Movie stars I loved as a kid - Gene Tierney

There was a Gene Tierney marathon on TMC last week. We recorded her movies and have started watching them.

Gene Eliza Tierney (November 20, 1920 – November 6, 1991):

While playing Anne Scott in The Left Hand of God (1955), opposite Humphrey Bogart, Tierney’s long string of personal troubles finally took its toll. She said that “Bogey could tell that I was mentally unstable.” During the production, he fed Tierney her lines and encouraged her to seek help. Worried about her mental health, she consulted a psychiatrist, and was admitted to Harkness Pavilion in New York. Later, she went to The Institute of Living in Hartford, Connecticut. After some 27 shock treatments, Tierney attempted to flee, but was caught and returned. She became an outspoken opponent of shock treatment therapy, claiming that it had destroyed significant portions of her memory.
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Tierney married twice, first to costume and fashion designer Oleg Cassini on June 1, 1941. She and Cassini had two daughters, Antoinette Daria Cassini (born October 15, 1943) and Christina "Tina" Cassini (born November 19, 1948).

In June 1943, while pregnant with Daria, Tierney contracted rubella during her only appearance at the Hollywood Canteen. Daria was born prematurely in Washington, D.C., weighing only three pounds, two ounces (1.42 kg) and requiring a total blood transfusion. Because of Tierney's illness, Daria was also deaf, partially blind with cataracts and had severe mental retardation. Tierney's grief over the tragedy led to many years of depression and may have begun her bipolar disorder.

Some time after the tragedy surrounding her daughter Daria's birth, Tierney learned from a fan who approached her for an autograph at a tennis party that the woman (who was then a member of the women's branch of the Marine Corps) had sneaked out of quarantine while sick with rubella to meet Tierney at her only Hollywood Canteen appearance. In her autobiography, Tierney related that after the woman had recounted her story, she just stared at her silently, then turned and walked away. She wrote, "After that I didn't care whether ever again I was anyone's favorite actress."

Biographers have theorized that Agatha Christie used this real-life tragedy as the basis of her plot for The Mirror Crack'd from Side to Side. The incident, as well as the circumstances under which the information was imparted to the actress, is repeated almost verbatim in the story. Tierney's tragedy had been well-publicized for years previously. During this time, Howard Hughes, an old friend, saw to it that Daria received the best medical care available, paying for all of her medical expenses. Tierney never forgot Hughes' acts of kindness.

Tierney separated from Cassini, challenged by the marital stress of Daria's condition, but they later reconciled and had a second daughter, Tina. During her separation, during the filming of Dragonwyck, she met a young John F. Kennedy, who was visiting the set. They began a romance that ended the following year, when Kennedy told her he could never marry her because of his political ambitions. Tierney then reconciled with Cassini, but they divorced on February 28, 1952. In 1960, Tierney sent Kennedy a note of congratulations on his election victory; she later admitted that she had voted for Richard Nixon, saying, "I thought that he would make a better president."

Movie stars I loved as a kid - Grace Kelly

I haven't done a "Movie stars I loved as a kid" post in ages but I was reading about the new exhibition on Kelly at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and that inspired me.

Grace Kelly - a graceful masterclass in allure:

Grace Kelly’s acting career was shorter than you might think, cramming 11 films – and a Best Actress Oscar in 1955 for The Country Girl – into a mere five years before her life changed direction in 1956 when she announced her engagement to Monaco’s Serene Highness Prince Rainier (“pronounced Raynyay” as the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin helpfully explained). It was a fairy tale of sorts but Kelly conferred every bit as much status as she gained. The $2million dowry from her building tycoon father was a welcome shot of liquidity for the cash-strapped Grimaldis and a Hollywood princess put their tiny country on the map – well, almost.

Grace Kelly was a leading lady in film and in life:

Grace Kelly’s film career was as brief as it was incandescent. She managed 11 features in five years, three of them for Alfred Hitchcock, the collaboration for which she is best remembered.

Kelly had a simple, decorative part as Gary Cooper’s pacifist bride in High Noon (1952), but it was her role as a prissy anthropologist’s wife in John Ford’s Mogambo (1953) which first caught Hitchcock’s attention. He quickly cast her as the obliviously imperilled heroine of Dial M for Murder (1954) and the process of sculpting her into the cool, stylish blonde with the fire beneath was under way. That shoot was fraught with technical difficulties and Hitchcock neglected his inexperienced leading lady, whom he later regretted was a little stiff in the part.

Rear Window (1954), his next film, was such a meticulously planned and orderly production that Hitchcock could devote more of his attention to Kelly – and to crafting the most perfect, seductive close-ups that he, costume designer Edith Head and cinematographer Robert Burks could contrive between them.
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Before teaming up again with Hitchcock, Kelly did three films with other directors, one of which was dramatic, pointedly unglamorous and won her the Best Actress Oscar. George Seaton’s The Country Girl is an oddly forgotten film now, possibly because “dowdy” and “embittered” aren’t modes that casual Kelly fans are entirely comfortable seeing her try. But this woman-wronged role can be chalked up as her biggest stretch as an actress, and many of her scenes with Bing Crosby (as her tragic has-been husband) and William Holden (as the intemperate, woman-hating Broadway director who wants Crosby for his show) are fierce and surprising: this is the film that hints hardest at the serious actress Kelly might have become.

Instead, it was back to Hitch for one of his flimsier outings, the cat burglary romp To Catch a Thief (1955), opposite a disgustingly tanned Cary Grant.
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It’s certainly clear from the later performances of Eva Marie Saint, Vera Miles and Tippi Hedren that Hitchcock never got over the abrupt retirement of his leading lady. As Hedren, subjected to hours upon hours of hair, make-up and screen tests, explained once: “I was very touched by his evident need to re-create Grace Kelly – or whoever it was he wanted to re-create out of the raw material that was me – but I didn’t really want to go along with that sort of thing.”

Grace Patricia Kelly was born on November 12, 1929 and died on September 14, 1982:

Hitchcock offered Kelly the lead in his film Marnie in 1962. She was eager, but public outcry in Monaco against her involvement in a film that portrayed her as a kleptomaniac made her reconsider and ultimately reject the project.
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In 1951, the newly famous Kelly took a bold stand against a racist incident involving Black American expatriate singer/dancer Josephine Baker, when the Sherman Billingsley's Stork Club in New York refused Baker as a customer. Kelly, who was dining at the club when this happened, was so disgusted that she rushed over to Baker (whom she had never met), took her by the arm, and stormed out with her entire party, vowing never to return (and she never did). The two women became close friends after that night. A significant testament to their close friendship was made evident when Baker was near bankruptcy, and was offered a villa and financial assistance by Kelly (who by that time had become The Princess of Monaco) and her husband Rainier III of Monaco. The princess also encouraged Baker to return to performing and financed Baker's triumphant comeback in 1975, attending the opening night's performance. When Baker died, the Princess secured her burial in Monaco.
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On September 13, 1982, while driving with her daughter Stéphanie to Monaco from their country home, Princess Grace suffered a stroke, which caused her to drive her Rover P6 off the serpentine road down a mountainside. Grace was pulled alive from the wreckage, but had suffered serious injuries and was unconscious. She died the following day at the Monaco Hospital, having never regained consciousness. It was initially reported that Princess Stéphanie suffered only minor bruising, although it later emerged that she had suffered a serious cervical fracture. It was rumored that Princess Grace had been driving on the same stretch of highway that had been featured in her 1955 movie To Catch a Thief, but her son has always denied it.
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In his eulogy, James Stewart said: "You know, I just love Grace Kelly. Not because she was a princess, not because she was an actress, not because she was my friend, but because she was just about the nicest lady I ever met. Grace brought into my life as she brought into yours, a soft, warm light every time I saw her, and every time I saw her was a holiday of its own. No question, I'll miss her, we'll all miss her, God bless you, Princess Grace."

Kelly was one of the few blonds whom I found attractive. In fact I never really thought of her as a cool blond because the was something smolderingly hot and sexy about her.

Movie stars I loved as a kid - Mary Peach

She isn't well-known in the USA because she stopped acting in Hollywood movies in 1963 after her last movie here, A Gathering of Eagles, with Rock Hudson. She was born 20 October 1934 in my home town, Durban, South Africa. Her first movie was Room at the Top with another South African actor, Laurence Harvey.

Currently we are watching her in the mini-series, Disraeli, about the first (and only) Jewish Prime Minister of the UK. She plays Disraeli's wife, Mary Ann, who was 16 years older than him.

I mentioned to Chas and Andy that she was a babe in the Sixties. So here are a few pics to prove it.

Movie stars I loved as a kid - Katherine Grayson RIP

She died last night at the age of 88:

Kathryn Grayson, a singer and movie star of the 1940s and 1950s best known for MGM musicals such as "Kiss Me, Kate," has died at age 88, her secretary said on Thursday.

Grayson died at home in Los Angeles on Wednesday in her sleep, said Sally Sherman, who had worked with Grayson for 31 years.

The actress was among the top movie musical performers of her day, starring opposite Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly in 1945's "Anchors Away" and Ava Gardner and Howard Keel in 1951's "Showboat."
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Born in North Carolina on February 9, 1922, Grayson was raised in Missouri in a family that loved music. She began singing when she was 8 years old, training to be a soprano in the opera. But as a 15-year-old, the diminutive brunette signed a contract with MGM after studio executives heard her sing.

Sherman said Louis B. Mayer, the legendary studio boss at MGM, once told Grayson that if she went into the opera no one would know her, but if she stayed with movies, she would never be forgotten.
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Grayson's first film role was in 1941's "Andy Hardy's Private Secretary" and other movies included "It Happened in Brooklyn" (1947) again opposite Sinatra, and "That Midnight Kiss" (1949) with Mario Lanza.

When the musical era began to fade in Hollywood, Grayson switched from films to stage and resumed her opera singing, where her career thrived.

She sang in Carnegie Hall and in 1962, replaced Julie Andrews in the Broadway version of "Camelot." Grayson toured with the stage show, breaking box office records and winning strong reviews for well over a year.

She trained as an opera soprano from the age of 12:

During the 1960s, she performed in several operas, including La Bohème, Madama Butterfly, Orpheus in the Underworld and La Traviata.

Grayson with Mario Lanza singing Be My Love from Toast of New Orleans (1950):



In the same movie, Lanza and Grayson sing Libiamo, the drinking song from from Verdi's opera, La Traviata:



I just ordered Showboat from Netflix. I've seen it many times but...

Movie stars I loved as a kid - Jean Simmons - RIP

She died yesterday:

Jean Simmons, whose ethereal screen presence and starring roles with Hollywood's top actors made her a mid-century film icon, has died at age 80.

The actress, who sang with Marlon Brando in "Guys and Dolls;" costarred with Gregory Peck, Paul Newman and Kirk Douglas; and played Ophelia to Laurence Olivier's Hamlet, died Friday at her home in Santa Monica, her agent Judy Page told the Los Angeles Times. She had lung cancer.

Jean Merilyn Simmons, OBE (January 31, 1929 – January 22, 2010):

Among the many films she appeared in were The Robe (1953), The Egyptian (1954), Guys and Dolls (1955), The Big Country (1958), Elmer Gantry (1960), (directed by her second husband, Richard Brooks), Spartacus (1960), and The Happy Ending (1969), again directed by Brooks and for which she received her second Oscar nomination.

Movie stars I loved as a kid - Audrey Hepburn

I see from Sitemeter that my most popular posts (after "The difference between the French and American Revolutions" and "Bedbugs - the other unwelcome immigrants") are the "Movie stars I loved as a kid" series. I guess I'm not the only one who is less than enthusiastic about politics and current affairs.

Audrey Hepburn (4 May 1929(1929-05-04) – 20 January 1993):

Born in Ixelles, Belgium as Audrey Kathleen Ruston, Hepburn spent her childhood chiefly in the Netherlands, including German-occupied Arnhem, Netherlands, during the Second World War (1939-1945). She studied ballet in Arnhem and then moved to London in 1948, where she continued to train in ballet and worked as a photographer's model.

Her mother was a Dutch aristocrat and her father was a British admirer of Hitler who abandoned the family in Nazi-occupied Holland.

I always thought Hepburn was the most beautiful movie star ever - maybe even one of the most beautiful women ever. (More about that later.)

I've included a pic of her when she was ten years old and one of her just before she died too young at 63 - almost the same age as I am now.

Movie stars I loved as a kid - Rita Hayworth

I was mesmerized by Rita Hayworth twice: the first time when I was just a kid watching her movies when they were shown in the townhall on Saturday nights in South Aftica; the second time was when I was 21 on a cold winter night watching TV in London.

It was 1968. I had recently seen TV for the first time in my life and I was hooked on it. In those days you could not buy a TV in the UK. You had to rent it after buying a licence at the Post Office. I earned 12 pounds a week working in a pharmacy. I paid half of that in rent for a bedsitter in a garret in Notting Hill Gate. I couldn't afford to rent a color TV. So I rented a little B&W one for one pound a month.

The other thing that I had recently discovered was LSD. The first time I took it I laughed for a few hours at what I saw, felt and realized. Since that day I've been convinced that the universe was created not from a Big Bang but from a Big Belly Laugh, God's guffaw. The second time I took it was that winter night alone in my garret watching Rita Hayworth in "Gilda" on my postage-stamp-sized B&W TV. No, the TV didn't somehow magically become color but yes, I cried a lot watching Rita getting smacked around by Glen Ford but once again Rita mesmerized me as she sang "Put the Blame on Mame."

Rita Hayworth (October 17, 1918 – May 14, 1987):

She appeared in 61 films over 37 years and is listed as one of the American Film Institute's Greatest Stars of All Time.

Born Margarita Carmen Cansino in Brooklyn, New York City, she was the daughter of Spanish flamenco dancer Eduardo Cansino, Sr. and Ziegfeld girl Volga Hayworth who was of Irish and English descent. Her father wanted her to become a dancer while her mother hoped she'd become an actress. Her grandfather, Antonio Cansino, was the most renowned exponent in his day of Spain's classical dances; he made the bolero famous. His dancing school in Madrid was world famous. He gave Hayworth her first instruction in dancing.

"I didn't like it very much," revealed Hayworth, "but I didn't have the courage to tell my father, so I began taking the lessons. Rehearse, rehearse, rehearse, that was my girlhood."

"From the time I was three and a half," Hayworth said, ". . . as soon as I could stand on my own feet, I was given dance lessons."

She began her professional career at the age of 17 as a nightclub dancer in Tijuana and worked hard to break into movies.

In 1948 she left her film career to marry Prince Aly Khan, a son of Sultan Mahommed Shah, Aga Khan III, the leader of the Ismaili sect of Shia Islam. They were married on May 27, 1949.
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Hayworth once said she might become a Muslim like her husband. During the custody fight over their daughter Yasmin, Prince Khan said he wanted her raised as a Muslim; whereas Hayworth said she intended to raise her in the Christian faith. In fact, Hayworth turned down a $1,000,000 offer if she'd raise Yasmin as a Muslim from age seven and allow her to go to Europe for two or three months each year.

"Nothing will make me give up Yasmin's chance to live here in America among our precious freedoms and habits," declared Hayworth. "While I respect the Muslim faith and all other faiths it is my earnest wish that my daughter be raised as a normal, healthy American girl in the Christian faith. There isn't any amount of money in the entire world for which it is worth sacrificing this child's privilege of living as a normal Christian girl here in the United States. There just isn't anything else in the world that can compare with her sacred chance to do that. And I'm going to give it to Yasmin regardless of what it costs."

The Hayworth-Khan custody battle for little Yasmin was one of the most public custody battles in the history of Hollywood. Hayworth feared that Princess Yasmin would be kidnapped by her father, taken to his foreign country, and she'd never see her daughter again. She didn't trust him.
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Naturally shy and reclusive, Hayworth was the antithesis of the characters she played. "I naturally am very shy," she said, "and I suffer from an inferiority complex." She once complained, "Men fell in love with Gilda, but they wake up with me." With typical modesty she later remarked that the only films she could watch without laughing were the dance musicals she made with Fred Astaire. "I guess the only jewels of my life," Hayworth said, "were the pictures I made with Fred Astaire."
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Hayworth struggled with alcohol throughout her life. "I remember as a child," said her daughter, Yasmin Aga Khan, "that she had a drinking problem. She had difficulty coping with the ups and downs of the business. . . . As a child, I thought, 'She has a drinking problem and she's an alcoholic.' That was very clear and I thought, 'Well, there's not much I can do. I can just, sort of, stand by and watch.' It's very difficult, seeing your mother, going through her emotional problems and drinking and then behaving in that manner. . . Her condition became quite bad. It worsened and she did have an alcoholic breakdown and landed in the hospital."

In 1972, aged 54, Hayworth no longer wanted to act, but she signed up for "The Wrath of God" because she had money problems. The experience, however, exposed her bad health and worsening mental state. She couldn't remember her lines, so they had to film her scenes one line at a time. Extreme memory loss left her very nervous and resistant to doing at least one scene, which was then done by a double.
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Rita Hayworth's drinking problem confused her family, friends, colleagues—and even doctors—who were unable to immediately recognize Alzheimer's disease. "For several years in the 1970s, she had been misdiagnosed as an alcoholic."

"It was the outbursts," said her daughter, "She'd fly into a rage. I can't tell you. I thought it was alcoholism-alcoholic dementia. We all thought that. The papers picked that up, of course. You can't imagine the relief just in getting a diagnosis. We had a name at last, Alzheimer's! Of course, that didn't really come until the last seven or eight years. She wasn't diagnosed as having Alzheimer's until 1980. There were two decades of hell before that."

In July 1981, Hayworth's health had worsened to the point where a judge in Los Angeles Superior Court ruled that because she was suffering from senile dementia, and no longer able to care for herself, she should be placed under the care of her daughter, Princess Yasmin Khan of New York City.

She then lived in an apartment at The San Remo on Central Park West next to her daughter, who looked after her during her final years until she died.

One of the few color pics I could find:























This one's big. Click to enjoy:























And here she sings "Put the Blame on Mame" from "Gilda":

Movie stars I loved as a kid - Betty Grable

Back to normal programming.

Betty Grable (December 18, 1916 – July 2, 1973):

Her iconic bathing suit photo made her the number-one pin-up girl of the World War II era. It was later included in the Life magazine project "100 Photos that Changed the World". Grable was particularly noted for having the most beautiful legs in Hollywood and studio publicity widely dispersed photos featuring them. Hosiery specialists of the era often noted the ideal proportions of her legs as: thigh (18.5") calf (12"), and ankle (7.5"). Grable's legs were famously insured by her studio for $1,000,000 with Lloyds of London.
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It was during her reign as box office queen (in 1943) that Grable posed for her famous pinup photo, which (along with her movies) soon became escapist fare among GIs fighting in World War II.

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:

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).

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.

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.

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.