Born Olive Dines, Felicia Farr appeared in several modeling photo shoots and advertisements during the 1950s and 1960s. Her earlist screen appearances date from the mid-fifties and included the Westerns Jubal (1956) and 3:10 to Yuma (1957), both starring Glenn Ford and The Last Wagon (1956) starring Richard Widmark.
Lee Farr was her first husband, a marriage which produced a daughter, Denise Farr Gordon, who became the wife of actor Don Gordon. Farr’s second husband was the film star Jack Lemmon; they married in 1962, while Lemmon was filming the comedy Irma La Douce in Paris, and remained married until his death in 2001.
During her marriage to Jack Lemmon, Farr gave birth to a daughter, Courtney, in 1966. She is also the stepmother of Lemmon’s son, actor and author Chris Lemmon.
“Farley Granger was once under contract to Sam Goldwyn, who thought he would become the biggest star in movies. It did not happen. He was a nice looking kid with a neat line in both under privileged heroes and wealthy weaklings. Clark Gable he was not.” – David Shipman – “The Great Movie Stars – The International Years” (1972).
Farley Granger’s obituary in “The Guardian” by Brian Baxter:
Early on in his career, the actor Farley Granger, who has died aged 85, worked with several of the world’s greatest directors, including Alfred Hitchcock on Rope (1948) and Strangers On a Train (1951), Nicholas Ray on They Live By Night (1949) and Luchino Visconti on Senso (1953). Yet Granger failed to sustain the momentum of those years, meandering into television, some stage work and often indifferent European and American movies.
The reasons were complicated, owing much to his sexuality and an unwillingness to conform to Hollywood pressures, notably from his contract studio, MGM, and Samuel Goldwyn. Granger refused to play the publicity or marrying game common among gay and bisexual stars and turned down roles he considered unsuitable, earning a reputation – in his own words – for being “a naughty boy”.
Include Me Out My Life from Goldwyn to Broadway. By Farley Granger with Robert Calhoun.
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He was also the victim of bad luck, notably when Howard Hughes, the egomaniacal owner of RKO studios, took against They Live By Night, shelving it for a year before releasing it without fanfare. While his contemporary Charlton Heston had maintained that it was impossible not to launch his own acting career from two Cecil B DeMille movies, Granger had the far more difficult task of springboarding from his Hitchcock films, where the director had been the star.
Granger was born in San Jose, California, and first appeared on a school stage aged five. A dozen years later he was working in theatres around Los Angeles, when his dazzling good looks were noticed by a local talent scout. Aged 18 he made his screen debut as a curly-haired Russian soldier in Lewis Milestone’s The North Star (1943).
Milestone also cast him in the role of a sergeant in The Purple Heart (1944), but by then the real war had caught up with the actor who, following his military service, took a long while to re-establish himself. Ray cast him in the leading role of They Live By Night, as the emotionally unstable crook Bowie, and by the time the film was released, he had appeared in the feeble Enchantment (1948) and the bucolic Roseanna McCoy (1949).
Punch cartoons by Robert Sherriffs
Film Review ;
They Live by Night ; Cathy O’Donnell and Farley Granger
Luckily, he had also been loaned out for the claustrophobic Rope, filmed in 10-minute takes, resulting in an elegantly artificial movie, with the actors even more puppet-like than was usual with Hitchcock. Granger and John Dall were ideally cast as gay students who murder a friend to display a Nietzschean concept of supremacy. Granger played the highly strung Phillip, who cracks under the probing of their tutor (James Stewart). The public were less than enthusiastic. The director Jean Renoir scathingly dismissed the film, adding that it was “a film about homosexuals in which they don’t even show the boys kissing”.
Moving on, in 1950 Granger starred in the fast-paced thriller Side Street, directed by Anthony Mann, Edge of Doom and Our Very Own, before being rescued from the routine by Hitchcock, who cast him in another movie with a gay subtext, Strangers On a Train. He took the more conventional role of a handsome tennis champion, Guy Haines, mentally seduced by the unhinged Bruno (Robert Walker). Bruno obligingly murders the sportsman’s wife, who is holding back Guy’s career and social ambitions. When the killer wants repayment in kind – via the death of his own bullying father – matters go horribly wrong. Granger was bland rather than urbane, perplexed rather than intimidated, and despite charm, good looks and an attractive voice, he found his career not taking off.
Instead, routine fare such as Behave Yourself! (1951) and Small Town Girl (1953) followed. Even the sympathetic Vincente Minnelli made little of the star opposite Leslie Caron in The Story of Three Loves (1953). Granger needed to get out of his contract and was happy when he was loaned out by Goldwyn to star in Visconti’s Senso. He was intriguingly cast as the embittered romantic Franz Mahler, an Austrian soldier who betrays the married woman besotted with him. She in turn betrays not only her country, Italy, but also those struggling politically against the invading forces. With dialogue by Tennessee Williams and Paul Bowles, the film took heady flight into a sumptuous period melodrama. It took many months to shoot and Granger relished new freedom in Europe, buying a house in Rome. Despite this he never worked again in anything comparable to Visconti’s masterpiece.
Returning sporadically to the US, he played in The Naked Street (1955) as a hoodlum taken under the overly protective wing of Anthony Quinn, then had a better role as the murderous roué in Richard Fleischer’s The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (1955).
He returned to the stage, acting in The Carefree Tree on Broadway in 1955, and touring with The Seagull, Hedda Gabler and She Stoops to Conquer. Television offered the occasional bit of intelligent casting, including the grasping would-be lover in The Heiress (1961). The role had been a triumph for Montgomery Clift in the cinema in 1949 and one could see the rationale behind the new casting. After a decade mainly in the theatre and TV and little-seen movies such as Rogues’ Gallery (1968), Granger returned to a more congenial Europe.
In 1970 he made a western, My Name Is Trinity, and then a complicated spy thriller, The Serpent, where he co-starred with Henry Fonda, Yul Brynner and Dirk Bogarde, all gentlemen of a certain age in search of elusive work. He again worked in American television, in such popular series as Matt Helm, Ellery Queen, The Love Boat and Murder, She Wrote, and also contributed to the documentary The Celluloid Closet (1995), an examination of homosexuality in Hollywood movies.
In 2001 he appeared in his last film, The Next Big Thing, and came to London for his West End stage debut, in a revival of Noël Coward’s once-controversial play Semi-Monde. He later withdrew because of difficulties in remembering his lines. He said that he had become bored with the process of film-making and retired, devoting himself to travel and his greatest love, the theatre, now as a spectator. In 2007, he published a memoir, Include Me Out, co-written with his long-term partner, the producer Robert Calhoun, who died in 2008.
• Farley Earle Granger, actor, born 1 July 1925; died 27 March 2011
To view “The Guardian” Obituary, please click here.
Tribute to Farley Granger by Mike McCrann in “LA Frontiers”:
Openly gay actor Farley Granger was one of the most beautiful men to ever appear in films. During his heyday, Granger was almost too pretty, and his beauty and sexuality made it difficult to get good roles. And Farley Granger did not have a large studio behind him, as he was under contract to Sam Goldwyn, who only made one or two pictures a year. All of Farley Granger’s great movies were on loan out, including the two Alfred Hitchcock films he is best remembered for.
Mr. Granger, who died in 2011 at the age of 85, was discovered in Los Angeles by a Sam Goldwyn talent scout. He was cast in the infamous pro-Russian film The North Star as a Russian teenager fighting Nazi aggression. A few years later, HUAC attacked this Lillian Hellman-written film as proof of the pro-communist forces working in Hollywood. Farley survived this epic and was signed to a long-term contract with Goldwyn. Farley Granger’s three best films were made away from Goldwyn.
In the Nicholas Ray classic They Live By Night, Granger and Cathy O’Donnell played Bowie and Keechie, two lovers on the run. This forerunner to Bonnie and Clyde is one of the true film noir classics, and Granger was impressive and sexy as the young criminal hounded by fate and the police. Farley Granger was then cast by Alfred Hitchcock in the 1948 film Rope. This story of two young men who commit a murder for the fun of it was based on the Leopold and Loeb murder case. Compounding the irony of this story of two gay men who kill for the thrill of it was the fact that both stars, Farley Granger and John Dall, were gay themselves, and the script was written by Arthur Laurents, who was not only gay but Farley Granger’s lover.
Punch cartoons by Robert Sherriffs
Film Review ;
They Live by Night ; Cathy O’Donnell and Farley Granger
Arthur Laurents later wrote the books for the classic musicals West Side Story and Gypsy. Laurents and Granger began a long-time affair during this period. Laurents actually outed Farley Granger in his 2000 tome Original Story, in which he writes of their first sexual encounter:
“There we were, rolling on the floor on a shag rug in the living room of a sublet on the wrong side of Doheny in mid-afternoon, me and my movie star! Oh frabjous day!”
In a 1999 interview, Granger discussed the making of Strangers on a Train: “I had a great time. Oh, I loved it. I got to know Hitch pretty well—and his family, which was terrific and it was fun.”
Farley Granger’s own book, Include Me Out, would not come out until seven years after this sizzling revelation. Arthur Laurents and Farley Granger were a pretty openly gay couple during the most repressive period in American history.
Though Rope was one of Alfred Hithcock’s few flops, he cast Granger again in Strangers on a Train. This great Hitchcock film was not only one of the maestro’s best, but it gave Farley Granger the best movie role of his career. Co-starring the star-crossed Robert Walker as the psychopath Bruno Anthony, who suggests they swap murders (Granger’s slutty wife and Walker’s rich father), this film allowed Farley Granger to show his athletic abilities (tennis) and his acting process in one of the best films of the 1950s
. There was also a none-too-subtle gay subtext, as it is farily obvious that the Bruno character is gay.
Farley Granger had few great parts left once he bought his way out of his Goldwyn contract. The great gay Italian director Luchino Visconti cast Granger in the sumptuous Senso opposite another former Hithcock star, Alida Valli. The rest of Farley Granger’s career was basically spent on TV and in the theater.
Farley Granger was not a great actor, but when given the right part, he could be totally mesmerizing. He was also one of the truly beautiful American movie stars. Farley Granger was also one of the first important male movie stars to live openly as a gay man. Although he always claimed to be bisexual and had a number of romances with women, Granger spent the later part of his life (1963-2008) with partner Robert Calhoun.
SMALL TOWN GIRL, top from left: Farley Granger, Ann Miller, Bobby Van; from bottom far right: Jane Powell, 1953
In his fascinating autobiography, Granger simply states after his first sexual experience with both a man and a woman occurred on the same night: “I finally came to the conclusion that for me, everything I had done that night was as natural and as good as it felt. … I was never ashamed and I never felt the need to explain or apologize for my relationships to anyone. I have loved men. I have loved women.”
Farley Granger was handsome, talented and a true gay icon for being one of the few movie stars of his era to live his life openly and honestly. Like many a gay man today, Farley Granger stated, “I looked forward to the time when I could be myself. And that’s how I have lived and still continue to live my life. Fortunately, it has been many years since I felt the need to be secretive.”
The above article can also be accessed online here.
Cesar Romero was born in 1907 in New York to Cuban parents. He had a very lengthy and profilic career, his first film been “The Shadow Laughs” in 1933 and his last film performance was in 1988 in “Judgement Day”. Among his major films were “Springtime in the Rockies”, “Lady in Ermione”, “Captain from Castile” and “Lust in the Dust”. Cesar Romero died in 1994.
“Independent” obituary:
Caesar Julius Romero (Cesar Romero), actor: born New York City 15 February 1907; died Santa Monica, California 1 January 1994.
CESAR ROMERO was the most ubiquitous – and his career was the longest – of those actors who, starting with Valentino, were typecast as Latin lovers. This meant being suave and slick, as in one of his earliest films, The Thin Man (1934), when for a while audiences weren’t quite sure whether he was Minna Gombell’s husband or her gigolo. It was his appearance in the Broadway hit Dinner at Eight which had attracted the interest of the studios.
The world, then, was Hollywood’s oyster and, since he hardly looked like a red-blooded Grade-A American baseball player, Romero was cast as various foreigners, usually treacherous: an Indian nabob in Clive of India, a Russian prince spying for Germany in Rendezvous (both 1935). As a young French lover in Cardinal Richelieu, he was innocuous, and he was ludicrous as Marlene Dietrich’s true love in The Devil is a Woman (both 1935). She was ‘the toast of Spain . . . the most dangerous woman you’ll ever meet,’ says Lionel Atwill, at the same time so besotted with her that he refuses to cede her to the much younger Romero. Twentieth Century-Fox engaged Romero to play a notorious Indian chieftain in Wee Willie Winkie (1937) – which turned Kipling’s boy hero into Shirley Temple – and put him under contract. Over the next few years Fox had a number of female stars as popular as Miss Temple, including Sonja Henie, Loretta Young, Alice Faye and Betty Grable. The arrival of another, Carmen Miranda, called for stories set South of the Border. Romero’s days of villainy and paid love were over, with the bonus of his name sometimes above the title: but he was invariably the Other Man, the fall-guy, or best buddy to the hero or heroine.
He was also the Cisco Kid, a ‘lovable’, daredevil Mexican bandit first played by Warner Baxter in several early talkies. Fox resurrected him for Return of the Cisco Kid (1939), but the half-dozen films which followed – all Bs – provoked little interest. Romero looked better, however, in the Kid’s buttons and bows than in the white tie and tails, the tuxes and the bum-jackets which he usually sported. He was usually dressed as though escorting a pretty doll to a night-club because that was what he was usually doing. Fox gave him a rare taxing role in Captain from Castile (1947), as Cortez, and he was capable but hardly more. The star was Tyrone Power, with whom Romero was said to have had a long-standing romance. In studio parlance, Romero was ‘a confirmed bachelor’.
When the studio system broke up in the early 1950s Romero’s familiarity as a character actor was strong enough to keep him in work over the next 30 years. His career received a fillip when he played the Joker in the television series Batman, and he reprised it in the 1966 movie which capitalised on its popularity. In recent years, looking distinguished with white hair and his trim trademark moustache, he was often to be found introducing his films on American television and reminiscing about their stars. Very often, in fact, since there were few with whom he had not worked.
The above “Independent” obituary can also be accessed online here.
Barry Nelson has the distinction of been the first James Bond on celluloid, even if it was television. He was born in 1917 in San Francisco. During his military service during World Ward Two, he made his Broadway debut in Moss Hart’s “Winged Victory” and followed this up with “Light Up the Sky”. His movie debut had been in 1941 in “Shadow of the Thin Man” and this was followed by “A Yank on the Burma Road
, “The Human Comedy”, “Airport” and “The Shining”. Barry Nelson died in 2007 at the age of 90.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
A genial, well-respected, all-around “nice guy”, the breezily handsome Barry Nelson was born Robert Haakon Nielsen on April 16, 1917, in San Francisco, California, of Scandinavian heritage. He was raised in nearby Oakland and graduated from the University of California at Berkeley in 1941. A talent scout from MGM caught Barry in a college production of “Macbeth” and quickly sized up his potential. Cast in earnest secondary roles including Shadow of the Thin Man (1941) and Dr. Kildare’s Victory (1942), he was assigned the lead in the war film A Yank on the Burma Road (1942). Serving in WWII, he appeared in the Moss Hart play “Winged Victory”, in what would become his Broadway debut, in 1943 and a year later he appeared as “Corporal Barry Nelson” in the 1944 film version of the play. Barry lost major ground in films during the post-war years, but certainly made up for it on the live stage by appearing in a string of New York successes ranging from “The Rat Race” to “The Moon Is Blue.”
On TV, in addition to becoming a trivia statistic in the Hollywood annals as being the first to give video life to Ian Fleming‘s “007” agent James (“Jimmy”) Bond in a one-hour production of “Casino Royale” in 1954, Barry lit up the small screen in such dramatic programs as Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955) and, in particular, a memorable episode ofTwilight Zone (1959). He also starred in the series The Hunter (1952), a Cold War adventure, and My Favorite Husband (1953), in which he played the level-headed mate and “straight man” to daffy blonde Joan Caulfield. In the 1960s he continued to demonstrate his acting muscle on stage and TV, although he did manage to preserve on film his starring role in Mary, Mary (1963), a huge Broadway hit with Debbie Reynolds co-starring in place of stage partner Barbara Bel Geddes. The lightweight play “Cactus Flower” with Lauren Bacall was another bright vehicle, but star Walter Matthau‘s clout cost Barry the part when it went to film. Through it all Barry remained a thoroughly solid professional, particularly in the realm of TV-movies. Such standouts include his neighbor/undercover agent to criminals-on-the-run Don Murray and Inger Stevens in The Borgia Stick (1967) and his blind plane crash survivor in Seven in Darkness (1969).
The 1970s proved a very good decade indeed for Barry theater-wise with “Seascape,” “The Norman Conquests” and Liza Minnelli‘s “The Act” among his pleasures, the last-mentioned earning him a Tony nomination. Despite co-starring roles in the blockbuster hit Airport (1970) and comedy Pete ‘n’ Tillie (1972), the silver screen would not become his strong suit in later years. By the early 1990s he had fully retired.
A popular, clean-cut, down-to-earth “Average Joe” with a charmingly sly side, you just couldn’t help but like Barry Nelson. Although he certainly could play the deceptive villain when called upon, he was usually the kind of guy you’d root for having as a neighbor, pal or business partner. Divorced from actress Teresa Celli for quite some time and completely retired now, he and second wife Nansilee (they married in 1992) traveled extensively and enjoyed antique shopping in particular. In 2007, during one of their many excursions, Barry passed away quietly at age 89 at a hotel in Bucks County, Pennesylvania.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
Barbara RuickKeep It Cool, poster, US poster, Barbara Ruick (top), Tony Pastor (bottom right), mid 1950s. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)
Barbara Ruick was born in 1930 in Pasadena, California. She was the daughter of actress Lurene Tuttle. She is prehaps best known for her role of Carrie Pipperidge in the film musical “Carousel” with Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones. Her other films include “Confidentially Connie” in 1953 and “The Affair of Dobie Gillis”. Barbara Ruick was married to the reknowned film composer John Williams. She died in 1974 at the young age of 44.
Gary Brumburgh’s entry:
A bundle of bright sunshine and unabashed energy, lovely musical actress Barbara Ruick delighted audiences for over two decades. The brown-eyed singer/actress who admittedly came up short in the dancing department nevertheless toyed with top musical stardom in mid-1950s films and almost nabbed it. A vivacious beauty whose sparkling, fresh-faced appeal reminded one instantly of a Mitzi Gaynor or Vera-Ellen, Barbara’s untimely death at age 41 robbed Hollywood of a tried-and-true talent.
She was born on December 23, 1930 in sunny Pasadena, California, the daughter of show biz professionals. Father Mel Ruick was a well respected radio actor and announcer while mother Lurene Tuttle earned equal distinction as a radio player and (later) reliable TV and film performer playing a lovely assortment of fluttery matrons and mothering types. Deeply influenced by her parents’ obvious success and fulfillment, the blonde and starry-eyed Barbara started acting on radio and TV as a Hollywood High School teenager. One of her first jobs was in the chorus of Chico Marx‘s TV show despite the fact she was a lackluster dancer.
Following other TV work, the just-turned-21 Barbara earned the attention of MGM and signed a long-term contract with the topnotch studio. She dutifully apprenticed in starlet parts with bit or unbilled roles in both musical and dramatic outings including Invitation(1952), Scaramouche (1952) and Fearless Fagan (1952). Slightly better parts were handed to her in the films You for Me (1952), Above and Beyond (1952) and Apache War Smoke (1952). The last movie mentioned co-starred future husband Robert Horton, known for his rugged appearances in numerous westerns. The twosome married in Las Vegas in 1953.
The next couple of years were quite frustrating for Barbara at MGM. After finally earning a second femme lead role in the film The Affairs of Dobie Gillis (1953) alongside Bobby Van, Debbie Reynolds and Bob Fosse, MGM inexplicably reverted her right back to playing bit parts again in such offerings as Confidentially Connie (1953), I Love Melvin (1953) and The Band Wagon (1953). She finally retreated from both MGM and Hollywood and returned to New York to concentrate on TV. She earned a slew of assignments including a number of variety show appearances. On series TV she was a bright and breezy regular for such stalwarts as Ezio Pinza, Jerry Colonna and Johnny Carson. She also proved her dramatic mettle on such programs as “The Loretta Young Show,” “The Public Defender” and “The Lineup”.
Out of nowhere Barbara was ushered back to Hollywood for the most important film role of her career. In Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classic Carousel (1956), it seemed that stardom was just within reach after winning the cute and flighty Carrie Piperidge role alongside Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones. Ruick shined in the well-mounted 20th Century-Fox production while offering a lovely rendition of “When I Marry Mr. Snow”. Instead of this success propelling Barbara into other films, it would be her last movie for nearly two decades. She also recorded for Columbia Records around this period but, other than a couple of novelty items, none of her songs ever made it to the top of the charts.
Divorced from actor Horton in 1956, Barbara married Academy Award-winning composer and Boston Pops conductor John Williams that same year. They had one daughter and two sons. The boys went on to have musical careers of their own; their daughter became a doctor. She continued to thrive on TV in the late 50s. In 1965 angular Barbara and plump Pat Carroll camped it up and nearly stole the proceedings as the evil stepsisters with their uproarious version of “The Stepsisters Lament” in Rodgers & Hammerstein’s star-studded musical special Cinderella (1965) starring Lesley Ann Warren.
Barbara was little seen in the ensuing years but did pop up for a small role as a barmaid in the comedy film California Split (1974) showcasing the then-hot film stars Elliott Gouldand George Segal. Barbara died suddenly of a cerebral hemorrhage on March 3, 1974 in Reno, Nevada. Although her musical gifts were shamefully underused by MGM in the early 1950s, her comeback role in Carousel (1956) will endure and remain a film treasure.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
Anne Seymour was a formidable character actress who acted in Hollywood films from the 1940’s. She was born in 1909 in New York. Her great-uncle was the great character actor Harry Davenport. She made her movie debut in 1949 as Broderick Crawford’s wife in “All the King’s Men”. Her other films include “Home from the Hill” and “Field of Dreams”. She died in 1988.
Her IMDB entry:
The daughter of a copper expert (William Stanley Eckert) and an actress and museum curator (May Davenport), character actress Anne Seymour was born on September 11, 1909 in New York City. She was the seventh generation of a theatrical family that could be tracked back to Ireland in 1740. Her great-uncle was the popular character actor Harry Davenport and her two older brothers were writer James Seymour (42nd Street (1933)) and actor John Seymour (The Sporting Club (1971)).
Anne trained for the stage at the American Laboratory Theatre School with Richard Boleslawski and Maria Ouspenskaya, and began her career performing with The Jitney Players. She, as did her brothers, eventually changed her stage moniker from Eckert to her mother’s maiden name of Seymour. After touring throughout New England, Anne made her New York debut in Mr. Moneypenny in 1928. Other Broadway shows followed including At the Bottom (1930) and A School for Scandal (1931). The following year, she entered the world of radio drama. Her distinctively warm style and vocal timbre were perfect for playing some of radio’s noblest, self-sacrificing heroines. She portrayed “Mary Marlin” for 11 popular seasons; it turned out to be her most identifiable role.
In the late 1940s Anne switched to film and made an auspicious debut as Lucy Stark in the Oscar-winning picture All the King’s Men (1949). Although movie appearances would remain sporadic and relatively minor, Anne was a solid, capable player during the golden age of television and could be seen dressing up many glossy dramas, including Studio One in Hollywood (1948) and Robert Montgomery Presents (1950). Her rather hawkish, matronly features, which seemed in stark contrast to her smooth, modulated tones, nevertheless had her primarily playing benevolent roles as concerned relatives and professionals somewhat in the background.
In 1958, Anne earned strong marks for her portrayal of Sara Delano Roosevelt alongside Tony-winning Ralph Bellamy‘s FDR in “Sunrise at Campobello” on Broadway. She lost the 1960 movie role to Ann Shoemaker. Anne was actively involved on the SAG and AFTRA boards throughout a good portion of her career. Unmarried, she died in 1988 of natural causes after completing a small part in the popular film Field of Dreams (1989).
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
Anthony Dexter was born in 1913 in Nebraska. He served in Europe with the American forces during World War Two. He won the lead role of Rudolph Valentino in his first film “Valentino” in 1951. His films include “The Brigand”, “Captain Kidd and the Slave Girl” and his final film in 1967, “Thoroughly Modern Millie”. He died in 2001.
IMDB entry:
Sporting the name Walter Craig when out of the limelight and the stage name Anthony Dexter when in it, he rounded out his years teaching high school English, Speech, and Drama classes at Eagle Rock High School (circa 1968-78) in the Los Angeles area. His best-known role as an actor, however, occurred when he landed the part of Rudolph Valentino in the actor’s biopic Valentino (1951). He was reputed to have won the role from a competitive field of 75,000 aspiring Valentinos. The film’s producer, ‘Edward Small’, claimed to have made 400 screen tests for the part until discovering Dexter–the perfect fit. So much alike was Dexter in appearance to Valentino that Valentino fan clubs, upon learning of Dexter, applauded the choice of him to play their star. Even the press lauded Dexter as “incredible. The same eyes, ears, mouth–the same grace in dancing” (according to a 1950 Los Angeles Times article quoting George Melford, who directed Valentino in The Sheik (1921). Although “Valentino” was not the success its producers had hoped for, Dexter managed to garner future parts in movies similar to the roles the real Valentino had played: John Smith in Captain John Smith and Pocahontas (1953); Captain Kidd in Captain Kidd and the Slave Girl (1954); a pirate leader in The Black Pirates (1954); Christopher Columbus in The Story of Mankind (1957). After these roles, his career gradually diminished until ultimately he was cast in a bit part in Julie Andrews‘ vehicle Thoroughly Modern Millie (1967).
Dexter grew up on a farm in Talmadge, Nebraska, where he played such good football in high school that he earned a scholarship to St. Olaf’s College in Minnesota. There he began his pursuit of stage and screen, singing first in the college’s choir before going on to the University of Iowa to get his M.A. in speech and drama. Even during World War II, Dexter–then a sergeant with the Army Special Services–toured England and other parts of the European theater of war doing the show “Claudia.” Having not limited himself to movies, he did at least one notable run at summer theatre in San Francisco in “The King and I” and added to his credits parts in the Broadway shows “The Three Sisters,” “Ah, Wilderness” and “The Barretts of Wimpole Street.” He died at the age of 88 in Greeley, Colorado.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Patrick King <patrick_king@hotmail.com> (qv’s & corrections by A. Nonymous)
The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.
The Parson And The Outlaw, poster, US poster art, Anthony Dexter (right & insert), Charles Buddy Rogers (left, lower insert),1957. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)
Lee Philips had the leading male role inthe movie “Peyton Place” opposite Lana Turner in 1957 but nothing he did before or afterwards acheived the same level of fame. He was born in 1927 in New York. He began his career on the stage and acted in several television shows before playing Dr Michael Rossi in the hughly successful “Peyton Place”. It is odd that he did not then become a major star of film. His subsequent movies include “The Hunters” in 1958 with Robert Mitchum and May Britt and “Middle of the Night” with Fredric March and Kim Novak. He turned to television directing and had a very profilic career. Lee Philips died in 1999 at the age of 72.
His Wikipedia entry{
Lee Philips (January 10, 1927 – March 3, 1999) was an American actor and director.
Philips’ acting career started on Broadway, and peaked with a starring role as Michael Rossi in the film adaptation of Peyton Place opposite Lana Turner.
In the 1960s his career shifted towards directing, with credits ranging from the television series of Peyton Place to The Dick Van Dyke Show. He still did occasional acting, such as his appearance in 1963 in “Never Wave Goodbye”, a two-part episode of The Fugitive. Also in 1963, he played a lead role in “Passage on the Lady Anne”, an hour-long episode of The Twilight Zone; he returned to the show the following year in the episode “Queen of the Nile”, where he plays a reporter named Jordan ‘Jordy’ Herrick. He appeared in Flipper in 1964 and also made two guest appearances on Perry Mason in 1965: as Kevin Lawrence in “The Case of the Golden Venom,” and murderer Gordon Evans in “The Case of the Fatal Fortune.” Also guest starred on the Combat!: episode: “A Walk with an Eagle”. He directed Dick Van Dyke on several episodes of Diagnosis: Murder. In 1973 he directed The Girl Most Likely to… starring Stockard Channing.
Jacqueline Bisset was born in 1944 in Weybridge, Surrey. She began her career in British films and came to prominence in 1967 in “Two for the Road” with Audrey Hepburn anf Albert Finney. The following year she was in Hollywood making “The Detective” with Frank Sinatra and Lee Remick followed by “Bullit” with Steve McQueen. She has had a very profilic career starring opposite major actors like Jon Voight, Charles Bronson, Paul Newman and Michael York. Her most recent film is “The Last Film Festival” with Dennis Hopper.
TCM Overview:
British actress Jacqueline Bisset rose to fame in the 1970s as the object of desire for numerous top actors in features like “Bullitt” (1968), “Airport” (1970), “The Deep” (1977) and “The Greek Tycoon” (1978). Few of these roles allowed her to express anything more than slow-simmering sexuality, but gradually films like Francois Truffaut’s “Day for Night” (1973), George Cukor’s “Rich and Famous” (1981) and John Huston’s “Under the Volcano” (1983) revealed her talent for intelligent, complex performances. Unlike many actresses as they approached their fourth and fifth decades, Bisset remained active and in demand, playing a wide range of parts from stalwart mothers to seductive socialites. What remained constant throughout her four-decade career was her cool elegance, which preserved her iconic status as one of the screen’s great international beauties.
Born Winifred Jacqueline Bisset in the town of Weybridge in Surrey, England on Sept. 13, 1944, she was the daughter of Scottish doctor Max Bisset and his French wife, Arlette, a former lawyer who taught her daughter to speak her native tongue fluently. Bisset’s initial passion was ballet, which she studied as a child, but as she grew into a willowy adolescent, she was considered too tall to pursue dance as a career. Bisset’s teenage years were marked by major upheaval in her family life. After her mother was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, her father left the family, forcing his daughter to support her mother and younger brother, Max through modeling. The latter job led to an interest in acting, and Bisset made her screen debut as an uncredited extra in Richard Lester’s “The Knack and How to Get It” (1965), which also launched the film careers of Charlotte Rampling and Jane Birkin.
She earned her first lines in Roman Polanski’s “Cul-de-Sac” (1966), but soon settled into a series of ornamental roles that were largely defined by her next picture, the all-star James Bond spoof, “Casino Royale” (1966), which cast her as Miss Goodthighs. Bit roles soon blossomed into supporting parts in “The Detective” (1968), where she replaced Mia Farrow as the wife of a murder victim investigated by Frank Sinatra, and “The Sweet Ride” (1968), a counterculture drama that earned her a Golden Globe nomination as a mystery woman who came between beach bums Tony Franciosa, Michael Sarrazin and Bob Denver. In 1969, she was an innocent teen whose trip to America ends in romantic failure and prostitution in Jerry Paris’ relentlessly downbeat “The Grasshopper.”
Bisset’s star-making role finally came in 1968 with “Bullitt,” where her cool beauty was matched perfectly by Steve McQueen’s frosty dramatics as a tough San Francisco detective with a penchant for hard driving. The film’s popularity elevated Bisset to major Hollywood features in the 1970s, though not more substantive roles; she was pilot Dean Martin’s pregnant mistress – and perhaps the first actress to belt Helen Hayes across the face – in the big-budget disaster film “Airport” (1970), then played elegant love interests for such actors as Alan Alda in “The Mephisto Waltz” (1971), Paul Newman in “The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean” (1972), Ryan O’Neal in “The Thief Who Came to Dinner” (1973), Charles Bronson in “St. Ives” (1976) and Anthony Quinn, as a thinly disguised Aristotle Onassis, who romanced Bisset’s ersatz Jacqueline Kennedy in “The Greek Tycoon” (1978). Her most memorable turn of the decade came in “The Deep” (1977), Peter Yates’ adaptation of the popular thriller by Peter Benchley. The film boosted her status as a pin-up thanks to its opening sequence, in which Bisset appeared in a wet t-shirt that left little to the imagination. She later denounced the scene, stating that producer Peter Guber had assured her that it would not be shot in an exploitative way.
Feeling frustrated by the lack of quality projects from Hollywood, Bisset returned to Europe throughout the 1970s, where she played a British actress on the verge of a nervous breakdown in Francois Truffaut’s backstage drama “Day for Night” (1973). The picture, which she later declared as her most fulfilling film role, reversed most critics’ perception of her as little more than a pretty face, and led to more work overseas, including Philippe Broca’s spy spoof “Le Magnifique” (1973), with French movie idol Jean-Paul Belmondo; Sidney Lumet’s Oscar-winning, all-star adaptation of Agatha Christie’s “Murder on the Orient Express” (1974); and the German thriller “End of the Game” (1975) for director Maximilian Schell. She and Schell also later shared godparent duties for Angelina Jolie, daughter of the film’s star, Jon Voight. Bisset ended the 1970s with a Golden Globe nomination for her turn as a pastry chef targeted by a killer in the charming comedy-thriller, “Who is Killing the Great Chefs of Europe?”
Bisset began the 1980s on a sour note with huge back-to-back flops in Irwin Allen’s disaster film “When Time Ran Out” (1980) and the epic Korean War drama “Inchon” (1981), which earned brickbats for receiving funding by the Unification Church. But she quickly rebounded with a string of successful and mature dramas, starting in 1981 with “Rich and Famous.” Directed by the legendary George Cukor, the film followed a pair of friends (Bisset and Candice Bergen) through four turbulent decades of romances, successes and failures. The film also marked Bisset’s sole effort as a producer in an earnest attempt to wrest control over her career.
Though “Class” (1983), an ironically class-free sex comedy about a prep school student (Andrew McCarthy) sleeping with friend Rob Lowe’s mother (Bisset) was undoubtedly her most financially successful film of the decade, her subsequent choices were critically acclaimed dramas, including several for American television, which helped to finally establish Bisset as a capable and versatile actress. She earned a Golden Globe nomination as the wife of an alcoholic consul (her “Two for the Road” co-star Albert Finney) in John Huston’s “Under the Volcano” (1984), and then received a CableACE nod as German countess Nina von Halder, who hid her Jewish boyfriend (Jurgen Prochnow) from the Nazis in “Forbidden” (1985). Clare Peploe’s “High Season” (1987) gave her a leading role as a photographer who becomes embroiled in small town dramas on the Greek island of Rhodes, while Paul Bartel’s “Scenes from the Class Struggle in Beverly Hills” (1989) allowed her a rare shot at comedy as a wealthy widow beset by everything from amorous employees to the ghost of her husband (Paul Mazursky).
As the 1990s ushered Bisset into her fifth decade, she worked largely in independent features and TV movies on both sides of the Atlantic, most notably in Claude Chabrol’s “La Ceremonie” (1995), which earned her a Cesar nomination as a wealthy woman whose cruel treatment of her dyslexic servant (Sandrine Bonnaire) is repaid with violence. In 1999, she received Emmy and Golden Globe nominations as Isabelle d’Arc, mother of French martyr “Joan of Arc” (CBS), then moved to a more historical matriarch – specifically, Mary of Nazareth and Sarah, wife of Abraham – in the miniseries “Jesus” (CBS, 2000) and “In the Beginning” (NBC, 2000), respectively. Her legendary allure also made her a go-to for mature, glamorous and sexually confident women of power, which she essayed in features like “Dangerous Beauty” (1998), where her 16th century courtesan instructed her daughter (Catherine McCormack) in the family business, and “Domino” (2005), which cast her as fashion model Paulene Stone, whose daughter, Domino Harvey, became a bounty hunter. Her versatility allowed her to play both the ruthless head of a black market organ ring in the fourth season of “Nip/Tuck” (FX, 2003-2010), and a kindly 19th century grandmother in “An Old Fashioned Christmas’ (Hallmark Channel, 2008). In 2010, she received the Legion of Honor from French president Nicholas Sarkozy. Bisset co-starred opposite Chiwetel Ejiofor in the 1930s period piece “Dancing on the Edge” (Starz 2013), a miniseries about a black jazz band’s arrival in London society. Her performance as Lady Cremone won Bisset the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television, but her win was overshadowed by her strange, meandering acceptance speech, punctuated by long silences. It became the most talked-about moment of the 2014 Golden Globes, including a parody on “Saturday Night Live” (NBC 1975- ).
The above TCM overview can be accessed online here.
