Hollywood Actors Archives - Page 104 of 107

Frankie Avalon

Frankie Avalon was born in 1940 in Philadelphia. He became a teenage pop singer along with Bobby Rydell and Fabian. In the early sixties he starred in a series if “beach” movies with Annette Funicello starting with “Beach Party”. He was featured in “The Alamo” with John Wayne in 1960 and “The Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea”.

“Pompadoured Frankie Avalon became a hit recording artist (with two Number 1 Billboard songs ‘Venus’ and ‘Why’) and pop idol while still a teen. Unlike many of his contemporaries he actually managed to parlay his juke-box fame into a successful movie career” – Barry Monush in “The Encyclopedia of Hollywood Film Actors” (2003).

TCM overview:

A pop crooner and teen idol during the late 1950s, singer Frankie Avalon transformed into a movie star via a string of surf-and-sand musicals in the 1960s like “Beach Party” (1963) and “Muscle Beach Party” (1964). Slight of stature and build but handsome and charismatic in an eminently safe and approachable way, Avalon wooed teenage girls with light romantic tunes like “Venus” and “Why,” both of which shot to the top of the charts. When rock and roll took over the music business in the 1960s, he shifted fulltime to films, where he teamed with Annette Funicello for the silly but watchable beach party films. In ensuing decades, he was a familiar face on television and the occasional film, most notably 1978’s “Grease” as the Teen Angel, and always happy to revisit the nostalgia of his career for new audiences. If his body of work was lightweight, it was also well loved, which ensured Avalon’s place in pop culture history.

Born Francis Thomas Avallone in South Philadelphia, PA on Sept. 18, 1939, Frankie Avalon was the son of Nicholas and Mary Avallone and brother to older sister Theresa Avallone. From an early age, he displayed a genuine talent for music, but as a trumpeter, not a singer. Having learned the instrument from his father, he quickly developed into something of a child prodigy, playing at clubs and on television while still in grade school. A performance at a private party for singer Al Martino led to an appearance on “The Jackie Gleason Show” (DuMont/CBS, 1949-1957) and a 1954 record, “Trumpet Sorrento,” for X Records, a subsidiary of RCA/Victor. By the time he had reached his teens, he was performing regularly in a local group called Rocco and the Saints, which featured one Robert Ridarelli on drums. Ridarelli would later follow Avalon into the teen idol scene under the name of Bobby Rydell.

Avalon was approached by Philadelphia music producer Bob Marcucci about singers who might be interested in recording some of his rock and roll numbers. He directed Marcucci to Andy Martin, frontman for Rocco and the Saints, but he passed on the Nordic-looking performer in favor of Avalon himself, whose dark Mediterranean looks would translate better with teen female audiences. After hearing Avalon perform a few songs, Marcucci quickly signed him to his label, Chancellor Records. His first record, a swooning pop song called “Cupid” was followed by “Teacher’s Pet.” Neither song made much of a dent on the charts, but they did earn him his first film appearance in 1957’s proto-rock and roll movie, “Jamboree,” where he promoted the latter tune. But his third release, “Dede Dinah” (1958), was a bonafide smash, reaching No. 7 on the pop charts, selling over a million copies. From that point on, Avalon was a certifiable teen idol, delivering five Top 20 hits between 1958 and 1959, including two No. 1 hits: 1959’s “Why” and his signature tune, “Venus.”

Blessed with boyish good looks, a capable voice and an abundant head of hair, Avalon found himself at the epicenter of teen fandom. He was unquestionably safe for adolescent consumption – Marcucci had shrewdly steered Avalon away from anything resembling rock and roll for that expressed purpose – and his clean-cut image passed muster with adults as well. His popularity on both fronts allowed him to transition smoothly into feature films as well. He played juvenile leads in mostly low-budget, drive-in films like “Guns of the Timberland” (1960) and “Panic in Year Zero!” (1961), with occasional forays into major features. He was a member of Davy Crockett’s militia in John Wayne’s “The Alamo” (1960) and a Navy seaman aboard Walter Pidgeon’s nuclear-powered submarine in “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea” (1961). Avalon was of course granted the chance to croon songs in both films, thus guaranteeing youthful ticket buyers.

However, by the time of those film’s releases, Avalon’s stock in the teen music business was beginning to drop. Avalon’s brand of smooth, brassy pop gave way to more rock-oriented acts like The Beach Boys and, eventually, The Beatles, though he continued to release songs until 1960. He wisely shifted his focus to acting, and found a second stardom as the lead in a string of light musical comedies for American International Pictures (AIP), a low-budget production and distribution company that specialized in genre films for teen audiences. The rise of the surf culture in California had begun to catch on with national audiences, thanks in part to The Beach Boys’ music and the film “Gidget” (1959); AIP decided to exploit its growing popularity with “Beach Party” (1963), a harmless comedy about an anthropologist (Robert Cummings) studying the “mating habits” of Southern Californian teens while frolicking in the surf. Avalon was the “juvenile” lead, though by this point, he was well into his twenties and married to beauty pageant winner, Kathyrn Diebel. His onscreen partner was Annette Funicello, a former Mouseketeer who, like Avalon, was searching for her own niche after her initial teen stardom. “Beach Party’s” mix of silly comedy, real surf music (courtesy Dick Dale and the Del-Tones), sunny locations and plenty of semi-unclad flesh, was a massive hit with young audiences. AIP quickly ground out seven more “beach party” films between 1963 and 1965, most of which featured Avalon and Funicello repeating the same storyline of break-up and make-up, between crooning disposable pop tunes. Though the pictures were limited in terms of plot or dialogue, they did afford Avalon an opportunity to flex some comic muscles, most notably in 1964’s “Bikini Beach,” where he took broad potshots at the British Invasion as “Potato Bug,” a bespectacled and bewigged English rocker who bore a remarkable resemblance to Terry-Thomas.

When the beach party films ran their course, Avalon continued to work for AIP on several other features – all forgettable. By the 1970s, he was a staple on television as a guest star on episodic series and variety shows, playing up the nostalgic aspects of his celebrity. In 1976, he hosted his own variety program, “Easy Does It with Frankie Avalon” (CBS, 1976), a musical comedy show that also featured Funicello. Two years later, he experienced a career boost when he played the Teen Angel, heavenly guardian to the wayward Frenchie (Didi Conn), in the film version of “Grease” (1978). Reportedly, the character was based on Avalon’s stage presence and audiences’ responses to his charms. Avalon would reprise the role in numerous stage productions of the play, and performed the song along with contestants on the reality series “Grease: You’re the One that I Want!” (NBC, 2007), which sought out new cast members for the national productions.

In 1980, Avalon’s pop career and relationship with Bob Marcucci was the uncredited subject of Taylor Hackford’s film “The Idolmaker.” The Avalon figure, called “Tommy Dee” and played by Paul Land, was groomed by Ray Sharkey’s avaricious manager. Peter Gallagher played a fictitious Fabian, who devolved into a monster due to the pressures and glories of fame. When pressed for his take on the picture, Avalon dismissed it, stating that most of the incidents in the film were untrue.

Avalon celebrated his third decade in show business by hitting the road in 1985 with fellow former teen idols Rydell and Fabian in a package tour called “The Golden Boys of Bandstand,” which saw the principals – now in their fifties – reprising their greatest hits for an adoring audience. Two years later, Avalon had his first starring role in nearly two decades with “Back to the Beach” (1987), an amusing tribute-cum-parody of his beach party films that featured Funicello and a host of ’60s-era stars in cameos. Avalon and Funicello played the adult version of their beach party characters, wrestling with parenthood, middle age and the glories of the past. A fizzy, silly delight, it pleased audiences and critics alike, and gave Avalon his first credit as producer.

Avalon continued to play the oldies circuit throughout the 1990s and into the new millennium, while selling health and cosmetics to his demographic via his web site and the Home Shopping Network. Still full of abundant good health in his sixth and seventh decade, he enjoyed a cameo opposite Robert De Niro in Martin Scorsese’s “Casino” (1995) and made frequent appearances in show biz documentaries and specials, most notably in “Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project” (2007), which honored his frequent beach party co-star. In 2009, he performed “Venus” on “American Idol” (Fox, 2002- ), where he showed that he had lost none of his ability to charm audiences with a gentle pop tune.

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

“New York Times” arcicle on Frankie Avalon here.

Ruth Roman was a striking, dark-haired strong actress who made many fine films in Hollywood during the 1950’s. She was born in Lynn, Massachusetts in 1922. Shie is perhaps best remembered for her leading role opposite Farley Granger in Alfred Hitchcock’s classic “Strangers On A Train” in 1951. Other films of note include “Beyond the Forest” with Bette Davis, “Three Secrets” with Eleanor Parker and “The Far Country” with James Stewart and Corinne Calvet. She had a recurring role on Angela Lansbury’s “Murder She Wrote” as beauty parlor owner Loretta. Ruth Roman died in 1999.

Tom Vallance’s obituary in “The Independent”:

FEW FILM stars struggled longer and harder for success than Ruth Roman, who spent six years playing bit parts until she achieved stardom in 1949 and won a contract with Warner Bros.

In less than three years the studio had featured her in 10 films, but, although she starred opposite some of the top players of the time, including Gary Cooper, Errol Flynn and James Stewart, Roman was a leading lady rather than a major star, and Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train was the only outstanding film she was to make at the studio. Roman loved her profession, but her long struggle left her with no illusions. She told Hedda Hopper in 1949, “I love everything about show business, even the junk. You can’t change the junk. People have tried. So you might as well accept it along with the good. Acting is my life. The profession can break my heart. In fact, it already has several times. But I love it.” The actress was to experience real-life drama when she and her son, then aged three, were aboard the luxury liner Andrea Doria when it was struck by another ship and wrecked.

Born in Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1923, Roman was the youngest of three daughters of immigrants from Lithuania. Her father, Anthony Roman, was a fairground barker who died when she was a child, which forced her mother to work as a waitress, charlady and laundress. “For a while,” Roman later recounted, “we were moving regularly once a month because we couldn’t pay our rent.” She added that she never felt sorry for herself, stating, “When you start out poor you don’t know what you’re missing.”

She had little formal education – she left high school in her second year – but won a scholarship to the Bishop Lee Dramatic School, after which she worked as a cinema usher to support herself while working at night with the New England Repertory Company, a semi-professional group in Boston. Moving to New York, she tried unsuccessfully to get roles on Broadway, and instead posed for crime magazine stills at $5 an hour. With $200 saved, she next headed for Hollywood, where she lived in a boarding house with six other actresses hoping for film fame (“We called our home `The House of Seven Garbos’ “).

Roman’s combination of dark-haired beauty and wholesomeness won her a small role as a navy girl in Frank Borzage’s all-star Stage Door Canteen (1943), a tribute to New York’s famed canteen for servicemen. The film’s casting director said he chose Roman from dozens of hopefuls because, “I felt right away that here was a girl who would show up on time in the morning with her lines learned and no nonsense.”

The role was the first of many blink-and-you-miss-her bits Roman played over the next few years, including Since You Went Away (1944), Incendiary Blonde (1945), Gilda (1946) and The Big Clock (1948). She also learned to endure disappointments – a prominent role in a Ken Maynard western, Harmony Trail (1944), went unseen when the low-budget film failed to obtain a release, and a showy part in the Marx Brothers vehicle A Night in Casablanca (1946) was left on the cutting-room floor.

Her first leading role was in one of Universal’s weakest serials, Jungle Queen (1945), in which as Lothal, a jungle ruler with the ability to walk through flames, she rescued her co-stars Edward Norris and Eddie Quillan from raging lions or natives with what one critic called “boring regularity”. She played the title role in a minor western, Belle Starr’s Daughter (1947), but her breakthrough was to come when she auditioned for Stanley Kramer, who was producing a film version of Ring Lardner’s story of a ruthless boxer, Champion (1949).

Thinking she would be right for the role of the fighter’s gold-digging girlfriend, she wore a tight-fitting black dress and heavy make-up, but Kramer told her, “Actually, I thought of you for the other girl”, and cast her as the innocent girl the fighter seduces then is forced to marry. Roman said later,

My happiest 26 days in the movies were spent making the picture Champion. For, though you hear a great deal about teamwork in Hollywood, you almost never see as much of it as we did while shooting this film. Whenever there was a question about a scene, we’d hold a group conference, complete with producer, director and cast, to thrash the matter out. Each suggestion was not only considered but also thoroughly discussed. . . All this was immensely helpful to me in playing the role of Emma, for I was very young in pictures then, and this was quite a different type of role from the few I’d played.

She said of her co-star Kirk Douglas,

He surprised me on the second day of shooting by saying, “Do you know that this picture is going to make you?” I couldn’t believe that but Kirk insisted and even offered to make a bet on it. If I had taken the bet I would have lost, for the role of Emma did more for my career than any other role.

Roman’s performance as the victimised wife brought her fine reviews (“Ruth Roman’s wife is hauntingly lovely,” said the Hollywood Reporter) and her beach scene with Douglas attracted particular attention. “The scene I liked best was the one on the beach, and apparently a number of fans agreed with me. About half the letters I received asked for a picture of me in the bathing suit.” Another reason Roman enjoyed working on Champion so much was because of her passion (unrequited) for its producer Kramer, whom she would later describe as “the love of my life”.

Roman consolidated her impact in Champion with her role later that year in the highly praised B movie The Window, based on Cornell Woolrich’s story The Boy Who Cried Wolf, about a boy who constantly fabricates stories of adventure so that when he sees a real murder committed he is not believed. “It is a piece of suspense entertainment rarely equalled,” said Variety, adding that Paul Stewart and Roman were “exceptionally good as the menace, driven to their deeds more by circumstance than sheer badness”.

On the strength of these films, Warners gave Roman a contract and cast her in Beyond the Forest (1949), the last film Bette Davis, once the studio’s greatest star, was making under her contract. Roman was to later speak fondly of the star:

Bette Davis was great. I kept blowing my lines in one scene with her because they were so awful to try to say. I finally told the director that and Bette immediately came to my rescue. “She’s right,” Bette shouted. “This girl is absolutely right.” Later she told me, “Ruthie, never forget what you did today. . . never be afraid to fight for what you know is right.” And I never did forget.

Roman had a sympathetic part as Bert Lahr’s girl-friend in the vaudeville saga Always Leave Them Laughing (1949), notable for preserving some of the classic sketches of Milton Berle and Lahr, then she was given her first starring role at the studio, as a hard-bitten fugitive from justice in Barricade (1950), an undistinguished remake of The Sea Wolf with the setting changed to a western mining camp. Leading roles followed in two westerns, Colt .45 (1950) with Randolph Scott, and Dallas (1950) with Gary Cooper – routine films but popular with audiences of the time.

Three Secrets (1950), directed by Robert Wise, was a good soap opera in which Roman gave one of her most effective performances as a woman who had killed the father of her child and, before serving her prison sentence, had turned the boy over to a foster-home. A newspaper reports that a five-year-old foster-child is the sole survivor of a plane crash and Roman waits with two other women (played by her fellow contract players Eleanor Parker and Patricia Neal) to see if one of them is the child’s real mother. The film’s director Wise said, “I realised Three Secrets was soap opera, but I liked the idea. I hadn’t done a woman’s picture and was intrigued by working with the three actresses who were already cast for it.”

Wise may have been happy with Roman, but Elia Kazan was shocked when the studio chief Jack Warner tried to insist that he cast her in the key role of Stella in A Streetcar Named Desire. Finally, Kazan agreed to test Roman, but he had already made up his mind that the part should be played by Kim Hunter, who had created the role so superbly on Broadway (and was to win an Oscar for the film). Warner then insisted that Hitchcock use Roman in Strangers on a Train (1951) and the great director made it clear that he was unhappy about it.

Roman is indeed somewhat distant in the role of the senator’s daughter engaged to a tennis player (Farley Granger) suspected of murder, but it can be said in her defence that she did not have the most forcible of leading men (Hitchcock had initially wanted William Holden) and she doubtless knew that her director had little faith in her. Granger said, “Hitchcock’s disinterest in Ruth Roman and the role she played led him to be outspokenly critical and harsh with her, as he had been with Edith Evanson on the set of Rope. He had to have one person in each film he could harass.”

In Starlift (1951) Roman was one of many Warner stars playing themselves in a story of troop entertainment, and in this she came across as warm and friendly. The same year, she starred in King Vidor’s thriller Lightning Strikes Twice, helping a suspected killer (the British actor Richard Todd) prove his innocence, and she teamed with Steve Cochran as lovers on the run after an accidental killing in Tomorrow Is Another Day. Neither of the last two films did very well, and the studio’s enthusiasm for their star waned. She was loaned to MGM to take third billing to Dorothy McGuire and Van Johnson in Invitation (1952) – Variety reported, “Ruth Roman gets rather short shrift in the footage and story interest” – and she supported Errol Flynn, coming to the end of his Warner career, in a modest treasure-hunt tale, Mara Maru (1952). In Blowing Wild (1953), she was third-billed to Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck, and this ended her Warner career.

Freelancing, Roman had good roles in Anthony Mann’s western The Far Country (1955) and received some of her best notices for her role as a blackmail victim in Arthur Laven’s thriller Down Three Dark Streets (1954). Throughout her career, Roman would find her physical allure commented on more frequently than her acting. She and her fellow American Paul Douglas came to England in 1956 to film Ken Hughes’s Joe Macbeth – Shakespeare transposed to the world of gangsters in the 1930s.

It was after completing a film in Italy in 1956 that she was returning home with her son on the luxury liner the Andrea Doria when it was struck by another ship. More than 50 people died, though 760 survived. Roman said afterwards that she was dancing in the ship’s ballroom when “we heard a big explosion like a fire-cracker”. She saw smoke coming from the general area of her cabin and rushed there to protect her son. He was fast asleep so she awakened him and told him, “We’re going on a picnic.” When it was clear that the boat was sinking, and passengers began entering lifeboats, a seaman put her son into a boat. Roman was following down a rope ladder when the lifeboat pulled away and she was put on another one, but she and her son were safely reunited later.

The above obituary in “The Independent” can also be accessed here.

Invitation, poster, US poster, from left: Van Johnson, Ruth Roman, Dorothy McGuire, 1952. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)

After filming Nicholas Ray’s Bitter Victory (1956) with Richard Burton, Roman returned to the stage, touring successfully in Two for the Seesaw. One of her last films was Love Has Many Faces (1964), which starred Lana Turner and featured Roman and Virginia Grey as rich ladies seeking romance in Acapulco. Roman had been appearing on television since the early 1950s and as film roles became scarcer her television work became prolific, with guest appearances in over a hundred shows including Naked City, The Defenders, Burke’s Law, Outer Limits, Gunsmoke and, in the 1980s, Knots Landing.

In 1987 Roman made her first appearance on the series Murder, She Wrote, playing the gossipy owner of the town beauty salon, and she occasionally returned to the series to play the same role.

Ruth Roman, actress: born Lynn, Massachusetts 23 December 1923; married 1940 Jack Flaxman (marriage dissolved 1941), 1950 Mortimer Hall (one son; marriage dissolved 1955), 1956 Buddy Moss (marriage dissolved); died Laguna Beach, California 9 September 1999

Joan Lorring was born in 1926 in Hong Kong. She made her film debut in “Song of Russia” in 1944. She was Oscar nominated for her role in “The Corn Is Green” with Bette Davis and Mildred Dunnock. Other films incliude “The Bridge of San Luis Rey”, “Three Strangers”and “The Lost Moment”.

Her IMDB entry by Gary Brumburgh:

Joan Lorring was born Mary Magdalene Ellis in Hong Kong on April 17, 1926. She was forced to leave her native country after the outbreak of WWII and, along with her family, arrived in America as a teenager in 1939. After finding radio work in Los Angeles, the Anglo-Russian actress worked her way into films making a minor debut at age 18 in the romantic war drama Song of Russia (1944) and subsequently played the small part of Pepita in the ensemble suspenser The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1944).

The following year Joan won the coveted role of the scheming, trampish Bessie oppositeBette Davis in The Corn Is Green (1945), earning a Academy Award nomination for “best supporting actress” in the process. She may have lost the Oscar trophy that year to Anne Revere for National Velvet (1944) but Warner Brothers Studio was more than impressed with the up-and-comer and eagerly signed her up. Joan proved quite able in a number of juicy film noir parts, including Three Strangers (1946) and The Verdict (1946), both opposite the malevolent pairing of Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre.

Unexplicably her film career went into a rapid decline by the end of the decade. As a result she sought work elsewhere and maintained with stage, radio and small screen endeavors into the next decade. On Broadway she made her debut in the prime role of budding college student Marie who sets off the explosive dramatic action in “Come Back, Little Sheba” (1950) starring Shirley Booth and Sidney Blackmer. She continued with strong roles in “The Autumn Garden” (1951), “Dead Pigeon” (1953) and “A Clearing in the Woods” (1957). _Among her many 1950s dramatic showcases on TV was her portrayal of convicted ax-murderess Lizzie Borden’s sister Emma on an Alfred Hitchcock episode. In the 1970s, Joan made a mini comeback in the Burt Lancaster movie The Midnight Man(1974) as Cameron Mitchell‘s wife. She also performed on radio soap operas and appeared for a season on the TV soap Ryan’s Hope (1975) before phasing out her career once again. Long married to New York endocrinologist Dr. Martin Sonenberg, she is the mother of two daughters.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net

“LA Times” obituary from May 2014:

Joan Lorring, 88, who was nominated for an Oscar for her performance in the 1945 Bette Davis film “The Corn Is Green,” died Friday, said her daughter, Andrea Sonenberg. Lorring had been ill and died in a hospital in the New York City suburb of Sleepy Hollow.

Davis chose Lorring for the role of the scheming Bessie Watty in the late-19th century drama after reviewing screen tests of several actresses, according to the website of cable channel Turner Classic Movies. It was only the third film for Lorring.

Although Davis was known to speak her mind forceably on movie sets, Lorring said the star was greatly supportive of her. “I have only had one or two teachers in my life about whom I felt as strongly and positively as I did about Bette Davis,” Lorring said, according to the Turner Classic Movie website. Lorring lost the Academy Award for supporting actress to Anne Revere, who was in “National Velvet.”

Lorring went on to juicy parts in “Three Strangers” (1946) and “The Verdict” (1946), both opposite Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre, and she was in the 1951 film noir “The Big Night” directed by Joseph Losey.

She had numerous roles in early television series while also appearing on stage. In 1950, Lorring made her Broadway debut in the William Inge drama “Come Back, Little Sheba.” “As the blond and self-centered college girl,” New York Times critic Brooks Atkinson wrote in his review, “Joan Lorring gives a genuine and attractive performance.”

Lorring appeared on TV only a few times in the 1960s and 1970s but returned to play a role in the soap opera “Ryan’s Hope” in 1979. Her final credit was for a 1980 episode of “The Love Boat.”

She was born Madeline Ellis on April 17, 1926, in Hong Kong and moved to the U.S. in 1939. She was married to prominent endocrinologist Martin Sonenberg, who preceded her in death in 2011.

In addition to her daughter Andrea Sonenberg, she is survived by daughter Santha Sonenberg and two grandchildren.

Times staff and wire reports

news.obits@latimes.com

Strangers On The Prowl, poster,(aka IMBARCO A MEZZANOTTE), US poster art, Joan Lorring, Paul Muni, 1952. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)

Joan Lorring (1926–2014) was a performer of intense, jittery intelligence whose career serves as a classic Hollywood cautionary tale of the “Academy Award Curse.” Born Madeline Ellis in Hong Kong, she fled the Japanese invasion to become a standout dramatic force in the 1940s, only to see her film career stall just as it reached its peak.

Career Overview

Lorring’s career was defined by her ability to play characters who were simultaneously predatory and pathetic—a delicate balance that made her one of the most interesting young actresses of the post-war era.

The Prodigy (1944–1945): After minor roles, she was cast at age 19 in “The Corn Is Green” (1945). Her performance was so impactful it earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, an almost unheard-of feat for a newcomer playing such an unsympathetic role.
The Noir & Melodrama Specialist (1946–1952): She became a staple of Warner Bros. and Paramount “dark” features, often playing the “other woman” or the manipulative younger sister in films like The Verdictand Three Strangers.
The New York Transition (1950s–1980s): As film roles dried up, Lorring reinvented herself as a powerhouse on the Broadway stage and in “Golden Age” television dramas. She found a second life in the New York theater scene, notably in the original production of Come Back, Little Sheba.

Critical Analysis of His Work

1. The Mastery of the “Lower-Class Siren”

Lorring’s breakthrough in The Corn Is Green remains the primary subject of her critical legacy. Playing Bessie Watty, a girl who seduces a young miner to spite her teacher (Bette Davis), Lorring introduced a new kind of “mean girl” to the screen.

Analysis: Critically, Lorring was praised for her refusal to make Bessie “likable.” While most young starlets of 1945 were coached to maintain a certain degree of “softness,” Lorring played Bessie with a sharp-edged, mercenary pragmatism. She successfully held her own against Bette Davis by using a “vulpine” energy—moving and speaking with a predatory hunger that felt dangerously modern.

2. Intellectualizing the B-Movie

In films like “The Verdict” (1946) and “Three Strangers” (1946), Lorring worked within the confines of the B-movie thriller but brought an A-list psychological depth to her roles.

Analysis: Critics have often noted that Lorring didn’t just play “femme fatales”; she played women who were victims of their own limited social mobility. She used her voice—which had a slight, nervous vibrato—to suggest that her characters’ manipulations were born of desperation rather than pure evil. This “anxious” quality made her a favorite of directors who wanted to subvert the standard Noir tropes.

3. The “Un-Glamorous” Choice

Unlike many of her contemporaries at Warner Bros., Lorring was willing to look “plain” or “unruly” for a role.

Analysis: In an era of perfection, Lorring’s willingness to appear disheveled or morally decayed was a bold stylistic choice. Modern analysis of her work often compares her to later “Method” actresses. She prioritized the internal truth of a scene over the “Star Image,” which likely contributed to her difficulty in finding traditional “Leading Lady” roles in a Hollywood that still demanded conventional beauty archetypes.

4. Stage vs. Screen: The Great Pivot

When her film career declined, Lorring’s transition to the stage was a critical triumph.

Analysis: In the theater, her small stature and “big” voice were utilized to different effects. In “Come Back, Little Sheba,” she played Marie with a nuanced understanding of youthful selfishness. Theater critics noted that Lorring possessed a “theatrical electricity” that the camera sometimes struggled to contain. She was better suited for the long-form character arcs of the stage than the often two-dimensional roles offered to women in 1950s cinema.

Key Filmography and Stage Work

Work	Year	Role	Significance
The Corn Is Green	1945	Bessie Watty	Oscar Nomination; her definitive “bad girl” role.
Three Strangers	1946	Icey Crane	Highlighted her ability to play complex, morally grey characters.
The Verdict	1946	Lottie Rawson	A classic Noir performance alongside Sydney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre.
Come Back, Little Sheba	1950	Marie Buckholder	Her successful transition to Broadway; earned a Donaldson Award.
The Big Night	1951	Marion	Directed by Joseph Losey; a stark, gritty role at the end of her film peak.

In summary: Joan Lorring was an actress of “high-frequency” energy. She was perhaps too intelligent and too uncompromising for the Hollywood machine of the 1940s, which preferred its ingenues to be either saints or sirens. In reality, Lorring was a character actress trapped in a starlet’s body, leaving behind a brief but searing body of work that continues to fascinate fans of Classic Hollywood melodrama

The Times obituary :

Ty Hardin was a big television star playing the title character in the hit western series Bronco and so was not too keen on the idea of appearing in a low-budget Italian movie. Instead, the role went to the star of another TV western series, and while A Fistful of Dollars helped to transform Clint Eastwood into a Hollywood superstar, Hardin gradually slipped into obscurity via a Spanish prison cell and an unfulfilled attempt to become president of the US.

The actor, who was also mixed up in Christian fundamentalism and right-wing politics, had no regrets about turning down the landmark spaghetti western. “I didn’t like the film,” he said. “I’m not much [keen] on promoting the use of bad language, excess violence and total neglect [of] our judicial system of checks and balances — bad images for our kids and my Baptist grandmother would turn over in her grave.”

Ty Hardin appeared with Diana Dors in Berserk! (1967). He was married eight timesMOVIESTORE/REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

He did eventually jump on the bandwagon, but Savage Pampas (1966) did not exactly replicate the success of Eastwood’s breakthrough movie. And, to make matters worse, filming commitments in Europe meant that Hardin missed out on the chance to play Batman in what became one of the big hits of American television in the 1960s.

A descendant of William Whipple, one of the signatories of the American Declaration of Independence, Hardin was born as Orison Whipple Hungerford Jr in New York City on New Year’s Day 1930. His parents separated when he was an infant and he grew up on his grandparents’ farm in Texas.

He acquired the nickname Ty from his grandmother, who said that he was like “a Texas typhoon coming through the house”. He had behavioural problems and was sent to military school, ran away and was reunited with his mother in Houston.

In a 1958 publicity portrait for BroncoWARNER BROTHERS TELEVISION/ GETTY IMAGES

He went to college on a football scholarship, served in the US army as a pilot in West Germany, studied electrical engineering back in Texas and took a job with Douglas Aircraft in California. He was spotted by a talent scout while shopping for a Hallowe’en costume and invited to take a screen test with Paramount Pictures, which led to a seven-year contract with a starting salary twice that of his engineer’s pay. Over the next few years he appeared in a wide variety of films, including I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958), under the name Ty Hungerford.

The strong-jawed Hardin looked like a classic Wild West hero: he could rope and ride, and he hoped to get a part in the western Rio Bravo. Although he was unsuccessful, its star John Wayne introduced him to William T Orr at Warner Bros Television. It was the heyday of the television western series, including Cheyenne with Clint Walker. When Walker fell out with Warner Bros over his contract, the studio was left with a hit show with no star.

Orr bought out Hungerford’s contract with Paramount, changed his name to Hardin — after the outlaw John Wesley Hardin — and cast him in Cheyenne as Bronco Layne, a taciturn former Confederate officer drifting through various adventures and jobs, including deputy US marshal, undercover agent, wagon train boss and ranch hand. When Walker returned to Cheyenne, Warners rebranded Layne’s adventures as Bronco. Between 1958 and 1962 Hardin appeared in 68 episodes, rubbing shoulders with Wild West legends such as Jesse James and Billy the Kid.

Hardin appeared with Jeff Chandler in Merrill’s Marauders (1962). He also had roles in Battle of the Bulge (1965) and Berserk! (1967) with Diana Dors before pursuing his career in Europe and Australia, where he took the role of an American running a charter boat operation in the series Riptide (1969).

Merrill’s Marauders, poster, US poster art, bottom left: Ty Hardin, Jeff Chandler, (above Ty Hardin), 1962. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)

Irene Tsu was born in 1943 in Shangai in China. She was raised in San Francisco. She was a featured dancer in the film “Flower Drum Song” in 1961. Her other films include “Take Her, She’s Mine” with James Stewart and Sandra Dee, “Paradise Hawaiian Style” with Elvis Presley and “The Green Berets” with John Wayne.

TCM Overview:

Irene Tsu was an actress who was no stranger to being featured in numerous film roles throughout her Hollywood career. Early on in her acting career, Irene Tsu landed roles in various films, including the Jack Lemmon comedy adaptation “Under the Yum Yum Tree” (1963), the James Stewart comedic adaptation “Take Her, She’s Mine” (1963) and the Shirley MacLaine comedy “John Goldfarb, Please Come Home” (1964). She also appeared in “Seven Women” (1965), the Annette Funicello comedy “How to Stuff a Wild Bikini” (1965) and the Elvis Presley musical “Paradise Hawaiian Style” (1966). Her film career continued throughout the seventies and the eighties in productions like “Hot Potato” (1975) with Jim Kelly, “Paper Tiger” (1975) and “Down and Out in Beverly Hills” (1986). She held additional roles in television including a part on “The Single Guy” (NBC, 1995-97). She also was featured in the TV movies “Widow’s Kiss” (HBO, 1995-96) and “Tell Me No Secrets” (ABC, 1996-97). Most recently, Irene Tsu acted on “Law & Order: LA” (NBC, 2010-11).

The above TCM Overview can also be accessed online here.

For article on Irene Tsu by in Cinema Retro Tom Lisanti, please click here.

Elaine Stewart obituary in “The Guardian”.

“Guardian” obituary:

The seductive brunette Elaine Stewart, who has died aged 81, may have lacked that ineffable essence that makes up star quality, but she had enough allure to attract attention in several glossy Hollywood movies in the 1950s, both in leading parts and noteworthy supporting roles. Among the best of the latter were her brief though memorable appearances in two films directed by Vincente Minnelli.

She was both bad and beautiful in The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) as Lila, a wannabe film star, hoping to make it by sleeping with Jonathan Shields (Kirk Douglas), the studio head. When told that Shields is a great man, Lila responds, “There are no great men, buster. There’s only men.” The scene which lingers most in the mind is when Georgia Lorrison (Lana Turner), who has just triumphed in a Shields movie, leaves a party to be with him at his Hollywood mansion. While she is embracing Shields, Lila’s shadow looms over them. Then Georgia notices Lila at the top of the stairs, barefoot, wearing a slinky dress, a martini glass in hand. “I thought you said you were going to get rid of her quick,” says Lila. “The picture’s finished, Georgia. You’re business, I’m company.”

Her sequence in Brigadoon (1954) begins with a violent cut from the picturesque Scottish village in the Highlands to a bustling Manhattan bar where Stewart, as Gene Kelly’s Park Avenue fiancee, is chatting away about the wedding and shopping. Kelly, whose inner ear is listening to the music to which he had danced with a Scottish lass (Cyd Charisse), doesn’t hear a word the self-absorbed Stewart is saying. A stark contrast is created between the two women: the dream girl and the real thing. Ironically, unlike Kelly, Minnelli was pleased to get away from the feyness and painted scenery of the wilds of Scotland to revel in the noisy bar where the metropolitan Stewart is quite at home.

She was born Elsy Steinberg in New Jersey, one of five children of German-Jewish parents. After a few jobs, she was taken on in her late teens by the Conover modelling agency in New York, which worked with the leading magazines of the day. She was soon getting photo layouts, one of which caught the eye of producer Hal B Wallis at Paramount, who cast her as a sexy navy nurse in the Dean Martin-Jerry Lewis comedy Sailor Beware (1952). Stewart made the most of her one scene when she brushes off a pass by Martin, who is told, “When it comes to sailors, she’s colder than a deep freeze.” However, a few minutes later she is seen, to Martin’s astonishment, to be kissing Lewis.

The sequence was enough to land her an MGM contract, and she was offered a few decorative bit parts, culminating in The Bad and the Beautiful. In 1953, she got leading roles opposite Mickey Rooney (A Slight Case of Larceny), Ralph Meeker (Code Two) and Richard Widmark (Take the High Ground!). She is touching in the last of these, her meatiest role, as a neurotic war widow who comes between army sergeants played by Widmark and Karl Malden.

In a very full year, Stewart was also seen losing her head as Anne Boleyn in Young Bess, and was the subject of a Life magazine cover story entitled Budding Starlet Visits the Folks in Jersey. Despite the fact that Stewart had passed the “budding starlet” phase, it was typical of the way she was often characterised.

In 1954, on loan from MGM, she starred in The Adventures of Hajji Baba, a piece of Hollywood exotica, playing, rather more erratically than erotically, an oriental princess being escorted across the desert by John Derek (in the title role) to marry a powerful prince. When told she is extremely innocent, the 24-year-old Stewart replies, “Whose fault is that? Here I am 17 and unwedded. My sisters and cousins were married at 14! I have wasted three years and I will waste no more!”

Having lost a role in The Opposite Sex (1956) to Joan Collins, Stewart left MGM to take on a two-picture deal with Universal, who changed her hair colour to quicksilver blonde. As she told a fan magazine, “To go with my hair, all my jewellery is silver. I have a new silver Mercedes to drive and a silver poodle named Clicquot. I use silver nail polish and eat off silver dishes. And I sleep in a silver bed.”

In the film noir The Tattered Dress (1957), Stewart is seen in the sensational credit sequence having her dress ripped by her lover, then driving home drunk to her jealous husband. The New York Times’s critic, Bosley Crowther, wrote that “Stewart is provocative enough … to distract an avowed misogynist.” She was a little more restrained in Night Passage (1957), in which she tries to stir up past longings in James Stewart on a mission for her wealthy husband. The best of her last few parts was as a treacherous gangster’s moll in The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond (1960), which she made after posing nude for Playboy magazine.

Stewart had a short marriage to the actor Bill Carter and, in 1964, married the television producer Merrill Heatter. She retired for a while to start a family, then made a comeback in the 1970s as a host on two TV gameshows, Gambit and High Rollers, on which her husband was executive producer.

Stewart is survived by Merrill and their son, Stewart, and daughter, Gabrielle.

• Elaine Stewart (Elsy Steinberg), actor; born 31 May 1930; died 27 June 2011

The “Guardian” obituary can also be accessed online here.

Elaine Stewart (1930–2011) was a quintessential product of the 1950s Hollywood studio system. While she never reached the pantheon of “Legendary” stars, she occupied a vital space as the definitive “MGM Siren”—an actress of striking, dark-haired beauty whose screen presence was often used to provide a sense of sophisticated, sometimes dangerous, glamour.

Career Overview

Born Elsy Steinberg, Stewart’s trajectory was a classic “Starlet to Leading Lady” narrative, though her peak was relatively short-lived as the studio system began to crumble.

The MGM Contract (1952–1955): After winning a “Miss See” photo contest, she was signed to MGM. This was her most prolific era, where she was meticulously groomed. She appeared in high-profile films like The Bad and the Beautiful (1952) and Take the High Ground! (1953).
The Leading Lady Peak (1954–1958): She moved into female lead roles in “B-plus” pictures and westerns, such as The Adventures of Hajji Baba (1954) and Night Passage (1957), often playing the romantic interest to established stars like James Stewart or Richard Widmark.
Television and Reinvention (1960s–1970s): As film roles slowed, she transitioned to television guest spots. After marrying game show producer Merrill Heatter, she became a recognizable TV personality, appearing as the co-host/card dealer on game shows like Gambit and High Rollers.

Critical Analysis of Her Work

1. The Aesthetic of the “Cool Sophisticate”

Stewart’s primary critical function at MGM was to project a specific type of adult, urban allure that contrasted with the “girl next door” archetypes of the era.

Analysis: In “The Bad and the Beautiful”, she plays Lila, an aspiring actress. Though her screen time was limited, critics noted her ability to convey the “hard-edged” reality of Hollywood ambition. She didn’t play “innocence”; she played knowingness. Her physicality—sharp features and an upright, formal posture—made her the perfect visual shorthand for a woman who was socially upwardly mobile but emotionally guarded.

2. The Western “Foil”

A significant portion of her legacy involves her roles in Technicolor Westerns.

Analysis: In films like “Night Passage”, Stewart was tasked with the difficult role of the “Civilized Woman” in a lawless landscape. Critically, her performances in these films are often analyzed for how they represent 1950s gender anxieties. She was often the moral anchor, but she played these roles with a “steely” quality rather than soft sentimentality. She wasn’t a “damsel”; she was a woman who looked like she could command a household or a ranch with a single look.

3. Subverting the “Starlet” Label

Critically, Stewart was often fighting against being seen purely as “decoration.”

Analysis: In the military drama “Take the High Ground!”, she played a character with a darker, more complex backstory than the typical military-wife archetype. Critics of the time praised her for bringing a “unexpectedly somber” tone to the film. She possessed an “inner gravity” that suggested she was capable of much heavier dramatic work than the studio usually allowed her to perform.

4. The Transition to Game Show Iconography

While purely an “acting” analysis usually stops at her film career, her work on Gambit represents a fascinating use of her established persona.

Analysis: On television, Stewart utilized the “MGM Glamour” to elevate the game show format. She wasn’t just a host; she was a vestige of “Old Hollywood” in a medium that was becoming increasingly casual. This transition was a successful bit of “self-curation,” allowing her to maintain her status as an icon of elegance long after the studio system that created her had vanished.

Key Filmography for Study

Work	Year	Role	Significance
The Bad and the Beautiful	1952	Lila	Her debut “impact” role; established her as a sophisticated screen presence.
Take the High Ground!	1953	Julie	Showcased her dramatic range beyond being a “pretty face.”
Brigadoon	1954	Jane Ashton	A high-profile musical role that demonstrated her ability to play “High Society” characters.
Night Passage	1957	Verna Kimball	Her most prominent Western role, starring opposite James Stewart.
The Tattered Dress	1957	Charleen Reston	A “Noir” leaning performance

Barbara Harris was born in Evanston, Illnois in 1935. She began her career on Broadway. She had a waifish pixie appeal in her initial films. Among her relatively few film credits are “A Thousand Clowns” with Jason Robards Jnr in 1965, “Who Is Harry Kellerman And Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Thinga About Me” with Dustin Hoffman, Robert Altman’s brilliant “Nashville” and Alfred Hitchcock’s final film “Family Plot” in 1976.

TCM Overview:

This charming stage-trained comedy specialist had an intermittent but once beguiling screen career dating back to the mid-1960s. Long a critic’s darling, Harris convinces as scatterbrained characters with endearing child-like qualities. This aptitude made her, for a time, something of a thinking man’s Goldie Hawn. Harris made her film debut as social worker Sandra Markowitz (her real name) in the feature version of Herb Gardner’s play “A Thousand Clowns” (1966). Her performances often garnered far better notices than the films that framed them. Harris’ reprisal of her off-Broadway role as what VARIETY called a “nymphet chippie” in “Oh Dad, Poor Dad, Mamma’s Hung You in the Closet and I’m Feelin’ So Sad” (1967) was deemed the film’s only saving grace in some circles. As a late arriving love interest of discontented rock star Dustin Hoffman in “Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me?” (1971), Harris fared better than the star and received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress for her efforts. British culture mag TIME OUT deemed the “delightful” Harris “wasted” as the married old flame of lecherous film producer Walter Matthau in a segment of Neil Simon’s “Plaza Suite” (1971), but she fared well opposite a cranky Jack Lemmon in the James Thurber-inspired “The War Between Men and Women” (1972).

The above TCM Overview can also be accessed online here.

A founding member of Chicago’s celebrated Second City Players in 1960, Harris came with them to appear in “From Second City” on the NY stage. Moving to NYC she established a positive reputation on and off-Broadway before alternating between stage and screen. Harris racked up three Tony nominations, including one for her delightful turn as the daffy heroine of “On a Clear Day You Can See Forever” (1966). She won the 1967 Best Actress in a Musical Play Tony for “The Apple Tree,” in which she played multiple roles opposite Alan Alda and Larry Blyden. Two of her most noteworthy feature credits were in memorable 70s films from divergent auteurs Robert Altman and Alfred Hitchcock: in “Nashville” (1975), Harris was Albuquerque, a housewife whose dream of becoming a country-Western singing star seemingly comes true after an unexpected tragedy; in “Family Plot” (1976), she was a phony but basically benign psychic. Hollywood was less kind for the remainder of the decade.

Harris struggled gamely in the Disney comedies “Freaky Friday” (1976) and “The North Avenue Irregulars” (1979) and won some excellent notices as the frustrated wife of a senator (Alan Alda) in “The Seduction of Joe Tynan” (1979) but by then her star had decisively fallen.

Harris all but disappeared in the 80s, surfacing briefly in Hal Ashby’s disastrous “Second-Hand Hearts” (1980), where even her performance was savaged by reviewers; a bit as Kathleen Turner’s mom in Francis Coppola’s time-traveling “Peggy Sue Got Married” (1986); and a small part as a wealthy traveler conned by a scheming Michael Caine in the comedy “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” (1988). Harris should not be confused with the young character actor of 80s film and TV with the same name.

Barbara Harris (1935–2018) was a performer of ethereal, almost improvisational genius. A founding member of the Second City in Chicago, she brought the spontaneity of “sketch” comedy to the precision of Broadway and the high stakes of New York cinema. While she famously retreated from the limelight at the height of her fame, her influence on the “naturalistic” style of acting—specifically for women in comedy—cannot be overstated.

Career Overview

Harris’s career was defined by a refusal to be a “standard” leading lady. She possessed a distinctive, breathy voice and a “scatterbrained” intelligence that masked a rigorous technical foundation.

The Improvisational Pioneer (1950s–1961): Alongside Mike Nichols and Elaine May, Harris helped invent modern American improvisational comedy at The Compass Players and Second City. This “think on your feet” background remained the hallmark of her style.
The Broadway Sensation (1962–1967): She took New York by storm, winning a Tony Award for The Apple Tree (1967) and originating the role of Daisy Gamble in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever.
The New Hollywood Muse (1970s): She transitioned to film with a string of idiosyncratic performances for legendary directors, including Robert Altman (Nashville) and Alfred Hitchcock (Family Plot).
The Early Retirement: By the late 1980s, Harris largely stepped away from professional acting, preferring to teach and live a private life, cementing her status as one of Hollywood’s most enigmatic “lost” treasures.

Critical Analysis of Her Work

1. The “Second City” Technique in Dramatic Form

Harris was one of the first actors to successfully translate the “looseness” of improv into the rigid structure of a scripted play or film.

Analysis: Critics frequently noted that Harris never seemed to give the same performance twice. Even in highly choreographed Broadway musicals, she maintained a sense of unpredictable presence. She didn’t “hit her marks” so much as she “arrived” at them. This gave her characters a profound vulnerability; the audience felt they were watching a person think in real-time rather than reciting lines.

2. The Master of High-Stakes Whimsy: Family Plot (1976)

In Alfred Hitchcock’s final film, Family Plot, Harris played Blanche Tyler, a fraudulent psychic.

Analysis: Hitchcock, known for his “puppet-master” control over actors, was famously fascinated by Harris’s ability to be simultaneously grounded and “flighty.” Critically, she was praised for grounding the film’s macabre plot in a relatable, working-class desperation. She used her physicality—a combination of clumsy movements and sharp, observant eyes—to create a character who was a “con artist with a heart of gold,” effectively carrying the film’s comedic weight.

3. The Anatomy of Heartbreak: Nashville (1975)

In Robert Altman’s masterpiece, Harris played Albuquerque, a runaway wife chasing country music stardom.

Analysis: Her performance in the film’s finale is widely considered one of the greatest moments in 1970s cinema. When she takes the stage to sing “It Don’t Worry Me” amidst a tragedy, Harris captures a terrifyingly beautiful intersection of narcissism, talent, and shock. Critics noted her ability to convey opportunistic innocence—the idea that her character is both a victim of the system and its ultimate survivor.

4. The “Anti-Diva” Musicality

Despite being a Tony-winning musical star, Harris’s singing was never about vocal pyrotechnics; it was about character.

Analysis: In The Apple Tree, she played three distinct roles. Her vocal style was often “talk-sung,” focusing on the emotional punctuation of the lyrics. This made her the bridge between the operatic Broadway of the 1950s and the character-driven “concept” musicals of the 1970s. She proved that a “flawed” or “quirky” voice could be more expressive than a perfect one.

Key Performances for Study

Work	Year	Role	Significance
A Thousand Clowns	1965	Dr. Sandra Markowitz	Her film debut; established her “intellectual gamine” persona.
The Apple Tree(Stage)	1966	Eve/Princess/Passionella	Tony Award for Best Actress; a tour-de-force of comedic range.
Nashville	1975	Albuquerque	A definitive “Altman-esque” performance of tragicomic depth.
Family Plot	1976	Blanche Tyler	Nominated for a Golden Globe; the centerpiece of Hitchcock’s swan song.
Freaky Friday	1976	Ellen Andrews	Showcased her rare ability to play “adolescence” within an adult body.

In summary: Barbara Harris was the “Secret Ingredient” of American acting. She was the actor that other actors studied to learn how to be “present.” She eschewed the vanity of the star system in favor of the truth of the moment, leaving behind a legacy of performances that feel as fresh and spontaneous today as they did fifty years ago

James Brolin was born in 1940 in Los Angeles. His television debut came in 1961 in an episode of “Bus Stop”. In 1963 he had a small part in the James Stewart film “Take Her, She’s Mine” followed two years later by “Dear Brigitte” which starred Stewart again and Glynis Johns and Fabian. In 1969 he had significant success with the television series “Marcus Welby M.D.” which ran until 1976 and also starred Robert Young. He then starred in some big budget films incuding “Gable and Lombard” with Jill Clayburgh in 1976, “Capricorn One” and “The Amityville Horror” in 1979. He had another television success with “Hotel” from 1983 until 1988. James Brolin had a recurring role in “The West Wing”. He is the father of actor Josh Brolin and husband of Barbra Streisand. Interview with “Huffington Post” here.

“Quinlan’s Movie Stars”:
Tall, dark-haired (now gray) American leading man reminscent of Clint Walker. He had trouble getting decent roles in Hollywood until television fame as a junior partner in “Marcus Welby”. His cinema portrait of Clark Gable was not a success and after a couple of box-office hits in the late 1970s he was relegated to tough heroes of minor action films.

TCM Overview:

As the son of James Brolin, stepson of Barbra Streisand and husband of Diane Lane, actor Josh Brolin forged his career in the shadow of three formidable talents. In fact, ever since his debut in “The Goonies” (1985), Brolin languished for years in roles that were well below his station. Adding to his self-determined persona was an ability to get into occasional trouble , whether it was being mauled by a mountain lion, crashing his motorcycle weeks before shooting a major film, or making headlines with an arrest for a domestic dispute Brolin had a knack for generating publicity in interesting ways. Meanwhile, he worked steadily throughout his career, though he suffered a string of mediocre movies that included “The Road Killers” (1994), “The Mod Squad” (1999) and “Hollow Man” (2000). But he began to step away from such lowbrow fare with a turn in Woody Allen’s serio-comedy “Melinda and Melinda” (2005) and eventually broke free with his acclaimed performance in the Oscar-winning “No Country for Old Men” (2007). He played a crooked cop in “American Gangster” (2007), the bumbling President of the United States in “W.” (2008), and San Francisco politician and assassin Dan White in “Milk” (2008). Though he stumbled a bit as the lead in “Jonah Hex” (2010), Brolin rebounded with “True Grit” (2010), proving that his transformation into a highly sought after leading man was no fluke.

“Hollywood, in the fallow 60s, was suddenly blessed with a group of talented ladies in their middle years, actresses who literally bridged the gap between the new ingenues and the older stars like Davis and Hepburn. Most of them had made their reputations in the theatre and were just as experienced in TV – Geraldine page, Julie Harris, Kim Stanley(though the last has made only a few films because she dislikes the medium). But not all: Anne Bancroft like Patricia Neal, was a Hollywood failure who went aay and returned a star” – David Shipman in “The Great Movie Stars – The International years”. (1972) “A blueprint example of a terrific actress who was practically discarded by the studio system. Anne Bancroft managed to pull a complete about face , rising above the doldrums of her early career to become one of the most respected performers in the business” – Barry Monush in “The Encyclopedia of Hollywood Film Actors” (2003).

Anne Bancroft was born in 1931 in New York City. She made her film debut in “Don’t Bother to Knock” with Richard Widmark and Marilyn Monroe. In the 1950’s she starred in a few glamour parts and after some years returned to Broadway. She won huge acclaim for her performance as Annie Sullivan in “The Miracle Worker”. She repeated the role on film in 1962 and won an Academy Award. She resumed her film career and starred in “The Pumpkin Eater”, ” 7 Women”, “The Graduate” and “To Be or Not to Be” with her husband Mel Brooks. Anne Bancroft died in 2005.

Brian Baxter’s “Guardian” obituary:

After a youthful flirtation with television, a near-disastrous relationship with Hollywood and a failed marriage, the actor Anne Bancroft, who has died aged 73, fled the west coast and returned home to New York. It was 1959 and in her own words “life was a shambles … I was terribly immature. I was going steadily downhill in terms of self-respect and dignity”. She needed to reclaim her life and career.

Happily, it worked and within three years she had won Tonys for her Broadway roles in Two for the Seesaw and as Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker. When the latter was transferred to the screen by its author William Gibson and director Arthur Penn, she again took the demanding role of Helen Keller’s teacher, winning the best actress Oscar in 1963.

This success relaunched her career, leading to prestige roles in the theatre including Mother Courage, Sister Jeanne in The Devils and Regina Giddens in The Little Foxes. There were film roles too, in The Pumpkin Eater (1964) and, most famously, as the seductive Mrs Robinson in the modish and popular The Graduate (1967). This movie, in which Dustin Hoffman made his screen debut, became so closely associated with Bancroft as a 1960s archetype that it somewhat obscured her subsequent career.

She was also famously married to the Jewish actor-director Mel Brooks whose mother, told that he was going to marry an Italian-American Catholic, replied “bring the girl over, I’ll be in the kitchen – with my head in the oven”. Despite these and other comments about a mis-match, the marriage proved one of the most stable in show business. It was also creative, and Brooks served as executive producer on movies in which Bancroft excelled, including The Elephant Man (1980) and the two-hander 84 Charing Cross Road (1986). These and other films made for his own company redeemed his often frantic comedies, three of which involved Bancroft. In Silent Movie (1976) she – among other stars – glamorously played herself as a highlight of the film. Sadly, she was less well served when co-starring opposite Brooks in his lumpen remake of the Ernst Lubitsch classic To Be or Not to Be (1983) and by her cameo appearance in his dire spoof Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995).

Bancroft was born in the Bronx to a working class family. It was the height of the depression, but even when her father became unemployed in the late 1930s, Anna was allowed tap dancing lessons, then enrolled at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. Her graduation piece was seen by the actress Frances Fuller, who recommended the 18 year old for television work. Bancroft debuted as Anne Marno in The Torrents of Spring and when a popular radio show The Goldbergs transferred to television she became a member of the TV family, working steadily for two years.

Having helped a fellow actor with a screen test, it was Bancroft who got the call from 20th Century Fox offering a $20,000-a-year contract. It was to prove a mixed blessing. Under her new name Anne Bancroft she made her movie debut in Don’t Bother to Knock, made in 1952 but held up for a year. Within five years she made 15 films, as various as Demetrius and the Gladiators, a baseball movie The Kid from Left Field and Gorilla at Large (1954). There were several routine westerns, modest thrillers including Jacques Tourneur’s Nightfall, plus the dismal The Girl in Black Silk Stockings (1957). By this time she admitted to over indulging in alcohol and being unhappily married to someone “who calls himself an actor but whose real occupation is playing a rich boy”. She was also in psychoanalysis.

The road back involved work with a vocal coach, regular attendance at The Actors Studio and study with Herbert Berghof. Plus three sessions a week with her therapist. Then came a triumphant return to acting, playing first opposite a difficult Henry Fonda, followed by the explosive and physically demanding role in The Miracle Worker. When the film version was announced, the backers wanted either Elizabeth Taylor or Audrey Hepburn, but Penn refused and budgeted it at only $500,000, shooting in New Jersey. At 31 Bancroft became an Oscar winner and in the words of one critic, “she left Hollywood a failure and returned a star”.

Her subsequent career was far from conventional. Her intelligence and fierce independence ensured that she never conformed to movie stardom. Working at her own pace and inclination, she turned down Funny Girl, which subsequently made Barbra Streisand famous. She played Mother Courage on stage and waited two years for a new film that was shot in Britain.

Harold Pinter adapted the Pumpkin Eater from Penelope Mortimer’s novel depicting the disintegration of a marriage. The rather cold, over-stylised direction by Jack Clayton could not obscure the riveting central performances by James Mason and Bancroft. Her harrowing portrayal as the distressed wife won her the 1964 best actress award at the Cannes Film Festival, a Bafta film award and the second of her five Oscar nominations.

In 1966 she took the lead in John Ford’s last movie, 7 Women. It was a curiosity that failed commercially. The same fate did not await The Graduate. The rapacious Mrs Robinson gained her another Oscar nomination and the third of her seven Bafta nominations as best actress.

It was also a commercial success and she and director Mike Nichols worked together again on The Little Foxes. Then Bancroft, who had married Brooks in 1964, took extended time off from work, giving birth to their son Maximilian in 1968.

She returned to the screen in 1972, playing Jenny Churchill in Young Winston, prompting Richard Attenborough to describe her as “the greatest actress of her generation”. Two years later she starred in the Neil Simon comedy, The Prisoner of Second Avenue – a welcome return to comedy where she was perfectly cast opposite the frenetic Jack Lemmon.

Her seesaw career took a downturn with the dull The Hindenburg (1975), in which she played a Countess, and hit rock bottom with the garish revenge thriller Lipstick (1976). She was, more happily, herself in Silent Movie and as Mary Magdalene in Franco Zeffirelli’s mini-series Jesus of Nazareth. Her luck improved when Audrey Hepburn declined the role of the prima ballerina in The Turning Point (1977), giving Bancroft a substantial role as the bitchy rival to Shirley Maclaine.

After another long career gap, she returned to the screen with Fatso (1980), which she also wrote and directed. It was little shown and she was grateful for the tellingly elegant role of Mrs Kendal in The Elephant Man. This was her second film with Anthony Hopkins and they were reunited – albeit from opposite sides of the Atlantic – for the rather less distinguished 84 Charing Cross Road (1986).

She was busy on the screen during the 1980s, working little in the theatre after a disappointing response to Golda, another play by William Gibson. There were substantial roles in Garbo Talks (1984) and as the Mother Superior in Agnes of God (1985). She was an altogether different Ma in Torch Song Trilogy (1988), where an over-the -top performance was a mixed blessing in a high camp version of a theatrical success.

There was a touch of Mrs Robinson in her flirtatious role in the comedy You’re a Fool Bert Rigby and in her mellower Kate Jerome in the television version of Neil Simon’s Broadway Bound (1991). Throughout that decade she broke her tradition of long absences between movie roles, notching up a couple of appearances – often in character parts – each year. Amidst Hollywood’s welter of juvenile, special effects-led films her warmth, intelligence and stylish presence became somewhat sidelined. She took the title role in the TV drama Mrs Cage and had a fun time in the oddball comedy Honeymoon in Vegas (both 1992). There were fraught moments in the thrillers Malice and a remake of Luc Besson’s Nikita re-titled Assassin. In this she played the role originally created by Jeanne Moreau, an actress of similar sophistication. She was wasted as a doctor in Mr Jones, which director Mike Figgis disowned after studio interference.

There were further television dramas, The Mother (1994), Homecoming (1996) and most potent of all Deep in My Heart (1999) for which she received an Emmy as best supporting actress. There was a nonsensical desire on the part of directors to cast her years above her attractive self: she played a centenarian in The Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All and a great aunt in the worthily dull How to Make an American Quilt.

Among her gallery of elderly grotesques none was more triumphant than the terrifying Mrs Dinsmoor in the stylish updating of Great Expectation (1998). There were few such lush movies to be had, but she made a feisty, inherently corrupt senator in GI Jane and was ideally cast voicing the Queen in the animated hit Antz.

There were also documentaries to narrate and the inevitable personal appearances saluting husband Brooks and co-star Dustin Hoffman or indeed the whole history of American cinema in the AFI’s 100 Years, 100 Movies.

Bancroft could always be relied on to add a touch of class to movies – especially if they had literary, religious or social themes and she kept busy with Up at the Villa, the factually-based Haven and Edward Norton’s directorial debut Keeping the Faith. Some lighter relief came with the smart comedy Heartbreakers (2001), where she was played dual roles in a story about mother and daughter con artists who relieve widowers of their wealth. She played the third side of the triangle, belatedly revealed as one of the tricksters.

It was a reminder of her comedic talent – something that had been rewarded by a lifetime achievement in the 1996 American Comedy Awards, but which Hollywood had not sufficiently recognised during her long career. Perhaps one comedian in the Bancroft-Brooks household was considered enough.

· Anne Bancroft, actor, born Anna Marina Louisa Italiano, September 17 1931; died June 6 2005

The above “Guardian” obituary can also be accessed online here.

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