Hollywood Actors
Robert Carradine was born on March 24, 1954 in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, USA as Robert Reed Carradine. He is an actor and producer, known for Django Unchained (2012), Revenge of the Nerds (1984) and Lizzie McGuire (2001). He has been married to Edie Mani since January 7, 1990. They have two children.
“Telegraph” obituary from May 2001:
DEBORAH WALLEY, the actress, who has died in Arizona aged 57, became the envy of millions of women when she appeared in Spinout (1966) with Elvis Presley and subsequently became romantically involved with him.
In the 1960s Deborah Walley was established as a Hollywood starlet when she appeared in a number of beach party films – which generally featured bikini-clad girls dancing half-heartedly to bland pop tunes. With her charming elfin looks she became a popular box office attraction and she was an obvious choice as the love interest in one of Presley’s films.
Her character in Spinout was a rather androgynous girl drummer in Elvis’s band who, as was traditional in such pictures, harboured a secret crush on the singer. Off screen there was some romance between the two, although Deborah Walley always stressed the innocence of their relationship. “Elvis would take me out on the back of his motorbike,” she recalled, “and we kissed a lot early on, but that made way for serious conversation. We became lifelong friends.”
Deborah Walley was born on Aug 12 1943 at Bridgeport, Connecticut, the daughter of Nathan and Edith Walley, who were champion ice skaters and choreographers. Her childhood was spent on the road with her parents, and she made her first public appearance aged three on the ice to a packed house at Madison Square Gardens. However, by the time she was a teenager, Deborah had decided to opt for a career on the stage. “I simply hated the ice and cold,” she later recalled, “thankfully, my folks were understanding.”
After studying at the Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, she made her stage debut at 15 and appeared in many early television commercials. But it was while she was playing Irina in Chekov’s The Three Sisters that she was discovered by Columbia Pictures and taken to Hollywood.
In her first film, Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961), Walley was an overnight sensation. Over the next four years she appeared in a number of films before being cast in Beach Blanket Bingo (1965) starring Frankie Avalon. It was the most successful and critically acclaimed of the beach party films and established her as a beach movie regular. She went on to star in Dr Goldfoot in the Bikini Machine (1965), Ghost in the Invisible Bikini (1966) and It’s a Bikini World (1967).
Television producers also recognised her appeal and she made appearances in a number of popular television shows of the time including Route 66, Naked City, Playhouse 90 and Wagon Train. In the last she played the part of Sally, a mischievous teenager who gets a spanking from John McIntyre.
Starring opposite Elvis Presley established her cult following and by the time Spinout was released she was receiving 5,000 fan letters a month. However, after she appeared in The Bubble – a film about a young couple who find themselves trapped inside in a seemingly deserted town enclosed in a giant bubble – film offers dried up.
“Directors thought I only acted on a beach,” she later commented, “they had no idea that I could really act!” Her only big screen role in the 1970s was in Benji (1974), the popular family film about a lovable dog and his owners. She continued to work on television, however, appearing in The Hardy Boys and, ironically, in an episode of Baywatch.
She was an active campaigner for environmental issues and a co-founder of the Swiftwind Theatre Company, which helps to train North American Indians to act, write and direct for the screen.
Although, towards the end of her life, illness prevented her from working, Walley remained cheerful. “I’ve known some wonderful people,” she said this year, “and I’ve dated Elvis. What a marvellous life.”
She married John Ashley in 1961 (dissolved 1966). They had three sons.
Rhe above “Telegraph” obituary can also be accessed online here.
IMDB Entry:
Actor, singer and dancer Michael Callan started life out as Martin Harris Calinieff in Philadelphia on November 22, 1935. A dark-haired charmer, he was taking voice and dance lessons by age 11, with the intentions of becoming the next Gene Kelly. He had the dark, smirking, surly good looks and confident swagger that fit in with the James Dean 50s rebel-like era. He began his professional career as a comic and dancer in Philly night clubs while billing himself as “Mickey Calin”. Eventually, he entertained at such hot spots as the Copacabana and in Las Vegas showrooms.
His move to New York was a wise choice. Given a dancing part in his first Broadway show, “The Boyfriend” (1954), starring Julie Andrews, he followed it with another musical, “Catch a Star” (1955). This, in turn, led to his biggest break of all, the role of “Riff” in the original New York production of “West Side Story” (1957). While the show made virtual theater stars out of its leads Carol Lawrence and Larry Kert, Michael, on the other hand, attracted the interest of Columbia Pictures.
His film career began engagingly enough — not as a singer or dancer, but as a dramatic leading man. Columbia placed him in two fairly strong films in the hopes of promoting and developing his obvious teen-idol promise. The first film was a western soap opera in support of Gary Cooper and Rita Hayworth. In They Came to Cordura (1959), Michael co-starred in this film alongside another male dreamboat, Tab Hunter. His second film was a “B”-level starring role in The Flying Fontaines (1959), in which he plays a circus Romeo whose caddish cavortings under the “big top” accelerate the melodramatic story line. This role pretty much set the tone for what, more or less, would become his screen image — a notorious womanizer and charming, though sometimes, spineless opportunist. His lovely co-star in the movie, Evy Norlund, was a formerly-crowned Miss Denmark (1958). This movie was her only one, since she abruptly gave up her young aspirations when she married singer James Darren and raise a big family.
One of Michael’s biggest disappointments, during this time, was losing the role of “Riff” in the film version of West Side Story (1961), due to contractual restrictions with Columbia. Russ Tamblyn received the honors and the glory. But he did continue to rack up callow, trouble-making co-leads in youth-oriented films, paired up with Hollywood’s loveliest of newcomers, including Tuesday Weld in Because They’re Young (1960),Dolores Dorn in 13 West Street (1962) and Deborah Walley in both Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961) and Bon Voyage! (1962). In The Interns (1962), he continued to perpetuate his slick image as a roving medical resident who juggles gorgeous Anne Helm and Katharine Bard for his own selfish purposes. In the sequel of sorts, The New Interns (1964), he made his customary moves on Barbara Eden (I Dream of Jeannie(1965)) and Dawn Wells) (“Mary Ann” on Gilligan’s Island (1964)).
Although he managed to show off his dancing skills in Pepe (1960) and in the afore-mentioned “Gidget” film, Michael never capitalized on it. The era of the movie musicals was in a backslide at the time and he focused completely on acting. He was among the international cast of the war epic, The Victors (1963), and was the best-looking marooned member in the British-made Jules Verne fantasy-adventure, Mysterious Island (1961). Interestingly, his last films of real note were in comedies — oppositeJane Fonda, in the freewheeling cult western, Cat Ballou (1965), and a scene-stealingLionel Jeffries in the British satire, You Must Be Joking! (1965). Perhaps his characters were too unsympathetic for their own good; for whatever reason, Michael never managed to hit the cinematic “bad boy” stardom he seemed geared up for.
In the late 60s, he found a venue better-suited for his talents — TV sitcoms. His skirt-chasing characters seemed to have more appeal when played lightly for laughs. His best chance came in the form of Occasional Wife (1966). An ideal showcase, Michael played the lead role of “Peter Christopher”, an up-and-coming executive of a company that strongly pushes the husband/father image. Perennial playboy Callan decides to take on an “occasional wife” (Patricia Harty) for appearances’ sake while trying to conceal his wily ways from the workplace. The show fit Callan like a glove and he and Harty displayed great chemistry, so much so that they married in real-life during the series’ run. Perhaps the true-life marriage ruined the show’s illusion, as the series limped away after only one season. Patricia, the second of Michael’s three wives, divorced him a few years later.
Surprisingly, Michael never starred in another sitcom that got off the ground. He ventured on finding guest appearances on such sitcoms as That Girl (1966), Hazel(1961) and Mary Tyler Moore (1970) and became a favorite player in the extremely popular Love, American Style (1969) sketches, playing (what else?) guys with girl troubles. His TV career eventually took the Fantasy Island (1977), The Love Boat (1977) and Murder, She Wrote (1984) route and, in an effort to jumpstart things, both produced and starred in his own film, Double Exposure (1983), but to little notice. He also returned, occasionally, to the stage in both legit plays and musicals to keep his name alive, including “Absurd Person Singular” and “The Music Man”.
The father of two daughters (from his first marriage), he has been glimpsed only here and there, since the mid-90s. Recent movie credits include Stuck on You (2003) andThe Still Life (2006). He’s also been spotted, occasionally, at various signings and conventions. While perhaps not climbing the height of heights expected, Michael reached an enviable plateau and merits strong attention for his fine contributions to 60s and 70s film and TV.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.
He was inspired by Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly but was contractually forbidden from reprising his biggest stage role in the film adaptation
Telegraph Obituaries20 October 2022 • 3:23pm
Michael Callan, who has died aged 86, was a handsome actor and dancer who was likened to James Dean for his sex appeal and swagger; he originated the role of Riff, leader of the Jets, in West Side Story on Broadway, and played the bandit Clay Boone, the romantic lead opposite Jane Fonda, in Cat Ballou (1965) with Lee Marvin.
On television he joined Patricia Harty in Occasional Wife, a cute one-season sitcom in 1966-1967; Callan’s marriage to his co-star was as brief as the show’s run. He was also Rhoda’s long-term date (alongside Valerie Harper), in 30 episodes of The Mary Tyler Moore Show.
He was born Martin Harris Calinieff into a Jewish family in Philadelphia on November 22 1935, and was sent aged 11 by his mother to a vocal coach. “I thought I sounded like Sinatra,” he said. “Mama said I absolutely didn’t, but as I’d shown an interest in something beyond soccer she decided to get me a professional to do something about it.”
He never did match his teen idol, but he did pick up dance moves – his voice coach was also a tap dancer. “My new icon was Gene Kelly,” he recalled. “I thought unlike Fred Astaire, Mr Kelly has that double whammy of sex appeal… Not that I even knew what sex appeal was, but I liked athletics and he moved like an all-star athlete.”
Even at 15, the youngster was earning decent money hoofing in local night clubs, then in 1954 he beat 300 other hopefuls to the job of “swing boy”, or understudy, in Sandy Wilson’s musical The Boy Friend, on Broadway, starring a young Julie Andrews – his services were called upon a couple of dozen times during the run – and danced on The Ed Sullivan Show.
That put him in the sights of the choreographer Jerome Robbins, who was casting West Side Story. “There were a great many kids like me up for that part,” said Callan. “I was told I was too cute! Imagine! But I really wanted it, I was asked if I could backflip, so I did a backflip, and eventually, after a year of rounds, I got it. Riff set me on my way.”
Under the watchful eye of the casting agent and later screenwriter Joyce Selznick (niece of the Gone With the Wind producer, David O Selznick) – who had previously discovered Bernie Schwartz, the New York trucker she reinvented as Tony Curtis – Callan signed a seven-year contract with Columbia. He made his screen debut as an army private fighting the Mexicans in They Came to Cordura (1959) with Gary Cooper and Rita Hayworth.
His other roles included a trapeze artist in The Flying Fontaines (1959) – for which he received a Golden Globe “Rising Star” nomination – and a troubled youth in the high-school drama Because They’re Young (1960). He was prevented by his Columbia contract from reprising his West Side Story role on the big screen but he did have a decent role in the all-singing, all-surfing comedy Gidget Goes Hawaiian (1961).
The same year he was in the fantasy adventure, Mysterious Island, then played a juvenile delinquent threatening Alan Ladd in 13 West Street (1962, the last film released during Ladd’s lifetime). He was a young doctor in the hit drama The Interns (also 1962) and in its 1964 sequel The New Interns, alongside George Segal and Telly Savalas.
He appeared in the Michael Winner comedy, You Must be Joking (1965), with Lionel Jeffries, but began to work more in television, on such shows as Dr Kildare, Ironside, Quincy M.E., The Love Boat, Fantasy Island and Murder, She Wrote.
He turned his hand to producing with the crime horror Double Exposure (1982), and returned to his theatre roots with, Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah! (1997), based on the song parodies of Allan Sherman.
Michael Callan married Carlyn Chapman in 1960; they had two daughters but divorced in 1967, and that year he married (and quickly divorced) Patricia Harty. He married, thirdly – and also divorced – Karen Malouf. He is survived by his daughters.
Michael Callan, born November 22 1935, died October 10 2022
TCM Overview:
The career of this prolific performer has come in several waves, each punctuated by a “retirement” from the screen. As a child actor under contract to MGM from 1945, Dean Stockwell charmed in “Anchors Aweigh” (1945), then specialized in “sensitive child” roles, such as Gregory Peck’s son in “Gentleman’s Agreement” (1947), who suffers the slings of anti-Semitism when his father decides to pose as a Jew to do a magazine article, and in the title character of Joseph Losey’s “The Boy with Green Hair” (1948), which delved into a similar milieu of how people treat a stranger. After five years spent traveling around the USA and working at odd jobs, he matured into a strikingly attractive, introverted young adult lead, winning acclaim as the character based on Nathan Leopold in “Compulsion” first on stage (1957) and later the feature (1959). Stockwell also won acclaim for two characters that functioned as authorial stand-ins, Paul Morrel in Jack Cardiff filming of D.H. Lawrence’s “Sons and Lovers” (1960) and Edmund Tyrone in Sidney Lumet’s version of Eugene O’Neill’s “Long Day’s Journey Into Night” (1962)
Reluctant child actor turned Hollywood star best known for classics such as Paris, Texas and the sci-fi series Quantum Leap
Tuesday November 09 2021, 5.00pm GMT, The Times
By the early 1980s, Dean Stockwell had been acting for almost 40 years and was ready for a career change. Depressed and demoralised, he had left Hollywood and moved to New Mexico, where he applied for a licence to set up as an estate agent.
Then he received a phone call from his fellow actor Harry Dean Stanton. “He said he’s going to do this movie with Sam Shepard and Wim Wenders and thinks I should play his brother in it,” Stockwell recalled.
The film was Paris, Texas (1984), a classic road movie that won the Palme d’Or at Cannes and relaunched Stockwell on what was to become the most successful phase of his stop-start career. Over the next decade or so he went on to appear in some of the defining films of the era, including David Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986), Jonathan Demme’s Married to the Mob (for which he was nominated for an Oscar in 1989) and Francis Ford Coppola’s The Rainmaker (1997).
In between came his signature performance as the womanising, larger-than-life Admiral “Al” Calavicci in the quirky sci-fi television series Quantum Leap, which ran for five seasons between 1989 and 1993. His portrayal earned him not only a Golden Globe but a rare personal satisfaction. “I’ve been deeply affected by the sincerity, warmth and affection coming back to me from fans of the show. I’ve never experienced that before in my life,” he enthused.
Stockwell called his comeback his “third or fourth career”, for as a seemingly reluctant actor he had walked away at least twice before. As a child actor in the 1940s, he appeared on screen with Frank Sinatra, Gene Kelly and Errol Flynn but had not enjoyed it. “I had no friends, except for my brother, and I never did what I wanted to do. I had one vacation in nine years.”
His childhood mood was perhaps not helped by a practical joke Flynn played on him when he was 13 and was acting the title role in an adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s Kim. During a scene shot in a tent on location in India, Flynn was meant to hand Stockwell a bowl of food. Instead, on a bet with the crew, he handed the boy a plate “piled high with fresh camel dung, still steaming”.
When his seven-year contract with MGM expired in 1950, he was delighted. “I did everything, just to get out of it,” he said. After a hiatus, he returned to Hollywood and appeared with Orson Welles in Compulsion (1959) and with Katharine Hepburn in Long Day’s Journey Into Night (1962). When Hepburn objected to him turning up on set each day with a bottle of vodka, he told her that it was because he was “cold”. She bought him a coat and left it in his dressing room. He won best actor awards at Cannes for both films.
With Harry Dean Stanton, who persuaded him to return to acting, in Paris, Texas (1984)
Moving to Topanga Canyon in the mid-1960s, where fellow residents included Neil Young and Jim Morrison, Stockwell tuned in, turned on and dropped out for a second time. One night while stoned he symbolically threw his Cannes citations into the fireplace. It was as if in the freewheeling hedonism of the hippy subculture he was finally getting to live the carefree childhood that he had been denied.
“I did some drugs and went to some love-ins,” he said. “The experience of those days provided me with a huge, panoramic view of my existence that I didn’t have before.” He later co-directed and appeared in Young’s 1982 film Human Highway. For a time he found work hard to come by but starred in such counter-cultural fringe pictures as Psych-Out, in which he played a long-haired hippy guru alongside Jack Nicholson, and Dennis Hopper’s 1971 cult classic The Last Movie. He retired from the big screen for the final time in 2015, making another career change to exhibit his artworks under his full name, Robert Dean Stockwell. He cited his other interests as golf, chess and cigars.
TCM Overview:
A dashing and handsome English-American actor, Peter Lawford enjoyed a brief stint as a matinee idol in the 1940s before becoming better known as an in-law of the Kennedys and a member of “The Rat Pack” during the 1960s. Benefitting greatly from the dearth of handsome male talent in Hollywood during World War II, Lawford gained notice for appearances in such films as “The Picture of Dorian Gray” (1945) and “Son of Lassie” (1945). More roles followed throughout the 1950s, although it was his marriage to Patricia Kennedy – sister of John and Robert Kennedy – as well as his association with Frank Sinatra’s iconic cadre of carousers that brought Lawford lasting fame. Years after JFK’s assassination, rumors about Lawford’s scandalous adventures with the president, his being the last person to speak to a despondent Marilyn Monroe before her tragic death, and a bitter falling out with Sinatra, became the stuff of legend. Less glamorous was Lawford’s decline in the film industry, several failed marriages, and chronic alcoholism. With the halcyon years of “Ocean’s Eleven” (1960) far behind him, the aging actor made due with the occasional film role and guest turns on such TV fare as “The Doris Day Show” (CBS, 1968-1973) and “Fantasy Island” (ABC, 1977-1984). A bit player in a fascinating chapter of American pop-culture, Lawford would most likely be remembered less for his acting credentials than for the legacy encapsulated in author James Spada’s unofficial biography, Peter Lawford: The Man Who Kept the Secrets.
The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
TCM Overview:
Darkly handsome lead, later an attractively graying character actor, a veteran performer in film, theatre and TV. Alda made his film debut as George Gershwin in the tuneful biopic “Rhapsody in Blue” (1945) and played the romantic lead in Robert Florey’s stylish cult horror thriller, “The Beast with Five Fingers” (1947). His film career diminished in the 1950s, but Alda played occasional character roles such as Lana Turner’s lecherous agent in “Imitation of Life” (1959). He also enjoyed notable success onstage beginning with his Tony-winning performance in the landmark musical “Guys and Dolls” (1950). In the 60s Alda lived in Italy and made a number of films there. TV also kept him busy in games shows and the adventure series “Secret File, U.S.A.” during the early 50s; he later performed on the soaps “Love of Life” and “Secret Storm” and contributed a memorable guest performance as a general who cracks up on “M*A*S*H”, starring his son Alan Alda.
“Los Angeles Times” obituary:
Actor Robert Alda–who scored successes as George Gershwin on film, as Sky Masterson on stage and as “M*A*S*H” star Alan Alda’s father in private life–died Saturday at his Los Angeles home after a long illness. He was 72, and friends said he had never entirely recovered from the effects of a stroke he suffered two years ago. “But until he got sick, he was always working,” Alda’s longtime friend and agent Lew Sherrell said Sunday. “He was a beloved man in the entertainment industry–and a very good father. There was great love between him and (younger son) Antony and Alan.”
Actress Vivian Blaine, his co-star in the Broadway musical “Guys and Dolls,” said news of Alda’s death came as “Gloom, doom and disaster. He was a good friend, we worked together after “Guys and Dolls” and were good friends–I loved him, most people did. It’s a major loss and a dreary day.” In addition to his sons, Robert Alda leaves his wife, Italian actress Flora Marino; a sister, Anne Ciaffone; a brother, Vincent D’Abruzzo, and four grandchildren. Funeral services in Los Angeles will be private.
Born Feb. 26, 1914, in New York City, Alphonso Giuseppe Giovanni Roberto D’Abruzzo was the son of a barber and studied architecture at College of the City of New York before entering show business. “I was paid $24.50 a week to work as a draftsman on plans for what finally became Radio City,” he later recalled, “and there was a singing contest at a theater called the Academy of Music. I entered–I don’t know why, maybe because I’m Italian–and I won! “Well, the prize was $25. Fifty cents more than I made in a week. And I said, ‘This is for me . . .!”
Alda broke into professional ranks as a singer, performing in Borscht Belt resorts of the Catskills and as a singing straight man in the burlesque of the late 1930s. He also worked regularly in radio and appeared with dramatic stock companies. But his first major notice came when he was signed by Warner Bros. for the leading role of George Gershwin in “Rhapsody in Blue.” The film–and Alda–were a critical and box office success. But there were problems: “We made the picture in 1943,” Alda said, “but it wasn’t released until 1945, and in between, Warners wanted to ‘keep me under wraps’ so I was told to twiddle my thumbs. I almost went crazy. . . .” The inactivity soured him on movies, and though he made others under his contract–“Cinderella Jones,” “Cloak and Dagger,” “Nora Prentiss,” “April Showers” and Alda’s cult favorite, “The Beast With Five Fingers”–he fled to New York as soon as possible, where he scored a major Broadway success with the starring role of Sky Masterson in the musical “Guys and Dolls.”
He also scored stage successes with “Harbor Lights,” “My Daughter, Your Son,” “The Front Page” and “What Makes Sammy Run?” Son Alan Alda, by first wife, actress Joan Browne, began his own career doing Abbott and Costello routines opposite his father at the old Hollywood Canteen, and then the two appeared together on stage in Rome and on television in Amsterdam. “It was the best year of my education,” Alan Alda recalled. “It was great,” his father agreed. But all the same, he insisted that the budding actor finish college at Fordham before turning professional. “So, when he graduated–he was ready. Wow, was he ready . . .!” Robert Alda laughed.
During the ’50s, Robert Alda appeared in an early television series, “Secret File: U.S.A.,” shot in Amsterdam, and moved to Italy, where he starred in a stage musical and made a score of films including “Beautiful but Dangerous” with Gina Lollabrigida, “Cleopatra’s Daughter,” “Toto e Peppino divisi a Berlino” and “The Serpent.” Returning to the United States, he starred in the short-lived television series “Supertrain,” had a major role in the daytime television serial “Days of Our Lives,” had roles in such films as “Imitation of Life,” “I Will, I Will . . . for Now,” and “Bittersweet Love,” appeared with son Alan in segments of “M*A*S*H” and wrote a cookbook, “100 Ways to Cook Pasta,” with his wife.
The above “Los Angeles Times” obituary can also be accessed online here.
May Hallatt was born on May 1, 1876 in Scarborough, England as Marie Effie Hullatt. She was an actress, known for Black Narcissus (1947), Separate Tables (1958) and The Girl of the Canal (1945). She died on May 20, 1969 in London, England.
Article on May Hallatt from Tina Aumont’s Eyes” website:
Cheery and diminutive, the British actress May Hallatt only appeared in a handful of prominent movies in her thirty year career, but she managed to create some memorable characters along the way. A versatile actress with stage experience she could be spotted in some notable box office favourites as well as works by such eminent writers, including Dickens, Jane Austen and Mark Twain.
Born Marie Effie Hullatt in Scarborough, England, on May 1st 1876, May Hallatt made her screen debut in 1934, although her first role of note came five years later when she played the wife of Wilfred Hyde-White’s Lord Battersby in ‘The Lambeth Walk’ (’39). A jolly little musical based on the play ‘Me and My Girl’; it told the story of a lowly cockney (comedian Lupino Lane) who unwittingly inherits a title and castle. After playing a canal boat worker in Charles Crichton’s Ealing Studio quickie ‘Painted Boats’ (’45), Hallatt’s first memorable role was as the feisty caretaker Angu Ayah in Powell & Pressburger’s religious drama ‘Black Narcissus’ (47). Following bit parts in the music hall drama ‘Trottie True’ (’49) and the excellent ‘The Pickwick Papers’ (’52), May played an eccentric passenger on board a train packed with gold, in the mediocre ‘Lady Vanishes’ knock-off ‘The Gold Express’ (’55).
The role that Hallatt will forever be remembered for is her wonderful turn as the solitary Miss Meacham, in Delbert Mann’s Oscar-winning drama ‘Separate Tables’ (’58). A part she originated on stage, Hallatt was a joy to watch and stole every scene she was in as the shuffling, sports-loving spinster. Other notable movies at this time included Alec Guinness’s pet project ‘The Horses Mouth’ (’58), and Jack Clayton’s superb adult drama ‘Room at the Top’ (’59).
After playing chatty neighbour Mrs Bates in a 1960 television production of Jane Austen’s ‘Emma’, Hallatt had a small yet funny part in the terrific Terry-Thomas comedy ‘Make Mine Mink’ (’60). Aged 87, Hallatt’s final movie appearance was as aunt Sarah in the entertaining drama ‘Bitter Harvest’ (’63), which starred the tragic Janet Munro as a young Welsh dreamer in search of happiness.
The mother of familiar Seventies actor Neil Hallett, May died in London on May 20th 1969, she was 93. Another of those wonderfully eccentric characters, May Hallatt only appeared in a couple of dozen features, but she brought so much to even the smallest of roles, and I think she would have made an ideal tweed-wearing Miss Marple.
Favourite Movie: Separate Tables
Favourite Performance: Separate Tables
The above article can also be accessed online here.
“Guardian” obituary from 1997:”Marjorie Reynolds, a blonde newcomer,” enthused Variety, “is a comely looker of much talent, poise and versatility, who will certainly calendar her own professional prominence from the springboard of this Crosby- Astaire filmusical.” The curious use of the word “calendar” (to denote “gain”) can be explained by the fact that the film under review was Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn (1942). The use of the word “newcomer” is also curious; the 21-year-old Miss Reynolds was then the veteran of more than 40 films, having made her screen debut 19 years earlier.
Born Marjorie Goodspeed, she was taken to Los Angeles as a small child and enrolled in dance classes by her ambitious mother. As Marjorie Moore, she was soon appearing on the silent screen with Ramon Navarro in Scaramouche (1923), and with Viola Dana in Revelation (1924). After a brief retirement, she returned to make her first talkie, John Barrymore’s Svengali (1931). She played small roles in College Humour (1933) and The Big Broadcast of 1936 (1935), both of which starred her future leading man Bing Crosby. After College Holiday (1936), Broadway Melody of 1938 and Champagne Waltz (both 1937), she appeared with Tex Ritter in Tex Rides With the Boy Scouts (1938), the first of 14 small-budget westerns she would make in the next four years, opposite such sagebrush stars as Buck Jones, Ken Maynard, Bob Baker, George O’Brien, Tim Holt and Roy Rogers. In between she toiled in equally low-rent thrillers.
Less than a week before Holiday Inn went into production, Paramount Pictures had yet to find a suitable leading lady. Their problem was solved when the choreographer Danny Dare recommended an actress/ dancer with whom he had worked on various musicals. The studio wasted precious time searching for Marjorie Moore before learning that she’d changed her name in 1937, after marrying one Jack Reynolds.
Once they had found and screen-tested her, she was eagerly signed and flung into dance rehearsals with Fred Astaire. True, she wasn’t much of a singer, but since when has that ever posed a problem to Hollywood? Martha Mears dubbed her vocals, and Paramount were so pleased with her performance in Holiday Inn that they awarded her a seven-year contract, and cast her opposite Crosby again in Dixie (1943), the alleged biography of the composer Dan Emmett, in which, as his loyal wife, she inspired the writing of the title song. She gave an impressive dramatic performance as a Viennese refugee in Fritz Lang’s film version of Graham Greene’s Ministry of Fear (1945), and made a ravishingly beautiful princess in the Bob Hope romp, Monsieur Beaucaire (1946). She was loaned to Universal for one of Abbott and Costello’s better vehicles, The Time of Their Lives (1946), in which she and Costello played ghosts doomed to haunt a stately mansion until they had proved they weren’t traitors during the American Revolution. In a clever special effect, the two ghosts had a head-on collision, but simply passed through, ending up wearing one another’s clothes. Reynolds, who was pregnant throughout the filming, said later, “I just wanted to get it over with.”
When her Paramount contract expired, she appeared in Mario Lanza’s first starring film, That Midnight Kiss (1949), and then in a trio of “B” pictures that suggested the action quickies she ground out in the 1930s: Customs Agent, The Great Jewel Robbery and Rookie Fireman (all 1950). For MGM she made a film calculated to endear the studio to the House Un-American Activities Committee. Called Home Town Story (1951), and financed by a top executive of General Motors, it was the story of a liberal newspaper editor who learned that Big Business wasn’t a heartless monolith, when his little sister was buried in a cave-in, and the owner of the town’s largest firm organised her rescue. Marilyn Monroe made an early screen appearance in this oddity.
Reynolds entered television when William Bendix chose her to play his dutiful wife in the sitcom The Life of Riley (1953-58). After Riley, there were guest appearances in various television series, but few films, the last of which was The Silent Witness (1962).
In 1987, asked by a journalist from Classic Image magazine whether she would welcome a big screen comeback, Marjorie Reynolds replied, “Sure, I’d like to click and become a box office tornado, but, if I don’t, I’ve got no kick coming. Personally, I like Hollywood and I like pictures. But that doesn’t mean I have any illusions about either.”
Marjorie Goodspeed (Marjorie Reynolds), actress: born Buhl, Idaho 12 August 1921; married 1937 Jack Reynolds (one daughter; marriage dissolved 1952), 1953 Jon M. Haffen (died 1985); died Manhattan Beach, California 1 February 1997.
The above “Guardian” obituary can also be accessed online here.
Anyone who knows me are aware that I am a bit of a movie buff. Over the past few years I have been collecting signed photographs of my favourite actors. Since I like movies so much there are many actors whose work I like.
