no one is too far from being the Geek in the carnival.

There are three beautiful women in the film (Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, and Helen Walker), each with significant roles. Each one gets involved with Stanton but the romance is never smarmy or gooey sweet like so many female roles back in the day. And,Tyrone Power as Stanton is great as a greedy big shoot who puts on a melodramtic flair to convince his clients that his mind-reading act is for real.

This is one of the best noirs I've seen lately and I highly recommend it.

posted in Classic Film Fans - 7 replies

6/18 Richard Boone - Paladin "Have Gun Will Travel"

Sun, 18 Jun 2006 17:19:11 GMT

Richard Allen Boone (June 18, 1917 – January 10, 1981) was an American actor who starred in over fifty films, and was notable for his roles in westerns. Most famously, he was the star of Have Gun, Will Travel.

Boone was born in Los Angeles, California and is a cousin of singer Pat Boone (a direct descendant of frontiersman Daniel Boone). He worked in several odd jobs, including boxing and painting, before serving in World War II in the US Navy. He later studied acting in New York, and in 1950, Boone made his screen debut as a Marine in Halls of Montezuma. He starred in three movies with John Wayne: The Alamo as Sam Houston, Big Jake and The Shootist.

From 1954 to 1956, Richard Boone starred in The Medic television show, receiving an Emmy nomination for Best Actor Starring in a Regular Series in 1955.

However, it was his second show that Boone became a national star with his Paladin character in Have Gun, Will Travel. The show ran from 1957 to 1963, with Boone receiving two more Emmy nominations in 1959 and 1960. During the 1960s Boone also appeared regularly on other television programs. For example, he did stints as both a guest panelist and as one of the What's My Line? Mystery Guests on the popular Sunday Night CBS-TV quiz show. On his visits to that show, he talked with host John Charles Daly about their days together working on the TV show The Front Page.

After Have Gun, Will Travel, Boone had his own anthology television show called The Richard Boone Show. Even though it only aired from 1963 to 1964, he received his fourth Emmy nomination in 1964. Along with The Danny Kaye Show and The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Richard Boone Show won a Golden Globe for Best Show in 1964.

He continued to star in many more movies, commonly as villains, with his pock-marked face, tobacco-fuelled bass voice and sullen demeanor a gift to directors of his most notable films, The Raid (1954), Man Without a Star (1955 King Vidor), The Tall T (1957 Budd Boetticher), The Alamo (1960 John Wayne), The War Lord (1965 Franklin Schaffner), Hombre (1967 Martin Ritt), The Arrangement (1968 Elia Kazan) and The Shootist (1976 Don Seigel). In 1965, he won the third place Laurel Award for Action Performance (Sean Connery won first place with Goldfinger and Burt Lancaster won second place with The Train).

Movies
The Bushido Blade (1981)
Winter Kills (1979)
The Big Sleep (1978)
The Shootist (1976)
Diamante Lobo (1976)
Against a Crooked Sky (1975)
Big Jake (1971)
Madron (1970)
The Kremlin Letter (1970)
The Arrangement (1969)
The Night of the Following Day (1968)
Kona Coast (1968)
Hombre (1967)
The War Lord (1965)
Rio Conchos (1964)
A Thunder of Drums (1961)
The Alamo (1960)
Ocean's Eleven (1960)
I Bury the Living (1958)
Have Gun - Will Travel (1957)
The Garment Jungle (1957)
Lizzie (1957)
The Tall T (1957)
Away All Boats (1956)
Star in the Dust (1956)
Battle Stations (1956)
The Big Knife (1955)
Robbers' Roost (1955)
Man Without a Star (1955)
Ten Wanted Men (1955)
Dragnet (1954)
The Raid (1954)
The Siege at Red River (1954)
Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (1953)
City of Bad Men (1953)
The Robe (1953)
Vicki (1953)
Man on a Tightrope (1953)
Pony Soldier (1952)
Way of a Gaucho (1952)
Kangaroo (1952)
Return of the Texan (1952)
Red Skies of Montana (1952)
The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel (1951)
Call Me Mister (1951)
Halls of Montezuma (1951)

Boone Town - Richard Boone Tribute Page
http://members.aol.com/lloldham/boone.html

IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0095524/

posted in Classic Film Fans - 7 replies

New Thin Man Tribe

terena — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 04:09:29 GMT

Hello. I started a Thin Man Tribe and I want to invite anyone who loves the Thin Man series as much as I to join.

cheers

posted in Classic Film Fans - 1 reply

Spiral Staircase

DJ_JOE_INC — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 00:50:57 GMT

The Spiral Staircase - a 1948 suspense thriller starring Dorothy McGuire as the mute protaginist on a dark and stormy night.There is a serial killer on the loose- they continually target folks with health defects- now Helen is becoming convinced that she is next-she is warned by Mrs Warren(Ethel Barrymore) to leave the family home that night.The real star of the show is the director- his use of shadows,lights,sound design and the set create a tense and intriguing atmosphere.Robert Siodmak uses every element to create some great psychout moments,dream sequences and all around effective damsel in distress film. A

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

9/18 Greta Garbo

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 00:50:35 GMT

Greta Garbo (September 18, 1905 – April 15, 1990) was a Swedish actress, by reputation one of the greatest and most inscrutable movie stars ever to be produced by MGM and the Hollywood studio system. In 1954 she received an Honorary Oscar "for her unforgettable screen performances" and The Guinness Book of World Records named her "the most beautiful woman who ever lived.". She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

She was born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson (some sources cite her original surname as Gustafson). in Stockholm, Sweden, the youngest of three children born to Karl Alfred Gustafsson (1871 -1920) and Anna Lovisa Johansson (1872 - 1944). Her older sister and brother were Alva and Sven.

Becoming an Actress

When Greta was 14, her father, to whom she was extremely close, died, and her relationship with her mother was, at best, strained. Consequently, she was forced to leave school and go to work. Her first job was as a lather girl in a barbershop.

She then became a clerk in the department store PUB in Stockholm, where she would also model for newspaper advertisements. Her first motion picture aspirations came when she appeared in a group of advertising short films for the department store where she worked, eventually seen by comedy director Eric Petscher.

He cast her in a bit part for his upcoming film Peter The Tramp (1922) (although her major motion picture debut was a year earlier in a low-budget film).

From 1922 to 1924, she studied at the prestigious Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm. While she was there, she met director Mauritz Stiller. He trained her in cinema acting technique, gave her the stage name Greta Garbo, and cast her in a major role in the silent film Gösta Berlings Saga (1924) (English: The Story of Gösta Berling), a dramatization of the famous novel by Nobel laureate Selma Lagerlöf. She starred opposite Swedish film actor Lars Hanson.

She starred in two movies in Sweden and one in Germany (Die Freudlose Gasse -- The Joyless Street).

She and her mentor, Mauritz Stiller, were brought to MGM by Louis B. Mayer on the strength of Gösta Berlings Saga. On viewing the film, Mayer was impressed with Stiller's direction, but was much more taken with Garbo's acting and screen presence. According to his daughter, Irene Mayer, with whom he screened the film, it was look and emotions that emanated from her eyes that would make her a star. Unfortunately, her relationship with Stiller came to an end as her fame grew and he struggled in the studio system. He was fired by MGM and returned to Sweden in 1928, where he died soon after.

Throughout this period, Garbo was slowly emerging as a Galatea molded by a series of corporate Pygmalions. In photographs and films one can see her change from a pudgy shopgirl, through various metamorphoses as she enters the studio machinery, until she turns into the perfect Sphinx, the "face" captured in famous pictures by Steichen and Clarence Bull and other photographers of the period.

Life in Hollywood

The most important of Garbo's silent movies were The Torrent (1926), Flesh and the Devil (1927) and Love (1927). She starred in the latter two with the popular leading man John Gilbert.

Her name was linked with his in a much publicized romance, and she was said to have left him standing at the altar when she changed her mind about getting married. The actress reportedly had several lesbian or bisexual lovers, including Louise Brooks and the writer/socialite Mercedes de Acosta.

She also had an on-and-off affair with the primarily homosexual British photographer Cecil Beaton who writes about his somewhat requited passion for her in his published diaries.

Having achieved enormous success as a silent movie star, she was one of the few who made the transition to talkies. She delayed as long as possible, and the studio worried endlessly about whether the world was ready for a talking Swedish Sphinx. Her film The Kiss (1929) was the last film MGM made without dialog (it used a soundtrack with music and sound-effects only), and marked the end of an era.

Her low, husky voice with Swedish accent was heard on screen for the first time in Eugene O'Neill's Anna Christie (1930), which was publicized with the slogan "Garbo Talks". The movie was a huge success, but Garbo personally hated her performance.

Unfortunately, her one-time fiancé, John Gilbert, whose popularity was waning, did not fare as well after the advent of sound, due to the high pitch and thinness of his voice, and his career faltered. His last appearance with Garbo, in Queen Christina, was not as bad as some critics have suggested: he suffered from the problem all of Garbo's leading men suffered, which was that she was inevitably stronger and more powerful than they were.

Gilbert, John Barrymore, Fredric March, Robert Taylor and others ended up like feeble drones worshipping before the queen bee. Clark Gable was more than a match for Garbo, but she made only one early film with him, Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise. This may have been because the two greatly disliked each other - Greta thought Gable was a wooden actor while Gable in turn thought Greta was a snob.

When she was filmed, if something happened that she was not pleased with she would say, "I think I'll go back to Sweden!" This would frighten the movie studio heads, who gave in to her every wish. She was known for always having a closed set to all visitors, and was famous for having various MGM executives and actors ejected from sets. No one could watch as her scenes were shot.

Garbo appeared very seductive as the World War I spy in the title role of Mata Hari (1931). The censors complained about her revealing outfit shown on the movie poster. She was next part of an all-star cast in Grand Hotel (1932), which won the Best Picture Oscar and featured Garbo as a Russian ballerina melodramatically delivering the line "I want to be alone". Her co-star was John Barrymore, among the other all-stars, including his elder brother, Lionel Barrymore.

She then had a contract dispute with MGM and did not appear on the screen for almost two years. They finally settled and she signed a new contract, which granted her almost total control over her movies.

She exercised that control by getting her leading man on Queen Christina (1934), Laurence Olivier, replaced with Gilbert. David O. Selznick wanted her cast as the dying heiress in Dark Victory in 1935, but she insisted on being cast instead in another screen version of Tolstoy's classic, Anna Karenina (she had made a previous silent version Love with John Gilbert in 1927). While Anna Karenina has its moments, it also has the "glorious airless fishbowl" quality of many MGM epics of the period.

Her performance as the doomed courtesan in Camille (1936), directed by George Cukor, was called the finest ever recorded on film; her death scene with Robert Taylor was particularly memorable. She subsequently starred opposite Melvyn Douglas in the comedy Ninotchka (1939), directed by Ernst Lubitsch, which she herself seemed to enjoy making, and was one of her favourites.

Garbo was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for Anna Christie (1930), Romance (1930), Camille (1937) and Ninotchka (1939).

Many of her fellow Hollywood actors and actresses were in awe of Garbo's talent.
"Her instinct, her mastery over the machine, was pure witchcraft. I cannot analyse this woman's acting. I only know that no one else so effectively worked in front of a camera." —Bette Davis

PERSONAL LIFE

Greta Garbo was considered one of the most glamorous movie stars of the 1920s and 1930s. She was also famous for shunning publicity, which became part of the Garbo mystique. Except at the very beginning of her career, she granted no interviews, signed no autographs, attended no premieres and answered no fan mail.

Her famous byline was always said to be: "I want to be alone", spoken with a heavy accent which made the word 'want' sound like vont. This quote as noted comes from her role in Grand Hotel, however Garbo commented later, "I never said, 'I want to be alone.' I only said, 'I want to be left alone.' There is all the difference."

In recent years it has been revealed through countless sources about how common homosexuality and lesbianism were in the early years of Hollywood. Many stars of the silver screen were known to prefer the same sex, but the powerful studios almost always invented a life that would cover the "darker" side of the star's lives from the general public.

Garbo kept her private affairs out of the limelight. According to private letters released in Sweden in 2005 to mark the centenary of her birth, she was reclusive in part because she was "self-obsessed, depressive, and ashamed of her latrine-cleaner father."

Some also suggest that Garbo remained single in the United States because of an unrequited love for her drama school sweetheart, the Swedish actress Mimi Pollak. Garbo's personal letters recently released to the public indicate that she remained in love with Pollak for the rest of her life. When Pollak announced she was pregnant, Garbo wrote: "We cannot help our nature, as God has created it. But I have always thought you and I belonged together."

"Garbo's biographer Barry Paris notes that she was technically bisexual, predominantly lesbian, and increasingly asexual as the years went by", and it has been indicated that Garbo struggled greatly with her sexuality, only becoming involved with other women in affairs that she could control.

Her most famous heterosexual relationship was with actor John Gilbert. They starred together for the first time in the classic Flesh and the Devil (1927). Their on-screen "erotic intensity" soon translated into an off-camera romance and by the end of production Garbo had moved in with Gilbert. Gilbert is said to have proposed to Garbo at least three times though when a marriage was finally arranged in 1927, she failed to show up at the ceremony.

She was also linked romantically with actresses Marlene Dietrich, Eva Le Gallienne, Claudette Colbert, Joan Crawford, Louise Brooks, Ona Munson, with writer Salka Viertel, and had a long term and unstable affair with writer/poet Mercedes de Acosta from 1931 to 1944, which ended badly. De Acosta reportedly loved her for the remainder of her life, although Garbo did not return that love.

Later Career
Ninotchka was a successful attempt at lightening Garbo's image and making her less exotic, complete with the insertion of a scene in a restaurant which her character breaks into joyful laughter which subsequently provided the film with its famous tagline, "Garbo laughs!"

A follow-up film, Two-Faced Woman (1941), attempted to capitalize by casting Garbo in a romantic comedy, where she would play a double role that also featured her dancing, and tried to make her into "an ordinary girl". The film, directed by George Cukor, was a failure. It was Garbo's last screen appearance.

It is often reported that Garbo chose to retire from cinema after this film's failure, but already by 1935 she was becoming more choosy about her roles, and eventually years passed without her agreeing to do another film. By her own admission, Garbo felt that after World War II the world changed, perhaps forever.

In 1941, MGM costume-designer Adrian also left the studio, later saying:
"It was because of Garbo that I left M-G-M. In her last picture they wanted to make her a sweater girl, a real American type. I said, 'When the glamour ends for Garbo, it also ends for me. She has created a type. If you destroy that illusion, you destroy her.' When Garbo walked out of the studio, glamour went with her, and so did I."

In 1949, Garbo filmed several screen tests as she considered reentering the movie business to shoot "La Duchess de Langeais" directed by Walter Wanger, but otherwise never stepped in front of a movie camera again. The plans for this film collapsed when financing failed to materialize, and these tests were lost for 40 years, then resurfaced in someone's garage. They were included in the 2005 TCM documentary Garbo , and show her still radiant at age 43. There were suggestions that she might appear as the "Duchess de Guermantes" in a film adaptation of Marcel Proust's In Search of Lost Time but this never came to fruition. She was offered many roles over the years, but always turned them down.

She withdrew from the entertainment world completely and moved to a secluded life in New York City, refusing to make any public appearances. Up until her death, Garbo sightings were considered sport for paparazzi photographers.

Despite these attempts to flee from fame, she was nevertheless voted Best Silent Actress of the Century (her compatriot Ingrid Bergman winning the Best Sound Actress) in 1950, and was also designated as the most beautiful woman ever lived by the Guiness Book of World Records.

Secluded retirement

Garbo felt her movies had their proper place in history and would gain in value. On February 9, 1951, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States. In 1954 she was awarded a special Academy Award for her unforgettable performances.

In 1953, she bought a seven room apartment in New York City at 450 East 52nd Street, where she lived for the rest of her life. She reportedly never got over the unfinished affair she had with actress Mimi Pollak in her youth, and in later life became bitter over it.

She would at times jet-set with some of the world's best known personalities such as Aristotle Onassis, but chose to live a private life. She was known for taking long walks through New York streets dressed casually and wearing large sunglasses, always avoiding prying eyes, the paparazzi and media attention.

Garbo lived the last years of her life in absolute seclusion. She had invested very wisely, was known for extreme frugality, and was a very wealthy woman. It is rumored that she wrote an autobiography just before her death but this book has yet to be published if it even exists.

She died at age 84 as a result of end stage renal disease (ESRD) and pneumonia in New York and was cremated. She had previously been operated and treated for breast cancer, which she apparently overcame.

She left her entire estate to her niece, Gray Reisfeld (Mrs. Donald Reisfeld), and nothing to the elderly female companion with whom she lived for many years, Claire.

Her ashes are buried at the Skogskyrkogården Cemetery in Stockholm, Sweden.
Greta Garbo has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6901 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood.
Her height was 5ft 7½" (1.71m).

Posthumous recognition

In 1990 Ninotchka (1939) was added to the National Film Registry.

In 1999, Garbo was #5 in the list of women in AFI's 100 Years... 100 Stars.

In 2000, Ninotchka (1939) was #52 in the list of AFI's 100 Years... 100 Laughs.

In 2002, Camille (1936), Ninotchka (1939) and Anna Karenina (1935) were included in the list of AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions.

In 2005, Garbo's famous line "I want to be alone." from Grand Hotel (1932) was #30 in the list of AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes.

In 2005 both Camille (1936) and Ninotchka (1939) were included on Time Magazine's All-Time 100 Movies.

In 2005, near the 100th anniversary of her birth, the U.S. Postal Service and Sweden Post jointly issued two commemorative postage stamps bearing her likeness.

Filmography
· Mr. and Mrs. Stockholm (1920) (short subject)
· How Not to Dress (1921) (short subject)
· Our Daily Bread (1921) (short subject)
· A Happy Knight (1921)
· Peter the Tramp (1922)
· The Saga of Gösta Berling (1924)
· The Joyless Street (1925)
· The Torrent (1926)
· The Temptress (1926)
· Flesh and the Devil (1926)
· Love (1927)
· The Divine Woman (1928)
· The Mysterious Lady (1928)
· A Woman of Affairs (1928)
· Wild Orchids (1929)
· A Man's Man (1929) (cameo)
· The Single Standard (1929)
· The Kiss (1929)
· Anna Christie (1930)
· Romance (1930)
· Inspiration (1931)
· Love Business (1931) (short subject) (appears in gag photo)
· Anna Christie (1931) (German version)
· Susan Lenox (Her Fall and Rise) (1931)
· Mata Hari (1931)
· Grand Hotel (1932)
· As You Desire Me (1932)
· Queen Christina (1933)
· The Painted Veil (1934)
· Anna Karenina (1935)
· Camille (1936)
· Conquest (1937)
· Ninotchka (1939)
· Two-Faced Woman (1941)

Trivia
· A British sherman tank in Call of Duty 2 was named Greta Garbo.
·
· In Manfred Mann's song "My Name is Jack", the chorus goes "My Name is Jack, and I live in the back of the Greta Garbo Home for wayward boys and girls...".
·
· A song on the 2005 album Magic Time by Van Morrison is titled "Just Like Greta Garbo". It was inspired by Greta Garbo's seclusion.
·
· In Madonna's song "Vogue" Greta Garbo was the first named, "Greta Garbo and Monroe..."
·
· In Nanci Griffith's song "Late Night Grande Hotel" the chorus contains the line "I feel like Garbo in this late night grand hotel".
·
· The song Bette Davis Eyes by Kim Carnes also contains the line "She's got Greta Garbo stand off sighs, she's got Bette Davis eyes"

German Garbo Home Page
http://www.garbo.de.vu/

Greta at IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001256/

Greta Garbo The Ultimate Star
http://home.hiwaay.net/~oliver/garbo.html

Bio/Article from GLBTQ
Once billed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as the "Swedish sphinx," Greta Garbo is perhaps best known for her mystery. Raised in a culture that did not pursue or value celebrity, Garbo was frightened and horrified by the almost predatory interest that the American public took in movie stars.

Although she was a skilled and complex actress who created many memorable screen personae, she retired when she was only thirty-six, not only from films, but from any kind of public life

Afterwards, she lived in New York City in virtual seclusion for almost fifty years, refusing interviews or photographs, and emerging from her apartment only when protected from public view by big hats and sunglasses.

Still, in spite of, or perhaps because of, the way she withheld herself, the public was mesmerized by her in a unique way. One need say only the name "Garbo!" to evoke a gentle, passionate dignity as deep and complex as the Swedish sphinx herself.

Garbo began life in poverty as Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, the daughter of a janitor in Stockholm, Sweden. When her father died in 1919 of tuberculosis, Greta had to quit school at the age of fourteen and go to work.

Her good looks helped her get jobs in a couple of advertising films before she was discovered in 1922 by unabashedly homosexual Swedish filmmaker Mauritz Stiller. He cast her as the female lead in Gosta Berling's Saga (1924) and got her a role in a German film, The Joyless Street (1925).

Stiller took control of the actress's career, changing her last name to Garbo. When he went to the United States to work for Louis Mayer at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Stiller took his protégée along.

Mauritz Stiller did not succeed in Hollywood, but Greta Garbo was destined to become a star. She made fourteen silent films, among them The Torment (1926) and Flesh and the Devil (1927), where she tended to play the beautiful femme fatale, luring men into passion.

Garbo made the rocky transition from silent films to talkies flawlessly. Her husky, accented voice fitted intriguingly with her ethereal beauty, enabling her to create more complex characters than she ever had in silents.

In Anna Christie (1930), Anna Karenina (1935), Camille (1936), and others, she played a tragic heroine, passionate, but doomed. In the delightful 1939 comedy Ninotchka, she mocks this gloomy sensuality with charming self-deprecation, causing MGM to tout the film with the single headline, "Garbo Laughs!"

In 1941, prompted perhaps by the failure of Two-Faced Woman, her comedy follow-up to Ninotchka, Garbo took a break from filmmaking. Although she reportedly considered several projects for a comeback, the title roles in Hamlet and The Portrait of Dorian Gray, among them, her break turned into permanent retirement.

Garbo's smoldering aloofness, combined with her penchant for cross-dressing, ignited the passions of men and women alike. Although she never married or settled down, she had famous relationships with actor John Gilbert (whom she stood up at the altar in 1926), photographer Cecil Beaton, and businessman George Schlee among many others.

Garbo almost certainly had lesbian affairs as well, including well-known liasons with actress Louise Brooks and writer Mercedes de Acosta, and perhaps also an affair with Marlene Dietrich.

For seven decades lesbian audiences have drooled over the dashing figure of Garbo in drag as she appeared in Queen Christina (1933), dressed in pirate's garb, loose pants and shirt, with soft suede boots to the knee. In this film, through her "butch" mannerisms and cross-dressing, Garbo conveys a lesbian subtext that undermines the heterosexual plot.
Tina Gianoulis

posted in Classic Film Fans - 6 replies

Noir List

lorenzo — Fri, 27 Oct 2006 06:22:25 GMT

I copied a list of top noir films from an internet site, and am working my way down through the list, also adding some crime dramas and political dramas as well. The local rental store doesn't have a great selection but here is what I've seen so far. . .

Strangers on a train. . .very cool
The Third Man. . .okay, not great

Next up. . .
All the King's Men
Dark Passage
The Killing

If anyone has any recommendations, please let me know!

posted in Classic Film Fans - 15 replies

10/27 Nanette Fabray

Fri, 27 Oct 2006 09:26:07 GMT

Nanette Ruby Bernadette Fabares (born October 27, 1920 in San Diego, California) is an Emmy and Tony Award-winning American actress.

She has appeared in a number of motion pictures as well as on television including Caesar's Hour, One Day at a Time, The Carol Burnett Show and Coach among others. She also had a recurring role on Mary Tyler Moore as Mary's mother, Dottie Richards. She is a winner of three Emmy Awards.

She is the aunt of actress/singer Shelley Fabares. Nanette Fabares changed her name to a phonetic spelling after it was mispronounced as "Fa-bare-ass" by Ed Sullivan. (She told this story in a live performance 8 December 2004).

Fabray's official biography has at times stated that she appeared in Our Gang shorts at the age of seven, although she never appeared in the series. One of her most memorable film appearances was in the musical, The Band Wagon (1953) opposite Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse. She and Oscar Levant played a team of scatterbrained screenwriters who try to help a fallen star (Astaire) make his comeback.

Nanette Fabray overcame significant hearing impairment to pursue her career. She is also an advocate for the hearing-impaired.

Nanette Fabray has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Her second husband was screenwriter and director Ranald MacDougall (1957 – 1973); they had one child.

Filmography
· The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939)
· The Monroe Doctrine (1939) (short subject)
· A Child Is Born (1939)
· The Band Wagon (1953)
· The Subterraneans (1960)
· The Happy Ending (1969)
· Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County (1970)
· Harper Valley P.T.A. (1978)
· Amy (1981
· Personal Exemptions (1987)
· Teresa's Tattoo (1994)
· Hail Sid Caesar! The Golden Age of Comedy (2001) (documentary)
· Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There (2003) (documentary)

TV Work
· Caesar's Hour (cast member from 1954-1956)
· So Help Me, Aphrodite (1960)
· The Nanette Fabray Show (1961) (canceled after 13 episodes)
· Alice Through the Looking Glass (1966)
· Fame Is the Name of the Game (1966)
· The Hollywood Squares (semiregular panelist from 1969-1971)
· But I Don't Want to Get Married! (1970)
· George M! (1972)
· Magic Carpet (1972)
· The Couple Takes a Wife (1972)
· The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1973)
· Happy Anniversary and Goodbye (1974)
· The Man in the Santa Claus Suit (1979)
· One Day at a Time (cast member from 1979-1984)

Nanette at IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0264660/

Nannettes page at Womens International Center
http://www.wic.org/bio/nfabray.htm

IBDB
http://www.ibdb.com/person.asp?id=40059

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

10/17 Montgomery Clift

Fri, 20 Oct 2006 08:57:11 GMT

Edward Montgomery Clift (October 17, 1920 - July 23, 1966) was an American actor known by the stage name of Montgomery Clift.

Early life
Clift was born in Omaha, Nebraska, the son of Ethel Anderson Fogg Blair and William Brooks Clift, a banker with roots in the South. Clift had a twin sister, Roberta, and an older brother, Brooks, husband of Eleanor Clift, the columnist and political commentator, and father of their three children; Brooks also had a child by the late actress Kim Stanley. Later in life, he would describe his father as a drunken bigot who he was never on good terms with.

Film career
Appearing on Broadway at the age of thirteen, Clift achieved success on the stage and starred there for 10 years before moving to Hollywood, debuting in 1948's Red River opposite John Wayne. Clift was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor that same year for The Search. Clift was billed as a new kind of leading man: sensitive, intense and broodingly handsome, the kind of man women would want to take care of. He had a highly successful film career, performing in many Oscar-nominated roles and becoming a matinee idol because of his good looks and sex appeal. His love scenes with Elizabeth Taylor in A Place in the Sun (1951) set a new standard for romance in cinema. His roles in A Place in the Sun, the 1953 classic From Here to Eternity and The Young Lions (1958) are considered signatures of his career.

Clift and his screen rival, Marlon Brando, were popularly known in Hollywood as the "Golddust Twins" because of their rapid rise to stardom. Clift reportedly turned down the starring roles in Sunset Boulevard and East of Eden.

Car accident
On May 12, 1956, while filming Raintree County, he smashed his car into a tree after leaving a party at the home of his Raintree County co-star Elizabeth Taylor and her then-husband Michael Wilding. Hearing the sounds of the crash, Elizabeth Taylor raced to Clift's side and kept him from choking to death by removing two of his teeth, which had become lodged in his throat. Clift needed extensive reconstructive surgery on his face (although his broken nose was never repaired) and he returned after several weeks to finish the film, his handsome appearance permanently disfigured. The "before and after" face of Clift is apparent in the movie. By this time, Clift had become hooked on alcohol and pain pills, and his health deteriorated. Taylor and Clift remained close friends until his death.

Post-accident career
Subsequently, Clift, with Lee Remick, appeared in Elia Kazan's Wild River (1960), a film listed in the United States National Film Registry. He then costarred in John Huston's The Misfits (1961), which turned out to be the last film for both Marilyn Monroe and Clark Gable. By the time Clift was making John Huston's Freud (1962) his destructive lifestyle was affecting his health. Universal sued him for his frequent absences which caused the film to go over budget. The case was later settled due to the films success at the box office winning Clift a lucrative settlement.

Clift's last Oscar nomination was for best supporting actor for his riveting role in Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), a seven-minute part. The film also starred Spencer Tracy, Marlene Dietrich, Maximilian Schell, Burt Lancaster, and Judy Garland.

Death
Montgomery Clift died in 1966 at the age of 45 of complications brought on by his severe drug and alcohol addictions. He is interred in the Quaker Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York.

Miscellanea

· Clift was brother-in-law to Newsweek reporter Eleanor Clift.
·
· Marilyn Monroe, who was also having emotional problems while filming The Misfits, described Clift as: "The only person I know who is in worse shape than I am."
·
· His post-accident career has been referred to as the "longest suicide in Hollywood" because of his continued substance abuse.
·
· The songs "Monty got a Raw Deal" by R.E.M. and "The Right Profile" by The Clash are about him, and The Clash's live album was named for one of his films (From Here to Eternity).

Academy Award nominations
· 1962 - Best Actor in a Supporting Role - Judgment at Nuremberg
· 1953 - Best Actor in a Leading Role - From Here to Eternity
· 1951 - Best Actor in a Leading Role - A Place in the Sun
· 1949 - Best Actor in a Leading Role - The Search

Filmography
· The Search (1948)
· Red River (1948)
· The Heiress (1949)
· The Big Lift (1950)
· A Place in the Sun (1951)
· I Confess (1953)
· Terminal Station (aka Indiscretion of an American Wife) (1953)
· From Here to Eternity (1953)
· Operation Raintree (1957) (short subject)
· Raintree County (1957)
· Lonelyhearts (1958)
· The Young Lions (1958)
· Suddenly, Last Summer (1959)
· Wild River (1960)
· The Misfits (1961)
· Freud (1962)
· Judgment at Nuremberg (1962)
· The Defector (1966)

Clift at IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001050/

The Official Montgomery Clift Site
http://www.cmgworldwide.com/stars/clift/index.php

Montgomery Clift.com
http://www.montyclift.com/shrine/index.html

Clift at Reel Classics
http://www.reelclassics.com/Actors/Clift/clift.htm

Montgomery Clift-Films
http://www.montyclift.addr.com/

Monty’s Lair
http://alexanderthegreat9.tripod.com/alex/id6.html

Bio from GLBTQ

Brooding and intense, Montgomery Clift was one of a group of young actors in the 1950s who personified the emotionally repressed loss of innocence of the post-World War II generation. A dedicated actor who exhausted himself both emotionally and physically with the depth of his characterizations, Clift was also an isolated and tortured, closeted gay man who used drugs and alcohol to escape his pain.

Although he was both friend and inspiration to the likes of Marlon Brando and James Dean, Clift felt his own acting achievements were undervalued, and he died as bitter and broken as the characters he played in many of his films.

Clift was born into privilege in Omaha, Nebraska on October 17, 1920, the son of a wealthy stockbroker. His father spent most of his time working in New York, leaving Clift, his twin sister Roberta, and his older brother Brooks in the care of their high-strung mother.

An upper-class childhood filled with lengthy trips to Europe and the Bahamas ended suddenly with the stock market crash of 1929, and the family moved to a small house in Sarasota, Florida. There Clift discovered the theater in a local teen acting club.

Clift's mother encouraged her son's acting ambitions, and when the family moved back to New York in 1935, he auditioned and was cast in a Broadway production, Fly Away Home. His 1938 performance in the lead in Dame Nature established Clift's acting career. He was seventeen years old.

Clift's success on Broadway continued, and he soon found himself courted by Hollywood film executives. He rejected a number of scripts before finally making a memorable film debut in Howard Hawks' 1948 film Red River. He followed that with a critical success in Fred Zinneman's The Search (1948), which earned him the first of four academy award nominations.

Clift continued to make successful films and developed friendships in Hollywood, the closest of which was with actress Elizabeth Taylor. Taylor and Clift were both passionate and vulnerable people who felt a bond immediately. They worked together on several films, beginning with George Stevens' A Place in the Sun in 1951, and remained friends until the end of his life.

Clift had always had relationships with men, but he dated Taylor and other women to conceal his homosexuality. In the early 1950s, he turned down a role in Alfred Hitchcock's Rope, based on the infamous Leopold and Loeb gay murder case, probably because it might have led to speculation about Clift's own life.

Though at the beginning of his career, he drank only moderately and conducted his private life discreetly, by the mid 1950s he was using alcohol and drugs excessively and spending wild nights cruising.

In 1954, Clift rented a house in the gay resort of Ogunquit, Maine, and spent the summer picking up men on the beach for S&M parties. The studios did their best to keep Clift's exploits out of the press, but rumors about his lifestyle abounded.

On May 12, 1956, after leaving a party at Taylor's, Clift drove his car into a telephone pole. The crash caused scarring and partial paralysis of his face, which would affect his appearance for the rest of his life. Although he continued to act, and gave some of his most memorable performances after the accident (in, for example, Stanley Kramer's Judgment at Nuremberg and John Huston's The Misfits in 1961), both his expressive acting and his personal life were never the same.

In his final years, Clift plunged more deeply into drug and alcohol abuse and wild sexual behavior. He began to be considered unreliable by studio bosses. Sadly, by the time his companion Lorenzo James found him dead of a heart attack at their home, on July 23, 1966, he was virtually unemployable.

By Tina Gianoulis

posted in Classic Film Fans - 1 reply

Glenn Ford RIP

Fri, 01 Sep 2006 02:42:29 GMT

http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=1290242006

posted in Classic Film Fans - 6 replies

Souls at Sea

Fri, 13 Oct 2006 02:41:29 GMT

Has anyone seen a movie with Gary Cooper and George Raft called "Souls at Sea?" It's an odd thing about a slave ships and a shipwreck, but the erotic friendship between Cooper and Raft in the first half is so good.

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

10/6 Carole Lombard

Fri, 06 Oct 2006 10:02:11 GMT

Carole Lombard (October 6, 1908 – January 16, 1942) was an American actress. She was born Jane Alice Peters in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Her parents were Frederick C. Peters and Elizabeth Knight. Lombard's paternal grandfather, John Claus Peters, was the son of German immigrants, Claus Peters and Caroline Catherine Eberlin. Lombard's mother's family originates in England; her ancestors John and Martha Cheney emigrated to the North America in 1634.

Career

Lombard made her film debut at the age of twelve after she was seen playing baseball in the street by director Allan Dwan, who cast her as a tom-boy in A Perfect Crime (1921). In the 1920s she worked in several low-budget productions credited as Jane Peters, and then later as Carol Lombard. In 1925 she was signed as a contract player with 20th Century Fox and she also worked for Mack Sennett and Pathé Pictures. She became a well known actress and made a smooth transition to sound films, starting with High Voltage (1929). In 1930 she began working for Paramount Pictures.

In October 1930 she met William Powell and the couple were married on June 26, 1931. Lombard commented to fan magazines that she did not believe their sixteen-year age difference would present a problem, but friends felt they were ill-suited as Lombard had an extroverted personality while Powell was more reserved. They divorced in 1933 but remained friends and worked together without acrimony.

Lombard became one of Hollywood's top comedy actresses in the 1930s. In comedies like Twentieth Century (1934) directed by Howard Hawks, My Man Godfrey (1936) directed by Gregory La Cava, for which she received an Academy Award for Best Actress nomination, and Nothing Sacred (1937) directed by William A. Wellman, she received praise from critics and was described as one of the key exponents of screwball comedy. Despite her glamorous looks Lombard was a natural comedienne, and was not afraid to look silly for the sake of being funny. Offscreen, she was much loved for her down-to-earth personality and sense of humor. She also loved playing pranks during filming. About her husband Clark Gable, she once joked, "If his pee-pee was one inch shorter, they'd be calling him the Queen of Hollywood."

In the mid-1930s Lombard started an affair with Clark Gable. Their relationship was kept quiet due to the fact that Gable was still married to his second wife, Ria. Gable was finally divorced from Ria on March 7, 1939, and on March 29, 1939, Gable and Lombard were married. They bought a ranch, previously owned by director Raoul Walsh in San Fernando Valley, California. They called each other "Ma" and "Pa," and lived a happy, unpretentious life. Although he remarried twice after Lombard's death, to all who knew Gable, she was the love of his life.

Death

When at the end of 1941 the US entered World War II, Lombard travelled to her home state of Indiana for a war bond rally. At four o'clock in the morning of Friday, January 16, 1942, Lombard and her mother boarded a DC-3 airplane to return to California. After refueling in Las Vegas, the plane took off on a clear night, and twenty-three minutes later crashed into Mount Potosi, 30 miles southwest of Las Vegas. All of the 22 passengers aboard were killed.

Just before boarding the plane in Indiana, Carole had addressed her fans, saying, "Before I say goodbye to you all, come on and join me in a big cheer! V for Victory!" President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who admired her patriotism, declared her the first woman killed in the line of duty during the war and posthumously awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Shortly after her death at the age of thirty-three, Gable (who was inconsolable and devastated by her loss) joined the United States Army Air Forces, serving as a gunner on a bomber on combat missions over Europe. The Liberty ship SS Lombard was named for her and Gable attended its launch on January 15, 1944.

Her final film, To Be or Not to Be, directed by Ernst Lubitsch and co-starring Jack Benny ― a satire about the Nazism and the World War II ― was in post-production at the time of her death. The film's producers decided to cut the part of the film in which her character asks, "What can happen in a plane?" as they felt it was in poor taste, given the circumstances of Lombard's death. A similar editing instance happened when the 1940 Warner Brother cartoon, A Wild Hare, was reissued. Lombard's name was originally mentioned in a game of "Guess Who," but all reissue prints have the name dubbed over with Barbara Stanwyck.

She is interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. The name on her headstone is "Carole Lombard Gable". Although Gable remarried, he was buried next to her when he died in 1960.

Filmography
A Perfect Crime (1921)
Gold Heels (1924)
Dick Turpin (1925)
Marriage in Transit (1925)
Gold and the Girl (1925)
Hearts and Spurs (1925)
Durand of the Badlands (1925)
The Plastic Age (1925)
The Road to Glory (1926)
The Johnstown Flood (1926)
The Fighting Eagle (1927) (unconfirmed role)
Smith's Pony (1927) (short subject)
Gold Digger of Weepah (1927) (short subject)
My Best Girl (1927)
The Girl from Everywhere (1927) (short subject)
The Beach Club (1928) (short subject)
Run, Girl, Run (1928) (short subject)
Smith's Army Life (1928) (short subject)
The Best Man (1928) (short subject)
The Swim Princess (1928) (short subject)
The Bicycle Flirt (1928) (short subject)
Smith's Restaurant (1928) (short subject)
The Divine Sinner (1928)
The Girl from Nowhere (1928) (short subject)
His Unlucky Night (1928) (short subject)
Power (1928)
The Campus Vamp (1928) (short subject)
Motorboat Mamas (1928)(short subject)
Me, Gangster (1928)
Show Folks (1928)
Hubby's Weekend Trip (1928) (short subject)
The Campus Carmen (1928) (short subject)
Ned McCobb's Daughter (1928)
Matchmaking Mamas (1929) (short subject)
Don't Get Jealous (1929) (short subject)
High Voltage (1929)
Big News (1929)
The Racketeer (1929)
Dynamite (1929) (unconfirmed role)
The Arizona Kid (1930)
Safety in Numbers (1930)
Fast and Loose (1930)
It Pays to Advertise (1931)
Man of the World (1931)
Ladies' Man (1931)
Up Pops the Devil (1931)
I Take This Woman (1931)
No One Man (1932)
Sinners in the Sun (1932)
Virtue (1932)
No More Orchids (1932)
No Man of Her Own (1932)
Hollywood on Parade No. 11 (1933) (short subject)
From Hell to Heaven (1933)
Supernatural (1933)
The Eagle and the Hawk (1933)
Brief Moment (1933)
White Woman (1933]])
Bolero (1934)
We're Not Dressing (1934]])
Twentieth Century (1934)
Now and Forever (1934)
Lady by Choice (1934)
The Gay Bride (1934)
The Fashion Side of Hollywood (1935) (short subject)
Rumba (1935)
Hands Across the Table (1935)
Love Before Breakfast (1936)
The Princess Comes Across (1936)
My Man Godfrey (1936)
Swing High, Swing Low (1937)
Nothing Sacred (1937)
True Confession (1937)
Fools for Scandal (1938)
Hollywood Goes to Town (1938) (short subject)
Screen Snapshots: Stars on Horseback (1939) (short subject)
Made for Each Other (1939)
In Name Only (1939)
Vigil in the Night (1940)
They Knew What They Wanted (1940)
Mr. and Mrs. Smith (1941)
Picture People: Hollywood at Home (1942) (short subject)
To Be or Not to Be (1942)

The Carole Lombard Tribe
http://carolelombard.tribe.net/

IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001479/

Lombard at Silent Movies .com
http://silent-movies.com/Ladies/PLombard.html

Lombard at Classic Movies
http://www.thegoldenyears.org/lombard.html

Lombards Lair
http://www.meredy.com/carolelombard/

Carole at Classic Movie Favorites
http://www.classicmoviefavorites.com/lombard/

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

I need information about headstone of "Carlotta Valdes

Yolanda — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 02:04:42 GMT

Hello, I am from San Francisco State University working with the Mission of Dolores. I am trying to trace any information regarding the Vertigo filming in the Mission of Dolores. I am working with the Cementary part of it and need as much information regarding the headstone. Any Vertigo geeks please contact me @ fragoladeleon@hotmail.com. I am working on a very intersting project within the mission and its history.

Please , please...

Thanks
Yolanda De Leon

posted in Classic Film Fans - 4 replies

9/28 Lizabeth Scott Happy 84th Birthday

Fri, 29 Sep 2006 15:13:21 GMT

Lizabeth Scott (born September 29, 1922) is an American actress.

Early life

She was born Emma Matzo in Dunmore, Pennsylvania, the daughter of John and Mary Matzo. Her parents were Roman Catholic immigrants from Slovakia. The family later resided in nearby Scranton, where Emma attended Central High School and Marywood College.

She later went to New York City and attended the Alvienne School of Drama. In late 1942, she was eking out a precarious living with a small Midtown Manhattan summer stock company when she got a job as understudy for Tallulah Bankhead in Thornton Wilder's play The Skin of Our Teeth. However, Scott never had an opportunity to substitute for Bankhead.

Rise To Fame

When Miriam Hopkins was signed to replace Bankhead, Scott quit and returned to her drama studies and some fashion modeling. She then received a call that Gladys George, who was signed to replace Hopkins, was ill, and Scott was needed back at the theatre. She then went on in the key and leading role of "Sabina", receiving a nod of approval from critics at the tender age of 20. The following night George was out again and Scott went on in her place.

Soon afterward, Scott was at the Stork Club when motion picture producer Hal Wallis sent over an inquiry as to who she was, unaware that an aide had already arranged an interview with her for the following day. When Scott returned home, however, she found a telegram offering her the lead for the Boston run of The Skin of Our Teeth. She could not turn it down. She sent Wallis her apologies and went on the road.

Though the Broadway production, in which she received a credit as "Girl," christened her "Elizabeth," she dropped the "e" the day after the opening night in Boston, "just to be different."

A photograph of Scott in the magazine Harper's Bazaar was then seen by the movie agent Charles Feldman. He admired the fashion pose and took its model on as a client. Scott made her first screen test at Warner Brothers, where she and Hal Wallis finally met. Though the test was bad, he recognized her possibilities. As soon as he set up shop for himself at Paramount, she was signed to a contract. Her movie debut was in You Came Along (1945) opposite Robert Cummings.

Paramount publicity dubbed Scott "The Threat," in order to create an onscreen persona for her similar to Lauren Bacall or Veronica Lake. Scott's smoky sensuality and husky-voice lent itself to the film noir genre and, beginning with The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) starring Barbara Stanwyck and Van Heflin, the studio cast her in a series of thrillers.

The dark blonde actress was initially compared to Bacall because of a slight resemblance and a similar voice. Even more so after she starred with Bacall's husband, Humphrey Bogart, in the 1947 noir thriller Dead Reckoning. The movie was Scott's first of many roles as a femme fatale.

She also starred in Desert Fury (1947), a noir filmed in Technicolor, with John Hodiak, Burt Lancaster, Wendell Corey, and Mary Astor. In it, she played the role as Paula Haller, who, on her return from college, falls for a gangster, Eddie Mannix (played by Hodiak), and receives a great deal of opposition from the others.

Scott was paired with Lancaster, Corey, and Kirk Douglas in Hal Wallis' I Walk Alone (1948), a noirish story of betrayal and vengeance.
After being known professionally as Lizabeth Scott for 4 1/2 years, she appeared at the courthouse in Los Angeles, on October 20, 1949, and had her name legally changed.

Scandal

Scott never married or had children. True or false, rumors and allegations concerning her sexual (lesbian [1]) preferences began. In 1955, she hired famed attorney Jerry Giesler and sued Confidential Magazine for $2,500,000 in libel damages.

She charged that in the September issue it was implied that she was "prone to indecent, illegal and highly offensive acts in her private and public life"; "These implications," Scott said, "are willfully, wrongfully, maliciously and completely without truth.". However, her case was thrown out on a technicality, and she chose to drop the issue rather than pursuing it further.

After completing Loving You (1957), which was Elvis Presley's second movie, Scott retired from the screen. She continued to appear in occasional guest starring roles on television, however, for several years.

Later Life

In 1972, she made one final motion picture appearance in Pulp with Michael Caine and Mickey Rooney.

Since then, she has retreated from public view, and has declined all interview requests, probably because she does not wish to discuss her sexuality.

Lizabeth Scott has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to Motion Pictures at 1624 Vine Street in Hollywood.

Filmography

You Came Along (1945) (Paramount) ... Ivy Hotchkiss
The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) (Hal Wallis Productions/Paramount) ... Toni Marachek
Dead Reckoning (1947) (Columbia) ... Coral "Dusty" Chandler
Desert Fury (1947) (Paramount) ... Paula Haller
I Walk Alone (1948) (Paramount) ... Kay Lawrence
Pitfall (1948) (United Artists) ... Mona Stevens
Too Late for Tears (1949) (United Artists) ... Jane Palmer ... aka Killer Bait
Easy Living (1949) (RKO) ... Liza "Lize" Wilson
Paid in Full (1950) (Paramount) ... Jane Langley
Dark City (1950) (Paramount) ... Fran Garland
The Company She Keeps (1951) (RKO) ... Joan Wilburn
Two of a Kind (1951) (Columbia) ... Brandy Kirby
Red Mountain (1951) (Paramount) ... Chris
The Racket (1951) (RKO) ... Irene Hayes
A Stolen Face (1952) (Lippert) ... Alice Brent (Lily Conover, after surgery)
Scared Stiff (1953) (Paramount) ... Mary Carroll
Bad for Each Other (1953) (Columbia) ... Helen Curtis
Silver Lode (1954) (RKO) ... Rose Evans
The Weapon (1957) (Republic) ... Elsa Jenner
Loving You (1957) (Paramount) ... Glenda Markle
Pulp (1972) (United Artists) ... Princess Betty Cippola

At IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0779507/

Lizabeth Scott Homepage
http://silverscreensirens.com/homepage.htm

Scott at Brians Drive In Threater
http://www.briansdriveintheater.com/lizabethscott.html

Scott at Classic Movies
http://www.thegoldenyears.org/scott.html

Scott at Elvis;s Women
http://elviswomen.greggers.net/scottlizabeth.htm

posted in Classic Film Fans - 1 reply

9/18 Eddie "Rochester" Anderson

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 00:19:40 GMT

Eddie Anderson (September 18, 1905 - February 28, 1977), often known as Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, was a black American comic actor who became famous playing "Rochester van Jones" (usually known simply as "Rochester"), the valet to Jack Benny's eponymous title character on the long-running radio and television series The Jack Benny Program.

Born in Oakland, California into a family of performers, Anderson began his show business career at age 14 in a song-and-dance act with his brother Cornelius and another performer. They billed themselves as the Three Black Aces. At a young age, Anderson permanently damaged his vocal cords (he had to yell loudly for his job selling newspapers), leading to his trademark "raspy" voice.

Benny's call of "Oh, ROCH-ester!" and Anderson's answers (sometimes an enthusiastic, "Yes, Mr. Benny?", sometimes a resigned "Yes, Boss," but just as often a snappy joke at Benny's expense) were among the weekly highlights of the long-running show. "Rochester" became virtually as popular and well-known as Jack Benny himself: his popularity was so great that some newspapers reportedly listed the Benny program as The Eddie Anderson Show.

Anderson's role as a servant was common for Black leads in the popular media of that era, such as Ethel Waters in Beulah. The stereotyping of Blacks (or any ethnic group) had been standard practice in the entertainment business for generations. The relationship between Anderson and Benny became more complex and intimate as the years went by, with Rochester's role becoming both less stereotypical (in early episodes he carried a switchblade and shot craps) and less subservient (though he remained a valet), reflecting changing social attitudes toward Blacks. According to Jack Benny's posthumous autobiography, "Sunday Nights at Seven," the tone of racial humor surrounding Rochester declined as a conscious decision between Benny and the writing staff during World War II, once the enormity of the Holocaust was revealed. In short, Benny didn't find such humor funny anymore, and he made an effort to erase it from the character of Rochester. The high esteem in which the two actors held each other was evident upon Benny's death in 1974, in which a tearful Anderson, interviewed for television, spoke of Benny with admiration and respect.

Among the most highly paid Black performers of his time, Anderson invested wisely and became extremely wealthy. Despite this, he was so strongly identified with the "Rochester" role that many listeners of the radio program mistakenly persisted in the belief that he was Benny's actual valet. One such listener drove Benny to distraction when he sent a scolding letter to Benny concerning Rochester's alleged pay, and then sent another letter to Anderson, which urged him to sue Benny.

In addition to his famous role with Benny, Anderson appeared in over sixty motion pictures, including Uncle Peter in Gone With the Wind, the 1943 musical Cabin in the Sky and the comedy It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

Anderson was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 2001.

Anderson at IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0026655/

At The Radio Hall of Fame
http://www.radiohof.org/comedy/eddieanderson.html

At The African American Registery
http://www.aaregistry.com/african_american_history/360/Eddie_Anderson_was_Jack_Bennys_better_half___

At The American Vaudeville Museum
http://vaudeville.org/index_files/Page738.htm

6mn clip of Anderson and Lena Horne from Cabin In The Sky
http://www.doctormacro-m1.com/FilmClips/Horne,%20Lena%20(Cabin%20in%20the%20Sky)_01.wmv

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

9/17 Roddy McDowell

Tue, 19 Sep 2006 00:17:51 GMT

Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude McDowall (September 17, 1928–October 3, 1998) was a British actor.

Early life

McDowall was born in London in Herne Hill to a Scottish father, Thomas Andrew McDowall, and an Irish mother, Winifred. Both his parents were enthusiastic about the theatre. He also had a sister, Virginia.
McDowall made his first film appearance at the age of ten. It was as "Huw" in How Green Was My Valley (1941) that he made his name, and he appeared in many other films as a child actor, including The White Cliffs of Dover (1944) and Lassie Come Home (1943) where he co-starred (in what would be one of many occasions) opposite lifelong friend Elizabeth Taylor.

Career

McDowall was one of the few child actors to continue his career successfully into adulthood, but it was usually in character roles, notably in four of the five original Planet of the Apes movies (1968 – 1973) and the TV series that followed. Other film appearances included Cleopatra (1963), It! (1966), The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry (1974), Class of 1984 (1982), Fright Night (1985) and Overboard (1987). He also appeared on stage and was a frequent guest star on television, appearing on such series as the original Twilight Zone, The Carol Burnett Show, Fantasy Island and Quantum Leap.

He played a character villain, "The Bookworm", in the camp 1960s TV series Batman and had an acclaimed recurring role as The Mad Hatter in Batman: The Animated Series. His final acting role in animation, if indeed not overall was for an episode of Godzilla: The Series in the episode "Dreadloch".

During the 1990s, McDowall became active in film preservation and was active in the preserving of Cleopatra (1963), (in which he co-starred) which had been severely cut by 20th Century Fox studio head Darryl F. Zanuck after skyrocketing production costs.

McDowall served for several years in various capacities on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the organization that presents the Oscar. He was Chairman of the Actor's Branch for five terms. He was elected President of the Academy Foundation the year he died.

Private life
In 1974, the FBI raided the home of McDowall and seized the actor's collection of films and television series. His collection consisted of 160 16 mm prints and over 10,000 videocassettes (this was before the era of VCRs and VHS tapes). McDowall had bought Errol Flynn's home movies and the prints of his directorial debut Tam Lin (1970) starring Ava Gardner, and transferred them all to tape for longer-lasting archival storage.

McDowall was forthcoming about some of the individuals he had dealt with on the black market: Rock Hudson, Dick Martin, and Mel Torme were some of the celebrities that were interested in his creations. No charges were pressed against McDowall.

He also received recognition as a photographer and published five books of photographs, one being of his celebrity friends such as Elizabeth Taylor and Judy Garland.

He died in Studio City, California from lung cancer at the age of 70, the guardian of many secrets (nefarious and otherwise) that Hollywood holds. One of his last public appearances was when he accompanied the then-88 year old actress, Luise Rainer, the earliest awardee of a Best Actress Oscar who attended that year's telecast, which featured all the living previous Oscar winners who were willing and able to attend (more than 70 did).

Roddy at IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001522/

Roddy Tribute Page
http://www.roddymcdowall.info/sally/roddy.html

Bio from GLBTQ

For many--perhaps most--child stars, life after adolescence means a decline in fame, financial and personal disaster, and, in all too many cases, substance abuse and premature death. Roddy McDowall was one of the great exceptions to the rule.

The British-born actor not only made a graceful transition from juvenile roles to a career as a highly versatile character actor on both stage and screen, but he also enjoyed acclaim for his photographic portraits of his peers.

Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude McDowall was born in London on September 17, 1928, to a Scottish father and an Irish mother. His mother, who had herself aspired to be an actress, enrolled him in elocution lessons at the age of five; and at the age of ten he had his first major film role as the youngest son in Murder in the Family (1938). Over the next two years he appeared in a dozen British films, in parts large and small.

McDowall's movie career was interrupted, however, by the German bombardment of London in World War II. Accompanied by his sister and his mother, he was one of many London children evacuated to places abroad.

As a result, he arrived in Hollywood in 1940, and the charming young English lad soon landed a major role as the youngest son in How Green Was My Valley (1941). The film made him a star at thirteen, and he appeared as an endearing boy in numerous Hollywood movies throughout the war years, most notably Lassie, Come Home (1943), with fellow English child star Elizabeth Taylor, and My Friend Flicka (1943).

By his late teens, McDowall had outgrown the parts in which he had been most successful. Accordingly, he went to New York to study acting and to hone his skills in a wide variety of roles on the Broadway stage, where he made his debut in 1953 in a revival of George Bernard Shaw's Misalliance.

McDowall was praised for his performance as a gay character in Meyer Levin's Compulsion (1957), a fictionalized account of the Leopold-Loeb murder case; and he won a Tony award for best supporting actor as Tarquin in Jean Anouilh's The Fighting Cock (1960).

After a decade's absence, McDowall returned to Hollywood, and over the last four decades of his life he appeared in more than one hundred films, encompassing a wide range of genres from sophisticated adult comedy to children's fare, from horror to science fiction, usually as a character actor.

His best known appearances include those in The Subterraneans (1960), Midnight Lace (1960), Cleopatra (1963), The Loved One (1965), Inside Daisy Clover (1965), Lord Love a Duck (1966), Planet of the Apes (1968) and its various sequels, Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971), The Poseidon Adventure (1973), The Legend of Hell House (1973), Funny Lady (1975), Mae West (1982), Fright Night (1985), Fright Night II (1987), Carmilla (1989), Only the Lonely (1991), Last Summer in the Hamptons (1993), and It's My Party (1995). His last film role was the voice of Mr. Soil, an ant, in A Bug's Life (1997).

Although McDowall never officially "came out," the fact that he was gay was one of Hollywood's best known secrets. It is a tribute to his characteristic discretion and the respect with which "Hollywood's Best Friend" was regarded by his peers that his homosexuality was never really an issue or used against him in his six decades in the entertainment business.

McDowall died of cancer at his home in Studio City, California, on October 3, 1998. At the time of his death, he held several elected posts in the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and was a generous benefactor of many film-related charities.
Patricia Juliana Smith

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

Two recent films

lorenzo — Sun, 17 Sep 2006 09:04:58 GMT

trying to achieve that elusive status of the greats of the past. . .film noire.

Do you think they made it?

Hollywoodland. . .and Black Dahlia. . .

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

Ikiru (1952)

BabeSoDelicious — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 07:56:30 GMT

Saw this gem the other night on DVD. It's Kurosawa's poem to heroic spirits who battle not with sword but with their hearts against their fears. The hero of the movie, Watanabe (played by Takashi Shimura, who played the quiet leader of the Seven Samurai), is a bureaucratic supervisor, dulled by his boring job. He is ill and learns, despite his doctor's lies that he suffers only from a mild ulcer, that he is dying of stomach cancer. What he does after he learns his fate are a series of poignant moments to what was and to what could be and then becomesd. Kurosawa's ensemble of actors are absolutely marvelous in telling this sweet and sad story, and his photography and direction are at times Capra-esque.

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

9/1 Happy 84th Yvonne De Carlo

Mon, 04 Sep 2006 00:04:59 GMT

Yvonne De Carlo (born September 1, 1922) is a Canadian-born American film and television actress.

Born Margaret Yvonne Middleton in Vancouver, British Columbia, but known from childhood as Peggy, the daughter of an ambitious but unsuccessful aspiring actress, De Carlo sang in the choir of St Paul's Anglican Church, Vancouver; she was taken to Hollywood by her mother at the age of fifteen. She was "Miss Venice Beach" (1938). Unable to find work, they returned to Canada until 1940, when they once again traveled to Hollywood. De Carlo supported herself working in a chorus while trying to find film work. She made her first film appearance in 1941, but could only find bit parts for the next few years. She was a Paramount starlet but the studio apparently signed her mainly for her slight resemblance to Dorothy Lamour as it was common back then for studios to sign lookalikes to their major stars and have them at the studio lest any star get the idea that they couldn't be replaced.

Her break came in 1945 playing the title role in Salome, Where She Danced. Though not a critical success it was a box office favorite and De Carlo was hailed as an up and coming star. In 1947 she played her first leading role in Slave Girl and then in 1949 had her biggest success. As the female lead opposite Burt Lancaster in Criss Cross, De Carlo played a femme fatale, and her career began to ascend. The 1957 Band of Angels featured her opposite Clark Gable in a civil war story, along with Sidney Poitier and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.

For the next several years, she was constantly working although many of the films failed to advance her career.

Cast in The Ten Commandments (1956) in a leading role (as Moses' wife), De Carlo was part of a major hit. The film was a huge success and De Carlo was among those to be praised for her restrained work.

However, her most famous role that led her to pop culture legacy is of Lily Munster in the cult television series The Munsters (1964 - 1966), which allowed DeCarlo to demonstrate a comic flair that her films had failed to utilize.

DeCarlo performed on Broadway, notably in the role of Carlotta Campion, introducing the song "I'm Still Here" in the Stephen Sondheim musical Follies, of which show she is the sole lead female performer still living (having been predeceased by Alexis Smith, Dorothy Collins, Fifi D'Orsay, Ethel B. Colt and Ethel Shutta).

Possessed of a powerful contralto voice, DeCarlo released an LP of standards called Yvonne DeCarlo Sings in 1957. She sang and played the harp on at least one episode of The Munsters.

She also received recognition for her work in various low-budget horror movies, such as The Power, The Seven Minutes, House of Shadows, Sorority House Murders, Cellar Dweller, Mirror, Mirror, Blazing Stewardesses, and American Gothic.

De Carlo has worked steadily in both film and television, playing her most recent role in the television production of The Barefoot Executive (1995).

She was married to the late stuntman, Bob Morgan, from 1955 to 1968 when they divorced; they had 2 sons, and Morgan had a daughter, Bari, from a previous marriage. De Carlo is a naturalized citizen of the United States.

For her contribution to the motion picture industry, Yvonne De Carlo was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6124 Hollywood Blvd. and a second star at 6715 Hollywood Blvd. for her contribution to television.

Yvonne presently resides in Solvang, Ca. (2000)

Filmography
· I Look at You (1941) (short subject)
· Harvard, Here I Come! (1941)
· The Kink of the Campus (1941) (short subject)
· This Gun for Hire (1942)
· Road to Morocco (1942)
· Youth on Parade (1942)
· Lucky Jordan (1942)
· Rhythm Parade (1942)
· The Crystal Ball (1943)
· Salute for Three (1943)
· So Proudly We Hail! (1943)
· For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943)
· Let's Face It (1943)
· Deerslayer (1943)
· True to Life (1943)
· Standing Room Only (1944)
· The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944)
· Fun Time (1944) (short subject)
· Kismet (1944)
· Rainbow Island (1944)
· Here Come the Waves (1944)
· Practically Yours (1944)
· Bring on the Girls (1945)
· Salome, Where She Danced (1945)
· Frontier Gal (1945)
· Song of Scheherazade (1947)
· Brute Force (1947)
· Slave Girl (1947)
· Black Bart (1948)
· Casbah (1948)
· River Lady (1948)
· Criss Cross (1949)
· Calamity Jane and Sam Bass (1949)
· The Gal Who Took the West (1949)
· Buccaneer's Gal (1950)
· The Desert Hawk (1950)
· Tomahawk (1951)
· Hotel Sahara (1951)
· Silver City (1951)
· The San Francisco Story (1952)
· Scarlet Angel (1952)
· Hurricane Smith (1952)
· Sombrero (1953)
· Sea Devils (1953)
· The Captain's Paradise (1953)
· Fort Algiers (1953)
· Border River (1954)
· Happy Ever After (1954)
· Passion (1954)
· Shotgun (1955)
· The Contessa's Secret (1955)
· Flame of the Islands (1956)
· Raw Edge (1956)
· Magic Fire (1956)
· The Ten Commandments (1956)
· Death of a Scoundrel (1956)
· Band of Angels (1957)
· The Sword and the Cross (1958)
· Timbuktu (1959)
· McLintock! (1963)
· A Global Affair (1964)
· Law of the Lawless (1964)
· Forbidden Temptations (1965) (documentary)
· Munster, Go Home (1966)
· Hostile Guns (1967)
· The Power (1968)
· Arizona Bushwhackers (1968)
· The Delta Factor (1970)
· The Seven Minutes (1971)
· Black Fire (1975)
· Blazing Stewardesses (1975)
· It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time (1975)
· House of Shadows (1976)
· Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976)
· Satan's Cheerleaders (1977)
· Nocturna (1979)
· Guyana: Cult of the Damned (1979)
· Black Fire (1979) (Spanish version)
· The Man with Bogart's Face (1980)
· Silent Scream (1980)
· Liar's Moon (1981)
· National Lampoon's Class Reunion (1982)
· Vultures (1983)
· Play Dead (1985)
· Flesh and Bullets (1985)
· American Gothic (1988)
· Cellar Dweller (1988)
· Mirror, Mirror (1990)
· Oscar (1991)
· The Naked Truth (1992)
· Desert Kickboxer (1992)
· The Sorority House Murders (1993)
· Seasons of the Heart (1993) (voice only)

IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001119/

Yvonne at Classic Movies
http://www.thegoldenyears.org/decarlo.html

Yvonne at Brians Drive In Theater
http://www.briansdriveintheater.com/yvonnedecarlo.html

Yvonne at Northernstars.com
http://www.northernstars.ca/actorsdef/decarlobio.html

posted in Classic Film Fans - 2 replies

9/3 Alan Ladd

Mon, 04 Sep 2006 00:56:27 GMT

Alan Walbridge Ladd (September 3, 1913 – January 29, 1964) was an American film actor. He was famous for his emotionless demeanor and small stature (5'5"/165 cm tall). In just about all of his films he played either the hero or a bad guy with a conscience.

Ladd was born in Hot Springs, Arkansas to English immigrant parents, and died in Palm Springs, California of an overdose of alcohol and sedatives at the age of 50.

After first becoming a star with his performance as a hitman with a conscience in This Gun for Hire (1942), he became most famous for his starring role as a gunfighter in the classic 1953 western Shane. Veronica Lake was an ideal co-star; as she was so petite, she made him seem taller than he really was.

In 1954 he starred along side Peter Cushing and Patrick Troughton in The Black Knight (1954 Film).

Ladd also worked in radio, most notably the syndicated series Box 13. This series ran from 1948 to 1949 and was produced by Ladd's own company, Mayfair Productions.

He was sometimes listed as Allan Ladd in credits. His son Alan Ladd, Jr. became a motion picture executive and producer. Another son David Ladd was married to Charlie's Angels star Cheryl Ladd.

Alan Ladd was married to silent film actress Sue Carol, who was also his manager. Actress Jordan Ladd is his granddaughter.

On his passing in 1964, Ladd was entombed in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

A photo of Ladd being flogged in "Two Years Before the Mast" appeared on the cover of the 2004 book: "Lash! The Hundred Great Scenes of Men Being Whipped in the Movies."

Films
His films include:
· Citizen Kane (1941)
· This Gun for Hire (1942)
· The Glass Key (1942)
· Two Years Before the Mast (1946)
· The Blue Dahlia (1946)
· Whispering Smith (1948)
· The Great Gatsby (1949)
· Shane (1953)
· The Black Knight (1954 Film) (1954)
· Hell on Frisco Bay (1955)
· Boy on a Dolphin (1957)
· The Badlanders (1958)
· The Man in the Net (1959)
· The Carpetbaggers (1964)

Official Alan Ladd Site
http://www.cmgww.com/stars/ladd/index.php

Film Night Tribute to Ladd
http://www.filmnight.org/alanladd.htm

Ladd at IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000042/

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

Imitation of Life:Colbert or Turner

Sun, 27 Aug 2006 11:49:52 GMT

Which do you prefer?

1934 original with
Claudette Colbert and Louise Beavers

or the 1950's remake with Lana Turner and the "thats my momma" scene at the end

As much as I enjoy Turner and the "thats my momma" scene at the end. I have to go with the Colbert one. I guess its more true to the book also. Has anyone read the book?

posted in Classic Film Fans - 5 replies

ingmar bergman

ludmilla — Fri, 01 Sep 2006 08:06:11 GMT

is not dead

posted in Classic Film Fans - 5 replies

Hamlet

Fri, 04 Aug 2006 03:25:28 GMT

I've tried searching through the topics here for anything concerning Laurence Olivier, but I don't think there are any(?)... Are there?? Anyway, I watched Hamlet the other night with my sister starring Laurence Olivier and I liked it very much. Has anybody else seen it? And if so, did you like it?

posted in Classic Film Fans - 8 replies

brigadoon

ludmilla — Tue, 29 Aug 2006 06:23:49 GMT

saw this on cable the other night for the first time.

i love musicals. i love gene kelly dancing in tight pants. i love men in kilts. i should have loved this movie.

but i am sorry, as a movie this musical bites. too much of the humor of the stage version is missing. actually , it seems like there aren't even a lot of musical numbers in the movie, leaving the plot, such as it is, to lean on a lot of lame dialogue and bad sets.

the only redeeming quality of this flick is that it's got one really really really really gay dance number in it. in kilts.

posted in Classic Film Fans - 1 reply

classic films---what's your favourite film of all time?

Blythe — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 20:36:46 GMT

Please post your favourite/least favourite films of all time

posted in Classic Film Fans - 27 replies

8/23 Gene Kelly

Wed, 23 Aug 2006 15:30:42 GMT

Eugene Curran Kelly (August 23, 1912 – February 2, 1996), better known as Gene Kelly, was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was an American dancer, actor, singer, director, producer, and choreographer. Kelly was known for his energetic and athletic dancing style, his good looks and the likable characters that he played on screen.

Gene was the third son of James Kelly, a phonograph salesman, and Harriet Curran, who were both children of Irish Catholic immigrants. He graduated from Peabody High School and attended the University of Pittsburgh, where he joined the Phi Kappa Theta fraternity and he got a degree in Economics. Early in his Broadway career, he appeared in Cole Porter's Leave It To Me as an Eskimo who supports Mary Martin while she sings "My Heart Belongs to Daddy." In 1940 he was given the leading role in Rodgers and Hart's Pal Joey, which brought him to national attention. During this period he also choreographed several hit plays, including the 1941 production of Best Foot Forward.

Kelly's first motion picture was For Me and My Gal (1942) with Judy Garland. He went on to make a number of classic musicals, including An American in Paris (1951) and Singin' in the Rain (1952).

His most notable moments on film include:
· Dancing with a group of French schoolchildren to "I Got Rhythm" in An American in Paris.
· The climactic ballet/finale of An American in Paris.
· Singing and dancing in the rain in a much-parodied scene from the film Singin' in the Rain; a scene he filmed while sick with a 103-degree (39.4 °C) fever.
· Dancing with a squeaky floorboard and a newspaper in Summer Stock.
· Dancing on roller skates in It's Always Fair Weather.
· Dancing with Jerry Mouse in Anchors Aweigh.
· Dancing with his own reflection in Cover Girl

He was the first American to choreograph and stage a ballet in the Paris Opera.
Kelly was awarded a special Academy Award “in appreciation of his versatility as an actor, singer, director and dancer, and specifically for his brilliant achievements in the art of choreography on film” in 1951 and reawarded in 1984's Academy Awards due to a fire which burned down his home in the previous year.
Kelly was awarded the Légion d'honneur by the French government in 1960. He also received the Life Achievement Award from American Film Institute in 1985. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts, from President Clinton in 1994, but was too ill to accept it in person.
Kelly died on February 2, 1996, in Beverly Hills, California, after suffering two strokes, at the age of 83.

Kelly married three times:
· Betsy Blair (1940–1957) (one child, Kerry)
· Jeanne Coyne (1960–1973) (two children, Bridget and Tim)
· Patricia Ward (1990–1996)

Trivia
The Gene Kelly Awards, given annually to high school musicals in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, are named in his honor.

In 2005, the widow of Gene gave permission to Volkswagen as part of their Volkswagen Golf GTi promotion, to use Gene Kelly's likeness. However, despite Mrs. Kelly's urging, the German auto maker refused to show the commercial in the U.S.. The television clip featured a partly CGI version of Kelly breakdancing to a new version of "Singin' in the Rain", remixed by Mint Royale. The tagline was, "The original, updated."

In 1993, pop singer Madonna met with Gene Kelly who convinced her to include an homage to Marlene Dietrich in her Girlie Show Tour, which turned out to be her cabaret version of "Like a Virgin."

He was voted the 42nd Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly.

He's one of the many movie stars mentioned in Madonna's song "Vogue".

Paula Abdul stars opposite an animated cat in her "Opposites Attract" video, and did so as to mirror Gene Kelly with Jerry the Mouse in Anchors Aweigh (film). Gene Kelly, her childhood idol, noticed, and wanted to meet her. They met for tea every week until he died.

Ray Bradbury's novel "Something Wicked This Way Comes" was dedicated to him.

In 1994, the Three Tenors honored him singing "Singin' in the Rain" in front of him during a concert at the LA Dodgers Stadium. A frail-looking Gene Kelly was helped to his feet for a brief salute to stand up for the ovation.

Quotations
· "If Fred Astaire is the Cary Grant of dance, I'm the Marlon Brando."
·
· "Fred Astaire represented the aristocracy, I represented the proletariat."
·
· "In the 1930s, when I started, Martha Graham was the only dancer doing anything modern, but she did it all to classical music. I couldn't see myself doing Swan Lake every night, and I wanted to develop a truly American style. The only dancer in the movies at that time with any success was Fred Astaire, but he did very small, elegant steps in a top hat, white tie, and tails."
·
· "I [was] twenty pounds overweight and as strong as an ox. But if I put on a white tails and tux like Astaire, I still looked like a truck driver... I looked better in a sweatshirt and loafers anyway. It wasn't elegant, but it was me."
·
· "I didn't want to be a dancer... I just did it to work my way through college. But I was always an athlete and gymnast, so it came naturally."
·
· "The way I look at a musical, you are commenting on the human condition no matter what you do. A musical may be light and frivolous, but by its very nature, it makes some kind of social comment."
·
· "At 14, I discovered girls. At that time, dancing was the only way you could put your arm around the girl. Dancing was courtship. Only later did I discover that you dance joy. You dance love. You dance dreams."
·
· "I wasn't very nice to Debbie. It's a wonder she still speaks to me."--On his behavior towards Debbie Reynolds on the set of Singin' in the Rain.

Filmography

As Actor:
· For Me and My Gal (1942)
· Pilot #5 (1943)
· Du Barry Was a Lady (1943)
· Thousands Cheer (1943)
· The Cross of Lorraine (1943)
· Cover Girl (1944)
· Christmas Holiday (1944)
· Anchors Aweigh (1945) (also choreographer)
· Ziegfeld Follies (1946)
· Living in a Big Way (1947)
· The Pirate (1948) (also choreographer)
· The Three Musketeers (1948)
· Words and Music (1948)
· Take Me Out to the Ball Game (1949) (also choreographer)
· On the Town (1949)
· Black Hand (1950)
· Summer Stock (1950)
· An American in Paris (1951)
· It's a Big Country (1951)
· Council of Europe (1952) (short subject) (narrator)
· Love Is Better Than Ever (1952) (Cameo)
· Singin' in the Rain (1952) (also choreographer)
· The Devil Makes Three (1952)
· Brigadoon (1954) (also choreographer)
· Crest of the Wave (1954)
· Deep in My Heart (1954)
· 1955 Motion Picture Theatre Celebration (1955) (short subject)
· It's Always Fair Weather (1955) (also choreographer)
· The Magic Lamp (1956) (short subject) (voice)
· Invitation to the Dance (1956) (also choreographer)
· The Happy Road (1957)
· Les Girls (1957)
· Marjorie Morningstar (1958)
· Inherit the Wind (1960)
· Let's Make Love (1960) (Cameo)
· What a Way to Go! (1964) (also choreographer)
· The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967)
· 40 Carats (1973)
· Just One More Time (1974) (short subject)
· That's Entertainment! (1974) (narrator)
· The Lion Roars Again (1975) (short subject)
· That's Entertainment, Part II (1976) (narrator)
· Viva Knievel! (1977)
· Xanadu (1980)
· Reporters (1981) (documentary)
· That's Dancing! (1985) (narrator) (also executive producer)
· The Young Girls Turn 25 (1993) (documentary)
· That's Entertainment! III (1994) (narrator)

As Director:

· On the Town (1949) (with Stanley Donen)
· An American in Paris (1951) (director of Leslie Caron's intro sequences)
· Singin' in the Rain (1952) (with Stanley Donen)
· It's Always Fair Weather (1955) (with Stanley Donen)
· Invitation to the Dance (1956)
· The Happy Road (1957) (also producer)
· The Tunnel of Love (1958)
· Gigot (1962)
· A Guide for the Married Man (1967)
· Hello, Dolly! (1969)
· The Cheyenne Social Club (1970) (also producer)
· That's Entertainment, Part II (1976) (director of new sequences)

Awards and Honors
· 1946 - Academy Award nomination for Best Actor in Anchors Aweigh, 1945
· 1952 - won an honorary Academy Award “in appreciation of his versatility as an actor, singer, director and dancer, and specifically for his brilliant achievements in the art of choreography on film.” This Oscar was lost in a fire in 1983 and replaced at the 1984 Academy Awards.
· 1956 - won a Golden Berlin Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival for Invitation to the Dance
· 1958 - nominated for a Golden Laurel Award for Best Male Musical Performance in Les Girls
· 1958 - Gene's Dancing: A Man's Game from the Omnibus television series received Dance Magazine's annual TV Award. It was also nominated for an Emmy for best choreography.
· 1960 - In France, Gene was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor
· 1962 - the Museum of Modern Art presented a Gene Kelly Dance Film Festival
· 1964 - Won Silver Sail Best Actor for What a Way to Go! (1964) at the Locarno International Film Festival
· 1967 - Emmy for Outstanding Children's Program for Jack and the Beanstalk
· 1970 - nominated for a Golden Globe, Best Director for Hello Dolly!, 1969
· 1981 - won Cecil B. DeMille Award at Golden Globes
· 1981 - Gene was the subject of a two-week film festival in France
· 1982 - Lifetime Achievement Award in the fifth annual Kennedy Center Honors on 5 December
· 1985 - Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Film Institute
· 1989 - Life Achievement Award from Screen Actors Guild
· 1992 - Introduction into the Theater Hall of Fame
· 1994 - National Medal of Arts awarded by President Clinton
· 1996 - won an honorary César Award. The César is the main national film award in France.
· 1997 - Gene ranked #26 in Empire (UK) magazine's “The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time” list.
· 1999 - Gene ranked #15 in the American Film Institute's “Greatest Legends” list.

Gene at IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000037/

The Gene Scene Home Page
http://members.aol.com/humorone/gene.htm

Gene at American Masters
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/kelly_g_homepage.html

Gene fan site
http://www.geocities.com/jadegene/

a Gene Photo Gallery
http://www.alljim.com/jim/gk-photos.html

See Gene Sing and Dance in the Rain
http://www.doctormacro-m1.com/FilmClips/Kelly,%20Gene%20(Singin'%20in%20the%20Rain)_01.wmv

posted in Classic Film Fans - 1 reply

"Made for Each Other" (1939)

amazonika — Sun, 20 Aug 2006 01:57:07 GMT

Just watched "Made for Each Other" last night.

This is a wonderful film starring James Stewart and Carole Lombard.

The gist of the story is that two people fall in love and marry very quickly. They face a lot of obstacles -- personal, family-related, career-related, financial, etc -- that sometimes make them question whether they made the right choice. ...that's what I really loved about this film -- despite the Hollywood glossiness, it showed a lot of "real" challenges that we can all relate to.

Stewart & Lombard's acting was wonderfully natural and such a pleasure to watch. It would be a good movie to recommend to friends who don't like the "acty" acting of the classic era.

It's a simple story, not too flashy, but very accessible and totally satisfying.

posted in Classic Film Fans - 3 replies

8/17 Mae West

Thu, 17 Aug 2006 14:10:57 GMT

Mae West (August 17, 1893 – November 22, 1980) was an American actress, playwright, screenwriter, and sex symbol.

Famous for her bawdy double entendres, West made a name for herself in vaudeville and on the legitimate stage in New York before moving to Hollywood to conquer and make her unforgettable place among the great performers of the motion picture industry.

One of the most controversial stars of her day, West encountered many obstacles, including early censorship, but her indomitable spirit, coupled with an indefatigable drive, made her persevere.

When her movie career ended, she continued to perform on stage, in Las Vegas, in England, on radio and television, even recording a few Rock and Roll albums.

Even toward the end of her life, she was known for maintaining a surprisingly youthful appearance. She stated in her autobiography that she spent two hours every single day massaging cold cream into her breasts to keep them youthful. In her old age, she returned to the silver screen and starred in two final movies in the 1970s.

Early Life

She was born Mary Jane West in the Greenpoint section of Brooklyn, New York, the daughter of John Patrick West (1865-1935) and Matilda "Tillie" Delker-Doelger (1870-1930). Her sister and brother were Mildred Katherine "Beverly" West (1898-1982) and John Edwin West (1900-1964).

Her father was a prizefighter known as "Battlin' Jack West" who later worked as a policeman. He was later a detective who ran his own agency. Her mother was a former corset and fashion model.

The family was Protestant, despite the Jewish heritage of West's mother,[1] who was a Bavarian German immigrant, her Catholic paternal grandmother, who was Irish, as well as other relations who were Catholic, including the woman who helped deliver West (and whose disapproval of her career she was made well aware).

Career

West began performing in vaudeville at the age of five. By the time she was 12, she was peforming under the name "The Baby Vamp." Though she had not yet grown into her generous curves, the slinky, dark-haired Mae was already raising eyebrows with a lascivious "shimmy" dance. She was encouraged as a performer by her mother, who, according to West, always thought whatever her beloved daughter said or did was fantastic.

Her famous walk was said to have originated in her early years as a stage actress. West had special eight-inch platforms attached to her shoes to increase her height and enhance her stage presence.

Eventually, she began writing her own risqué plays using the pen name "Jane Mast." Her first starring role on Broadway was in a play she titled Sex, which was written, produced and directed by West. Though critics hated the show, ticket sales were good. The notorious production did not go over well with city officials, however. The theatre was raided and West was arrested along with everyone else in the cast.

She was prosecuted on morals charges and, on April 19, 1927, was sentenced to 10 days in jail for public obscenity. While incarcerated on Welfare Island, she was allowed to wear her silk panties instead of the scratchy prison issue and the warden reportedly took her to dinner every night. She served eight days, with two days off for good behavior.

Her next play, The Drag, was about homosexuality and alluded to the work of Karl Heinrich Ulrichs. It was a box-office success, but audiences had to go to New Jersey to see it because it was banned from Broadway. West regarded talking about sex as a basic human rights issue, and was also an early advocate of gay rights.

She continued to write plays, including The Wicked Age, Pleasure Man and The Constant Sinner. Her productions were plagued by controversy and other problems, however. If they did not get shut down for indecency, they closed because of slow ticket sales.

For her next adventure into theatre she had a Broadway hit, Diamond Lil (1928), about a racy, easygoing lady of the 1890s. The show struck box-office gold and heralded the brazen, wisecracking blonde to new heights of fame. It enjoyed an enduring popularity and West would successfully revive it many times throughout the course of her career. Mae West was an actress ahead of her time.

Motion Pictures

In 1932, West was offered a motion picture contract by Paramount. She signed and went to Hollywood to appear in Night After Night starring George Raft. Upon her arrival, she moved into an apartment in the Ravenswood at 570 North Rossmore Avenue, not far from the studio on Melrose. She maintained a residence at the Ravenswood, her preferred abode, for the rest of her life, although she also owned a beach house and a ranch in the Valley.

At first, she did not like her small role in Night After Night, but was appeased when she was allowed to rewrite her lines. In West's first scene, a hat check girl exclaimed, "Goodness, what lovely diamonds." West became an instant sensation when she replied, "Goodness had nothing to do with it, dearie."

She brought Diamond Lil, now Lady Lou, to the screen in She Done Him Wrong (1933), personally selecting Cary Grant for the male lead, a role that made him a star. The movie was a huge success and earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Picture.

Her next release was I'm No Angel, which paired her with Grant again. It was another huge success and, along with She Done Him Wrong, saved Paramount from bankruptcy.

On July 1, 1934, the censorship of the Production Code began to be seriously and meticulously enforced and her scripts began to be heavily edited. Her answer was to increase the number of double entendres in her films.

West's next movie was Belle Of The Nineties (1934). It was originally titled It Ain't No Sin, but the title was changed due to the censor's objection. Other tentative working titles included That St. Louis Woman, Belle of St. Louis and Belle of New Orleans. The same could be said for her following vehicle, Goin' To Town (1935), which was originally titled How Am I Doin'? West starred in three other movies for Paramount before their association came to an end.

Two years later, she starred opposite W.C. Fields in My Little Chickadee (1940) at Universal. West and Fields, who were both accustomed to working with supporting players and not as co-stars, did not get along and she would not tolerate his drinking. My Little Chickadee was a big box-office success and outgrossed all other W.C. Fields movies. Universal was delighted with its success and offered West two more movies to star with Fields, but she would not hear of it. She told them that once was enough starring with Mr. Fields.

Radio

On December 12, 1937, West appeared in two separate sketches on ventriloquist Edgar Bergen's radio show that shocked both the listening audience and NBC executives. She appeared as herself, flirting very heavily with Charlie McCarthy, Bergen's dummy, utilizing her usual brand of sexy wit and risqué sexual references.

Even more outrageous was a sketch earlier in the show, written by Arch Oboler, that starred West and Don Ameche as Adam and Eve in the Garden Of Eden. The conversation between the two was considered so risqué, bordering on blasphemous, she was banned from being featured, or even mentioned, on the NBC network. She did not appear on radio for another 31 years.

Marriage and divorce

West was apparently married April 11, 1911, in Milwaukee, to Frank Wallace, a fellow vaudevillian who, in 1937, showed up in Hollywood with a marriage certificate seeking a share of "their" community property.
Although West denied ever marrying Wallace, and it was proven she never lived with him, she still found it necessary to obtain a legal divorce on July 21, 1942.

Middle years

West appeared in her last movie during the studio age with The Heat's On (1943) for Columbia. She remained active during the ensuing years, however. Among her stage performances was the title role in Catherine Was Great (1944) on Broadway, in which she spoofed the story of Catherine the Great of Russia, surrounding herself with an "imperial guard" of muscular young actors, all over 6 feet tall. The play was produced by Mike Todd and went on a long national tour in 1945.

She also starred in her own Las Vegas stage show surrounded by bodybuilders and singing to delighted crowds, which included a large number of gay men. Many celebrities attended West's show, including Judy Garland, Ethel Merman, Louis Armstrong, Liberace, and Jayne Mansfield (who met, and later married, one of West's muscle men, Mickey Hargitay, getting him fired).

When Billy Wilder offered West the role of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard, she refused and pronounced herself offended at being asked to play a "has-been," similar to the responses he received from Mary Pickford and Pola Negri, so ultimately the more amenable and realistic Gloria Swanson was cast in the role, which became immortal on celluloid.

In 1958, West appeared at the Academy Awards and performed the song "Baby, It's Cold Outside" with Rock Hudson.
Her autobiography, titled Goodness Had Nothing To Do With It, was published by Prentice-Hall in 1959 and became an instant success.

Later Career

West also made some rare appearances on television, including The Red Skelton Show in 1960. She did a comedy sketch with Skelton regarding her recently published autobiography and her appearance was a big success. Viewers were astounded by her youthful appearance and incredible energy. In 1964, she guest starred as herself on the popular sitcom Mister Ed. The ratings were way above the usual for the series and much interest was generated in West by this appearance.

In order to keep her appeal fresh with younger generations, she recorded two Rock and Roll albums, Way Out West and Wild Christmas in the late 1960s. The single "Treat Him Right," from Way Out West, was a big success for her and the album itself was a very good seller. She also recorded a number of parody songs, including "Santa, Come Up and See Me Sometime," in her successful album Wild Christmas.

After an absence of 26 years from the silver screen, she appeared in the role as Leticia Van Allen in Gore Vidal's Myra Breckinridge (1970) with John Huston, Raquel Welch, Rex Reed, Farrah Fawcett, and Tom Selleck in a small part. The movie created a huge amount of interest in West.

Premiere audiences went wild over West's personal appearances and cheered her on. In New York, fans were held back by a large number of policemen, including those on horseback, who were there to maintain the crowd.

Her reappearance in Myra Breckinridge launched a mania that seemed to rival that of The Beatles and Elvis Presley, and reporters marveled at her incredible youthfulness and young-looking skin. Despite all this, the movie failed miserably at the box-office. It became a camp classic, however, due to its sex change theme.

West recorded another rock album in the 1970s on MGM Records titled Great Balls of Fire, which covered songs by Elvis Presley, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, among others, and her autobiography, Goodness Had Nothing To Do With It, was updated in a new version and republished.

In 1976, she appeared on the The Dick Cavett Show and gave an exclusive interview about her life and career, along with insights into her proclivity toward vulgar humor and her battle with censorship. This appearance caused renewed interest in West and led to another motion picture.

At age 85, she returned to the screen for a final time as Marlo Manners in Sextette (1978) with an all star cast, including a cameo by George Raft, which provided an odd symmetry to both their long careers.

Sextette was another box-office failure. It did not do well despite the fact that before its release large photographs of her reclining on a chaise longue went up on billboards all over Hollywood proclaiming, "Mae West Is Coming."

Although the movie was not received well by critics or the general public, After Dark magazine awarded West the "Star of the World" award for her performance in what became her final screen appearance. Sextette has become a cult classic and has done well on cable movie channels as well as VHS and DVD releases.

Final Years

West continued to surround herself with virile muscle men for the rest of her life, employing companions, bodyguards and chauffeurs. She would occasionally make appearances at Hollywood parties and have luminaries and friends in to visit at her apartment in the Ravenswood. At one such party West astonished guests when she got up and performed a belly dance. They were amazed at her youthful appearance and incredible charisma. It became very fashionable to have West attend a party.
After making Sextette, West did some radio commercials for Poland Springs Drinking Water saying she had been drinking Poland Springs water for 20 years, "Ever since I was six!"

In the late summer of 1980, she suffered a stroke at her apartment and fell out of bed. She was rushed to the hospital. She rallied, but suffered another stroke in November. The prognosis was not good and she was sent home. She died at her apartment on North Rossmore Avenue in Hollywood at age 87.

Mae West is entombed with her family in Cypress Hills Cemetery, Brooklyn, New York. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1560 Vine Street in Hollywood.

Name Applied

During WWII, Allied soldiers called their inflatable, vestlike life preserver jackets "Mae Wests" because of the resemblance to her curvaceous torso. West became one the first movie stars in history to have her name listed in Webster's Dictionary.

A "Mae West" is also a type of round parachute malfunction which contorts the shape of the canopy into the appearance of an extraordinarily large brassiere, presumably one suitable for a woman of Mae West's proportions.

West is also referenced in the title song of Cole Porter's Broadway musical Anything Goes.
"If old hymns you like,
If bare limbs you like,
If Mae West you like
Or be undressed you like,
Why, nobody will oppose!"

Filmography
· Night After Night (1932) (Paramount) ... Maudie Triplett
· She Done Him Wrong (1933) (Paramount) ... Lady Lou
· I'm No Angel (1933) (Paramount) ... Tira
· Belle Of The Nineties (1934) (Paramount) ... Ruby Carter
· Goin' To Town (1935) (Paramount) ... Cleo Bordon
· Klondike Annie (1936) (Paramount) ... The Frisco Doll (Rose Carlton)
· Go West, Young Man (1936) (Paramount) ... Mavis Arden
· Every Day's A Holiday (1938) (Paramount) ... Peaches O'Day
· My Little Chickadee (1940) (Universal) ... Flower Belle Lee
· The Heat's On (1943) (Columbia) ... Fay Lawrence
· Myra Breckinridge (1970) (20th Century Fox) ... Leticia Van Allen
· Sextette (1978) (Crown International Pictures) ... Marlo Manners/Lady Barrington

Mae West Tribe
http://maewest.tribe.net/
Broadway Database
http://www.ibdb.com/person.asp?ID=7476
Movie Database
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0922213/
Mae at Bombshells.com
http://www.bombshells.com/gallery/west/index.php
Quotes
http://www.digitaldreamdoor.com/pages/quotes/maewest.html

611 Ravenswood Fansite
http://members.aol.com/char2go/611.htm

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

8/17 Maureen O'Hara

Thu, 17 Aug 2006 13:50:30 GMT

Maureen O'Hara (born Maureen FitzSimons) on August 17, 1920 is an Irish film actress.

Born to Charles FitzSimons (a Catholic) and Marguerita Lilburn (a Protestant) in Ranelagh, County Dublin, Ireland not long before partition, the famously red-headed beauty is noted for playing fiercely passionate heroines with a highly sensible attitude. She often worked with director John Ford and longtime friend John Wayne.

She came from a theatrical family and began acting at the age of 14 with the Abbey Theatre in Dublin (Ireland's National Theatre). At the age of 17, after a brief marriage (which was later annulled) to the man who would become the father of British journalist Tina Brown, she was offered a screen test in London. Initially reluctant, she was persuaded to attend. Famed actor Charles Laughton attended the screen test. She performed poorly in the test and returned to Ireland. However, Charles Laughton believed she had "something." Laughton looked at the test again and, while he thought it was awful, he couldn't forget her eyes. He told his business partner he was signing her and sent him the test tape. When he saw the tape, the partner was furious as he believed it was a poor choice. However, he came around when he too found he couldn't forget her eyes. As a result she was offered an initial seven year contract. Her first major film was to be Alfred Hitchcock's Jamaica Inn.

In 1939, she and Laughton went to the U.S. to appear in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. This film contains one of her most famous roles, playing Esmeralda alongside Laughton's Quasimodo.
O'Hara married Will Price in 1941. She had one daughter by him, and they divorced in 1953.

Her mother was a trained opera singer and she herself aspired to a singing career. She sang briefly in How Green Was My Valley and again in The Quiet Man. She starred on Broadway in the musical Christine and released two successful recordings, "Love Letter from Maureen O'Hara" and "Maureen O'Hara Sings her Favorite Irish Songs". During the 1960s she was a sought after guest on musical variety shows appearing with Perry Como, Andy Williams, Betty Grable and Ernie Ford. She is a fluent Irish speaker and used this in her films The Long Gray Line, The Quiet Man and most recently in Only the Lonely.

She is one of the most beloved of Hollywood's Golden Age icons, in the company of such screen luminaries as Marilyn Monroe, Judy Garland and Elizabeth Taylor. Many of her films are considered all-time classics and are traditionally shown on television during the holidays. Once named one of the world's most beautiful women, O'Hara's beautiful face and thick red hair blowing in the wind as she waves from a gate in the John Ford Academy Award winning film How Green Was My Valley will remain one of the most iconic images ever preserved on film.

Maureen married Charles Blair in 1968. Blair was a pioneer of transatlatic aviation, a former Brigadier General of the US Air Force and a former Chief Pilot at Pan Am. A few years after her marriage to Blair, O'Hara for the most part retired from acting. According to O'Hara, one day she was with Blair and John Wayne when she was asked if she didn't think it was time for her to stop working and stay at home. Instead of the getting into an argument that O'Hara thought Blair and Wayne were expecting, she agreed that it was time to stop working. Blair later died in 1978 when the engine of a Grumman Goose he was flying from St Croix to St Thomas exploded.

O'Hara remained retired from acting until 1991, when she starred in the movie Only the Lonely. In this role she played Rose Muldoon, the mother of Danny Muldoon, who was played by John Candy.

For her contributions to the motion picture industry, Maureen O'Hara has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7004 Hollywood Blvd. In 1993, she was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. In March 1999 Maureen was selected to be the Grand Marshal of the New York City St. Patrick's Day Parade after previously being de-selected because she was a divorcée.

In 2004 Maureen O'Hara released her autobiography Tis Herself, published by Simon & Schuster. In the same year she was also honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Irish Film and Television Academy in her native Dublin, Ireland.

In 2006 Maureen O' Hara Blair attended the Grand Reopening and Expansion of the Flying Boats Museum in Foynes, Limerick, Ireland - as a patron of the Museum. A significant portion of the Museum is dedicated to her late Husband Charles Blair.

Filmography
· My Irish Molly (1938)
· Kicking the Moon Around (1938)
· Jamaica Inn (1939)
· The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)
· A Bill of Divorcement (1940)
· Dance, Girl, Dance (1940)
· They Met In Argentina (1941)
· How Green Was My Valley (1941)
· To the Shores of Tripoli (1942)
· Ten Gentlemen from West Point (1942)
· The Black Swan (1942)
· Immortal Sergeant (1943)
· This Land Is Mine (1943)
· The Fallen Sparrow (1943)
· Buffalo Bill (1944)
· The Spanish Main (1945)
· Sentimental Journey (1946)
· Do You Love Me (1946)
· Sinbad the Sailor (1947)
· The Homestretch (1947)
· Miracle on 34th Street (1947)
· The Foxes of Harrow (1947)
· Sitting Pretty (1948)
· A Woman's Secret (1949)
· The Forbidden Street (1949)
· Father Was a Fullback (1949)
· Bagdad (1949)
· Comanche Territory (1950)
· Tripoli (1950)
· Rio Grande (1950)
· Flame of Araby (1951)
· At Sword's Point (1952)
· Kangaroo (1952)
· The Quiet Man (1952)
· Against All Flags (1952)
· The Redhead from Wyoming (1953)
· War Arrow (1953)
· Malaga (1954)
· The Long Gray Line (1955)
· The Magnificent Matador (1955)
· Lady Godiva (1955)
· Lisbon (1956)
· Everything But the Truth (1956)
· The Wings of Eagles (1957)
· Our Man in Havana (1959)
· The Deadly Companions (1961)
· The Parent Trap (1961)
· Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1962)
· McLintock! (1963)
· Spencer's Mountain (1963)
· The Battle of the Villa Fiorita (1965)
· The Rare Breed (1966)
· How Do I Love Thee? (1970)
· Big Jake (1971)
· Only the Lonely (1991)
· A Century of Cinema (1994) (documentary)

Television Work
· The Red Pony (1973)
· The Christmas Box (1995)
· Cab to Canada (1998)
· The Last Dance (2000)

Maureen at Classic Movies
http://www.thegoldenyears.org/ohara.html

At IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000058/

Maureen The Irish-American Queen of Technicolor at A & E
http://www.irishabroad.com/irishworld/irishamericamag/aprilmay05/features/art&entertainment.asp

Maureen Ohara Magazine
http://www.moharamagazine.com/

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

Gaslight

Todd — Sun, 29 Feb 2004 22:08:07 GMT

I had the pleasure of watching this for the first time last night. I picked up the DVD for $15 bucks sight unseen and it's worth every penny. What a movie! For a 1944 film, it sure had a mean streak. Charles Boyer plays such a great bastard and Ingrid Bergman was luminous and wonderful. Damn, I love black and white.

posted in Classic Film Fans - 19 replies

8/6 Lucille Ball

Sun, 06 Aug 2006 18:41:56 GMT

Lucille Désirée Ball (August 6, 1911–April 26, 1989) was an iconic American actor, comedian and star of I Love Lucy. A 'B-grade' movie star and "glamour girl" of the 1930s and 1940s, she later achieved tremendous success as a television actress, and became one of the most popular stars the medium has ever produced. She is known as the "Queen of Comedy".

Ball was born to Henry Durrell Ball (1887–1915) and Desiree "DeDe" Eve Hunt (1892–1977) in Jamestown, New York and grew up in the adjacent small town of Celoron, a suburb of Jamestown. Her family was Baptist; her father was of Scottish descent [1] and related to George Washington. Her mother was of French, Irish and English descent.[2] Lucille was proud of her family and heritage. Her genealogy can be traced back to the earliest settlers in the colonies. One direct ancestor, William Sprague (1609–1675), left England on the ship Lyon's Whelp for Plymouth/Salem, Massachusetts. They were from Upwey, Dorset, England. Along with his two brothers, William helped to found the city of Charlestown, Massachusetts. Other Sprague relatives became soldiers in the US Revolutionary War and two of them became governors of the state of Rhode Island.

Her father was a telephone lineman for the Bell Company, while her mother was often described as a lively and energetic young woman. Her father's job required frequent transfers, and within three years after her birth, Lucille had moved from Jamestown to Anaconda, Montana, and then to Wyandotte, Michigan. While DeDe Ball was pregnant with her second child, Frederick, Henry Ball contracted typhoid fever and died in February 1915.

After her father died, Ball and her brother Fred were raised by her working mother and grandparents. Her grandfather, Fred C. Hunt, was an eccentric socialist who enjoyed the theater. He frequently took the family to vaudeville shows and encouraged young Lucy to take part in both her own and school plays. In 1925 after a romance with a local bad boy (Johnny DeVito), Ball decided to enroll in the John Murray Anderson School for the Dramatic Arts with her mother's approval. There, the shy girl was outshone by another pupil, Bette Davis.

Ball went home a few weeks later when drama coaches told her that she "had no future at all as a performer". Two years later, she witnessed the accidental shooting of a friend of her brother's, Warner Erikson, who found himself in the path of a .22 caliber rifle shot, severing his spinal cord. Her grandfather was sued and prosecuted, and lost the family home.

She moved back to New York City in 1932 to become an actress and had some success as a fashion model for designer Hattie Carnegie and as the Chesterfield girl. She began her performing career on Broadway using the stage name "Dianne Belmont" and was hired—but then quickly fired—by theatre impresario Earl Carroll from his Vanities and by Florenz Ziegfeld from a touring company of Rio Rita.

She was let go again from the Shubert brothers production of Stepping Stones. After an uncredited stint as a Goldwyn Girl in Roman Scandals (1933) she moved to Hollywood to appear in films. She appeared in many small movie roles in the 1930s as a contract player for RKO (including movies with the Marx Brothers and the Three Stooges), where she met her lifelong friend, Ginger Rogers. Ball was signed to MGM in the 1940s, but she never achieved great success in films.

She was known in many Hollywood circles as "Queen of the Bs" (a title previously held by Fay Wray) starring in a number of B-movies, such as 1939's Five Came Back. Macdonald Carey was designated as her "King".

In 1940, Ball met Cuban bandleader Desi Arnaz while filming the film version of the Rodgers and Hart stage hit Too Many Girls. Ball and Arnaz connected immediately and eloped the same year, garnering much press attention. When Arnaz was drafted to the United States Army in 1942, he was unfaithful to Ball. Arnaz ended up being classified for limited service due to a knee injury. As a result, Arnaz stayed in Los Angeles, organizing and performing USO shows for wounded GIs being brought back from the Pacific. Ball filed for a divorce in 1944. However, shortly after Ball obtained an interlocutory decree, she got together with Arnaz again. A major obstacle in Ball's life was marrying a Cuban. They were the first mixed-nationality TV couple. They toured the US together to prove that the American public would accept them together.

In 1948, Ball was cast as Liz Cugat (later "Cooper"), a wacky wife, in My Favorite Husband, a radio program for CBS. The program was successful, and CBS asked her to develop it for television. She agreed, but insisted on working with Arnaz. This show eventually became I Love Lucy. CBS was initially not impressed with the pilot episode produced by the couple's Desilu Productions company, so the couple toured the road in a vaudeville act with Lucy as the zany housewife wanting to get in Arnaz's show. The tour was a smash, and CBS put the show on their lineup.

In 1953, she was subpoenaed by the House Committee on Un-American Activities because she had registered to vote in the Communist party in 1936 at her socialist grandfather's insistence (per FBI FOIA-released documents in this declassified FBI file

In response to these accusations, Arnaz quipped: "The only thing red about Lucy is her hair, and even that's not legitimate." Ball survived this encounter with the HUAC, naming no names.

The I Love Lucy show was not only a star vehicle for Lucille Ball, but a way for her to try to salvage her marriage to Desi Arnaz, which had become badly strained, in part by the fact that each had a hectic performing schedule which often kept them apart.

Along the way, she created a television dynasty and reached several "firsts". Ball was the first woman in television to be head of a production company: Desilu, the company that she and Arnaz formed. (After buying out her ex-husband's share of the studio, Ball functioned as a very active studio head.)

Desilu and I Love Lucy pioneered a number of methods still in use in television production today. When the show premiered, most shows were captured by kinescope, and the picture was inferior to film. The decision was made to film the series, a decision driven by the performers' desire to stay in Los Angeles.

Sponsor Philip Morris did not want to show kinescopes to the major markets on the east coast, so Desilu agreed to take a pay cut to finance filming. In return, CBS relinquished the show rights back to Desilu after broadcast, not realizing they were giving away a valuable and durable asset. Desilu made many millions of dollars on I Love Lucy rebroadcasts through syndication and became a textbook example of how a show can be profitable in second-run syndication.

Desilu also hired legendary Czech cameraman Karl Freund as their director of photography. Freund had worked for F.W. Murnau and Fritz Lang, shot part of Metropolis, had directed a number of Hollywood films himself, and knew his business. Freund used a three-camera setup, which became the standard way of filming situation comedies.

Shooting long shots, medium shots, and close-ups on a comedy in front of a live audience demanded discipline, technique, and close choreography. Among other non-standard techniques used in filming the show, cans of paint (in shades ranging from white to medium gray) were kept on set to "paint out" inappropriate shadows and disguise lighting flaws.

Desilu produced several other popular shows, most notably Make Room for Daddy, Our Miss Brooks, The Dick Van Dyke Show, The Andy Griffith Show, The Untouchables, I Spy, Star Trek, and Mission: Impossible.

Ball's instincts with business were often astonishingly sharp, and her love for Arnaz was passionate, but her relationships with her children were sometimes strained. Lucie Arnaz, her daughter, spoke of her mother's "controlling" nature. She had a few very good friends in the business: Ginger Rogers, Mary Wickes and Vivian Vance. All were childless; Wickes never married. Vance said, following her first meeting with Ball, "I'm going to learn to love that bitch."

On July 17, 1951, just one month shy of her 40th birthday and after several miscarriages, Ball gave birth to her first child, Lucie Desiree Arnaz. A year and a half later, Ball gave birth to her second child, Desiderio Alberto Arnaz IV, known as Desi Arnaz, Jr. When he was born, I Love Lucy was a solid ratings hit, and Ball and Arnaz wrote the pregnancy into the show (indeed, Ball gave birth in real life at about the same time that her Lucy Ricardo character gave birth). There were several challenges from CBS, insisting that a pregnant woman could not be shown on television, nor could the word "pregnant" be spoken on-air.

After approval from several religious figures the network allowed the pregnancy storyline, but insisted that the word "expecting" be used instead of "pregnant". (Arnaz garnered laughs when he deliberately mispronounced it as "'spectin'.) The birth made the first cover of TV Guide in January 1953.

By the end of the 1950s, Desilu had become a large company, and Arnaz's drinking further compounded matters. On May 4, 1960, a few weeks after filming the final episode of The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, the couple divorced, ending one of television's greatest marriages. However, until his death in 1986, Arnaz would remain friends with Ball. Indeed, both Arnaz and Ball spoke lovingly of each other after the breakup.

The following year, Ball married comedian Gary Morton, a Borscht Belt stand-up comic who was twelve years younger. Morton told interviewers at the time that he had never seen Ball on television, since he was always performing during primetime. Ball immediately installed Morton in her production company, teaching him the television business and eventually promoting him to producer. Morton also played occasional bit parts on Ball's various series.

Following I Love Lucy, Ball appeared in the Broadway musical Wildcat, which was a wildly successful sell-out that ended up losing money and closing early when Ball became too ill to continue in the show. She made a few more movies (including Yours, Mine and Ours, and the musical Mame), and two more successful sitcoms: The Lucy Show (1962–1968), which costarred Vance and Gale Gordon, and Here's Lucy (1968–1974), which also featured Gordon, as well as appearances by Lucy's real life children, Lucie Arnaz and Desi Arnaz, Jr.

During the mid-1980s, she attempted to resurrect her television career. In 1982, Ball hosted a two-part Three's Company retrospective, showing clips from the show's first five seasons, summarizing memorable plotlines, and commenting on her love of the show. The second part of the special ended with her receiving a kiss on the cheek from John Ritter. A 1985 dramatic made-for-TV film about an elderly homeless woman, Stone Pillow, was well received. However, her 1986 sitcom Life With Lucy (costarring Gale Gordon), was a critical and commercial flop which was canceled less than two months into its run by producer Aaron Spelling.

The failure of her series was said to have sent Ball into a serious depression, and other than a few miscellaneous awards show appearances, she was absent from the public eye for the last several years of her life. Her last appearance took place several weeks before her death at the Oscar telecast in which she was presented by Bob Hope to a cheering audience.

Lucille Ball died on April 26, 1989, of a ruptured aorta at the age of 77 and was cremated. Her remains were initially interred in the Forest Lawn – Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles, but were later moved by her children to the Lake View Cemetery, in Jamestown, New York.

Lucille Ball.com
http://www.lucilleball.com/
Lucille at IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000840/

Lucille at the Museum of Broadcast Communications
http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/B/htmlB/balllucille/balllucille.htm

The Lucy Lounge
http://lucylounge.suddenlaunch2.com/

Timeline of her Life
http://www.twoop.com/people/lucille_ball.html

Lucy at Classic Actresses
http://www.classicactresses.com/lucille.html

Lucille at Classic Films
http://www.thegoldenyears.org/ball.html

Lucille at Time Magazines 100 People
http://www.time.com/time/time100/artists/profile/lucy.html

Lucille at PBS’ American Masters
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/database/ball_l.html

The Lucille Ball – Desi Arnaz Center
http://www.lucy-desi.com/

posted in Classic Film Fans - 2 replies

7/16 Barbara Stanwyck

Sun, 16 Jul 2006 17:32:48 GMT

Barbara Stanwyck (July 16, 1907 – January 20, 1990) was an American film/television actress.

Born Ruby Katherine Stevens in New York City to Byron Stevens (the son of English immigrants) and Catherine McGee (whose parents were Irish). Her mother died when she was four (pregnant at the time, her mother was pushed off a moving trolley by a drunken man), not long before her father abandoned the family. She was raised in foster homes and by an elder sister but began working at age 13, and was a fashion model and Broadway chorine in 1922 at the age of 15.

In 1926, Stanwyck began performing at the Hudson Theatre in the drama The Noose which subsequently became one of the biggest hit plays of the season. She co-starred with actors Rex Cherryman and Wilfred Lucas. Cherryman and Stanwyck began a romantic relationship. The relationship was cut short however, when in 1928 Cherryman died at the age of 30 of septic poisoning while vacationing in Le Havre, France. Barbara's performance in The Noose earned her rave reviews from critics and she was summoned by film producer Bob Kane to make a screen test for his upcoming 1927 silent film Broadway Nights where she won a minor part of a fan dancer. The film marked Stanwyck's first film appearance.

Her first husband was established actor Frank Fay, and they were married from 1928 – 1936. On December 5, 1932 they adopted a son, Dion, who was one month old, from whom Stanwyck was later estranged. Fay's successful career on Broadway did not translate to the big screen, whereas Stanwyck achieved Hollywood stardom fairly rapidly. Also, Fay reportedly did not shy away from physical confrontations with his young wife, especially when he was inebriated. Some film historians claim that the Fay-Stanwyck marriage was the basis for A Star is Born. Stanwyck eventually became estranged from her son Dion for reasons that are still not known.

Some books have said that the younger actor Robert Taylor was less in love with Stanwyck than she was with him, but since they were already living together, their marriage was arranged with the help of the studio in view of the times, which was common in Hollywood's golden age.

Taylor was rumored to have had several affairs during the marriage, including one with Ava Gardner. Stanwyck was rumored to have attempted suicide when she learned of Taylor's fling with Lana Turner. She ultimately filed for divorce in 1950 when a starlet made her romance with Taylor public. She never remarried, collecting alimony of 15 percent from Taylor's salary until the day he died. According to one book, she tried to collect back alimony even after Taylor's death from his second wife, Ursula, even while Ursula was struggling with financial problems. However, Stanwyck's house once burned down and she was devastated that many of Taylor's old letters and photos were lost.

Her younger brother, Byron Stevens, became an actor in Hollywood, probably with his sister's connections, but he never found real fame.

A friend introduced her to Willard Mack in 1926 who was casting his play The Noose. Asked to audition, she was cast on the spot. Willard thought a great deal of Ruby and believed that to change her image she needed a first class name, one that would stand out. He happened to notice a playbill for a play then running called Barbara Frietchie in which an actress named Joan Stanwyck appeared. He used this to come up with "Barbara Stanwyck" as Ruby's new stage name. She was an instant hit and he even re-wrote the script to give her a bigger part.

Stanwyck starred in almost a hundred films during her career and received four nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress: Stella Dallas (1937), Ball of Fire (1941), Double Indemnity (1944), and Sorry, Wrong Number (1948). In her best films (such as The Lady Eve) she often mixed a worldly toughness (a husky voice, an earthy sense of humor) with heartbreaking vulnerability, particularly in her early Pre-Code films.

She received an Academy Honorary Award "for superlative creativity and unique contribution to the art of screen acting" in 1982. In her later years, she also starred in television, notably in the 1960s western series, The Big Valley. Her last starring role was in 1985, on the TV series The Colbys alongside Charlton Heston, Stephanie Beacham and Katharine Ross.

She and Taylor enjoyed their time together outdoors during the early years of their marriage, and were the proud owners of many acres of prime West Los Angeles property. Their large ranch and home in the Mandeville Canyon section of Brentwood, Los Angeles, California is still to this day referred to by locals as the old "Robert Taylor ranch". After her divorce from Taylor, Stanwyck had several discreet romances including one which was revealed many years later by actor Robert Wagner, 23 years her junior.

When Stanwyck's film career declined at age 50 in 1957 she moved to television. Her 1961 -1962 series The Barbara Stanwyck Show was not a ratings success but earned the star her first Emmy Award. The 1964 - 1968 series The Big Valley made her one of the most popular actresses on television, winning her another Emmy. Twenty years later, she earned her third Emmy for The Thorn Birds.

Although beloved by her directors and most of her co-workers for her lack of vanity and unprententiousness on film sets, Stanwyck was not without flaws. She was considerably less friendly with her younger female co-stars than the male ones, and was notorious for holding grudges against those whom she believed crossed her (like Bette Davis, with whom she appeared in a movie in 1932). Overall though, Stanwyck had a reputation as one of the least "difficult" silver screen goddesses.

William Holden always credited her with saving his career when they costarred together in Golden Boy. They remained lifelong friends and he paid tribute to her at the 1977 Academy Awards. In 1977 Stanwyck and Holden presenting the Sound Oscar. A rare example of pure graciousness and sincerity, Holden paused to tell a story before they presented their Oscar, to pay a special tribute to his good friend and acting partner Stanwyck. Stanwyck had no idea the tribute was coming. Holden continued discussing the tribulations that were going on the set of the film Golden Boy, and that he owed his career to Stanwyck who stuck up for him when things looked bad. Stanwyck was overwhelmed by the tribute, and hugged her good friend.

Her retirement years were somewhat active, with charity work done completely out of the limelight, although she became somewhat reclusive following a robbery in her home while she was present, during which she was pushed into a closet, but fortunately suffered no serious physical injuries.

She died at age 82 of congestive heart disease at her home --the same home-- in Santa Monica, California in 1990.
For her contributions to the motion picture industry, Stanwyck has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1751 Vine Street.
In 1973, she was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Filmography

Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray in Double Indemnity (1944).
· The Night Walker (1964)
· Roustabout (1964)
· Walk on the Wild Side (1962)
· Forty Guns (1957)
· Trooper Hook (1957)
· Crime of Passion (1957)
· There's Always Tomorrow (1956)
· These Wilder Years (1956)
· The Maverick Queen (1956)
· Escape to Burma (1955)
· The Violent Men (1955)
· Cattle Queen of Montana (1954)
· Executive Suite (1954)
· Witness to Murder (1954)
· Blowing Wild (1953)
· Jeopardy (1953)
· All I Desire (1953)
· The Moonlighter (1953)
· Titanic (1953)
· Clash by Night (1952)
· The Man with a Cloak (1951)
· The Furies (1950)
· To Please a Lady (1950)
· No Man of Her Own (1950)
· East Side, West Side (1949)
· The File on Thelma Jordon (1949)
· The Lady Gambles (1949)
· B. F.'s Daughter (1948)
· Sorry, Wrong Number (1948)
· Cry Wolf (1947)
· The Other Love (1947)
· Variety Girl (1947)
· The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947)
· The Bride Wore Boots (1946)
· California (1946)
· The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946)
· My Reputation (1946)
· Christmas in Connecticut (1945)
· Hollywood Canteen (1944)
· Double Indemnity (1944)
· Flesh and Fantasy (1943)
· Lady of Burlesque (1943)
· The Gay Sisters (1942)
· The Great Man's Lady (1942)
· The Lady Eve (1941)
· Ball of Fire (1941)
· You Belong to Me (1941)
· Meet John Doe (1941)
· Remember the Night (1940)
· Union Pacific (1939)
· Golden Boy (1939)
· Always Goodbye (1938)
· The Mad Miss Manton (1938)
· Internes Can't Take Money (1937)
· Breakfast for Two (1937)
· Stella Dallas (1937)
· This Is My Affair (1937)
· Banjo on My Knee (1936)
· The Bride Walks Out (1936)
· The Plough and the Stars (1936)
· A Message to Garcia (1936)
· His Brother's Wife (1936)
· Red Salute (1935)
· The Woman in Red (1935)
· Annie Oakley (1935)
· Gambling Lady (1934)
· The Secret Bride (1934)
· A Lost Lady (1934)
· Ever in My Heart (1933)
· Ladies They Talk About (1933)
· Baby Face (1933)
· The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933)
· The Purchase Price (1932)
· So Big! (1932)
· Shopworn (1932)
· Forbidden (1932)
· Night Nurse (1931)
· The Miracle Woman (1931)
· The Slippery Pearls (1931) (short subject)
· Ten Cents a Dance (1931)
· Illicit (1931)
· Ladies of Leisure (1930)
· The Locked Door (1929)
· Mexicali Rose (1929)
· Broadway Nights (1927)

At IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001766/

at Classic Movies.com
http://www.thegoldenyears.org/stanwyck.html

Barbara Stanwyck:Great Ball of Fire
http://www.moderntimes.com/bab/biography.html

Stanwyck Tribute Page
http://www.angelfire.com/ri2/rebeccastjames/BarbaraStanwyck.html

posted in Classic Film Fans - 7 replies

7/29 William Powell

Mon, 31 Jul 2006 07:44:32 GMT

William Horatio Powell (July 29, 1892 - March 5, 1984) was an American actor, noted for his sophisticated, cynical roles.

Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, William Powell was an only child and showed an early aptitude for performing. After high school, he left home for New York and the American Academy of Dramatic Arts at the age of 18.

In 1907, he moved with his family to Kansas City, Missouri. In 1912 Powell graduated from the AADA, and then he worked in some vaudeville and stock companies. After a successful experience as a brilliant actor on the Broadway stage, in 1922 he began a Hollywood career. His first starring role was as Philo Vance in The Canary Murder Case (1929).

He followed this up with the Vance role in The Kennel Murder Case (1933). In the same year, he was divorced from his second wife, the actress Carole Lombard, who later went on to marry Clark Gable, but with whom he remained on excellent terms, even co-starring with her in a movie several years after their divorce.

Powell's most famous role was that of Nick Charles in six Thin Man films, beginning with The Thin Man in 1934, considered by many the best of the bunch, in which he proved his sophisticated charm and his witty sense of humour.

The delightful Myrna Loy played his wife Nora Charles in each of the Thin Man films, and his partnership with Loy would become the screen's most prolific ever, with the couple appearing in 14 films together.

He received an Academy Award Nomination for The Thin Man, and starred in the Best Picture of 1936, The Great Ziegfeld, in 1936, in which Ziegfeld's character was somewhat sanitized, and which also starred Loy as Billie Burke, Ziegfeld's wife.

Powell could play any role with authority whether it was comedy, thriller or drama. He would receive his second Academy Award Nomination for the magnificent comedy My Man Godfrey (1936), with Carole Lombard. He was on top of the world until 1937.

In 1935 he starred with Jean Harlow in Reckless, and they become very close friends. Soon Powell's friendship with Harlow developed into a serious romance. Sadly she died before they could marry, apparently of uremic poisoning. His distress over Harlow's death and a battle with cancer, which he ultimately beat, resulted in his accepting fewer roles.
On January 6, 1940, he married the beautiful actress, Diana Lewis, whom he called "Mousie". Although the couple had only met for the first time three weeks before their marriage, they remained married until Powell's death in 1984.

His career slowed considerably in the late 1940s, although in 1947 he received his third Academy Award nomination for his work in Life with Father. His last film was Mister Roberts in 1955, with Henry Fonda, James Cagney, and Jack Lemmon.

Despite numerous entreaties to return to the screen, Powell refused all offers, happy in his retirement.

He also had one son by his first wife Eileen Wilson named William David Powell. He and Wilson were married from 1915-1930. They remained friends until her death in the 1940s.

William David Powell, Powell's son, would go on to be a television writer and producer. He committed suicide in 1968.

Powell died of cardiac arrest in Palm Springs, California at the age of 91, some thirty years after his retirement. He was survived by his wife, Diana Lewis, who passed away in 1997.

Filmography
· Sherlock Holmes (1922)
· When Knighthood Was in Flower (1922)
· Outcast (1922)
· The Bright Shawl (1923)
· Under the Red Robe (1923)
· Dangerous Money (1924)
· Romola (1924)
· Too Many Kisses (1925)
· Faint Perfume (1925)
· My Lady's Lips (1925)
· The Beautiful City (1925)
· White Mice (1926)
· Sea Horses (1926)
· Desert Gold (1926)
· The Runaway (1926)
· Aloma of the South Seas (1926)
· Beau Geste (1926)
· Tin Gods (1926)
· The Great Gatsby (1926)
· New York (1927)
· Love's Greatest Mistake (1927)
· Senorita (1927)
· Special Delivery (1927)
· Time to Love (1927)
· Paid to Love (1927)
· Nevada (1927)
· She's a Sheik (1927)
· Beau Sabreur (1928)
· The Last Command (1928)
· Feel My Pulse (1928)
· Partners in Crime (1928)
· The Dragnet (1928)
· The Vanishing Pioneer (1928)
· Forgotten Faces (1928)
· Interference (1928)
· The Canary Murder Case (1929)
· The Four Feathers (1929)
· The Greene Murder Case (1929)
· Charming Sinners (1929)
· Pointed Heels (1929)
· Behind the Make-Up (1930)
· Street of Chance (1930)
· The Benson Murder Case (1930)
· Paramount on Parade (1930)
· Shadow of the Law (1930)
· For the Defense (1930)
· Man of the World (1931)
· Ladies' Man (1931)
· The Road to Singapore (1931)
· High Pressure (1932)
· Jewel Robbery (1932)
· Screen Snapshots (1932) (short subject)
· One Way Passage (1932)
· Lawyer Man (1933)
· Private Detective 62 (1933)
· Double Harness (1933)
· The Kennel Murder Case (1933)
· Fashions of 1934 (1934)
· Manhattan Melodrama (1934)
· The Thin Man (1934)
· The Key (1934)
· Evelyn Prentice (1934)
· Star of Midnight (1935)
· Reckless (1935)
· Escapade (1935)
· Rendezvous (1935)
· The Great Ziegfeld (1936)
· The Ex-Mrs. Bradford (1936)
· My Man Godfrey (1936)
· Libeled Lady (1936)
· After the Thin Man (1936)
· The Last Mrs. Cheney (1937)
· The Emperor's Candlesticks (1937)
· Double Wedding (1937)
· The Baroness and the Butler (1938)
· Another Thin Man (1939)
· I Love You Again (1940)
· Love Crazy (1941)
· Shadow of the Thin Man (1941)
· Crossroads (1942)
· The Youngest Profession (1943) (cameo)
· The Heavenly Body (1943)
· The Thin Man Goes Home (1945)
· The Great Morgan (1946) (voice only)
· Ziegfeld Follies (1946)
· The Hoodlum Saint (1946)
· Screen Snapshots: The Skolsky Party (1946) (short subject)
· Life with Father (1947)
· Song of the Thin Man (1947)
· The Senator Was Indiscreet (1947)
· Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid (1948)
· Take One False Step (1949)
· Dancing in the Dark (1949)
· It's a Big Country (1951)
· The Treasure of Lost Canyon (1952)
· The Girl Who Had Everything (1953)
· How to Marry a Millionaire (1953)
· Mister Roberts (1955)
· Distant Jamaica (1969) (short subject)

William at IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001635/

William Powell Webstie themave
http://themave.com/Powell/

William at Classic Movies
http://www.thegoldenyears.org/powell_w.html

posted in Classic Film Fans - 2 replies

Video to DVD: Lost in Transition

amazonika — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 16:53:10 GMT

I voiced this concern about 5 years ago in other forums, and nobody seemed concerned. But here I am 5 years later and the problem is becoming real...

I am concerned that a huge proportion of classic films will become unavailable to the general public, due to the transition to DVD.

*Most* of the old classics that I watch are only available on video. *Most* of them are non-mainstream, and are not high on the list of the companies who create DVDs to re-release them on DVD (remastered or not) because they will never be money-makers.

VHS tapes have a finite life span...I'm constantly renting (or borrowing from the library) old VHSs that have been worn out to the point of unwatchability. But because they are no longer in print, they cannot be replaced...or even if they are in print, the popularity of DVDs has caused many establishments to have policies of not buying VHSs anymore.

Are any of you folks noticing that you are losing access to older films this way?
What can we, as classic film fans, do about this?
I feel like we're about to lose artifacts of historical significance. It worries me.

posted in Classic Film Fans - 6 replies

Queen Kelly

Buzz — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 01:20:39 GMT

My first post here, so hello to everyone :)

I just dropped in on the last 1/2 of TCM's showing of Gloria Swanson's "Queen Kelly," yes, completely over the top in a lot of ways, but i was stunned at the production values and the amazing print, like it was shot yesterday. Anyone else see this?

Trivia. A clip from this then-unrelease film makes an appearance 30 years later. Name the movie.

Buzz

posted in Classic Film Fans - 6 replies

1950s films

amazonika — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 16:56:28 GMT

I have to admit, I've been a pre- WW2 film snob for years.

Lately, I've been delving into the world of the 1950s and I love it!

I've recently rented some Paul newman films, and Marilyn Monroe films.

Marilyn has sometimes been dismissed as a mere media-generated icon as opposed to a true thespian, but I must admit, she is one talented lady. Totally charming. I'm impressed with her especially in dramas such as "Niagrara".

It feels weird to see classics in full color!

posted in Classic Film Fans - 15 replies

Hey

The Kidd and Tayng — Mon, 29 May 2006 15:53:13 GMT

How is everyone?

I'm new here. I was at the video store today looking through old films and I found Laural and Hardy for 9.99 or Buster Keaton For 39.99 I ended up getting Buster. He's my dream man.

Dig It,
The Kidd

posted in Classic Film Fans - 6 replies

Pygmalion (1938)

Sat, 27 May 2006 16:08:10 GMT

How is it that I never hear this movie mentioned? I was able to watch it when I was very young, and never found it since. And apparently everyone I came across favors My Fair Lady, which I didn't think was the best musical in the world, and either way I thought was a much poorer adaptation of the play. Anybody seen this or own a copy?

posted in Classic Film Fans - 23 replies

June Allyson 1917-2006

Tue, 11 Jul 2006 03:11:26 GMT

June Allyson (October 7, 1917 – July 8, 2006) was an American actress, popular in the 1940s and 1950s.
She was born Ella Geisman in the Bronx, New York City to Clara and Robert Geisman. Her father worked as a janitor, separating from Allyson's mother during her childhood and leaving the family. Allyson was brought up in near-poverty. After a childhood accident, she took up both swimming and dancing as therapy, and made her Broadway chorus-line debut in 1938 in the musical Sing Out the News. After her appearance in Best Foot Forward in 1941, she was selected for the 1943 film version, and followed it up with several other musicals, including Two Sisters from Boston (1946) and Good News (1947). She also played straight roles such as Constance in The Three Musketeers (1948), the tomboy Jo March in Little Women (1949), and Glenn Miller's wife in The Glenn Miller Story (1953).

On August 19, 1945, Allyson caused Hollywood studio chiefs some consternation by marrying Dick Powell, who was 13 years her senior and had been previously married to Mildred Maund and Joan Blondell. They had two children, Pamela Allyson Powell (adopted) and Richard Powell, Jr., and remained married until his death on January 2, 1963, which led to Allyson's effective retirement from the screen.

In 1950, June Allyson had been signed to appear opposite Fred Astaire in Royal Wedding, but had to leave the production due to pregnancy. (She was replaced initially by Judy Garland, and later Jane Powell.)

Following Powell's death, she went though a bitter court battle with her mother over custody of her children, Ricky and Pamela . Reports at the time revealed that writer/director Dirk Summers, with whom Allyson was romantically involved from 1963 to 1975, was named legal guardian for Ricky and Pamela as a result of a court petition.

Members of the nascent jet-set, Allyson and Summers were frequently seen in Cap d'Antibes, Madrid, Rome and London. However, the relationship did not last and she married briefly to Glenn Maxwell. She was married to David Ashrow, a dentist turned actor, from 1976 until her death.

Dick Powell had been a major television player with his own production company, Four Star, owning several network shows. When he died, Allyson was left very well off and didn't need to work. She occasionally made appearances on talk and variety shows, but gained newfound celebrity in the 1990s as spokeswoman for Depend adult undergarments. Her name made the headlines again when actor-turned-agent Marty Ingels publicly charged Allyson with not paying his large commission on the Depend deal. Allyson counter-charged that Ingels was harassing her with dozens of phone calls daily and nightly.
For her contribution to the motion picture industry, June Allyson received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1537 Vine Street.

Death
June passed away at her home in Ojai, California, with her husband of nearly 30 years, David Ashrow, at her side. She died of pulmonary respiratory failure and acute bronchitis. She was 88 years old.

Filmography
· Ups and Downs (1937) (short subject)
· Pixilated (1937) (short subject)
· Swing for Sale (1937) (short subject)
· Dime a Dance (1937) (short subject)
· Dates and Nuts (1937) (short subject)
· Not Now (1938) (short subject)
· Sing for Sweetie (1938) (short subject)
· The Prisoner of Swing (1938) (short subject)
· The Knight Is Young (1938) (short subject)
· All Girl Revue (1940) (short subject)
· Best Foot Forward (1943)
· Thousands Cheer (1943)
· Girl Crazy (1943)
· Meet the People (1944)
· Two Girls and a Sailor (1944)
· Music for Millions (1944)
· Her Highness and the Bellboy (1945)
· The Sailor Takes a Wife (1945)
· Two Sisters from Boston (1946)
· Till the Clouds Roll By (1946)
· The Secret Heart (1947)
· High Barbaree (1947)
· Good News (1947)
· The Bride Goes Wild (1948)
· The Three Musketeers (1948)
· Words and Music (1948)
· Little Women (1949)
· The Stratton Story (1949)
· The Reformer and the Redhead (1950)
· Right Cross (1950)
· Too Young to Kiss (1951)
· The Girl in White (1952)
· Battle Circus (1953)
· Remains to Be Seen (1953)
· The Glenn Miller Story (1953)
· Executive Suite (1954)
· Woman's World (1954)
· Strategic Air Command (1955)
· The Shrike (1955)
· The McConnell Story (1955)
· Screen Snapshots: Hollywood, City of Stars (1956) (short subject)
· The Opposite Sex (1956)
· You Can't Run Away from It (1956)
· Interlude (1957)
· My Man Godfrey (1957)
· A Stranger in My Arms (1959)
· They Only Kill Their Masters (1972)
· Blackout (1978)
· That's Entertainment! III (1994)
· A Girl, Three Guys, and a Gun (2001)

June at IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000742/

June at Classic Movies
http://www.thegoldenyears.org/allyson.html

posted in Classic Film Fans - 2 replies

a-men!

ludmilla — Sat, 08 Jul 2006 18:48:26 GMT

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/07/08/DDG8SJR2JB1.DTL&type=printable

posted in Classic Film Fans - 3 replies

7/7 George Cukor

Fri, 07 Jul 2006 15:52:41 GMT

George Dewey Cukor (July 7, 1899 – January 24, 1983) was an American film director.

Life and career
Cukor was born in New York City to Hungarian Jewish immigrants, Victor F. and Helen (Gross) Cukor. (His name means sugar in Hungarian.) As a teenager, he was infatuated with theater and often cut classes to attend afternoon matinees. Following his graduation from De Witt Clinton High School in 1916, he spent a year with the Students Army Training Corps. He then obtained a job as an assistant stage manager for a Chicago theater company. After gaining three years of experience, he formed his own stock company in Rochester, New York in 1920, and worked there for seven years. He then returned to Broadway where he worked with such formidable actresses as Ethel Barrymore and Jeanne Eagels.

When Hollywood began to recruit New York theater talent for sound films, Cukor answered their call and moved there in 1929. His first job was as a dialog director at Paramount Pictures for the film River of Romance (1929), followed by All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). He then co-directed three films before making his solo debut directing Tallulah Bankhead in Tarnished Lady (1931). Cukor left Paramount after a legal dispute resulting from his dismissal from an earlier film (One Hour With You) and went to work with David O. Selznick at RKO Studios.

Cukor's career flourished at RKO where he directed a string of impressive films including What Price Hollywood? (1932), A Bill of Divorcement (1932), Dinner at Eight (1933), Little Women (1933), David Copperfield (1935), Romeo and Juliet (1936), and Camille (1937).
By this time, Cukor had established a reputation as a director who could coax great performances from actresses and he became known as a "woman's director," (and homosexual) may have gotten him kicked off the set of Gone with the Wind (1939), when star Clark Gable allegedly said, "I won't be directed by a fairy." (Another version of this story has Gable's refusal to work with Cukor motivated by his belief that the director knew of the actor's own earlier same-sex escapades.)
One of Cukor's first ingenues was actress Katharine Hepburn, whose looks and personality left RKO officials at a loss as to how to use her. Cukor ended up directing her in her most successful films and they became close friends off the set.

Cukor was hired to direct Gone with the Wind by David O. Selznick in 1937 and he spent one year with pre-production duties as well as spending long hours coaching Vivien Leigh and Olivia de Havilland, the film's stars. Cukor was soon fired from the film, but continued to coach Leigh and De Havilland off the set.
Following the Gone with the Wind debacle, Cukor directed The Women (1939), a popular film notable for its all female cast and The Philadelphia Story (1940) starring Katharine Hepburn. He also directed another of his favorite actresses, Greta Garbo, in Two Faced Woman (1941) before she retired from the screen.

The 1940s was a decade of hits and misses for Cukor. He was off track with Two Faced Woman as well as Her Cardboard Lover (1942) starring Norma Shearer. However, he did achieve more success with films such as A Woman's Face (1941) with Joan Crawford, Gaslight (1944) with Ingrid Bergman and Adam's Rib (1949) with Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.

Cukor's reputation as an actor's director continued as he helped several actors win Academy Awards. James Stewart won a Best Actor Oscar for The Philadelphia Story, Ronald Colman won a Best Actor Oscar for A Double Life (1947) and Judy Holliday won for Best Actress in 1950 for Born Yesterday. In 1954, Cukor made his first film in color, A Star Is Born which featured an impressive come-back performance by Judy Garland. A decade later, Cukor won an Academy Award himself, for Best Director, for My Fair Lady (1964), for which Rex Harrison won a Best Actor Oscar too.

He continued to work into his 80s and directed his last film, Rich and Famous, in 1981.

Cukor was well known in his personal life as a man having a good time. During the heyday of Hollywood, his celebrated home was the site of weekly Sunday parties and his guests knew that they would always find interesting company, good food, and a beautiful atmosphere when they visited. Cukor's friends were of paramount importance to him and he kept his home filled with their photographs. Regular attendees at his soirees included Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, Joan Crawford and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. , Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart, Claudette Colbert, Marlene Dietrich, Laurence Olivier and Vivien Leigh, Richard Cromwell, Noel Coward, Cole Porter, James Whale, Edith Head, and Norma Shearer, especially after the death of her first husband, Irving Thalberg.

During his Hollywood years, he and Cole Porter competed within the Hollywood gay elite, earning them the title: "the rival Queens of Hollywood."
George Cukor died 1983 at the age of 83. He was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
Filmography
· Grumpy (film) (1930)
· Virtuous Sin (1930)
· The Royal Family of Broadway (1930)
· Tarnished Lady (1931),
· Girls About Town (1931),
· A Bill of Divorcement (1932),
· Rockabye (1932),
· What Price Hollywood? (1932),
· One Hour with You (1932)
· Dinner At Eight (1933),
· Our Betters (1933),
· Little Women (1933),
· David Copperfield (1935),
· No More Ladies, (1935),
· Sylvia Scarlett (1935),
· Camille (1936),
· Romeo and Juliet (1936),
· Holiday (1938),
· Zaza (1939),
· Gone with the Wind (started, replaced by Victor Fleming and Sam Wood) (1939),
· The Women (1939),
· The Philadelphia Story (1940),
· Susan and God (1940),
· Two-Faced Woman (1941),
· A Woman's Face (1941),
· Her Cardboard Lover (1942),
· Keeper of the Flame (1942),
· Gaslight (1944),
· Winged Victory (1944),
· A Double Life (1947),
· Edward, My Son (1949),
· Adam's Rib (1949),
· Born Yesterday (1950),
· A Life of Her Own (1950),
· The Model and the Marriage Broker (1951),
· The Marrying Kind (1952),
· Pat and Mike (1952),
· The Actress (1953),
· A Star Is Born (1954),
· It Should Happen to You (1954),
· Bhowani Junction (1956),
· Les Girls (1957),
· Wild Is the Wind (1957),
· Heller in Pink Tights (1960),
· Let's Make Love (1960),
· The Chapman Report (1962),
· My Fair Lady (1964),
· Justine (1969),
· Travels With My Aunt (1972),
· The Blue Bird (1976),
· Rich and Famous (1981).

George at IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002030/

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

7/7 Yul Brynner

Fri, 07 Jul 2006 14:33:59 GMT

Yul Brynner (July 7, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an Academy Award-winning Hollywood and Broadway Russian-born actor who held French citizenship. He appeared in many movies and stage productions in the United States. He is best known for his portrayal of the Siamese king in the Rodgers & Hammerstein musical The King and I as well as Ramesses II in The Ten Commandments.

Biography
He was born Yul Borisovich Brynner (Russian: Юл Бори́сович Бри́ннер) in Vladivostok, Russia. His mother, Marousia Blagоvidova, was the daughter of a Russian doctor of Jewish heritage (who had converted to Christianity) and his father, Boris Bryner, was an engineer and inventor of Swiss and Mongolian ancestry. He was named Yul after his paternal grandfather, Jules Bryner.

Brynner's early life was exotic, but he made it out to be even more exotic than it actually was, for example, claiming that he was born Taidje Khan of part-Japanese parentage on the Russian island of Sakhalin. A biography published by his son Rock Brynner in 1989 clarified these issues.

After Boris Bryner abandoned his family, his mother took Yul and his sister, Vera Bryner, to Harbin, China, where they attended a school run by the YMCA, and in 1934 she took them to Paris, France. Early in his career he was photographed nude by George Platt Lynes.

Brynner's best-known role was that of King Mongkut of Siam which he played 4626 times in both the stage and film versions of the musical The King and I, for which he won an Academy Award as Best Actor. He is one of only seven people who have won both a Tony Award and an Academy Award (Oscar) for the same role.

He made an immediate impact upon first starring in films in 1956, appearing not only in The King and I that year, but also in major roles in The Ten Commandments and Anastasia. He later starred in such films as Solomon and Sheba (1959), The Magnificent Seven (1960), and Westworld (1973).

Brynner died on October 10, 1985 (the same day as Orson Welles) in New York City at the age of 70. The cause of death was lung cancer brought on by smoking. In January 1985, nine months before his death, he gave an interview on Good Morning America, expressing his desire to make an anti-smoking commercial. A clip from that interview was made into just such a commercial by the American Cancer Society, and released after his death, which he opens by looking straight into the camera and intoning, "I'm dead."

Family life
Yul Brynner was married four times, of which the first three ended in divorce. He had three birth-children and adopted two others.
· His first wife, Virginia Gilmore (1944–1960), was an actress. They had one child, Yul Brynner II (b. December 23, 1946), nicknamed when he was six "Rock" by his father in honor of boxer Rocky Graziano, who won the middleweight title in 1947. Rock is a historian, novelist and university history lecturer.
· Lark Brynner (b. 1958) was born out of wedlock and raised by her mother.
· His second wife, Doris Kleiner (1960 – 1967), was a Chilean model, whom he married on the set during shooting of The Magnificent Seven in 1960.[2] They had one child Victoria Brynner (b. November 1962).
· His third wife, Jacqueline de Croisset (1971 – 1981), was a French socialite. She was the widow of Philippe de Croisset, a publishing executive. Yul and Jacqueline adopted two Vietnamese children: Mia (1974), and Melody (1975).
· His fourth wife, Kathy Lee, was an Asian dancer in The King and I shows.They married in 1983.

Trivia
· Towards the end of his life he contracted trichinosis and subsequently sued Trader Vic's restaurant in the Plaza Hotel in New York City for serving him undercooked pork, from which, allegedly, he caught the disease.
· He had an affair with Marlene Dietrich in the early 1950s and appeared on the Cafe Istanbul radio program.
· Brynner loved taking photographs. His daughter Victoria put together a book of his photographs of family, friends, and fellow actors, as well as those he took while serving as a UN special consultant on refugees. The book is titled Yul Brynner: Photographer
· He published two books in his lifetime. Bring forth the children: A journey to the forgotten people of Europe and the Middle East in 1960 and The Yul Brynner Cookbook: Food Fit for the King and You (ISBN 0812828828) in 1983.
· He is referenced in a Toy Dolls song entitled "Yul Brynner is a Skinhead". The lyrics, contrary to the title, humorously point out that Brynner can't be a skinhead since he's not wearing Dr. Martens boots and doesn't have any tattoos.
· Brynner's appearance in Westworld is noted in former Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus' song "Jo Jo's Jacket." The song appears on Malkmus' first solo album, Self Titled.
· Yul is referenced in "Stormtrooper", a song by Ooberman released as a secret track on their debut album The Magic Treehouse.
· He is also referenced in Murray Head's song, "One Night in Bangkok" (1984).
· One of the main characters in the 1993 Disney movie Cool Runnings goes by the name Yul Brynner.
· Brynner's height was 5'10".
· Made "Top 10 stars of the year", twice. 1957, 1958.
· To prevent being overshadowed by Charlton Heston's physical presence Brynner began to intensely lift weights for The Ten Commandments (1956).

Yul Fan Page
http://www.meredy.com/yulbrynner/

Yul at IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000989/

5mn montage of scenes from King and I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xUKOJBP1vFo&search=Yul%20Brynner

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

7/1 Farley Granger

Thu, 06 Jul 2006 15:40:33 GMT

Farley Granger (born July 1, 1925) is an American actor.
Born Farley Earle Granger II in San Jose, California, Granger was acting in theater in Los Angeles, California when he was signed to a film contract by Samuel Goldwyn. He made his debut The North Star (1943) and appeared in The Purple Heart (1944). Goldwyn was unsure how to use Granger, and it would be four years before he was able to make another film.

Goldwyn originally cast him in The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) to play a character with cerebral palsy, but before filming began Goldwyn had second thoughts about the character, and felt that someone suffering war injuries would be more topical. He therefore cast real life World War II veteran Harold Russell in the part intended for Granger.

Two more years passed and Granger later reported that he begged Goldwyn to be released from his contract, only to hear Goldwyn refuse. In 1948 Goldwyn cast him in a supporting role in Enchantment but the film failed to live up to Goldwyn's expectations. He was then approached by Alfred Hitchcock to loan him Granger for his new film. The film, Rope (1948), based partly on the Leopold and Loeb murder case, saw Granger costarring opposite John Dall as two friends who commit a "thrill kill". James Stewart played the part of their mentor. The film was not a box office success; its subject matter was dark, the relationship between Granger and Dall had a homosexual subtext (ironically, as both Granger and Dall were gay), and Hitchcock's gimmick of filming the piece in continuous scenes and in real time produced a result that many critics dismissed as "stagey". Granger received very good reviews however, and the film has achieved a level of appreciation in more recent times, while stopping short of becoming a cult film.

They Live by Night (1949) was Granger's first starring role. Directed by Nicholas Ray and costarring Cathy O'Donnell, it was a film noir romance story, that did well commercially and once again brought Granger strong reviews. During this time Goldwyn attempted to create a romantic couple in the eyes of the movie going public and so paired Granger with Joan Evans in Rosanna McCoy (1949), Edge of Doom and Our Very Own which also featured Ann Blyth (both 1950). He also costarred with O'Donnell in Side Street (1950). These films, with the exception of Edge of Doom, were all fairly successful but did not achieve the result Goldwyn had been hoping for. Once again, he agreed to loan Granger to Alfred Hitchcock.

Strangers on a Train (1951) was a genuine box office hit, the first major success of Granger's career. Once again Hitchcock attempted to reveal the troubled nature that lay beneath the surface of a seemingly upright young man, in this case a professional tennis player, when introduced to a persuasive character. This character, played by Robert Walker, provides a homosexual subtext, one of many similarities to Rope. Walker's character "Bruno" suggests to Guy (Granger) that they "swap" murders, with Bruno murdering Guy's wife and Guy supposed to murder Bruno's father. As each one is a complete stranger to the intended victim, and therefore without a motive, they would thus give each other an alibi.

Granger's subsequent films were box office failures, and he entered into filming Hans Christian Andersen (1952) with misgivings, complaining about the poor quality of the script. Granger spoke out against the film after it was completed and became uncooperative with Goldwyn. The relationship had been uneasy in the past and Granger once again asked to be released from his contract. Goldwyn again refused, and instructed Granger to honor his agreement. Before long Goldwyn realized he had no further interest in Granger or his career, and let him go.

Granger appeared regularly on television during this period but his film career foundered. The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing was his only mainstream success during the 1950s and Granger made no cinematic films during the 1960s. During this time he achieved some success on Broadway, appearing in several productions including The Crucible and The Glass Menagerie. From 1970 until 1974 Granger made a series of Italian language films that did nothing to further his career. In 1980 Granger returned to Broadway and appeared in Ira Levin's successful play Deathtrap.

He has also appeared in the soap operas As the World Turns as Earl Mitchell and ABC's One Life to Live, receiving a Daytime Emmy award for the latter, for his portrayal of Dr. Will Vernon.

Since the 1990s Granger has appeared in several documentaries discussing Hollywood and often specifically Alfred Hitchcock. In 1995 he was one of the people interviewed on camera for The Celluloid Closet discussing the depiction of homosexuality in film, and the use of subtext in various films, including his own. Rope, for example, was based on the story of two gay men, the actors chosen to portray them were both gay, and one of the play's writers Arthur Laurents was also gay, and claimed to have had a "fling" with Granger shortly before the film was made. In his book, Original Story by Arthur Laurents: A Memoir of Broadway and Hollywood (ISBN 1557834679), playwright and screenwriter Laurents states that he had a long-term homosexual relationship with Granger.

In 2001, Granger was due to appear in the 1926 Noël Coward play Semi-Monde. He came to London and completed rehearsals, but withdrew from the production before it opened.
Farley Granger has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contribution to television, at 1551 Vine Street.

Farley at IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0335048/

The Farley Granger Scarpbook/Fansite
http://www.geocities.com/farleygrangerscrapbook/biography.htm

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

7/1 Olivia De Havilland

Thu, 06 Jul 2006 15:22:27 GMT

Olivia Mary de Havilland (born July 1, 1916) is a two-time Academy Award-winning Japanese-born American film actress.

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 the late Charles de Havilland, who was the father of Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, the famous aviation pioneer (who died in 1946).

Her younger sister is the actress Joan Fontaine (also born in Tokyo, on October 22, 1917), from whom she has been famously 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 with the same cast. 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 played Melanie Wilkes in Gone with the Wind (1939) and received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress nomination for her performance. Out of the four stars of Gone with the Wind (the others being Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh and Leslie Howard), she is the only one who is still alive. Ironically, her character was the only one of the four who died in the film.

In 1941, Olivia became a naturalized citizen of the United States. De Havilland and her sister were each nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress in 1942. Fontaine won first for her role in Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion (1941) over de Havilland's nomination for Hold Back the Dawn (1941).

Biographer Charles Higham has described the events of the awards ceremony, stating that as Fontaine stepped forward to collect her award, she had pointedly rejected de Havilland's attempts at congratulating her and that de Havilland was both offended and embarrassed by her behavior. Several years later, de Havilland would return the favor and brush by Fontaine, waiting with her hand extended, because Olivia had allegedly taken offense at a comment Joan made about Olivia's then-husband. He records that the sisters always had an uneasy relationship, even since early childhood, when Olivia would rip up the clothes Joan had to wear as hand-me-downs, forcing Joan to sew them back together. Both sisters have refused to comment.

Higham has stated that the incident in 1942 was the final straw for what would become a lifelong feud, but this is debatable, since the sisters did not completely cease speaking until 1975, because, according to Fontaine, de Havilland did not invite her to a memorial service for their mother who had recently died, although Olivia claims she told Joan and Joan brushed her off saying she was too busy to attend. The truth is hard to get when one is faced with two different versions of the same event.

By this time, de Havilland 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 court's rulling 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. De Havilland continued acting until the 1980s.

Private life
De Havilland had a relationship with John Huston in the early 1940s. Afterward, she married and divorced novelist Marcus Goodrich between 1946 and 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 good friends with her co-star at Warners, the late Bette Davis, and also with Gloria Stuart, the newly rediscovered (in her 80s) ingenue of Titanic (1997 film).

A resident of Paris since the 1950s, de Havilland lives in retirement and makes appearances rarely. She is reported to be working on an autobiography. One of her most recent public appearances was as a presenter at the 75th Annual Academy Awards in 2003.

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 documentary lasted for a little under 40 minutes and can be seen on the Gone with the Wind four-disc special collector's edition.
Dutch poet J.A. Deelder wrote an epic poem about his childhood called Portret van Olivia de Havilland (Portrait of Olivia de Havilland).

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)
· 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)
· Government Girl (1943)
· To Each His Own (1946)
· Devotion (1946)
· The Well-Groomed Bride (1946)
· The Dark Mirror (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)

Fansite
http://www.meredy.com/oliviadehavilland/

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

Olivia at Classic Movies
http://www.thegoldenyears.org/havill.html

Fansite
http://www.geocities.com/chillygirl_18/

The Official Olivia DeHavilland Fanlist
http://oliviadehavilland.tripod.com/odh/

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

Mr. Arkadin (1955)

Thu, 15 Jun 2006 03:21:16 GMT

Recently The Criterion Collection released an ambitious 3-DVD package of Orson Welles’ 1955 classic film, “Mr. Arkadin” aka “Confidential Report.” The set includes three versions of the film: “Confidential Report” (originally released in Europe), “Mr. Arkadin” (the 1962, US released edition), and a new comprehensive version. The extensive package includes the usual audio commentary from film scholars but not so usual, it also includes the novel “Mr. Arkadin” credited to Orson Welles. Some may say this release is somewhat excessive but to Welles fans such as myself, rejoice in the inclusion of another piece of the puzzle that is the story of Mr. Arkadin.

The tale is based on several combined elements taken from the radio series, “The Adventures of Harry Lime,” which Welles starred in and often wrote. Mr. Arkadin (Orson Welles) is a billionaire who hires a shady grifter, Guy Van Stratten (Robert Arden) to research his past and see what kind of dirt he could come up with. It has been Mr. Arkadin’s obsession to hide the truth of his past from his daughter, Raina (Paola Mori). He has a rather large history to hide as it includes being associated with armaments and war profiteering, as well as white slave rings and other atrocities.

This is a wonderful film to watch even if the premise is somewhat thin and the acting between the main characters weak. For instance, although the protagonist is obsessed with his daughter’s opinion of him, there is not enough emotion conveyed in the scenes between the two to ever get the feeling that they actually care for one another. Mr. Arkadin only seems to convey outrage when he suspects that she may be romantically involved with Van Stratten. The relationship between Van Stratten and his girlfriend, Milly (Patricia Medina), is difficult to believe also, since neither one shows any type of affection towards the other. The film spends the most time with Van Stratten and generally things are from his point of view as he uncovers Mr. Arkadin’s shaded past. Unfortunately, Van Stratten is somewhat of an unlikable prick and builds no empathy or rapport with the viewer. Although this may be intentional, on Welles’ part, it makes it difficult to care much about him. All of the main characters come across as rather hollow and bereft of depth.

The interesting parts are left to the character actors who play people from Arkadin’s past which Van Stratten encounters as he circles the globe in search of details. Colorful characters such as the owner of a flea circus (Mischa Aver), A baroness (Katina Paxinou), and shop keeper (Michael Redgrave) are each strange and eccentric in their own way with the British actors who portray them turning in spectacularly good performances. In addition the weary ex-con, Jacob Zouk (Akim Tamiroff) whom Van Stratten warns and tries to save, is a funny character that isn’t too concerned about being saved and demands to be fed goose liver at any cost. It is these minor characters that make up the real emotional core of the film.

It is the minor characters that capture one’s attention to the film, but also the magnificent way in which Welles films his story. There’s a cavalcade of images that hurry the story along: skewed angels, frequent use of short lenses that compress the space in the frame which gives scenes with even simple dialogue an expressionistic quality. Welles plays with images and shadows to great effect. For example and the beginning of the story we see a figure walking away from the camera but his shadow grows larger as he walks away.

Mr. Arkadin explores the ambiguity of people’s backgrounds: where they come from and whom they turn themselves. Welles himself said of the character when biographer Peter Bogdonovih interviewed him: Arkadin is a profiteer, an opportunist, and a genial parasite who nourishes himself on corruption and doesn’t look for a way to justify himself. He could be Greek, Russian, Georgian, or Yugoslav. Arriving from some old half-savage country he sets himself up in modern western-European civilization using his particular sort of energy and barbaric intelligence. His morality may be hateful but not his spirit.

Orson Welles never did complete a final cut of Mr. Arkadin. The producer fired him from the project after he took too long to edit the film. Unlike, some of his unfinished projects that were completed by others, there are no extensive notes as to his original vision of the film. So what’s left are different edits of the film and speculations and interpretations of what might have been Welles original intentions. As it stands, Mr. Arkadin is a pretty amazing puzzle that has been put together several different ways with or without all the pieces. Each version is valid and a mysteriously unique work of art.

posted in Classic Film Fans - 4 replies

rented dvd's

lorenzo — Thu, 22 Jun 2006 06:17:12 GMT

picked up the Big Clock and the Chinese Cat. . .classics to enjoy.

Do you find a good selection in your local dvd store? (not including videotape)

posted in Classic Film Fans - 3 replies

6/20 Errol Flynn

Wed, 21 Jun 2006 22:29:31 GMT

Errol Leslie Thomson Flynn (June 20, 1909 – October 14, 1959) was an Australian-American film actor, most famous for his romantic swashbuckler roles and flamboyant lifestyle.

Born in Hobart, Tasmania, he was taken to Sydney, Australia as a child, where he attended Sydney Church of England Grammar School from which he was expelled for having an affair with the School Nurse. He was also expelled from the next school he attended. Shortly afterwards he moved to New Guinea, where he bought a tobacco plantation, a business which failed. In 1933 he starred in the Australian made film In The Wake Of The Bounty directed by Charles Chauvel. In the early 1930s he left for Britain and in 1933 got an acting job with Northampton Repertory Company, where he worked for six months. According to Gerry Connelly's Book Errol Flynn in Northampton, he also acted at the 1934 Malvern Festival, and also in Glasgow and in London's West End. He was discovered by a Warner Bros. executive, signed to a contract and shipped to America as a contract player.

Flynn became an overnight sensation with his third film, Captain Blood, in 1935. He became typecast as a swashbuckler and made a host of such films, including The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) (widely regarded as his best film in this genre and an acknowledged Hollywood classic), Dodge City (1939), The Sea Hawk (1940), and The Adventures of Don Juan (1948).

Flynn played opposite Olivia de Havilland in eight films, including Captain Blood, The Charge of the Light Brigade (1938), The Adventures of Robin Hood, Santa Fe Trail (1940), and They Died with their Boots On (1941). The two were never romantically involved.

During the shooting of The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), Flynn and co-star Bette Davis had some legendary off-screen fights, with Davis striking him harder than necessary while filming a scene. Their relationship was always strained but Warner Bros. teamed them up on two separate occasions. A contract was even presented to loan them out as Rhett and Scarlett in Gone with the Wind; however, the teaming failed to materialize when Davis declined to work with Flynn.

Flynn was well known for drinking, womanizing, and throwing wild parties. However, his lifestyle caught up with him when teenagers Betty Hansen and Peggy Satterlee accused him of statutory rape in November 1942. A group organized to support Flynn, named the American Boys Club for the Defense of Errol Flynn (ABCDEF); its members included, surprisingly, William F. Buckley, Jr.. The trial took place in January and February of 1943, and Flynn was cleared of the crime. The incident served to increase his reputation as a lady's man, and the term "In Like Flynn" came to be synonymous with succeeding in romantic endeavors.

Flynn was a member of Hollywood's Cricket Club, along with his close friend David Niven. His suave, debonair, and devil-may-care attitude towards both ladies and life has been immortalized into the English language by author Benjamin S. Johnson as "Errolesque" in his treatise on the subject, "An Errolesque Philosophy on Life."

By the 1950s, Flynn became a parody of himself. Heavy alcohol and drug abuse left him prematurely aged and bloated, but he still won acclaim as a drunken ne'er-do-well in The Sun Also Rises (1957). His colourful but somewhat creative autobiography, My Wicked, Wicked Ways, was published just months after his death and contains humorous anecdotes about Hollywood. Flynn wanted to call the book In Like Me, but the publisher refused.

Flynn was married three times, to actress Lili Damita from 1935 until 1942 (one son, Sean Flynn); to Nora Eddington from 1943 until 1948 (two daughters, Deirdre and Rory); and to actress Patrice Wymore from 1950 until his death (one daughter, Arnella Roma).

Although there are rumours that Flynn was bisexual, this has never been confirmed. Truman Capote said he had a sexual relationship with Flynn, but Capote was renowned for claiming to be acquainted with people he had never met.

In the late 1950s, Flynn met the 15-year-old Beverly Aadland at the Hollywood Professional School, whom he courted during his last few years. He planned to marry her and move to their new house in Jamaica, but during their trip to Vancouver he died of a heart attack. His only son, Sean Flynn, became an actor and later a war correspondent who disappeared in Cambodia in 1970 during the Vietnam War. The younger Flynn's life was recounted in Inherited Risk by Jeffrey Meyers (Simon & Schuster).

One of Errol Flynn's grandsons, model Luke Flynn (born Luke Stoecker in 1976), the only child of Arnella Flynn (1953-1998) and fashion photographer Carl Stoecker, was named one of the world's sexiest bachelors by People magazine in 2003. His mother, a former fashion model, died on the Flynn family estate in Jamaica at the age of 45.

Flynn died of a massive heart attack at the home of a friend on October 14, 1959, at the age of fifty. He was survived by both his parents. He is interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery, in Glendale, California. He shares coffin space with six bottles of whiskey, a parting gift from his drinking buddies.

Flynn received American citizenship in 1942. In Hollywood he tended to refer himself as Irish rather than Australian, supposedly as he felt few people there knew of Australia. His father Theodore Thomson Flynn was a biologist and a professor at the Queen's University of Belfast.

Author Charles Higham published a controversial biography, Errol Flynn: The Untold Story (Doubleday, 1980) in which he alleged that Flynn was a fascist sympathiser and that he spied for the Nazis before and during World War II. Subsequent biographies—notably Tony Thomas' Errol Flynn: The Spy Who Never Was (Citadel, 1990)—have denounced Higham's claims as fabrications. Flynn's political leanings appear to be of a leftist bent. He was a supporter of the Spanish Republic in the Spanish Civil War and of the Cuban Revolution, even narrating a documentary titled 'Cuban Story' shortly before his death.

According to Flynn's own words in My Wicked, Wicked Ways, he considered Fidel Castro to be a personal friend. He went to Cuba to experience the Cuban revolution first-hand. He found Castro fascinating and declared in 1959, on the Canadian television program Front Page Challenge that Castro would go down in history as one of the greats.

IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001224/

In Like Flynn
http://inlikeflynn.com/flynn.html

Flynn at Classic Movies
http://www.thegoldenyears.org/flynn.html

Flynn .net
http://www.errolflynn.net/

E Flynn Estate Site
http://errolflynnestates.com/

posted in Classic Film Fans - 5 replies

6/21 Jane Russell

Wed, 21 Jun 2006 21:25:17 GMT

Jane Russell (born June 21, 1921) is an American actress. She was born Ernestine Jane Geraldine Russell in Bemidji, Minnesota.

Early life

Jane Russell was born in Bemidji, Minnesota, the only daughter of Roy William Russell (January 5, 1890-July 18, 1937) and Geraldine Jacobi (January 2, 1891-December 26, 1986). Her four younger brothers are Thomas Ferris Russell (born April 16, 1924), Kenneth Steven Russell (born September 2, 1925), James Hyatt Russell (born February 9, 1927) and Wallace Jay Russell (born January 31, 1929).

Her parents were both born in North Dakota. Three of her grandparents were born in Canada, while her paternal grandmother was born in Germany. Her parents married in 1917. Her father was a former commissioned First Lieutenant in the U.S. Army and her mother was a former actress with a road troupe. When Jane was a child they moved temporarily to Canada, then moved to the San Fernando Valley of Southern California. They lived in Burbank in 1930 and her father worked as an office manager at a soap manufacturing plant.

Jane's mother arranged for her to take piano lessons. In addition to music, she was interested in drama and participated in stage productions at Van Nuys High School. Her early ambition was to be a designer of some kind, until the death of her father at forty-six, when she decided to work as a receptionist after graduation. She also modeled for photographers and, at the urging of her mother, studied drama and acting with Max Reinhardt's Theatrical Workshop and with famed Russian actress Maria Ouspenskaya.

Start of her career

In 1940, Russell was signed to a seven year contract by millionaire Howard Hughes and made her motion picture debut in The Outlaw (1943), a story about Billy the Kid that went to great lengths to showcase her voluptuous bust. Although the movie was completed in 1941, it was released for a limited showing two years later. There were problems with the censorship of the production code over the way her ample cleavage was displayed. When the movie was finally passed, it had a general release in 1946. During that time, Russell was kept busy doing publicity and became famous.

Togather with Lana Turner, Russell personified the sensuously contoured sweater girl look. Besides the thousands of quips from radio comedians, including Bob Hope once introducing her as "the two and only Jane Russell," the photo of her on a haystack glowering with sulking beauty and youthful sensuality as her breasts push forcefully against her bodice was a popular pin-up with Service men during World War II.

Though The Outlaw was not a spectacular Western, it did well at the box-office. It appeared that Hughes was only interested in her being cast in movies that showcased her sensational figure, however, reportedly refusing an offer from Darryl Zanuck for her to play Doña Sol in Blood and Sand. She was not in another movie until 1946, when she played Joan Kenwood in Young Widow for RKO. Though her early movies did little to show her true acting abilities, they helped parlay her into a career portraying smart, often cynical, tough "broads," with a wisecracking attitude.

In 1947, Russell attempted to launch a musical career, recording a single with the Kay Kyser Orchestra, "As Long As I Live".

She went on to perform with proficiency in an assortment of roles, which includes playing Calamity Jane opposite Bob Hope in The Paleface (1948) on loan out to Paramount; and Mike Delroy opposite Hope in Son of Paleface (1952), again at Paramount.

Her family life

Russell had three husbands, NFL quarterback and producer Bob Waterfield (married April 24, 1943-divorced July 1968), actor Roger Barrett (married August 25, 1968-his death November 18, 1968) and real-estate broker John Calvin Peoples (married January 31, 1974-his death April 9, 1999). She and Peoples lived in Sedona, Arizona.

In February 1952 she and Waterfield adopted a baby girl, Tracy. In December 1952 they adopted a fifteen-month-old boy, Thomas, and in 1956 she and Waterfield adopted a nine-month-old boy, Robert John.

Russell was unable to have children and, in 1955, she founded World Adoption International Fund (WAIF), an organization to place children with adoptive families that pioneered adoptions from foreign countries by Americans.

Though her screen image was that of a sex goddess, her private life lacked the sensation and scandal that followed other actresses of the time, such as Lana Turner. At the height of her career, Russell started the "Hollywood Christian Group," a weekly Bible study at her home for Christians in the movie business that was attended by some of the biggest names. Russell was a prominent Republican who attended the Eisenhower inauguration, along with Lou Costello, Dick Powell, June Allyson, Anita Louise, Louella Parsons, and other conservatives.

Her works

Russell was at the height of her wry comedic talents with her performance as Dorothy Shaw in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) opposite Marilyn Monroe at 20th Century Fox, which is one of her most memorable roles. It was an excellent movie and showed her as a talented actress.

She appeared in two movies opposite Robert Mitchum, His Kind of Woman (1951) and Macao (1952). Other co-stars include Frank Sinatra and Groucho Marx in the comedy Double Dynamite (1951); Victor Mature, Vincent Price and Hoagy Carmichael in The Las Vegas Story (1952); Jeff Chandler in Foxfire (1955); and Clark Gable and Robert Ryan in The Tall Men (1955).

Russell and her first husband, Waterfield, formed Russ-Field Productions in 1955. They produced Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1955), The King and Four Queens (1956) starring Clark Gable and Eleanor Parker, Run for the Sun (1956) and The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown (1957).

Her performances in Gentlemen Marry Brunettes, opposite Jeanne Crain, and in the drama The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956) displayed her fine acting ability. But after making The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown (1957), which failed at the box-office, she did not appear on the silver screen again for seven years.

In October 1957, she debuted in a successful solo nightclub act at the Sands Hotel in Las Vegas. She also fulfilled later engagements in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, South America and Europe.

In the Summer of 1961, she debuted with a tour of Janus in New England. In the Fall of 1961, she performed in Skylark at the Drury Lane Theatre, Chicago. And in November 1962, she performed in Bells Are Ringing at the Westchester Town House in Yonkers, New York.
Her next movie appearance was in Fate Is the Hunter (1964), in which she was Jane Russell performing for the USO in a flashback sequence. Unfortunately, she made only four more movies after that, playing character parts in the final two.

In 1971, she starred in the musical drama Company on Broadway, replacing Elaine Stritch. Russell performed the role of Joanne in the play for six months. Also in the 1970s, she started appearing in television commercials as a spokeswoman for Playtex "cross your heart bras for us full-figured gals."

She wrote an autobiography in 1985, Jane Russell: My Path and My Detours. In 1989, she received the Women's International Center (WIC) Living Legacy Award.
Jane Russell's hand and foot prints are immortalized in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theater and she has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6850 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood.

Filmography
· The Outlaw (1943)
· Young Widow (1946)
· The Paleface (1948)
· Screen Snapshots: Hollywood Rodeo (1949) (short subject)
· Hollywood Goes to Bat (1950) (short subject)
· His Kind of Woman (1951)
· Double Dynamite (1951)
· The Las Vegas Story (1952)
· Macao (1952)
· Son of Paleface (1952)
· Montana Belle (1952)
· Road to Bali (1952) (Cameo)
· Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
· The French Line (1954)
· Underwater! (1955)
· Foxfire (1955)
· The Tall Men (1955)
· Gentlemen Marry Brunettes (1955)
· Screen Snapshots: Playtime in Hollywood (1956) (short subject)
· Hot Blood (1956)
· The Revolt of Mamie Stover (1956)
· The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown (1957)
· Fate Is the Hunter (1964)
· Johnny Reno (1966)
· Waco (1966)
· The Born Losers (1967)
· Darker Than Amber (1970)
· The Yellow Rose (1983-1984) (TV series)

Jane at bombshells.com
http://www.bombshells.com/gallery/russell/

Jane Russell Tribe (great gallery)
http://tribes.tribe.net/janerussell

IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000066/

Jane at Classic Movies
http://www.thegoldenyears.org/jrussell.html

posted in Classic Film Fans - 1 reply

6/21 Judy Holliday

Wed, 21 Jun 2006 21:34:49 GMT

Judy Holliday (June 21, 1921–June 7, 1965) was an Academy Award-winning American actress.

Born Judith Tuvim ("Tuvim" is Yiddish for "Holiday") in New York City, she was the only child of Abe and Helen Tuvim, who were Jewish immigrants from Russia. Her first job was as an assistant switchboard operator at the Mercury Theatre run by Orson Welles and John Houseman. She began her show business career in December, 1938, as part of a nightclub act called "The Revuers". The other four members of the group were Betty Comden, Adolph Green, Alvin Hammer and John Frank. The Revuers were a staple of the New York nightlife scene until they disbanded in early 1944.

ACTING CAREER

Holliday made her Broadway debut on March 20, 1945, at the Belasco Theatre in Kiss Them for Me and was one of the recipients that year of the Clarence Derwent Award. In 1946 she was back on Broadway as the scatterbrained "Billie Dawn" in Born Yesterday.

Author Garson Kanin wrote the play specifically for his friend, the brilliant but difficult Jean Arthur. Arthur played the role of "Billie" out-of-town, but after many complaints and illnesses, resigned. Kanin chose Holliday as her replacement. In 1949, she was cast in a supporting role opposite Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy on film in one of the year's biggest comedies, Adam's Rib.

The part gave her the chance to star in the film version of Born Yesterday the next year for which she won the Golden Globe and Academy Award for Best Actress, beating out such formidable competitors as Gloria Swanson, who was nominated for Sunset Boulevard and Bette Davis, who was nominated for All About Eve.

INVESTIGATED FOR COMMUNISM

In 1950, Holliday was the subject of an FBI investigaton looking into allegations that she was a Communist. The investigation "did not reveal positive evidence of membership in the Communist Party" and was concluded after 3 months. Unlike many others that were tainted by the Communist scandal, she was not blacklisted from the movie business, but she was blacklisted from performing on radio and television for almost 3 years.

In 1952, she was called to testify before the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee to "explain" why her name had been linked to Communist front organizations. She was advised to play dumb, like one of her film characters and did so excellently. She used this technique to avoid giving up names of people that she knew to be Communists.

LATER LIFE AND CAREER

In 1956 she starred in The Solid Gold Cadillac, and, in 1960 in Bells Are Ringing, in the role she had originated on Broadway in 1956, and for which she had won the 1957 Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical.

In 1965 she died from breast cancer at the age of 43, survived by her young son. She was interred in the Westchester Hills Cemetery in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York.

Filmography
· Too Much Johnson (1938) (short subject)
· Greenwich Village (1944)
· Something for the Boys (1944)
· Winged Victory (1944)
· Adam's Rib (1949)
· On the Town (1949) (voice only)
· Born Yesterday (1950)
· The Marrying Kind (1952)
· It Should Happen to You (1954)
· Phffft! (1954)
· The Solid Gold Cadillac (1956)
· Full of Life (1957)
· Bells Are Ringing (1960)

Stage Work
· My Dear Public (1942) (w./ The Revuers)
· Kiss Them for Me (1945)
· Born Yesterday (1946)
· Dream Girl (1951)
· Bells Are Ringing (1956)
· Laurette (1960)
· Hot Spot (1963)

Judy Holliday Resource Center
http://www.wtv-zone.com/lumina/judy/main.html

Judys FBI Files
http://www.wtv-zone.com/lumina/judy/fbi.html

IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0391062/

Judy at Classic Movies
http://www.thegoldenyears.org/holliday.html

posted in Classic Film Fans - 2 replies

Bette Davis singing "They're Either Too Young Or Too Old"

Wed, 21 Jun 2006 23:27:37 GMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l26EhG4jSYo&search=errol%20flynn

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

Happy Birthday~Audrey Hepburn!

silverstream — Thu, 04 May 2006 05:16:44 GMT

I just want to take a moment to honor audrey...whose Holly Golightly...we all Love... the "gamine" with the doe eyes, who brought to our hearts a mixture of innocence and sophistication...and a little bit of the imp!...whose later work with the hungry gf the world touched our hearts and minds once again..Dear love-ly Audrey (who shares this birthday w/ my mother!)...Happy Birthday!
And ...can Dear Sean...who is So good at these things share a bio...and some great info about the lovely Miss Audrey Hepburn!
wouldlya...couldya Sean...Please?...Thanks!

posted in Classic Film Fans - 7 replies

6/10 Judy Garland

Sat, 10 Jun 2006 14:56:39 GMT

Judy Garland (June 10, 1922 – June 22, 1969), born Frances Ethel Gumm, was an American film actress considered by many to be one of the greatest singing stars of Hollywood's Golden Era of musical film. She was known for her intense acting, charming wit, and great sense of humor. Garland also excelled in the ability to depict emotion in a song, and maintain her amazingly strong, quivering voice.

CHILDHOOD AND EARLY LIFE

Born in Grand Rapids, Minnesota, Frances Ethel Gumm was the youngest child of former vaudevillians Frank Avent and Ethel Milne Gumm. Named for both her parents and baptized at the local Episcopalian [1] church, "Baby" (as Frances was nicknamed) was the apple of her father's eye—and it was apparent from a very early age that she shared the family's flair for song and dance. "Baby" Gumm's first professional appearance came at the age of two-and-a-half, when she toddled onstage to join her two older sisters, Mary Jane ("Susie") and Dorothy Virginia ("Jimmie"), for a chorus of Jingle Bells in a Christmas show at her father's theater on December 26, 1924. In 1934, the sisters, who were touring the vaudeville circuit as "The Gumm Sisters," performed in Chicago at the Oriental Theater with George Jessel. He encouraged the group to choose a more appealing name after "Gumm" received small laughter from the audience. They settled on "The Garland Sisters," and young Frances soon afterward picked the name "Judy" after a popular song of the day by Hoagy Carmichael. A rumor persists that Jessel came up with the last name Garland after Carole Lombard's character Lily Garland in the film Twentieth Century, which was playing at the Oriental; another rumor is that the sisters came up with the surname Garland after drama critic Robert Garland (reference: Judy: Beyond the Rainbow, A&E/Biography television special), though Lorna Luft stated in her book Me and My Shadows that her mother chose the name when Jessel announced that the trio of singers looked prettier than a Garland of flowers.

In 1935, at the age of 13, Garland was signed to a contract with MGM, allegedly without a screen test (in fact, she actually had done a test for the studio several months earlier). Garland's first notice by studio executives came after singing "You Made Me Love You" to Clark Gable at a birthday party held by the studio for the King of Hollywood. Her rendition proved so popular that MGM placed Garland and the song in their all-star extravaganza Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937).

After a string of minor roles, at the age of 16 she landed the role of "Dorothy" in the MGM film The Wizard of Oz (1939), and has been associated ever since with the song "Over the Rainbow." She received an honorary Academy Award for her performance in the film. After Oz, Garland became one of MGM's most bankable stars, proving particularly popular when teamed with her longtime friend Mickey Rooney in a string of "let's put on a show!" musicals. The duo first appeared together in the 1937 b-movie Thoroughbreds Don't Cry. They became a sensation and they teamed up again in Love Finds Andy Hardy, and then soon after in Babes in Arms. Garland eventually would star with Rooney in nine films.

To keep up with the frantic pace of making one movie after another, Garland, Rooney, and other young performers were constantly given amphetamines, as well as barbiturates to take before bedtime (reference: "Judy Garland: By Myself" in the American Masters series on PBS). For Garland, this constant dose of drugs would lead to addiction and a lifelong struggle, as well as her eventual demise. In her later life, she would resent the hectic work and she felt that her youth was stolen from her by MGM. She was plagued with self-doubt throughout her life and needed constant reassurance that she was talented, despite her ability to fill concert halls with fans eager to hear her, high critical praise, and several awards.

Her physical appearance was deemed unacceptable by MGM and she was often made to feel unattractive. She did not embody the classic beauty of other starlets and her looks caused her a great deal of anxiety. Therefore, Garland went through a trasformation process throughtout her film career at MGM. During the early years she was photographed and dressed in plain garments. She was made to look like the girl next door. By 1943 she was finally given the glamour treatment in Presenting Lily Mars in which she was dressed in a glamourous gown and her hair was pulled-up in a stylish fashion. By 1944 Garland was given a new make-up artist who refined her look by extending and reshaping her eyebrows, tweezing her hairline and filling out her lips with rouge. The effect was breathtaking. Interestingly, MGM's attempts to "glamorize" Garland stopped in 1948 in which Garland's appearance again appeared toned down yet refined. Publicly, Garland stated that she was never quite happy with her appearance on screen except in Meet me in St. Louis and The Clock. Her weight fluctuated between films as the studio demanded she remain 98 pounds. Some have speculated that by 1947 Garland was suffering from malnutrition and even anorexia. It is notable that today Judy is regarded as one of the most beatiful women ever photographed on film.

MOVIE STAR

Throughout the 1940s, Garland's films increased in popularity, making her the most critically and financially successful female musical star of the time. She was given the lead in For Me and My Gal (1942), in which she was top billed over the credits for the first time. She made the direct transition from the girl next door to an adult actress. One of her most successful films for MGM is the 1944 classic Meet Me in St. Louis, in which she introduced three standards: "The Trolley Song," "The Boy Next Door," and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." The Clock (1945) was her first straight dramatic film opposite Robert Walker. Though the film was critically praised and did earn a profit, most movie fans expected her to sing. Therefore, it would be many years before she acted again in a non-singing dramatic role. Nevertheless, The Clock has become increasingly popular among Garland fans and is considered to be a true war/romance classic.

Garland's other famous films of the 1940s include The Harvey Girls (1946) (in which she introduced "On the Atchison, Topeka and the Santa Fe"), The Pirate, and Easter Parade (both 1948).

In September 1945, Garland married MGM director Vincente Minnelli and, in March 1946, Garland gave birth to a daughter, Liza. Soon afterward, the hectic work schedule and the exhausting motion picture business began to take its toll on Garland as she returned to MGM, which led to several days' absence from the studio over the next four years as well as numerous incidents; in April 1947, during filming for The Pirate, Garland suffered a nervous breakdown and had to be led away from the set [2]. After this, Garland had a number of other breakdowns that would lead to her departure from MGM; it would also reveal the emotional turmoil that Garland suffered. Two months later, Garland made her first suicide attempt.

Garland's relationship with MGM crumbled as the 1950s began. She was originally cast in The Barkleys of Broadway (1949) with Fred Astaire, after the success of Easter Parade. Garland, after missing rehearsals, was suspended by MGM and replaced by Ginger Rogers; she then managed to complete In the Good Old Summertime (1949) with Van Johnson (Garland's 2-year-old daughter Liza Minnelli makes a cameo at the end of the picture).

Garland was signed to appear as Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun (1950), but the film put much strain on her health. After completing two musical numbers, she was fired from the film and replaced by Betty Hutton. Garland then completed Summer Stock alongside Gene Kelly, produced by Joe Pasternak and his secondary musical unit (which wasn't as high-powered as the Arthur Freed Unit [3]). Her performance of "Get Happy" in Summer Stock - dressed in the top half of a man's tuxedo, fedora, and black leotard - became another Garland milestone. When June Allyson became pregnant during the filming of Royal Wedding, Garland was her replacement, but was dropped from the film and immediately put on suspension after she canceled a rehearsal call [4]. She was eventually replaced by Jane Powell.

In June 1950, Garland cut her throat with a piece of glass. Although the cut was superficial, the newspapers glorified the story, and Garland was visited by many well-known celebrities who tried to bring up her spirits. Although many state that it was a suicide attempt, it was more likely a cry for help.
Garland returned to MGM in September 1950. Eleven days later, her MGM contract was terminated.

Renewed stardom on the stage and television

Garland turned to live concert appearances and appeared on various television specials in the early 50s. In 1951, Garland divorced Vincente Minnelli and married Sid Luft, her manager at the time, the next year. In 1953, a daughter, Lorna Luft, was born.

In 1954, she made a notable cinema comeback for Warner Bros. with A Star is Born, and was nominated for Best Actress. This film is considered by many critics to be her finest performance. Directed by George Cukor and produced by her husband Sid Luft (through Garland and Luft's Transcona Enterprises), it was a large undertaking in which Garland fully immersed herself. It was also a physically demanding role that had Garland on edge and constantly worried. Upon its release, the film was cut by almost 30 minutes amid fears it was too long. Though Garland was believed to be the most likely winner for Best Actress, the Oscar went to Grace Kelly for The Country Girl (1954). Many fans hold that Garland was "robbed" of her Oscar, and should have won the award. Garland and Luft's contract with Warner Bros. ensured a series of films to be made. However, due to the editing of the film, Garland and Luft made no more films for the studio.

Although she made no other films in the 1950s, Garland's films after A Star is Born include Judgment at Nuremburg (1961) (for which she was nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role), the animated feature, Gay Purr-ee (1962), A Child is Waiting (1963), co-starring Burt Lancaster, and her final film entitled I Could Go On Singing (1963), which mirrored her own life in the story of a fading singing star.

In November 1959, Garland was diagnosed with hepatitis and told that she "would never sing again" However, Garland successfully returned to both films and television; her concert appearance at Carnegie Hall on April 23, 1961, was a considerable highlight, called by many the "greatest single night in show business." The 2-record live recording made of the concert was a best-seller (certified gold), charting for 73 weeks on Billboard (13 weeks at number one), and won five Grammy Awards including Album of the Year and Best Female Vocal of the Year. The album has never been out of print.

After hugely successful television specials and guest appearances in the early 1960s, CBS made a $24 million offer to Garland for a weekly television series of her own, The Judy Garland Show, which was deemed at the time in the press to be "the biggest talent deal in TV history." The television series was critically praised, but, for a variety of reasons, including the fact it was placed in the same time slot as Bonanza, lasted only one season, and went off the air in 1964, after 26 episodes. Despite this, the show won four Emmy nominations and included amazing performances by Garland as well as some of her best vocal work. The demise of the series was personally and financially devastating for Garland, and she never fully recovered from its failure.

Her final years

With the demise of her television series, Garland returned to the stage and made various television appearances. Most notably, she performed at the London Palladium with her then 17-year-old daughter Liza Minnelli in November of 1964. The concert, which was also filmed for television, was one of Garland's final appearances at the venue. Garland, having divorced Sid Luft, continued to make concert appearances and also appeared on television specials. She made guest appearances on the The Ed Sullivan Show, The Tonight Show, The Hollywood Palace, The Merv Griffin Show (in which she guest-hosted an episode) and many others.

In February 1967, Garland was signed to appear as "Helen Lawson" in Valley of the Dolls for 20th Century Fox. However, she missed many wardrobe tests and rehearsals and was fired the next month. She was replaced by Susan Hayward. Returning to the stage, Garland made her last appearances at New York's Palace Theatre in July, a sixteen-show tour, performing with her children Lorna and Joey Luft.
By early 1969, Garland's health had fallen rapidly and she made her last concert appearance in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The shortcomings of Garland's childhood years became more apparent as she struggled to overcome various personal problems, including weight gain and serious drug addiction. She was found dead in her bathroom by her last husband, Mickey Deans, on June 22, 1969. The stated exact cause of death by coroner Gavin Thursdon was accidental overdose of barbiturates; pathologist Dr. R. Pocock found 4.9 mg of Seconal in Garland's blood. Garland had turned 47 two weeks prior to her death. She was residing in a rented flat with her husband in the Chelsea section of London at the time of her death.

Legacy in gay rights

Garland was a gay icon; she always had a large base of fans in the gay community. Her concerts became a meeting place of sorts where gay men could socialize with one another without fear of harassment. During a press conference in the 1960s, a reporter asked Garland if she was aware of her loyal gay following. "I couldn't care less," she said. "I sing to people."

Five days after her death (on the night of her funeral), gay men fought back against police during a routine raid at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in Greenwich Village, which set off the gay liberation movement. Today, Gay Pride commemorates the Stonewall riots and the original gay rights movement during the month of June.

Although Garland's death is often noted as a cause of one of the key events of the modern gay rights movement, it is more likely a coincidence (see also Friends of Dorothy). Nevertheless, Garland's death, funeral and its links (coincidental or not) to Stonewall have become a part of LGBT history and lore

Song of the century

Garland's rendition of "Over the Rainbow" was placed as number 1 in the Songs of the Century project, by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). According to RIAA, the list was put together for young people to "help further appreciation for the music development process, including songwriting, musicianship, recording, performing, distributing and the development of distribution and cultural values."
The song was also chosen by the American Film Institute as the #1 movie song of all time, as part of their "100 Years...100 Songs" list. Four more Garland songs were also featured on the list: "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" from Meet Me In St. Louis (#76), "Get Happy" from Summer Stock (#61), "The Trolley Song," also from Meet Me In St. Louis (#26), and "The Man That Got Away" from A Star Is Born (#11).

Listen to 36 complete songs by Judy here

http://great-song-stylists-uk.com/Judygarland/Judygarland2.htm

There are 6 Radio shows with Judy to listen to here

http://great-song-stylists-uk.com/Judygarland/Garlandradio/Garlandradio.htm

The Judy Garland Tribe

http://tribes.tribe.net/judygarland

Judy at Classic Movies

http://www.thegoldenyears.org/garland.html

The Judy Garland Page

http://www.thejudygarlandpage.com/

Judy Garland Database

http://www.jgdb.com/

The Judy Garland Club.

http://www.judygarlandclub.org/

IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000023/

Judy Garland Museum

http://www.judygarlandmuseum.com/

posted in Classic Film Fans - 1 reply

Sterling Hayden

BabeSoDelicious — Sun, 11 Jun 2006 23:03:14 GMT

Recently I rewatched a DVD of "Dr. Strangelove, Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb." This viewing was the third time at least that I've seen the movie. But this time I found myself mesmerized by Sterling Hayden's face and voice. I think it was Kubrick's really neat close-ups of him as the demented Gen. Jack D. Ripper that made me realize what a neat, beautiful, manly face he had. (And of course who can ever forget his lines about saving his "bodily fluids"!? Too funny by far.)

So lately I've watched two of Hayden's other movies on DVD -- "The Asphalt Jungle" and "The Killing." I even found a copy of his first book, "Wanderer," which was published in 1963 as his autobiography. It was so enjoyable a read that I finished it in maybe two days after picking it up from the library. For a guy who didn't graduate from high school, ran away to the sea at 17 years, and in less than three years became First Mate of legendary American sailor Irving Johnson's schooner, Yankee, Hayden turned out to be a wonderful writer and storyteller. Besides the fact that as a writer he could make his readers see his early life (written eloquently and yet unromantically), he was also rather frank with admitting some of his frailties, esp. about his self-doubts. Apparently he never much thought of himself as an actor. After I picked up "The Asphalt Jungle" I came across this passage in his book: "The next time somebody says you can't act, tell them to call Huston." That's a direct quote from John Huston to Hayden.

Anyway he wrote the book after he took his four young children on his wooden schooner, Wanderer, from California to Tahiti in defiance of a court order during a custody battle in 1959.

The thing I found striking about "The Asphalt Jungle" and "The Killing" is even though he got top billing for each movie, he hardly had any lines! Sam Jaffee and Elisha Cook, Jr. actually had more lines and more screen time.

The 20th anniversary of his death was May 23. But I'd rather remember his birthday, which was March 26, 1916.

Vale, Sterling Hayden!

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

6/5 William Boyd - Hopalong Cassidy

Wed, 07 Jun 2006 08:59:49 GMT

William Boyd (June 5, 1895 - September 12, 1972) was an American actor.

Born William Lawrence Boyd in Cambridge, Ohio, he was raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He became famous as a Hollywood leading man in silent film romances, but by the end of the 1920s his career had begun to deteriorate due to public problems with alcohol and women. He reformed himself and gained lasting fame in the Western film genre beginning in 1935, when he first played cowboy hero Hopalong Cassidy, a role with which he would be indelibly associated. Boyd shrewdly purchased the rights to the character of Hopalong, as well as the rights to the movies (66 in all). In the early 1950s he released the movies to television, where they were extremely popular. The films remain available for broadcast, and are on DVD in physically restored form.

Boyd appeared on the cover of the November 27, 1950 issue of Time Magazine.

Oddly, both Clark Gable and Robert Mitchum experienced their first big breaks in movies playing bearded villains in westerns starring Boyd.

William Boyd died in 1972 in Laguna Beach, California and was buried in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California. He is survived by his wife, actress Grace Bradley Boyd.

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, William Boyd has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1734 Vine Street. In 1995, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

Boyd at IMDB
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0101955/

The Official Hopalong Cassidy Site
http://www.hopalong.com/home.asp

The Hopalong Cassidy Museum
http://prairierosechuckwagon.com/hopalong_cassidy_museum_at_prair.htm

posted in Classic Film Fans - 1 reply

5/30 Howard Hawks - Director

Wed, 31 May 2006 06:22:41 GMT

Howard Hawks (May 30, 1896 – December 26, 1977) was an American film director, producer and writer of the classic Hollywood era.

He was born Howard Winchester Hawks in Goshen, Indiana. He died in Palm Springs, California, from the aftermath of a fall.

Hawks was known for his versatility as a director, filming comedies, dramas, gangster films, sci-fi, pulp noir, and Westerns with equal ease and skill. Hawks' own functional definition of what constitutes a "good movie" is revealing of his no-nonsense style: "Three great scenes, no bad ones."

Critic Leonard Maltin has labelled Hawks "the greatest American director who is not a household name," noting that, while his work may not be as well known as Ford, Welles, or Hitchcock, he is no less a talented filmmaker.

Hawks was notorious for fabricating stories about the movie business, usually in a way which inflated his already considerable contributions to it. One such story has it that Hawks told Ernest Hemingway that he could make a good movie out of the worst thing that Hemingway had ever written, at which point Hemingway challenged him to make a movie out of To Have and Have Not.

Hawks' unpretentious and straightforward directorial style and the use of natural, conversational dialogue in his films have subsequently been a major influence on many noted filmmakers, including John Carpenter and Quentin Tarantino.

Although originally dismissed by the more intellectual critics in the English-speaking world (especially in the United Kingdom, where his work was virtually ignored by Sight and Sound), Hawks was idolised and taken very seriously indeed by the French critics associated with Cahiers du Cinéma in the 1950s, and this spread to the United Kingdom where Hawks became an icon for Ian Cameron, Robin Wood and the other critics associated with Movie.

Hawks was married three times, to Athole Shearer (a sister of movie actress Norma Shearer), Nancy Gross (better and later known as Slim Keith, she was the mother of his daughter, Kitty Hawks, a noted interior designer), and Dee Hartford (an actress whose real name was Donna Higgins).

Filmography (director)
· The Road to Glory (1926)
· Fig Leaves (1926)
· The Cradle Snatchers (1927)
· Paid to Love (1927)
· A Girl in Every Port (1928)
· Fazil (1928)
· The Air Circus (1928)
· Trent's Last Case (1929)
· The Dawn Patrol (1930)
· The Criminal Code (1931)
· La Foule hurle (1932)
· Scarface (1932)
· The Crowd Roars (1932)
· Tiger Shark (1932)
· Today We Live (1933)
· The Prizefighter and the Lady (1933) (uncredited)
· Viva Villa! (1934) (uncredited)
· Twentieth Century (1934)
· Barbary Coast (1935)
· Ceiling Zero (1936)
· Sutter's Gold (1936) (uncredited)
· The Road to Glory (1936)
· Come and Get It (1936)
· Bringing up Baby (1938)
· Only Angels Have Wings (1939)
· His Girl Friday (1940)
· Sergeant York (1941) (Received his one and only Oscar nomination)
· Ball of Fire (1941)
· Air Force (1943)
· The Outlaw (1943) (uncredited)
· To Have and Have Not (1944)
· The Big Sleep (1946)
· Red River (1948)
· A Song Is Born (1948)
· I Was a Male War Bride (1949)
· The Thing from Another World (1951) (uncredited)
· The Big Sky (1952)
· Monkey Business (1952)
· O. Henry's Full House (segment "The Ransom of Red Chief") (1952)
· Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953)
· Land of the Pharaohs (1955)
· Rio Bravo (1959)
· Hatari! (1962)
· Man's Favorite Sport? (1964)
· Red Line 7000 (1965)
· El Dorado (1966)
· Rio Lobo (1970)

IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001328/

Hawks page at Senses of Cinemas Great Directors Critical Database

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/02/hawks.html

posted in Classic Film Fans - 2 replies

6/3 Happy 100th Josephine Baker

Sat, 03 Jun 2006 20:04:51 GMT

Josephine Baker (June 3, 1906 - April 12, 1975), born Freda Josephine McDonald, was an American dancer, actress and singer, sometimes known as "The Black Venus". She was of mixed Apalachee Native American and African-American descent. She became a French citizen in 1937.

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of Carrie McDonald.[1], she entered vaudeville as a teen, gradually heading toward New York City during the Harlem Renaissance, performing at the Plantation Club and in the chorus of the popular Broadway revues Shufflin' Along and The Chocolate Dandies.

On October 2, 1925, she opened in Paris at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, where she became an instant success for her erotic dancing and appearing practically naked on stage. After a successful tour of Europe, she returned to France, where she starred at the Folies Bergère, setting the standard for her future acts. Already a star, she performed in a skirt made only of bananas, often accompanied by her pet leopard, Chiquita, who was adorned with a diamond collar. The leopard frequently escaped into the orchestra pit, where it terrorized the musicians, adding yet another element of excitement to the show.

After a short while she was the most successful American entertainer working in France—whereas in the U.S., she would have suffered from the racial prejudices common to the era. Ernest Hemingway called her "the most sensational woman anyone ever saw." In addition to being a musical star, Baker also starred in several successful films, among them Zouzou (1934) and Princesse Tamtam (1935).

Upon marrying her manager Giuseppe Pepito Abatino—a Sicilian stonemason who passed himself off successfully as a Sicilian count—Baker transformed her stage and public persona into a sophisticated cultural figure. (The marriage was reportedly a publicity stunt and not legally binding).

At this time she also scored her greatest song hit "J'ai deux amours" (1931) and became a muse for contemporary authors, painters, and sculptors including Langston Hughes, Ernest Hemingway, and Pablo Picasso.

She was so well-known and popular that even the Nazis, who occupied France during World War II were hesitant to cause her harm. In turn, this allowed Baker to show her loyalty to her adopted country by participating in the Underground. In one apocryphal story, Hermann Göring himself invited her to dinner one evening, already suspecting her of involvement in the Resistance. Realizing that the wine he forced her to drink was poisoned, she managed to excuse herself and escaped from the chalet through a laundry chute. After the war, Baker was awarded the Croix de Guerre for her underground activity.

Yet despite her popularity in France, she was never really able to obtain the same reputation at home. Upon a visit to the United States in 1936, she starred in a failed version of the Ziegfeld Follies (being replaced by Gypsy Rose Lee later in the run); her personal life similarly suffered, and she went through six marriages, some legal, some not. During this time, when Baker returned to the United States, she was allegedly at a dinner party and began to speak in French as well as English with a French accent. An African-American maid was reputed to tell her, "Honey, you is full of shit. Speak the way yo' mouth was born". She had the woman fired. In 1973, Josephine Baker opened at Carnegie hall to a standing ovation. She wept openly onstage in response to the warm welcome.

Though based in France, she supported the American Civil Rights Movement during the 1950s, and protested racism in her own unique way, adopting twelve multi-ethnic orphans, which she called her "Rainbow Tribe." She also integrated several places in the United States, worked with the NAACP, and spoke at the March on Washington in 1963. For some time she lived with all of her children and an enormous staff in a castle in France. (Baker had only one child of her own, stillborn in 1941, an incident that precipitated an emergency hysterectomy).

On tours of the United States, she refused to perform in segregated nightclubs, and her insistence on mixed audiences helped to integrate shows in Las Vegas, Nevada. Nevertheless, her career was on a downturn and she was near bankruptcy until she was bailed out and given an apartment by her close friend, Princess Grace of Monaco, another expatriate American living in Europe.

During her life, she was also a great figure of the French freemasonry, fighting for freedom, civil rights, equality and against racism in France and other countries.

On April 8, 1975, her fortunes seemed to be turning to the better when she was the star of a retrospective show at Club Bobino in Paris, Joséphine, celebrating her fifty years in the theater. The show opened to rave reviews. She died of a cerebral hemorrhage less than a week later at the age of 68.

She is the first American woman to have received French military honors at her funeral. Paris came to a standstill on the day of her funeral and 20,000 filled the street to watch her procession. Her body lies in the Monaco cemetery.

La Baker at the Women in History Page

http://www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/bake-jos.htm

The Official Josephine Baker Page

http://www.cmgworldwide.com/stars/baker/index.php

Josephine at Silent Ladies

http://www.silentladies.com/PBaker.html

at IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001927/

posted in Classic Film Fans - 5 replies

Happy Birthday Marilyn...June 1 1946...the Lady "turns" 80!!!

silverstream — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 05:07:35 GMT

Marilyn Monroe..."Bombshell" actress, comedienne, sex-symbol, idol..whether she was Sherry (Cheri) in "Bus Stop", Sugar Kane in (the fun and fantastic) "Some Like it Hot."..or singing "notoriously" "Happy Birthday Mr, President" to fellow Geminian lover and President JFK..on national TV...Marilyn glowed... a sex symbol she was considered, people loved her also for her innocence...she and actress Shelley Winters, her onetime roomate...came up with the Marilyn "look" / expression....quoting Shelley..."the half lidded slightly glazed eyes...the slightly parted lips...head ju a bit thrown back....the look of a woman in orgasm"..We came up wit that ...practiced it..laughed about it...it worked....the " 'Marilyn Face!' "
Marilyn ,your face is forever imprinted on our minds...in our dreams...along with your white dress...floating in the "breeze" of the subway...in "The Seven Year Itch!"...deranged baby sitter, crazed /wife in Niagra, dancing dream, miss Loreli Lee in "Gentlemaen Prefer Blondes"...always beautiful...you left to soon...Norma Jean, you remain forever...Marilyn!

posted in Classic Film Fans - 2 replies

5/20 James "Jimmy " Stewart

Sat, 20 May 2006 12:47:45 GMT

James Maitland "Jimmy" Stewart (May 20, 1908 – July 2, 1997) was a highly acclaimed Academy Award-winning American film and stage actor, best known for his homebred screen persona. Over the course of his career, he starred in many films widely considered classics and was nominated for five Oscars, winning one in competition and one life achievement.

Along with fellow screen icon James Cagney, Stewart became so familiar to American audiences that he was most often referred to by them as "Jimmy" Stewart--a billing never found on the credits of any of his films. While technically incorrect, the public's use of the 'nickname' was a testimony to Stewart's impact.

Born in Indiana, Pennsylvania, he first pursued a career as an architect before being drawn to the theater in college. His first success came as an actor on Broadway, before making his Hollywood debut in 1935. Stewart's career gained momentum after his well-received Frank Capra films, including his Academy Award nominated role in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Throughout his seven decades in Hollywood, Stewart cultivated a versatile career and recognized screen image in such classics as The Philadelphia Story, Harvey, and Vertigo.

Stewart left his mark on a wide range of film genres, including screwball comedy, westerns, and suspense thrillers. He worked for a number of renowned directors later in his career, including Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, and Anthony Mann. He was awarded many of the industry's highest honors, including Lifetime Achievement awards from every substantial film organization. He died in 1997, leaving behind a legacy of classic performance and is considered one of the finest actors of the "Golden Age of Hollywood."

Early life and career

James Maitland Stewart was born on May 20, 1908 to devoutly Presbyterian parents, Alexander and Elizabeth Jackson Stewart, in Indiana, Pennsylvania. The son of a prosperous hardware store owner, he was expected to continue the business, which had been in the family for three generations. The young Stewart was first attracted to aviation, but abandoned dreams of being a pilot to attend Princeton University in 1928 after graduating from Mercersburg Academy. Stewart took quickly to architecture, and was to continue pursuing the field as a graduate student, but he gradually became attracted to the school's drama and music clubs.

His talents led him to be invited to the University Players, a performing arts club comprised of Ivy League musicians and thespians. Taking bit parts in the Players' productions over the summer of 1932, he moved to New York City in the fall, where he shared an apartment with rising actor Henry Fonda and director/playwright Joshua Logan. In November he was cast in his first major stage production, as a chauffeur in the Broadway comedy Goodbye Again, in which he had two lines. The play was a moderate success and brought more substantial stage roles for Stewart, including the 1934 hit, Page Miss Glory, and his first dramatic stage role in Sidney Howard's Yellow Jack.

With several favorably reviewed performances on Broadway, he attracted the interest of MGM, and signed a contract with the company in April of 1935. At first, he had trouble breaking into Hollywood due to his gangly looks and shy, humble screen presence. His first film was the poorly received Spencer Tracy vehicle, The Murder Man, but Rose-Marie, an adaptation of a popular opera, was more successful. After mixed success in film, he received his first substantial part in 1936's After the Thin Man, playing a psychotic killer. Stewart found his footing in Hollywood thanks largely to ex-University Player Margaret Sullavan, who campaigned for Stewart to be her leading man in the 1936 romantic comedy Next Time We Love and rehearsed extensively with him.
Stewart was a lifelong supporter of Scouting. He was a Second Class Scout when he was a youth, an adult Scout leader, and a recipient of the prestigious Silver Buffalo Award from the Boy Scouts of America (BSA). He made advertisements for BSA, which led to him sometimes incorrectly being identified as an Eagle Scout.

Stewart began a successful partnership with director Frank Capra in 1938, when he was loaned out to Columbia Pictures to star in You Can't Take It With You. The heartwarming Depression-era film, starring matinee idol Jean Arthur, went on to win the 1938 Best Picture Academy Award. 1939 saw Stewart team with Capra and Arthur again for the political comedy-drama, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Stewart replaced intended star Gary Cooper in the film about an idealistic man thrown into the political arena. Upon the film's October release, it garnered critical praise and became a box office success. For his performance, Stewart was nominated for the first of five Academy Awards for Best Actor. Destry Rides Again, also released that year, became Stewart's first western film, a genre for which he would become famous later in his career.

1940 saw Stewart and Margaret Sullavan teaming again for two films. The first, the Ernst Lubitsch romantic comedy, The Shop Around the Corner, starred Stewart and Sullavan as co-workers unknowingly involved in a pen-pal romance who cannot stand each other in real life (This was later remade into the romantic comedy You've Got Mail with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan). The Mortal Storm, directed by Frank Borzage, was one of the first blatantly anti-Nazi films to be produced in Hollywood, and featured the pair as a husband and wife caught in turmoil upon Hitler's rise to power. He also starred opposite Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant in George Cukor's classic The Philadelphia Story. His performance as an intrusive, fast-talking reporter earned him his only Academy Award in a competitive category (Best Actor, 1941).

He went on to appear in a series of screwball comedies with varying levels of success. Stewart followed the mediocre No Time for Comedy (1940) and Come Live with Me (1941) with the Judy Garland musical Ziegfeld Girl and the George Marshall romantic comedy Pot o' Gold. Foreseeing war on the horizon, Stewart enlisted in the United States Army Air Corps in March of 1941. Stewart's enlistment coincided with the lapse in his MGM contract and marked a turning point in Stewart's career.

Wartime activity and marriage

Nearly a year before the December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, Stewart was drafted into the United States Army Air Corps, although his enlistment was denied due to a weight restriction. Only five pounds under the minimum limit, he was able to convince the draft board to accept him. He successfully enlisted in the army in March of 1941. Since the United States had yet to declare war on Germany and because of the army's unwillingness to put celebrities on the front, Stewart was held back from combat duty, although he did earn a commission as a 2nd Lieutenant and completed pilot training. He later became an instructor pilot for the B-17 Flying Fortress stationed in Albuquerque, NM.

While petitioning his superiors for combat assignment, Stewart aligned himself with the First Motion Picture Unit and starred and produced a number of training and educational films. Between 1942 and the end of the war, he appeared in nearly a dozen productions, some of which were screened theatrically in civilian theaters.

In August 1943 he was finally assigned to the 445th Bombardment Group in Sioux City, Iowa, first as Operations Officer of the 703d Bomb Squadron, and then its commander. In December the 445th BG flew its B-24 Liberator bombers to Tibenham, England and immediately began combat operations. While flying missions over Germany, Stewart was promoted to major. In March, 1944, he was transferred to the 453rd Bomb Group, another new B-24 outfit that had been experiencing difficulties, as Group Operations Officer. In 1944 he twice received the Distinguished Flying Cross for actions in combat, and was awarded the Croix de Guerre. He also received the Air Medal with three oak leaf clusters. In July, 1944, after flying twenty combat missions, Stewart was made Chief of Staff of the 2d Combat Bomb Wing of the Eighth Air Force. Before the war ended he was promoted to colonel, one of only a few Americans to rise from private to colonel in four years.

Stewart continued to play an active role in the United States Air Force Reserves after the war, achieving the rank of Brigadier General on July 23, 1959. His final mission for the Air Force was a B-52 Stratofortress bombing run during the Vietnam War and he retired from the Air Force on May 31, 1968 after twenty-seven years of service

Perhaps due to his dislike of violence, Stewart declined to answer any questions about his combat during World War II and the Vietnam War, though he remained a proponent of the armed forces. {He did appear on "The World At War (TV Series)"). At the time of his B-52 mission, he refused the release of any publicity regarding his participation as he did not want it treated as a stunt for glory, but as his job as an officer in the reserves.

After the war, Stewart settled down at age 41, marrying former model Gloria Hatrick McLean on August 9, 1949. They remained devotedly married until her death on February 16, 1994 due to lung cancer. Stewart adopted her two sons, Michael and Ronald, and together they had twin daughters, Judy and Kelly, on May 7, 1951. Ronald McLean was killed in action on June 8, 1969 while serving in Vietnam.

Postwar success

Upon James Stewart's return to Hollywood in the fall of 1945, he decided not to renew his MGM contract. Instead, Stewart signed with an MCA talent agency. The move made Stewart one of the first independently contracted actors and gave him more freedom to choose the roles he wished to play. For the remainder of his career, Stewart was able to work without limits to director and studio availability.

For his first film in five years, Stewart appeared in his third and final Frank Capra production, It's a Wonderful Life. Stewart appeared as George Bailey, a small-town man and upstanding citizen, who becomes increasingly frustrated by his ordinary existence and financial troubles. Driven to suicide on Christmas Eve, he is led to reassess his life by an "angel-in-training," played by Henry Travers. Though the film was nominated for five Academy Awards, including Stewart's third Best Actor nomination, it received only moderate success at the box office, possibly due to its dark nature. However, in the decades since the film's release, it grew to define Stewart's film persona and is widely considered as a sentimental Christmas film classic.

Stewart also returned to the stage for the Mary Chase-penned comedy Harvey, which opened to nearly universal praise in November, 1944. Elwood P. Dowd, the protagonist and Stewart's character, is a wealthy eccentric living with his sister, whose best friend is an invisible rabbit. While trying to have Dowd committed to a sanitorium, his sister is committed herself while the play follows Dowd on an ordinary day in his not-so-ordinary life. James Stewart took over the role from Frank Fay in 1947 and gained an increased Broadway following in the unconventional play. The play, which ran for nearly three years with Stewart as its star, was successfully adapted into a 1950 film, directed by Henry Koster, with Stewart playing Dowd and Josephine Hull as his sister, Veta. For his performance in the film, Stewart received his fourth Best Actor nomination.

After Harvey, the comedic adventure film Malaya and the conventional biographical film The Stratton Story in 1949, Stewart entered what many critics cite as his "golden era" as an actor. During the 1950s, he took on more challenging roles and expanded into the western and suspense genres, thanks largely to collaborations with directors Alfred Hitchcock and Anthony Mann. Other notable performances by Stewart during this time include the critically acclaimed 1950 Delmer Daves western Broken Arrow, which featured Stewart as an ex-soldier making peace with the Apache; a troubled clown in the 1952 Best Picture The Greatest Show on Earth; and Stewart's role as Charles Lindbergh in Billy Wilder's 1957 film The Spirit of St. Louis.

Collaborations with Hitchcock and Mann

James Stewart's collaborations with director Anthony Mann expanded Stewart's popularity and expanded his career into the realm of the western. Stewart's first appearance in a film helmed by Mann came with the 1950 western classic, Winchester '73. The film, which became a massive box office hit upon its release, set the pattern for their future collaborations. Other Stewart-Mann westerns, such as Bend of the River (1952), The Naked Spur (1953), The Far Country (1954), and The Man from Laramie (1955) were perennial favorites among young audiences entranced by the American west. Frequently, the films featured Stewart as a troubled cowboy seeking redemption, while facing corrupt cattlemen, ranchers, and outlaws. Their collaborations laid the foundation for many of the westerns of the 1950s and remain popular today.

Stewart and Mann also collaborated on other films outside the western genre. 1953's The Glenn Miller Story was critically acclaimed, garnering Stewart a BAFTA Award nomination, and (together with The Spirit of St. Louis) cemented the popularity of Stewart's portrayals of "American heroes." Thunder Bay, released the same year, transplanted the plot arch of their western collaborations in the present day, with Stewart as a Louisiana oil-driller facing corruption. Strategic Air Command, released in 1955 allowed Stewart to utilize his experiences in the United States Air Force on film.

The second collaboration to define Stewart's career in the 1950s was with acclaimed mystery and suspense director Alfred Hitchcock. Stewart had previously appeared in Hitchcock's technologically innovative 1948 film Rope', and the two collaborated for the second of four times on the 1954 hit Rear Window. Photographer L.B. "Jeff" Jeffries, the central character of the film, portrayed by Stewart, projects his fantasies and fears onto the people he observes out his apartment window while on hiatus due to a broken leg. Jeffries gets into more than he can handle, however, when he believes he has witnessed a salesman murder his wife.

After starring in Hitchcock's remake of the director's own production, The Man Who Knew Too Much, Stewart starred in what many consider Hitchcock's most personal film, Vertigo. The film starred Stewart as Scottie, a former police investigator suffering from acrophobia, who develops an obsession of a woman he is shadowing. Scottie's obsession inevitably leads to the destruction of everything he once had and believed in. Though the film is widely considered a classic today, it was met with negative reviews and poor box office receipts upon its release, and marked the last collaboration between Stewart and Hitchcock.

Career in the '60s and '70s

In 1960, James Stewart was awarded the New York Film Critics Circle Award for Best Actor and nominated for his fifth and final Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in the 1959 Otto Preminger film Anatomy of a Murder. The early courtroom drama starred Stewart as Paul Biegler, the lawyer of a man who claims temporary insanity after murdering the man who raped his wife. Stewart's nomination was one of seven for the film, and saw his transition into the final decades of his career.

The early sixties saw Stewart taking lead roles in three John Ford films. The first, 1962's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (with John Wayne) became a classic western and featured Stewart as an attorney who goes against his principles when he is forced to shoot an outlaw (played by Lee Marvin). Stewart's character is compelled to face his past as he attempts to build a career in politics. The film's billing is unusual in that Stewart was given top billing over Wayne in the trailers and on the posters but Wayne had top billing in the film itself, a system later repeated by Robert Redford and Dustin Hoffman in All the President's Men. How the West Was Won and Cheyenne Autumn were western epics released in 1962 and 1964 respectively. While the Cinerama production How the West Was Won went on to win three Oscars and reaped massive box office figures, Cheyenne Autumn, in which a white-suited Stewart played Wyatt Earp in a long sequence in the middle of the movie, failed domestically and was widely forgotten.

Having played his last romantic lead in 1958's Bell Book and Candle, Stewart transitioned into more family-related films in the 1960s. These included the successful Henry Koster outing Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation (1962), and the less memorable films Take Her, She's Mine (1963) and Dear Brigitte (1965), which featured French model Brigitte Bardot. The Civil War period film Shenandoah (1965) and the western family film The Rare Breed fared better at the box office; the Civil War movie was a smash hit in the South.

After a progression of lesser western films in the late sixties and early seventies, James Stewart transitioned from cinema to television. He first starred in the NBC comedy The Jimmy Stewart Show, which featured Stewart as a college professor. He followed it with the CBS mystery Hawkins, in which he played a small town lawyer investigating his cases. The series garnered Stewart a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Dramatic TV Series, but failed to gain a wide audience and was cancelled after one season. During this time, Stewart periodically appeared on Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show, sharing poems he had written at different times in his life. His poems were later successfully compiled into a short anthology titled Jimmy Stewart and His Poems (1989).

Stewart finished the decade with supporting roles in John Wayne's final film, The Shootist (1976), Airport '77, the 1978 remake of The Big Sleep with Robert Mitchum, and The Magic of Lassie (1978). In The Shootist, Stewart played a doctor giving Wayne's gunfighter a terminal cancer diagnosis. At one point, both Wayne and Stewart were flubbing their lines repeatedly and Stewart turned to director Don Siegel and said, "You'd better get two better actors."

After filming several television movies in the 1980s, including the popular Mr. Krueger's Christmas, James Stewart retired from acting to spend time with his family. Following his retirement he suffered from many health problems including heart disease, skin cancer, deafness and senility. He returned only to voice Sheriff Wylie Burp in the successful 1991 animated film An American Tail: Fievel Goes West.

Stewart died on July 2, 1997 of a pulmonary embolism, just one day after fellow screen veteran and The Big Sleep co-star Robert Mitchum died. He is interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.
Jimmy Stewart has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1708 Vine Street. In 1972, he was inducted into the Western Performers Hall of Fame at the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. He was awarded various lifetime achievement awards from the Academy Awards (1985), American Film Institute (1980), Lincoln Center (1990), Golden Globe Awards (1965), National Board of Review (1990), and the Screen Actors Guild (1969).
A statue of Stewart was erected on the lawn of the Indiana County Courthouse in his hometown, Indiana, Pennsylvania, on May 20, 1983 to celebrate Stewart's 75th birthday. In 1995, a museum dedicated to his life and career, The Jimmy Stewart Museum, opened as well.

Links

James Stewart Time Line
http://www.twoop.com/people/james_stewart.html

Stewart at Classic Movies.com

http://www.thegoldenyears.org/stewart.html

Jimmy Stewart Museum

http://www.jimmy.org/

IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000071/

posted in Classic Film Fans - 13 replies

Happy Birtday...Marilyn Monroe....June 1. 1926!

silverstream — Thu, 01 Jun 2006 05:23:08 GMT

oops...Classic film fans...I made a "20 year mistake"...bigger than than any "7 year itch"...I quoted Marilyn's birth year as 1946...and acknowledged the Lady..as 80...got the "years" are right but the "year " is wrong!!!"..Can our dear moderator...amaoZonica possibly change the year on that post!!!...(and feel free to delete this one id you wish) I got distracted.......must've been the breeze blowing that white dress into angel's wings!!! : )
SuZ~~~

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

Classic or Favorite lines

Tue, 23 May 2006 03:12:57 GMT

There are millions of famous movie quotes. We've all heard them.

"As God is my witness. I'll never go hungry again."

"Rosebud"

"I could of been a contender."

"I am big. Its the pictures that got small."

But what are your favotires. They dont have to be famous.

I love the line in Holiday said by Lew Aryes "Walk, dont run, to the nearest exit" as he makes his way to the door because a fight is about to happen.

Or after a catty comment made to Una Merkel and Ginger Rogers in 42nd street Ginger says to the mouth chorus girl "Your mother must of been devasted not to have any children."

not history making lines, but lines that make the movie.

Ok I am babbling

What ones do you guys like?

posted in Classic Film Fans - 5 replies

5/21 Raymond Burr

Sat, 27 May 2006 10:04:53 GMT

Raymond William Stacey Burr (May 21, 1917 – September 12, 1993) was an actor, most known for his roles in the television dramas Perry Mason and Ironside.

He was born in New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada to William Johnston Burr (a descendant of Irish immigrants) and Minerva Smith (who was of Scottish and English descent). A dual citizen of Canada and the United States, Burr served in the U.S. Navy in World War II and was wounded at the Battle of Okinawa. Burr broke into films in 1946 and made 90 in the next decade. He co-starred in the classics A Place in the Sun and Rear Window. Burr usually played menacing villains on the screen, although in 1956 he played the heroic reporter Steve Martin in Godzilla, King of the Monsters, the American re-edited version of the Japanese film Gojira. He reprised this role nearly three decades later in Godzilla 1985.

With the international success of Godzilla, and shortly after starring on the radio drama Fort Laramie, Burr was chosen to star in 1957 in Perry Mason where he played Erle Stanley Gardner's clever defence attorney who always defended the innocent and only lost one case ("The Case of the Deadly Verdict," 10/17/1963; his client withheld evidence needed to win). The show was very popular and lasted nine years. In 1967, Burr started another long running television series Ironside (known as A Man Called Ironside in the UK) in which he played a wheelchair-bound police chief. This show ran until 1975. Subsequent to this, Burr had a couple of other short-lived series such as Kingston: Confidential but was unable to repeat his earlier hits. He co-starred in such TV films as Love's Savage Fury (1979), Eischied: Only The Pretty Girls Die (1979), Disaster On The Coastliner (1979), The Curse Of King Tut's Tomb (1980), The Night The City Screamed (1980), and Peter And Paul (1981). Burr also had a supporting role in Dennis Hopper's controversial film Out of the Blue (1980) and spoofed his Perry Mason image in Airplane II: The Sequel (1982). In 1985, Burr made a comeback as Perry Mason and made a series of 26 two-hour movies that were enormous ratings blockbusters, the last being completed only a few weeks prior to his death. By this time both he and the Mason character were wheelchair-bound, as his character in Ironside had been, but this time due to his real-life failing health. He also reprised the role of Ironside not long before his death, having to dye his hair red and shave off his trademark beard in order not to look too much like Perry Mason.

Showing charity

In contrast to the "bad guys" and hard, unbending heroes he often played, Raymond Burr was in real life a generous man who gave enormous sums of money to charity. He once sponsored 20 foster children. He would insist that TV executives and directors treat his co-stars with the same respect shown him. He also gave generously over many years to the McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento.

Relationships

In his younger years, Burr, who was predominantly homosexual, was a significant other in Natalie Wood’s life and loved the young actress. "When I was talking to Dennis Hopper about that," Wood biographer Suzanne Finstad says, "he was saying I just can't wrap my mind around that one. But you know, I saw them together. They were definitely a couple. Who knows what was going on there." No romantic relationship has ever been proved between Burr and Natalie Wood.

Burr's official biography stated that he had been previously married, but both his wives and one child had died. However, these details were fabricated in an attempt to hide the fact that Burr was gay. Only one brief marriage which ended in divorce had actually occurred; the other marriages and the child were fiction.

Robert Hofler in his 2005 book The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson: The Pretty Boys and Dirty Deals of Henry Willson, alleged that Burr and Rock Hudson hosted gay parties at a rented home in Palm Springs, California.

Raymond Burr lived with his partner, former actor Robert Benevides, for 35 years until Burr's death. At the time of Burr's death, Sonoma residents said they were well acquainted with Burr and Benevides, who operated their own vineyard there, and regarded them as any other married couple.

· Burr died of liver cancer on September 12, 1993 in Sonoma, California, aged 76.
· Burr is interred in the Fraser Cemetery, New Westminster, British Columbia, Canada. The WGS84 coordinates of his plot are N49° 13.338 W122° 53.892.

The Raymond Burr Performing Arts Centre

The Raymond Burr Performing Arts Centre in New Westminster, British Columbia opened in October 2000 near a city block bearing the family name of Burr. Originally a movie theatre under ownership of the Famous Players chain (as the Columbia Theatre) and at present a 238-seat intimate theatre, plans exist to expand the theatre to become a 650-seat regional performing arts facility. Since the theatre began producing plays, it has been the custom always to have a picture of Raymond Burr included somewhere on each set, and the first toast on the opening night of every production is always dedicated to his memory.

Burr at IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000994/

The Ironside Archives

http://www.ironside.info/

Burr at Brians Drive In Theatre

http://www.briansdriveintheater.com/raymondburr.html

The Burr Performing Arts Centre

http://www.burrtheatre.com/

posted in Classic Film Fans - 4 replies

Pre-code recommendations?

Fri, 04 Feb 2005 05:02:03 GMT

Can any of you recommend some pre-code films for the budding enthusiast to watch?

posted in Classic Film Fans - 17 replies

5/26 John Wayne

Sat, 27 May 2006 16:45:16 GMT

John Wayne (May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), popularly known as "The Duke",[1] was an American film actor whose career began in silent films in the 1920s.

John Wayne was born Marion Robert Morrison in Winterset, Iowa in 1907, but the name became Marion Mitchell Morrison when his parents decided to name their next son Robert. His family was Presbyterian; father Clyde Leonard Morrison was of Irish and Scottish descent and the son of an American Civil War veteran while mother Mary Alberta Brown was of Irish descent. Wayne's family moved to Glendale, California in 1911; it was neighbors in Glendale who started calling him "Big Duke" because he never went anywhere without his Airedale Terrier dog, who was Little Duke. He preferred "Duke" to "Marion", and the name stuck for the rest of his life.

Duke Morrison's early life was marked by poverty; his father was a man who did not manage money well. Duke was a good and popular student. Tall from an early age, he was a star football player for Glendale High School and was recruited by the University of Southern California.

Wayne claimed that he nearly gained admission to the U.S. Naval Academy. He instead attended the University of Southern California, where he was a member of the Trojan Knights and joined the Sigma Chi Fraternity. Wayne also played on the USC football team under legendary coach Howard Jones. An injury while supposedly swimming at the beach curtailed his athletic career, however; Wayne would later note that he was too terrified of Jones' reaction to reveal the actual cause of his injury. He lost his athletic scholarship and with no funds was unable to continue at USC.

While at the university, Wayne began working around the local film studios. Western star Tom Mix got him a summer job in the prop department in exchange for football tickets, and Wayne soon moved on to bit parts, establishing a long friendship with director John Ford. During this period, Wayne appeared with his USC teammates as one of the featured football players in Columbia Pictures' Maker of Men (filmed in 1930 and released in 1931), which starred Richard Cromwell and Jack Holt. In the film, Wayne was billed with his given name of Marion Morrison.

After two years working as a prop man at the William Fox Studios for $35 a week, his first starring role was in the 1930 movie The Big Trail; the director of that movie, Raoul Walsh, (who "discovered" Wayne) gave him the stage name "John Wayne", after Revolutionary War general "Mad Anthony" Wayne. His pay was raised to $75 a week. He was tutored by the studio's stuntmen in riding and other western skills.

The Big Trail, the first "western" epic sound motion picture, established his screen credentials, although it was a commercial failure. Nine years later, his performance in the 1939 film Stagecoach made him a star. In between, he made westerns, most notably at Monogram Pictures, and serials for Mascot Studios, where he played the role of d'Artagnan in The Three Musketeers, set in modern North Africa, with co-stars Ray Corrigan and Max Terhune. In this same year (1933), Wayne had a small part in Alfred E. Green's succes de scandale Baby Face.

Beginning in 1928, Wayne appeared in more than twenty of John Ford's films over the next 35 years, including Stagecoach (1939), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), The Quiet Man (1952), The Searchers (1956), The Wings of Eagles (1957), and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962).

One of Wayne's most praised roles was in The High and the Mighty (1954), directed by William Wellman and based on a novel by Ernest K. Gann. His portrayal of a heroic airman won widespread acclaim. Island in the Sky (1953) is related to it, and both films were made one year apart with the same producers, director, writer, cinematographer, editor, and distributor.

John Wayne won a Best Actor Oscar in True Grit (1969). Many believe that award was given in recognition of his forty-year career, since his performance in the film was over-the-top and he had given better performances in Red River (1948) and The Searchers (1956). Wayne was also nominated for Best Actor in Sands of Iwo Jima, and as the producer of Best Picture nominee The Alamo, one of two films he directed. The other was The Green Berets (1968), the only film made during the Vietnam War to show American soldiers in a positive representation and supported the conflict. (Note: We Were Soldiers, though not released until 2002, is also regarded as offering a positive representation of American military personell in Vietnam

Batjac, the production company co-founded by Wayne, was named after the fictional shipping company in The Wake of the Red Witch.

In 1964 Wayne was diagnosed with lung cancer, and underwent surgery to remove his entire left lung and two ribs. Rumors circulated that his illness was caused by filming The Conqueror (1956) in Utah, where the US government had tested nuclear bombs. Wayne himself however did not believe this, as from the early 1930s until his operation in 1964 he had smoked between three and five packs of cigarettes a day.

Perhaps due to his sheer popularity, or his status as the most famous Republican star in Hollywood, the Republican Party asked Wayne to run for President in 1968. He declined because he did not believe the public would take seriously an actor in the White House. He did support his friend Ronald Reagan's runs for Governor of California in 1966 and 1970, however. In 1968 Wayne was also asked to be conservative Democratic governor George Wallace's running mate in the presidential election; however, this too did not come to pass.

John Wayne died of stomach cancer on June 11, 1979. He was interred in the Pacific View Memorial Park cemetery in Corona del Mar, Orange County, California. On June 9, 1979, the Archbishop of Panama arrived at the hospital and baptized Wayne into the Roman Catholic Church, at the request of his eldest son Michael, who gave him a Catholic funeral service.

Wayne was married three times, always to Spanish-speaking brides; to Josephine Alicia Saenz, Esperanza Baur, and Pilar Palette. He had four children with Josephine and three with Pilar, most notably actor Patrick Wayne and Ayissa Wayne, who wrote a memoir of her life as the daughter of John Wayne.

His romance with Josie Saenz began when he was a college student and continued for seven years before their marriage. Miss Saenz was 15 or 16 at their first meeting at a beach party at Balboa. The daughter of a successful Spanish businessman, Josie resisted considerable opposition from her family to maintain her relationship with Duke. In the years prior to his death, Wayne was happily involved with his former secretary Pat Stacy.

At the time of his death, John Wayne resided in a bayfront home in Newport Beach, California. His home remains a point of interest in Newport Harbor.

Various things have been named in memoriam of John Wayne. They include John Wayne Airport, in Orange County, California, and the 100-plus mile trail named the "John Wayne Pioneer Trail" in Washington state's Iron Horse State Park.

Draft Controversy

Wayne did not serve in the U.S. military in World War II. This fact has been controversial, particularly in light of his political positions. Wayne was throughout his life an outspoken supporter of anti-communism, patriotism, and the military, perhaps most well known through directing The Green Berets (1968) and his criticism of Jane Fonda. He also often was critical of those who objected to the Vietnam-era draft, calling them cowards. Wayne did not serve in the military, despite being of legal draft age at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack. Wayne was thirty-four when the U.S. entered the war and was raising four children, and when he requested deferment, he was granted a 3-A status ("deferred for [family] dependency reasons"). Other actors with children, for example 37-year-old Henry Fonda, did serve throughout the conflict. Later in the war, his Selective Service Classification was changed to 2-A ("deferred in support of [the] national . . . interest"). (Note: This classification does not exist today) A month later the Selective Service reclassified him 1-A. Wayne's studio appealed and his status was reverted to 2-A status. Despite not serving, Wayne did support the military through participation in USO shows for U.S. servicemen.

Wayne later claimed to have applied and narrowly missed out on attending the U.S. Naval Academy, whose graduates are required to serve in the United States Navy.

Links

IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000078/

at Classic Movies.com

http://www.thegoldenyears.org/wayne.html

John Wayne Cancer Institute

http://www.jwci.org/

The John Wayne Place

http://www.jwplace.com/

Welcome to the John Wayne Birthplace

http://www.johnwaynebirthplace.org/

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

5/23 Douglas Fairbanks Sr

Sat, 27 May 2006 11:20:53 GMT

Douglas Fairbanks (May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939) was an American actor, screenwriter, director and producer, who became noted for his swashbuckling roles in silent movies such as The Mark of Zorro (1920), The Three Musketeers (1921), Robin Hood (1922), The Thief of Bagdad (1924) and The Black Pirate (1926).

He was born Julius Ullman in Denver, Colorado, the son of Hezekiah Charles Ullman (born September 1833) and Ella Adelaide Marsh (born 1850). His half-brother was John Fairbanks (born 1873); and his full brother was Robert Payne Ullman (March 13, 1882-February 22, 1948).

Doug's father, who was born in Pennsylvania to a Jewish family, was a prominent New York attorney. His mother (a Roman Catholic) was born in New York, and was previously married to a man named John Fairbanks, who left her a widow. She then married a man named Wilcox, who turned out to be abusive. Her divorce was handled by Ullman, who she later married.

In about 1881, Charles Ullman purchased several mining interests in the Rocky Mountains and relocated the family to Denver, where he re-established his law practice. Ullman abandoned the family when Doug was five years old, and he and Robert were raised by their mother.

Doug began acting on the Denver stage at an early age, doing amateur theatre. He was in summer stock at the Elitch Gardens Theatre, becoming a sensation in his teens. He attended East Denver High School, and was once expelled for dressing up the campus statues on St. Patrick's Day. He left during his senior year. He said he attended Colorado School of Mines, then Harvard University for a term. No record of attendance has been located, but an article about whether or not he attended Mines recounts a professor once saying Fairbanks was asked to leave because of a prank not long after he began.

Fairbanks moved to New York in the early 1900s to pursue an acting career. He worked in a hardware store and as a clerk in a Wall Street office before his Broadway debut in 1902.
On July 11, 1907 in Watch Hill, Rhode Island, he married Anna Beth Sully, the daughter of wealthy industrialist, Daniel J. Sully. They had one son, Douglas Elton Fairbanks (actor Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., who was born on December 9, 1909 and who died on May 7, 2000). The family moved to Hollywood in 1915.

Fairbanks signed a contract with Triangle Pictures and began working under the supervision of D.W. Griffith. His athletic abilities were not appreciated by Griffith, however, and he was brought to the attention of Anita Loos and John Emerson, who wrote and directed many of his early romantic comedies.

He met actress and businesswoman Mary Pickford at a party in 1916 and they began having an affair. In 1917, they, along with Charlie Chaplin, traveled across the U.S. by train selling war bonds. Pickford and Chaplin were then the two highest paid movie stars in Hollywood. Fairbanks set up his own production company, the Douglas Fairbanks Film Corporation. Within eighteen months of his arrival, Fairbank's popularity and business acumen raised him up to be the third highest paid. To curtail these stars' astronomical salaries, the large studios attempted to monopolize the distributors and exhibitors.

On December 1, 1918 in New Rochelle, New York, Beth won an interlocutory decree of divorce from Fairbanks, as well as custody of their son. The record of testimony referred to the co-respondent as "an unknown woman." The decree was made final March 5, 1919.

To avoid being controlled by the studios and to protect the art of movie making, Fairbanks, Pickford, Chaplin, and D.W. Griffith formed United Artists in 1919, which created their own distributorships and gave them complete artistic control over their movies and the profits generated.

Fairbanks was determined to have Pickford become his wife, but she was still married to actor Owen Moore. They were both concerned about bad publicity and the effect it could have on the moviegoing public, who might boycott their efforts at the theater should they marry each other. He finally gave her an ultimatum. She then obtained a fast divorce in the small Nevada town of Minden on March 2, 1920. Fairbanks leased the Beverly Hills mansion Grayhall and was rumoured to have used it during his courtship of Pickford. (Grayhall was subsequently owned by, among others, the financier Bernard Cornfeld.)

The couple were married March 28, 1920, by the pastor of Temple Baptist Church, at his residence on West Fourth Street in Los Angeles. Pickford's divorce from Moore was contested by Nevada legislators, however, and the dispute was not settled until 1922. Even though the lawmakers objected to the marriage, the public went wild over the idea of "Everybody's Hero" marrying "America's Sweetheart." The couple was greeted by crowds of up to 300,000 people in London and Paris during their European honeymoon, becoming Hollywood's first celebrity marriage.

During the years they were married, Fairbanks and Pickford were regarded as "Hollywood Royalty," and they were famous for entertaining at their Beverly Hills estate, Pickfair.

By 1920, Fairbanks had completed twenty-nine comedies, mostly with the same theme. The public wanted something new. He then had the inspiration of doing a costume picture, which were not popular with the public up to that point. He went ahead and took the chance, making The Mark of Zorro. It was a smash success and parlayed the actor into the rank of superstar. He made swashbuckling costume movies throughout the 1920s.

In 1921, he, Pickford, friend Chaplin, and others, helped organize the Motion Picture Fund to assist those in the industry who could not work, or were unable to meet their bills.

During the first ceremony of its type, he and Pickford placed their hand and foot prints in wet cement at the newly opened Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood on April 30, 1927. Fairbanks was elected first President of the Motion Picture Academy of Arts and Sciences that same year, and he hosted the first Academy Awards ceremony.

His last silent movie was The Iron Mask (1929). He and Pickford then made their first talkie, playing Petruchio and Kate in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew (1929). The last movie he acted in was The Private Life of Don Juan (1934).

There is a witty reference to him in the David Lean film 'A Passage to India' (set in Edwardian India) in which one of the characters performs acrobatic feats on the side of a train calling, "I am Douglas Fairbanks!"

After he began an affair with Sylvia Ashley, Fairbanks and Pickford separated in 1933. Fairbanks, Sr. and Pickford divorced in 1936, with her keeping Pickfair. On March 7, 1936, in Paris, France, he and Ashley were married. He lived in retirement with her at 705 Ocean Front (now Pacific Coast Highway) in Santa Monica, California.

On December 12, 1939 at about 12:45 a.m, fifty-six year old Douglas Fairbanks died in his sleep of a heart attack, at his home in Santa Monica. His funeral service was held at the Wee Kirk o' the Heather Church at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, where he was placed in a crypt in the Great Mausoleum. His widow, Sylvia, then commissioned an elaborate monument for him in another cemetery, with long rectangular reflecting pool, raised tomb, and classic Greek architecture, and he was removed from Forest Lawn. He is entombed at Hollywood Forever Cemetery, Hollywood, California.

Douglas Fairbanks' hand and foot prints are immortalized in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theatre and he has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7020 Hollywood Boulevard.

IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001196/

American Film Institutes catalogue of Fairbanks films

http://www.afi.com/members/catalog/SearchResult.aspx?s=1&Type=PN&Tbl=&CatID=DATABIN_CAST&ID=41378&searchedFor=Douglas_Fairbanks_&SortType=ASC&SortCol=RELEASE_YEAR

10 picture galleries of Fairbanks at Silent Ladies and Gents

http://www.silentgents.com/PFair.html

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

5/22 Sir Laurence Kerr Olivier

Sat, 27 May 2006 11:07:55 GMT

Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM (22 May 1907–11 July 1989) was an Academy Award-winning English actor and director. He was regarded by many critics as the greatest actor of the 20th century.

Early Career

Olivier was born in Dorking, Surrey. He was educated at St Edward's School, Oxford and he attended the Central School of Speech and Drama. It was his father, Gerard Kerr Olivier, an Anglican priest, who decided that Laurence — or Kim as the family called him — would become an actor. 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. His film breakthrough was his portrayal of Heathcliff in the 1939 film, Wuthering Heights, which co-starred Merle Oberon and Geraldine Fitzgerald.

Later Career

Olivier narrated the famous The World at War miniseries on British television, an extensive documentary of the Second World War. His understated performance was well-received critically and the series continues to air regularly in many markets around the world. In a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, voted for by industry professionals, The World at War was placed 19th.

Private Life

Olivier's biographer Donald Spoto described his first wife Jill Esmond as "a diffident lesbian." They were married in 1930 and had one son, Tarquin, born in 1936. They were divorced on 29 January 1940. By 1938, he had embarked on a torrid affair with Vivien Leigh, who was also married. Finally divorced by their respective spouses, they married on 31 August 1940, at the San Ysidro Ranch in Santa Barbara, California, with Katharine Hepburn as maid of honour. They were divorced on 2 December 1960. Olivier married his third wife, Joan Plowright, on St. Patrick's Day, 1961.

Esmond named Leigh as co-respondent in her divorce on grounds of adultery. Leigh named Plowright as co-respondent in her divorce, also on grounds of adultery. Plowright 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," referring to biographer Donald Spoto's claim that Kaye and Olivier were lovers [citation needed]. He was reportedly also intimate with playwright Noel Coward.

Esmond named Leigh as co-respondent in her divorce on grounds of adultery. Leigh named Plowright as co-respondent in her divorce, also on grounds of adultery. Plowright 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," referring to biographer Donald Spoto's claim that Kaye and Olivier were lovers. He was reportedly also intimate with playwright Noel Coward.

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 some of Olivier's family dispute this interpretation.

In his book Melting the Stone: A Journey Around My Father [1], Olivier and Plowright's son, Richard, described his father as being more interested in his work than in his children, and would become depressed when he didn't have a job.

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. After being gradually forced out of his role as director of the National Theatre, Olivier became concerned that he had not done enough to provide for his family after he died. As a result between 1973 and 1986 when his health gave out he did many films and TV specials on a "pay cheque" basis on the condition that he would not have to promote the film on release. In 1974 he was diagnosed with a degenerative muscle disorder, and nearly died in the following year.

He died in Steyning, West Sussex, England, from cancer in 1989, at the age of 82. Lord Olivier is interred in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey, London, only the second actor to be accorded that honour.

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.

He was the founding director of the Chichester Festival Theatre (1962–1966) and of the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain (1962–1973) for which he received his life peerage.
He was knighted in 1947, and created a life peer in 1970 (the first actor to be accorded this distinction) as Baron Olivier, of Brighton in the County of Sussex. He was admitted to the Order of Merit in 1981. The Laurence Olivier Awards, organised by The Society of London Theatre, were renamed in his honour in 1984.

Larry at IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000059/

Larry at the IBDB

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

Home Page

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

at Classic Movies.com

http://www.thegoldenyears.org/olivier.html

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

5/21 Robert Montgomery

Sat, 27 May 2006 10:05:27 GMT

Robert Montgomery, U.S.N.R. Commander (May 21, 1904 – September 27, 1981) was an American actor and director. Born Henry Montgomery Jr. in Beacon, New York, his early childhood was one of privilege, since his father was President of the New York Rubber Company. When his father died, the family's fortune was gone, and young Robert went to New York City to try his hand at writing and acting. Sharing a stage with George Cukor gave him an in to Hollywood, where, in 1929, he debuted in So This is College. Norma Shearer chose him to star opposite her in Private Lives in 1931, and he became a star.

In 1935, Montgomery became President of the Screen Actors Guild, and was elected again in 1946. In 1937 he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor as a psychopath in the chiller Night Must Fall, and again in 1942 for Here Comes Mr. Jordan. During World War II, he joined the Navy, rising to the rank of Lieutenant Commander.

In 1945 he returned to Hollywood, making his uncredited directing debut with They Were Expendable, where he directed some of the PT Boat scenes when director John Ford was unable to work because of health reasons. His first credited film as director was Lady in the Lake (1947), in which he also starred, and which brought him mixed reviews. He was a friendly witness before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1947. The next year, Montgomery hosted the Academy Awards. He hosted a popular television series, Robert Montgomery Presents, in the 1950s.

He died of cancer at the age of 77 in New York City. His daughter was actress Elizabeth Montgomery, who also died from cancer in 1995 at the age of 62.

Montgomery has two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, one for movies at 6440 Hollywood Blvd., and one for television at 1631 Vine Street. He was a longtime summer resident of North Haven, Maine.

Montgomery at IMDB

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0599910/

The Earl of Hollywood:Robert Montgomery

http://www.earlofhollywood.com/

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

mae west?

Lalé — Sun, 11 Dec 2005 07:44:58 GMT

hello. i have fallen in love with mae west. has anyone ever seen or heard of her first play "sex"? she was arrested for being obscene at 26 because of this play she wrote and starred in. i think that's wonderful. i want to read it! LS

posted in Classic Film Fans - 3 replies

San Jose screenings in 70mm: "Lawrence of Arabia" and "Oklahoma!"

gotrhythm — Mon, 22 May 2006 05:11:45 GMT

Two movies are showing starting next week at the California Theater in San Jose:

"Lawrence of Arabia" in its original 70mm format. May 23-26 7:00 PM; May 27 2:00 PM and 7:00 PM.

"Oklahoma!" in its original Todd-AO 70mm format. May 28 2:00 PM and 7:00 PM; May 29-June 1 7:00 PM.

The California Theatre is the home of Opera San Jose, and has had only a couple of film screenings so far. It's a huge theater for watching movies, a good place for this program.

posted in Classic Film Fans - 0 replies

Sunset Boulevard

Tierney — Mon, 15 May 2006 01:06:31 GMT

I was watching this movie the other night and I'd like to know everyone's favourite scene/line etc.

posted in Classic Film Fans - 10 replies