Movie stars I loved as a kid - Greer Garson

What can I say? I just love redheads - especially redheads who played tough women in WWll.

Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson, CBE (29 September 1904 – 6 April 1996):

Greer Garson was born in Manor Park, Essex (now Greater London), England. Her father was Scottish and her mother was Irish.
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Louis B. Mayer discovered Garson while he was in London looking for new talent. Garson was signed to a contract with MGM in late 1937, but did not begin work on her first film, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, until late 1938. She received her first Oscar nomination for the role, but lost to Vivien Leigh for Gone with the Wind. She received critical acclaim the next year for her role as Elizabeth Bennet in the 1940 film, Pride and Prejudice.

Garson starred with Joan Crawford in When Ladies Meet in 1941, and that same year became a major box office star with the sentimental Technicolor drama Blossoms in the Dust, which brought her the first of five consecutive Best Actress Oscar nominations, tying Bette Davis' 1938-1942 record, a record that still stands. Garson won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1942 for her role as a strong British wife and mother in the middle of World War II in Mrs. Miniver.
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Garson was partnered with Clark Gable, after his return from war service, in Adventure (1945). The film was advertised with the catch-phrase "Gable's back and Garson's got him!" Gable argued for "He put the Arson in Garson"; she countered "She Put the Able in Gable!".
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In 1951, she became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
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In 1960, Garson received her seventh and final Oscar nomination for Sunrise at Campobello, in which she played Eleanor Roosevelt, this time losing to Elizabeth Taylor for Butterfield 8.

Movie stars I loved as a kid - Ava Gardner

I'm going to skip over Judy Garland. I never saw her as a babe and everybody knows everything about her anyway. Yes, she had a tremendous voice but I never saw her as sexy. However I did fancy Ava Gardner. In fact as far as I'm concerned she was the most beautiful Hollywood star ever - not only for her perfect features but for her luscious languid sexuality.

Ava Lavinia Gardner (December 24, 1922 – January 25, 1990):

Gardner was born in 1922 in the small farming community of Brogden, North Carolina (nicknamed "Grabtown"), the youngest of seven children (she had two brothers; Raymond and Melvin, and four sisters; Beatrice, Elsie Mae, Inez and Myra) of poor cotton and tobacco farmers; her mother, Mary Elizabeth ("Mollie") Gardner (née Baker) was a Baptist of Scots-Irish and English descent, while her father, Jonas Bailey Gardner, was a Catholic of Irish American and American Indian (Tuscarora) descent. When the children were still young, the Gardners lost their property, forcing Jonas Gardner to work at a sawmill and Mollie to begin working as a cook and housekeeper at a dormitory for teachers at the nearby Brogden School.
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Gardner was visiting her sister Beatrice ("Bappie") in New York in 1941 when Beatrice's husband Larry Tarr, a professional photographer, offered to take her portrait. He was so pleased with the results that he displayed the finished product in the front window of his Tarr Photography Studio on tony Fifth Avenue.

In 1941, a Loews Theatres legal clerk, Barnard "Barney" Duhan, spotted Gardner's photo in Tarr's studio. At the time, Duhan often posed as an MGM talent scout to meet girls, using the fact that MGM was a subsidiary of Loews. Duhan entered Tarr's and tried to get Gardner's number, but was rebuffed by the receptionist. Duhan made the offhand comment, "Somebody should send her info to MGM", and the Tarrs did so immediately. Shortly after, Gardner, who at the time was a student at Atlantic Christian College, traveled to New York to be interviewed at MGM's New York office. She was offered a standard contract by MGM, and left school for Hollywood in 1941 with her sister Bappie accompanying her. MGM's first order of business was to provide her a voice coach, as her Carolina drawl was nearly incomprehensible to them.
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She was signed to a contract by MGM Studios in 1941 and appeared in supporting roles until she drew attention with her performance in The Killers (1946). She became one of Hollywood's leading actresses.
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Her first husband was Mickey Rooney (1942-1943). She then married jazz band leader Artie Shaw (1945 -1946). Gardner became a friend of billionaire aviator Howard Hughes in the early to mid-1940s, a close relationship that lasted well into the 1950s. Although he made numerous marriage proposals, Ava did not consider him a romantic interest, as she was put off by his eccentric ways (including his significant body odor).
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Gardner's third and last marriage (1951-1957) was to singer and actor Frank Sinatra. She would later say in her autobiography that of all the men she'd had - that he was the love of her life. Sinatra left his wife, Nancy, for Ava and their subsequent marriage made headlines. Sinatra was savaged by gossip columnists Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons, the Hollywood establishment, the Catholic church, and by his fans for leaving his wife for a "femme fatale". His career suffered, while hers prospered - the headlines solidifying her screen siren image. Gardner used her considerable clout to get Sinatra cast in his Oscar-winning role in From Here to Eternity (1953). That role and the award revitalized both Sinatra's acting and singing careers. Gardner said of her relationship with Sinatra, "We were great in bed. It was usually on the way to the bidet when the trouble began."
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Gardner divorced Sinatra in 1957 and headed to Spain where her friendship with famed writer Ernest Hemingway led to her becoming a fan of bullfighting and bullfighters such as Luis Miguel Dominguín, who became her lover. "It was a sort of madness, honey", she said later of the time. That was when her face was permanently scarred when a bull jumped the fence and gored her.
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Gardner moved to London, England in 1968 where she died in 1990 after years of illness.

The last picture is huge - click to enjoy.

Movie stars I loved as a kid - Joan Fontaine

Joan Fontaine is the sister of Olivia de Havilland. I never could make up my mind which of them was more beautiful. They are the only actresses from the 1930s still living.

Joan Fontaine (born October 22, 1917):

She was born Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland in Tokyo, Japan.
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After some early flops, her luck changed one night at a dinner party when she found herself seated next to producer David O. Selznick.

She and Selznick began discussing the Daphne du Maurier novel Rebecca, and Selznick asked her to audition for the part of the unnamed heroine. She endured a grueling six-month series of film tests, along with hundreds of other actresses, before securing the part.

Rebecca marked the American debut of British director Alfred Hitchcock. In 1940, the film was released to glowing reviews and Joan was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.

She didn't win that year (Ginger Rogers took home the award for Kitty Foyle) but Fontaine did win the following year for Best Actress in Suspicion, which was also directed by Hitchcock. This is the only Academy Award winning performance directed by Hitchcock.
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She has been estranged from her sister Olivia de Havilland for many decades, not speaking at all since 1975.
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She became an American citizen in April 1943 and resides in Carmel, California, in relative seclusion, spending her time in her gardens, and with her dogs.

Olivia and Joan:

The Karoo

From a review of On The Back Roads: Encounters With People And Places by Dana Snyman:

This book rekindles that recurring idea: to give up the madness and the rat race, rummage for the old, "worn Shell road map", fill 'er up and just drive. Dana Snyman seems to be really living his life, travelling the small, unknown roads through South Africa, and telling the stories of simple, salt-of-the-Earth folk.

Snyman is boyishly proud of his "Epol-brown" 1973 Regal Valiant. He writes about his car like the Lone Ranger might talk about Silver. And he associates Valiants, in particular, with the old days in South Africa, so his road trip is also a nostalgic meandering through the memories of his childhood.

Going Nowhere Slowly fans will love Snyman's storytelling. The difference is that Snyman travels on his own so he doesn't take his own company along - he chats up strangers at bars, asks pedestrians and "karretjies-mense" for directions and has tea with people he's only just met. It takes a certain amount of confidence to travel this way but Snyman seems to have an unassuming way about him which people warm to.

On the Back Roads reveals parts of South Africa that are unfamiliar in name but familiar in spirit, sometimes quaint and always intriguing.

He unearths a sense of history and old myths about stock thieves; he hunts for graves, talks about ghost hitchhikers as if they were old friends and jogs the memories of retired train drivers.

He sets out to find the Moordenaars Karoo - "one of the few places in South Africa that doesn't yet have any Eskom power" - and the heart of the Bushveld. Snyman pulls over at a place that sells "17 different kinds of game biltong" but even this is only considered "amateur Bushveld".

Glossary of South Africanisms:

"Epol-brown" - I haven't got a clue what it means. I Googled it and this article turned up as the only reference.

"Regal Valiant" was a Chrysler car made in South Africa between 1960 and 1978 when Jesse Jackson got the factory closed down and threw thousands out of work.

"Karretjies-mense" means Donkey Cart People who are semi-nomadic "Coloureds" (half white/half black people) who travel around South Africa doing farm labor.

"Moordenaars Karoo" - the Karoo is a large semi-desert in South Africa. Moordenaar means murderer. The Moordenaars Karoo is the most remote part of the Karoo. It used to be completely isolated but is now becoming well known for it's game hunting.

"Eskom" is the largest electric power supplier in South Africa.

"Bushveld" is the equivalent of the Australian term "the outback" or the American term "the boondocks."

"Biltong" is the South African version of jerky but it's a hundred times better. It is moist and juicy instead of dried out. It's often made from game such as springbok (and sometimes ostrich) but is usually beef.

I could post hundred of pics of the Karoo but here are just a few. Some of them are huge - click to enjoy. When I think of the Karoo, I think of the aloes as big as trees, the wildflowers that suddenly explode into blossom after a thunderstorm, the ubiquitous windmills struggling to draw water from the parched land, the small dusty towns lost in the immense distances and, yes, the snow-covered mountains.

Movie stars I loved as a kid - Deanna Durbin

When we were driving home from work this afternoon, Andy asked me what I was going to do after I had finished my "Movie stars I loved as a kid" project. I told him that I was planning a series on "American divas" like sopranos Jessye Norman and Kathleen Battle but that I wanted to include singers who were not professional opera divas too.

Well, I've been working my way through the movie stars alphabetically and I'm just finishing up the Ds and, serendipitously, tonight's movie star is Deanna Durbin who was the first serious operatic soprano ever to make it in Hollywood. When I get around to my next project, Durbin will be my first "American diva." Diva means goddess and, yes, I'm a heathen and like to worship goddesses.

Deanna Durbin stopped acting (and singing) in Hollywood movies in 1948 long before I even started going to movies but, in the village that I grew up in, every Saturday night movies were shown at the town hall. They were mostly 1950s B-movies (mostly horror like "Creature With The Atomic Brain" etc) but they also showed out-dated 1940s movies. That's when I fell in love with Durbin and that's also when I got my first taste of opera and fell in love with it too.

Deanna Durbin (born December 4, 1921):

She was born Edna Mae Durbin in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. She made her first film appearance in a short subject, "Every Sunday" (1936) with Judy Garland who was also making her first appearance. Also in 1936, Durbin auditioned to provide the vocals for Snow White in Disney's animated film "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" but was ultimately rejected by Walt Disney, who declared the 15 year old Durbin's voice "too old" for the part.

Durbin is perhaps best known for her singing voice — a voice described variously as light but full, sweet, unaffected and artless. With the technical skill and vocal range of a legitimate lyric soprano, she performed everything from popular standards to operatic arias. Dame Sister Mary Leo in New Zealand was so taken with Durbin's technique that she trained all her students to sing in this way. Sister Mary Leo produced a large number of famous sopranos including Dames Malvina Major and Kiri Te Kanawa, all of whom were said to sound like Durbin.

Durbin retired from Hollywood in 1948 and has lived a very private life in Paris since 1950.























This 1935 performance was her first national radio broadcast, the one that catapulted her to stardom at the age of 13. Here she sings "One Night of Love." If her voice sounded like this at 13, you can see why Disney thought she sounded too old at 15.




This is from the movie "Three Smart Girls Grow Up". The song, "The Last Rose of Summer," was recorded just before Durbin's 17th birthday, in 1938.



A 17 year old Durbin sings Puccini's great aria, "Un bel di" from Madama Butterfly (in English - "One Fine Day"). From the 1939 film "First Love", a movie adaptation of Cinderella.



This is Deanna Durbin singing the Seguidilla from Bizet's opera "Carmen" in the 1943 film "Hers To Hold."



Here she sings "Silent Night" from the movie "Lady on a Train" (1945).

Politics schmolitics

I've just finished doing the Christmas gifts for 24 of my best tenants - nothing fancy, just something I do every year: a letter saying that they'll get a 10% discount on their December rent. And now I'm in a holiday mood and in no mood for world affairs.

I wasn't going to give gifts this year as I will not be able to raise rents this year because most of my tenants are retired and live on SS and they are not getting a COLA raise next year. But, last night while I was in the shower I realized that giving them gifts is not really for them. It's for me. It's my way of saying thanks and giving something back to a country which has blessed me with so much material wealth.

Anyway I'm staying away from politics today so I was just looking for some pretty pics to post. These are from my folder "house and garden."

I don't know what the first one is. It looks like a ballroom. No, I don't want a ballroom because I don't like having servants.



















But I wouldn't mind having a bedroom like this.



















Or a sitting-room like this.


















But I don't want a sitting-room like this. I just thought the fireplace was interesting.



















And I've already made plans for a garden bed like this.























I think the sign says "Restaurent" (sic) but I wouldn't mind an island getaway like this. Of course you'd have to bring in all your water.

















And a tree-house has been on my wish list for a long time.



















I love this abandoned house in Oregon. Note the trees starting to grow on the roof. It rains so much here that trees actually grow on beach dunes and even rocks.

Movie stars I loved as a kid - Marlene Dietrich

I loved Dietrich's husky voice more than anything else about her. She lived from 27 December 1901 to 6 May 1992. It's amazing that she lived to 91 considering that she always seemed to be smoking - which of course accounted for her husky voice.

Movie stars I loved as a kid - Angie Dickinson

And now for my favorite post of the day when I can stop reading and writing about politics and other dismal stuff and focus on beauty and glamor. To me Angie Dickinson is one of the most under-rated beauties. Maybe it's just my personal tastes but I think she was one of the most stunningly sexy women in Hollywood ever.

Angie Dickinson (born September 30, 1931):

She appeared in more than 50 films and starred on television as Sergeant Leann "Pepper" Anderson in the successful 1970s crime series Police Woman.

Dickinson, the second of four daughters, was born Angeline Brown (but called "Angie" by family and friends) in Kulm, North Dakota.
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Dickinson's film career began with small roles in Lucky Me (1954) with Doris Day.

Casting directors began noticing her enigmatic charisma and her ironic, albeit seductive, delivery - at once femininely fluttery, yet undeniably edgy. She was armed with a fine physique, great legs, deepset brown eyes which could read as either warmly receptive or aloofly dismissive, and a striking, classical face which photographed as oval from the front but angular in profile.
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It was a classic western that finally propelled her into Hollywood's A-list: Howard Hawks' Rio Bravo (1959), in which she played a flirtatious gambler called "Feathers" who becomes attracted to the town sheriff played by Dickinson's childhood idol John Wayne. The film co-starred Dean Martin, Ricky Nelson and Walter Brennan.
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In The Killers, a film originally intended to be the very first made-for-TV movie but released to theatres due to its violent content, Dickinson reached the apex of her skills as a femme fatale. She is slapped by a villainous boyfriend, played by future U.S. President Ronald Reagan in his last movie role.
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She was romantically linked to Frank Sinatra, whom Dickinson called "the most important man in my life" and with whom she shared "a very comfortable relationship" on and off for ten years. Dickinson was married to Burt Bacharach in 1965, and they remained married for fifteen years, until 1980.

Dickinson continued acting until recently. This tiny pic is the only one that I could find of her with Reagan in his last movie:

Movie stars I loved as a kid - Olivia de Havilland

I'm doing this now because our guests will be arriving soon.

Olivia Mary de Havilland (born July 1, 1916):

De Havilland is one of the last surviving female stars from 1930s Hollywood. She is also the last living lead from Gone with the Wind.

De Havilland was born in Tokyo, Japan. Her mother, Lilian Augusta Ruse (1886-1975), was an actress known by her stage name Lilian Fontaine, and her father, Walter Augustus de Havilland (1872-1968), was a British patent attorney with a practice in Japan. Her younger sister is actress Joan Fontaine (born 1917), from whom she has been estranged for many decades, not speaking at all since 1975.
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After appearing with Joe E. Brown in Alibi Ike and James Cagney in The Irish in Us, de Havilland played opposite Errol Flynn in such highly popular films as Captain Blood, The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), and as Maid Marian to Flynn's Robin Hood in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). Overall, she starred opposite Flynn in eight films. She played Melanie Hamilton Wilkes in Gone with the Wind (1939) and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.
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In 1941, De Havilland became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
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She won Best Actress Academy Awards for To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949).
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She has lived in Paris for the past 40 years.
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On November 17, 2008, at the age of 92, she received the National Medal for the Arts from President George W. Bush.

Movie stars I loved as a kid - Sandra Dee

Sandra Dee is another one of those stars who was not much older than me.

Sandra Dee (April 23, 1942 – February 20, 2005):

Best known for her portrayal of ingenues, Dee won a Golden Globe Award in 1959 as one of the year's most promising newcomers, and over several years her films were popular. By the late 1960s her career had started to decline, and a highly publicized marriage to Bobby Darin ended in divorce.

She rarely acted after this time, and her final years were marred by illness; she died as a result of kidney failure.

Dee was born Alexandra Zuck in Bayonne, New Jersey. Her parents divorced before she was five. Her mother was of Carpatho-Rusyn ancestry and raised her in the Russian Orthodox Church. Changing her name to "Sandra Dee", she became a professional model by the age of four and subsequently progressed to television commercials.

There was some confusion as to her actual birth year, with evidence pointing to both 1942 and 1944. According to her son Dodd Darin in his book Dream Lovers she was born in 1944, she and her mother having lied to everyone about her age so she could work. If true, the bride would have been 16 years old in 1960 when Dee was married to Bobby Darin.
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She became known for her wholesome ingenue roles in such films as Imitation of Life, Gidget and A Summer Place, all in 1959. She later played "Tammy" in two Universal sequels to Tammy and the Bachelor in the role created by Debbie Reynolds.
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Dee's adult years were marked by ill health. She admitted that for most of her life she battled anorexia nervosa, depression and alcoholism. In 2000, it was reported that she had been diagnosed with several ailments, including throat cancer and kidney disease. Complications from kidney disease led to her death on February 20, 2005.
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In 1994, Dodd wrote a book about his parents, Dream Lovers: The Magnificent Shattered Lives of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee, in which he chronicled his mother's anorexia, drug and alcohol problems and her disclosure that she had been sexually abused as a child by her stepfather, Eugene Douvan.

Movie stars I loved as a kid - Yvonne De Carlo

I saw De Carlo when she was a babe in the 1950s and didn't see her as Lily Munster till I saw reruns on TV after I came to the USA. She made 60 movies in the late 1940s and 1950s before doing The Munsters - and I saw most of them as a kid. She was stunningly beautiful. I really loved this lady.

Yvonne De Carlo (September 1, 1922 – January 8, 2007):

In her six-decade career, her most prolific appearances in film came in the 1940s and 1950s and included her best-known film roles, such as Salome Where She Danced and The Ten Commandments, opposite Charlton Heston. In the 1960s, she gained a whole new generation of fans, playing "Lily Munster" on CBS television series The Munsters, opposite Fred Gwynne.
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De Carlo was born Margaret Yvonne Middleton in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Her maternal grandfather, Michael de Carlo, was Sicilian-born, and her maternal grandmother, Margaret Purvis, was Scottish-born. Little Margaret was just a toddler when her father beat a hasty departure only one step ahead of the law. Her father abandoned her family when she was 3. While her mother was away with her boyfriends, Margaret lived with her grandparents.

She had a very hard early life being shuttled around by her ambitious mother between Canada and California, dancing in sleazy nightclubs. I think her early hardships were what made her witty and eccentric later in life.

Her break came in 1945 playing the title role in Salome, Where She Danced. Though not a critical success, it was a box office favorite, and De Carlo was hailed as an up-and-coming star. Of the role, she was less sure, saying of her entrance, "I came through these beaded curtains, wearing a Japanese kimono and a Japanese headpiece, and then performed a Siamese dance. Nobody seemed to know quite why."
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In December 1941, the Japanese Attack on Pearl Harbor signaled America's entrance into World War II. During this period she engaged in morale boosting performances for U.S. servicemen. De Carlo was a favorite leading lady in the 1940s, and a recipient of many letters from GI's.
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As the female lead opposite Burt Lancaster in Criss Cross, she played a femme fatale, and her career began to ascend. The 1957 film Band of Angels featured her opposite Clark Gable in an American Civil War story, along with Sidney Poitier and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.

The actress worked steadily for the next several years, although many of the films failed to advance her career.

Cast in The Ten Commandments (1956) in a leading role (as Zipporah, also spelled Sephora, Moses' wife), De Carlo became part of a major hit. The film was a huge success and De Carlo was praised for her restrained work in a feature in which several other performances were considered somewhat over-the-top.
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The year 1964 was a rocky one for De Carlo, as she was deeply in debt. After having worked for over 30 years, her film career came to a sudden end, and she was suffering from depression. Her life changed, however, when she signed a contract with Universal Studios after receiving an offer to perform the female lead role in the cult sitcom The Munsters opposite Fred Gwynne as Herman Munster.
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"In Hollywood I was on cloud nine all the time. After I made my hit in Salome, Universal sent me to New York so I could learn to be a proper movie star."

Asked if she was really nervous about residing in New York City: "I'm from Hollywood, I'm too dumb to be nervous about New York."
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In her autobiography, published in 1987, she listed 22 "intimate friends", including Aly Khan, Billy Wilder, Burt Lancaster, Howard Hughes, Robert Stack and Robert Taylor.
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On her meeting with Howard Hughes after he had watched Salome Where She Danced (1945): "A man came over ... he said 'Mr. Hughes would like to meet you.' Well, I was not too much aware of Mr. Hughes at the time --- who he was or anything. So, I said, 'Oh, yes, fine!' And so, I looked and thought, 'Wow, this would be a terrific boyfriend for my aunt.'"

When asked in 1972 about her affair with Howard Hughes before he turned into a legendary recluse: "Howard taught me how to land a plane and how to take off. But he never taught me anything about flying in between. He thought that I had learned the difficult parts, and that was enough."

This pic is huge. Click it if you want to see just how gorgeous she was.

Movie stars I loved as a kid - Joan Crawford and Bette Davis

Okay, so I was never "in love" with either of them but they were fascinating. They were both lookers in the 1930s but, by the time I began to see them in movies in the 1950s, they were already horror-film harridans. I was going to skip both of them but I found some pics of them when they were still babes so here goes.

Joan Crawford (March 23, 1905 – May 10, 1977):

Crawford was born Lucille Fay LeSueur in San Antonio, Texas.
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In the 1930s, Crawford's fame rivaled MGM colleagues Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo. Crawford often played hardworking young women who find romance and financial success. These "rags-to-riches" stories were well-received by Depression-era audiences and were popular with women. Crawford became one of Hollywood's most prominent movie stars and one of the highest paid women in the United States.
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She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for Mildred Pierce in 1945.
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In 1955, she became involved with the Pepsi-Cola Company, through her marriage to company president Alfred Steele. After his death in 1959, Crawford was elected to fill his vacancy on the board of directors but was forcibly retired in 1973.
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She adopted five children, one of whom was reclaimed by his birth mother. Crawford's relationships with her two older children, Christina and Christopher, were acrimonious. Crawford disinherited the two and, after Crawford's death, Christina wrote a "tell-all" memoir, Mommie Dearest, in which she alleged a lifelong pattern of physical and emotional abuse perpetrated by Crawford.
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Stories have persisted that Crawford further supplemented her income in her early 20s before fame by appearing in stag pornographic films.
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Crawford starred as Blanche Hudson, a physically disabled woman and former A-list movie star in conflict with her psychotic sister in the highly successful thriller What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? (1962). Despite the actresses' earlier tensions, Crawford suggested Bette Davis for the role of Jane. The two stars maintained publicly that there was no feud between them. However, Crawford accused Davis of kicking her during the filming of a scene in which Jane attacks Blanche, and reportedly retaliated by wearing weights under her clothes in a scene in which Davis had to carry her. The director, Robert Aldrich, explained that Davis and Crawford were each aware of how important the film was to their respective careers and commented, "It's proper to say that they really detested each other, but they behaved absolutely perfectly." After filming was completed, their public comments against each other allowed the tension to develop into a lifelong feud. Crawford then starred in horror movies throughout the 1960s.
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Upon hearing of the death of her long time rival, Bette Davis is said to have remarked "My mother told me never to speak badly of the dead. Joan's dead....Good".

Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis (April 5, 1908 – October 6, 1989):

Ruth Elizabeth Davis, known from early childhood as "Betty", was born in Lowell, Massachusetts.
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In 1939 she acted opposite Ronald Reagan in the film Dark Victory.
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Following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Davis spent the early months of 1942 selling war bonds. After Jack Warner criticized her tendency to cajole crowds into buying, she reminded him that her audiences responded most strongly to her "bitch" performances. She sold two million dollars of bonds in two days, as well as a picture of herself in Jezebel for $250,000. She also performed for black regiments as the only white member of an acting troupe formed by Hattie McDaniel, that also included Lena Horne and Ethel Waters.
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Davis refused the title role in Mildred Pierce in 1945 (because she did not want to play the part of the mother of a 17 year old) a role for which Joan Crawford ultimately won an Academy Award.
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Davis also refused the role of Rose Sayer in The African Queen (1951). When informed that the film was to be made in Africa, Davis told Jack Warner, "If you can't shoot the picture in a boat on the back lot, then I'm not interested." Katharine Hepburn played the role.
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The producer Darryl F. Zanuck offered her the role of the aging theatrical actress Margo Channing in All About Eve (1950). Davis read the script, described it as the best she had ever read, and accepted the role. Critics responded positively to Davis's performance and several of her lines became well-known, particularly, "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night." She was nominated for an Academy Award.
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She accepted her role in the Grand Guignol horror film What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) after reading the script and believing it could appeal to the same audience that had recently made Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960) a success. She negotiated a deal that would pay her 10 percent of the worldwide gross profits, in addition to her salary. The film became one of the year's biggest successes. When Davis was nominated for an Academy Award, Crawford campaigned against her. Davis then acted in horror movies throughout the 1960s and 1970s.
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Davis' daughter published a memoir, My Mother's Keeper, in which she chronicled a difficult mother-daughter relationship and depicted scenes of Davis's overbearing and drunken behavior.
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In 1964, Jack Warner spoke of the "magic quality that transformed this sometimes bland and not beautiful little girl into a great artist", and in a 1988 interview, Davis remarked that, unlike many of her contemporaries, she had forged a career without the benefit of beauty. She admitted she was terrified during the making of her earliest films and that she became tough by necessity. "Until you're known in my profession as a monster, you are not a star", she said.

Doris Day's perfect voice # 12

Okay, you can breathe a sigh of relief now. Here are the final three songs. I could post plenty more (Day recorded hundreds of songs) but enough's enough.

Secret Love Calamity Jane



Somewhere Over The Rainbow



Sentimental Journey

Movie stars I loved as a kid - Dorothy Dandridge

Dorothy Jean Dandridge (November 9, 1922 – September 8, 1965):

Dandridge was the first African American to be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress.
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Dandridge's first on-screen appearance was a bit part in a 1935 Our Gang short. In 1937 she appeared in the Marx Brothers feature A Day at the Races.
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In 1954, director and writer Otto Preminger cast Dandridge, along with Harry Belafonte, Pearl Bailey and Diahann Carroll in his production of Carmen Jones. Dandridge's singing voice was dubbed by Marilyn Horne.

Dandridge had a tragic life. Her only child was born brain-damaged in 1942. In 1960 she discovered that she had been swindled out of her fortune. She was forced to sell her Hollywood home and to place her daughter in a state mental institution. She moved into a small apartment in West Hollywood. Alone and without any acting roles or singing engagements on the horizon, she suffered a nervous breakdown. In 1965 she died of a drug overdose at the age of 42.

Doris Day's perfect voice # 11

My Dream is Yours



There They Are



The Song Is You

Movie stars I loved as a kid - Arlene Dahl

Arlene Carol Dahl (born August 11, 1928):

Dahl was born in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the daughter of Idelle (née Swan) and Rudolph S. Dahl, a Ford motor dealer and executive. She is of Norwegian descent.
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Some of her best films include: Reign of Terror (1949), Three Little Words (1950), Woman's World (1954), Slightly Scarlet (1956), and Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959).
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She was married to Fernando Lamas and is the mother of actor Lorenzo Lamas.

Movie stars I loved as a kid - Julie Christie

Julie Frances Christie (born 14 April 1941):

Christie was born in Chabua, Assam, India, then part of the British Empire, the first of two children of Rosemary (née Ramsden) and Frank St. John Christie. Christie's father ran the tea plantation around which Christie grew up.
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She first gained notice as Liz, the friend and would-be lover of the eponymous Billy Liar (1963) played by Tom Courtenay. The director, John Schlesinger, cast Christie only after another actress dropped out of the film. It was 1965 when Christie became known internationally. Schlesinger directed her in her breakthrough role, as the amoral model Diana Scott in Darling, a role which the producers originally offered to Shirley MacLaine. More significantly though, Christie appeared as Lara Antipova in David Lean's adaptation of Boris Pasternak's novel Doctor Zhivago (1965), one of the all-time box office hits.

Christie is one of those stars who is only a few years older than me. I was 15 when I first fell for her in Billy Liar and she was 21. But I really fell in love with her when I was 17 and saw her as Lara. She was only 23.

Doris Day's perfect voice # 10

Remind Me



April In Paris



But Not For Me

Movie stars I loved as a kid - Cyd Charisse

Cyd Charisse (March 8, 1922 – June 17, 2008):

After recovering from polio as a child, and studying ballet, Charisse entered films in the 1940s. Her roles usually focussed on her abilities as a dancer, and she was paired with Fred Astaire and Gene Kelly; her films include Singin' in the Rain (1952), The Band Wagon (1953) and Silk Stockings (1957).

Last year I did a post on Charisse. Sadly she died at the age of 86 soon after I did that post.

I used to be completely in love with Charisse when I was a kid. She was born on 8th March 1921 in Amarillo, Texas and was married to the same husband, singer Tony Martin, for 60 years.

The beauty I fell in love with when I was a boy.























Cyd Charisse, 86, with husband Tony Martin, 94.























With the Bushes in 2006 when they presented her with the National Arts Medal.

Doris Day's perfect voice # 9

Faded Summer Love



On Moonlight Bay



You're My Thrill

Movie stars I loved as a kid - Honor Blackman

Honor Blackman (born 22 August 1925):

An English actress, who is perhaps best known for the roles of Cathy Gale in The Avengers and as Bond girl Pussy Galore in Goldfinger. Blackman was the first and one of the very few "Bond girls" older than the actor playing James Bond.
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Blackman's films include Quartet and So Long at the Fair with Dirk Bogarde, the 1958 story of the Titanic's sinking A Night to Remember; Life at the Top with Laurence Harvey, The Virgin and the Gypsy, and the Western films Shalako with Sean Connery and Brigitte Bardot and Something Big with Dean Martin.
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Blackman is a signed supporter of Republic, The Campaign for an Elected Head of State, the UK campaign to replace the monarchy with a republic.

Cranberry chutney

Every year around this time I get hundreds of hits from Google searches looking for a cranberry chutney recipe which I first posted years ago. So here goes.

If, like me, you don't like regular cranberry sauce, now's the time to make cranberry chutney to give it time to mellow before Thanksgiving.

Recipe for cranberry chutney.

12 ounce bag of cranberries

1 cup of water

half a teaspoon of salt

1 cup of sugar

2 tablespoons olive oil

half an onion chopped fine

1 heaped teaspoon of finely minced garlic

2 tablespoons of finely chopped cilantro

1 teaspoon of cumin

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

half a teaspoon of cayenne pepper or one fresh serrano chillie finely minced

Boil the cranberries in the cup of water with the salt and sugar for ten minutes. The result will seem watery but it will solidify as it cools.

Heat a few tablespoons of olive oil in a skillet and add the cumin and cayenne (or minced serrano.) As soon as the cumin starts to bubble in the oil add the chopped onion and minced garlic and saute till golden brown - about ten minutes.

Add sauted onions etc to cranberries and stir in the chopped cilantro and vinegar. Let it cool and refrigerate. It will be slightly bitter when you first make it but will mellow in a few days. Use it just like the usual cranberry sauce. It's especially good on cold turkey sandwiches.

Doris Day's perfect voice # 8

I'm Confessin'



People Will Say We're In Love



Daydreaming

Movie stars I loved as a kid - Leslie Caron

Leslie Claire Margaret Caron (born 1 July 1931):

Caron is best known for the musical films Gigi, Lili, An American in Paris, and Daddy Long Legs, and for the non-musical films The L-Shaped Room, Father Goose, and Fanny. She received two Academy Award nominations for Best Actress. She speaks French and English. She is one of the few dancers or actresses that can say they have danced with Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Mikhail Baryshnikov and Rudolf Nureyev.
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Caron started her career as a ballet dancer. But eventually Gene Kelly discovered her, and cast her to appear opposite him in the classic musical An American in Paris (1951).

Doris Day's perfect voice # 7

When I Fall In Love



Three Coins In The Fountain



The Party's Over

Movie stars I loved as a kid - Claire Bloom

Claire Bloom (born Patricia Claire Blume; 15 February 1931):

Bloom was born in the North London suburb of Finchley, the daughter of Elizabeth (née Grew) and Edward Max Blume, who worked in sales. Her paternal grandparents, originally named Blumenthal, as well as her maternal grandparents, originally named Griewski, were Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe.
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She was chosen by Charlie Chaplin in 1952 to appear in his film Limelight, which catapulted Bloom to stardom, and remains one of her most memorable roles.
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She also acted in The Outrage with Paul Newman and Laurence Harvey, as well as the films The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Look Back in Anger, both with Richard Burton.

Doris Day's perfect voice # 6

Falling In Love Again



By the Light of the Silvery Moon



Tea for Two

Movie stars I loved as a kid - Ingrid Bergman

Ingrid Bergman (29 August 1915 – 29 August 1982):

She is best remembered for her role as Ilsa Lund in Casablanca (1942), a World War II spy drama co-starring Humphrey Bogart.
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A few of her other starring roles besides Casablanca included the films For Whom the Bell Tolls (1943), Gaslight (1944), Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946), and Under Capricorn (1949), and the independent production, Joan of Arc (1948).

In 1950, after a decade of stardom in American films, she starred in the Italian film Stromboli and had a love affair with director Roberto Rossellini while they were both already married. The affair created a scandal that forced her to return to Europe until 1956, when she made a successful Hollywood comeback in Anastasia for which she won her second Academy Award as well as the forgiveness of her fans.
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When she was three years of age, her mother died. Her father, who was an artist and photographer, died when she was thirteen. After his death, she was then sent to live with an aunt, who died of heart complications only six months later. She then moved in with her aunt Hulda and uncle Otto, who had five children.
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In 1949, Bergman met Italian director Roberto Rossellini in order to make the film Stromboli (1950), after having been a fan of two of his previous films that she had seen while in the United States. During the making of this movie, she fell in love with him and became pregnant with a son, Renato Roberto Giusto Giuseppe ("Robin") Rossellini (born 2 February 1950)

The pregnancy caused a huge scandal in the United States where it even led to Bergman being denounced on the floor of the U.S. Senate and Ed Sullivan chosing not to have her on his show, despite a poll indicating that the public wanted her to appear.