Entry tags:
Fannish Friday: old-school acting faves
Inspired by me nominating Thelma Ritter for the women's round of Vintage Hotties poll spectacular over on Tumblr dot com (look, if Peter Falk can make it this far, there is no reason Ms. Ritter shouldn't too):
Tell me about an actor--tv, film, stage, whatever--from before, say, 1980 that you really love.
I have a zillion, but today I will focus on Ms. Ritter, Character Actress Extraordinaire.
She was a very small middle-aged lady with a thick Brooklyn accent and she's unforgettable onscreen. If you've ever seen her in anything, you will be absolutely thrilled to see her again. Her first few film roles were so small that they were uncredited--a customer in Miracle on 34th Street, a servant in A Letter to Three Wives--but she made such an impact that Joseph L. Mankiewicz called her up for All About Eve, which I believe was her first credited role...and which got her an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress. She later got 5 more nominations in that category, but she never won.
She played larger supporting roles in Rear Window and Pillow Talk and The Misfits and How the West Was Won (and nobody asked for my opinion about that movie but the cast is incredible, the score is even better, and it's 10000% Manifest Destiny propaganda. Now you know!). And she's just so good in everything! All the time! I love her!
Having compared her to Falk, it is now the great tragedy of my life that she didn't get to play a schlumpy detective on a beloved TV show for years. She would have knocked it out of the park.
Anyway, tell me about someone you're fond of (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
thisbluespirit I'm looking at you). You don't have to go into great detail, you can literally just be like, "I really like Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins" or something. I am just feeling the love for classic stars today!
Tell me about an actor--tv, film, stage, whatever--from before, say, 1980 that you really love.
I have a zillion, but today I will focus on Ms. Ritter, Character Actress Extraordinaire.
She was a very small middle-aged lady with a thick Brooklyn accent and she's unforgettable onscreen. If you've ever seen her in anything, you will be absolutely thrilled to see her again. Her first few film roles were so small that they were uncredited--a customer in Miracle on 34th Street, a servant in A Letter to Three Wives--but she made such an impact that Joseph L. Mankiewicz called her up for All About Eve, which I believe was her first credited role...and which got her an Oscar nomination for best supporting actress. She later got 5 more nominations in that category, but she never won.
She played larger supporting roles in Rear Window and Pillow Talk and The Misfits and How the West Was Won (and nobody asked for my opinion about that movie but the cast is incredible, the score is even better, and it's 10000% Manifest Destiny propaganda. Now you know!). And she's just so good in everything! All the time! I love her!
Having compared her to Falk, it is now the great tragedy of my life that she didn't get to play a schlumpy detective on a beloved TV show for years. She would have knocked it out of the park.
Anyway, tell me about someone you're fond of (
thisbluespirit I'm looking at you). You don't have to go into great detail, you can literally just be like, "I really like Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins" or something. I am just feeling the love for classic stars today!
no subject
no subject
Have you seen What's Up Doc? She should have had the chance to make more screwballs!
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
I first started noticing her as a straight actress in Tension (1949). I also like her a lot in East Side, West Side (1949), which I have not written about.
no subject
no subject
THIS IS ALL ENTIRELY TRUE:
Carol Marcus was originally born to a teenage immigrant on the Lower East Side, who ended up placing her daughter in foster care until Carol was eight. What happened when she was eight? Well, her mom married Charles Marcus, who owned a large share of Bendix, a mid-century manufacturing firm that was very successful (a lot of people owned Bendix washing machines in the 1950s). So Carol and her mom go live on Park Avenue with Daddy
WarbucksMarcus.She attends a posh school on the Upper West Side. One of her best friends there is Gloria Vanderbilt. Another is a kid who had kind of a similar situation to Carol growing up -- his mom married and had a kid too young and he was stuck with relatives in Alabama until she married rich and sent for him to come live with her in New York. His name was Truman Capote.
She wants to be an actress, but at 19 she gets married, to William Saroyan, who's 16 years her senior and a famous author (much more famous at the time than he is now, though I got assigned The Human Comedy to read in high school). But he's drinking and gambling and also (by her account later) hitting her, and after having two kids they break up. (One of her kids, by the way, becomes a known minimalist poet who names his daughters Strawberry and Cream, and Strawberry in turn becomes an essayist and memoirist.)
So now it's the 1950s. She does some Broadway, she does some film. She marries Walter Matthau in 1959, and they have one more kid (who becomes a film director) and stay married until his death in 2000. In her seventies, the New York Times will be interviewing her, and she will tell them, "I married Walter because I love to sleep with him."
BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE. Remember how I said she became friends with Truman Capote in high school? They stayed friends for the rest of his life. One consequence of this is that he eventually acknowledged her as one of the inspirations for Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's. Another is that, in the 1970s, she stuck by him after he made some Terrible Decisions (I'm not watching that Ryan Murphy series -- no objection, I'm just not interested -- but my understanding is it stuck relatively close to the actual stories). One of those Terrible Decisions was dating a guy who was a straight-up asshole to Capote and others, at times physically abusing Capote. Carol Marcus was so pissed off at this SHE THREATENED TO SHOOT THE GUY. Like literally told him she carried a pistol in her purse. I have no idea whether she actually did or not.
I need to hit up AbeBooks for her memoir one of these days, for reasons that should be obvious by now. Or listen to this podcast.
no subject
But I knew NONE of that! What an absolutely fascinating life! I would also love to read her memoir.
Now I wish my name was Strawberry Saroyan.
(I'm not watching the Ryan Murphy show because I hate Ryan Murphy, but I wish that someone else had made it because I think that period of Capote's life would make a very interesting show.)
no subject
LOL! Mine aren't Old Hollywood people, though, and therefore not at all cool, even if I like them. XD
The nearest I come is Margaret Lockwood, the biggest female UK movie star in the 1930s, who was pretty awesome, and made something of a comeback in the 60s and 70s as well & was the wicked stepmother in The Slipper and the Rose.
She's great in The Lady Vanishes with Dame May Whitty and Michael Redgrave (I'm confident you'd enjoy that one - it's an early Alfred Hitchcock with spies on a train across Europe and full on 1930s banter and shenanigans).
She played quite a few villains in Gainsborough melodramas (and some heroines), and The Wicked Lady is a lot of fun, as she dresses up as a man and takes to the highway with James Mason. (And Patricia Roc, who also turns up in three of her films and they are always v femslashy together, like so) and like so.)
I also like Carol Reed's Bank Holiday, although I'm not sure I can justify that as much, but I'm very fond of it anyway.
But, yeah, she's pretty cool:
Being v eyerolly about the US censors and TWL
Some other 1930s UK Movie ladies I like include (obv) the very awesome Dame May Whitty (she went to Hollywood aged 70 and immediately set about winning Oscars; she helped set up Equity and she was the first actor to be made a Dame, for her work in hospitals in WWI), Nova Pilbeam (who is fun and also refused to change her name for the stage, because she didn't think it was any sillier than plenty of stage names anyway) and Victoria Hopper, subject of a rather baffling hatchet job of an Obit in The Stage that I suspect was undeserved (but idk). Ironically, her favourite role was one that was all about how women get written out of history and forgotten or maligned.
no subject
Life goals! XD
no subject
no subject
no subject
I have indeed seen and enjoyed The Lady Vanishes! I didn't realize she was the biggest star in the UK, though, that's so cool!
as she dresses up as a man and takes to the highway with James Mason
Life goals!
Dame May Whitty
I've seen several things with her! I loooove an old lady!
who is fun and also refused to change her name for the stage, because she didn't think it was any sillier than plenty of stage names anyway
Good for her! /Lucille Bluth
I knew you'd have some great ones! Thank you for sharing!
no subject
Aw, thanks! I'm just very aware that most people slip away at best or possibly run away screaming once they realise I'm looking at OLd British TV! XD But I did find you some UK movie stars, who, unfairly get so much less attention, especially this era where Hollywood was out of reach because of the War, which also ended several careers prematurely.
Life goals!
I mean, it ends in Death, so possibly not, but tbf, it is better than the previous one where ML and JM had an affair and then he wound up beating her to death with the poker. (I like The Man In Grey more than it deserves for the excellently snarky ML content, but does it have problems and then some.)
I've seen several things with her! I loooove an old lady!
She's just so great!
no subject
I mean, it ends in Death, so possibly not, but tbf, it is better than the previous one where ML and JM had an affair and then he wound up beating her to death with the poker.
OH NO!
no subject
I've mainly watched random obscure ones from a particular series of DVD release, plus a few others, so I'm not sure I'm a good guide, but The 39 Steps (1936) is great fun, and Laburnum Grove is awesome as well, and as I said, I love Bank Holiday too. But I do need to try some more of the better known ones! XD
I also watched The Assassination Bureau a couple of years ago, which was a late 1960s film that has Diana Rigg and Oliver Reed running about Edwardian Europe together (she hires him to assassinate the assassins of his own Assassination Bureau! What could possibly go wrong?) and it is a madcap delight if it ever falls into your hands. And I had never heard of it before I spotted it on backwater freeview channel. I had to find this out myself!!
I mean, it ends in Death, so possibly not, but tbf, it is better than the previous one where ML and JM had an affair and then he wound up beating her to death with the poker.
OH NO!
Death On The Highway for your wicked crimes (which were many, lol) is definitely preferable! XD
no subject
I also watched The Assassination Bureau a couple of years ago, which was a late 1960s film that has Diana Rigg and Oliver Reed running about Edwardian Europe together (she hires him to assassinate the assassins of his own Assassination Bureau! What could possibly go wrong?) and it is a madcap delight if it ever falls into your hands.
That sounds AMAZING!
no subject
Have a clip of the bit at the start where she hires him, if you like, and judge for yourself. :-)
no subject