Polly Bergen, “Kisses for My President” (1964) President Leslie McCloud was a real pioneer — but the plot focuses on Fred MacMurray as the First Husband struggling to find a purpose. And to add insult to injury, she resigns when she learns she’s pregnant. Patty Duke, “Hail to the Chief (1985) In this short-lived ABC sitcom, Duke played President Julia Mansfield who had to deal with a cheating first husband, a rogue Air Force general and multiple schemes for her impeachment. Christina Applegate, “Mafia!” (1998) In this spoof of “The Godfather Part II,” Applegate plays a version of Diane Keaton’s Kay Adams-Corleone — named.
- 11/8/2016
- by Thom Geier
- The Wrap
Last week, CBS premiered the new political drama Madam Secretary, which stars Téa Leoni as Elizabeth Faulkner McCord, the U.S. Secretary of State. It's hardly a far-fetched concept, as we've seen three female secretaries of state since 1997: Madeleine Albright, Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton. But it's nonetheless rare to see a fictional universe with a woman in one of the nation's top three positions of political power. (Yep, even in fake realities, politics is a man's game.) And historically speaking, Hollywood has played it as a joke more often than not. So which fictional female presidents, vice presidents...
- 10/12/2014
- by Drew Mackie, @drewgmackie
- PEOPLE.com
Polly Bergen: 'Desperate Housewives' Emmy nominee; winner for 'The Helen Morgan Story' (photo: Felicity Huffman, Doug Savant, and Polly Bergen in 'Desperate Housewives') (See previous article: "Polly Bergen: Actress on Richard Nixon 'Enemies List'.") Polly Bergen began her lengthy — and to some extent prestigious — television career in 1950, making sporadic appearances in anthology series. She won an Emmy for Best Actress in a Single Performance – Lead or Supporting — beating Julie Andrews, Helen Hayes, Teresa Wright, and Piper Laurie — for playing troubled torch singer Helen Morgan (Show Boat) in the 1957 Playhouse 90 episode "The Helen Morgan Story," featuring veteran Sylvia Sidney as Morgan's mother. Curiously, Bergen's retelling of Helen Morgan's story was broadcast the same year that Ann Blyth starred in Michael Curtiz's Morgan biopic. Also titled The Helen Morgan Story, the film focused on the relationship between the singer and a...
- 9/23/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Polly Bergen: Actress on Richard Nixon's 'enemies list' (image: Polly Bergen publicity shot ca. late 1950s) (See previous article: "Polly Bergen Movies: First U.S. Woman President.") As discussed in the previous post, despite its deceptively progressive premise — the first United States woman president as a palpable reality — Kisses for My President, written by veteran Paramount screenwriter Claude Binyon (Search for Beauty, The Gilded Lily) and newcomer Robert G. Kane (whose sole other movie credit was the poorly received Arnold Schwarzenegger comedy Western Villain), was an unabashedly reactionary, "traditional family values" effort. Ironically, Polly Bergen, for her part, was a liberal-minded, politically active Democrat. At around the time Kisses for My President was released, Bergen, along with Gregory Peck, James Garner, and other Hollywood personalities, publicly came out against California's Proposition 14, a 1964 ballot initiative that would have nullified the Rumford Fair Housing Act, thus paving the way for...
- 9/22/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Polly Bergen dead at 84: ‘First woman president of the U.S.A.,’ former mistress of Tony Soprano’s father Emmy Award-winning actress Polly Bergen — whose roles ranged from the first U.S.A. woman president in Kisses for My President to the former mistress of both Tony Soprano’s father and John F. Kennedy in the television hit series The Sopranos — died from "natural causes" on September 20, 2014, at her home in Southbury, Connecticut. The 84-year-old Bergen, a heavy smoker for five decades, had been suffering from emphysema and other ailments since the 1990s. "Most people think I was born in a rich Long Island family," she told The Washington Post in 1988, but Polly Bergen was actually born Nellie Paulina Burgin on July 14, 1930, to an impoverished family in Knoxville, Tennessee. Her father was an illiterate construction worker while her mother got only as far as the third grade. The family...
- 9/20/2014
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
Emmy-winning actress and singer Polly Bergen, who in a long career played the terrorized wife in the original Cape Fear and the first woman president in Kisses for My President, died Saturday, according to her publicist. She was 84. Bergen died at her home in Southbury, Connecticut, from natural causes, said publicist Judy Katz, surrounded by family and close friends. A brunette beauty with a warm, sultry singing voice, Bergen was a household name from her 20s onward. She made albums and played leading roles in films, stage musicals and TV dramas. She also hosted her own variety series, was a popular game show panelist,...
- 9/20/2014
- by Associated Press
- PEOPLE.com
Emmy-winning actress and singer Polly Bergen, who in a long career played the terrorized wife in the original Cape Fear and the first woman president in Kisses for My President, died Saturday, according to her publicist. She was 84. Bergen died at her home in Southbury, Connecticut, from natural causes, said publicist Judy Katz, surrounded by family and close friends. A brunette beauty with a warm, sultry singing voice, Bergen was a household name from her 20s onward. She made albums and played leading roles in films, stage musicals and TV dramas. She also hosted her own variety series, was a popular game show panelist,...
- 9/20/2014
- by Associated Press
- PEOPLE.com
New York (AP) — Emmy-winning actress and singer Polly Bergen, who in a long career played the terrorized wife in the original Cape Fear and the first woman president in Kisses for My President, died Saturday, according to her publicist. She was 84. Bergen died at her home in Southbury, Connecticut, surrounded by family and close friends, publicist Judy Katz said. She had battled emphysema and other ailments in the late 1990s, a result of 50 years of smoking. A brunette beauty with a warm, sultry singing voice, Bergen was a household name from her 20s onward. She made albums
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- 9/20/2014
- by The Associated Press
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Polly Bergen died of natural causes at the age of 84 on Saturday, Sept. 20, the Associated Press reports. The actress and singer was surrounded by her family and close friends at her home in Southbury, Connecticut. Bergen was best known for playing terrorized wife Peggy Bowden in the original 1962 film Cape Fear, and for her role as the first woman president in 1964's Kisses for My President. She was also an established singer and made her Broadway debut in John Murray Anderson's Almanac in 1953. In [...]...
- 9/20/2014
- Us Weekly
Famed character actor Eli Wallach passed away Tuesday at the age of 98. To remember the award-winning actor, Turner Classic Movies (TCM) will air an 11-hour film marathon featuring five of his performances on June 30 starting at 9am Et. TCM Eli Wallach Film Marathon — June 30 (All Times Et) 9am: Kisses for My President (1964) — The first female president has to deal with her husband’s bruised ego. Fred MacMurray, Polly Bergen and Eli Wallach star. 11am: Act One (1963) — George Hamilton stars in the true story of playwright Moss Hart, a poor Brooklyn boy who joins … Continue reading →
The post TCM will remember Eli Wallach with 11-hour film marathon appeared first on Channel Guide Magazine.
The post TCM will remember Eli Wallach with 11-hour film marathon appeared first on Channel Guide Magazine.
- 6/25/2014
- by Jeff Pfeiffer
- ChannelGuideMag
All your prayers to the Gods of Rock have been answered in one little song. Punk pioneer Iggy Pop teamed with post-punk icons Nick Cave and former Sonic Youth frontman Thurston Moore, creating a musical Dream Team to cover underrated L.A. cult figures The Gun Club for a new tribute album. The faithful take on "Nobody's City" features Pop howling his way through the highly visual lyrics, while Cave adds his ominous baritone growl to the choruses and the bridge. Moore endlessly shreds and feeds back in the background. It's heavy and pummeling, while staying catchy. The version can be found on "Axels & Sockets" is the newest addition to the Jeffrey Lee Pierce Sessions Project, which pays tribute to Gun Club founder Pierce. Listen to it here: Hear the Gun Club's original version here. "Sockets" also pairs Cave with Blondie's Debbie Harry, and Moore with Pierce himself. It...
- 5/2/2014
- by Dave Lewis
- Hitfix
Fred MacMurray movies: ‘Double Indemnity,’ ‘There’s Always Tomorrow’ Fred MacMurray is Turner Classic Movies’ "Summer Under the Stars" today, Thursday, August 7, 2013. Although perhaps best remembered as the insufferable All-American Dad on the long-running TV show My Three Sons and in several highly popular Disney movies from 1959 to 1967, e.g., The Absent-Minded Professor, Son of Flubber, Boy Voyage!, MacMurray was immeasurably more interesting as the All-American Jerk. (Photo: Fred MacMurray ca. 1940.) Someone once wrote that Fred MacMurray would have been an ideal choice to star in a biopic of disgraced Republican president Richard Nixon. Who knows, the (coincidentally Republican) MacMurray might have given Anthony Hopkins a run for his Best Actor Academy Award nomination. After all, MacMurray’s most admired movie performances are those in which he plays a scheming, conniving asshole: Billy Wilder’s classic film noir Double Indemnity (1944), in which he’s seduced by Barbara Stanwyck, and Wilder...
- 8/8/2013
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
In all the history of film and television, the President of the United States has only ever been played by a black man seven times (technically, eight). In all seven of those representations, only twice has the president not been undergoing some sort of national/worldwide/intergalactic disaster. Granted, usually when any man plays the president, its usually some kind of disaster film, but even then, most them get to be action heroes. Harrison Ford made Gary Oldman get off his plane -- Air Force One -- and Bill Pullman suited up to duke it out with the aliens in Independence Day. But the black prez rarely get a chance to throwdown.
In the two films where the black president takes office and there's not a national emergency, both presidents take office only after Whitey dies. In Head of State, Chris Rock is Mays Gilliam, an Alderman nominated only because...
In the two films where the black president takes office and there's not a national emergency, both presidents take office only after Whitey dies. In Head of State, Chris Rock is Mays Gilliam, an Alderman nominated only because...
- 10/15/2010
- by Dustin Rowles
Enter The Dragon star Ahna Capri has died nearly two weeks after falling into a coma following a horrific car crash.
The Hungarian actress, born Anna Marie Nanasi, lost consciousness following a traffic accident in Los Angeles on 9 August in which a five-ton truck collided with her car.
The 64 year old spent 11 days in a coma in hospital before doctors turned off her life support machine on 20 August.
Capri moved to the U.S. with her family as a child and began her career in the entertainment industry in the 1950s with a role in 1957's Outlaw's Son. She went on to star in numerous films such as Kisses for My President and Girls on the Beach, as well as TV shows including The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Mod Squad and The Wild Wild West.
She is best remembered for her role in classic martial arts movie Enter the Dragon opposite Bruce Lee.
The Hungarian actress, born Anna Marie Nanasi, lost consciousness following a traffic accident in Los Angeles on 9 August in which a five-ton truck collided with her car.
The 64 year old spent 11 days in a coma in hospital before doctors turned off her life support machine on 20 August.
Capri moved to the U.S. with her family as a child and began her career in the entertainment industry in the 1950s with a role in 1957's Outlaw's Son. She went on to star in numerous films such as Kisses for My President and Girls on the Beach, as well as TV shows including The Man From U.N.C.L.E., Mod Squad and The Wild Wild West.
She is best remembered for her role in classic martial arts movie Enter the Dragon opposite Bruce Lee.
- 8/26/2010
- WENN
Capri in the acclaimed 1972 film Payday
Sad to report that Ahna Capri was killed in a car accident over the weekend in La. She began as a child actress in the 50s and morphed into a sexy 60s starlet who resembled a cross between Sandra Dee and Joey Heatherton. Using the name Anna Capri, she appeared in such films as Kisses for My President and The Girls on the Beach (co-star Gail Gerber remembers Anna as "such a lovely girl. I remember when first meeting her I couldn't believe how beautiful she was.") She popped up all over TV in such series as The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Wild Wild West, The Invaders, Run for Your Life, and It Takes a Thief. In the 70s, a la Mariana Hill, she changed her name also to Ahna Capri (she remarked, "Too many people pronounce 'Anna' with a flat 'a' and it comes out as ugly 'Aaana.
Sad to report that Ahna Capri was killed in a car accident over the weekend in La. She began as a child actress in the 50s and morphed into a sexy 60s starlet who resembled a cross between Sandra Dee and Joey Heatherton. Using the name Anna Capri, she appeared in such films as Kisses for My President and The Girls on the Beach (co-star Gail Gerber remembers Anna as "such a lovely girl. I remember when first meeting her I couldn't believe how beautiful she was.") She popped up all over TV in such series as The Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Wild Wild West, The Invaders, Run for Your Life, and It Takes a Thief. In the 70s, a la Mariana Hill, she changed her name also to Ahna Capri (she remarked, "Too many people pronounce 'Anna' with a flat 'a' and it comes out as ugly 'Aaana.
- 8/24/2010
- by nospam@example.com (Cinema Retro)
- Cinemaretro.com
Polly Bergen has been tapped to play the mother of the first female U.S. president on ABC's Commander in Chief. Bergen is taking on the role of Kate Allen, mom to Mackenzie Allen (Geena Davis), in the freshman drama series, which is produced by Touchstone Television in association with Steven Bochco Prods. Her first episode will be the Nov. 29 Thanksgiving-themed installment. Bergen actually had a role playing the first female president in the 1964 movie Kisses for My President opposite Fred MacMurray. Her other credits include ABC's 1988 miniseries War and Remembrance and the network's 1983 mini The Winds of War. She is repped by Joel Dean at TalentWorks and manager Jan MacCormack. Chief, created by Rod Lurie, airs at 9 p.m. Tuesdays. It's executive produced by Steven Bochco, Dee Johnson, Lurie and Marc Frydman.
- 10/28/2005
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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