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May Wynn

May Wynn. Wikipedia.

May Wynn was born in 1928 in New York City. Her first film was “Dreamboat” with Anne Francis and Jeffrey Hunter in 1952. She won the lead female role in “The Caine Mutiny” in 1954. Her other films include “They RodeWest” and “The Violent Men”. Her last film was “Hong Kong Affair” in 1958.

Article from 2009 in “Captain’s Critic”:So I took my own advice and started rereading Herman Wouk’s “The Caine Mutiny.” Just as fabulous as I remember.

But a short ways into the book, Willie Keith meets his girlfriend — May Wynn. In my “Reeling Backward” review, that’s the name I used for the actress who appears in the movie version. I thought I’d made a mistake, and used the character’s name rather than the actress’. So I logged on here to fix it.

Wanna hear something really screwy? The actress’ name is May Wynn.

In something that could only happen in Golden Age Hollywood, her name was changed to the name of her character in the movie, which was going to be her big break-out role.

After a little digging, I learned that big-wheel producer Stanley Kramer decided that the name of Donna Lee Hickey just wasn’t going to cut it as a movie star. So he had her take the name of her character in the movie!

It does have a nice ring to it, with those two short syllables. Kramer liked it because it was impossible to mispronounce. Plus it has a positive connotation since it sounds like, “May win.”

It’s actually not the real name of the character, either. When Willie tells her he likes her name, she says, “That’s good. It took me a long time to think of it.” Turns out her real handle is Marie Minotti, and she’s using May Wynn as her stage name.

So let me just lay out this scenario again: A fictional character gives herself a stage name, an actress is hired to play her in the movie, and the studio makes her change her real name to that of the character’s made-up name. So May Wynn is a triple-fake name, or something.

Isn’t that screwy? Imagine if in 1977 Carrie Fisher was forced to change her name to Princess Leia Organa. Or if Indiana Jones was played by a guy named Han Solo.

Anyway, May Wynn made quite an impression on me in the film, even though it’s a small role. We first see her singing in a nightclub wearing this red dress that’s really va-voom for the era. She had short, dark hair — unusual for female stars of the time, long and blonde being the thing in the 1940s and ’50s. She actually resembles my mother when she was a youngster … very Freudian, I know.

Anyway, May’s showbiz career was pretty short. She did a bunch of television for a few years after “Caine Mutiny,” but Imdb.com lists no credits for her after 1959. She’s still alive, reportedly living quietly in California. I’d be very curious to know: Does she still go by the name bestowed on her by a studio honcho 55 years ago?

May Wynn died in 2021.

The above article from “Captain’s Critic” can be accessed online here.

Daily Telegraph obituary in 2021:

May Wynn, actress best known as a nightclub singer in The Caine Mutiny

She changed her name to that of her Caine Mutiny chanteuse, but her career did not catch fire as she had hoped

ByTelegraph Obituaries24 May 2021 • 6:00am

May Wynn, who has died aged 93, was an actress, singer and dancer who was, perhaps, the only film star to be renamed after one of her characters.

In Edward Dmytryk’s The Caine Mutiny (1954), starring Humphrey Bogart, Donna Hickey played May Wynn, a sultry nightclub artiste (although her singing voice was dubbed by Jo Ann Greer). The studio mogul Harry Cohn was so impressed that he had her adopt her character’s name. “I finally thought I had made it in Hollywood,” she recalled. “I wanted to be the next Lana Turner.”

Donna Lee Hickey was born to vaudevillians in New York on January 8 1928. She followed her parents into show business, dancing in nightclubs across New York before being given a residence at the Copacabana Club aged 16.

“Some of the girls had a great desire to try their luck in Hollywood,” she said in 2010. “I was one of them. However, the little men who’d come by the Copacabana on the promise of something from the girls in exchange for a screen test overlooked me. I was young and awkward. In hindsight I had a lucky escape.”

She was later crowned Miss American Legion, Miss Miami Beach and Queen of the New York Press Photographers Ball.

In 1950 she was introduced by a New York talent scout to William Gordon, a casting director at 20th Century Fox, but she made her screen debut at MGM the following year in the Esther Williams musical Skirts Ahoy!

When the 20th Century Fox mogul Darryl Zanuck spotted her on screen, he personally oversaw a lucrative six-month contract. But, she recalled: “I was miserable at Fox. Every week I’d hail a taxi go to the lot, pick up my salary cheque and then home again with no work to speak of aside from little bit parts.”

May Wynn in The Caine Mutiny CREDIT: alamy

She was tested by Columbia for the role of Lorene in From Here to Eternity (1953), but she lost out to Donna Reed, who won an Oscar for her performance. Distraught at being overlooked, Donna Hickey joined a trip to entertain the troops in Korea.

On her return, at the beginning of 1953, she received a telephone call from the producer Stanley Kramer, who thought she would be perfect as May Wynn in The Caine Mutiny.

Following its success, and now going by the name of her character in the film, she had roles on television and featured in two Westerns, They Rode West (1954) and Rough Company (1955), as well as in B-grade fare such as The White Squaw and The Man Is Armed (both 1956), the latter for the “poverty row” studio Republic.

May Wynn began dating Robert Francis, one of her Caine Mutiny co-stars, but he was killed in July 1955 when his plane crashed approaching Burbank airport. She was subsequently linked to Peter Lawford and Frank Sinatra, then in 1956 she married the actor Jack Kelly. She followed him to the Far East, where he was filming Hong Kong Affair (1958), and was given the role of Chu Lan after the intended local actress turned out not to speak English.

May Wynn called it a day during the early 1960s, but not before running a film company, Majak Productions (from “May” and “Jack”), which she formed with Kelly. For 28 years she taught handwriting and public speaking at Our Lady Queen of Angels Catholic school in Newport Beach, and also worked in real estate.

She lived in contented obscurity until 2003, when she turned up at a Hollywood autograph show complete with a stack of 8 x 10 portrait shots which she happily sold to film fans.

May Wynn divorced Jack Kelly in 1962 and married a fellow realtor, Jack Custer, in 1968. They divorced in 1979.

May Wynn, born January 8 1928, died March 23 2021

Peter Kastner was born in 1943 in Toronto. In 1966 he was given the lead by Francis Ford Coppolla in “You’r A Big Boy Now”.In 1971 he had the lead in “B.S. I LOve You”. However his film career was not extensive. Peter Kastner died in 2008 at the age of 64.

Peter Kastner graduated from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) with a degree in Modern European History. He studied also at UCLA for a Masters degree in that field but put those studies aside to pursue acting work. He was a lifelong learner, most recently teaching himself Yiddish in the original Hebrew script.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: Jenny Kastner (Peter’s widow)

Greer Garson obituary in “The Independent”.

Greer Garson was born in 1902 in Manor Park in Essex. Much of her childhood was spent in Co Down in Northern Ireland. She began her career on the London stage and was spotted by MGM’s Louis B. Meyer and brought out to Hollywood in 1938. Her first film with MGM was “Goodbye Mr Chip” with Robert Donat. During the early 1940’s, she was one of the most popular star. “Mrs Miniver”, “Random Harvest” and “Madame Curie” among others were hugly popular. She starred with Walter Pidgeon in several films. She died in Texas in 1996.

David Shipman’s Obituary in The Independent:

She was a successful stage actress when the head of MGM, Louis B. Mayer, went to a West End play called Old Music (1937) on the (mistaken) assumption that it was a musical. Her performance impressed him enough to offer a contract, but his studio did not know what to do with a broad-faced, university-educated thirtyish British actress; so, this being the era of typecasting, they saw her as another Binnie Barnes, whose forte was to chase after men, money or both.

Illness prevented Garson from following this path (the film was called Dramatic School) and she languished till Sam Wood cast her in Goodbye Mr Chips (1939), which he was to direct in Britain. She did not relish the role, since she was due to die only screen minutes after marrying and humanising the dry schoolteacher Mr Chipping. Robert Donat collected a popular Oscar for playing him, but Garson’s brief contribution was equally vital. C.A. Lejeune, the film critic of the Observer, spoke of her “vivid grace” and Graham Greene admired “the short-lived wife [who] lifts the whole picture into – we are tempted to call it reality – common sense and tenderness, a sense of happiness too good to last”.

On her return to Hollywood she was forced into the studio’s chosen image – a New York sophisticate, jagged with sophistication in huge hats – squabbling and making up with Robert Taylor in Remember? But her Mrs Chipping was uppermost in executive minds when casting Pride and Prejudice (1940), based on a stage version which had been bought for Norma Shearer and Clark Gable. Garson and Olivier were much more sensible choices, even if Olivier later observed: “Dear Greer seemed to me all wrong as Elizabeth . . . she was the only down-to-earth sister but Greer played her as the most affected and silly of the lot”. However, Bosley Crowther of the New York Times wrote that she had “stepped out of the book, or rather out of one’s fondest imagination: poised, graceful, self-contained, witty, spasmodically stubborn and as lovely as a woman can be.” Nevertheless those who tend to Olivier’s view sighed for her presence during the recent BBC adaptation, in which Jennifer Ehle completely missed Lizzie’s sense of self-mockery.

Garson’s performance reversed MGM’s concept of her, and she replaced Shearer in the title role of Mrs Miniver (1942) when that actress refused to play the mother of a grown-up son. He was played by Richard Ney, who was actually years younger than Garson: 14, in fact, though at the time it seemed less, since MGM’s publicists had lopped years off her age. She obliged them by waiting till the film had gone its rounds before making him her second husband, but as far as the studio was concerned the film had made her the biggest star on the lot.

It was a movie showered with Oscars, including Best Film, Best Actress (Garson) and Best Director (William Wyler). Garson made cinema history by making an acceptance speech that lasted 45 minutes: new rules were brought in to stop this happening thereafter. The story of an “ordinary” British family through Dunkirk and the Blitz, it struck a particular chord with the Americans, who had just entered the war.

Teresa Wright with Walter Pidgeon & Greer Garson

Winston Churchill told Parliament that it had done more for the British war effort than a flotilla of destroyers. Yes, and Garson epitomised the courageous British housewife, the domestic ideal, partnering the equally sunny Walter Pidgeon, with whom she was to make eight films in all; but what with Mrs M rounding up a German paratrooper in the garden and no mention of rationing it was hardly realistic. Wyler, when he arrived in Britain with the Army, admitted that he would have made a very different picture if he had been here first.

Better altogether was Random Harvest since, as adapted by the same four writers, including James Hilton (who had written the original novel as well as Goodbye Mr Chips), it aspired only to romantic melodrama. Ronald Colman was the amnesiac officer who meets and falls in love with a music- hall star played by Garson on Armistice Day 1918 and marries her; and who later doesn’t recognise her when she becomes his secretary. Accompanied by some publicity about the lady’s short stage kilt and tights, the film was a second box-office bonanza (at a time when few New York cinemas showed their films for more than a week, these ran for 10 and 11 weeks respectively at Radio City Music Hall).

MGM had forced Shearer into retirement and had let Myrna Loy, “the perfect wife” go; Garbo had withdrawn for the duration; Crawford, who had hoped to inherit the mantle of Metro’s First Lady, saw it (to her chagrin) bestowed on Garson, who also inherited a role intended for Garbo – Madame Curie (1943), with Pidgeon as Monsieur. James Agate didn’t care for it but took the occasion to observe that it was time “to recognise Greer Garson as the next best film actress to Bette Davis”.

MGM had just signed her to a new seven-year contract without options, and reinforced her new persona, that of a patrician matriarchal figure, in two period family dramas, Mrs Parkington (1944), with Pidgeon, and The Valley of Decision (1945), with Gregory Peck. “Gable’s Back and Garson’s Got Him” was the way the studio publicised his first post-war film, Adventure (1946), but it was a slogan much derided – partly because the plot degenerated (depending on how you lok at it) from romantic comedy to religious allegory, and partly because Clark Gable let it be known that he loathed it.

The movie marked the start of a gradual decline in Garson’s fortunes, and the next, Desire Me (1947), was the only film to be issued without a director credit in the studio’s history. This was hardly her fault, but co-star Robert Mitchum observed that he stopped taking acting seriously when she needed 125 takes to say “No”. Garson and Pidgeon were put into a comedy in an attempt to change the image, but Julia Misbehaves (1948) was chiefly remarkable for ill-using its source, Margery Sharpe’s clever novel The Nutmeg Tree.

Garson’s fans returned when she played Irene to Errol Flynn’s Soames in That Forsyte Woman (1949), based on part of Galsworthy’s saga, but they stayed away from a more obvious attempt to retrieve them, The Miniver Story (1950).

With the exception of Mankiewicz’s Julius Caesar (1953), in which she was Calpurnia, her last films for the studio were mediocre. She was considered for the role Grace Kelly eventually played in Mogambo but the producer, Sam Zimbalist, considered her too mannered. Like Fox’s Betty Grable, her only constant rival on the box-office lists, she had become a liability, but because their names had been so indelibly associated with these studios for so long, they were kept on well after they had outlived their appeal.

A Western at Warners, Strange Lady in Town (1955), confirmed this and, having married a wealthy Texan, Garson didn’t need to work. She accepted only occasional roles that she really wanted to do, including Auntie Mame (1958) on Broadway, replacing Rosalind Russell; Eleanor Roosevelt in Sunrise at Campobello (1960); an imperious Queen Mary, by this time a sort of alter-ego, in Crown Matrimonial (1974), for television; and Aunt March in a television Little Women (1978). She spent her last years in Dallas, where her work for good causes was unstinting, including the campus theatre endowed in her name.

Joe Mankiewicz, who was at MGM at the same time, was once talking to me about its producers. “They all had a girl on the side. Eddie Mannix had – what was the name of that Irish-Jewish redhead?” “Greer Garson?” I ventured, wondering that what to me was one of the most regal of stars was to him just another half-forgotten “protegee”. Could this be the same Greer Garson who indignantly rejected the self-parody number in Ziegfeld Follies written for her by Roger Edens and Kay Thompson, which Judy Garland so eagerly played?

David Shipman

Greer Garson, actress: born Co Down, Northern Ireland 29 September 1903; married 1933 Edward A. Snelson (marriage dissolved 1937), 1943 Richard Ney (marriage dissolved 1947), 1949 Elijah “Buddy” Fogelson (died 1987); died Dallas, Texas 6 April 1996.

David Shipman’s obituary in The Independent can be accessed online here.

Greer Garson

Garson

Everett Sloane was born in 1909 in New York. He was part of Orson Welles’s “Mercury Theatre Group” and played Mr Bernstein in “Citizen Kane” in 1941. Other films of note include “Journey Into Fear”, “The Lady from Shanghai”, “The Blue Veil”, “Patterns” and “The Men” with Marlon Brando and Teresa Wright. He always looked older than his years. Everett Sloane died in 1965 at the age of 55.

His IMDB entry:

Everett Sloane, the actor most known for playing Mr. Bernstein in Orson Welles classicCitizen Kane (1941) as a member of Welles’ Mercury Players, was born in New York, New York on October 1, 1909. Sloane was bitten by the acting bug quite early, and first went on-stage when he was seven years old. After high school, he attended the University of Pennsylvania but soon dropped out to pursue an acting career, joining a theatrical stock company. However, he was discouraged by poor personal reviews and returned to New York City, where he worked as a runner on Wall Street.

After the Stock Market Crash of October 1929, Sloane turned to radio for employment as an actor. His voice won him steady work, and he even became the voice of Adolf Hitler on “The March of Time” serials. He made his Broadway debut in 1935 as part of George Abbott‘s company, in “Boy Meets Girl,” which was followed by another play for Abbott, “All That Glitters” in 1938. Eventually, he joined Welles’ Mercury Theatre, appearing in the 1941 stage production of Richard Wright‘s “Native Son,” directed by Welles. However, before that Broadway landmark, Welles had cast Sloane as Mr. Bernstein in his first feature film, which ensured Sloane’s immortality in the cinema. (Sloane would remain a Mercury Player until 1947, when he appeared as Bannister in Welles’ The Lady from Shanghai (1947).)

Outside his two memorable supporting roles for Welles, Sloane’s reputation rests on his portrayal Walter Ramsey, a ruthless corporate executive trying to crush another executive, in the TV and screen versions of Rod Serling’s Patterns (1956). According to Jack Gould’s January 17, 1955, “New York Times” review of the TV program, which debuted on Ponds Theater (1953): “In the role of Ramsey, Mr. Sloane was extraordinary. He made a part that easily might have been only a stereotyped ‘menace’ a figure of dimension, almost of stature. His interpretation of the closing confrontation speech was acting of rare insight and depth.” Sloane was nominated for an Emmy in 1956 for the performance.

In addition to his movie work, Sloane appeared extensively on TV as an actor, directed several episodic-TV programs, and did voice over work for the cartoon series The Dick Tracy Show (1961) and Jonny Quest (1964). Plagued with failing eye sight, a depressed Sloane quit acting and eventually took his life at the age of 55.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: Jon C. Hopwood

The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.

Lloyd’s Of London, poster, (aka LLOYDS OF LONDON), Freddie Bartholomew, Tyrone Power, Madeleine Carroll, 1936. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)

Freddie Bartholomew was one of the most popular child stars in U.S. films of the 1930’s. He was born in 1924 in Lodon. He was raised in England and made two films there before going to Hollywood in 1934, He played the young David in the wonderful 1934 “David Copperfield” which was directed by George Cukor. His other films included “Anna Karenina” with Greta Garbo, “Little Lord Fauntleroy” with Mickey Rooney and “Captains Courageous” with Spencer Tracy. He served in the Airforce during World War Two and did not pursue a film career but became an asvertising executive in New York. He died at the age of 67 in Floria in 1992.

TCM Overview:

Curly-haired Hollywood child star whose earnest presence, refined British diction and angelic looks established him as a boxoffice favorite in the 1930s and 40s. After a few minor roles in British films, the ten-year-old was signed by MGM to star as Dickens’s hero in David O. Selznick’s production of “David Copperfield” (1935). He went on to play Greta Garbo’s son in “Anna Karenina” (1935) and followed up with his two most popular roles: as the American boy who learns he is the heir to a dukedom in “Little Lord Fauntleroy” (1936) and as a pampered rich brat who is rescued and educated by rough fishermen in Rudyard Kipling’s adventure yarn, “Captains Courageous” (1937).

With a salary eclipsed only by that of child superstar Shirley Temple, Bartholomew was earning $2,500 a week by the late 30s, though his career began to wane after numerous court battles between his guardian-aunt and his parents over his earnings. After service in WWII he made a stab at a career in vaudeville and nightclubs before turning to TV, where he hosted a daytime program in the 1950s and then became associate director of a New York TV station. In the mid-1950s he again switched careers, this time joining New York’s Benton and Bowles agency as an advertising executive.

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

Geraldine Page. TCM Overview.

It can only be a matter of surmise how Geraldine Pge might have fared on screen in the days of long-term contracts and build-ups. As it happens she was there . fleetingly in the old days and nothing much did happen to her. She returned intermittently once her Broadway demonstrated her ability. She was a star of the new breed, working in films, TV and the theatre, ith no great fuss about status” – David Shipman – “The Great Movie Stars – The International Years” (1972).

Geraldine Page was born in 1924 in Kirksville, Missouri. She trained in method acting with Lee Strasberg. She is a reknowned interpreter of the work of Tennessee Williams and won rave reviews for her performance in the Boradway 1952 production of “Summer and Smoke” as Alma, a role she repeated in the 1962 film adaptation with Laurence Harvey. Her movie breakthrough role had been in “Hondo” with John Wayne in 1953. Her other films include “Sweet Bird of Youth”, “Dear Heart” with Glenn Ford and Angela Lansbury, “The Beguiled” with Clint Eastwood, “The Pope of Greenwich Village” and “The Trip to Bountiful” for which she won the Oscar. Geraldine Page died suddenly in New York in 1987 while appearing in “Blithe Spirit”. Her husband was actor Rip Torn.

TCM Overview:

Described by playwright Tennessee Williams, whose troubled heroines she often portrayed on stage and screen, as “the most disciplined and dedicated of actresses,” Geraldine Page burst upon the NYC theatrical scene as the Southern spinster hoping for one last chance at love in a highly celebrated 1952 revival of Williams’ “Summer and Smoke”, which put both Page and off-Broadway on the map. On the strength of that performance, she secured roles in two movies released in 1953, “Taxi” and “Hondo”, receiving her first of eight Oscar nominations for her supporting turn as an abandoned ranch wife who falls for John Wayne in the latter.

Despite this formidable introduction to movies, Page returned to her first love to make her Broadway debut in “Midsummer” in 1953. The following year, she appeared in Broadway productions of “The Immoralist” (with James Dean and Louis Jordan) and “The Rainmaker” (opposite Darren McGavin). No great beauty, Page displayed an unparalleled repertoire of tics and mannerisms that sometimes marred otherwise fine performances and other times enhanced them. After an eight-year absence from features, Page’s highly-strung, eccentric persona finally broke through in the 1961 film version of her star-making “Summer and Smoke”, which she followed by reprising her Broadway success as Williams’ fading screen star Alexandra Del Lago in “Sweet Bird of Youth” (1962), earning back-to-back Best Actress Oscar nominations.

Offered the female lead in Edward Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” on Broadway in the 60s, the Method-trained Page insisted that Lee Strasberg be present during the rehearsals, a demand which cost her the role and branded her with the reputation as somewhat difficult. Choosy about what parts she accepted, Page frequently turned down work that did not suit her taste. Her forte was sexually guarded and/or repressed women or women who just hadn’t had a chance at the brass ring, and her ability to project the deep emotions of these characters guaranteed her standing as one of the best actresses of her generation. Brilliant as the spinster sister whose love for brother Dean Martin borders on the incestuous in “Toys in the Attic” (1963), she was a desperate wooer of Glenn Ford in “Dear Heart” (1965) before earning her fourth Oscar nomination (as Best Supporting Actress) as the doting mother (opposite husband Rip Torn) of Peter Kastner in Francis Ford Coppola’s “You’re a Big Boy Now” (1966). Memorable (and Oscar-nominated) for her no-holds barred, comic fight with friend Carol Burnett in “Pete ‘n’ Tillie (1972), she also contributed a performance of exquisite, enclosed self-pity to Woody Allen’s first dramatic effort, the Bergmanesque “Interiors” (1978), earning her third Academy Award nomination as Best Actress.

Like many New York actors, Page was a regular performer during television’s Golden Age in the 50s, but she became more selective regarding small screen roles after her movie career took off. She played Xantippe in NBC’s “Hallmark Hall of Fame” adaptation of Maxwell Anderson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Barefoot in Athens” (1966), about the early days of Socrates, and a month later delivered an Emmy-winning performance as Aunt Sookie in ABC’s “A Christmas Memory” (adapted from the story by Truman Capote), a role she would reprise for “A Thanksgiving Visitor” (ABC, 1968) earning a second Emmy Award. She appeared infrequently during the 70s (i.e., “Live Again, Die Again” ABC, 1974; “Something For Joey” CBS, 1977) but stepped up her output considerably during the 80s, acting in acclaimed vehicles like the miniseries “The Blue and the Gray” (CBS, 1982) and “The Dollmaker” (ABC, 1984). She also portrayed Sally Phelps in the “American Playhouse” presentation of “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” (PBS, 1986) and closed out her TV career impressively as a concentration camp survivor in “Nazi Hunter: The Beate Klarsfield Story” (ABC, 1986).

Despite her screen success, Page never turned her back on the theater. She was a great proponent of off-Broadway and regional theater, appearing throughout her career with repertory companies like the Academy Festival Theatre (Lake Forest, Illinois), where she was able to play another choice Williams’ role in 1974, that of Blanche in “A Streetcar Named Desire”. She performed in two Actors Studio productions (“Strange Interlude” 1963 and “Three Sisters” 1964, which was filmed) and continued to appear on Broadway in such productions as “Black Comedy” (1967), “Absurd Person Singular” (1974) and “Agnes of God” (1982). She smoked like a chimney for her Oscar-nominated role as the mother of a slain policeman in “The Pope of Greenwich Village” (1984) and finally took home a Best Actress statue for “A Trip to Bountiful” (1985), luminously portraying an elderly woman who fulfills her fervent desire of visiting the small Texas town of her youth. Page capped her big screen career as the maid of the house in which Bigger Thomas goes to work in “Native Son” (1986) and was appearing on Broadway as the eccentric medium Madame Arcati in a revival of Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit” at the time of her death.

The above TCM overview can also be accessed here.

Edward Albert was born in 1951 in Los Angeles and was the son of actors Eddie Albert and Margo. He made his movie debut with Anthony Perkins in the 1965 “The Fool Killer”. He won widespread acclaim for his performance opposite Goldie Hawn in “Butterflies Are Free”. He went on to star opposite Liv Ullmann in “40 Carats”. He died in 2006 at the age of 56 shortly after the death of his father at 99. He was married to actress Catherine Woodville.

Gary Brumburgh’sentry:

he only son of Green Acres (1965) star Eddie Albert and Mexican actress/dancer Margo, Edward Laurence Albert managed to come out from under his father’s strong shadow and make a gallant showing of his own as a gifted thespian. Born in Los Angeles on February 20, 1951, Edward’s multi-cultural heritage and talented gene pool allowed him to become a man of many talents: songwriter, drummer, singer, photographer and, most importantly, activist.

Original Cinema Belgian Poster – Movie Film Posters

Growing up, he inherited an early interest in music and the performing arts. He made an auspicious film debut at the age of 14 in The Fool Killer (1965) co-starring as a young runaway who teams up with a tormented Civil War veteran (Anthony Perkins), a teaming that leads to murder. A strong, mature role for such a youngster, his next film appearance wouldn’t come about until seven years later. In the meantime Edward attended Oxford University and was studying psychology at UCLA when offered the breakthrough of a lifetime.

Signed up to play the difficult role of blind Don Baker–played on Broadway by Keir Dullea–who yearns for freedom away from his domineering mom (Oscar winner Eileen Heckart) and finds it in the arms of a liberated lass named Jill (Goldie Hawn) inButterflies Are Free (1972), Edward easily captured the hearts of millions with his tender, life-affirming performance. Edward walked home with the cinema’s Golden Globe Award as “Male Newcomer of the Year.” A confident, intelligent actor with a serene handsomeness and 1000-watt smile who just happened to possess the most magnetic pale eyes this side of Meg Foster, Edward was on a seemingly strong path to film stardom. Although he never found a comparable success to “Butterfly,” he did follow it up with another theater comedy favorite, 40 Carats (1973), in which he had a dalliance with older actress Liv Ullmann. He also played Charlton Heston‘s military son in Midway(1976), followed by highly visible roles in The Domino Killings (1977) and The Greek Tycoon (1978).

When film stardom did not pan out, Edward saw TV as a welcoming medium and made up for his sudden lack of star power with wonderful turns in major TV minimovies, notablyThe Last Convertible (1979). By the 1980s he had started making the rounds in formula low-budget action films and usually fared best when his flashy villainous side came into view. While such obvious movie titles as The House Where Evil Dwells (1982), Fist Fighter (1989), Demon Keeper (1994) and Stageghost (2000) pointed out the lack of quality in his offerings, it did provide a steady income and visibility. He also made frequent guest appearances on such shows as Falcon Crest (1981), L.A. Law (1986), Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993) and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (1993) that kept him in the public eye. A solid regular as both good guy and bad guy on series TV, he gave his life (and, it seems, his paycheck) to the Beast after three seasons on Beauty and the Beast (1987) and, in contrast, played the dastardly Dr. Bennett Devlin on the daytime soap Port Charles (1997) for its first three seasons. Edward also used his vocal talents in animation involving such superhero icons as The Fantastic Four (1978), Spider-Man(1994) and “The Power Rangers”.

From his father and mother Edward developed a deep love and appreciation for the land and the diversity of cultures. As such, he divided his time between acting work and activism just as his father had done. Having owned a ranch in Malibu for over 30 years, he was a strong, positive influence and passionate spokesperson when it came to environmental and cultural affairs. In recent years he served on the California Coastal Commission and California Native American Heritage Commission.

Long married to lovely British-born actress Katherine Woodville, the couple’s daughter, Thais, continued the family musical tradition as a singer/songwriter for the rock group Sugar in Wartime. Following his mother’s passing from brain cancer in 1985, Edward became a selfless caregiver to his aging father, who began to develop early signs of Alzheimer’s disease in the 1990s. His father lived for more than a decade in declining health, dying in May 2005. In early 2005, Edward discovered he too was seriously ill after being diagnosed with lung cancer. He died surrounded by family on September 22, 2006, at the relatively young age of 55.

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

Estelle Winwood was born in 1883 in Kent and died in Los Angeles in 1984 at the age of 101. She was still acting at 96, some record. She had made her movie debut in the British “House of Trent” in 1933. In 1937 she was in Hollywood making “Quality Street” with Katharine Hepburn but did not make another film until “The Glass Slipper” in 1955. She then began a busy career as a character actress. Among her films are “The Swan”, “This Happy Ending”, “Alice and Kicking”, “Darby O’Gill and the Little People” and “Murder by Death” where she was hilarious as the wheelchaird bound nurse of Elsa Lanchester.

IMDB entry:

When Estelle saw the girl on a white horse at the circus, she then decided that she wanted to be an actress. And she was from the age of 5, to the disapproval of her father. Her mother had her train with the Liverpool Repertory Company, and Estelle performed in many plays and many roles in the West End. In 1916, she made her debut on Broadway and worked with a number of acclaimed stage actors. Estelle spent the rest of the ‘teens and ’20s working in plays on both sides of the Atlantic. Being an actor in the theater, Estelle was not about to be one of those who acted in flicks and held out for a very long time. In fact, besides a small role in a few English films in the early 1930s, her real debut was Quality Street (1937), a picture that she undertook when she was in her 50s. Anyway, that was enough as it would be almost two decades before she would return to the big screen. She appeared on the stage in the plays “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” “Ten Little Indians,” and “The Importance of Being Earnest.” But, in 1955, Estelle did return to the movies as Leslie Caron‘s “fairy godmother” in The Glass Slipper (1955). Estelle would spend the next 10 years appearing in films, often cast as eccentric, frail old ladies, some of whom could be deadly. Not to be left out, Estelle also would work on Television, doing guest spots in a number of shows. At 84, Estelle played a woman who was enamored by crooked Zero Mostel in the comedy The Producers (1967). Her last film would be the detective spoof Murder by Death (1976). When Estelle was asked, on the occasion of her 100th birthday, how she felt to have lived so long, she replied, “How rude of you to remind me!”.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: Tony Fontana <tony.fontana@spacebbs.com>

The bove IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.

Article on Estelle Winwood on “Tina Aumont’sEyes” website:

A wonderful stage actress and later character performer who specialized in dotty busybodies, Estelle Winwood’s first love was the stage, where she would spend the first twenty years of her career before gaining her first movie appearance.

Born in Kent, England, on January 24th 1883, Estelle was acting in London’s West End before moving to New York in 1916 where she made her Broadway debut. The next two decades were spent commuting between London and New York where Estelle excelled in theatre, appearing in many popular productions including ‘Moliere’ (1919), ‘The Tyranny of Love’ (1921), ‘ The Taming of the Shrew’ (1925), ‘Fallen Angels’ (1927), and ‘The Admirable Crighton’ (1931).

After a handful of minor roles, Winwood’s first part of note was in the George Stevens romancer ‘Quality Street’ (’37) starring Katherine Hepburn and Franchot Tone. Estelle was very good as a suspicious neighbour and helped liven up this rather dull production. After a few television roles (which included playing the medium Madame Arcati in a 1946 version of ‘Blithe Spirit’) Winwood’s next movie would not be until 1955, when she played Leslie Caron’s Fairy Godmother in the Cinderella story ‘The Glass Slipper’. The following year she was a jovial barmaid in the terrific suspenser ‘23 Paces to Baker Street’ (’56), and then had a wonderfully eccentric role as Grace Kelly’s great-aunt Symphorosa in Charles Vidor’s lush romantic comedy ‘The Swan’ (’56).

One of Winwood’s most memorable roles came a couple of years later when she played Curd Jürgens’ alcoholic housekeeper in the charming Blake Edwards romp ‘This Happy Feeling’ (’58), which also starred Debbie Reynolds and a young John Saxon. Estelle was great fun and stole the show as a cocktail loving lush. Estelle was then a sort of Disney villain in the early Sean Connery adventure ‘Darby O’Gill and the Little People’ (‘59), playing the interfering mother to Kieron Moore’s local bully. Her best role at this time though was in the enjoyable retirement-home comedy ‘Alive and Kicking’ (’59), playing a bored resident seeking adventure in old-age, alongside the excellent Kathleen Harrison and Sybil Thorndike.

Winwood’s next movie role was in the bar scene in John Huston’s ‘The Misfits’ (’61), playing a kindly old lady collecting money for the church. After playing Kim Novak’s neighbour in the Jack Lemmon caper ‘The Notorious Landlady’, Winwood had a fun part as a witch in Bert I. Gordon’s enjoyable spoof ‘The Magic Sword’ (both ’62). Back among the A-list, Estelle was then Bette Davis’s aunt in the exciting evil-twin thriller ‘Dead Ringer’ (’64), directed by Davis’ ‘Now, Voyager’ co-star Paul Henreid.

After guest spots on ‘Perry Mason’ and ‘Bewitched’, Estelle found 1967 to be a very diverse year. First she was Vanessa Redgrave’s lady-in-waiting in Joshua Logan’s overlong but lavish musical ‘Camelot’, and then a neighbour with a missing cat, in Curtis Harrington’s watchable thriller ‘Games’. Finally she was memorable in Mel Brooks’ cult comedy ‘The Producers’, playing an amorous old lady backing Zero Mostel’s certain-to-flop musical. After more television work Winwood’s final movie was the very funny spoof ‘Murder by Death’ (’76), playing the aged nurse to Elsa Lanchester’s Miss Marbles. She was a joy to watch and once again stole the show from a fantastic cast that included Oscar winners Alec Guinness, Maggie Smith and David Niven. Estelle’s final screen appearance was in a 1980 episode of ‘Quincy’ which, at 96 years of age, made her the oldest actor working in America.

Married four times, Estelle Winwood died in her sleep in California, on June 20th 1984, aged 101. In an acting career of over 80 years, she was the oldest member of the Screen Actors Guild at the time of her death. A wonderful scene-stealer and vastly talented actress, the shrewd Estelle Winwood was a perfectionist who didn’t suffer fools and always called the shots on her career path. And what a diverse career it was!

Favourite Movie: 23 Paces to Baker Street
Favourite Performance: Alive and Kicking

The above article can also be accessed online here.