Hollywood Actors Archives - Page 41 of 126

Nanette Fabray

Nanette Fabray starred in one of the major MGM musicals, “The Band Wagon” in 1953 with Fred Astaire, Jack Buchanan and Cyd Charisse. She made her film debut in 1939 in “The Private Lives of Elizabeth & Essex” with Bette Davis and Errol Flynn. Her other movies include “The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima” in 1952 and “The Happy Ending” with Jean Simmons and Teresa Wright in 1969. She is the aunt of Shelley Faberes.

Gary Brumburgh’s entry:

A sparkling, entertaining, highly energetic presence ever since her early days (from age 4) as a singing and tap dancing child vaudevillian, Nanette Fabray (born Ruby Fabares in San Diego) was once billed as “Baby Nanette” and working with the top headliners of the era, notably Ben Turpin, in the Los Angeles area. She also sang on radio. It was widely rumored that she appeared in the “Our Gang” (“Little Rascal”) film shorts of the late 1920s; however, this was not true. Later the young hopeful received a scholarship to theMax Reinhardt School of the Theatre and appeared in the school’s productions of “The Miracle”, “Six Characters in Search of an Author” and “A Servant with Two Masters”, all in 1939.

The musical comedy stage, however, would be Nanette’s forte. Appearing in such hit New York productions as “Meet the People” (1940), “Let’s Face It” (1941), “By Jupiter” (1943) and “Bloomer Girl” (1945), she capped this period of great productivity earning awards for her Broadway work in “High Button Shoes” (1947 – Donaldson Award), and “Love Life” (1948 – Tony and Donaldson Awards).

Strangely, Nanette never obtained a strong foothold when it came to film. Aside from secondary roles in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939) starring Bette Davisand Errol Flynn, and the melodrama A Child Is Born (1939), her one claim to movie fame would be her vital participation in the blockbuster MGM musical The Band Wagon (1953) in which she memorably performed the songs “That’s Entertainment” and “Louisiana Hayride,” and joined Fred Astaire and Jack Buchanan in the standout “Triplets” number.

Into the 1950s, Nanette started checking out what TV could do as a possible medium for her. It did a lot. She managed a fine feat by winning two consecutive Emmy awards asSid Caesar‘s partner on the now-called Caesar’s Hour (1954) following the departure of the seemingly irreplaceable Imogene Coca earlier. This led to Nanette eventually starring in her own sitcom, the short-lived Westinghouse Playhouse (1961) (aka “Yes, Yes, Nanette”), in the role of a Broadway star who becomes a makeshift mom after marrying a widower (Wendell Corey) with two children.

Broadway musicals continued to flourish with perfs in “Arms and the Girl” (1950) and “Make a Wish” (1951). Nanette later copped another Tony nomination starring as a fictional “First Lady” opposition “President” Robert Ryan in the musical “Mr. President” (1962). Other tailor-made stage vehicles for her came in the form of “Plaza Suite”, “Wonderful Town”, “Never Too Late”, “Last of the Red Hot Lovers” and “Cactus Flower”, among others.

On the TV front, Nanette adjusted well into a lively and graceful support player. She served up a number of delightfully daffy moms, wisecracking friends and intrusive relatives in guest appearances — sometimes alongside her own niece, actress Shelley Fabares, as was in the case of their regular roles on One Day at a Time (1975). Nanette was also a popular game show personality during the 60s and 70s, appearing on The Hollywood Squares (1965), The New High Rollers (1974), Password All-Stars (1961) andThe Match Game (1962), among others. The singer-comedienne also could be counted on for TV musical variety appearances courtesy of headliners Dinah Shore, Andy Williams,Dean Martin and Carol Burnett.

Most importantly, Nanette’s humanitarian efforts over the years have been long recognized. A positive force as a hearing-impaired performer, she has given much time and effort in achieving equality for all types of handicapped and disabled people, including actors. Nanette is the widow (since 1973) of writer and sometime director/producer Ranald MacDougall, appearing in a few of his credited works, including the film Cockeyed Cowboys of Calico County (1970), the TV pilot Fame Is the Name of the Game (1966) and the TV-movie Magic Carpet (1972). She and MacDougall have one child. Still as lively as ever, Nanette appeared most recently in an L.A. musical revue entitled “The Damsel Dialogues” (2007).

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

One of the most popular TV show as “Happy Days” the story set in the U.S. in the 1950’s of young teenager Richie Cunningham’. However it was a subsidiary character ‘The Fonz’ that was the standout of the show, which ran from 1974 until 1984. He was played by Henry Winkler, who afterwards concentrated on writing and directing. He directed the Billy Crystal “Memories of Me” in 1988. He has acted recently on “Law & Order : SVU”.

TCM overview:

Impressively able to channel his 1970s star-making sitcom turn into one of the most varied and long-lasting Hollywood success stories of all time, Henry Winkler built an impressive career as an actor, producer and director in television and films. Immortalized in Americana as the good-hearted greaser “The Fonz” on “Happy Days” (ABC, 1974-1984), Winkler benefited from his career-long association and multiple collaborations with co-star Ron Howard. After “Happy Days,” he brilliantly diversified his Hollywood portfolio with success in acting (1982’s “Night Shift”), producing (“MacGyver” (ABC, 1985-1992)) and directing (the Billy Crystal starrer “Memories of Me” (1988)). The award-winning 1994 Weezer music video for the ultra-catchy “Buddy Holly” – which integrated the modern band into the “Happy Days” universe – introduced him to a new generation of fans, and he followed up with supporting roles in a string of successes aimed directly at them, including “Scream” (1996) and “The Waterboy” (1998). With multiple Emmy and Golden Globe awards under his belt, Winkler remained highly in demand both in front of and behind the camera, as well as one of America’s most beloved pop cultural figures.

Born Oct. 30, 1945 in Manhattan, Henry Franklin Winkler was the son of Ilse Anna Maria and Harry Irving Winkler, a Jewish couple who had emigrated to the United States before the outbreak of World War II. He graduated from Emerson College in 1967, earned an MFA from the Yale School of Drama in 1970, and broke into acting by landing several commercials and prominent TV guest spots. He debuted memorably in film with the role of Brooklyn gang member Butchey Weinstein alongside Sylvester Stallone in “The Lord’s of Flatbush” (1974), but lightning struck when Winkler was cast as greaser Arthur Herbert Fonzarelli – better known as Fonzie or The Fonz – on Garry Marshall’s retro sitcom “Happy Days” (ABC, 1974-1984). Originally slated to be a supporting character to the clean-cut antics of Ron Howard and his friends, Winkler’s cool tough guy with a heart of gold quickly stole the show. With his thumbs-up catchphrase of “Aaayyy!!” and Winkler’s winning characterization, The Fonz ruled the nation and became a cultural icon of enough resonance for his leather jacket to eventually hang in the Smithsonian.

With two Golden Globes Awards and three Emmy nominations under his belt, Winkler rode a tidal wave of success by reprising his beloved character in multiple related projects, including in episodes of “Laverne & Shirley” (ABC, 1976-1983), “Mork & Mindy” (ABC, 1978-1982) and “Joanie Loves Chachi” (ABC, 1982-83), but notably turned down the lead role of Danny Zuko in “Grease” (1978) to avoid being typecast. Winkler branched out, narrating the Oscar-winning documentary “Who Are the DeBolts? (And Where Did They Get 19 Kids?)” (ABC, 1977) and earning an Emmy nomination for executive producing the television version. Next up, Winkler starred alongside Harrison Ford and Sally Field in the dramedy road trip “Heroes” (1977), but fared better in the likable brothel-in-a-morgue comedy “Night Shift” (1982). Very much of its time, the good-natured flick earned Winkler a Golden Globe nomination, but was most notable for giving co-starring roles to a young Shelley Long and Michael Keaton, as well as giving Ron Howard one of his first directing jobs. More pragmatic about his opportunities than most would have been after “Happy Days” ended in 1984, Winkler moved behind the camera to form Winkler-Rich Productions, which would produce several successful TV shows, most notably “MacGyver” (ABC, 1985-1992). He took home a Daytime Emmy for producing the “All the Kids Do It” episode of “CBS Schoolbreak Special” (1980-1996) and earned a nomination for directing it.

Continuing to supplement his successful producing career by donning his director’s cap, Winkler lensed the Dolly Parton holiday fairy tale “A Smoky Mountain Christmas” (CBS/Fox, 1986) as well as the big screen Billy Crystal comedy “Memories of Me” (1988) and the Burt Reynolds kids’ caper “Cop and a Half” (1993). His behind-the-camera success gave Winkler the freedom to work in front of it whenever he chose, and he returned to TV by playing “Monty” (Fox, 1994), a conservative pundit in the vein of Rush Limbaugh. Although the show died a quick death, Winkler’s heyday as the ultimate American icon of cool enjoyed a retro rebirth when the band Weezer set their video for their 1994 hit “Buddy Holly” in an alternate-universe episode of “Happy Days.” Seamlessly weaving together old and new footage to create a performance that never was, the success of the video and song did much to re-establish Winkler’s credentials as a pop culture hero. Winkler capitalized by turning in a fun cameo as the ill-fated principal in Wes Craven’s horror smash “Scream” (1996) and earned big laughs as a sweet college football coach who takes a chance on Adam Sandler’s slow-witted Bobby Boucher in “The Waterboy” (1998). The massively successful comedy netted Winkler a Blockbuster Entertainment Award nomination and reinforced his ties to audiences of all ages.

Unlike many of his peers who tasted major success early in their careers, Winkler was able to transition gracefully from the epitome of 1970s cool to a respected figure in the irony-soaked, self-aware postmodern world of the late 1990s and beyond. He voiced a biker dude in an episode of “The Simpsons” (FOX, 1989- ) and cameoed as a bee-covered version of himself in Adam Sandler’s son-of-the-devil comedy “Little Nicky” (2000). That same year, Winkler took a larger role in the romantic comedy “Down to You” (2000) as Freddie Prinze, Jr.’s celebrity chef father. He earned another Emmy nomination for his recurring role on “The Practice” (ABC, 1997-2004) and continued to appeal to younger viewers by appearing as Shia LaBeouf’s father in the well-reviewed kids’ adventure “Holes” (2003), as well as recurring with a voice role on “Clifford’s Puppy Days” (PBS, 2003-06). He received a Daytime Emmy for his work on the latter and another nomination when his production company took over the popular reboot of “Hollywood Squares” (NBC, 1966-1980, 1983-84; syndicated, 1971-1981, 1986-89, 1998-2004). Winkler also appeared on-camera several times as a wisecracking panelist.

Although Winkler held a variety of advanced degrees, including two honorary PhDs, he revealed in 2003 that he had struggled with a learning disability his entire life. An undiagnosed dyslexic until the age of 31, Winkler described how difficult this disability had made parts of his life, leading the actor to co-write a successful string of children’s books about Hank Zipzer, a dyslexic fourth grader who nonetheless enjoys amazing adventures as “the world’s greatest underachiever.” Promoting his My Way! campaign to empower and assist children with learning disabilities, Winkler spoke often and eloquently about still bearing the scars of abuse from his parents and teachers who lacked the patience and understanding to fully empathize with his unique struggles. The actor was also indirectly responsible for a new pop culture catchphrase. Taken from the fifth-season opener of “Happy Days” when Fonzie – complete with leather jacket and water-skis – jumped over a shark to prove his bravery, the Internet-driven phrase “jump the shark” entered the popular lexicon as shorthand for the moment when a previously beloved production outlived its prime and crossed into obsolescence, usually with a desperate or absurd development. Continuing to prove he had no problem making fun of himself, Winkler again reunited with Ron Howard to recur on the critically adored but low-rated “Arrested Development” (Fox, 2003-06) as hapless attorney Barry Zuckerkorn, giving a wink to audiences when the character jumped over a dead shark on a pier.

The actor left “Arrested” to star in the family-of-doctors sitcom “Out of Practice” (CBS, 2005-06) but found big screen success as Adam Sandler’s father in the magical remote control comedy “Click” (2006). He made uncredited cameos in the long-shelved Michelle Pfeiffer vehicle “I Could Never Be Your Woman” (2007) and in Adam Sandler’s hit “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan” (2008). He played an inept judge in the kids’ movie “Merry Christmas, Drake & Josh” (Nickelodeon, 2008) and voiced a self-loathing German teacher on the blink-and-its-gone run of the “Arrested Development” team’s follow-up project, the animated teacher comedy “Sit Down Shut Up” (Fox, 2009). Winkler delighted many fans with a recurring role on the dark Robb Corddry series of shorts “Childrens Hospital” (TheWB.com, 2008; Adult Swim, 2010- ) which not only exemplified the strange and unexpected directions American comedy had taken in the years since “Happy Days,” but also Winkler’s ability to stay relevant and seek out buzzworthy projects. Perhaps one of the best indicators of his enduring success as an American icon came in 2008 when the city of Milwaukee immortalized him by unveiling a life-sized bronze statue of Winkler as Fonzie. Winkler continued to be in demand as an actor, recurring on “Royal Pains” (USA Network, 2009- ) as the absentee father of the Lawson brothers Hank (Mark Feuerstein) and Evan (Paulo Costanzo). He received what was arguably his most impressive award in early 2011 when Queen Elizabeth II honored him with an Order of the British Empire award for his work with British children with learning disabilities.

Winkler guest starred in a 2012 episode of his “Arrested Development” pal Will Arnett’s sitcom “Up All Night” (NBC, 2011- ) as the star-struck dad of Maya Rudolph’s talk show diva. There was also a supporting turn in the Kevin James-produced comedy, “Here Comes the Boom” (2012), in which a good-hearted teacher (James) attempts to save Winkler’s underfunded high school music program by entering mixed martial arts competitions. Winkler’s schedule remained busy when it was announced that “Arrested Development” (Netflix, 2013- ) would return for a fourth season to be aired on Netflix’s live-streaming application. With his recurring character of inept former Bluth family attorney Barry Zuckerkorn promoted to regular player, Winkler was slated to join original cast members Jason Bateman, Jessica Walter, Will Arnett and Jeffrey Tambor for what fans hoped would be a precursor to a feature adaptation of the acclaimed series.By Jonathan Riggs

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

The Quiet Gun, poster, US poster, bottom from left: Mara Corday (lying down), Lee Van Cleef, kathleen Crowley, Forrest Tucker, 1957. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)

For lovers of Hollywood B Horror Movies of the 1950’s, Mara Corday is a cult icon. She was often cast unbelievably as a scientist or a marine biologist in such movies as “Tarantula” and “The Black Scorpion”. She had been under contract with Universal Studios with Clint Eastwood in the early 1950’s and years later Eastwood cast Mara Corday in his movies “The Gauntlet”, “Sudden Impact” and “The Rookie” which is her last film to date.

IMDB entry:

The actress was born Marilyn Watts in Santa Monica, California, 17 years before she put her foot on the bottom step of the show biz ladder, dancing in the back row of the chorus in “Earl Carroll’s Revue” at the famed showman’s theater-restaurant in Hollywood. Modeling for photographers led to wider exposure and ultimately to TV roles and bit parts in low-budget movies. As a Universal-International contract player, she was in most every type of B picture that the studio made. She gave up acting in the early ’60s to concentrate on marriage and motherhood during 17 tumultuous years as the wife of actorRichard Long. Since his 1974 death, she’s played supporting parts in her friend Clint Eastwood‘s movies, just as he played a supporting role in one of hers (Tarantula (1955)).

– IMDb Mini Biography By: Tom Weaver <TomWeavr@aol.com>

Interview with Mike Fitzgerald in “Western Clippings:

Exotic and sexy describes Mara Corday! A talented actress from the ‘50s, she’s known for her numerous appearances in westerns as well as her many battles with Tarantulas, Black Scorpions and Giant Claws in sci-fi classics.

Mara was contracted by Universal-International in the early ‘50s. “Mamie Van Doren and I received the most fan mail at the time. It was because of our frequent pin-up sessions, I’m sure. Actually, Julie Adams had a great figure but it was often hidden in period costumes and ankle-length ‘50s dresses!”

In Mara’s first western, “Drums Across The River”, the leading man was Audie Murphy. “Audie was psychotic—insane! After killing all those people during the war, you’d have to be a little nuts! We were shooting on the backlot—it got to be suppertime and Audie asked me out for a little dinner. We got in his car, anxious to get that prime rib! It was turning dark and we were at a stoplight. There were kids in back of us and when the light changed, they honked because Audie didn’t start right away. The teenagers gave him the finger—and took off up the street. And right behind were Audie and me. He reached in his glove compartment—while rolling down his window. He got a gun and said, ‘I’m gonna get them!’ We followed along Ventura Boulevard—I said, ‘My God, I just signed a contract. I can’t die now!’ Audie said to me, ‘Oh, I scared you, didn’t I?’ I told Tony Curtis, ‘I’m terrified of him.’ Tony told me a story about Audie shooting up one of his sets one day! Audie was very quiet, soft-spoken and boyish—yet a flirt with the girls. But he had a short fuse, so you walked around on eggshells whenever he was near.”

Mara especially adored “Drums” co-star, Walter Brennan. “A sweet, professional man. One time, Lyle Bettger asked, ‘What is my motivation?’ Walter said, ‘Just say the damn line!’ Hugh O’Brian was very intense—didn’t kid around. He was about as serious as Jeff Morrow!”

“In ‘Man Without A Star,’ my option had just been picked up. Kirk Douglas has mellowed extremely since then. Early on in the film I played a whore—there were two scenes at a dancehall. All the guys were leaning on the bar. All of us girls took a poll as to which butt was best. We picked Richard Boone’s. We told him, ‘We pick you’ and Kirk heard. It made him so angry at me! Publicity wanted a photo of Kirk grabbing me by the necklace—he grabbed it and almost choked me! When I said something he stated, ‘I’m not acting! You should take this business more seriously. I don’t like your attitude and your kidding around.’ I said, ‘Go screw yourself, I just got renewed!’ How dare he tell me I can’t kid around! Kirk also treated little King Vidor, the director, badly. Whatever King said, he had to defer to Kirk. In the ‘70s—13 or 14 years later, I met Kirk and now he’s the sweetest man in the world!”

“Steve McQueen pulled the same antics on ‘Wanted Dead or Alive.’ He was an egomaniac at the time—the most unprofessional actor I’ve ever worked with. He’d go off and ride his motorcycle. We’d all sit around waiting. Director George Blair was a recovering alcoholic. We were getting way behind schedule because of McQueen’s delays. Steve proclaimed, ‘Hey, I’m enjoying my bike better than a little TV show.’ I noticed George’s breath had alcohol—and at the last of the show, Steve McQueen was directing it! I had a line—‘Are you bounty hunters?’ I naturally spoke to Wright King because it was plural. McQueen didn’t want Wright King acknowledged. ‘You keep looking at me!’ I told him, ‘Then you must change the line—to bounty hunter.’ That muffled him up. Another scene, he wanted me to go crazy. I said I shouldn’t go that high. I asked George Blair, ‘Do you think I’m doing alright?’ He said, ‘Yes,’ but McQueen said, ‘I don’t!’ He had a huge ego!!”

“In ‘Raw Edge’ I enjoyed working with Yvonne DeCarlo, but she worried about our coloring. She made me wear a dark fall—over my real hair, which had to be dyed black. I knew I’d have dark makeup as well. But Yvonne and I became very close friends. She confided in me she was going to marry Bob Morgan, the stuntman. She asked if she was doing the right thing. I said, ‘Do you love this man? Then you are doing the right thing.’ Yvonne is adorable, very professional. Bob’s accident—losing a leg while filming ‘How the West Was Won,’ was a big tragedy. It affected both of them—it was just a matter of time before they split up.”

“A Day of Fury” was a Technicolor CinemaScope western. “I didn’t like it. The director, Harmon Jones, a nice man, had been an editor. He told you line readings—in otherwords, how to say the lines. He’d put emphasis on certain worlds that I wouldn’t have. It made everyone stilted. Jock Mahoney was like a wooden stick. I was horridly rigid. Dale Robertson overacted. However, Jan Merlin, a good actor, did a very fine job in the show! He was the villain who shoots the preacher! Dale Robertson is my old buddy. I’d known him since my Earl Carroll showgirl days, ‘47-‘49. Dale dated a cute blonde girl in the show. I did skits with Pinky Lee.”

“Naked Gun” was made during Mara Corday’s freelance days. “I shot it in five days. It started off as ‘Sarazin Curse.’ Two days later, they changed it to ‘The Hanging Judge’—and decided to have the story revolve around him. Then the next day it was called ‘Naked Gun’—all this while we are shooting it! It was the first thing I did after Universal. I knew I was in trouble when they asked what I wanted to play—the heavy or the ingenue.” One of the “Naked Gun” co-stars was Veda Ann Borg. “Veda was sad—she was getting a divorce around this time.” And Jody McCrea—the son of Joel McCrea and Frances Dee? “Jody had a big crush on me—but he was a little nuts. He’d turn into a werewolf; I later heard he caused a lot of trouble on one of those A. C. Lyles Paramount westerns.”

In “The Quiet Gun” Mara played an Indian, “Probably because of my sharp features, but actually I’m Welsh.”

The above “Western Clippings” interview can also be accessed online here.

7th January 1956: American actress and model Mara Corday is featured for the cover of Picture Post magazine. Original Publication: Picture Post Cover – Vol 70 No 01 – pub. 1956. (Photo by IPC Magazines/Picture Post/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

IMDB entry:

A former matinee idol in Holland and Germany, he fled to America before WWII and portrayed anti-Nazi patriots and continental romancers in Hollywood. Forced to retire after suffering an injury while on stage in Holland 1955, he lived out the rest of his life in relative seclusion. Dogged by ill health (phlebitis) in post-war years, he suffered the first of a series of heart attacks in 1945.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: burrell_dale

New York Times obituary in 1975:

LOS ANGELES, May 9 (AP) —Philip Dorn, handsome, deep‐voiced leading man in films from 1939 to 1953, died today at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital. He was 75 years old.

Mr. Dorn, who was born in the Netherlands, died of a heart attack, but he had been incapacitated for nearly 10 years after a head injury on stage in Europe. He began acting at the age of 14 and came to this country in 1939.

He appeared in such films as “Ski Patrol,” “Paris After Dark,” “Love You,” “Sealed Cargo,” “Tarzan’s Secret Treasure,” “Calling Dr. Gillespie” and “Random Harvest.”

Surviving are his widow, Marianne; and a daughter, Femia Laurey of Encino.

Opposite Irene Dunne

Mr. Dorn was a well‐known stage actor in the Netherlands, appearing in “Camille,” “Ghosts.” “Journey’s End” and other plays.

One of his most successful films was “I Remember Mama,” in which he played Papa to Irene Dunne’s Mama. Others included “The Fighting Kentuckian,” in support of John Wayne; “Gaunt Woman,” about submarine warfare; “Spy Hunt” and “Blonde Fever.”

In his career in the Netherlands, Mr. Dorn toured the Dutch colonies for four years and once traveled 16,000 miles with a company of Dutch players to perform in repertory for amusement‐starved plantation owners in Java. He was a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture in The Hague.

Christine Lahti was born in 1950 in Michigan. Early in her career, she won two major roles, “And Justice For All” opposite Al Pacino in 1979 and “Whose Life Is It Anyway” opposite Richard Dreyfuss in 1981. She was nominated for an Oscar for “Swing Shift” with Goldie Hawn and gave a terrific performance in “Running On Empty”.

TCM overview:

Beginning in the late 1970s, acclaimed film, television and stage actress Christine Lahti carved out a niche for herself in an emerging field for Hollywood actresses – roles as professional, independent career women. Uninterested in wasting her dedication to acting on thinly-written supporting roles as girlfriends and wives, Lahti was in the right place at the right time and gave strong showings in character-driven films like “Whose Life is it Anyway?” (1981), “Swing Shift” (1984) and “Running on Empty” (1988), for which she earned an Academy Award nomination. In between film roles as smart, compassionate doctors, lawyers, and educators, Lahti was a constant television presence with her Golden Globe-winning run on the medical drama “Chicago Hope” (CBS, 1994-2000) and award-winning telepics like the homeless family chronicle “No Place Like Home” (CBS, 1989). Throughout her career, Lahti regularly revisited her roots as a theater actress, notably in several plays by Wendy Wasserstein, and also branched out to direct episodic TV and films, making her one of the most respected women in Hollywood and one with a palpable commitment to quality storytelling.

Born April 4, 1949, Lahti was raised in Birmingham, MI where she was the daughter of a surgeon father and a nurse-turned-painter mother. At the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Lahti was active in theater and performed with a mime troupe that toured internationally, including an appearance in a mime version of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” on the London stage. After graduating with a degree in speech and drama, Lahti intended to earn a Masters from Florida State University, but after only a year, she moved to New York where she studied drama at the renowned HB Studio and The Neighborhood Studio. Waitress work and street mime performing finally gave way to a steady career in television commercials and a breakthrough stage role in David Mamet’s “The Woods” in 1978, for which she earned a Theater World Award. The same year, she made her TV debut as a co-star of the ABC movie-pilot “Dr. Scorpion,” which led to a stint as a series regular on the short-lived “The Harvey Korman Show” (ABC, 1978), where she played the comedian’s daughter.

Lahti’s impressive work alongside drama legend Lee Strasberg in the TV movie “The Last Tenant” (ABC, 1978) caught the eye of producer-director, Norman Jewison. He subsequently cast her as a lawyer and ethics committee member who becomes involved with an ethically questionable lawyer (Al Pacino) in the acclaimed “… And Justice for All” (1979). After a return to the off-Broadway stage to play opposite Kevin Kline in “Loose Ends,” Lahti further established her strength for playing professional, independent women with her role as the doctor of an accident victim (Richard Dreyfus) fighting for his right to die in John Badham’s film adaptation of the Broadway hit “Whose Life Is It Anyway?” (1981). Lahti finally made it to Broadway herself in “Division Street,” Steve Tesich’s comedy about grown-up 1960s hippies in the 1980s and had a small supporting role in the punk rock cult film “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains” (1981).

After taking a key role in the TV miniseries based on Norman Mailer’s biography of career criminal Gary Gilmore, “The Executioner’s Song” (NBC, 1982), Lahti experienced a major film breakthrough in “Swing Shift” (1984), co-starring opposite Goldie Hawn as her aspiring singer best friend and co-worker at a WWII munitions plant. Injecting the character with a much-needed dose of acerbic wit, Lahti earned great reviews and was recognized with a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. She portrayed another single career woman; this one befriended by a married woman (Mary Tyler Moore) who learns they share a man in common, in the soapy tearjerker “Just Between Friends” (1986). Her role as a repressed woman who blossoms when she falls in love with an East German operative in the controversial ABC miniseries “Amerika” (1987) earned her an Emmy nomination, and she followed up the pair of dramas by playing a free-spirited aunt who inspires her nieces in the lighthearted comedy, “Housekeeping” (1987).

In one of Lahti’s most memorable big screen performances, she earned a Golden Globe nomination for Sidney Lumet’s intense “Running on Empty” (1988). The film starred Lahti and Judd Hirsch as former 1960s political activists on the run from the FBI with a family in tow, including a teen son played by River Ph nix. Lahti returned to Broadway in Wendy Wasserstein’s “The Heidi Chronicles” and concurrently appeared on movie screens in 1989’s “Gross Anatomy,” where she was seen as the stern medical professor of class rebel, Matthew Modine. She gave a Golden Globe Award-winning performance as the matriarch of a family forced to live on the streets in “No Place Like Home” (CBS, 1989), and a CableACE Award as a conservative educator who finds unlikely romance with a Hispanic janitor in “Crazy from the Heart” (TNT, 1991), directed by her husband Thomas Schlamme. After an unchallenging role as William Hurt’s unhappy wife in “The Doctor” (1991), Lahti was back on stage in the off-Broadway play “Three Hotels.”

Following a hiatus, during which the actress gave birth to twins, Lahti returned to work with a string of TV movies and moved behind the camera to nail her directorial debut with “Lieberman in Love” (1995), co-starring as a prostitute opposite Danny Aiello. The film earned an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film. In 1995, Lahti joined the second season of the CBS medical drama “Chicago Hope” (1994-2000), playing the complicated, ambitious cardiothoracic surgeon and feminist, Dr. Kathryn Austin. The show also gave Lahti the opportunity to direct, and she helmed a number of episodes throughout her on-screen run, while earning four consecutive Emmy nominations as Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series and a victory in 1998. She famously won a Golden Globe for her role in 1998, and was forced to rush out of the ladies’ room and scurry red-faced onto the stage to collect her trophy. During her off-seasons from “Chicago Hope,” Lahti continued to take on new projects, starring in the Goldie Hawn-helmed TV movie about small town secrets, “Hope” (TNT, 1997) and writer-director Stephen Tolkin’s biopic about a religious woman who kills a camp counselor who has molested her son in “Judgment Day: The Ellie Nesler Story” (USA, 1999).

Lahti left “Hope” in 1999 and reunited with Wendy Wasserstein, taking the lead in the playwright’s tale of a prominent senator’s daughter and Surgeon General nominee who comes under a media attack for minor transgressions in “An American Daughter” (Lifetime, 2000). The following year, she stepped behind the camera to direct her first feature film “My First Mister” (2001), a well-reviewed tale of a 17-year-old misfit (Leelee Sobieski) and her relationship with a neurotic middle aged man (Albert Brooks). After strong turns headlining telepics including “The Pilot’s Wife,” (CBS, 2002) and “Out of the Ashes” (Showtime, 2003), where she played a doctor and Jewish holocaust survivor, Lahti returned to series television in The WB drama, “Jack & Bobby” (2004- ). For the show’s short two-season run, Lahti starred as the fiery, strong-willed, pot-smoking college professor mother of two teen sons, one of whom eventually becomes the U.S. President. Despite strong reviews, particularly centering on Lahti’s multidimensional portrayal, the show failed to find a fan base and was cancelled in 2005.

She rebounded with a recurring role on NBC’s Hollywood dramedy “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip” (NBC, 2006-07), as a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist writing a Vanity Fair piece on the show-within-the-show. Lahti went on to make strong showings in a pair of little-seen indies, beginning with the academia-set comedy “Smart People” (2008), and “Yonkers J ” (2009), a character drama about a professional gambler’s (Chazz Palminteri) estranged relationship with his mentally disabled son. Later in the year, Lahti enjoyed a supporting role in the high profile thriller “Obsessed” starring Beyonce Knowles.

The above TCM overview can also be viewed online here.

Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio was born in Illinois in 1958. She made her major film debut in 1982 in “Scarface” with Al Pacino. She also starred in “The Colour of Money” with Tom Cruise and Paul Newman, “The Abyss”and “Class Action” with Gene Hackman. She gave a brilliant performance opposite David Straithairn in “Limbo” in 1999. She is married to the noted Irish film director Pat O’Connor.

TCM overview:

A gifted actress and singer, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio was blessed with a striking beauty and undeniable screen presence that brought her recognition alongside some of filmdom’s biggest stars. After making her impressive, blood-soaked feature film debut in Brian De Palma’s controversial gangster epic “Scarface” (1983), she performed on the stages of New York for a time before returning to the screen opposite multi-generational screen idols Paul Newman and Tom Cruise in Martin Scorsese’s “The Color of Money” (1986). However, consequent efforts such as “Slam Dance” (1987) and “The January Man” (1989) failed to capitalize on that early success. Although visionary director James Cameron’s ambitious undersea epic “The Abyss” (1989) placed the actress back in the spotlight, the exhausting and dangerous experience on the set of the adventure may have also soured her taste for blockbuster filmmaking. Early 1990s work included starring turns in respectable films like “Class Action” (1991) and “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” (1991), followed by participation in the easily forgotten “White Sands” (1992) and “Consenting Adults” (1992). While her output decreased in the years that followed, the actress resurfaced occasionally in high-profile projects like “The Perfect Storm” (2000). Even though her films were not all met with rave reviews, Mastrantonio’s innate talent allowed her to retain a highly respected reputation as one if Hollywood’s more dependable actresses.

Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio was born on Nov. 17, 1958 in Lombard, IL to Italian immigrant parents. Her mother, Mary, suffered terribly with rheumatoid arthritis for most of her adult life, and her father, Frank Mastrantonio, ran a bronze foundry. The fifth of six daughters, Mary Elizabeth was raised in the town of Oak Park, where she originally cultivated a desire to become a professional opera singer. An early acting role came in a production of “Oklahoma!” while attending Oak Park-River High School, and later in several stage performances at the University of Illinois, where the talented soprano studied music and voice. During a summer between years at college, Mastrantonio worked as a singer and performer at Nashville’s Opryland, before ultimately dropping out of school and making the move to Chicago. There, she landed a small part in the touring production of “Amadeus” before transitioning to New York City and serving as an understudy for the part of Maria in the Broadway revival of “West Side Story.” Eventually Mastrantonio began to move away from musicals, focusing instead on more dramatic works, including a Broadway mounting of “Amadeus,” starring Frank Langella as Salieri.

After seeing her brief appearance in director Martin Scorsese’s “The King of Comedy” (1982) left on the cutting room floor, Mastrantonio made her feature film debut in Brian De Palma’s bloody remake of “Scarface” (1983). Cast as Gina, the beautiful, yet doomed sister of drug kingpin Tony Montana (Al Pacino), the young actress shone in a film largely derided by critics of the time for its extreme brutal violence and graphic language. In what would become a frequent occurrence throughout her career, Mastrantonio would appear in films that drew overall criticism, while her particular performance was singled out appreciatively. De Palma and screenwriter Oliver Stone had the last laugh, however, when in the years that followed, “Scarface” went on to achieve cult status. The burgeoning actress returned to Broadway for a production of the musical “The Human Comedy” in 1984, as well as two consecutive seasons with venerated producer Joseph Papp for mountings of “Henry V” and “Measure for Measure” at the New York Shakespeare Festival. At the same time, she made her television debut opposite George C. Scott in the historical biopic “Mussolini: The Untold Story” (NBC, 1985).

Perhaps regretting having to cut her out of his previous film, Scorsese cast Mastrantonio opposite Paul Newman and Tom Cruise in the pool shark movie “The Color of Money” (1986), a sequel to Newman’s “The Hustler” (1961). As Carmen, Cruise’s “tough cookie” girlfriend-slash-manager in the film, she more than held her own against her famous co-stars. In addition to critical raves for her turn in the film, the role also earned her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress. Focusing more on projects that interested her rather than chasing a blockbuster movie, Mastrantonio next co-starred with Tom Hulce in the quirky, punk-infused neo-noir “Slam Dance” (1987), as the wife of an unfaithful husband (Hulce) framed for the murder of his lover (Virginia Madsen). Next came “The January Man” (1989), a comedy-thriller starring Kevin Kline as a brilliant, but disgraced ex-cop trying to catch a serial killer. Mastrantonio played Kline’s love-interest in a film that not only bombed at theaters, but was described by film critic Roger Ebert as “one of the worst movies of all time.”

In spite of the box office failure of “The January Man,” it did result in one happy coincidence for Mastrantonio – her introduction to the film’s director, Pat O’Connor, whom she would marry one year later. Considerably better received than the year’s previous film, director James Cameron’s epic deep sea adventure “The Abyss” (1989) placed the actress in a big-budget, crowd-pleasing blockbuster for the first time in her career. Visually stunning, the film not only pushed the boundaries of filmmaking technology, but pushed its cast, including Ed Harris and Michael Biehn, beyond their limits of endurance. Long hours, boredom, and dangerous working conditions – much of “The Abyss” was filmed underwater inside a seven million gallon water tank – over several months of shooting resulted in a severe emotional breakdown for Mastrantonio. Tough guy Harris even claimed to have broken into uncontrollable sobs one night after a grueling day of filming for alleged “taskmaster” Cameron. Both actors publicly expressed their displeasure with the shoot, with Harris stating he would never work for Cameron again. Needing to recharge her emotional and artistic batteries, Mastrantonio returned to the New York Shakespeare festival with a lauded performance as Viola in “Twelfth Night” alongside her “January Man” co-star, Kevin Kline.

Mastrantonio returned to the screen under the direction of recent husband O’Connor for the Irish period drama “Fools of Fortunes” (1990), and took part in a television adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s “Uncle Vanya” (PBS, 1991) in the role of Yelena. She kept busy with two mainstream feature films that same year. First came director Michael Apted’s courtroom thriller “Class Action” (1991), in which she played a corporate attorney opposing her estranged lawyer father (Gene Hackman) in a high-stakes automotive defect case. Next came a star-studded reinvention of the classic adventure tale “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” (1991), featuring Kevin Costner as the titular folk hero and Mastrantonio as his Maid Marian. Although the latter movie met with decidedly mixed reviews, it went on to become one of Mastrantonio’s more successful films at the box office. Less notable were her follow up projects in the coming year. The stylistic noir mystery “White Sands” (1992), starring Willem Dafoe and Mickey Rourke left audiences scratching their heads, while the suburban sexual thriller “Consenting Adults” (1992) simply left moviegoers underwhelmed, despite a strong cast that once again paired Mastrantonio with Kline, in addition to rising star Kevin Spacey.

Settling in London with O’Connor, Mastrantonio slowed her output while she took time to enjoy her newest role as a mother, before returning to film with the treacly fantasy-romance “Three Wishes” (1995), opposite Patrick Swayze. Also that year was the little-seen period drama “Two Bits” (1995), which reunited her with her “Scarface” co-star, Pacino. After another multi-year break, she took on leading roles in the John Sayles Alaskan drama “Limbo” (1999) and appeared with Colin Firth for the British period piece “My Life So Far” (1999). Next, Mastrantonio took part in her first big-budget hit film in nearly a decade with the based-on-fact adventure “The Perfect Storm” (2000), starring George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg as crew members on a doomed fishing vessel off the coast of Massachusetts. Working sporadically for much of the next decade, she focused her efforts primarily on television in such projects as “The Brooke Ellison Story” (A&E, 2004), a biopic directed by Christopher Reeve about a girl’s struggle to succeed, despite her disability as a quadriplegic. Other work included recurring roles on two popular police procedurals: “Without a Trace” (CBS, 2002-09) during the 2005-06 season, and several episodes of “Law & Order: Criminal Intent” (NBC, 2001- ) in 2010.

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

Patrick O’Neal was born in 1927 in Florida. He had an extensive television career. His few movies include “The Black Shield of Falworth” in 1954, “From the Terrace” with Paul Newman and Ina Balin in 1960 and “The Cardinal” with Tom Tryon in 1963. He died in New York City in 1996.

Gary Brumburgh’s entry:

Dark, dashing and coldly handsome with intense, penetrating eyes, Patrick O’Neal was known for walking that fine line between elegant heroics and elegant villainy during his five-decade career. Born in 1927 in Ocala, Florida, and of Irish descent, he served toward the end of WWII with the United States Army Air Corp and, in his late teens, was assigned to direct training shorts for the Signal Corps. A graduate of the University of Florida at Gainesville, he subsequently moved to New York and continued his dramatic studies at the Actor’s Studio and Neighborhood Playhouse.

O’Neal made an initial impact in the early 1950s when he replaced Tony Randall in the hit Broadway comedy “Oh, Men! Oh, Women!”. Following a strong role in “The Far Country” (1961), he gave a superlative portrayal of the defrocked Reverend Shannon opposite Bette Davis and Margaret Leighton in Tennessee Williams‘ “The Night of the Iguana” later that year. Unfortunately for him, Richard Burton collared the role in its 1963 transition to film, The Night of the Iguana (1964). The attention nevertheless earned O’Neal both lead and support roles on camera, but most of those performances would be routine and, for the most part, overlooked. A capable player used regularly in 1960s films and 1970s television, he was usually cast as either a rugged trooper in the action adventures King Rat (1965) and Assignment to Kill (1968); a careerist sycophant in the naval spectacle In Harm’s Way (1965); or as a flashy murderer in such gruesome yarns asChamber of Horrors (1966), probably his best known film. In later years, it was almost strictly television movies and guest spots. His wife and brother owned several restaurants with him. He died in 1994 from respiratory failure while battling tuberculosis.

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

New York Times obituary in 1994.

Patrick O’Neal, an actor who appeared on stage, on television and in more than a dozen films, died on Friday at St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan. He was 66 and lived in Greenwich Village.

The immediate cause was respiratory failure, and he had tuberculosis and cancer, said his wife, Cynthia.

At his death, Mr. O’Neal was a co-owner, with his wife and his brother, Michael, of O’Neal’s, a restaurant at 49 West 64th Street in Manhattan, which was named the Ginger Man until 1993. He and his brother were also co-owners of the Landmark Tavern on 11th Avenue at 46th Street.

In 1963 Mr. O’Neal played the lead role, Sebastian Balfe Dangerfield, in “The Ginger Man,” a play by J. P. Donleavy based on his novel of the same title, at the Orpheum Theater Off Broadway.

One critic praised his acting in that production as likely to entrance theatergoers who had met Dangerfield in the novel and found him “enchanting and amusing for all his waywardness, his cruelty and his insincerity.”

Mr. O’Neal went on to use the name when he co-founded the Ginger Man in 1964. It prospered, drawing patrons from the Lincoln Center area and farther afield. It was the first of a half-dozen restaurants, mostly in Manhattan, that he came to co-own over the years. They included another place in the Lincoln Center area, O’Neal’s Baloon at 63d Street and Columbus Avenue. Defrocked in a Williams Play

Mr. O’Neal’s other stage roles included the defrocked cleric in Tennessee Williams’s “Night of the Iguana,” a role he first played in a short form of the drama in Spoleto, Italy, in 1959 and went on to play in other productions on Broadway and elsewhere.

Among his films were “In Harm’s Way” (1965), “A Fine Madness” (1966), “The Kremlin Letter” (1970), “King Rat” (1965), “The Way We Were” (1973) and “The Stepford Wives” (1975). He also acted in many television shows and series, from the 1950’s through the 1980’s.

Mr. O’Neal was born and grew up in Ocala, Fla. He received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Florida and went on to study acting in New York, with Sanford Meisner at the Neighborhood Playhouse, and with Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio.

In addition to his wife of 38 years, the former Cynthia Baxter, and his brother, of Manhattan, he is survived by two sons, Maximilian, of Manhattan and Fitzjohn, of Redondo Beach, Calif

Constance Cummings was an American actress whose fame stems from her career in Britain. She was born in 1910 in Seattle, Washington State in the U.S. She went to Hollywood in 1931 and made twenty films there until 1934. That year she moved to the U.K. after her marriage to the British playwright Benn Levy. Among her film credits are “Blythe Spirit” in 1945, “The Battle of the Sexes” in 1959 and “In the Cool of the Day” in 1963. She had an extensive stage career in the West End. She died in 2005 at the age of 95.

Eric Shorter’s obituary in “The Guardian”:

Constance Cummings, who has died aged 95, was a Broadway chorus girl who met the English playwright Benn Wolfe Levy in Hollywood before the second world war and became one of the most accomplished film and stage actors on either side of the Atlantic.

Whether in tragedy, farce, comedy or melodrama, Cummings, the daughter of a Seattle lawyer and a concert soprano, seldom failed to surprise. From being what a London critic, in 1934, called “a film star who can act”, she learned, under her husband’s direction, how to play (as James Agate put it) “anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter”. It was in one of Levy’s plays, Young Madame Conti (1936), that Agate decided she “immediately takes rank, even on the strength of one performance, as an contestably fine emotional actress”. In Goodbe Mr Chips, he thought her “the most beautiful thing of the evening”, reminding him “of the fragrance and pathos, sensitiveness and radiance of the great actresses of our youth”.

How did this upstart American blonde with the peaches-and-cream complexion, beautifully waved hair and feminine curves become an actor of such exceptional power? It is true that her finest achievements – The Shrike, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Long Day’s Journey into Night, and Wings – were all American plays, and that many of her West End successes were in her husband’s plays, or in plays he directed.

All the same, here was a talent, best known on the screen, which turned to the theatre with sustained success and in the highest reaches of that art. Not everything she did bowled everyone over, while her looks did sometimes get in the way. As Robert Donat’s Juliet (1939), for example, with the Old Vic company in wartime exile at Buxton and at Streatham Hill, she admitted: “I didn’t know how to read the verses. That was a sloppy thing. I should have had more sense.”

In the West End, however, it was the sparkling personality, wit and virtually invisible technique that made her art so attractive, especially in her husband’s sophisticated pieces – such as Clutterbuck (1946), Return to Tyassi (1950), The Rape of the Belt (1957) and Public and Confidential (1966), in which her line in mordant comedy as an MP’s secretary-mistress was needle-sharp.

But the depths of her emotional potential, tantalisingly glimpsed as the anxious wife of Michael Redgrave’s alcoholic actor in Clifford Odets’s Winter Journey (1952), remained veiled until Joseph Kramm’s The Shrike. Here, opposite Sam Wanamaker, Cummings disclosed an arresting side to her talent – “a spiked knuckle duster in a velvet glove,” as Kenneth Hurren put it.

Meanwhile, at the Oxford Playhouse Frank Hauser could offer a taste of the true classics in Lysistrata (1957), in which she proved alluringly militant. In 1962, she played a double bill of Sartre’s Huis Clos and Max Beerbohm’s A Social Success, followed by Aldous Huxley’s The Genius and the Goddess.

The Huxley play (which promptly moved into the West End) was right up her street: an adorable, ravishing, witty and self-possessed hostess. On the other hand, Sartre’s ugly lesbian, Inez, was not. At first, Cummings was “horrified”. Until, that was, rehearsals, when she began to enjoy it. “I found little seeds of her dreadfulness in myself, things I could build on. It was a marvellous liberation. I’d never opened myself before and taken such a plunge.”

Most playgoers had to wait, though, for her Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1964) to realise this branch of the talent. It cannot have been easy to follow Uta Hagen’s famous ferocity, but I shall never forget it because I never supposed it possible. What Cummings did amid all the sound and fury was to hint at an element of feminine refinement.

Here, then, was a neo-tragedienne. But as Gertrude to Nicol Williamson’s controversial Hamlet (1969), her art did not thrive, nor did it in 1971 when she joined Laurence Olivier’s National Theatre in Coriolanus, playing Volumnia to Anthony Hopkins in the title role.

The same year yielded Cummings’ finest hour, as Mary Tyrone, frail matriarch to an Irish-American family ruled by Laurence Olivier’s actor-father in Michael Blakemore’s revival of Long Day’s Journey into Night. Here Cummings found an authority, pathos and emotional integrity which had the house holding its breath before and after her every entrance. The transformation from a gentle maternal presence to fully-fledged morphine addict was a triumph of artistic delicacy.

There were no comparable triumphs to come, though her Madame Ranevsky, to Michael Hordern’s Gaev in a revival at the National of The Cherry Orchard (1973) was well received, and as a mentally ill woman trying to recover from a stroke in Arthur Kopit’s Wings, at the Cottesloe in 1978, she was judged superb, though some thought the tug at the emotions too obvious. The performance won a Tony award on Broadway.

If, by chance, there was nothing doing in London, Cummings would go to the regions, where most of the best acting parts were usually to be found – in Tennessee Williams (The Milk Train Doesn’t Stop Here Any More) at Glasgow, Bernard Shaw (Mrs Warren’s Profession) at Bristol, Edward Albee (All Over) at Brighton, Somerset Maugham (The Circle) at Guildford or Friedrich Durrenmatt (The Visit) at Coventry. Her last West End performance was in Uncle Vanya in 1999.

Her husband, whom she married in 1933, died in 1973. After his death, she kept up their 600-acre dairy farm in the village of Cote, Oxfordshire. Levy had been a Labour MP in the postwar Atlee government, and Cummings supported causes such as Amnesty and Liberty, and did much work for the Actors’ Charitable Trust. She received in 1974 the CBE.

She is survived by her children Jonathan and Jemina.

Ronald Bergan writes: In 1930, the 20-year-old Cummings was brought to Hollywood by Sam Goldwyn to co-star with Ronald Colman in The Devil to Pay, but was replaced at the last minute by 17-year-old Loretta Young. However, her disappointment was allayed when Columbia Pictures snapped her up, gave her a contract and cast her as prison warden Walter Huston’s naive daughter in Howard Hawks’s The Criminal Code the following year.

Columbia was so impressed by this debut that they starred Cummings in 10 films in two years, even though most were modest productions. The exception was Frank Capra’s New Deal fantasy, American Madness (1932), in which, with much charm and passion, she played a bank employee supporting her boss’s determination to lend money on the collateral of his clients’ good characters.

After leaving Columbia, Cummings went freelance, enabling her to appear in one of her most delightful films, the Harold Lloyd comedy, Movie Crazy (1932). In Night after Night (also 1932), as a classy lady with whom George Raft is in love, she managed to shine even after the entry of Mae West, in her screen debut. Her final Hollywood film before leaving for England was the comedy-whodunit Remember Last Night? (1935), with Robert Young.

In England, Americans Robert Montgomery and Cummings were unaccountably cast in Busman’s Honeymoon (1940), as Lord Peter Wimsey and his mystery writer wife, Harriet Vane. She did get to play a brave American ally in The Foreman Went to France (1942), and was convincing as the upper middle-class wife of Rex Harrison in David Lean’s Blithe Spirit (1945). The problem was that Cummings was far more attractive than Kay Hammond in the role of Harrison’s first wife.

Among Cummings’s few films in the 1950s was The Intimate Stranger (1956), directed by blacklisted Joseph Losey (under the pseudonym Joseph Walton). In it, she played a film star causing problems for director Richard Basehart. Her last really good film role was in Charles Crichton’s The Battle of the Sexes (1959), as Mrs Barrow, the American efficiency expert sent to modernise an Edinburgh textile firm. Seeing his way of life threatened, the mild accountant (Peter Sellers) tries to murder her. Cummings was so unsympathetic that audiences willed him on. Unfortunately, the cinema’s loss was theatre’s gain, and she was seen only rarely in films after that.

· Constance Cummings Levy, actor, born May 15 1910; died November 23 2005

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

Ben Cooper was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1933. He ismainly remembered for the Westerns he made in the 1950’s including “Johnny Guitar” with Joan Crawford and “The Outcasts”. He also featured in “The Rose Tattoo” in 1955 with Burt Lancaster, Anna Magnani and Marisa Pavan. He died aged 86 in 2020.