Hollywood Actors Archives - Page 37 of 126

Madge Evans

IMDB entry:

Lovely Madge Evans was the perennial nice girl in films of the 1930’s. By then, she had been in front of the camera for many years, starting with Fairy Soap commercials at the age of two (she sat on a bar of soap holding a bunch of violets with the tag line reading “have you a little fairy in your home?”). ‘Baby Madge’ also lent her name to a children’s hat company. In 1914, aged five, she was picked out by talent scouts to appear in theWilliam Farnum movie The Sign of the Cross (1914), followed by The Seven Sisters(1915) with Marguerite Clark.

By the end of the following year, she had amassed some twenty film credits, appearing with such noted contemporary stars as Pauline Frederick or Alice Brady. All of her early films were made on the East Coast, at studios in Ft.Lee, New Jersey. In 1917 (aged eight), Madge made her Broadway debut in ‘Peter Ibbetson’ with John Barrymore andLionel Barrymore. She resumed her stage career in 1926 as an ingenue with ‘Daisy Mayme’ and the following year appeared with Billie Burke in Noel Coward‘s costume drama ‘The Marquise’ (1927).

Her pleasing looks and personality soon attracted the attention of Hollywood and she was eventually signed by MGM in 1931. During the next decade, she appeared in several A-grade productions, notably as Lionel Barrymore’s daughter in MGM’s Dinner at Eight(1933) and as the dependable Agnes Wickfield in one of the best-ever filmed versions ofDavid Copperfield (1935). She co-starred opposite James Cagney in the gangster movieThe Mayor of Hell (1933), Spencer Tracy in The Show-Off (1934) and listened to Bing Crosby crooning the title song in Pennies from Heaven (1936). Madge received praise for her performance as the star of Beauty for Sale (1933) and The New York Times review of January 13 1934 described her acting in Fugitive Lovers (1934) (opposite Robert Montgomery ) as ‘spontaneous and captivating’. Many of her ‘typical American girl’ roles did not allow her to express aspects of the greater acting range she undoubtedly possessed. Too often she was cast as the ‘nice girl’ – and those rarely make much of a dramatic impact. On the few occasions she was assigned the role of ‘other woman’ , such as the Helen Hayes-starrer What Every Woman Knows (1934), audiences found her character difficult to believe and disassociate from her all-round wholesome image. When her contract with MGM expired in 1937, Madge wound down her film career and, following her 1939 marriage, concentrated on being the wife of celebrated playwright Sidney Kingsley. She last appeared on stage in one of his plays, “The Patriots”, in 1943.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: I.S.Mowis

The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.

“New York Times” obituary from 1982:

Madge Evans, a popular actress who frequently portrayed the cleancut, decent American woman in films and on stage during the 30’s, died of cancer Sunday night at her home in Oakland, N.J., where she had lived for many years with her husband, the playwright Sidney Kingsley. She was 71 years old.

Miss Evans appeared in such films as ”The Greeks Had a Word for Them” (1932), ”Dinner at Eight” (1933), ”Stand Up and Cheer” (1934), ”David Copperfield” (1935) and ”Pennies from Heaven” (1936).

On Broadway, she played in ”Daisy Mayme” (1926), ”Our Betters” (1928), ”Philip Goes Forth” (1931), ”Here Come the Clowns” (1938) and ”The Patriots” (1943), which was written by Mr. Kingsley.

The actress was born on the West Side of Manhattan on July 1, 1909, and first appeared professionally in an advertisement, as a child model perched on a huge bar of Fairy Soap.

While modeling, she was spotted as a potential child star. At the age of 5, she appeared in a silent-film version of ”The Sign of the Cross” with William Farnum. By 6, she had acted in 20 films made in studios in Fort Lee, N.J.

At 15, Miss Evans was seen in ”Classmates,” a film with Richard Barthelmess. In 1926, she made her first stage appearance in ”Daisy Mayme” and thereafter her career alternated between films and Broadway. The handsome young actress appeared in films with such stars as Spencer Tracy, Bing Crosby, Warner Baxter, John and Lionel Barrymore, James Cagney, Al Jolson, Robert Young, Lee Tracy, Richard Dix and Robert Montgomery.

While in ”Brief Moment” at the Ogunquit Playhouse in 1939, the 30-year-old actress was married to Mr. Kingsley. Thereafter, Mr. Kingsley said recently, she devoted much of her time to helping him with the research and writing of his plays. He described her as his collaborator in the theater in every sense.

The above “New York Times” obituary can also be accessed online here.

Tom Vallance’s “Independent” obituary:

As the young German conscript who becomes a resigned pacifist in Lewis Milestone’s brilliant anti-war film All Quiet on the Western Front (1930), Lew Ayres created an indelible portrait of disillusioned youth. Ironically, in 1941 he was to become the most publicised conscientious objector of the Second World War, vilified by press and public for his views (reputedly formed by his appearance in the Milestone film). He will also forever be associated with Dr Kildare, the idealistic young surgeon he played in nine films of a popular series. After redeeming himself by serving as a medic and risking his life on the battlefront, he returned to Hollywood and an Oscar nomination for his role in Johnny Belinda, though the promise of his auspicious start as a Hollywood star was never totally fulfilled.

Born Lewis Frederick Ayre in 1908, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, he studied medicine at the University of Arizona but was more interested in music, playing banjo in the college orchestra. While playing with a dance band at Cocoanut Grove in Hollywood, he was spotted by the talent scout Paul Bern and after a minor role in The Sophomore (1929) was signed by MGM to play opposite Garbo in her last silent film, The Kiss (1929).

Lewis Milestone, about to direct All Quiet on the Western Front at Universal, had decided to cast Douglas Fairbanks Jnr in the lead, though Bern suggested Ayres for the role. The film’s dialogue director, George Cukor, shot a test of Ayres (along with other hopefuls) and Milestone saw it on the day that United Artists (who had Fairbanks under contract) informed him that they would not loan their star. Ayres later stated, “Milestone told me time and time again that if I had made the tests earlier I probably never would have been chosen.”

As one of a bunch of schoolboys persuaded by their jingoistic master to enlist in the war, only to become disillusioned as they are decimated in futile military action, Ayres perfectly captured the pain and resignation of innocence betrayed. Asked while on leave to lecture to a group of young students about the glories of war, he makes a tentative start then angrily tells them, “When it comes to dying for your country, it is better not to die at all!”, provoking hisses and boos. Equally memorable is the famous ending, where a sniper’s bullet ends the boy’s life as he reaches from his trench for a butterfly.

Signed to a contract by Universal, Ayres was loaned to Warners to play a feared gangster boss in Doorway to Hell (1930), a monumental piece of miscasting. (James Cagney’s presence in the cast, as one of Ayres’s henchmen, only made the boyishly innocent Ayres look more incongruous.) He made over 20 films, mostly routine fare that slowly eroded his reputation, over the next few years, and in 1936 tried directing with Hearts in Bondage, which was not a success. Now starring in B-movies, he told a reporter, “Hollywood, quick to acclaim, soon washed its hands of me – and the snubs you get sliding down aren’t nearly as pleasant as the smiles going up.”

He was given his first good role in years when George Cukor offered him the part of Katharine Hepburn’s brother in Holiday (1938), a beautiful screen adaptation of Philip Barry’s play and one of the finest of Thirties comedy-dramas. Ayres, who confessed to having “coasted” through many of his previous roles, made his role as a young alcoholic socialite wistfully endearing, though the film belonged to its stars Hepburn and Cary Grant.

The same year MGM cast Ayres in the title-role of a B- picture, Young Doctor Kildare, as an intern working under the guidance and watchful eye of elderly Dr Gillespie (Lionel Barrymore). A great hit, the film started a series, and Ayres was working on his 10th when he was drafted to serve in the Second World War and he refused combat duty on religious grounds.

His career seemed over. Louis B. Mayer fired him and re-shot his scenes with Philip Dorn. Exhibitors refused to book films in which he appeared, pickets appeared outside cinemas that tried to show the Kildare films, and Variety called him “a disgrace to the industry”.

After working in a labour camp, Ayres volunteered for non-combatant duties and served on the battlefront as a medic and chaplain’s aide. Though he had decided to retire from movies, he changed his mind while overseas. “I realised how important movies are to the lives of so many people,” he said.

Restored to favour, he starred opposite Olivia De Havilland in Robert Siodmak’s The Dark Mirror (1946), but later confessed dissatisfaction with his work. “As a psychiatrist investigating twin sisters, one of whom is a murderer, I played it too lightly. My character should have struggled and sweated more. I did too much smiling.”

In Vincent Sherman’s The Unfaithful (1947), a splendid melodrama that effectively reworked Maugham’s The Letter to deal with the subject of wartime infidelity, he was a lawyer who defends Ann Sheridan on a charge of murder and also tries to salvage her marriage to a returning soldier, Zachary Scott.

His next film, Johnny Belinda (1948), won him a Best Actor Oscar nomination for his sincere portrayal of a doctor who teaches a deaf and dumb Jane Wyman how to communicate, though Ayres was not happy with Jean Negulesco as director. “He was artistic and very extroverted, but none of us felt he was on target with the characterisations, so the actors became their own directors. Jane, Charles Bickford, Agnes Moorehead and myself respected each other’s opinions, so after Jane and I did a scene we’d look at Charles and Agnes. If they nodded, we would proceed: if they shook their heads, we’d do the scene again.”

With roles once again becoming scarce, he embarked on a world tour in 1954 to compile a documentary, Altars of the East, which he wrote, produced, narrated and financed. A probing of the frontiers of faith, it started a decade’s study of comparative religion (“the most meaningful thing I have ever done”) and production of several documentaries on the world’s religions. In 1957 he was appointed by the Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, to serve a three-year term on the US National Committee for Unesco.

Returning to acting as a character player, he was a frequent performer in television plays and movies, plus occasional big-screen roles, among them Advise and Consent (1962), Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973) and Damien – Omen II (1978). “I still act occasionally,” he said recently, “but I’m in my eighties and have never had my face lifted, so there aren’t a lot of roles.”

Two early marriages were unsuccessful – to Lola Lane (1931-33) and Ginger Rogers (1933-40) – but in 1964 he married an Englishwoman, Diana Hall, and the day before his 60th birthday she gave birth to their son, Justin.

“If I were young again,” Ayres said, “I don’t think I’d be an actor. I’ve met some wonderful people, and it made many things possible for me, but if I had it all to do over again, my field would be philosophy.”

Lewis Frederick Ayre (Lew Ayres), actor: born Minneapolis, Minnesota 28 December 1908; married 1931 Lola Lane (marriage dissolved 1933), 1933 Ginger Rogers (marriage dissolved 1940), 1964 Diana Hall (one son); died Los Angeles 30 December 1996.

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

TCM overview:

This earnest, boyishly handsome star of the pacifist classic “All Quiet on the Western Front” (1930) was extremely prolific during the 1930s, at first primarily at Universal Studios, and then also at Fox and Paramount. Although a very talented and sensitive actor, Ayres found his early stardom fade during the decade as he was cast in either trivial light comedies which suited his gentle manner or in films which called for tough, streetwise characterizations which didn’t always suit him. He gave an excellent performance, though, as Katharine Hepburn’s drunken brother in George Cukor’s “Holiday” (1938) and enjoyed considerable popularity in a series of Dr. Kildare films at MGM in the late 30s and early 40s. His career faded during WWII after he declared himself a conscientious objector, but he received renewed respect when he served bravely in a non-combat medical capacity.

After the war Ayres was able to resume his career–and his sometimes typecasting as doctors–in such films as “The Dark Mirror” (1946) and “Johnny Belinda” (1948), for which he received a Best Actor Oscar nomination, though he did little acting in film after the mid-50s. He did, however, do notable work as the vice president in “Advise and Consent” (1962) and as a sympathetic resident of the vampire-ridden TV-miniseries town of “Salem’s Lot” (1979). A student of comparative theology, Ayres later produced the religious documentaries “Altars of the East” (1955) and “Altars of the World” (1976), also serving as director of the latter.

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

Anthony Zerbe was born in 1936 in Long Beach, California. A popular character actor, he frst came to attention in 1969 in “The Molly McGuires” with Sean Connery and Richard Harris. He has made many movies including “The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean” and “The Laughing Policeman”.

TCM overview:

For over four decades, Emmy-winning actor Anthony Zerbe compiled an impressive list of character turns, frequently on the amoral side, in countless features, including “Cool Hand Luke” (1967), “The Omega Man” (1971), “The Dead Zone” (1983), “License to Kill” (1989) and “The Matrix Revolutions” (2003). Classically trained, he imbued a sinuous grace and elegance to nearly every role, no matter how scurrilous or ham-fisted, which elevated him to favored actor status in the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s. Though a frequent go-to for heels and unsavory types, he could also be a warm and caring paternal figure, as evidenced by his veteran cowpoke on “The Young Riders” (ABC, 1988-1992) and numerous other television programs. Rarely off the screen for more than a few months at a time, Zerbe also maintained a busy theater schedule, which included recitations of classic poetry and the works of e.e. cummings, as well as a traveling master class in acting. His innate believability in any role, no matter how fatuous the feature or TV episode, earned him the affection of two generations of character actor aficionados.

Born Anthony Jared Zerbe in Long Beach, CA on May 20, 1936, he was the son of Arthur Lee Van Zerbe and his wife, Catherine. After graduating from Newport Harbor High School, he attended his parents’ alma mater, Pomona College, before serving in the Air Force from 1958 to 1961. Zerbe decided to become an actor after seeing Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward in the Broadway production of “Picnic,” and after his discharge from the service, headed east to study with the famed Stella Adler. In 1963, Zerbe made his screen debut during the final season of ABC’s police drama “The Naked City” (1958-1963), and soon found regular work as a guest star on various television series. He made his screen debut as the sycophantic prison trustee named Dog Boy in Stuart Rosenberg’s “Cool Hand Luke” (1967), and followed it by playing a friend of aging cowpoke Charlton Heston in Tom Gries’ revisionist Western “Will Penny” (1967). Zerbe’s ability to play both sides of the moral fence with conviction earmarked him as a character actor with exceptional versatility, though in the ensuing years, his saturnine features and uneasy smile, which frequently curled into a half-snarl, earmarked him as a prime candidate for villains of all stripes.

The 1970s was an exceptionally fecund period for Zerbe’s career, with literally dozens of film and television credits to his name throughout the decade. He landed one of his most memorable turns as the news anchor-turned-leader of an albino cult of apocalypse survivors in the cult science fiction favorite “The Omega Man” (1971), which reunited him with Charlton Heston. He later provided one of the most indelible moments in Franklin Schaffner’s “Papillon” (1973) as Toussaint, the leper bandit chief who aided Steve McQueen in his escape from Devil’s Island, and provided capable support and menace to such established stars as Paul Newman, whom he assaulted in John Huston’s “The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean” (1972); Walter Matthau and Bruce Dern in “The Laughing Policeman” (1973); Warren Beatty in Alan J. Pakula’s “The Parallax View” (1974); John Wayne, who pursued Zerbe’s nitroglycerine-toting bandit in “Rooster Cogburn” (1975); and Robert Mitchum as Philip Marlowe in “Farewell, My Lovely” (1975). A year later, he won an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for “Harry O” (ABC, 1974-76) as Lt. K.C. Trench, foil and occasional ally to laconic private eye David Janssen.

The late 1970s and early 1980s saw Zerbe appear more frequently on television in major TV-movies and miniseries like “Centennial” (NBC, 1978-79) as con man-turned-land baron Mervin Wendell, and “Attica” (ABC, 1980) as defense attorney William Kunstler. The period was also marked by one of Zerbe’s more unusual titles: “KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park” (NBC, 1978), a campy fantasy produced by cartoon kings Hanna-Barbera that pitted the rock band against Zerbe’s deranged amusement park engineer. More miniseries followed, with Zerbe tackling such figures as Pontius Pilate in “A.D.” (NBC, 1985) and Ulysses S. Grant in “North and South, Book II” (ABC, 1986). Memorable features were fewer and far between, with the exception of David Cronenberg’s “The Dead Zone” (1983), with Zerbe as a wealthy patron of deranged Senate candidate Martin Sheen, as well as the James Bond feature “License to Kill” (1989) in which he portrayed a drug lord’s henchman who meets an unpleasant fate in a decompression chamber.

In 1989, Zerbe earned a plum role as the crusty leader of a group of youthful Pony Express riders on the weekly Western series “Young Riders.” Though critically reviled, the series was a particular favorite among teen audiences. From there, he maintained a steady diet of TV appearances and the occasional feature, most notably “Star Trek: Insurrection” (1998) as an imperialistic Starfleet admiral bent on relocating an alien race from their home planet, and as the governor of California in Clint Eastwood’s “True Crime” (1999). In 2003, a production of “Behind the Broken Words,” his long-running stage tribute to classic poetry alongside fellow character actor Roscoe Lee Browne, was captured on film.

That same year, Zerbe enjoyed a recurring role as the philosophical Councilor Hamann in the second and third films in the “Matrix” trilogy, “The Matrix Reloaded” (2003) and “The Matrix Revolutions” (2003). His onscreen output slowed in the years that followed as he refocused his energy on a pair of touring stage productions: “It’s All Done with Mirrors,” which saw him tackle the poetry of e.e. cummings, and “Three Days of Theatre,” an intensive workshop and lecture for master class actors in training. Both received exceptional acclaim during his frequent jaunts across the country to various colleges and theater companies

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

Woody Strode was born in 1914 in Los Angeles. He wasan outstanding athlete before his entry into movies. He is best known for his performance opposite Kirk Douglas in “Spartacus” and in the title role in 1960 in John Ford’s “Sgt Rutledge”. His other films include “City Beneath the Sea” in 1953, “The Sins of Rachel Cade”, “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence” and “The Deserter”. He died in 1994.

David Shipman’s obituary in “The Independent”:

Woody Strode was tall of build, bald of pate, with a striking screen presence; had he been born white or later he might have became a star. Sidney Poitier became the first black actor to achieve screen stardom, while Strode was playing supporting roles. Poitier was comfortable, while there was a quality of menace about Strode – the legacy, perhaps, of his years as a professional wrestler

Strode was educated at UCLA before the Second World War and was one of the first blacks to play in integrated college football; he was also a star of the Canadian Football League. In 1941 the producer Walter Wanger gave him a walk-on in one of Hollywood’s then frequent tributes to the British Empire, Sundown, but he did not film again for another decade.

He took up wrestling after war service and was noticed by Walter Mirisch, then producing his Bomba the Jungle Boy series, cut-price adventure junkets starring Johnny Sheffield, who had played the son of Tarzan, Johnny Weissmuller. Mirisch invited Strode to appear in The Lion Hunters (1951). Strode continued his wrestling career taking occasional small parts in movies, as in DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (1956), in which he was a slave, and Tarzan’s Fight for Life (1958), MGM’s unenthusiastic attempt atreviving the old series, with Gordon Scott replacing Weissmuller.

By this time Strode was getting regular movie offers and became a full-time actor. John Ford chose him the title-role in Sergeant Rutledge (1960), about a court martial during for the Civil War. The charges – of the rape and murder of a white woman – were obviously trumped up, for no screen hero ever looked as noble, or behaved so selflessly or bravely. No one till late in the plot mentions the colour of his skin – all of which suggests that Ford was trying to appear liberal at a time when the civil rights of blacks needed less simplistic solutions. Ford said later that the good sergeant “was the first time we had ever shown the Negro as a hero”, doing himself no credit by overlooking the fact that Poitier and Harry Belafonte had been doing so for several years.

But to his credit Ford used Strode again (if not in leading roles), in three more films, including his last, Seven Women (1966), rather strangely described by Ford as “a hell of a good picture” – a description more apt for either Spartacus (1960), directed by Stanley Kubrick, or Richard Brooks’s The Professionals (1966). Besides Sergeant Rutledge they also gave Strode his best American screen roles; in the former as the Nubian gladiatorial opponent who saves the life of Spartacus (Kirk Douglas), and in

the second as a mercenary hired by a millionaire (Ralph Bellamy) to recover his kidnapped wife.

Strode co-starred with another Tarzan, Jock Mahoney, in Tarzan’s Three Challenges (1963). But too often he was required merely to lend his formidable presence to potboilers. As good Hollywood offers grew fewer he began accepting some from Europe, for ex a mple the gunman killed before the credits in Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in the West (1969). He also worked regularly in television. Unseen in Britain is Seduta alla sua Destra (1968), in which he had the star role as an African leader modelled on Pa trice Lumumba. He had recently completed filming in The Quick and the Dead, a western starring Sharon Stone.

David Shipman

Woodrow Strode, actor: born Los Angeles 25 July 1914; died Glendora, California 31 December 1994.

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

TCM overview:

Black actor and former pro football player and wrestler who made his film debut in the early 1940s. 6’4″ tall and weighing in at 210 pounds, Strode lent his imposing presence to a number of mostly peripheral roles, such as Kirk Douglas’ sparring partner in “Spartacus” (1960), though he got a chance to flex his underused acting muscles as a soldier wrongly accused of rape in John Ford’s “Sergeant Rutledge” (1960).

Article on Woody Strode in “Tina Aumont’s Eyes” website:

6’4” athlete turned actor Woody Strode, brought his muscular, powerful presence to everything from big budget Hollywood productions to cheap, lesser-known exploitation fare. He was also notable as being the first African-American to play a heroic lead in a big-scale Hollywood western.

Born in California on July 25, 1914, Woody’s screen career began with minor parts in the Gene Tierney western ‘Sundown’ (’41) and the romantic comedy ‘No Time for Love’ (’43). After playing the lion in the Jean Simmons picture ‘Androcles and the Lion’ (’52), he was the king of Ethiopia in Cecil B. DeMille’s ‘The Ten Commandments’ (’56), and then a cowardly private in the Gregory Peck war drama ‘Pork Chop Hill’ (’59). Strode’s big break would come though, through his association with legendary director John Ford.

Strode had begun his association with Ford back in 1939, with an uncredited role in his classic western ‘Stagecoach’. They reunited 20 years later when he played the title role in Ford’s rather neglected 1960 western ‘Sergeant Rutledge’, as a black Cavalry officer unfairly tried for the rape and murder of a white women and her father. Giving a strong dignified performance, it remains one of Strode’s best loved roles. He was also memorable that year in the role of Draba, a towering gladiator defeating Kirk Douglas, in ‘Spartacus’. After playing an Indian in John Ford’s ‘Two Rode Together’ (’61), Woody was John Wayne’s servant in Ford’s ‘The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance’ (’62). There was tension on set between Strode and Wayne, and the two nearly came to blows, forcing Ford to keep them apart for a few days. It was said that Wayne was jealous of Woody’s football achievements and military career, as Wayne had not served in WWII, even though he wished to and would feel guilty about this the rest of his life. The final film Woody made with Ford was the 1966 missionary drama ‘7 Women’, starring Anne Bancroft and Sue Lyon.

I loved Woody’s strong turn as Jake the longbow expert, in Richard Brooks’ superb all-star adventure ‘The Professionals’ (’66), and it remains one of his best roles. He followed that up with a cameo in Sergio Leone’s ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’ (’68), playing Stony, one of Henry Fonda’s heavies. Another western came in 1972 with ‘The Revengers’, a pretty dire effort with a great cast; William Holden, Ernest Borgnine and, in her final film, Susan Hayward. By now Woody was living in Rome, and had already begun appearing in Italian exploitation actioners, earning far more than he did in the US. He made a couple of pictures with Fernando Di Leo; ‘Manhunt in Milan’ (’72), as a hit man, and ‘Loaded Guns’ (’75), with an often naked Ursula Andress. After playing an alcoholic rancher in Enzo G. Castellari’s cult western ‘Keoma’ (’76), Strode supported William Shatner in the enjoyable sci-fi horror ‘Kingdom of the Spiders’ (’77), playing another rancher whose prize calf is killed by a mysterious spider venom. Now aged 65, and still in great shape, Strode had some decent fight scenes in ‘Jaguar Lives!’ (’79), a mediocre actioner with a cast of ex-Bond villains; Christopher Lee, Donald Pleasance and Joseph Wiseman.

Back on the grimy exploitation scene, Woody appeared in William Lustig’s gritty revenge flick ‘Vigilante’ (’83), and then chewed the scenery as an ex-lawman and mentor, in ‘The Final Executioner’ (’84), one of the poorer Italian post-apocalyptic drama’s. After playing a sleaze-ball in the Sybil Danning kidnap drama ‘Jungle Warriors’ (’84), Woody was thankfully back in an A-list production, Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘The Cotton Club’ (’84), though it was only a small role as the club’s doorman. A good minor role came in 1987 when he played Yank, a WWII veteran, in Volker Schlöndorff’s wonderful television movie ‘A Gathering of Old Men’, starring Holly Hunter and Richard Widmark.

Back in western territory, Strode’s’ final two movies were ‘Posse’ (’93), as the narrator, and Sam Raimi’s ‘The Quick and the Dead’ (’95), starring Sharon Stone, although it was not released until after his death.

Twice married, Woody died from lung cancer on New Years Eve 1994, aged 80. A quiet- spoken and gentle giant, Woody Strode was an optimistic and honest man who certainly lived life to the full, refusing to give in to old age. Whether playing the quiet hero or murderous mob boss, he remains a role model and cult figure in not only the US but across the globe.

Favourite Film: The Professionals
Favourite Performance: The Professionals

The above article can also be accessed online here.

James Gregory was born in 1911 in The Bronx, New York. He is best known for his performance as Angela Lansbury’s husband in the chilling “The Manchurian Candidate” in 1962. A popular character actor, his other movies include “The AScarlet Hour” and “P.T. 109”. He died in 2002 at the age of 90.

“The Telegraph” obituary:

ames Gregory , the actor who has died aged 90, was one of those performers whose face was recognised by many, even if his name was known to only a few.

His best-known role was probably as the Right-wing Senator Iselin in John Frankenheimer’s The Manchurian Candidate (1962), about a brainwashed Korean War hero, but in a career spanning more than half a century Gregory appeared in some 35 films and 200 television series.

He was cast in television dramas such as Gunsmoke, Bonanza, Wagon Train, and Rawhide. If an American cop was required on the television screen, the chances were that he would be embodied by James Gregory. He had roles in Columbo, McCloud, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and Hawaii Five-O.

From 1959 to 1961 he was Barney Ruditsky in The Lawless Years, a series based on the exploits of a real detective in New York City in the 1920s. He also played Inspector Frank Luger from 1975 to 1982 in Barney Miller, about a Jewish policeman portrayed by Hal Linden.

James Gregory was born in the Bronx on December 23 1911, and grew up in the New York suburb of La Rochelle. In his youth he demonstrated a talent for both acting and golf, and he might have opted for a career in either. But his first proper employment, after a series of jobs as golf caddy, waiter and clerk, was on Wall Street, where he worked as a runner after the crash of 1929; within five years he had been promoted to the post of private secretary to a stockbroker.

But Gregory simultaneously acted with local drama groups, and by the late 1930s he was acting professionally, performing with a travelling company in plays up and down the east coast of America. Then, in 1939, he made his debut on Broadway in a production of Key Largo.

During the Second World War Gregory served in the US Navy and Marine Corps in the Pacific, before returning to the stage; he appeared in a further 25 Broadway productions, including Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, in which he played Biff. In the early 1950s Gregory moved into live television – it is said that at one stage he appeared in five different dramas over a period of only 10 days.

Apart from The Manchurian Candidate, his films included The Young Stranger (1957); Al Capone (1959); The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), in which Gregory played a murderer who kills the witnesses to his crimes; Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1969); and Shootout (1971).

James Gregory died on September 16. He is survived by his wife, Anne Gregory.

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

Jo Van Fleet was born in Oaklands, California in 1914. She had a successful career on Broadway and won an Oscar in 1955 for her performance as James Dean’s mother in “East of Eden”. Her other movies include “Wild River” with Montgomery Clift and “Cool Hand Luke” in 1967 with Paul Newman. She died in 1996.

Tom Vallance’s “Independent” obituary:

Jo Van Fleet was a powerful actress, described by Elia Kazan as “full of unconstrained violence”, who frequently played roles older than herself. She won an Oscar for her first film role, as James Dean’s mother in East of Eden (1955). On both stage and screen she created a gallery of stoic, fiercely dominant women, many of them proud or manipulative mothers.

Born in 1919 in Oakland, California, she was educated at the College of the Pacific in Stockton. Encouraged to go to New York to pursue an acting career, she won a scholarship to study at the Neighbourhood Playhouse under Sanford Meisner. She made her Broadway debut as Dorcas in A Winter’s Tale (1946) and played Regan to Louis Calhern’s King Lear in 1950. Elia Kazan, whom she later credited as a major influence on her life, first directed her in Flight into Egypt (1952), but it was her role as Camille in Tennessee Williams’s controversial Camino Real (1953), also directed by Kazan, that established her.

Kazan brought her to Hollywood for East of Eden, and her success led to other films – The Rose Tattoo (1955), I’ll Cry Tomorrow (1955), as an arche- typal stage mother pushing daughter Lillian Roth (Susan Hayward) to stardom, The King and Four Queens (1956) with Clark Gable, and as Doc Holliday’s girlfriend Kate in Gunfight at the OK Corral (1957). Holliday was played by Kirk Douglas, who later recounted his amazement at Van Fleet’s method approach: “In one scene I had to beat up my hooker girlfriend – Jo wanted to be pumped up and asked me to slap her before we did the scene. We did it over and over and every time she asked me to hit her, and hit her harder.”

Returning to Broadway, she won both the Tony and Donaldson awards for her irritable Jessie Mae Watts in A Trip to Bountiful (1957), and the following year won the New York Drama Critics Award for Look Homeward, Angel, in which she played the acquisitive mother of Tony Perkins, who later described the scene-stealing battles in the play. “The worst duel I figured in was between Jo Van Fleet and Hugh Griffith . . . it was always hair-tearing time between them. Hugh would clutch his heart and say, `Do you know what that **** did to me today?’ Her knuckles would turn white when she’d say the same thing about him.”

She returned to the screen to star with Montgomery Clift and Lee Remick in Kazan’s Wild River (1960) as the obdurate 89-year-old matriarch who refuses to leave her farm in a valley about to be flooded by the Tennessee Valley Authority in 1935. Only 41, Van Fleet would spend five hours every morning getting into her make-up and applying wrinkles, insisting that the liver spots were put on her hands even for long shots where they would not be seen. The final wordless scene, in which she sits on the porch of the small townhouse she has been given, her bundled possessions still in her lap, her spirit and will to live gone, was profoundly moving. A commercial failure given limited distribution, the film was later described by Truffaut as “the accomplished work of mature artists”.

Though she continued to act in theatre, films and television (including episodes of Bonanza and – as a nagging wife who becomes a murder victim – in Alfred Hitchcock Presents), Van Fleet’s career did not progress as rewardingly as she hoped. Kazan said: “Jo stagnated, and, since she knew it, was bitter. And as she became bitter, she become more difficult.”

When Bette Davis turned down the role of Paul Newman’s mother in Cool Hand Luke (1967) because it was too small, Van Fleet took the role. In the 1970s she worked a lot in regional theatre. She played mothers again in two television movies, The Family Rico (1972, mother to Ben Gazarra) and Power (1980), a thinly disguised biography of Jimmy Hoffa in which she was mother to Jo Don Baker’s dock-worker turned labour leader. Her last film was Seize the Day (1986), based on Saul Bellow’s novella, in which she was one of several notable actors playing small guest roles in support of Robin Williams.

Widowed in 1990 (her husband was the dancer-choreographer William Bales), Van Fleet lived on New York’s West Side, where she became known for her unconventional behaviour. Legend has it that when asked by the check-out assistant in the local supermarket for some form of identification, she unzipped her handbag and pulled out her Oscar.

Tom Vallance

Jo Van Fleet, actress: born Oakland, California 30 December 1919; married William Bales (died 1990; one son); died 10 June 1996.

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

Original Cinema 1-Sheet Poster – Movie Film Posters

TCM overview:

An attractive brunette with angular features, Lee Grant began her career as a child performer with NYC’s Metropolitan Opera. By age 11, she had become a member of the American Ballet Theatre. After music studies at Juilliard, she won a scholarship to attend the Neighborhood Playhouse and switched her focus to acting. Grant understudied the role of Ado Annie in a touring production of “Oklahoma!” before landing her breakthrough stage role as a young shoplifter in Sidney Kingsley’s “Detective Story” in 1949. Hollywood soon beckoned and she recreated the role in William Wyler’s 1951 superb film version. Grant won the Cannes Film Festival Best Actress prize and earned a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for the role. Seemingly on the verge of a brilliant career, the actress found herself the victim of the blacklist when her husband, playwright Arnold Manoff was named before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Grant herself refused to testify and the film offers over the next decade were sporadic.

Returning to Manhattan, Grant found work in TV (e.g., the daytime soap “Search for Tomorrow”) and on stage (i.e., “A Hole in the Head” 1957; “Two for the Seesaw” 1959). After earning an OBIE Award for her work in Genet’s “The Maids” in 1963, her small screen career began to pick up. In 1965, Grant joined the cast of the primetime soap “Peyton Place” as Stella Chernak and picked up an Emmy for her work. She earned a second statuette for her performance as a runaway wife and mother who ends up at a truck stop in California in “The Neon Ceiling” (NBC, 1971).

By the time she had earned her second Emmy, Grant’s feature career had been rejuvenated with her stellar work as the widow of a murder victim in Norman Jewison’s Oscar-winning “In the Heat of the Night” (1967). That same year, she essayed a neurotic in the campy “Valley of the Dolls”. In “The Landlord” (1970), she was the society matron mother of Beau Bridges and her comic portrayal earned her a second Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actress. Grant then played the mother of all Jewish mothers, Sophie Portnoy, in Ernest Lehman’s film version of Philip Roth’s novel “Portnoy’s Complaint” (1972). Hal Ashby’s “Shampoo” (1975) finally brought her a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award as a Beverly Hills matron having an affair with her hairdresser. The following year, Grant received a fourth nomination for her deeply moving portrayal of a Jewish refugee in “Voyage of the Damned”.

Her subsequent screen roles have been of varying quality, although Grant always brings a professionalism and degree of excellence to even the smallest role. After striking out as a sitcom lead in the underrated “Fay” (NBC, 1975), she delivered a fine portrayal of First Lady Grace Coolidge in “Backstairs at the White House” (NBC, 1979), was the domineering mother of actress Frances Farmer in “Will There Really Be a Morning?” (CBS, 1983) and excelled as Dora Cohn, mother of “Roy Cohn” (HBO, 1992). On the big screen, Grant lent her substantial abilities to “Teachers” (1984) as a hard-nosed school superintendent, “Defending Your Life” (1991), as an elegant prosecutor sparring with adversary Rip Torn, and “It’s My Party” (1996), as the mother of man suffering from complications from AIDS.

While Grant has continued to act in features and on TV, she has concentrated more on her directing career since the 80s. After studying at the American Film Institute, she made the short “The Stronger” (1976) which eventually aired on Arts & Entertainment’s “Shortstories” in 1988. Grant made her feature debut with “Tell Me a Riddle” (1980), an earnest, well-acted story of an elderly couple facing death. She has excelled in the documentary format, beginning with “The Wilmar 8” (1981), about strike by female bank employees in the Midwest. (Grant later directed a fictionalized account entitled “A Matter of Sex” for NBC in 1984). She steered Marlo Thomas to an Emmy in the fact-based “Nobody’s Child” (CBS, 1986) and earned praise for helming “No Place Like Home” (CBS, 1989), a stark look at the effects of unemployment. A number of her documentaries have been screen as part of HBO’s “America Undercover” series, including the Oscar-winning “Down and Out in America” (1985), about the unemployed, “What Sex Am I?” (1985), about transsexuals and transvestites, “Battered” (1989), about victims of domestic violence, and “Women on Trial” (1992), about mothers who turn to the courts to protect their children. In 1997, she produced, directed and hosted the well-received “Say It, Fight It, Cure It” (Lifetime) which focused on breast cancer survivors and their families.

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

TCM overview:

Although she was a stage-trained actress with an impressive theatrical résumé, audiences embraced Calista Flockhart as charming, vulnerable lawyer “Ally McBeal” (FOX, 1997-2002). She and her character became cultural touchstones, both loved and despised for many reasons: her revealing clothing, her rail-thin physique, her self-absorption, her fitness as feminist poster girl, etc. The Golden Globe-winning actress focused more on the work than on celebrity, earning good reviews in “William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (1999) and “Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her” (2001) as well as more well regarded stage work. After adopting a son, she resurfaced as the Republican daughter of Sally Field on the hit drama “Brothers & Sisters” (ABC, 2006- ) and made headlines by marrying movie star Harrison Ford. A quiet success, Flockhart seemed less interested in Hollywood ambition than in enjoying her work and her real life.

Born Nov. 11, 1964 in Freeport, IL to Kay, an English teacher, and Ronald Flockhart, an executive for Kraft Foods, Calista Kay Flockhart and her family moved often for her father’s job. She ended up residing in Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, New York and New Jersey. After high school, she attended the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University in New Jersey, determined to become an actress. After graduation, she balanced work in regional theater with Manhattan stage performances and the occasional TV or film role. She acted in several off-Broadway plays – including “All for One,” “Sophistry,” “Wrong Turn at Lungfish” – before triumphing on Broadway in the role of Laura opposite Julie Harris in a 1994 revival of “The Glass Menagerie.” Her feature debut was in the tiny part of a college student in Robert Redford’s “Quiz Show” (1994). While appearing to great praise in the stage production of “The Loop,” she came to the attention of Mike Nichols, who gave the actress her breakthrough screen role as a conservative politician’s (Gene Hackman) daughter engaged to the son of two gay men (Robin Williams and Nathan Lane) in the hit comedy “The Birdcage” (1996), a loose remake of “La cage aux Folles” (1978).

Although she already had several TV credits – including the title role in “The Secret Life of Mary-Margaret: Portrait of a Bulimic” (HBO, 1992) – it was the David E. Kelley-created “Ally McBeal” (FOX, 1997-2002) which vaulted her to stardom. As a fantasy-prone Boston lawyer coping with being a single working woman, Flockhart delivered a performance balanced between comedy and pathos: either you loved Ally or hated her; either you found her an example of a modern woman or a frustratingly regressive caricature. Every detail about the character – from her ultra-short skirts to her self-obsession to her constant search for Mr. Right – was scrutinized in the media and around watercoolers; even an image of her character appeared on the cover of Time magazine as part of the think piece, “Is Feminism Dead?” That was also a position in which the actress found herself with constant speculation over her love life and, more controversially, her weight. Impossibly slender, the actress denied reports that she had an eating disorder or a drug problem, but that did little to quell rumors. She became, in fact, the poster child of “lollipop head” actresses who may or may not have had eating disorders. Half the cast of “McBeal” was accused of the same the same disorder and berated for their affect on young girls’ idea of beauty (Years later, Flockhart would admit that she had over-exercised and under-eaten during this period.) Despite the controversies, for her role as McBeal, the actress earned three Emmy nominations, a Golden Globe and a People’s Choice Award among other honors.

Capitalizing on Flockhart’s newfound fame, earlier projects that had been languishing in distributor limbo began turning up on screens, notably “Jane Doe” (filmed in 1996; screened at festivals in 1999) where she played a charismatic drug addict who falls for a shy writer. On the more mainstream front, Flockhart impressed as the headstrong Helena in Michael Hoffman’s screen adaptation of “William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (1999) opposite David E. Kelley’s wife, Michelle Pfeiffer. She returned to her theatrical roots in the summer of 1999, headlining two-thirds of an evening of typically controversial one-acts written by filmmaker Neil LaBute that were collectively titled “Bash: Latter-Day Plays.” She earned raves for her two characterizations – one an intense portrayal of a woman recounting an affair with a teacher and its tragic aftermath; the other as a Mormon woman visiting NYC with her boyfriend – and her mere presence guaranteed that the limited off-Broadway production sold out.

Flockhart hosted an episode of “Saturday Night Live” (NBC, 1975- ) and appeared elsewhere in the David E. Kelley universe as McBeal on “The Practice” (ABC, 1997-2004). She took a dramatic turn in her next feature, “Things You Can Tell Just by Looking at Her” (2001), playing a remarkably accurate tarot card reader who nurses her cancer-ridden lover (Valeria Golino) while finding solace in recounting the memories of their relationship. Off-screen, the actress made headlines by adopting a son, Liam, as a single mom in 2001, and onscreen, Robert Downey, Jr. was added to the cast of “Ally McBeal” in the fourth season. His romance with Flockhart fueled a revival of both the ratings and Downey’s career. When the series ended, Flockhart joined Matthew Broderick, Alec Baldwin and Toni Collette to make the FBI-sting-operation comedy, “The Last Shot” (2004), which bombed. In her real life, Flockhart began dating mega-star, Harrison Ford, who had recently separated from his second wife, Melissa Mathison. In a typical “meet cute,” Flockhart accidentally spilled a drink on him at the Golden Globes due to her nervousness in meeting him. After that evening, the couple became inseparable.

Flockhart disappeared from cultural radars until her return to regular television work starring on the soapy drama, “Brothers & Sisters” (ABC, 2006- ), a family saga about five siblings who take over the family’s lucrative business after the sudden death of their father (Tom Skerritt). Flockhart played a New York-based, right-wing radio talk show host who returns to her Los Angeles origins to start a television talk show, but must deal with her troubled family – particularly her estranged mother (Sally Field) – while helping to run the business. Despite a wobbly start, the show became an Emmy-winning hit, and Flockhart displayed considerable adult dramatic chops, a welcome evolution from the flightiness of Ally McBeal. Off-camera, the quiet, over-seven-year-long relationship between Flockhart and movie star Harrison Ford became official with their June 15, 2010 wedding in New Mexico.

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

David Shipman’s 1992 “Independent” obituary:

Thelma Booth Ford (Shirley Booth), actress, born 30 August 1898, married 1929 Edward Gardner (marriage dissolved 1941), 1943 William Baker (died 1951), died Chatham Massachusetts 16 October 1992

SHIRLEY BOOTH was a magnificent actress with a broad range but she was still unknown in Britain when the film of Come Back Little Sheba appeared in 1953. She had been acting on Broadway since 1925 – and with some success when she played Mabel in Three Men on a Horse 10 years later. Among her later roles were the journalists in The Philadelphia Story (1939) and My Sister Eileen (1940) – played on screen respectively by Ruth Hussey and Rosalind Russell. Booth was a less glamorous version than either, but she was regarded as a sleek career-woman with a nifty line in wisecracks. She used her skill at these in a popular radio show, Duffy’s Tavern, which starred her then husband, Ed Gardner.

As Miss Duffy, she presented a homely image – and that was something she was obliged to take on again in Come Back Little Sheba, on Broadway in 1950. The author, William Inge, was sub- Tennessee-Williams, complete to the poetic titles, and this is certainly his best play. Lola, as played by Booth, shuffled about in a dressing-gown, forgetful and fantasising (about Sheba, the dog of the title), enjoying radio soap operas, spying on the young lovers in the parlour and hoping against hope that her husband has abandoned alcohol without understanding what drew him towards it in the first place – a woman blowsy, good-natured and shabby.

Sidney Blackmer played the dipsomaniac husband, but when the producer Hal Wallis decided to film the play he replaced him, as box-office insurance, with Burt Lancaster. Wallis turned down Bette Davis’s request to play the wife, and cast Booth over Paramount’s objections because, in his own words, ‘she was a great actress’. Britain’s best critic, Richard Winnington, wrote: ‘Miss Booth is a magnificent actress of patently wide range, who accomplishes the miracle of making Lola at once repulsive and beneath her load of pain, longing and stupidity, oddly beautiful.’

Among the other actresses nominated for an Oscar that year were Davis, Joan Crawford and Susan Hayward – whom we may regard as traditional Hollywood actresses when we see that the critic of the New York Herald Tribune wrote that Booth had ‘an acting style like the best modern French and Italian motion pictures’. Booth’s Oscar for Best Actress was an enormously popular one and the film was very successful.

In the meantime she had played Aunt Cissy (the role Joan Blondell took in the movie) in the musical version of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1951), with a couple of comic songs, including a hymn to her slob of a husband, ‘He Had Refinement’. Another musical, By the Beautiful Sea (1954), was written especially for her, and she glowed in it. After 30 years in the business she had become one of New York’s most beloved actresses.

Before that, she had had a stunning success in Arthur Laurents’s romantic comedy The Time of the Cuckoo (1952), as a spinster schoolteacher who has her first, and possibly last, affair with an eye-to-the-main-chance Lothario while on holiday in Venice. William Marchant also wrote Desk Set (1955) for Booth, but in both cases the screen versions were offered to Katharine Hepburn (The Time of the Cuckoo became Summer Madness or Summertime on film). Since Hepburn and Booth had been friends since they had appeared on Broadway in The Philadelphia Story, Hepburn asked whether she minded that she took over the roles – but not only did Booth not mind, she gave Hepburn some tips on how the roles should be played.

Wallis had been looking for a screen role for Booth, to follow her Oscar, and he came up with a Back Street-type story, About Mr Leslie, in which she was a night- club singer sharing the life of Robert Ryan for just a couple of weeks every year. It was not a success – which was why Wallis dropped his plan to film The Time of the Cuckoo. He tried twice more with Booth, in 1958. Hot Spell found her as Anthony Quinn’s put-upon wife, and despite too many echoes of other family dramas of the time – including those of Inge and Williams – it worked beautifully because of Booth’s warm performance. Her three films had been directed by Daniel Mann, but Wallis handed her over to Joseph Anthony when he produced Thornton Wilder’s comedy The Matchmaker. In the title-role Booth was much funnier than Ruth Gordon had been on the stage (both in London and New York), and she was probably better than the many stars who played the role when it was musicalised as Hello Dolly].

But once again the public was not very interested, and Paramount’s executives, who had not seen movie-star potential in Booth in the first place, did not encourage Wallis to continue with movie plans for her. She agreed with Paramount; Robert Ryan observed that she was ‘uncomfortable working in the movies. She is a very timid woman and walked part of the way to work before someone told her she could park her car on the Paramount lot. In fact, I told her.’

She turned down other movie roles, including A Pocketful of Miracles and Airport, but continued working on the stage until the Seventies, in, among other plays, Juno and the Paycock and Hay Fever. But she was happiest with a television sitcom, Hazel, based on the Saturday Evening Post cartoon about an obstreperous and none- too-efficient household maid. It began in 1961, and ran for several years, bringing Booth another clutch of awards. During her life it was assumed that Booth was born in 1905, but her family has announced that she was 94 years old at the time of her death.

For myself, I cherish her four screen appearances. I remember vividly her playing Amanda – the mother – in a television version of The Glass Menagerie in 1967. I’m told that she was miscast, but as far as I’m concerned it didn’t matter.

As the New York Post said when reviewing A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Shirley Booth was ‘one of the wonders of the American stage; a superb actress, a magnificent comedienne and all-round performer of seemingly endless variety.’

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

Collection of Classic Hollywood Actors

Madge Evans

Lew Ayres

Anthony Zerbe

Woody Strode

James Gregory

Jo Van Fleet

Lee Grant

Calista Flockhart

Shirley Booth

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