Hollywood Actors Archives - Page 120 of 128

Howard Keel

“Hollywood, or at least MGM, rather underestimated Howard Keel. He was launched as a star in “Anne Get Your Gun” but then shuffled off sometimes into second-leads or into second features. He was given boorish parts to play – modelled on his role in ‘Annie’ -or stood up as the conventional leading-man prop. That he did so well despite this was due to the fact that this was the heyday of screen musicals, many of which he carried to success almost single-handedly. There was no other big-voiced baritone in films at the time – at his best he outclassed all the others of like ilk – Lanza, Eddy, Allan Jones. His voice was warm and lusty. He had a fetching grin and though few of his parts called upon him to do more than swagger he did it with a disarming ease. In these days when the MGM musical is seen in all it’s achievement

Howard Keel was born in 1919 in Gillespie, Illinois. In 1947 he came to post-War London and captivated audiences with his stage performance as “Curley” in “Oaklaholma”. While in Britian he made his film debut in “The Small Voice” opposite Valerie Hobson. He won a contract with MGM starting with “Annie Get Your Gun”. He went on to make “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers”, “Kismet” “Kiss Me Kate” and “Rose Marie”. For Warner Brothers he made “Calamity Jane” with Doris Day. Witn the decline oif movie musicals in the late 50’s he began singing in supper clubs across the U.S. He had a major career revival in the 1980’s with his role in the long running “Dallas”. Howard Keel died in 2004 at the age of 85.

Gary Brumburgh’s entry:

Tough, virile, wavy-haired and ruggedly handsome with trademark forlorn-looking brows that added an intriguing touch of vulnerability to his hard outer core, actor Howard Duff and his wife-at-the-time, actress Ida Lupino, were one of Hollywood’s premiere film couples during the 1950s “Golden Age”. Prior to that, Duff had relationships with a number of the cinema’s most dazzling leading ladies, including Ava Gardner (just prior to her marriage to musician Artie Shaw) and Gloria DeHaven.

Duff’s talent first manifested itself on radio as Dashiell Hammett‘s popular private eye “Sam Spade” (1946-1950), and eventually extended to include stage, film and TV. While never considered a top-tier movie star and, despite his obvious prowess, never considered for any acting awards, Howard Duff was an undeniably strong good guy and potent heavy but perhaps lacked the requisite charisma or profile to move into the ranks of a Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas or Robert Mitchum. His career spanned over four decades.

His full name was Howard Green Duff and he was born in Bremerton, Washington on November 24, 1913. Growing up in and around the Seattle area, he attended Roosevelt High School where he played basketball. It was here that he also found an outlet acting in school plays and, following graduation, studied drama. He eventually became an acting member of the Repertory Playhouse in Seattle. Military service interrupted his early career and he served with the U.S. Army Air Force’s radio service from 1941 to 1945. Upon his discharge, he returned to his acting pursuits and won the role of “Sam Spade” on NBC Radio in the role Humphrey Bogart made famous in The Maltese Falcon (1941).Lurene Tuttle played his altruistic secretary “Effie” on the series. He eventually left the program when his film career settled in and Stephen Dunne took over the radio voice of the detective in 1950 for its final season.

Duff’s post-war movie career started completely on the right foot at Universal with the hard-hitting film noir Brute Force (1947), in which he received good notices as an ill-fated cellmate to Burt Lancaster, Charles Bickford and others. Quite well-known for his radio voice by this time, he was given special billing in the movie’s credits as “Radio’s Sam Spade”. This was followed by equally vital and volatile performances in the prescient semi-documentary-styled police drama The Naked City (1948) and in Arthur Miller‘s taut family drama All My Sons (1948) starring Lancaster, again, and Edward G. Robinson.

After such a strong showing, Howard career went into a period of moviemaking in which his films were more noted for its entertainment and rousing action than as character-driven pieces. A number of them were routine westerns that paired him opposite some of Hollywood’s loveliest ladies: Red Canyon (1949) with Ann Blyth, Calamity Jane and Sam Bass (1949) with Yvonne De Carlo and The Lady from Texas (1951) with Mona Freeman. Other adventure-oriented flicks that more or less came and went included Spaceways(1953), Tanganyika (1954), The Yellow Mountain (1954), Flame of the Islands (1956),Blackjack Ketchum, Desperado (1956) (title role), The Broken Star (1956) and Sierra Stranger (1957). Howard also began appearing infrequently on the stage in the early 1950s with such productions as “Season in the Sun” (1952) and “Anniversary Waltz” (1954).

Those films that rose above the standard included gritty top-billed roles in Johnny Stool Pigeon (1949), Illegal Entry (1949), Shakedown (1950), Spy Hunt (1950) and Woman in Hiding (1950), the last a film noir which paired him with Ida Lupino for the first time. Here, he plays the hero who saves Lupino from a murdering husband (Stephen McNally). In 1951, he married Ms. Lupino, already a well-established star at Warner Bros., who was coming into her own recently as a director. The couple had one daughter, Bridget Duff, born in 1952. Lupino and Duff co-starred in four hard-boiled film dramas during the 1950s — Jennifer (1953), Private Hell 36 (1954), Women’s Prison (1955) and While the City Sleeps (1956). The demise of the studio-guided contract system had an effect on Howard’s film career and offers started drying up in the late 1950s.

Fortunately, he found just as wide an appeal on TV, appearing in a number of dramatic showcases for Science Fiction Theatre (1955), Lux Video Theatre (1950) and Climax!(1954). And, in a change of pace, the married couple decided to go for laughs by starring together in the TV series Mr. Adams and Eve (1957). Here, they played gregarious husband-and-wife film stars “Howard Adams” and “Eve Drake”. Many of the scripts, though broadly exaggerated for comic effect, were reportedly based on a few of their own real-life experiences. They also guest-starred in an entertaining hour-long episode of theThe Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour (1957) in 1959 with the two couples inadvertently booked at the same vacant lodge, together. The show ends up a battle-of-the sexes, free-for-all with the two gals scheming to add a little romance to what has essentially become a fishing vacation for the guys. The 1960s bore more fruit on TV than in film. Sans Lupino, Duff went solo as nightclub owner “Willie Dante” in the tongue-in-cheek adventure seriesDante (1960), which lasted less than a season. A few years later, the veteran co-starred with handsome rookie Dennis Cole in what is perhaps his best-remembered series, the police drama Felony Squad (1966), which was filmed in and around Los Angeles. Duff directed one of those episodes, having directed several episodes of the silly sitcom Camp Runamuck (1965), a year or so earlier. In between series work were guest assignments on such popular primetime shows as Bonanza (1959), Twilight Zone (1959), Burke’s Law(1963) and Combat! (1962).

The marriage of Ida and Howard did not last, however, and the famous married couple separated in 1966 after 15 years of marriage. Ida and Howard didn’t officially divorce, however, until 1984. Howard later married a non-professional, Judy Jenkinson, who survived him. While much of Howard’s work in later years was standard, if unmemorable, every now and then he would demonstrate the fine talent he was. A couple of his better film performances came as a sex-minded, booze-swilling relative in A Wedding (1978) and as Dustin Hoffman‘s attorney in the Oscar-winning drama Kramer vs. Kramer (1979). He also enjoyed a villainous role in the short-lived series Flamingo Road (1980) and had a lengthy stint on Knots Landing (1979) during the 1984-1985 season. Duff died at age 76 of a heart attack, on July 8, 1990, in Santa Barbara, California.

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

James MacArthur was born in 1937 in Los Angeles. He is the adopted son of the great stage actress Helen Hayes and her husband playwright Charles MacArthur. He made his stage debut as a boy actor in 1949 in “The Corn Is Green”. He made his film debut with the major role in the 1856 movie “The Young Stranger” directed by John Frankenheimer. He won a Disney contract and starred in such populasr favourites as “The Light in the Forest”, “Kidnapped”, “Third Man on the Mountain” and “Swiss Family Robinson”. Throughout the 1960’s he was featured in routine films with the exception of “Spencer’s Mountain” with Henry Fonda and Maureen O’Hara and in 1968 “Hang E’m High” with Clint Eastwood. That same year he began a twelve year stint on television in the long running and very popular “Hawaii 5 0” with Jack Lrod as Steve McGarrett and MacArthur as his trusty sidekick Danno. After the series ended he made some television guest appearances but then virtually retired fromacting. James MacArthur died in 2010 at the age of 73.

His “Independent” obituary:

The boyish-looking actor James MacArthur found his greatest fame as Detective Danny Williams in the television crime series Hawaii Five-O, a worldwide hit full of dramatic explosions and car chases, aided and abetted by swaying palm trees and turquoise-blue wave

The island law-enforcer was second-in-command to the self-righteous, humourless Detective Steve McGarrett (played by Jack Lord), head of the Five-O group, based at the Iolani Palace, in Honolulu, as part of the Hawaiian State Police. On arresting the criminals at the end of episodes, McGarrett would bark: “Book ’em, Danno!” MacArthur recalled three years ago: “It wasn’t anything we really thought about at first, but the phrase just took off and caught the public’s imagination.”

As well as playing the boss on screen, Lord firmly set himself up as the “star” of the series, which ran from 1968 to 1980, although MacArthur baled out a year before the final run. With a financial stake in the programme, Lord insisted that all other cast members were simply “featured guests” and only allowed MacArthur a credit preceded by the word “with”, not “co-starring”.

The fair, curly haired actor was the co-star – but was simply pleased to find success after years of roles in mostly forgettable films. One of his better big-screen parts was as Fritz, one of the sons of the shipwrecked family, in the Disney picture Swiss Family Robinson (1960). He also gave Hayley Mills her first screen kiss, in the light-hearted romance The Truth About Spring (1965).

Born in Los Angeles in 1937, MacArthur was adopted at the age of seven months by the actress Helen Hayes and her playwright husband, Charles MacArthur – who co-wrote The Front Page – and brought up on the bank of the Hudson River in Nyack, New York. His godmother was the actress Lillian Gish. He attended the city’s Allen-Stevenson School, New York, and the Solebury School, New Hope, Pennsylvania, where he excelled in basketball, football, baseball – and drama.

By then, he had professional acting experience. He had appeared with his mother aged 10 in a play in the Theatre Guild of the Air radio series (1948). A year later, he made his stage debut as Will Hughes in the Emlyn Williams play The Corn is Green, at the Olney Theatre, Maryland. Further stage appearances followed.

MacArthur’s screen career began promisingly, with the role of the troubled teenager Hal Ditmar in “Deal a Blow” (1955), a play in the television series Climax! He reprised it for the 1957 film version, The Young Stranger – earning him a Society of Film and Television Arts (now Bafta) nomination as Most Promising Newcomer – before studying for a history degree at Harvard University.

During summer vacations, MacArthur acted in Disney films. He played a young man who had been raised by a native American chief in The Light in the Forest (1958); Rudi Matt, aiming to climb the peak that killed his father, in Third Man on the Mountain (1959); and David Balfour in Kidnapped (1960), based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel, before Swiss Family Robinson (1960) came along.

MacArthur also took his one and only Broadway role, as Aaron Jablonski in the comedy Invitation to a March (Music Box Theatre, 1960-61), written by Arthur Laurents, with incidental music by Stephen Sondheim. Jane Fonda was in the cast and MacArthur’s performance won him the 1961 Theatre World Award as Best New Actor. A string of television plays during this period was followed by character roles in programmes such as The Untouchables (1961), Burke’s Law (1963), The Virginian (1965), Tarzan (1967) and Bonanza (1967).

Other film roles included that of a doctor in The Interns (1962), Henry Fonda’s eldest son in Spencer’s Mountain (1963) – based on the novel later developed into The Waltons on television – the spoiled son of a wealthy businessman joining Filipino commandos fighting the Japanese in Cry of Battle (1963), Ensign Ralston in the Cold War submarine drama The Bedford Incident (1965), Lieutenant Weaver in Battle of the Bulge (1965) and a travelling preacher in the low-budget Spaghetti Western Hang ’em High (1968), starring Clint Eastwood and written and produced by Leonard Freeman. Then, Freeman created Hawaii Five-O. Watching a pilot that was screened for a test audience, he considered Tim O’Kelly too young for the role of Danny Williams and offered it to MacArthur.

The actor invested his immense earnings from the programme in real estate, making him very wealthy by the time he left it in 1979. “I grew bored,” he explained. “The stories became more bland and predictable, and presented less and less challenge to me as an actor.”

Although MacArthur made guest appearances in Murder, She Wrote (1984) and The Love Boat (four roles, 1979-85), most of his later roles were on stage. During his television screen career, his mother appeared with him in episodes of Hawaii Five-O (1975) and The Love Boat (1980).

MacArthur returned to his most famous role when he played Danny Williams as the new governor of the isands in the 1997 television film Hawaii Five-O. Jack Lord was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease and close to death, but other previous cast members, Kam Fong, Kono and Herman Wedemeyer, returned as the detectives Chin Ho Kelly, Zulu and Duke, teaming up with a new Five-O team to search for the culprit when Governor Dan Williams is shot.

At the premiere of a new television version of Hawaii Five-O in the United States earlier this month, MacArthur sent the message: “I’m looking forward to making an appearance inthe new show when the time is right and I can’t wait to see what the writers have in store for me.” He did not live to see that.

His first two marriages, which ended in divorce, were to the actors Joyce Bulifant and Melody Patterson. He is survived by his third wife, the golf teacher and LPGA tour player HB Duntz, whom he met through his own interest in playing golf. MacArthur had three children from his first and third marriages, but the identity of his daughter Juliette’s mother has never been revealed.

James Gordon MacArthur, actor: born Los Angeles 8 December 1937; married 1958 Joyce Bulifant (marriage dissolved 1967; one son, one daughter), 1970 Melody Patterson (marriage dissolved 1975), 1984 Helen Beth Duntz (one son), and one daughter; died Jacksonville, Florida 28 October 2010.

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

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)

Barbara Rush was born in 1927 in Denver, Colorado. She made her screen debut with “The Goldbergs” in 1951. She starred among the major actors of the 1950’s including Marlon Brando, Paul Newman, James Mason, Rock Hudson and Tony Curtis. Her film credits include “When Worlds Collide”, “Bigger Than Life” in 1956, “The Bramble Bush” and “Hombre” in 1967. Recently she appeared as Stephen Collin#s mother in the very popular TV series “7th Heaven”. Barbara Rush died aged 97 in 2024

Gary Brumburgh’s entry:

The epitome of poise, charm, style and grace, beautiful brunette Barbara Rush was born in Denver, Colorado in 1927 and enrolled at the University of California before working with the University Players and taking acting classes at the Pasadena Playhouse. It didn’t take long for talent scouts to spot her and, following a play performance, Paramount quickly signed her up in 1950, making her debut with The Goldbergs (1950). Just prior to this, she had met fellow actor Jeffrey Hunter, an incredibly handsome newcomer who would later become a “beefcake” bobbysoxer idol over at Fox. The two fell in love quickly and married in December of 1950. Soon, they were on their way to becoming one of Hollywood’s most beautiful and photogenic young couples. Their son Christopher was born in 1952.

While at Paramount, she was decorative in such assembly-line fare as When Worlds Collide (1951), Quebec (1951), The First Legion (1951), Flaming Feather (1952) andPrince of Pirates (1953). Universal picked up her option where she continued to provide love interest angles amid the action and derring-do with It Came from Outer Space(1953), Taza, Son of Cochise (1954) and The Black Shield of Falworth (1954). She finally got her break with the second lead femme role in the popular Jane Wyman tearjerkerMagnificent Obsession (1954), the movie that certified Rock Hudson as a top star. From there, Barbara’s own star began to ascend in more quality pictures. She co-starred opposite some of Hollywood’s top leading males in such glossy dramas as Bigger Than Life (1956) starring James Mason, No Down Payment (1957) with ex-husband Jeffrey Hunter (they had divorced in 1955), The Young Lions (1958) starring Montgomery Clift,Marlon Brando and Dean Martin, The Young Philadelphians (1959) alongside Paul Newman, The Bramble Bush (1960) with Richard Burton and Strangers When We Meet(1960) with Kirk Douglas. In most cases, she played brittle wives, conniving “other women” or socialite girlfriend types.

Despite the “A” list movies Barbara was piling up, the one single role that could put her over the top never showed its face. By the early 60s, her film career started to decline. She married publicist Warren Cowan in 1959 and bore a second child, Claudia Cowan, in 1964. TV became a viable source of income for Barbara, appearing in scores of guest parts on the more popular shows of the time (Peyton Place (1964), Medical Center(1969), Ironside (1967)) while co-starring in standard mini-movie dramas. She even had a bit of fun playing a “guest villainess” on the Batman (1966) series as temptress “Nora Clavicle”. The stage also became a strong focus for Barbara, earning the Sarah Siddons Award for her starring role in “Forty Carats”. She made her Broadway debut in the one-woman 1980s showcase “A Woman of Independent Means”, which also subsequently earned her the Los Angeles Drama Critics Award during its tour. Other showcases included “Private Lives”, “Same Time, Next Year”, “The Night of the Iguana” and “Steel Magnolias”. The still-beautiful Ms. Rush occasionally graces the big and small screen these days, more recently in a recurring role on TV’s 7th Heaven (1996).

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

TCM overview:

An attractive leading lady often cast in well-bred roles, Barbara Rush entered films at the tail end of the studio system, making her debut in a small role in “Molly” (1950), based on the popular radio show “The Goldbergs”. She went on to play leading ladies in some top pictures, but appeared in numerous forgettable ones before breaking into TV in the 1960s. Although Rush won her first leading roles in such Paramount films as “The First Legion” (1951), she is probably better remembered as Joan, the woman who loves Paul Newman even after he chooses a job over her hand in marriage, in “The Young Philadelphians” (1959), and opposite Frank Sinatra in “Come Blow Your Horn” (1963). She also had key roles in “The Young Lions” (1958), “The Man” (1972), and an amusing supporting role in “Can’t Stop the Music” (1980).

Rush first worked as a series regular playing a Washington newspaper correspondent in “Saints and Sinners” (NBC, 1962). She garnered some notice for her season-long (1968-69) stint as Marcia Russell on ABC’s primetime soap “Peyton Place”. Rush then tried her hand at comedy, portraying a temperamental soap opera star on “The New Dick Van Dyke Show” (CBS, 1973-74). In the early 80s, it was back to the real thing as the matriarch Eudora Weldon on NBC’s “Flamingo Road” (1981-82) and a brief turn on ABC’s daytime staple “All My Children”.

Approaching the age when actresses find roles difficult to land, Rush stayed active on stage appearing throughout the USA in such fluff as “Forty Carats” and “Same Time, Next Year”. She commissioned and earned rave reviews in the solo theatrical piece “A Woman of Independent Means”, based on the novel by Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey in New York and Los Angeles. More recently, Rush returned to the small screen appearing in the recurring role of Stephen Collins’ mother in “7th Heaven” (The WB

Barbara Rush died aged 97 in 2024

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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.

Beatrice Straight obituary in “The Telegraph” in 2001.

Beatrice Straight was born in Old Westbury, New York in 1914 into a wealthy family. She made her Broadway debut in 1939 in the play “Possessed”. Most of her career was spent on stage and television with only sporodic film appearances. Her film debut was in 1952 in “Phone Call from a Stranger”. She was excellent as the Mother Superior in “The Nun’s Story” in 1959. She won an Acadmey Award for her performance opposite William Holden in “Network”. She is also remembered for her role as Lynda Carter’s mother in “Wonder Woman” on television. Beatrice Straight was married to the actor Peter Cookson. She died in 2001 at the age of 86 in Los Angeles.

Her obituary from the “Telegraph”:

BEATRICE STRAIGHT, who has died in Los Angeles aged 86, won an Academy Award for best supporting actress for her portrayal of William Holden’s long suffering wife in Sidney Lumet’s Network (1976). The film tells the story of a network news commentator who starts to speak his mind on live television, and gave Americans the catchphrase “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take this any more!”. Beatrice Straight’s role of a wife struggling to keep her sanity after being left for a younger woman was one of her most high-profile Hollywood performances: she later said that “nobody knew from where I came before Network, and afterwards few cared where I went”. Her other film roles included Dr Lesh, the investigator of the paranormal in Poltergeist (1982) and Mother Christophe in The Nun’s Story (1959), with Audrey Hepburn.

Beatrice Whitney Straight was born on August 2 1914 at Old Westbury, Long Island, New York. Her father was a diplomat, while her mother was a Whitney dynasty heiress and cousin to Gloria Vanderbilt. Beatrice Straight was sent to private schools in England and Scotland, and retained a fondness for Britain. She decided early on to pursue a career in acting and had a string of excellent teachers, including Michael Chekhov. She made her Broadway debut in 1935 in Bitter Oleander. Beatrice Straight’s portrayal of Lady Macduff in Macbeth (1945) was described by one critic as “As good as it gets.” After this, she was the lead in The Heiress; her co-star was the actor Peter Cookson, whom she later married. In 1953, Beatrice Straight was awarded a Tony for best supporting actress for her portrayal of a Puritan accused of witchcraft in the original Broadway production of Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.

But she soon felt that “Hollywood was where it was at” and she and Cookson decided to try their luck there. She later remarked: “Marriage to actors seldom work as one partner often gets jealous of the roles given to the other and vice versa. Neither one of us were big stars so that helped.” Beatrice Straight’s first part was in Phone Call from a Stranger (1952), which starred Bette Davis. There followed television roles in Love of Life, a long-running soap opera, and as Cynthia Fortman in Special Delivery, part of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents series. Other roles during the 1950s included Goneril in an ABC adaptation of King Lear (1953) and parts in the 1956 films Patterns and The Silken Affair, with David Niven. During the 1960s, Beatrice Straight concentrated on her family, but appeared in The Young Lovers (1964) and gave a wonderfully over-the-top performance as Dr Martha Richards in the television series Mission Impossible (1966). Beatrice Straight won a legion of fans with appearances as the “Queen Mother” in the wildly camp series Wonder Woman in 1976. The next year she helped to found an acting school in New York, where she and Cookson lectured between filming. Most of Beatrice Straight’s roles during the 1970s were on television; she received an Emmy nomination for her role as the matriarch in the mini-series The Dain Curse (1978).

In 1985, she played Rose Kennedy in Robert Kennedy & His Times, and had a long-running stint in St Elsewhere. Her final role was as Goldie Hawn’s mother in Deceived (1991). She married, in 1949, Peter Cookson; he died in 1990. They had one son.

The “Telegraph” obituary can be accessed on here.

TCM overview:

A classically trained actress with extensive stage experience, Beatrice Straight made her mark on film late in her career, but did so with indelible performances that made the most of her keen intelligence and aristocratic manner. A member of the now legendary Group Theater from its inception, Straight won a Tony award for Best Actress in 1953 for her performance as Elizabeth Proctor in “The Crucible.” She also worked frequently in television, beginning in the medium’s early live broadcast era and appearing consistently in TV movies and series until the end of the 1980s. She had appeared in just four feature films before she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance as Louis Schumacher in Sydney Lumet’s “Network” (1975). Straight held the record for the briefest performance to win an Oscar – a scant five minutes and 40 seconds of screen time. Regardless, in a dazzling display of acting prowess, Straight portrayed the full gamut of the devastated Schumacher’s emotions in a single, intense scene in which her husband, (William Holden), confesses to an affair. The Oscar win brought Straight greater recognition, but also typecast the versatile actress for the first time in her career. From that point, she predominantly played severe matriarchal roles, such as the brittle Dr. Lesh in “Poltergeist” (1982). Having honed her craft in a long and celebrated stage career, Beatrice Straight established a remarkable screen presence as a character actress with finely drawn performances that were as powerful as they were rare.

Beatrice Whitney Straight was born on Aug. 2, 1914 in Old Westbury, NY, the daughter of investment banker Willard Dickerman, a business associate of J.P. Morgan who provided the initial financing for the long-running political magazine The New Republic, and Dorothy Payne, whose family was one of New York’s wealthiest and most socially prestigious. When Dickerman died of influenza on the front lines of WWI, her mother married English agronomist Leonard Elmhirst and raised Straight in both London and New York. An early interest in theater led to extensive acting training with legendary teachers including Michael Chekov, and the Group Theater’s Robert Lewis. Straight was a member of the Group Theater from its founding, and her classmates included Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift and Patricia O’Neal. She made her first appearance on Broadway at the age of 21 in the 1935 production of “Bitter Oleander,” and over the following two decades she rose to the top of her profession with a series of critically-acclaimed performances, including Lady MacDuff in Michael Redgrave’s 1948 production of “MacBeth,” and steadfast puritan Elizabeth Proctor in the 1953 production of “The Crucible,” for which she won a Tony award for Best Actress. Straight began acting in television in the medium’s early live days on such series as “Somerset Maugham Theater” (CBS, 1950-51; NBC, 1951) and “Lights Out” (NBC, 1946-1952). In 1952, she also broke into feature films playing a devoted widow mourning Michael Rennie in “Phone Call from a Stranger.”

Straight worked almost constantly on television throughout the 1950s and ’60s in seminal series like “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” (CBS, 1955-1960; NBC, 1960-62), “Route 66” (CBS, 1960-64) and “Mission: Impossible” (CBS, 1966-1973), as well as in the 1953 broadcast of “King Lear” starring Orson Welles (CBS). Her work in film was more sporadic, however. Despite the positive reception of her performance in “Phone Call from a Stranger,” it was four years before she would appear on the big screen again. “Patterns” (1956), starring Van Heflin and written by Rod Serling, featured Straight as young engineer Heflin’s worried wife. That same year, she also appeared in “The Silken Affair” (1956), a lackluster British comedy starring David Niven. It was another three years before she appeared as Mother Christophe in “The Nun’s Story” (1959), starring Audrey Hepburn. The latter film was nominated for eight Academy Awards including Best Picture, but there would be another long absence from the movies before Straight returned in “The Young Lovers” (1964), starring Peter Fonda, and another eight before she won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her role in “Network” (1976). It was the briefest performance to ever win an Oscar, with just under six minutes of screen time, but the economy of the performance was perhaps its greatest strength, showcasing Straight’s startlingly genuine spectrum of emotions in a single scene in which her husband, played by William Holden, confesses to an affair with a younger woman.

By John CryeThe above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

Having garnered popular attention after such a long and varied career, the then 62-year-old Straight found herself typecast for the first time, playing imperious, often emotionally brittle older women. She had embodied that type on television on “The New Adventures of Wonder Woman” (NBC, 1975-79) playing the Queen Mother of the Amazons, and in her first starring role in a television series, playing the matriarch of a wealthy California family on the short-lived “King’s Crossing” (ABC, 1982). She also began to accept more roles in film, though her selection of material was strictly limited by her desire to work solely with producers, directors, and actors of the highest caliber. “The Formula” (1980) starring George C. Scott and Marlon Brando, Franco Zeffirelli’s “Endless Love” (1981) and Sydney Lumet’s “Power” (1981) were among the few to satisfy Straight’s stringent criteria. Easily her best-known role from that later period was the prickly but comforting paranormal investigator Dr. Lesh in the Steven Spielberg-produced horror film “Poltergeist” (1982). In 1985, she delivered a powerful performance as another imperious matriarch, Rose Kennedy, in the miniseries “Robert Kennedy and His Times” (CBS, 1985). After a final feature appearance playing Goldie Hawn’s mother in the psychological thriller “Deceived” (1991), Straight retired from acting at the age of 77. She died on April 7, 2001 in Los Angeles from pneumonia, following a period of declining health due to Alzheimer’s disease.

Collection of Classic Hollywood Actors

Howard Keel

James MacArthur

Frankie Avalon

Ruth Roman

Joan Lorring

Barbara Rush

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Ty Hardin

The Times obituary :

Irene Tsu

Beatrice Straight

Beatrice Straight obituary in “The Telegraph” in 2001.

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