Hollywood Actors Archives - Page 28 of 128

Jarma Lewis

IMDB entry:

Jarma Lewis was born on June 5, 1931 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA. She was an actress, known for Raintree County (1957), The Tender Trap (1955) and It’s a Dog’s Life (1955). She died on November 12, 1985 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

Became a writer in the 1970’s.

Studied acting at the Neighbourhood Playhouse in New York.

Was spotted by the director Henry Hathaway, while working as a receptionist in a Beverly Hills dental clinic, subsequently cast in a small role in “Prince Valiant”. Briefly a starlet at 20th Century Fox (1954) and MGM (1955-57).

In 1955, married bowling alley tycoon Benjamin Edward Bensinger III.

Served for fifteen years on the executive board of the UCLA Art Council.

IMDB entry:

Sir John Standing is one of England’s most respected stage, film and television actors. From a distinguished acting dynasty which includes his great-grandfather Herbert Standing(1846-1923) and his grandfather Sir Guy Standing (1873-1937) and his mother, the actress Kay Hammond. He succeeded his father Sir Ronald Leon, as the 4th baronet in 1964. Sir John has worked productively on both the London and New York stages over the decades with leading parts in “The Importance of Being Earnest,” “Ring Around the Moon,” “A Sense of Detachment” by John Osborne, and, most notably, in Noel Coward‘s “Private Lives,” with Maggie Smith. Lesser known for his film work, he has nevertheless supported and enhanced such cinematic offerings as Young and Willing (1962), his debut film, King Rat(1965), The Psychopath (1966), Walk Don’t Run (1966), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), The Elephant Man (1980), Nightflyers (1987), Mrs Dalloway (1997), and A Good Woman (2004). His prestigious television roles have included the classic mini-series The First Churchills(1969), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979), and The Choir (1995), and King Solomon’s Mines(2004). In the U.S., he has graced numerous weekly programmes including L.A. Law(1986), Civil Wars (1991), and Murder, She Wrote (1984) and co-starred briefly with Robert Wagner and the late Samantha Smith in the action series Lime Street (1985), which ended abruptly with the young girl’s death in a plane crash. The 13-year-old Smith became an instant celebrity after writing a touching and concerned letter to the then Soviet PresidentYuri Andropov about the relations between the two dominant powers and being invited to Russia. His second wife is the actress Sarah Forbes, who is the daughter of the directorBryan Forbes and actress Nanette Newman.

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

IMDB entry:

Kathryn Hays was born on July 26, 1933 in Joliet, Illinois, USA as Kay Piper. She is an actress, known for Guiding Light (1952), As the World Turns (1956) and The Road West(1966). She was previously married to Wolfgang G Lieschke and Glenn Ford. Kathryn Hays died in 2022 aged i7.

Obituary

Kathryn Hays, known for playing the character of “Kim” on As The World Turns for 38 years – and for her portrayal of “Gem” in the original Star Trek episode “The Empath” – died Friday, March 25th in Fairfield, CT, at the age of 87. Her career also included Broadway productions of “Ladybug, Ladybug”, “The Irregular Verb To Love” and “Hot September”, summer stock productions of Showboat and Richard Roger’s Two By Two, Follies at the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera, Dames at Sea at the Papermill Playhouse, and playing Desiree in A Little Night Music at the Equity Library Theater in NYC, described by the New York Times as “just possibly the best musical in town”. She made guest appearances on over 40 classic TV shows, from Dr Kildare to Law and Order. Born in Princeton, IL and raised in the midwest, she remained a good midwestern girl – but with a layer of “New Yorker “added on over the years. Think Donna Reed in It’s A Wonderful Life, with a bit of Bette Davis thrown in for good measure. Her family and friends knew her as a source of love and laughter. Raucous laughter, much of the time, because she had a spot-on sense of humor. No one who was present will ever forget when she dressed up to play Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. She was raised to value family and made sure that her parents, Daisy and Dick Gottlieb, were cared for as they aged. She worked hard to raise and educate her daughter, and to enrich the lives of her grandchildren. She leaves behind her daughter and son-in-law, Sherri and Bob Mancusi, three grandchildren, Kate, Cameron and Garrett Wells, plus her great-grandson Jack, who will be taught the lessons that she taught us. She loved music, her church and was nuts about dogs. Those wishing to honor her memory may contribute to: The Greater Bridgeport Symphony in Bridgeport, CT, The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Westport, CT or your favorite dog rescue organization. Private memorial services will be held following cremation

IMDB entry:

Joan Leslie was born in Detroit and began acting as a child performer. She was never able to escape the good girl role in her early work. She married Dr. William Caldwell in 1950. She quit her acting career to raise her identical twin daughters Patrice and Ellen. Both daughters are now Doctors teaching at universities.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: Anonymous

IMDB entry:

Two-time Oscar-winner Melvyn Douglas was one of America’s finest actors. In addition to his two Oscars, he also won a Tony Award and an Emmy. Douglas would enjoy cinema immortality if for no other reason than his being the man who made Greta Garbo laugh inErnst Lubitsch‘s classic comedy Ninotchka (1939), but he was much, much more.

He was born Melvyn Edouard Hesselberg on April 5, 1901, in Macon, Georgia. His father, Edouard Gregory Hesselberg, was a Latvian Jewish immigrant (from Riga). His mother, from Clark Furnace, Tennessee, was from a family with deep roots in the United States; she had English ancestry (including antecedents who were Mayflower passengers), and remote Italian roots (from the Taliaferro family). His father was a concert pianist who supported his family by teaching music at university-based conservatories. Melvyn dropped out of high school to pursue his dream of becoming an actor.

He made his Broadway debut in the drama “A Free Soul (1931)” at the Playhouse Theatre on January 12, 1928, playing the role of a raffish gangster (a part that would later makeClark Gable‘s career when the play was adapted to the screen). “A Free Soul” was a modest success, running for 100 performances. His next three plays were flops: “Back Here” and “Now-a-Days” each lasted one week, while “Recapture” lasted all of three before closing. He was much luckier with his next play, “Tonight or Never,” which opened on November 18, 1930, at legendary producer David Belasco‘s theater. Not only did the play run for 232 performances, but Douglas met the woman who would be his wife of nearly 50 years: his co-star, Helen Gahagan. They were married in 1931.

The movies came a-calling in 1932 and Douglas had the unique pleasure of assaying completely different characters in widely divergent films. He first appeared opposite his future Ninotchka (1939) co-star Greta Garbo in the screen adaptation of Luigi Pirandello‘sAs You Desire Me (1932), proving himself a sophisticated leading man as, aside from his first-rate performance, he was able to shine in the light thrown off by Garbo, the cinema’s greatest star. In typical Hollywood fashion, however, this terrific performance in a top-rank film from a major studio was balanced by his appearance in a low-budget horror film for the independent Mayfair studio, The Vampire Bat (1933). However, the leading man won out, and that’s how he first came to fame in the 1930s in such films as She Married Her Boss(1935) and Garbo’s final film, Two-Faced Woman (1941). Douglas had shown he could play both straight drama and light comedy.

Douglas was a great liberal and was a pillar of the anti-Nazi Popular Front in the Hollywood of the 1930s. A big supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, he and his wife Helen were invited to spend a night at the White House in November 1939. Douglas’ leftism would come back to haunt him after the death of FDR.

Well-connected with the Roosevelt White House, Douglas served as a director of the Arts Council in the Office of Civilian Defense before joining the Army during World War II. He was very active in politics and was one of the leading lights of the anti-Communist left in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Helen Gahagan Douglas, who also was politically active, was elected to Congress from the 14th District in Los Angeles in 1944, the first of three terms.

Returning to films after the war, Douglas’ screen persona evolved and he took on more mature roles, in such films as The Sea of Grass (1947) (Elia Kazan‘s directorial debut) andMr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948). His political past caught up with him, however, in the late 1940s, and he – along with fellow liberals Robinson and Henry Fonda (a registered Republican!) – were “gray-listed” (not explicitly blacklisted, they just weren’t offered any work).

The late 1940s brought the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) to Hollywood, a move that sowed the seeds of the McCarthy anti-red hysteria that would wrack Hollywood and sweep America in the 1950s. In 1950, Helen Gahagan Douglas ran as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate and was opposed by the Republican nominee, a small-time red-baiting candidate from Whittier named Richard Nixon. While Nixon did not go so far as to accuse her of actually being a Communist, he did charge her with being soft on Communism due to her opposition to HUAC and her stance insisting that the U.S. improve its relations with the USSR. Nixon tarred her as a fellow traveler of Communists, a pinko who was “pink right down to her underwear.” Her opponent in the Democratic primary had given her the nickname “The Pink Lady”, erroneously attributed to Nixon. But it was Helene Gahagan Douglas who gave Nixon his most famous nickname, “Tricky Dicky”. While many historians have written that she was defeated by Nixon because of his unethical behavior and dirty campaign tactics, her pro-Soviet, anti-Cold War stance had alienated President Harry S. Truman, who had refused to campaign for her, and other Democratic Cold Warriors like Congressman John F. Kennedy, who hailed the election of fellow-Cold Warrior Nixon to the Senate.

The blacklist was implemented by Hollywood in 1947, after the HUAC grilling of the Hollywood help led to the “exposure” and subsequent persecution of the Hollywood 10. The post-World War II Red Scare targeted New Deal liberals as much as actual, genuine communists in a push to roll back liberalism, and Douglas was a marked man. After appearing in six films as a leading man and second lead in A-List pictures from 1947-49, Douglas made just two films in the decade of the 1950s – supporting roles at RKO in 1951 – until he reappeared a decade later in Peter Ustinov‘s Billy Budd (1962) in 1962. In the meantime, Douglas did play the eponymous private detective in the TV series Steve Randall(1952) in the 1952-53 season for the doomed DuMont network, which failed the next year, and, following the example of his old friend Reagan in his stint on General Electric Theater(1953), appeared as the host of the western omnibus TV series Frontier Justice (1958) in 1958. Throughout the 1950s Douglas secured roles on such prestigious omnibus drama showcases as Playhouse 90 (1956) and even appeared on Reagan’s General Electric Theater(1953).

Then there was the theater. Douglas made many appearances on Broadway in the 1940s and 1950s, including in a notable 1959 flop, making his musical debut playing Captain Boyle in Marc Blitzstein‘s “Juno.” The musical, based on Sean O’Casey‘s play “Juno and the Paycock”, closed in less than three weeks. Douglas was much luckier in his next trip to the post: he won a Tony for his Broadway lead role in the 1960 play “The Best Man” by Gore Vidal.

In 1960, with the election of the Democratic President John F. Kennedy, the erstwhile Nixon supporter who had defeated Tricky Dicky for the Big Brass Ring of American electoral politics. About this time, as the civil rights movement became stronger and found more support among Democrats and the Kennedy administration, former liberal activist and two-term Screen Actors Guild president Reagan was in the process of completing his evolution into a right-wing Republican. Reagan and Douglas’ friendship lapsed. After Reagan was elected President of the United States in 1980, Douglas said of his former friend that Reagan had begun to believe in the pro-business speeches he delivered for General Electric when he was the host of the General Electric Theater (1953).

Douglas’ own evolution into a premier character actor was completed by the early 1960s. His years of movie exile seemed to deepen him, making him richer, and he returned to the big screen a more authoritative actor. For his second role after coming off of the graylist, he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar as Paul Newman‘s father in Hud (1963). Other films in which he shined were Paddy Chayefsky‘s The Americanization of Emily (1964), CBS Playhouse (1967) (a 1967 episode directed by George Schaefer called “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”, for which he won a Best Actor Emmy) and The Candidate (1972), in which he played Robert Redford‘s father. It was for his performance playing Gene Hackman‘s father that Douglas got his sole Best Actor Academy Award nod, in I Never Sang for My Father (1970). He had a career renaissance in the late 1970s, appearing in The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979), Being There (1979) and Ghost Story (1981). He won his second Oscar for “Being There.”

Helen Gahagan Douglas died in 1980 and Melvyn followed her in 1981. He was 80 years old.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: Jon C. Hopwood

The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.

TCM overview:

Branded as Hollywood’s preeminent manchild after playing misunderstood youths in Robert Altman’s “Brewster McCloud” (1971) and Hal Ashby’s “Harold and Maude” (1971), Bud Cort found it difficult to find steady work as an actor when the film industry homogenized mid-decade. Sidelined by traumatic injuries suffered in a 1979 automobile accident that coarsened his youthful appearance, the former mentee of Groucho Marx turned to character work at home and abroad. In addition to contributing memorable supporting roles to Amy Jones’ “Love Letters” (1983), Andre Konchalovskiy’s “Maria’s Lovers” (1984) and Tobe Hooper’s 1986 remake of the sci-fi classic “Invaders from Mars,” Cort was called upon to play the occasional lead in such offbeat projects as “The Secret Diary of Sigmund Freud” (1984) and “Bates Motel” (1987), a busted pilot for a proposed NBC series based on Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” (1960). More than a decade after his film debut, one of the actor’s more prominent film appearances found him shunted out of the frame entirely as the voice for a lovelorn computer pining for cellist Virginia Madsen in the CD-rom-com “Electric Dreams” (1984). Seen later in his career in diverse roles in Michael Mann’s “Heat” (1995), Kevin Smith’s “Dogma” (1999) and Wes Anderson’s “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou” (2004), Cort proved himself to be the unlikeliest of Hollywood survivors and a rare juvenile performer able to transition successfully to mature roles.

Bud Cort was born Walter Edward Cox in New Rochelle, NY on March 29, 1948. Raised with his four siblings in the nearby town of Rye, where his parents ran a clothing store, Cort was influenced by his father’s interests in art and music. A child protégé who won commissions to paint portraits before he had reached his teenage years, Cort became interested early on in a career as an actor. By age 14, he was commuting into Manhattan to study the craft with renowned coach William Hickey at HB Studios in Greenwich Village. Following his graduation from New Rochelle’s Iona Preparatory School, Cort applied to New York University, where he later enrolled as a scenic design major. Continuing his study of acting off-campus, Cort performed in a number of musical and comedy revues while winning bit parts in such films as Warner Brothers’ “Up the Down Staircase” (1967) and Universal’s “Sweet Charity” (1968). Discovered by film director Robert Altman, Cort was slotted into the ensemble of the auteur filmmaker’s Korean War satire “M*A*S*H” (1970), in a memorable bit as a wide-eyed Army private who bungles his duties during emergency surgery. In short order, the fledgling actor racked up a number of memorable roles on both coasts, in Stuart Hagmann’s campus protest drama “The Strawberry Statement” (1970), in Roger Corman’s apocalyptic fantasy “Gas-s-s-s: Or It Became Necessary to Destroy the World in Order to Save It” (1970), and in Jack Smight’s bizarre capital punishment comedy “The Traveling Executioner” (1970), for which Cort received third billing after stars Stacy Keach and Mariana Hill. Though the latter role offered Cort’s his widest potential national exposure, the MGM release’s failure at the box office made it a negligible résumé-builder.

Cort fared better when Robert Altman called upon him to be the star of “Brewster McCloud” (1971). A quirky independent comedy that helped define the renegade spirit of the New Hollywood of the early-to-mid 1970s, “Brewster McCloud” foregrounded Cort as a reclusive genius who lives in a fallout shelter beneath the Houston Astrodome. Part fish-out-of-water tale, part murder mystery, the film was crammed, in true Altman fashion, with a score of outsized characters but Cort remained the centerpiece and his intentionally awkward but endearing performance made him Hollywood’s go-to young weirdo. That characterization was minted when he was cast opposite elderly actress Ruth Gordon in Hal Ashby’s “Harold and Maude” (1971), as a morbid young man who falls in love with a senior citizen. The film drew early negative notices from the critics, prompting the studio to pull the film from wide release. The feature did better in university cities such as New York and Boston, where word of mouth turned it into a bona fide cult movie which ran for years on the repertory circuit. In real life, Cort moved to Los Angeles and developed a strong, if strictly platonic, relationship with another feisty senior citizen – Groucho Marx, who at the time had suffered a debilitating stroke. Marx and Cort shared the same analyst in Los Angeles and Marx eventually invited the young actor to share his Bel-Air home. When Marx died from complications of pneumonia in 1977, Cort was at his side.

Cort’s popularity with cult film aficionados came at the price of reduced value in Hollywood. He spent two years working as a juice-maker in a health food store on the Sunset Strip and when he made the decision to return to acting he found he had to travel for work – to Italy for a role as a college student involved in the drug trade in “Hallucination Strip” (1975), to Canada to play a Depression era frontier school teacher in “Why Shoot the Teacher?” (1977), and to Germany for “Son of Hitler” (1978), to play the presumed heir of the late Fuhrer. On TV, Cort appeared in the NBC miniseries “Brave New World” (1980), based on the dystopian novel by Aldous Huxley. After a June 1979 automobile accident in which he suffered a fractured skull, traumatic facial lacerations and the loss of several teeth derailed Cort’s career for a year and a half. While Cort underwent physical therapy and follow-up surgeries, producer Jon Peters pushed back the start date of a film in which Cort had been cast before his accident, providing the ailing actor with a much-needed paycheck. Cast as a villain in the screwball comedy “Die Laughing” (1980), Cort was able to use his facial deformity to his advantage but subsequent film offers were few and far between. Turning to television, he played a man coping with disfigurement in a 1982 episode of the syndicated religious series “Insight” (1960-1984). A decade after their first onscreen pairing, Cort reunited with his “Brewster McCloud” co-star Shelly Duvall for two episodes of “Faerie Tale Theatre” (1982-1987), an anthology series broadcast by the cable channel Showtime.

Hiding his scars behind the bangs of a New Wave haircut, Cort contributed a cameo to “Love Letters” (1983), starring Jamie Lee Curtis, and wore a beard for the title role in “The Secret Diary of Sigmund Freud” (1984), filmed in Yugoslavia. He provided the voice of a capricious home computer who develops strong personal feelings for symphony cellist Virginia Madsen in MGM’s “Electric Dreams” (1984) and popped up in Andre Konchalovskiy’s post-WWII drama “Maria’s Lovers” (1984), providing support to stars Nastassja Kinski, John Savage, Keith Carradine and Robert Mitchum. Pushing 40 years of age, Cort segued to character parts in Tobe Hooper’s “Invaders from Mars” (1986) remake and in John Moffitt’s historical satire “Love at Stake” (1987) but played a rare leading role in “Bates Motel” (1987), the unsold pilot for a proposed NBC series based on Alfred Hitchcock’s classic horror film “Psycho” (1960). In 1991, Cort directed the offbeat romance “Ted & Venus,” whose supporting cast consisted of Woody Harrelson, James Brolin and LSD guru Timothy Leary. Memorable assignments in features included an uncredited bit as a nasty diner manager in Michael Mann’s “Heat” (1995), roles in Kevin Smith’s “Dogma” (1999), Wim Wenders’ “The Million Dollar Hotel” (2000), and Ed Harris’ “Pollock” (2000), and an extended turn as explorer Bill Murray’s long-suffering business manager in “The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou” (2004), directed by Wes Anderson. Cort provided additional unbilled cameos to the Jim Carrey vehicle “The Number 23” (2007), appearing onscreen barely long enough to slit his own throat, and to Mitch Glazer’s “Passion Play” (2010), alongside Mickey Rourke, Megan Fox and Bill Murray.

By Richard Harland Smith

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

me Alice Faye

Tom Vallance’s 1998 obituary in “The Independent”:

Alice Faye was one of the most popular musical stars in the golden era of Hollywood.

From the late 1930s to the mid-1940s she was a top box- office attraction in such films as Alexander’s Ragtime Band and That Night in Rio, and composers Jule Styne and Irving Berlin were among those who praised her melodic distinctively throaty crooning style. Among the songs she introduced on screen was the 1944 Oscar-winner “You’ll Never Know” which became permanently identified with her.

Though Faye’s image on screen was ultimately one of warm appeal (she frequently played the wronged heroine faithful to the thoughtless hero till the happy fade-out), she started her career as a buxom blonde with a come-hither style.

When Rudy Vallee introduced her as his vocalist on a radio show in 1933, he told listeners: “For those of you wondering what Miss Faye looks like, I can best describe her as being like a young Mae West.”

Born Alice Jeanne Leppert in New York City in 1915, she obtained a job with a dance troupe at the age of 14 (lying about her age) and two years later, having changed her surname to Faye, was in the chorus of George White’s Scandals (1931) on Broadway. At a cast party its star Rudy Vallee heard Faye sing and was so impressed he hired her as vocalist on his radio show and ultimately became romantically involved with her – she was to be named by his wife in a stormy divorce case.

Signed by Fox to star in the film George White’s Scandals (1934), Vallee persuaded the studio to cast Faye and, when Lilian Harvey walked out, to give Faye the star role. Offered a long-term contract by Fox, she stayed in Hollywood when Vallee returned to New York.

Though her early films were undistinguished – she confessed later that she learned to act in front of the camera – Faye’s singing was always praised, and her recordings for Brunswick records sold well. In Every Night at Eight (1935), she introduced “Feel A Song Coming On” and in King of Burlesque (1936), “I’m Shooting High”. This film (Faye’s eighth) convinced the studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck that Faye deserved superior scripts and top-rate productions.

After supporting Shirley Temple in Poor Little Rich Girl (1936), Faye was given her best film to date, Sing Baby Sing (1936), in which she introduced another standard, “You Turned The Tables on Me”, and appeared for the first time with her future husband Tony Martin.

She introduced one of her biggest hits, Mack Gordon and Harry Revel’s “Goodnight, My Love” in Stowaway (1936). It was around this time that Jule Styne became a vocal coach at the studio. “Alice knew how to really sell a song,” he said later. “She’d sing a song on the screen and the next morning it sold a million copies.”

Though she was third-billed to Madeleine Carroll and Dick Powell in On The Avenue (1937), she had several new Irving Berlin tunes to sing, including the lovely ballad, “This Year’s Kisses”, and impressed critics with her portrayal of a jealous actress. In Wake Up and Live (1937), Faye introduced two Gordon-Revel standards: “There’s A Lull in My Life” and “Never in a Million Years”.

Faye teamed for the first of six times with Don Ameche in You Can’t Have Everything (1937) and had one of her best roles as a would-be playwright. The title song (again by Gordon and Revel) was a big hit.

Zanuck had long planned to make an epic film centred on the great Chicago fire, and hoped to borrow Jean Harlow from MGM to star in it. When Harlow died, the director Henry King suggested Faye for the role, and Tyrone Power volunteered to test with her to prove to Zanuck that she was up to the part. With a budget of nearly $2m, In Old Chicago (1938) was a prestigious production that gained six Oscar nominations.

The three leads – Faye, Power and Don Ameche, were teamed again in an ambitious musical scanning three decades and built around the songs of Irving Berlin, Alexander’s Ragtime Band (1938). Faye introduced a seductive Berlin ballad, “Now I Can Be Told” and sang such standards as the title song, “Blue Skies” and “Remember” (Berlin used to cite Fred Astaire and Faye as his favourite vocalists). The film became one of Faye’s two personal favourites.

Power was her co-star for a final time in Rose Of Washington Square (1939), a film so closely based on the life of comedienne Fannie Brice that Brice sued the studio and won a large settlement.

Faye had begun feuding with Zanuck, who refused to allow her to do radio work or to renew her recording contract, and hospitalisation cost her the lead in a popular musical Down Argentine Way (1940), which made a star of her replacement, Betty Grable. Immediately, stories circulated that the two were now rivals and enemies (“Just Fox publicity,” said Faye later. “The truth was we liked each other very much, became good friends and stayed good friends till the day she died.”)

They were teamed in Tin Pan Alley (1940) as singing sisters, and performed a lavish number, “Sheik of Araby”, which revealed their strikingly different personalities. Though virtually the same age, Faye purveyed an assured, experienced maturity while Grable was more brash and down-to-earth. She gradually supplanted Faye as the studio’s top musical star.

Some of Faye’s greatest triumphs, though, were still ahead – That Night in Rio (1941), in which she was the confused wife of a philandering businessman (Don Ameche); The Great American Broadcast (1941), a lively depiction of the birth of radio co-starring John Payne and Jack Oakie; and Weekend in Havana (1941), a lushly coloured piece of escapism in which Faye introduced Warren and Gordon’s “Tropical Magic”.

In 1941 Faye married the band leader Phil Harris, noted for his wild life-style, but the marriage lasted over 50 years until his death, albeit with an unusual arrangement in later years that had Harris living part of the time in a separate house where he could have all-night poker sessions. After time off to have her first child (her pregnancy costing her roles in Roxie Hart, My Gal Sal and Springtime in the Rockies), Faye returned to the screen in Hello, ‘Frisco, Hello (1943), the second of her personal favourites. It is packed with terrific numbers including the Warren-Gordon hit “You’ll Never Know” and “By The Light of the Silvery Moon”.

Faye had taken time off to have her second child, and on her return her voice had acquired a deeper, more warmly mellow tone. Her last major musical role was in The Gang’s All Here (1943), the most revived of her films thanks to its direction by Busby Berkeley and some remarkable production sequences. The most dazzling is the final number, Faye’s “Polka Dot Polka” which evolves into an hallucinatory kaeidoscope of images.

After a guest spot as herself in Four Jills in a Jeep (1943), Faye was persuaded by Zanuck to play a straight role in the Otto Preminger thriller Fallen Angel (1945). Though a good film it was a disappointment for Faye, who found a lot of her footage cut to build up the role of Linda Darnell, a newer Zanuck favourite. Faye stated that:

I was proud of my performance but Zanuck cut most of my best stuff including the song ‘Slowly’ by the composer of ‘Laura’, David Raksin. . . I felt Zanuck betrayed me. Feeling utterly at a loss I left the studio that had been my home for the past decade. I didn’t even go to my dressing room to collect my personal belongings.

Faye did not stop working, however, joining her husband Phil Harris on a radio show that ran for eight years (1946-54) with Faye delivering a song a week and displaying a nice flair for self-depracating humour.

It was 17 years before she returned to the screen, as the mother in a remake of the 1945 musical version of State Fair (1962). Richard Rodgers wrote “Never Say No” for her, along with a duet “The Little Things in Texas” for her and Tom Ewell.

In 1974 she starred on Broadway in a revival of Good News with John Payne. Her 1978 film appearance in The Magic of Lassie with James Stewart was well received, but she had by then a busy career as spokeswoman for a pharmaceutical company.

Until a few months ago, Alice Faye maintained remarkably good health and appearance. In 1982 she was a guest on the television show Looks Familiar in London and afterwards came to the city regularly. “When you’re a star in England,” she said, “you’re always a star.” In 1984 she was featured in a special hour-long This Is Your Life, in 1985 in the Royal Variety Show (the Queen told her she had been a favourite of her parents) and she was often a prime attraction in charity shows, always eliciting an ovation with her rendition of “You’ll Never Know”.

Alice Jeanne Leppert (Alice Faye), actress: born New York 5 May 1915; married 1937 Tony Martin (marriage dissolved 1940), 1941 Phil Harris (died 1995; two daughters); died Rancho Mirage, California 9 May 1998.

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

TCM overview:

Many young girls dreamt of success on Broadway, but Alice Faye not only attained it, she eclipsed that triumph by also becoming a beloved star of the silver screen. Through a combination of talent, timing and good luck, Faye was able to launch her stage career while still a teenager, demonstrating considerable ability as both a dancer and a singer. She was soon signed to a long-term contract with 20th Century Fox and became a star virtually right out of the gate with her performance in “George White’s Scandals” (1934). Parts of similar stature followed in over 30 Fox films, including perennial favorites like “In Old Chicago” (1938), “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” (1938), “Rose of Washington Square” (1939), “Lillian Russell” (1940), “Hello, Frisco, Hello,” and “The Gang’s All Here” (both 1943). Most of these showcased her skills as a first-rate musical star, but she was also occasionally given the chance to impress viewers as a dramatic performer in headier fare. When her tenure with Fox ended, Faye enjoyed a long and successful run on radio with husband Phil Harris and settled into a retirement that would be periodically interrupted by trips back to the big screen and even Broadway almost 40 years after she last trod the boards there. In addition to becoming the most popular star of musicals in the world for a period of time, Alice Faye was also one of the only movie stars to walk away from the business while at the height of her popularity.

Faye was born Alice Jeanne Leppert in New York City on May 5, 1915. Of French-Irish descent, the blonde, blue-eyed beauty dreamt of Broadway stardom from a young age. With the encouragement of her mother, she embarked on a stage career, getting hired as a dancer in the Broadway musical “Earl Carroll’s Vanities.” However, the job came to a quick end when the producers discovered that Faye was only 13. Now claiming an age of 17, she landed a job in the chorus at The Capitol Theater and soon afterward, The Chester Hale Dancers. Faye returned to Broadway as a dancer in the 1931 production of “George White’s Scandals,” which was toplined by radio superstar Rudy Vallee and enjoyed a six-month run. Having heard a vinyl recording of Faye singing the Maurice Chevalier number “Mimi” during one of the revue’s cast parties, Vallee was knocked out by her mellow, contralto voice and offered Faye a spot on his nationally syndicated radio program, “The Fleischman Hour,” where she was an instant success. He was also instrumental in bringing Faye to the big screen, when he recommended that she co-star with him in the 1934 film adaptation of “George White’s Scandals.” The film was a hit and the two were soon rumoured to be a couple – a false claim exacerbated by a car accident Vallee experienced one evening while Faye was a passenger. When Vallee was sued for divorce, Faye was named by the actor’s wife in the court action, but Faye denied ever having been more than a professional colleague.

The incredible popularity of Jean Harlow in the 1930s led studios to try and find their own answer to the “Red Dust” star. Now under long-term contract to 20th Century Fox, Faye was quickly groomed to be a singing version of the MGM bombshell. Sporting peroxide blonde hair, pencil thin eyebrows and brassy broad demeanor in fare like “She Learned About Sailors” (1934) and “Every Night at Eight” (1935), Faye soon developed a following, but new studio head Darryl F. Zanuck wisely decided to go a different route with her. Faye went back to her natural hair color and began to play more traditional “good girl” parts in musicals like “Sing, Baby, Sing” (1936). On the set of the 1936 Shirley Temple vehicle, “Poor Little Rich Girl” – where the bratty child star falsely accused Faye of pushing her down a flight of stairs during production – romance blossomed between Faye and co-star Tony Martin, a fellow Fox contract player, who seemed destined for big things. However, when his stature at Fox failed to equal that enjoyed by the then “Queen of the Lot,” an intimidated Martin left for the East Coast to tour with his band in the hopes of finding his own fame. The couple would reconcile and famously marry in 1937.

Like virtually all contract stars of the time, Faye – now the second biggest female box office draw in the country behind Temple – was worked hard by Fox, starring in four movies in 1937 alone, with one of the highlights being “On the Avenue,” which was stocked with Irving Berlin songs and the comic antics of The Ritz Brothers. Faye’s other big film during this time was “In Old Chicago” (1938), the studio’s costly depiction of the catastrophic 1871 fire that decimated the city. Fox originally wanted Harlow for the part, but when the actress died tragically in 1937, Faye was chosen and her dramatic performance opposite fellow Fox contract stars Tyrone Power and Don Ameche proved she possessed the talent to tackle more involved roles. Nevertheless, Faye was cast in dependable money-making musicals like “Sally, Irene and Mary,” (1938) one of four films she did with Tony Martin, and director Henry King’s ode to jazz, “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” (1938), which reunited Faye with her two “In Old Chicago” co-stars. The aviation yarn “Tail Spin” (1939) gave Faye her most offbeat part to date, playing a female flyer of modest means competing against rival pilot/socialite Constance Bennett in an airplane race. It was a far less decorous role than her fans had come to expect, but Fox did have the star sing one song, which helped to add some sparkle to the rather soapy plotline.

That same year, the actress returned to gowns and glamour, playing a facsimile of singer-comedienne Fanny Brice in “Rose of Washington Square,” even though Faye and Brice shared almost no characteristics whatsoever. Brice (who would more famously be portrayed by Barbra Streisand in “Funny Girl” on stage and screen during the 1960s) was quite angered by this and particularly livid that Fox had Faye sing Bryce’s signature song, “My Man.” “Lillian Russell” (1940) was another musical, but also provided Faye with more of a chance to exercise her dramatic chops than usual, playing the revered operetta star. However, the production was a gruelling experience for the actress who was initially ordered to gain weight and was then bound up in ultra-tight costumes. Faye’s relationship with Zanuck became strained, leading to rumors that new starlet Betty Grable was being groomed to replace her. However, by most accounts the two enjoyed a very amicable relationship with no sense of rivalry – due mainly to Faye’s even-keeled generosity of spirit. Faye’s troubled marriage to Tony Martin finally ended in 1941, but she soon met bandleader and “The Jack Benny Program” regular Phil Harris. Despite being polar opposites in seemingly every way, the couple proved to be a perfect match.

More musicals followed, including the lavish 1943 Technicolor spectacle “Hello, Frisco, Hello,” in which she sang her best remembered song, the Academy Award-winning “You’ll Never Know,” and “The Gang’s All Here” (1943) which gave Faye a chance to work with legendary director-choreographer Busby Berkeley. Interested in getting back into dramatic parts, Faye rejected numerous projects Fox sent her way, finally signing on for “Fallen Angel” (1945), director’s Otto Preminger’s follow-up to his very well received thriller “Laura” from the previous year. However, the experience was an unfortunate one for her. The studio decided to put its promotional might behind co-star and devastating beauty Linda Darnell, seeking to make her their new “It” girl. Faye’s role was not only reduced in the final edit, but a song she sang was removed – Zanuck’s rationale being that it conflicted with a new image he wanted to create for her. Knowing that Betty Grable was the studio’s new darling and deciding that she had had enough of Hollywood and “Penitentiary Fox,” the actress famously wrote a note to Zanuck, left the key to her dressing room with a security guard and drove off the lot, refusing to fulfill the remainder of her contract. While her acrimonious departure got Faye unofficially blacklisted, the actress still had plenty to keep her busy, looking after her two young daughters (born in 1942 and 1944) and teaming up with Harris for a popular radio program that began life in 1946 as “The Fitch Bandwagon.” Later rechristened “The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show,” the musical comedy show had an eight-year run.

Mostly content to enjoy retirement at the couple’s Palm Springs home, Faye made a surprise trip back to Fox for the 1962 remake of “State Fair,” but the picture was a disaster and the shoot an unpleasant time for her. Aside from occasional sightings, like a 1964 guest appearance on the popular ABC variety program “Hollywood Palace,” Faye remained out of the limelight. She unexpectedly came out of retirement again in 1973 to go back out on the road with former co-star John Payne in a musical-comedy production called “Good News,” which enjoyed a fair amount of success and gave Faye to chance to sing old standards like “Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries.” However, a subsequent opening on Broadway (with Gene Nelson replacing Payne) as one of The Great White Way’s Christmas 1974 attractions proved disastrous and the production shuttered after only 16 performances. Nonetheless, 1974 still proved to be a noteworthy year for Faye. Interest in her music was revived when Martin Scorsese used “You’ll Never Know” to open his film “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” and this was followed by the nostalgia records Alice Faye in Hollywood (1934-37) and Alice Faye Sings Her Famous Movie Hits arriving in stores.

Faye was one of many Golden Age stars persuaded to cameo in the awful Rin Tin Tin parody “Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood” (1976) and the very obscure “Every Girl Should Have One” (1978), which was reportedly even worse. While an unremarkable remake of the 1943 MGM classic “Lassie Comes Home,” Faye’s final film “The Magic of Lassie” (1978), allowed her to work with fellow beloved veterans James Stewart and Mickey Rooney, and one more opportunity to sing onscreen. Aside from a handful of appearances on television – including a 1984 episode of “This is Your Life” and performing on the 61st Academy Awards in 1989 – Faye lived quietly in Palm Springs with her beloved Phil Harris, also largely retired by this point. After 54 years of marriage, Harris passed away in 1995, with Faye following him on May 9, 1998 after enduring two operations for stomach cancer. Having lived longer than many of her Golden Age contemporaries, the much beloved, all-American songstress passed away at age 83.

By John Charles

The above TCM overviewcan also be accessed online here.

TCM overview

Reportedly trained at the Juilliard School under the tutelage of dramatic stage legend John Houseman, Steve Guttenberg’s film career in light, PG-rated comedies belied his theatrical background. His profile was highest during the 1980s, when he accompanied broad blockbusters “Police Academy” (1984) and “Three Men and a Baby” (1987) into seemingly endless sequels. His few forays away from his established persona as an overgrown class clown were little-seen and generally unsuccessful, but with a film resume that collectively grossed hundreds of millions of dollars and a film presence that was no worse than the goofy, nice guy competition of the era – i.e., Tom Hanks, Michael Keaton – the actor did not seem too concerned with fixing what was not broken.

Steven Robert Guttenberg was born on Aug. 24, 1958, in Brooklyn, NY. He was raised on Long Island in the suburban town of Massapequa, where he was first introduced to the idea of acting by a family friend. Soon after he signed up for his school drama program and eventually sought further training at New York’s High School of the Performing Arts. He also studied with John Houseman at the renowned Juilliard School, made his off-Broadway stage debut in “The Lion in Winter” while he was still in high school. After graduating from Plainedge High, Guttenberg moved to Los Angeles, CA and began pursuing an acting career, getting a couple of lucrative breaks with TV commercials for Coca-Cola and Kentucky Fried Chicken. It was not long before his wiseacre smirk and boyish looks landed him on the big screen; first, as the amorous lead in the teen sex comedy “The Chicken Chronicles” (1977), followed by an impressive dramatic about-face in the “The Boys from Brazil” (1978), playing the young member of a militant Jewish organization who helps a Nazi-hunting Laurence Olivier.

The following year, Guttenberg scored the title role in “Billy” (CBS, 1979), a short-lived sitcom about an imaginative teenager, before leaving the teen genre behind to play blind lawyer Harold Krents in the biopic “To Race the Wind” (CBS, 1980) and a struggling composer in the Village People disco flop, “Can’t Stop the Music” (1980). Guttenberg rebounded and gained positive notices for Barry Levinson’s coming-of-age buddy drama “Diner” (1982), where he was cast amid an impressive young ensemble including Mickey Rourke, Kevin Bacon and Ellen Barkin, as a young sports fanatic who insists that his bride-to-be pass a sports trivia test before their marriage. He returned to TV with a leading role in one of the highest rated TV movies of all time, the nuclear war drama “The Day After” (ABC, 1983). The year 1984 saw the birth of one of Guttenberg’s best-loved (and most-revived) characters, Carey Mahoney in “Police Academy” (1984). The blockbuster slapstick comedy earned over $80 million at the box office, and featured Guttenberg at the center of a crew of appropriately ragtag police department recruits.

Now established as a comedic leading man with box office drawing power, Guttenberg scored again with his role as an amiable tour boat captain in the senior citizen sci-fi hit “Cocoon” (1985). He revived Mahoney – now a police academy graduate ready to fight crime – in “Police Academy 2: Their First Assignment,” which did not quite top the numbers of the breakout original, but still brought in a hefty box office haul. Next, Guttenberg stepped out from his string of ensemble hits and appeared as the prominent star of “Bad Medicine” (1985), an ill-fated med school comedy co-starring Alan Arkin and Julie Hagerty. Sergeant Mahoney returned to train the newest round of recruits in 1986’s “Police Academy: Back in Training” before Guttenberg expanded his repertoire with John Badham’s sci-fi comedy “Short Circuit” (1986), starring opposite Ally Sheedy and a cute little robot. Hollywood’s hot comedy property starred in no less than four films in 1987, including “Police Academy 4: Citizens on Patrol,” the sketch comedy compendium “Amazon Women on the Moon,” and the wildly popular “Three Men and a Baby,” co-starring Guttenberg, Tom Selleck and Ted Danson as three single guys unwittingly launched into sharing fatherhood duties of an unexpected baby. Guttenberg also tested his squeaky clean image in the dark thriller “The Bedroom Window,” (1987), but the film was not well-received by critics or audiences.

After an appearance in “Cocoon: The Return” (1988), Guttenberg teamed up with Peter O’Toole and Daryl Hannah in the unfortunate comedic misfire “High Spirits” (1988). Taking a screen break, he went behind the camera as executive producer of the CBS Schoolbreak Special “Gangs” (CBS, 1988) before cementing his image as “the sequel kid” when he reteamed with Selleck and Danson in “Three Men and a Little Lady” (1990).

Nice-guy Guttenberg fell largely out of the public eye for the first half of the 1990s, during which time he enjoyed a return to his stage roots, making his London stage debut in 1990 in Tom Griffin’s “The Boy Next Door,” followed by the Tony-nominated supernatural drama, “Prelude to a Kiss.” He returned to the big screen in 1995 with a pair of family films – Disney’s soccer pic “The Big Green” and the feature debut of TV’s Olsen twins, “It Takes Two,” in which he played the father of the dynamic duo. Despite roles in Jodie Fosters’ more grown-up “Home for the Holidays” (1995) and a little-seen turn as a racecar driver in the indie “Overdrive” (1997), Guttenberg seemed to be aging into the family film niche, lending his voice to animated TV movies “Casper: A Spirited Beginning” (1997) and starring in The Wonderful World of Disney’s “Tower of Terror” (1997). 1998’s “Hometeam,” which saw Guttenberg as an overbearing handyman at an orphanage, went straight to video as did an unconvincing turn as a shirtless secret agent in the actioner, “Airborne” (1998).

Guttenberg returned to the stage in 1999 to unenthusiastic reviews in “Furthest from the Sun,” directed and co-written by Woody Harrelson. Out of the public eye for another stretch, he remained busy as founder of Guttenberg House, a transitional home for former foster care children. He was also active with other children’s charities, including The Starlight Foundation and the Entertainment Industry Foundation, for which he served as its ambassador of Children’s Issues. Guttenberg was also busy with his new post as the Honorary Mayor of Pacific Palisades, a wealthy Oceanside community in Los Angeles, which he would reside over for the four years.

In 2003, the mayor tackled a new career challenge when he produced, directed and starred in an adaptation of James Kirkwood’s play, “P.S. Your Cat Is Dead” (2003). The gay-themed play did not reach wide release and was only screened at festivals. During the early 2000s, Guttenberg enjoyed an increased presence on television; first appearing in an episode of “Law & Order” (NBC, 1990- ) and co-starring alongside Adam Baldwin in a TV adaptation of “The Poseidon Adventure” (NBC, 2005).

That same year, he began a recurring role on the critically-hailed drama “Veronica Mars” (UPN, 2004-06, CW, 2006-07), playing a prominent member of Mars’ local community of Neptune. Guttenberg continued in his controversial role – which, in a shattering of his status as a beloved figure in wholesome comedies, also involved child molestation – until the show’s cancellation in 2006. In the spring of 2008, Guttenberg was added to the cast of the reality show/pop culture phenomenon “Dancing with the Stars” (ABC, 2005- ). In preparation for his appearance, he staged a mini-tour of secondary American cities and performed stand-up comedy, along with a preview of his dance skills.

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

John Clark Gable was born on March 20, 1961 in Los Angeles, California, USA. He is an actor, known for Bad Jim (1990), A Burning Passion: The Margaret Mitchell Story (1994) and Beyond (2012). He was previously married to Alexandria Remlin Gable and Tracy Yarro.

Collection of Classic Hollywood Actors

Jarma Lewis

John Standing

Kathryn Hays

Joan Leslie

Melvyn Douglas

Bud Cort

Alice Faye

Steve Guttenberg

John Clark Gable

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