My Favorite Actresses
Here's the female equivalent of my "Favorite Actors" list, just as subjective and in no particular order.
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Ruth Roman was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, the youngest of three daughters of Lithuanian-Jewish parents Mary Pauline (Gold) and Abraham Roman. Her father, a carnival barker, died when she was a small child, forcing her mother to support the family by working as a waitress and cleaning woman. Ruth grew up in the poor tenement district of Boston, Massachusetts, where she went to school. However, she left school after just two years to pursue an acting career. Her chosen path proved to be strewn with obstacles: in New York, she obtained a job posing for stills for a crime magazine, but theatrical work eluded her. She then worked as a hat check girl at a night club before calling it quits and returning to Boston. There, she made ends meet as an usherette during the day while at night performing with the New England Repertory Company, her first steady acting job. She also studied drama and eventually graduated from the Bishop-Lee Theatre School.
Trying to get into films, Ruth unsuccessfully made the rounds of agents and producers for two years (1940-42), until a bit part as a WAVE came her way in the film Stage Door Canteen (1943). With $200 to her name, she purchased a one-way ticket to Hollywood, where she found shared accommodation with other aspiring starlets, naming it, optimistically, 'the House of the Seven Garbos'. After a screen test with Warner Brothers failed to result in a contract, Ruth had another run of six hard years playing bit parts, many of them uncredited, some ending up on the cutting room floor. A sole speaking part of consequence was in the titular role of Jungle Queen (1945), a Universal serial (after subsequent acting lessons, Ruth was aghast when the serial was rereleased in 1951).
Ruth finally got her big break when producer Dore Schary cast her (against character, as a murderess) in the RKO thriller The Window (1949). That same year, she successfully auditioned for Stanley Kramer's boxing drama Champion (1949) as the dependable wife of the fighter (Kirk Douglas). After this turning point in her life, the shapely, smoky-voiced brunette secured a contract with Warner Brothers. During the next phase of her career, she moved effortlessly from glamorous and seductive to demure and wholesome in films opposite stars like James Stewart, Errol Flynn, and Gary Cooper. Look Magazine billed her as the 'Big Time Movie Personality of 1950', and by the following year she was receiving some 500 fan letters per week.
While many of her leads were in westerns (albeit mostly A-grade ones), Ruth was somewhat more memorable in support of Farley Granger (as his upper-crust lover and the raison d'etre for the planned murder of his wife) in Alfred Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train (1951). Another offbeat role was as a gangster's moll in the British-made updated adaptation of Shakespeare's Joe MacBeth (1955). As Lily, she is the power behind angst-ridden Paul Douglas ('Joe'), whom she easily manipulates to do her bidding. In The Bottom of the Bottle (1956), she was at her dependable best as the supportive wife of lawyer Joseph Cotten. Arguably, her last noteworthy performance on the big screen was in Alexander Singer's romance/drama Love Has Many Faces (1965).
By the 1960s, Ruth had made the transition to middle-aged character parts and began to appear mostly on television in shows like The Outer Limits (1963), Mannix (1967), Gunsmoke (1955), and (in a recurring role) in The Long, Hot Summer (1965). She also toured nationally with theatrical productions of "Plaza Suite", "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf", and "Two for the Seesaw". For the actress, who was said to disdain the trimmings of Hollywood stardom, real-life drama came when she and her son counted among the 760 survivors of the sinking of the luxury cruise liner 'Andrea Doria' in 1956. In September 1967, she jumped from her burning car but still managed to make her scheduled performance in "Beekman Place" at the Ivanhoe Theatre. Ruth died in September 1999 at her home in Laguna Beach, aged 76.- Actress
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Lauren Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske on September 16, 1924, in New York City. She was the daughter of Natalie Weinstein-Bacal, a Romanian Jewish immigrant, and William Perske, who was born in New Jersey, to Polish Jewish parents. Her family was middle-class, with her father working as a salesman and her mother as a secretary. They divorced when she was five and she rarely saw her father after that.
As a school girl, she originally wanted to be a dancer, but later switched gears to head into acting. She studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, after attending She was educated at Highland Manor, a private boarding school in Tarrytown, New York (through the generosity of wealthy uncles), and then at Julia Richman High School, which enabled her to get her feet wet in some off-Broadway productions.
Out of school, she entered modeling and, because of her beauty, appeared on the cover of Harper's Bazaar, one of the most popular magazines in the US. The wife of famed director Howard Hawks spotted the picture in the publication and arranged with her husband to have Lauren take a screen test. As a result, which was entirely positive, she was given the part of Marie Browning in To Have and Have Not (1944), a thriller opposite Humphrey Bogart, when she was just 19 years old. This not only set the tone for a fabulous career but also one of Hollywood's greatest love stories (she married Bogart in 1945). It was also the first of several Bogie-Bacall films.
After 1945's Confidential Agent (1945), Lauren received second billing in The Big Sleep (1946) with Bogart. The mystery, in the role of Vivian Sternwood Rutledge, was a resounding success. Although she was making one film a year, each production would be eagerly awaited by the public. In 1947, again with her husband, Lauren starred in the thriller Dark Passage (1947). The film kept movie patrons on the edge of their seats. The following year, she starred with Bogart, Edward G. Robinson, and Lionel Barrymore in Key Largo (1948). The crime drama was even more of a nail biter than her previous film.
In 1950, Lauren starred in Bright Leaf (1950), a drama set in 1894. It was a film of note because she appeared without her husband - her co-star was Gary Cooper. In 1953, Lauren appeared in her first comedy as Schatze Page in How to Marry a Millionaire (1953). The film, with co-stars Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable, was a smash hit all across the theaters of America.
After filming Designing Woman (1957), which was released in 1957, Humphrey Bogart died on January 14 from throat cancer. Devastated at being a widow, Lauren returned to the silver screen with The Gift of Love (1958) in 1958 opposite Robert Stack. The production turned out to be a big disappointment. Undaunted, Lauren moved back to New York City and appeared in several Broadway plays to huge critical acclaim. She was enjoying acting before live audiences and the audiences in turn enjoyed her fine performances.
Lauren was away from the big screen for five years, but she returned in 1964 to appear in Shock Treatment (1964) and Sex and the Single Girl (1964). The latter film was a comedy starring Henry Fonda and Tony Curtis. In 1966, Lauren starred in Harper (1966) with Paul Newman and Julie Harris, which was one of former's signature films.
Alternating her time between films and the stage, Lauren returned in 1974's Murder on the Orient Express (1974). The film, based on Agatha Christie's best-selling book was a huge hit. It also garnered Ingrid Bergman her third Oscar. Actually, the huge star-studded cast helped to ensure its success. Two years later, in 1976, Lauren co-starred with John Wayne in The Shootist (1976). The film was Wayne's last - he died from cancer in 1979. In late 1979, Lauren appeared with her good friend, James Garner, in a double episode, Lions, Tigers, Monkeys and Dogs (1979), of his Rockford Files series.
For Lauren's next film role, she appeared in a large ensemble film, HealtH (1980), which again paired her with James Garner, and in 1981, she played an actress being stalked by a crazed admirer in The Fan (1981). The thriller was absolutely fascinating with Lauren in the lead role, again playing opposite her good friend James Garner, making three straight screen roles with Lauren opposite James Garner. After that production, Lauren was away from films again, this time for seven years. In the interim, she again appeared on the stages of Broadway. When she returned, it was for the filming of 1988's Appointment with Death (1988) and Mr. North (1988). After 1990's Misery (1990) and several made for television films, Lauren appeared in 1996's My Fellow Americans (1996), a comedy romp with Jack Lemmon and James Garner as two ex-presidents and their escapades. In 1997, Lauren appeared in The Mirror Has Two Faces (1996), in one of the best roles of her later career, opposite Barbra Streisand, where Lauren was nominated as Best Actress in a Supporting Role by both the Academy and the Golden Globes, winning the Golden Globe for the role.
Despite her age and failing health, she made a small-scale comeback in the English-language dub of Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle (2004) ("Howl's Moving Castle," based on the young-adult novel by Diana Wynne Jones) as the Witch of the Waste, and several other roles through 2008, but thereafter acting endeavors for the beloved actress became increasingly rare. Lauren Bacall died on 12 August 2014, five weeks short of her 90th birthday.- Actress
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Jean Shirley Verhagen (later shortened to Hagen) was born in Chicago, Illinois on August 3, 1923. Her father was a Dutch immigrant. Hagen and her family moved to Elkhart, Indiana when she was twelve; she subsequently graduated from Elkhart High School. Afterwards, she graduated from Northwestern University, where she studied drama and was a roommate of fellow actress Patricia Neal.
Hagen began her show business career in the late 1940s, performing in radio programmes. She also dabbled in Broadway plays. She made her film debut in 1949 with a role as a comical femme fatale in the Katharine Hepburn-Spencer Tracy pairing Adam's Rib (1949). She had her first leading role the following year, when she starred opposite Sterling Hayden in the film noir classic The Asphalt Jungle (1950), a performance which gained her considerable attention and praise.
The performance for which Hagen is best remembered today came about in 1952, when she lent her support to the classic musical Singin' in the Rain (1952). Hagen's portrayal of the helium-voiced silent film star Lina Lamont earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress; she lost to Gloria Grahame for The Bad and the Beautiful (1952).
Following her 'Singin' in the Rain' success, Ms. Hagen joined the cast of the television sitcom The Danny Thomas Show (1953). She was nominated for three Emmys for her role as Margaret Williams, but grew tired of the role after three seasons and subsequently left the show.
For the rest of her career, Hagen mostly made guest appearances on numerous television shows, including Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955), The Andy Griffith Show (1960), Wagon Train (1957), and Starsky and Hutch (1975). She also had supporting roles in Sunrise at Campobello (1960) and Dead Ringer (1963).
Sadly, by the 1960s, Ms. Hagen's health had declined and she spent many years under medical care. She died of esophageal cancer on August 29, 1977 at the age of 54.- Actress
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After graduating with two degrees (arts and music) from Mather College (Western Reserve) in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1935, Janis headed to New York with aspirations of embarking on a musical career in opera. Supporting herself by waitressing, singing in churches, modeling (Conover) and writing radio scripts, she won an audition with the Met. However, a case of nerves assured her failure and an end to that ambition. Landing on her feet, she got a part in the Broadway musical I Married An Angel. DuBarry Was A Lady soon followed and then Panama Hattie, in which she had a solo number. Darryl Zanuck of 20th Century-Fox attended the opening night and was impressed enough with Janis to offer her a contract. She arrived in Hollywood in February 1941 and stayed for 12 years, making more than 30 movies for 20th Century-Fox, MGM, Columbia, and RKO. After leaving Hollywood for good, Janis headed back to New York and began a career working in television. She acted in numerous shows, both drama and comedy, and in 1954 became the hostess of the NBC quiz show Feather Your Nest, working with Bud Collyer. In 1956, Janis married Julius Stulman and retired from show business. With the same enthusiasm she had shown in other areas of her life, she involved herself in cultural activities of her community, serving in various capacities throughout the years, primarily in Sarasota, Florida.- Actress
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Ida was born in London to a show business family. In 1932, her mother took Ida with her to an audition and Ida got the part her mother wanted. The picture was Her First Affaire (1932). Ida, a bleached blonde, went to Hollywood in 1934 playing small, insignificant parts. Peter Ibbetson (1935) was one of her few noteworthy movies and it was not until The Light That Failed (1939) that she got a chance to get better parts. In most of her movies, she was cast as the hard, but sympathetic woman from the wrong side of the tracks. In The Sea Wolf (1941) and High Sierra (1940), she played the part magnificently. It has been said that no one could do hard-luck dames the way Lupino could do them. She played tough, knowing characters who held their own against some of the biggest leading men of the day - Humphrey Bogart, Ronald Colman, John Garfield and Edward G. Robinson. She made a handful of films during the forties playing different characters ranging from Pillow to Post (1945), where she played a traveling saleswoman to the tough nightclub singer in The Man I Love (1946). But good roles for women were hard to get and there were many young actresses and established stars competing for those roles. She left Warner Brothers in 1947 and became a freelance actress. When better roles did not materialize, Ida stepped behind the camera as a director, writer and producer. Her first directing job came when director Elmer Clifton fell ill on a script that she co-wrote Not Wanted (1949). Ida had joked that as an actress, she was the poor man's Bette Davis. Now, she said that as a director, she became the poor man's Don Siegel. The films that she wrote, or directed, or appeared in during the fifties were mostly inexpensive melodramas. She later turned to television where she directed episodes in shows such as The Untouchables (1959) and The Fugitive (1963). In the seventies, she made guest appearances on various television show and appeared in small parts in a few movies.- Actress
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As a baby, she was winning beauty contests; as a teenager, with good looks and an attractive contralto voice, she was singing with big bands (most notably Enric Madriguera's orchestra in Latin Club Del Rio in Washington, D.C.. She met Rudy Vallee, her first husband, on the radio where she also enjoyed a brief stint as a singer. At age 15, an attack of palsy left her face partially paralyzed. She claimed that it was through facial exercises to overcome the paralysis that she learned the efficacy of facial expression in conveying human emotion, a skill she was renowned for using in her acting.- Actress
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Claire Trevor was born Claire Wemlinger in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, New York, the only child of Fifth Avenue merchant-tailor Noel Wemlinger, an immigrant Frenchman from Paris who lost his business during the Depression, and his Belfast-born wife, Benjamina, known as "Betty". Young Claire's interest in acting began when she was 11 years old. She attended high school in Mamaroneck, Westchester County, New York. After starting classes at Columbia University, she spent six months at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, also in New York. Her adult acting experience began in the late 1920s in several stock productions; she appeared with Robert Henderson's Repertory Players in Ann Arbor, Michigan in 1930. That same year, aged 20, she signed with Warner Bros. Not too far from her home haunts was Vitagraph Studios in Brooklyn, the last and best of the early sound process studios, which had been acquired by Warner Bros. in 1925 to become Vitaphone. Trevor appeared in several of the nearly 2000 shorts cranked out by the studio between 1926 and 1930. Then she was sent west to do ten weeks of stock productions with other contract players in St. Louis. In 1931 she did summer stock with the Hampton Players in Southampton, Long Island. Finally, she debuted on Broadway in 1932 in "Whistling in the Dark".
Trevor moved to the silver screen, debuting in the western Life in the Raw (1933). There would be three more films (one more western) that year and six or more through the 1930s. Although she had been typed playing gun molls and hard-case women of the world, she displayed her already considerable versatility in these early films, often playing competent, take-charge professional women as well as "shady" ladies. There was a disappointed-pout-vulnerability in her face and that famous slightly New York-burred voice that cracked with a little cry when heightened by emotion that quickly revealed an unusual and sensitive performer. Many of her early films were "B" potboilers, but she worked with Spencer Tracy on several occasions, notably Dante's Inferno (1935).
Hollywood finally took notice of her talents by nominating her for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her standout performance as a slum girl forced by poverty into prostitution in Dead End (1937), opposite Humphrey Bogart. That same year she did the radio drama "Big Town" with Edward G. Robinson, then teamed with he and Bogart again for the slightly hokey but entertaining The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938). Director John Ford tapped her for his first big sound Western film, Stagecoach (1939), the film that made a star of John Wayne. All her abilities to bring complexity to a character showed in her kicked-around dance hall girl "Dallas", one of the great early female roles. She and Wayne were electric, and they were paired in three more films during their careers.
In the 1940s, Trevor began appearing in the genre that brought her to true stardom: "film noir". She started in a big way as killer Ruth Dillon in Street of Chance (1942) with Burgess Meredith. She was equally convincing as the more complex but nonetheless two-faced Mrs. Grayle in the Philip Marlowe vehicle Murder, My Sweet (1944). However, she was something very different and quite extraordinary as washed-up, hopelessly alcoholic former nightclub singer and moll Gaye Dawn in Key Largo (1948), for which she won an Academy Award as Best Supporting Actress, again working with Bogart and Robinson. Her pitiful rendition of the torch song "Moanin' Low", which her character was forced to sing, humiliatingly, for the sadistic crime boss played by Robinson (to whom she is, figuratively speaking, permanently tethered) in exchange for a desperately needed drink. There were more quality movies and an additional Academy nomination (The High and the Mighty (1954)) into the 1950s,, but she also was doing work on stage and in television.
She was enthusiastic about live TV and appeared on several famous shows by the mid-1950s. She won an Emmy for Best Live Television Performance by an Actress as the flighty wife of Fredric March in NBC's Dodsworth (1956). She alternated her career among film, stage and TV roles. As she aged she easily transitioned into "distinguished matron" and mother roles, one of her most unusual ones being the murderous Ma Barker in Ma Barker and Her Boys (1959). Her final film role was as Sally Field's mother in Kiss Me Goodbye (1982).
Trevor and her third husband, producer Milton H. Bren, had long been residents of tony Newport Beach, California, to which they returned when she finally retired from screen work. However, she did maintain an active interest in stage work, and became associated with the University of California-Irvine's School of Arts. She and her husband contributed some $10 million to further its development for the visual and performing arts (that included three endowed professorships). After her passing in April 2000 at 90 years of age, the University renamed the school The Claire Trevor School of the Arts. Her presence on the UCI campus is in more than spirit alone. She donated her Oscar and her Emmy to UCI; both are on display in the arts plaza at the campus theatre that bears her name.- Actress
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Stardom somehow eluded this vastly gifted actress. Had it not perhaps been for her low-level profile compounded by her McCarthy-era blacklisting in the early 1950s, there is no telling what higher tier Marsha Hunt might have attained. Perhaps her work was not flashy enough, or too subdued, or perhaps her intelligence too often disguised a genuine sex appeal to stand out among the other lovelies. Two studios, Paramount in the late 1930s and MGM in the early 1940s, failed to complete her star. Nevertheless, her talent and versatility cannot be denied. This glamorous, slimly handsome leading lady offered herself to well over 50 pictures during the 1930s and 1940s alone.
Christened Marcia Virginia Hunt, the Chicago-born actress was the younger of two girls born to an attorney and voice teacher/accompanist. The family relocated to New York when she was quite young and she attended such schools as PS #9 and Horace Mann School for Girls. She developed an interest in acting at an early age (3), performing around and about in school plays and at church functions. Following her high school graduation the young beauty found work as a John Powers model and as a singer on radio, a gift obviously inherited from her mother. Marcia (she later changed the spelling of her first name to Marsha) studied drama at the Theodora Irvine Drama School (one of her fellow students was Cornel Wilde).
Encouraged to try Hollywood by various New York people in the business, the young photogenic hopeful moved there in 1934. She was only 17 but was accompanied by her older sister. It didn't take long for the studios to take an interest in her and she was signed up by Paramount not long after. Marsha's very first movie was in a featured role opposite Robert Cummings and Johnny Downs in the old-fashioned The Virginia Judge (1935). Displaying an innate, fresh-faced sensitivity, she moved directly into her second film, playing the title role in Gentle Julia (1936), this time with Tom Brown as her romantic interest.
Marsha continued to show promise but these well-acted roles were, more often than not, overlooked in mild "B"-level offerings. Appearing in co-starring roles in everything from westerns (Desert Gold (1936) and Thunder Trail (1937)) to folksy or flyweight comedy (Easy to Take (1936) and Murder Goes to College (1937)), she could not find decent enough scripts at Paramount. Though she was once deemed one of the studio's promising starlets, one of her last films there was another prairie flower role--[error]--with cowboys John Wayne and Johnny Mack Brown vying for her attention. At about this time (1938) she married Jerry Hopper, a Paramount film editor who turned to directing in the 1950s. This marriage lasted but a few years.
Freelancing for a time for many studios, Marsha's more noticeable war-era work in sentimental comedy and staunch war dramas came from MGM, and she finally signed with the studio in 1939. The roles offered, which included a featured part as one of the sisters in Pride and Prejudice (1940) starring Greer Garson, and again as a sister to Garson in Blossoms in the Dust (1941), which showed much more promise. Some of her better war-era roles came in the films Cheers for Miss Bishop (1941), Kid Glove Killer (1942) and The Affairs of Martha (1942). During this time she also sang on extended USO tours and stayed busy on radio. Her best known film is arguably The Human Comedy (1943) but she wasn't the star. Other film roles had her in support of others, such as Margaret Sullavan in Cry 'Havoc' (1943), little Margaret O'Brien in Lost Angel (1943) and Garson again in The Valley of Decision (1945). Leading roles did not come in "A" pictures.
Her MGM contract was allowed to lapse in 1945 and a second marriage in 1946, to screenwriter Robert Presnell Jr., became a higher priority. The marriage was long and happy (exactly 40 years) and lasted until his passing in June of 1986. The few pictures she made were, again, uneventful or in support of the star, although she did have a catchy, unsympathetic role in the Susan Hayward starrer Smash-Up: The Story of a Woman (1947) as a scheming secretary. In Raw Deal (1948), starring Dennis O'Keefe, she got the "raw deal" being overshadowed as a "good girl" by the "bad girl" posturings of Claire Trevor. At this point of her career she decided to try the stage and made her Broadway debut in "Joy to the World" (1948). Other plays down the road would include "The Devil's Disciple" with Maurice Evans, "The Lady's Not for Burning" with Vincent Price and "The Little Hut" with Leon Ames. She even had a chance to return to her beloved singing as Anna in a production of "The King and I" and (much later) in productions of "State Fair" and "Meet Me in St. Louis". TV also yielded some new work opportunities, including a presentation of "Twelfth Night" in which she portrayed Viola.
The seams of her film career fell apart in the early 1950s. During the late 1930s and into the 1940s she signed a number of petitions promoting liberal ideals, and was a member of the Committee for the First Amendment. A strong supporter of freedom of speech, these associations led to her name appearing in the pamphlet "Red Channels", a McCarthy-era publication that "exposed" alleged Communists and "subversives". Although she and her husband were never called before the House Un-American Activities Commission, their names were nevertheless smeared all over Hollywood as "Reds". While she still found film work on occasion, it was rare. Although she had worked steadily from 1935 until 1949, appearing in over 50 films, she made only three films in the next eight years. Her screenwriter husband would be credited for only one film from 1948 to 1955.
Semi-retired by the early 1960s, stage and TV became Marsha's focal points. She also devoted herself to civil rights causes and such humanitarian efforts as UNICEF, The March of Dimes and The Red Cross. She became actively involved with the United Nations. On the acting front she appeared only in smaller roles in five films but in numerous TV programs and made-for-TV movies, playing everything from judges to grandmas. She became the Honorary Mayor of Sherman Oaks, California, in 1983, and published a book on fashion entitled "The Way We Wore" in 1993. Widowed in 1986, the ever-vibrant Marsha, in her 90s, continues to serve on the Advisory Board of Directors for the San Fernando Valley Community Mental Health Center, a large non-profit that advocates for adults and children affected by homelessness and mental illness. As recently as 2006, she appeared to good advantage in the movie Chloe's Prayer (2006) and, at age 91, was seen in Empire State Building Murders (2008).- Actress
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Marie Windsor (born Emily Marie Bertelsen) was born in Marysvale, Utah, and attended Brigham Young University. She trained for the stage under Maria Ouspenskaya before she began playing leading roles in B pictures in the late 1940s. So many B films in fact, that she garnered the title of 'Queen of the Bs'.
She was a talent - to paraphrase a cliché - of the right type and the right time. If film noir could have manufactured an archetype, it would most definitely have been Marie.
With Ms Windsor's bedroom eyes ('they didn't fit for a 'goody-goody wife, or a nice little girlfriend' ) she smouldered on screens, in scenes with John Garfield, and many others, in some of her best work. Marie's femme fatale (Ms Windsor was later quoted as saying a femme fatale is '...usually the woman who gets the man into bed... then into trouble') was on screen, most notably her role as the manipulative, double-crossing wife of Elisha Cook Jr. in The Killing (1956) (which earned her "Look" magazine's Best Supporting Actress award).
Marie later said she loved playing them because they're '... the type of character audience's never forget'.
Some of her favourites amongst her own films, in addition to The Killing (1956), are The Narrow Margin (1952) and Hellfire (1949).
Marie married was married twice before she met Jack Hupp, a realtor with whom she had a son. After retiring from films, Marie took up sculpting and painting.
Marie passed away one day before her 81st birthday. She's interred with her husband in her hometown.
Marie said audience's 'loved to hate her', and this is only partially true; audience's love Ms Windsor for the dynamism she portrayed, and as film noir gains new fans every day - more than 3/4 of a century since their heyday, it's a love affair which shows no signs of abating.- Actress
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Ava Lavina Gardner was born on December 24, 1922 in Grabtown, North Carolina, to Mary Elizabeth (née Baker) and Jonas Bailey Gardner. Born on a tobacco farm, where she got her lifelong love of earthy language and going barefoot, Ava grew up in the rural South. At age 18, her picture in the window of her brother-in- law's New York photo studio brought her to the attention of MGM, leading quickly to Hollywood and a film contract based strictly on her beauty. With zero acting experience, her first 17 film roles, 1942-1945, were one-line bits or little better. After her first starring role in B-grade Whistle Stop (1946), MGM loaned her to Universal for her first outstanding film The Killers (1946). Few of her best films were made at MGM which, keeping her under contract for 17 years, used her popularity to sell many mediocre films. Perhaps as a result, she never believed in her own acting ability, but her latent talent shone brightly when brought out by a superior director, as with John Ford in Mogambo (1953) and George Cukor in Bhowani Junction (1956).
After three failed marriages, dissatisfaction with Hollywood life prompted Ava to move to Spain in 1955; most of her subsequent films were made abroad. By this time, stardom had made the country girl a cosmopolitan, but she never overcame a deep insecurity about acting and life in the spotlight. Her last quality starring film role was in The Night of the Iguana (1964), her later work being (as she said) strictly "for the loot". In 1968, tax trouble in Spain prompted a move to London, where she spent her last 22 years in reasonable comfort. Her film career did not bring her great fulfillment, but her looks may have made it inevitable; many fans still consider her the most beautiful actress in Hollywood history. Ava Gardner died at age 67 of bronchial pneumonia on January 25, 1990 in Westminister, London, England.- Actress
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Yvonne De Carlo was born Margaret Yvonne Middleton on September 1, 1922 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. She was three when her father abandoned the family. Her mother turned to waitressing in a restaurant to make ends meet--a rough beginning for an actress who would, one day, be one of Hollywood's elite. Yvonne's mother wanted her to be in the entertainment field and enrolled her in a local dance school and also saw that she studied dramatics. Yvonne was not shy in the least. She was somewhat akin to Colleen Moore who, like herself, entertained the neighborhood with impromptu productions. In 1937, when Yvonne was 15, her mother took her to Hollywood to try for fame and fortune, but nothing came of it and they returned to Canada. They came back to Hollywood in 1940, where Yvonne would dance in chorus lines at night while she checked in at the studios by day in search of film work. After appearing in unbilled parts in three short films, she finally got a part in a feature.
Although the film Harvard, Here I Come! (1941) was quite lame, Yvonne glowed in her brief appearance as a bathing beauty. The rest of 1942 and 1943 saw her in more uncredited roles in films that did not quite set Hollywood on fire. In The Deerslayer (1943), she played Wah-Tah. The role did not amount to much, but it was much better than the ones she had been handed previously. The next year was about the same as the previous two years. She played small parts as either secretaries, someone's girlfriend, native girls or office clerks. Most aspiring young actresses would have given up and gone home in defeat, but not Yvonne. She trudged on. The next year, started out the same, with mostly bit parts, but later that year, she landed the title role in Salome, Where She Danced (1945) for Universal Pictures. While critics were less than thrilled with the film, it was at long last her big break, and the film was a success for Universal. Now she was rolling.
Her next film was the western comedy Frontier Gal (1945) as Lorena Dumont. After a year off the screen in 1946, she returned in 1947 as Cara de Talavera in Song of Scheherazade (1947), and many agreed that the only thing worth watching in the film was Yvonne. Her next film was the highly regarded Burt Lancaster prison film Brute Force (1947). Time after time, Yvonne continued to pick up leading roles, in such pictures as Slave Girl (1947), Black Bart (1948), Casbah (1948) and River Lady (1948). She had a meaty role in Criss Cross (1949), a gangster movie, as the ex-wife of a hoodlum. At the start of the 1950s, Yvonne enjoyed continued success in lead roles. Her talents were again showcased in movies such as The Desert Hawk (1950), Silver City (1951) and Scarlet Angel (1952). Her last film in 1952 was Hurricane Smith (1952), a picture most fans and critics agree is best forgotten.
In 1956, she appeared in the film that would immortalize her best, The Ten Commandments (1956). She played Sephora, the wife of Moses (Charlton Heston). The film was, unquestionably, a super smash, and is still shown on television today. Her performance served as a springboard to another fine role, this time as Amantha Starr in Band of Angels (1957). In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Yvonne appeared on such television series as Bonanza (1959) and The Virginian (1962). With film roles drying up, she took the role of Lily Munster in the smash series The Munsters (1964). However, she still was not completely through with the big screen. Appearances in such films as McLintock! (1963), The Power (1968), The Seven Minutes (1971) and La casa de las sombras (1976) kept her before the eyes of the movie-going public. Yvonne De Carlo died at age 84 of natural causes on January 8, 2007 in Woodland Hills, California.- Actress
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Barbara Hale was born on April 18, 1922 in DeKalb, Illinois, to Wilma (née Colvin) and Luther Ezra Hale, a landscape gardener. She had one sister, Juanita. As a young girl, she intended to major in art and drawing but to work her way through The Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, she began her professional career as a model for a comic strip called "Ramblin' Bill."
Hale is best remembered as Della Street, long-time secretary to attorney Perry Mason on the TV series Perry Mason (1957) from 1957 to 1966 and again in over 25 Perry Mason TV movies from 1985 to 1995. She married actor Bill Williams in 1946. He was best remembered for his portrayal of Kit Carson in The Adventures of Kit Carson (1951) from 1951 to 1955. The couple had three children - two daughters: Jody (born in 1947), Juanita (born in 1953), and, in 1951, a son, William Katt (the spitting image of his father), and actor in his own right, probably best known as the titular character's ill-fated prom date in the film Carrie (1976) and, later, as Ralph Hinkley, the klutzy superhero on the quirky 1980s adventure series The Greatest American Hero (1981) (from 1981 to 1986).- Actress
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Today Barbara Stanwyck is remembered primarily as the matriarch of the family known as the Barkleys on the TV western The Big Valley (1965), wherein she played Victoria, and from the hit drama The Colbys (1985). But she was known to millions of other fans for her movie career, which spanned the period from 1927 until 1964, after which she appeared on television until 1986. It was a career that lasted for 59 years.
Barbara Stanwyck was born Ruby Catherine Stevens on July 16, 1907, in Brooklyn, New York, to working class parents Catherine Ann (McPhee) and Byron E. Stevens. Her father, from Massachusetts, had English ancestry, and her Canadian mother, from Nova Scotia, was of Scottish and Irish descent. Stanwyck went to work at the local telephone company for fourteen dollars a week, but she had the urge (a dream--that was all it was) somehow to enter show business. When not working, she pounded the pavement in search of dancing jobs. The persistence paid off. Barbara was hired as a chorus girl for the princely sum of $40 a week, much better than the wages she was getting from the phone company. She was seventeen, and was going to make the most of the opportunity that had been given her.
In 1928 Barbara moved to Hollywood, where she was to start one of the most lucrative careers filmdom had ever seen. She was an extremely versatile actress who could adapt to any role. Barbara was equally at home in all genres, from melodramas, such as Forbidden (1932) and Stella Dallas (1937), to thrillers, such as Double Indemnity (1944), one of her best films, also starring Fred MacMurray (as you have never seen him before). She also excelled in comedies such as Remember the Night (1939) and The Lady Eve (1941). Another genre she excelled in was westerns, Union Pacific (1939) being one of her first and TV's The Big Valley (1965) (her most memorable role) being her last. In 1983, she played in the ABC hit mini-series The Thorn Birds (1983), which did much to keep her in the eye of the public. She turned in an outstanding performance as Mary Carson.
Barbara was considered a gem to work with for her serious but easygoing attitude on the set. She worked hard at being an actress, and she never allowed her star quality to go to her head. She was nominated for four Academy Awards, though she never won. She turned in magnificent performances for all the roles she was nominated for, but the "powers that be" always awarded the Oscar to someone else. However, in 1982 she was awarded an honorary Academy Award for "superlative creativity and unique contribution to the art of screen acting." Sadly, Barbara died on January 20, 1990, leaving 93 movies and a host of TV appearances as her legacy to us.- Actress
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Joan Crawford was born Lucille Fay LeSueur on March 23, 1906, in San Antonio, Texas, to Anna Belle (Johnson) and Thomas E. LeSueur, a laundry laborer. By the time she was born, her parents had separated, and by the time she was a teenager, she'd had three stepfathers. It wasn't an easy life; Crawford worked a variety of menial jobs. She was a good dancer, though, and -- perhaps seeing dance as her ticket to a career in show business -- she entered several contests, one of which landed her a spot in a chorus line. Before long, she was dancing in big Midwestern and East Coast cities. After almost two years, she packed her bags and moved to Hollywood. Crawford was determined to succeed, and shortly after arriving she got her first bit part, as a showgirl in Pretty Ladies (1925).
Three films quickly followed; although the roles weren't much to speak of, she continued toiling. Throughout 1927 and early 1928, she was cast in small parts, but that ended with the role of Diana Medford in Our Dancing Daughters (1928), which elevated her to star status. Crawford had cleared the first big hurdle; now came the second, in the form of talkies. Many stars of the silents saw their careers evaporate, either because their voices weren't particularly pleasant or because their voices, pleasing enough, didn't match the public's expectations (for example, some fans felt that John Gilbert's tenor didn't quite match his very masculine persona). But Crawford wasn't felled by sound. Her first talkie, Untamed (1929), was a success. As the 1930s progressed, Crawford became one of the biggest stars at MGM. She was in top form in films such as Grand Hotel (1932), Sadie McKee (1934), No More Ladies (1935), and Love on the Run (1936); movie patrons were enthralled, and studio executives were satisfied.
By the early 1940s, MGM was no longer giving her plum roles; newcomers had arrived in Hollywood, and the public wanted to see them. Crawford left MGM for rival Warner Bros., and in 1945 she landed the role of a lifetime. Mildred Pierce (1945) gave her an opportunity to show her range as an actress, and her performance as a woman driven to give her daughter everything garnered Crawford her first, and only, Oscar for Best Actress. The following year she appeared with John Garfield in the well-received Humoresque (1946). In 1947, she appeared as Louise Graham in Possessed (1947); again she was nominated for a Best Actress from the Academy, but she lost to Loretta Young in The Farmer's Daughter (1947). Crawford continued to choose her roles carefully, and in 1952 she was nominated for a third time, for her depiction of Myra Hudson in Sudden Fear (1952). This time the coveted Oscar went to Shirley Booth, for Come Back, Little Sheba (1952). Crawford's career slowed after that; she appeared in minor roles until 1962, when she and Bette Davis co-starred in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). Their longstanding rivalry may have helped fuel their phenomenally vitriolic and well-received performances. (Earlier in their careers, Davis said of Crawford, "She's slept with every male star at MGM except Lassie", and Crawford said of Davis, "I don't hate [her] even though the press wants me to. I resent her. I don't see how she built a career out of a set of mannerisms instead of real acting ability. Take away the pop eyes, the cigarette, and those funny clipped words, and what have you got? She's phony, but I guess the public really likes that.")
Crawford's final appearance on the silver screen was in the flop Trog (1970). Turning to vodka more and more, she was hardly seen afterward. On May 10, 1977, Joan died of a heart attack in New York City. She was 71 years old. She had disinherited her adopted daughter Christina and son Christopher; the former wrote a tell-all book called "Mommie Dearest", The Sixth Sense published in 1978. The book cast Crawford in a negative light and was cause for much debate, particularly among her friends and acquaintances, including Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Crawford's first husband. (In 1981, Faye Dunaway starred in Mommie Dearest (1981) which did well at the box office.) Crawford is interred in the same mausoleum as fellow MGM star Judy Garland, in Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York.- Actress
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Linda Darnell, one of five children of a postal clerk, grew up fast. At 11, she was modeling clothes, giving her age as 16. At 13, she was appearing on the stage with little theater groups. Her mother encouraged her to audition when Hollywood talent scouts came to Dallas. She went to California and when the studio found out how young she really was, she was sent home and told to come back when she was 15. Her fourth film, Star Dust (1940), was based on this real life experience. It was Star Dust (1940) that Darnell was watching the night of April 9, 1965, at the home of her former secretary, located in Glenview, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. The house caught on fire in the early hours of the next morning and Darnell died that afternoon in Cook County Hospital. The character she played in one of her best known roles, Forever Amber (1947) survived the London fire, the plague and the perils of being the mistress of the English king, Charles II.- Actress
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Virginia Clara Jones was born on November 30, 1920 in St. Louis, Missouri, the daughter of a newspaper reporter and his wife. The family had a rich heritage in the St. Louis area: her great-great-great-grandfather served in the American Revolution and later founded the city of East Saint Louis, Illinois, located right across the Mississippi River from its namesake. Virginia was interested in show business from an early age. Her aunt operated a dance studio and Virginia began taking lessons at the age of six. After graduating from high school in 1937, she became a member of the St. Louis Municipal Opera before she was signed to a contract by Samuel Goldwyn after being spotted by an MGM talent scout during a Broadway revue. David O. Selznick gave her a screen test, but decided she wouldn't fit into films. Goldwyn, however, believed that her talent as an actress was there and cast her in a small role in 1943's Jack London (1943). She later had a walk-on part in Follies Girl (1943) that same year. Believing there was more to her than her obvious ravishing beauty, producers thought it was time to give her bigger and better roles. In 1944 she was cast as Princess Margaret in The Princess and the Pirate (1944), with Bob Hope and a year later appeared as Ellen Shavley in Wonder Man (1945). Her popularity increasing with every appearance, Virginia was cast in two more films in 1946, The Kid from Brooklyn (1946), with Danny Kaye, and The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), with Dana Andrews, and received good notices as Andrews' avaricious, unfaithful wife. Her roles may have been coming in slow, but with each one her popularity with audiences rose. She finally struck paydirt in 1947 with a plum assignment in the well-received The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) as Rosalind van Hoorn. That same year she married Michael O'Shea and would remain with him until his death in 1973 (the union produced a daughter, Mary Catherine, in 1953). She got some of the best reviews of her career in James Cagney's return to the gangster genre, White Heat (1949), as Verna, the scheming, cheating wife of homicidal killer Cody Jarrett (Cagney). The striking beauty had still more plum roles in the 1950s. Parts in Backfire (1950), She's Working Her Way Through College (1952) and South Sea Woman (1953) all showed she was still a force to be reckoned with. As the decade ended, Virginia's career began to slow down. She had four roles in the 1960s and four more in the following decade. Her last role was as Lucia in 1997's The Man Next Door. She died on January 17, 2005.- Actress
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Rita Hayworth was born Margarita Carmen Cansino on October 17, 1918, in Brooklyn, New York, into a family of dancers. Her father, Eduardo Cansino Reina, was a dancer as was his father before him. He emigrated from Spain in 1913. Rita's American mother, Volga Margaret (Hayworth), who was of mostly Irish descent, met Eduardo in 1916 and were married the following year. Rita, herself, studied as a dancer in order to follow in her family's footsteps. She joined her family on stage when she was eight years old when her family was filmed in a movie called La Fiesta (1926). It was her first film appearance, albeit an uncredited one. Sotted by Fox studio head Winfield R. Sheehan, she signed her first studio contract, and make her film debut at age sixteen, in Dante's Inferno (1935), followed by Cruz Diablo (1934). She continued to play small bit parts in several films under the name of "Rita Cansino". Fox dropped her after five small roles, but expert, exploitative promotion by her first husband Edward Judson soon brought Rita a new contract at Columbia Pictures, where studio head Harry Cohn changed her surname to Hayworth and approved raising her hairline by electrolysis. She played the second female lead, Judy McPherson, in Only Angels Have Wings (1939). After thirteen minor roles, Columbia lent her to Warner Bros. for her first big success, The Strawberry Blonde (1941); her splendid dancing with Fred Astaire in You'll Never Get Rich (1941) made her a star. This was the film that exuded the warmth and seductive vitality that was to make her famous. Her natural, raw beauty was showcased later that year in Blood and Sand (1941), filmed in Technicolor.
Rita was probably the second most popular actress after Betty Grable. In You'll Never Get Rich (1941) with Fred Astaire, was probably the film that moviegoers felt close to Rita. Her dancing, for which she had studied all her life, was astounding. After the hit Gilda (1946) (her dancing had made the film and it had made her), her career was on the skids. Although she was still making movies, they never approached her earlier success. The drought began between The Lady from Shanghai (1947) and Champagne Safari (1954). Then after Salome (1953), she was not seen again until Pal Joey (1957). Part of the reasons for the downward spiral was television, but also Rita had been replaced by a new star at Columbia, Kim Novak.
Rita, herself, said, "Men fell in love with Gilda, but they wake up with me". In person, Rita was shy, quiet and unassuming; only when the cameras rolled did she turn on the explosive sexual charisma that in Gilda (1946) made her a superstar. To Rita, though, domestic bliss was a more important, if elusive, goal, and in 1949 she interrupted her career for marriage - unfortunately an unhappy one almost from the start - to the playboy Prince Aly Khan. Her films after her divorce from Khan include perhaps her best straight acting performances, Miss Sadie Thompson (1953) and They Came to Cordura (1959).
After a few, rather forgettable films in the 1960s, her career was essentially over. Her final film was The Wrath of God (1972). Her career was really never the same after Gilda (1946). Perhaps Gene Ringgold said it best when he remarked, "Rita Hayworth is not an actress of great depth. She was a dancer, a glamorous personality, and a sex symbol. These qualities are such that they can carry her no further professionally." Perhaps he was right but Hayworth fans would vehemently disagree with him.
Beginning in 1960 (age 42), early onset of Alzheimer's disease (undiagnosed until 1980) limited Rita's ability. The last few roles in her 60-film career were increasingly small. With 20 years of symptoms, Rita was cared for by her daughter, Yasmin Khan, until Rita's death at age 68 on May 14, 1987, in New York City.- Actress
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The daughter of a West Virginia druggist, Joanne Dru came to New York in 1940. In New York she worked as a model and was cast by Al Jolson as one of the showgirls in his Broadway play "Hold Onto Your Hats." When the show closed in 1941, she married popular singer Dick Haymes and went with him to Hollywood. Discovered by a talent scout while working in the theater, Joanne made her screen debut in Abie's Irish Rose (1946), and that picture almost ended her career. Two years later she "redeemed" herself with her role in the classic Howard Hawks western Red River (1948). She followed that with another western, John Ford's She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), again playing opposite John Wayne. Unfortunately, her success in those two classics resulted in the scripts being submitted to her consisting of mostly westerns, and she got typecast (this from a woman who said, "I simply hated horses...").
In 1950 she was cast in another John Ford western, Wagon Master (1950), which became the basis for the Ward Bond TV series Wagon Train (1957). Even though she played in films other than westerns--All the King's Men (1949), The Pride of St. Louis (1952) and Hell on Frisco Bay (1955), for example--it was the westerns for which she was remembered. By the late 1950s westerns were running out of steam and so was her screen career, so she turned to TV, where she appeared on shows such as Playhouse 90 (1956).
In 1960 Joanne was cast in the role of the Eastern owner of a dude ranch in the comedy series Guestward Ho! (1960). Perhaps even funnier is that she would play an Easterner after all those westerns is the fact that her character name was Babs. The show ended in 1961.- Sultry, smoky-voiced brunette actress, a former model, who was put under contract by 20th Century-Fox in the early 1950s. She had a showy role and acquitted herself well in the thriller Violent Saturday (1955), but her career quickly lost momentum when Fox didn't renew her contract in 1956. She later achieved cult status as the disembodied fiancée in the cheapjack sci-fi film "classic" The Brain That Wouldn't Die (1962).
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Betty May Adams was the daughter of a travelling Iowa cotton buyer with a penchant for alcohol. Growing up in Arkansas, Betty expressed an early interest in acting and made her performing debut in a third grade play of "Hansel and Gretel." Beautiful, talented and determined, the freshly minted 'Miss Little Rock' left home at the age of 19 to live with her aunt and uncle in California. For three days a week she made ends meet working as a secretary. The remainder of her time was spent taking speech and drama lessons (in due course losing her Southern twang) and making the rounds of the various Hollywood casting departments. Her first screen role was (appropriately) as a starlet in Paramount's Red, Hot and Blue (1949). This was followed by an inauspicious leading role in the B-grade Western The Dalton Gang (1949). Over a period of five weeks she appeared in six further quota quickies of the sagebrush variety for Poverty Row outfit Lippert Productions. Since Lippert owned no actual studio facilities, most of the filming took place at the Ray Corrigan ranch in Chatsworth, California. In the summer of 1950, Betty assisted in a screen test for Detroit Lions football star Leon Hart at Universal-International. While Hart's movie career ended up stillborn, Betty clicked with producers who opted to change her first name to 'Julia.' The initial outing for her new studio was entitled Bright Victory (1951), with the budding actress a little underemployed as 'the other girl' in a love triangle involving a blind war veteran (played by Arthur Kennedy). Her career was significantly better served in her next assignment as co-star opposite James Stewart in Anthony Mann's seminal Technicolor western Bend of the River (1952) (Kennedy this time cast as the arch villain). Adams later recalled her part in this film as "a great learning experience" and one of her "fondest Hollywood memories," It also led to a life long friendship with Jimmy Stewart.
Signed to a seven-year contract (and having her legs insured by Universal to the tune of $125,000 by Lloyds of London), Julia seemed destined to remain perpetually typecast as a western heroine. A comely actress with soft, classical features, she often gave affecting performances in what amounted to little more than bread-and-butter pictures. At the very least, she got to play romantic leads opposite some of Universal's top box-office earners: Rock Hudson (in Horizons West (1952) and The Lawless Breed (1952)), Tyrone Power(The Mississippi Gambler (1953)) and Glenn Ford (The Man from the Alamo (1953)). Having played a succession of 'nice girls,' Julia took a turn as leader of an outlaw gang in Wings of the Hawk (1953), set against the background of the Mexican Revolution (Van Heflin was first-billed as a mining engineer, who, having his gold mine taken over by Federales, joins Julia's band of 'insurrectos'). 'Miss Melon Patch' of 1953 was about to experience another important career change, being famously cast as the imperilled heroine Kay Lawrence in Jack Arnolds cultish monster flic Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), a role Adams initially considered turning down. Shot in 3-D on a shoestring budget, the picture was light on script but strong on atmosphere and proved once again that style can succeed over content. The not inconsiderable physical charms of Miss Adams often dominated the scenery and gave the 'Gill Man' a run for his money. Audiences approved and 'Creature' spawned two further sequels, alas without Julia and with diminishing returns.
In 1955, having generated strong box office heat, Julia changed her moniker (with studio approval) to the less gentle-sounding Julie. Accordingly, she was now offered more varied material ranging from tough melodramas, to comedies and lightweight romances. Adams further established her credentials with roles which included a soft porn model who survives a plane crash in the Colorado Rockies in The Looters (1955); as a cop's wife in Six Bridges to Cross (1955) (a crime drama based on Boston's Great Brinks Robbery); a sympathetic school's doctor in the family-oriented comedy The Private War of Major Benson (1955) and as the wife of an assistant D.A. fighting gangland on the New York waterfront in Slaughter on 10th Avenue (1957). After 1957, her contract with Universal having expired, Adams successfully transitioned into television where she remained a firm favorite in westerns and crime dramas, guest-starring in just about every classic prime-time series covering both genres (Perry Mason (1957) being her personal favorite). Latterly, she had a popular recurring role as real estate lady Eve Simpson in Murder, She Wrote (1984). Adams was still in demand for occasional screen appearances well into her 90s.
She was married twice: first, to writer-producer Leonard Stern, and, secondly, to the actor Ray Danton. Julie Adams passed away in Los Angeles on February 3, 2019 at the age of 92. Her autobiography (co-written with her son Mitchell Danton), entitled "The Lucky Southern Star: Reflections from the Black Lagoon" appeared in 2011.- Actress
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Jeanne Cooper was born on 25 October 1928 in Taft, California, USA. She was an actress, known for The Young and the Restless (1973), Ben Casey (1961) and Kansas City Bomber (1972). She was married to Harry Bernsen. She died on 8 May 2013 in Los Angeles, California, USA.- Actress
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Ella Raines was born in Snoqualmie Falls, Washington, in 1920. After graduating from high school, she enrolled at the University of Washington as a drama student and participated in many plays. Following graduation, she traveled to New York and the lights of Broadway. She was eventually signed by Howard Hawks and played in Corvette K-225 (1943) as the love interest of Randolph Scott. She appeared in many A pictures very quickly, including Tall in the Saddle (1944) opposite John Wayne. She co-starred in many other films opposite such stars as Vincent Price, William Powell and Brian Donlevy (turning in a good performance as a spunky garage owner in director Arthur Lubin's underrated Impact (1949)). In the early 1950s she had her own TV series, Janet Dean, Registered Nurse (1954), and also had a short-lived recording career during that period. She died in 1988.- Actress
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Joan Geraldine Bennett was born on February 27, 1910, in Palisades, New Jersey. Her parents were both successful stage actors, especially her father, Richard Bennett, and often toured the country for weeks at a time. In fact, Joan came from a long line of actors, dating back to the 18th century. Often, when her parents were on tour, Joan and her two older sisters, Constance Bennett, who later became an actress, and Barbara were left in the care of close friends. At the age of four, Joan made her first stage appearance. She debuted in films a year later in The Valley of Decision (1916), in which her father was the star and the entire Bennett clan participated. In 1923 she again appeared in a film which starred her father, playing a pageboy in The Eternal City (1923). It would be five more years before Joan appeared again on the screen. In between, she married Jack Marion Fox, who was 26 compared to her young age of 16. The union was anything but happy, in great part because of Fox's heavy drinking. In February of 1928 Joan and Jack had a baby girl they named Adrienne. The new arrival did little to help the marriage, though, and in the summer of 1928 they divorced. Now with a baby to support, Joan did something she had no intention of doing--she turned to acting. She appeared in Power (1928) with Alan Hale and Carole Lombard, a small role but a start. The next year she starred in Bulldog Drummond (1929), sharing top billing with Ronald Colman. Before the year was out she was in three more films--Disraeli (1929), The Mississippi Gambler (1929) and Three Live Ghosts (1929). Not only did audiences like her, but so did the critics. Between 1930 and 1931, Joan appeared in nine more movies. In 1932 she starred opposite Spencer Tracy in She Wanted a Millionaire (1932), but it wasn't one she liked to remember, partly because Tracy couldn't stand the fact that everyone was paying more attention to her than to him. Joan was to remain busy and popular throughout the rest of the 1930s and into the 1940s. By the 1950s Joan was well into her 40s and began to lessen her film appearances. She made only eight pictures, in addition to appearing in two television series. After Desire in the Dust (1960), Joan would be absent from the movie scene for the next ten years, resurfacing in House of Dark Shadows (1970), reprising her role from the Dark Shadows (1966) TV series as Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. Joan's final screen appearance was in the Italian thriller Suspiria (1977). Her final public performance was in the TV movie Divorce Wars: A Love Story (1982). On December 7, 1990, Joan died of a heart attack in Scarsdale, New York. She was 80 years old.- Actress
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Eve Arden was born Eunice Mary Quedens in Mill Valley, California (near San Francisco), and was interested in show business from an early age. At 16, she made her stage debut after quitting school to join a stock company. After appearing in minor roles in two films under her real name, Eunice Quedens, she found that the stage offered her the same minor roles. By the mid 30s, one of these minor roles would attract notice as a comedy sketch in the stage play "Ziegfeld Follies".
By that time, she had changed her name to Eve Arden, which she adopted while looking over some cosmetics and spotting the names "Evening in Paris" and "Elizabeth Arden". In 1937, she garnered some attention with a small role in Oh, Doctor (1937), which led to her being cast in a minor role in the film Stage Door (1937). By the time the film was finished, her part had expanded into the wise-cracking, fast-talking friend to the lead. She would play virtually the character for most of her career.
While her sophisticated wise-cracking would never make her the lead, she would be a busy actress in dozens of movies over the next dozen years. In At the Circus (1939), she was the acrobatic Peerless Pauline opposite Groucho Marx and the Russian sharp shooter in the comedy The Doughgirls (1944). For her role as Ida in Mildred Pierce (1945), she received an Academy Award nomination. Famous for her quick ripostes, this led to work in Radio during the 1940s. In 1948, CBS Radio premiered "Our Miss Brooks", which would be the perfect show for her character. As her film career began to slow, CBS would take the popular radio show to television in 1952. The television series Our Miss Brooks (1952) would run through 1956 and led to the movie Our Miss Brooks (1956).
When the show ended, Arden tried another television series, The Eve Arden Show (1957), but it was soon canceled. In the 1960s, Arden raised a family and did a few guest roles, until her come-back television series The Mothers-In-Law (1967). This show, co-starring Kaye Ballard ran for two seasons. After that, she would make more unsold pilots, a couple of television movies and a few guest shots. She returned in occasional cameo appearances including as Principal McGee in Grease (1978), and Warden June in Pandemonium (1982).- Actress
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With prominent cheekbones, luminous skin and the most crystalline green eyes of her day, Gene Tierney's striking good looks helped propel her to stardom. Her best known role is the enigmatic murder victim in Laura (1944). She was also Oscar-nominated for Leave Her to Heaven (1945). Her acting performances were few in the 1950s as she battled a troubled emotional life that included hospitalization and shock treatment for depression.
Gene Eliza Tierney was born on November 19, 1920 in Brooklyn, New York, to well-to-do parents, Belle Lavinia (Taylor) and Howard Sherwood Tierney. Her father was a successful insurance broker and her mother was a former teacher. Her childhood was lavish indeed. She also lived, at times, with her equally successful grandparents in Connecticut and New York. She was educated in the finest schools on the East Coast and at a finishing school in Switzerland.
After two years in Europe, Gene returned to the US where she completed her education. By 1938 she was performing on Broadway in What a Life! and understudied for the Primrose Path (1938) at the same time. Her wealthy father set up a corporation that was only to promote her theatrical pursuits. Her first role consisted of carrying a bucket of water across the stage, prompting one critic to announce that "Miss Tierney is, without a doubt, the most beautiful water carrier I have ever seen!" Her subsequent roles Mrs O'Brian Entertains (1939) and RingTwo (1939) were meatier and received praise from the tough New York critics. Critic Richard Watts wrote "I see no reason why Miss Tierney should not have a long and interesting theatrical career, that is if the cinema does not kidnap her away."
After being spotted by the legendary Darryl F. Zanuck during a stage performance of the hit show The Male Animal (1940), Gene was signed to a contract with 20th Century-Fox. Her first role as Barbara Hall in Hudson's Bay (1940) would be the send-off vehicle for her career. Later that year she appeared in The Return of Frank James (1940). The next year would prove to be a very busy one for Gene, as she appeared in The Shanghai Gesture (1941), Sundown (1941), Tobacco Road (1941) and Belle Starr (1941). She tried her hand at screwball comedy in Rings on Her Fingers (1942), which was a great success. Her performances in each of these productions were masterful. In 1945 she was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar for her portrayal of Ellen Brent in Leave Her to Heaven (1945). Though she didn't win, it solidified her position in Hollywood society. She followed up with another great performance as Isabel Bradley in the hit The Razor's Edge (1946).
In 1944, she played what is probably her best-known role (and, most critics agree, her most outstanding performance) in Otto Preminger's Laura (1944), in which she played murder victim named Laura Hunt. In 1947 Gene played Lucy Muir in the acclaimed The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947). By this time Gene was the hottest player around, and the 1950s saw no letup as she appeared in a number of good films, among them Night and the City (1950), The Mating Season (1951), Close to My Heart (1951), Plymouth Adventure (1952), Personal Affair (1953) and The Left Hand of God (1955). The latter was to be her last performance for seven years. The pressures of a failed marriage to Oleg Cassini, the birth of a daughter with learning disabilities in 1943, and several unhappy love affairs resulted in Gene being hospitalized for depression. When she returned to the the screen in Advise & Consent (1962), her acting was as good as ever but there was no longer a big demand for her services.
Her last feature film was The Pleasure Seekers (1964), and her final appearance in the film industry was in a TV miniseries, Scruples (1980). Gene died of emphysema in Houston, Texas, on November 6, 1991, just two weeks shy of her 71st birthday.