Hollywood Actors Archives - Page 79 of 128

Dan O’Herlihy

Dan O’Herlihy obituary in “The Guardian” in 2005.

When Luis Buñuel, during his long exile in Mexico from Spain, was preparing to shoot The Adventures Of Robinson Crusoe (1952), his producers suggested Orson Welles for the title role. But as Buñuel sat down to watch Welles in the film of Macbeth, he immediately thought him “too big and too fat” for the part of the famous castaway. However, the moment the dashing and handsome Dan O’Herlihy, who has died aged 85, appeared as Macduff, Buñuel had found his Crusoe.A film in which an actor is alone on screen for 60 of the 90 minutes running time would seem a foolhardy venture, but the splendid Pathecolour photography, expert editing and O’Herlihy’s well-shaded performance, never allowed it to pall. With superb skill and grace, O’Herlihy moves from a clever but naive youth to the grizzled patriarch, earning himself an Oscar nomination.

The 29-year-old O’Herlihy had been brought to America by Welles for Macbeth (1948) after having made an impression in his film debut as an IRA gunman in Carol Reed’s Odd Man Out (1947). The Wexford-born Irish actor, who had taken up acting to pay for his architectural studies at the National University of Ireland, had already gained a reputation at Dublin’s Gate Theatre (where the teenage Welles had begun his career) in around 50 plays, including the leading role in the first production of Sean O’Casey’s Red Roses For Me (1943). In the text of the play, O’Casey describes Ayamonn Breydon, the working-class Protestant hero, as “tall, well built, twenty-two or so, with deep brown eyes, fair hair, rather bushy, but tidily kept, and his face would remind an interested observer of a rather handsome, firm-minded, thoughtful, and good-humoured bulldog”.O’Herlihy, who eloquently uttered the rousing climactic patriotic speech, fitted the role perfectly. Macbeth led to a 50-year career in Hollywood and on US television, though few leads were forthcoming.

Apart from Robinson Crusoe, one of them was as Alan Breck in a shoestring version of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped (1948) opposite Roddy McDowall (Malcolm in Welles’s Macbeth) as David Balfour. This was followed by several sterling supporting roles in a number of undistinguished swashbucklers such as At Sword’s Point (1952) playing the son of one of the Three Musketeers, and as Prince Hal of Wales in The Black Shield Of Falworth (1954). He was cast as officers in Kiplingesque colonial adventures Soldier’s Three (1952) and Bengal Brigade (1954). He also appeared in Invasion USA (1952), a Red scare sci-fi film, in which he hypnotises patrons drinking at a bar into believing America has been attacked by nuclear weapons.O’Herlihy was sophisticated in Douglas Sirk’s glorious melodrama Imitation Of Life (1959); brutal, in a return to the world of Odd Man Out, as a fanatical, club-footed IRA leader in A Terrible Beauty (1960), and over-the-top in the title role of The Cabinet Of Caligari (1962), a silly remake of the silent expressionistic classic.

One of his best roles in the 1960s was in Sidney Lumet’s Fail Safe (1964) as Brigadier General Black, ordered by President Henry Fonda to drop an atomic bomb on New York City to show the Russians that bombing Moscow was an error.Television series, including The Long Hot Summer (1965), ironically in the role played by Orson Welles in the film version; Colditz (1972), Nancy Astor (1982) and David Lynch’s Twin Peaks (1992) kept him busy. In films, he was Franklin D Roosevelt in MacArthur (1977), starring Gregory Peck, and made himself known to a new generation as the mad toy tycoon in Halloween III: Season Of The Witch (1982), as a lizard-like alien in The Last Starfighter (1984), and eerily effective as the cold-blooded cyborg corporation mogul in Robocop (1987) and Robocop 2 (1990).It was all a long way from his Irish theatrical beginnings, though he recouped some of it in John Huston’s melancholically nostalgic valedictory film The Dead (1987), based on a James Joyce short story, in which he played Mr Brown “the gentleman not of our persuasion”.

Dan O’Herlihy is survived by Elsa Bennett, his wife of 59 years, two daughters and three sons.

· Daniel O’Herlihy, actor, born May 1 1919; died February 17 2005

His Guardian obituary by Ronald Bergan can also be accessed here.

Dictionary of Irish Biography:

O’Herlihy, Dan (Daniel Peter) (1919–2005), actor, was born 1 May 1919 at Odessa Cottage, Wexford town, son of John Robert O’Herlihy, a civil servant from Cork who later worked in the Department of Industry and Commerce, and his wife Ellen (née Hanton), from Wexford; they had at least one daughter, and a younger son, Michael O’Herlihy (1929–97), a television director. The family moved to Dublin when Daniel was one year old. Educated at CBS Dún Laoghaire, as a teenager he developed literary ambitions. On entering UCD, he applied to study law, but rapidly switched to architecture, which allowed him to use his drawing skills. While a student he published political cartoons in Irish newspapers, under the initials TOC.

Enlisted despite his minimal acting experience to perform in a production of the UCD dramatic society when a cast member walked out two days before an amateur festival, O’Herlihy accepted the offer in a spirit of adventure, won a medal, and was offered a part in a play at the Abbey theatre. He appeared as a ‘semi-pro’ in about sixty Abbey productions, but was turned down for the permanent company because Ernest Blythe (qv) thought his Irish insufficient (though he spoke and wrote Irish fluently). He also appeared in Gate theatre productions, and joined touring companies during the holidays. He played Major Sirr (qv) at the Gate in ‘Lord Edward’ (1941) by Christine Longford(qv), and took the lead role of Ayamonn Breydon in the world premiere at the Olympia theatre of ‘Red roses for me’ (1944) by Sean O’Casey (qv). His commitment to acting being motivated in part by a desire to supplement his allowance of half a crown a week from his father, he further augmented his income by working as a relief announcer on Radio Éireann.

After graduating from UCD, O’Herlihy worked part-time for one year in Dublin Corporation’s architecture department, surveying the city’s buildings to determine how they might be protected against air raids. He married (16 August 1945) Elsie Bennett, a wartime WAAF and TCD pre-medical student; they had three sons and two daughters. (In a favourite anecdote, he described his future father-in-law asking how he would support his daughter and a family on an architect’s salary, and his provoking scorn by observing that he also acted in the evenings; when O’Herlihy further asserted that he would make a fortune in Hollywood, he was thrown out of the house.) He abandoned architecture as a profession after landing roles in two films with Irish settings (but shot at Denham Studios, England): Hungry Hill(1947, dir. Brian Desmond Hurst) and Odd man out (1947, dir. Carol Reed); both films paid more for one day’s work than two months as an architect. (He retained a lifelong interest in architecture, and a sense that he was an architect who happened to act; he sometimes designed and/or built his own houses and those of friends and family. His last residence, in Trancas Canyon, Malibu, California, was designed by his architect son Lorcan, and built by O’Herlihy himself.)

O’Herlihy was brought to Hollywood in 1947 by the agent Charles Feldman, with whom he fell out after refusing two studio contracts: ‘I didn’t want anyone to own me.’ O’Herlihy feared that as a studio contract player he could be forced to accept unsuitable roles, thus destroying his long-term prospects. Through a period of considerable financial strain on his young and growing family, he initially got by on radio work, which dried up with the spread of television. Turning down the worst film scripts and accepting the average, in the expectation that good parts would come in time, O’Herlihy deferred to his wife’s judgment of scripts; she also helped him to rehearse as ‘unpaid script girl’. In later interviews the couple observed that the shared struggles of this period helped them to achieve a notably successful and remarkably plainspoken marriage.

Between 1948 and 1955 O’Herlihy appeared, mostly as a supporting player, in thirteen costume drama pictures; these were mainly low-budget productions, such as William Beaudine’s adaptation of Kidnapped (1948), from the adventure novel by Robert Louis Stevenson, for the ‘Poverty Row’ studio Monogram, in which O’Herlihy played Alan Breck Stewart to the David Balfour of Roddy McDowall. Although O’Herlihy’s height (over 6 ft (1.83m)) and reddish-blond good looks were well-suited to this genre, he actively resisted typecasting. In Sword of Venus (1953, dir. Harold Daniels), he was made up effectively to play the role of the elderly villain. Such versatility laid the basis for his later success as a character actor, with a reputation as an ‘actor’s actor’, placing a strong emphasis on spontaneity.

Throughout his career O’Herlihy remained involved in theatre, which he regarded as the actors’ medium par excellence (film being a director’s medium). He made his only Broadway appearance as Charles Dickens in ‘The ivy green’ (1949) by Mervyn Nelson. In 1955 he co-founded the Hollywood School of Drama with his boyhood friend and lifelong associate Charles Davis. When a bit player fell ill during the school’s production of ‘Finian’s rainbow’, O’Herlihy recruited Marlon Brando – who shortly before had lamented to O’Herlihy that he had not appeared on stage for some time – to take on the part for two nights (to the surprise of audience members). In later life O’Herlihy remarked that the writer was the central creative force in drama and that he would have liked to have been a writer. He wrote several unproduced scripts, and between 1985 and 1997 produced a one-man show of his own devising, ‘Five men with a pen’, in which he impersonated writers and recited from their works, including W. B. Yeats (qv), James Joyce (qv), George Bernard Shaw (qv), and Mark Twain. In the television movie Mark Twain: behind the laughter (1979), he gave a much-admired performance as the elderly Twain recalling his life, with his actor son Gavan playing Twain’s younger self.

In 1948 O’Herlihy joined Orson Welles’s Mercury Theatre, and played Macduff in Welles’s low-budget film of Macbeth (1948), exercising his architectural skills to design most of the sets, and translating additional dialogue written by Welles into Irish. Welles did not credit O’Herlihy’s work as set designer, and their later relations were tense. O’Herlihy’s performance in the film led in time to his breakthrough role, the lead in The adventures of Robinson Crusoe (1954); the director, Luis Buñuel, responding to a proposal that he cast Welles in the role, screened Macbeth and fixed instead on O’Herlihy. Filmed over a lengthy period in Mexico, the story of a shipwrecked man surviving for twenty-eight years on a remote island demanded that O’Herlihy be alone on screen for the film’s first fifty minutes, and that he deploy his acting skills to portray his character ageing from young manhood to late middle age. He also appears briefly as Crusoe’s elderly father, glimpsed in a fever-driven nightmare. Critically praised for the performance, O’Herlihy received his only Academy Award nomination, for best actor; he was runner-up in the voting to Marlon Brando for On the waterfront (the other nominees were James Mason for A star is born , Humphrey Bogart for The Caine mutiny, and Bing Crosby for The country girl). O’Herlihy received a letter from his father praising his success in his ‘hobby’ and asking when he would return to his profession (i.e., architecture).

Beginning in the mid 1950s O’Herlihy appeared frequently on television, some such performances being among his best work. He generally refused to make long-term commitments to a television series, believing that, while potentially profitable, they were especially vulnerable to commercial constraints and could inflict long-term career damage through typecasting. (He turned down a role in the hit 1960s series Lost in space.) The major exceptions were The travels of Jaimie McPheeters (1963–4), a western in which he played the showman father of the juvenile protagonist (Kurt Russell), and The long hot summer (1965–6), for which he was recruited mid-series to replace Edmond O’Brien (who had quarrelled with the producers) as the town boss, Will Varner.

O’Herlihy’s career advancement was hindered by consequences of his determined and forceful character. He continued to refuse unsuitable roles, courted notoriety with outspoken political views, and clashed bitterly with his powerful talent agency. Espousing liberal political views from the 1950s (he supported the Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson, the darling of the decade’s liberal intellectuals), he moved further leftward over time, arousing suspicions in some quarters of his being a communist. His remark that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover – whom the cast of a film were about to meet – would be better described not as an American patriot but as a traitor resulted in his being informally shut out from future work for Warner Brothers Pictures. Some of his films had political themes. In Fail-safe (1964, dir. Sidney Lumet), which depicted an accidental American nuclear attack on Moscow, O’Herlihy plays a ‘dovish’ American air force general who argues for restraint, and is obliged by the president (Henry Fonda) to destroy New York to convince the Soviets that the attack on them was accidental. O’Herlihy expressed satisfaction that the film deconstructed the Cold War image of Russians as ruthless fanatics. His contempt for Russophobia increased owing to a lengthy period in 1969 in Uzhgorod, western Ukraine, during the filming of Waterloo (1970, dir. Sergei Bondarchuk), in which he played Marshal Ney. (Personal sympathy for Russians did not equate to admiration for the Soviet system; he noted that the USSR had its own rigid class system, and predicted a future youth revolt resembling that of the late 1960s in the West.) O’Herlihy’s portrayal of Franklin D. Roosevelt in MacArthur (1977, dir. Joseph Sargent) is regarded as one of his finest, and reflected the intellectual fascination with power and its workings that informed his political commitment.

With the decline of the classic studio system, agents became the major brokers in Hollywood; in 1958 the powerful talent agency MCA acquired Universal Studios, creating a conflict of interest in its representation of clients. When O’Herlihy resisted pressure to reprise the Robinson Crusoe role for a Universal television series (stating that he was loathe to go from Buñuel to TV hack direction), the agency ordered him ‘put on ice’. O’Herlihy fired the agency, went public with his complaints, and gave evidence at an anti-trust inquiry, mounted by the Justice department under Attorney General Robert Kennedy, which forced MCA to dissolve its agency component so as to retain control of Universal and its music operations. O’Herlihy’s role in the agency’s defeat was remembered by MCA executives, who exercised considerable power within Hollywood; their enmity inflicted considerable short-term damage on his career and contributed to his spending more time in Ireland.

O’Herlihy had worked in Ireland on the filming of A terrible beauty(1960; dir. Tay Garnett) as a local IRA commander collaborating with Nazi Germany in the 1940s; the film starred Robert Mitchum. Maintaining that his regular visits to Ireland prevented him from romanticising the country, he noted that the socially ambitious Irish middle classes of the relatively affluent 1960s and 1970s resembled their counterparts in California’s San Fernando Valley. He compared the speculatively redeveloped Dublin cityscape of the period to a dishevelled and gap-toothed old man, remarking that it was easy to see from the standard of new building that most Irish architects had emigrated. He and his family lived in Ireland in the mid 1960s and again in 1970–75. Briefly rejoining the Abbey company, he played the lead role of the JFK-emulating publican in the premiere of Tom Murphy’s ‘The White House’ (1972). Asked to become a Labour candidate in the 1973 general election, he declined owing to the impossibility of combining electoral office with the extensive travelling required by his acting career. Finding it necessary to be American-based to remain in demand as a Hollywood actor, and because his children had grown up as Americans, O’Herlihy moved back to America in 1975; he took American citizenship in 1980.

Late film roles included Grig, the friendly alien ‘iguana man’, in The last starfighter (1984; dir. Nick Castle); the Old Man (boss of the malevolent corporation OmniCorp) in RoboCop (1987; dir. Paul Verhoeven, whom O’Herlihy regarded as one of the best contemporary directors) and in RoboCop 2 (1990; dir. Irvin Kershner); the tipsy protestant guest Mr Brown in The dead(1987), adapted by John Huston (qv) from the story by James Joyce; and the sawmill owner Andrew Packard in six episodes of the surreal television serial Twin Peaks (1990–91). His last role was as Joseph Kennedy Sr in the television movie The Rat Pack(1998).

O’Herlihy died 17 February 2005 in Malibu, California, and is buried in St Ibar cemetery, Wexford. Four of his five children worked in theatre and film: Gavan, Cormac, and Patricia as actors, and Olwen as a producer and visual artist. His grandson Colin O’Herlihy became an actor, and his granddaughter Micaela O’Herlihy a multimedia artist.

Sources

GRO (birth cert.); O’Herlihy Papers, UCD Archives, IE UCDA P202 (permission of O’Herlihy family required for consultation; includes catalogue with biographical introduction and filmography; see esp.: P202/18 (collection of published interviews); P202/22 (outline of projected documentary on O’Herlihy); P202/110–11 (Robinson Crusoe material); P202/238 (biographical material); P202/240 (obituaries)); Des Hickey and Gus Smith (ed.), Flight from the Celtic twilight (1973); Kevin Rockett, The Irish filmography: fiction films 1896–1996 (1996); Revisiting Fail-safe, short documentary on 2000 DVD release of Fail-safe; Ir. Times, 19 Feb. 2005; Daily Telegraph, 19 Feb. 2005; Sunday Independent, 20 Feb. 2005; Independent (London), 21 Feb. 2005; Internet Movie Database, www.imdb.com; Internet Broadway Database, www.ibdb.com; Irish Playography, www.irishplayography.com (websites accessed July 2011); information from Olwen O’Herlihy Dowling (daughter

Robert De Niro is a true icon of the cinema and one of the very best of American actors. He was born in 1943 in New York City. He made his film debut at the age of 20 in 1963 in Brian De Palma’s “The Wedding” with Jill Clayburgh. In 1973 he came to international acclaim for his performance in “Bang the Drum Slowly”. The folowing year he won a major role in “TYhe Godfather Part 2” and won a best supporting actor for his performance.His other major films include “Mean Streets”, “Taxi Driver”, “Raging Bull (for which he won a Best Actor Oscar) ,”The King of Comedy”, “Goodfellas”, “Casino” and “Heat”

TCM overview:

Often regarded as one of the greatest actors of all time, Robert De Niro was also one of the most enigmatic and remained famously tight-lipped about his personal life throughout his career. After gaining attention in “Bang the Drum Slowly” (1973), De Niro exploded onto the public’s consciousness as the reckless Johnny Boy in “Mean Streets” (1973), which commenced his partnership with Martin Scorsese, one of the greatest actor-director combos of all time. He earned his first Academy Award as a young Vito Corleone in “The Godfather Part II” (1974) and delivered his most iconic performance as would-be vigilante Travis Bickle in “Taxi Driver” (1976). De Niro offered a haunting turn as a Vietnam veteran in “The Deer Hunter” (1978), before gaining 60 pounds to play boxer Jake La Motta in “Raging Bull” (1980). From there, he delivered great performances in “The King of Comedy” (1983), “Once Upon a Time in America” (1984), “The Untouchables” (1987) and “Awakenings” (1990). He reunited with Scorsese for “Goodfellas” (1990) and “Casino” (1995), and starred opposite Al Pacino in “Heat” (1995), but took a surprising turn to comedy in “Analyze This” (1999) and “Meet the Parents” (2000), both commercial hits that opened him up to criticism that he had sold out. Despite calls that he was past his prime, there was never any doubt as to where De Niro stood in the history of acting – he was a towering figure with an amazing body of work unmatched by most actors of any generation.

The full TCM overview can be accessed here.

It is surprising and disappointing that Ann Sheridan is not better known today. In her prime years in the 1940’s she was one of Warner Brothers most famous leading ladies on the same pedestal as Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Her career is in urgent need of positive reappraisal. She was born in 1915 in Texas. She made her film debut in 1934 in “Search for Beauty”. Her more famous movies include “Angels With Dirty Faces” with James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart in 1938, “Dodge City” opposite Errol Flynn, “King’s Row”, “Nora Pre ntiss” and “The Unfaithful”. She was starring in the television series “Pistols’n Petticoats” when she became ill and died in 1967 at the age of 52.

TCM overview:

She was Warner Brothers’ “Oomph Girl” and a popular WWII pin-up but Ann Sheridan fought to be taken seriously in Hollywood. After a fruitless start at Paramount, the ravishing redhead allowed the Warners publicity mill to make her an overnight sensation, channeling the buzz to barter for better roles. She enjoyed name-above-the-title status for “It All Came True” (1940), in a role rejected by Bette Davis, then teamed with Davis for the screwball classic “The Man Who Came to Dinner” (1942), and more than held her own opposite studio mates George Raft and Humphrey Bogart in “They Drive By Night” (1940). It was as the small town heroine of “King’s Row” (1942) opposite Ronald Reagan, that Sheridan became a bone fide star, but her tenure at Warners was punctuated by suspensions for turning down roles. Prior to breaking with the studio in 1948, she scored as a Frisco chanteuse who compels doctor Kent Smith to fake his own death in the noir sleeper “Nora Prentiss” (1947). As a free agent, Sheridan enjoyed one of her better roles opposite Cary Grant in “I Was a Male War Bride” (1949) but a downturn in her industry stock drove the aging actress to television. She capped her 30-year career as the star of the CBS western sitcom “Pistols ‘n’ Petticoats” (1966-67) but was felled by cancer before the end of the first season. Gone at 51, Ann Sheridan escaped in death the humiliating career twilights of aging rivals Bette Davis and Joan Crawford, remaining in the eyes of movie lovers a quick-witted comedienne and a sensuous dramatic actress rolled into one unforgettable package.

Ann Sheridan was born Clara Lou Sheridan in Denton, TX on Feb. 21, 1915. The last of five surviving children born to George W. Sheridan, a garage mechanic and direct descendant of Union general Philip Henry Sheridan, and the former Lula Stewart Warren, Sheridan grew up a tomboy, riding horses, playing touch football, and standing up to bully boys twice her size. After completing her primary education at Robert E. Lee Grade School and Denton Junior High School, she enrolled in North Texas State Teachers College with a mind toward studying art. Growing frustrated with the disciplines required of fine art, Sheridan drifted towards campus dramatics and participated in the school band, dreaming of traveling to New York City to become a Broadway chorus dancer. In 1932, Sheridan’s older sister Kitty enrolled the 17-year-old in a national contest sponsored by Paramount Pictures in Hollywood as publicity for the upcoming film “Search for Beauty” (1934). Sheridan was one of 30 finalists invited to Hollywood for the privilege of a screen test.

Despite pudgy cheeks, unmanageable hair, and a gap-tooth smile, Sheridan was offered a six-month contract with Paramount, earning a then-admirable $50 a week. After her 10-second bit as a pageant contestant in “Search for Beauty,” Sheridan was given little to do on the Paramount backlot, apart from taking drama lessons from the studio’s resident coach Nina Mousie, and appearing in plays staged for the exclusive pleasure of the studio front office. While appearing as a character named Ann in the Harry Clork-Lynn Root comedy “The Milky Way,” Sheridan was advised by her handlers at Paramount to change her name so that it might fit more comfortably on a marquee. Adopting her character’s name, Clara Lou Sheridan became Ann Sheridan. A friendship with director Mitchell Leisen led to a featured role, as a stenographer driven by snobbery to suicide, in “Behold My Wife!” (1934), which allowed the young hopeful to break from the purgatory of extra work and doubling that her been her lot as a Paramount contract player.

Sheridan enjoyed her first lead role in Charles Barton’s “Car 99” (1935), as rookie cop Fred MacMurray’s telephone operator girlfriend. She was paired with cowboy star Randolph Scott for Barton’s “Rocky Mountain Mystery” (1935) but was bumped back to bits, playing a nurse who bandages George Raft in “The Glass Key” (1935) and a Saracen slave in Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Crusades” (1935). While she was on loan to Ambassador Pictures for “Red Blood of Courage” (1935), Paramount dropped Sheridan’s option. She made one film for Universal, playing a spoiled rich girl who flirts with campus radicalism in Hamilton McFadden’s college comedy “Fighting Youth” (1935), before finding her way to Warner Brothers, her home base until 1948. Though her scenes were cut from Ray Enright’s musical comedy “Sing Me a Love Song” (1936), she found work in Warners’ steady output of crime films, appearing in prominent roles in Archie Mayo’s “Black Legion” (1937), Lloyd Bacon’s “San Quentin” (1937) and Michael Curtiz’s “Angels with Dirty Faces” (1938) alongside fellow contract player Humphrey Bogart. Between 1936 and 1938, Sheridan was married to B-movie actor Edward Norris.

In 1939, Sheridan became the focus of an unusual Warners publicity stunt, inspired by a comment made by gossip columnist Walter Winchell that Sheridan, as gangster James Cagney’s social worker girlfriend in “Angels with Dirty Faces,” had “umph.” Recoining the phrase slightly, the studio assembled a team of 13 judges – including choreography Busby Berkeley, designer Orry-Kelly, photographer George Hurrell, producer-director Earl Carroll, and bandleader-actor Rudy Vallee – charged with naming “America’s Oomph Girl.” Following a highly-publicized but patently rigged competition, Sheridan was awarded the honor, beating out (so the Warners publicity mill had moviegoers believing) Alice Faye, Carole Lombard, Hedy Lamarr and Marlene Dietrich. Hurrell’s elegant portraits of the titian-tressed actress helped put Sheridan across to the public, creating curiosity and sensation where there had once been disinterest. As a result, Sheridan would soon become one of the most popular pin-ups of the Forties, but she always derided her nickname as the sound an old man makes when bending over to tie his shoes.

Interest in Sheridan’s crowning as the Oomph Girl had a retroactive effect on several movies in which she had already appeared. Though she played small roles in both, Sheridan received preferential placement on the posters for Busby Berkeley’s “They Made Me a Criminal” (1939) and Michael Curtiz’s Errol Flynn starrer “Dodge City” (1939). Ill at ease at having achieved success through crass studio duplicity, Sheridan was given a backlot pep talk by actor Paul Muni, who advised her to use the exposure from the stunt for the betterment of her career. She was selected by producer Mark Hellinger to star in Lewis Seiler’s “It All Came True” (1940), a role turned down by Bette Davis. Cast as a down-at-heel nightclub singer given a second chance at stardom when mobster Humphrey Bogart turns her boarding house into a nightclub, Sheridan charmed audiences and sang two songs. Now boasting name recognition with moviegoers, Sheridan enjoyed an elevated status in her subsequent film assignments and was, like teen starlets Bonita Granville and Deanna Durbin, made the heroine sleuth of her own mystery novel, marketed by the Whitman Publishing Company for young readers.

Cast again opposite George Raft and Humphrey Bogart in Raoul Walsh’s “They Drive By Night” (1940), Sheridan played the good girl to Ida Lupino’s bad egg. On the lighter side, she donned furs and jewels to play a conniving actress in William Keighley’s “The Man Who Came to Dinner” (1942), winding up packed inside a mummy’s case for her troubles and shipped to Nova Scotia, and teamed with Jack Benny for Keighley’s “George Washington Slept Here” (1942), with the pair cast as city dwellers who buy a tumbledown Pennsylvania farm house. Sheridan enjoyed top billing as the tomboy heroine of Sam Wood’s “King’s Row” (1942), an adaptation of the 1940 novel by Harry Bellaman, which made a star of Sheridan’s fellow Warners contract player Ronald Reagan. Though the studio publicity department announced Sheridan and Reagan as the proposed stars of the upcoming “Casablanca” (1942), the actors were never seriously considered for the roles that went ultimately to Ingrid Berman and Humphrey Bogart.

In 1942, Sheridan married actor George Brent, her co-star in Lloyd Bacon’s “Honeymoon for Three” (1941), a union that lasted just one year. The actress’ star turn in “Shine on Harvest Moon” (1944), a biopic of vaudeville singer Nora Bayes, was pitched by Warners as “Sheridandy” though the actress loathed the picture, eager to expand into edgier material and more demanding roles. Placed on suspension for refusing assignments after the troubled production of “One More Tomorrow” (1946), Sheridan sat out most of 1946 before a writer’s strike and the looming expiration of her Warners contract left her with bargaining leverage. The result was a six-picture deal for which Sheridan was given script approval and enjoyed an uptake in her asking price. The first film out of the gate under these new terms was Vincent Sherman’s “Nora Prentiss” (1947), a noir-flavored woman’s picture recounting the tragic love affair of Sheridan’s slinky nightclub singer and Kent Smith’s guilt-wracked surgeon, who fakes his own death as the start of an ill-advised midlife do-over.

Sheridan reteamed with Sherman for “The Unfaithful” (1948), which found her charged with murder for the fatal stabbing of her ex-lover. She finished out her Warners contract with an uncredited bit as a Mexican prostitute in “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” (1948), done as a favor for director John Huston, and by playing a comely mine owner in “Silver River” (1948) opposite Errol Flynn. As a free agent, Sheridan made few remarkable films but many satisfying ones. Among these was Howard Hawks’ “I Was a Male War Bride” (1949) at Fox, in which she and co-star Cary Grant played American and French allies who fall in love while on a mission and employ the War Bride Act in order to remain together in the United States. Sheridan had the title role in Claude Binyon’s “Stella” (1950), as an upwardly mobile woman duped into helping her hayseed relatives cover up an accidental death, and received top billing for George Sherman’s “Steel Town” (1952), a class conscious melodrama co-starring John Lund and Howard Duff. She took a producer’s role for Norman Foster’s “Woman on the Run” (1950), in addition to headlining as a San Francisco housewife who works with newspaper reporter Dennis O’Keefe to track down her errant husband, material witness to a gangland murder.

Less in demand as she approached middle age, Sheridan shifted the focus of her labor to live television, appearing in episodes of such anthology series as “Schlitz Playhouse of Stars” (CBS, 1951-59), “Playhouse 90” (CBS, 1956-1961) and “The Ford Television Theater” (NBC, 1952-57). In 1965, the year she turned 50, she joined the ranks of fading Hollywood stars agreeing to lend their big screen credibility to the medium of daytime drama and appeared in the second season of the NBC soap opera “Another World” (1964-1999). Just as discriminating in the downward arc of her career as she had been at its apex, Sheridan passed on the part of a French brothel owner in Norman Jewison’s “The Art of Love” (1965), a role that went instead to Ethel Merman. In 1966, she married actor Scott McKay. She capped her career as the star of the Western sitcom “Pistols ‘n’ Petticoats” (CBS, 1966-67). Diagnosed during the first (and only) season with esophageal cancer, Ann Sheridan died at age 51 on Jan. 21, 1967.

by Richard Harland Smith

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

American actress Ann Sheridan (1915 – 1967) poses on the cover of the January 1939 issue of PIC magazine. (Photo by Transcendental Graphics/Getty Images)

A poster for William Clemens’ 1937 romantic film ‘The Footloose Heiress’ starring Ann Sheridan. (Photo by Movie Poster Image Art/Getty Images)

Norma Varden was one of the most profilic of character actors in Hollywood films from the early 1940’s up until the late 1960’s. She was born in London in 1898. She began her career on the British stage and was particularily associated with the famous Aldwych farces. Her film debut was in 1922 in “The Glorious Adventure”. Her more famous UK films include “Evergreen” with Jessie Matthews in 1934 and “Shipyard Sally” with Gracie Fields in 1939. Her Hollywood films began with “The Earl of Chicago” in 1940 and included such classics as “Waterloo Bridge”, “Casablanca”, “Random Harvest”, “The White Cliffs of Dover”, “National Velvet”, “Forever Amber”, “The Secret Garden”, “Strangers on a Train”, “Witness for the Prosecution” and “The Sound of Music”. She retired from acting in 1969 and died in Santa Barbara in 1989 at the age of 90.

Gary Brumburgh’s entry:

The daughter of a retired sea captain and his much-younger wife, actress Norma Varden was born and raised in turn-of-the-century London. A piano prodigy, she studied in Paris and appeared in concert in England during her teenage years. Acting, however, became her career of choice, studying at the Guildhall School of Music. She took her very first stage bow in a production of Peter Pan. In the adult role of Mrs. Darling, she was actually younger than the actors playing her children. In years to come, Norma would play a number of mature, lady-like roles that were much older than she was.

She performed Shakespeare in repertory and was at first cast in dramatic plays such as The Wandering Jew (1920-her West End debut) and Hamlet (1925) as the Player Queen. In various acting companies, she eventually found a flair for comedy and became the resident character comedienne for the famous Aldwych Theatre farce-ers from 1929 to 1933 à la Marx Bros. foil Margaret Dumont. Finding success there in the comedies A Night Like This and Turkey Time, she later recreated both roles on British film a couple of years later. She went on to prove herself a minor but avid scene-stealer in such movies asEvergreen (1934), The Iron Duke (1934), Stormy Weather (1935) and East Meets West(1936), quickly finding an amusing niche as a haughty society maven. She played both benevolent and supercilious with equal ease — her height (5’7-1/2″), elongated oval face, vacant manner, plummy voice and slightly drowsy eyes adding immensely to the look and amusement of her characters.

In the early 1940s, the veteran actress visited California, accompanied by her ailing, widowed mother, for a take on the warmer climate and decided to permanently settle. Again, she found herself in demand as a now silvery-haired duchess, queen or Lady something, albeit in less meaty, sometimes even unbilled parts. Although she could dress down when called upon as a bar maid, nurse and landlady, she usually was asked to provide the requisite atmosphere for glossy, opulent settings. Her more noticeable roles came as lecherous Robert Benchley‘s wealthy, put-upon wife in The Major and the Minor (1942); the vile Lady Abbott in Forever Amber (1947); the giddy socialite nearly strangled by Robert Walker in Hitchcock’s classic Strangers on a Train (1951); the impressively bejeweled wife of Charles Coburn who Marilyn Monroe fawns over inGentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953); and the Von Trapp housekeeper Frau Schmidt in The Sound of Music (1965).

Norma became a steadfast radio and TV comedy foil during the 40s, 50s and 60s, often at the mercy of a Lucille Ball or Jack Benny. Her longest radio part was as Basil Rathbone‘s housekeeper on his Sherlock Holmes radio series. On TV, she appeared in such shows as Mister Ed (1958), The Beverly Hillbillies (1962), Bewitched (1964) andBatman (1966) She had recurring roles as Betty Hutton’s aunt on The Betty Hutton Show(1959) and as Shirley Booth‘s neighbor on Hazel (1961). Never married, Norma’s mother passed away in 1969, and the actress retired shortly after. She died of heart failure in 1989, a day before her 91st birthday.

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

Rise Stevens is a reknowned mezzo-soprano who was born in New York City in 1913. She has had a lenghty career in opera and in concert. In the 1940’s she branched out into some Hollywood films including “The Chocolate Soldier” with Nelson Eddy in 1941 and “Going My Way” with Bing Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald in 1944. Her son is the actor Nicolas Surovy. She died in 2013 in her 100th year.

Tribute in “Huffington Post” by Susanne Mentzer :

The first eleven years of my life were spent in suburban Philadelphia in Springfield, Delaware County, to be exact. We were one of the working class families living in the numerous identical, small, brick houses of the cul-de-sac. In our living room we had a rather wide, two door, dark wood console that housed a black and white TV. Remember the kind that took forever to warm up starting with a small white dot that slowly grew into the picture? There was also a turntable that rolled out with space underneath for LPs. The one and only opera LP we owned was the RCA 33 1/3 rpm long-playing Bizet’s Carmen– black-covered and about one half inch thick. The sultry Risë Stevens was the seductress, facing the camera posed in a sort of feline crouch ready to pounce any minute. Until my late teens this was all I knew of opera. I am sure mom wore out the grooves listening to the overture, and the arias “Habañera” and “Séguidilla”. I knew these, too, by osmosis. (I have written here about some other memories from back then. See “My Mother’s Voice“).

My mother always raved about Risë Stevens. In my mind this singer was larger than life and possessed a voluptuous sexy sound. She was an amazing beauty too and had a really exotic name. As far I knew, she was the only opera singer in the world even though Robert Merrill and Jan Pierce were also on the recording. Mom, being a mezzo/contralto only spoke of Risë Stevens. I cannot help but think this early exposure influenced my choice of being a mezzo with high notes.

Many years later, I sang the trouser role of Octavian in Richard Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalierat the Met. (Mezzo’s often are cast as young men or boys in certain operas. A former classmate at a high school reunion once said, “It is a tough job but someone’s got to do it.”) There was an evening on which there was a small gathering at the Opera Club at the Met honoring artists who had sung this role. Little did I know I would be in the company of Jarmila Novotná (another legend) and the one and only Risë Stevens. In my ignorance I somehow never imagined Miss Stevens singing anything other than Carmen and the news that she had been Octavian — the role of a young nobleman in love with two women — knocked me flat. Moreover, she sang the role exclusively for a period of ten years. There was an era at the Met when a singer famous for a particular role would be the only person to sing that role over a long period of time. Not only that, here was this petite woman, older but still stunningly beautiful, with a New York accent and low speaking voice, who in my mind, as I mentioned above, was larger than life and the epitome of female sexuality. It was an experience I will never forget. She was so generous and warm to me. I have a photo to remember that evening. I only wish I could have heard her live and really known her. She accomplished far more than her operatic career, later being a leader in the arts.

Risë Stevens died last week at the age of 99. For many of my generation — whether into opera or not — it is the passing of a legend. Although many younger people might have no idea who she is, she was once a household name on Gibbons Road in Springfield, Delaware County, PA. and beyond.

The above “Huffington Post” tribute can be accessed also online here.

Original Cinema Quad Poster; Movie Poster; Film Poster

Mia Farrow was born in Los Angeles in 1945. She is the daughter of famed Irish actress Maureen O’Sullivan and Australian film director John Farrow. She had her first major film role in “Guns at Batas” in 1964. She achieved international recognition for her role as Alison McKenzie on the very popular tv series “Peyton Place”. She mas many important films in her credits including “Rosemary’s Baby” in 1969, “The Great Gatsby”, “Aedding”, “Broadway Danny Rose”, “Hannah and her Sisters” and “Alice”. She is a very committed human rights activist and is a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF.

TCM Overview:

Known for her intense performances onscreen, no script could ever match the real life drama that followed actress Mia Farrow throughout her tumultuous life and career. Born to Hollywood royalty, she first burst into public view as the star of the hugely popular primetime soap “Peyton Place” (ABC, 1964-69) and as the teen bride of superstar Frank Sinatra, followed by a career-making turn in Roman Polanski’s horror classic “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968). More notable roles followed in high-profile films such as “The Great Gatsby” (1974), in addition to another celebrity marriage to renowned composer-conductor, André Previn. It was, however, Farrow’s extended relationship with revered filmmaker Woody Allen that would produce not only some of the actress’ finest work – “Broadway Danny Rose” (1984), “Hannah and Her Sisters” (1986) and “Alice” (1990), among others – but her greatest heartache, as well. The shocking revelation that Allen had been in a sexual relationship with their 21-year-old adoptive daughter, Soon-Yi Previn, in 1992 shook Farrow’s world to its foundation, simultaneously ending both her longest-running romantic relationship and most fruitful artistic collaboration. In the years that followed the scandal, Farrow continued to act, although her humanitarian work in the East African region of Darfur and her own growing family clearly took precedence. Seemingly meek and emotionally fragile – traits skillfully exploited in her acting – Farrow ultimately emerged as a survivor, as well as a voice for children around the world.

Born Maria de Lourdes Villiers Farrow on Feb. 9, 1945 in Los Angeles, “Mia” was the daughter of Irish actress Maureen O’Sullivan – famous for her portrayal of Jane in the Johnny Weissmuller “Tarzan” films – and Australian-born writer-director John Farrow. One of seven children, the waifish blonde’s idyllic childhood in Beverly Hills was interrupted by an early hardship she was temporarily afflicted with polio at age nine. The effects of the traumatic, lonely experience would stay with Farrow throughout the remainder of her life, most notably in the authentically fragile nature she exhibited in many of her later film performances. Recovered from her illness, a preteen Farrow expressed an interest in pursuing an acting career and was promptly rewarded by being sent to a convent school in Europe by her disapproving father. Ironically, it was he who gave his daughter – along with several of her siblings – her acting debut with an uncredited cameo in a nautical adventure film he was writing and directing at the time, “John Paul Jones” (1959). The experience only strengthened the girl’s resolve; in a sad twist of fate, it was only after her father’s sudden death from a heart attack in 1963, that she would begin to achieve her career goal.

At the age of 18, Farrow made her professional stage debut as Cicely in an off-Broadway production of Oscar Wilde’s comedy of manners “The Importance of Being Earnest” in 1963. Farrow gained substantial positive publicity for her early stage work, thanks in large part to her mother’s best friend, actress Vivien Leigh, who encouraged casting agents and journalists to attend. One person in attendance was television producer Paul Monash, who promptly sought out the young actress and offered her a role on his upcoming series. Although she had envisioned remaining in New York City, Farrow accepted the role of Alison MacKenzie, the naïve waif in the pioneering primetime soap opera “Peyton Place” (ABC, 1964-69). Things began happening very quickly for Farrow, who lucked into another small part in the feature film “Guns at Batasi” (1964) prior to accepting her role on the experimental TV show. Convinced that no one would tune in to “Peyton Place,” Farrow began looking for other work, even auditioning for the role of Liesl von Trapp in the “The Sound of Music” (1965). The 20-year-old actress was caught off guard when “Peyton Place” turned out to be an instant success, consequently turning her into a media sensation seemingly overnight. Now a full-fledged star, her personal life soon reflected her new celebrity status – in no way more so than with her whirlwind romance and marriage to Frank Sinatra in 1966.

Nearly 30 years Farrow’s senior, the legendary entertainer was soon pressuring her to leave the hit series, and shortly after their wedding she did just that, exiting “Peyton Place” at the end of the second season. Hungry for more diverse roles, she quickly went to work in other projects, such as the small screen remake of the drama “Johnny Belinda” (ABC, 1967), followed by the British spy thriller “A Dandy in Aspic” (1968), starring Laurence Harvey. The Roman Polanski-directed classic occult thriller “Rosemary’s Baby” (1968) marked a major turning point in both Farrow’s budding career and her personal life. Sinatra had intended to have his young wife co-star opposite him in his upcoming crime drama, “The Detective” (1968) and was less than pleased with Farrow when she accepted the lead in the horror movie. Tensions came to a boiling point when the “Rosemary’s Baby” schedule prevented her from working on his movie and the famously short-tempered Sinatra retaliated by serving her divorce papers on the set of her film in front of the entire cast and crew. Distraught and ready to quit the production, Farrow was eventually convinced to stay on the picture by producer Robert Evans, who wooed the young actress with promises of an Oscar nomination for her role. While that prediction did not come to pass, Farrow’s performance as a pregnant young wife whose husband (John Cassavettes) is in league with a coven of Satan worshippers, did garner a Golden Globe nomination, in addition to rave reviews by the likes of influential film critic Pauline Kael.

Farrow followed with another performance as an emotionally fragile young woman alongside Elizabeth Taylor in the psycho-melodrama “Secret Ceremony” (1968), although her success at portraying these delicate child-women quickly threatened to typecast her. In the wake of her split from Sinatra, Farrow travelled to India in 1968, where she sought out the teachings of noted spiritualist Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Much to her surprise, she was soon joined by The Beatles, who had also come to study at the ashram. A rumor about the Maharishi’s inappropriate sexual advances toward Farrow persisted for decades, although it was eventually dispelled over the years by several people who had first-hand knowledge of the visit. Another rumor, more readily acknowledged, was that John Lennon’s classic song “Dear Prudence” was written about Farrow’s sister of the same name, who also accompanied the eclectic group on their Eastern quest for enlightenment. Professionally, Farrow continued to seek more challenging roles, as was the case with “John and Mary” (1969), a romantic drama in which she played a young woman retroactively getting to know a man (Dustin Hoffman) the morning after their impromptu one-night-stand. Not all of her career choices were as well-calculated, however, such as when she turned down the role of Mattie Ross opposite screen legend John Wayne in the Western classic “True Grit” (1969), a decision she openly regretted years later.

Farrow took on new challenges in her personal life, as well, including a marriage to noted composer André Previn in 1970, followed by the birth of twins Matthew and Sascha, a third child, Fletcher, and the adoption of Vietnamese infants Lark and Summer Song over a six year period. She impressed audiences once again with another “girl in peril” role, this time as a blind woman stalked by a psychotic killer in the chilling “See No Evil” (1971). On TV that same year, she played a suicidal actress being consoled by a veteran Hollywood screenwriter (Hal Holbrook) in “Goodbye, Raggedy Ann” (CBS, 1971). She was next seen in theaters as an emotionally unsatisfied wife being tailed by a private detective (Topol) in “The Public Eye” (1972), followed by a turn opposite French New Wave icon Jean-Paul Belmondo in director Claude Chabrol’s sex comedy “High Heels” (1972). Amidst great fanfare, Farrow was next cast as narcissistic jazz-era socialite Daisy Buchanan in the lavish remake of “The Great Gatsby” (1974), starring opposite screen idol Robert Redford in the title role. While the interpretation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s indictment of America’s upper-class managed to follow the book’s details, critics, by and large, felt that it missed the emotional core of the characters, focusing instead upon gorgeous set designs and the ephemeral beauty of its cast. As for her involvement, it was not so much Farrow’s performance that was found lacking, as much as the widely-held opinion that she was simply miscast.

On the other hand, Farrow was delightful as “Peter Pan” (NBC, 1976) in a “Hallmark Hall of Fame” production that drew favorable comparisons to Mary Martin’s iconic portrayal. She revisited the horror genre in the British ghost story “The Haunting of Julia” (1977), as a wealthy woman victimized by a vengeful spirit. The following year, Farrow offered a trio of performances in a series of vastly dissimilar films. Intriguing as a mute bridesmaid in Robert Altman’s romantic drama “A Wedding” (1978) and devilishly nasty as a jilted lover in the all-star Agatha Christie adaptation “Death on the Nile” (1978), Farrow was completely wasted opposite Rock Hudson in the subpar mountain disaster movie “Avalanche” (1978). After her amicable divorce from Previn – the conductor had spent much of their marriage away on tour – Farrow made her Broadway debut in 1979 opposite Anthony Perkins in “Romantic Comedy,” followed by a turn in the Dino De Laurentiis-produced misfire, “Hurricane” (1979). Eager to pair the actress with her “Rosemary’s Baby” director again, Polanski had been originally slated to helm the big-budget feature. However, his arrest on charges of having sex with a 13-year-old girl delayed his involvement, and ultimately led to his being replaced as the film’s director at the last minute, a sudden change of plan reflected in the poorly executed final production.

Introduced to filmmaker Woody Allen by Michael Caine in 1982, the actress was immediately smitten by the neurotic New York intellectual, and soon assumed the role of his artistic muse. Beginning with the lightweight “A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy” Farrow’s collaborations with the prolific director created a truly astonishing array of characters. Her best work under Allen’s guidance included the 1920s psychiatrist in “Zelig” (1983), the brassy gangster’s moll in “Broadway Danny Rose” (1984), the downtrodden wife in “The Purple Rose of Cairo” (1985) and the luminous sibling center of “Hannah and Her Sisters” (1986), with the latter filmed in large part at Farrow’s Central Park West apartment. Other notable work with Allen included turns in “Radio Days” (1987) and “Crimes and Misdemeanors” (1989), as well as her underappreciated characterization of “Alice” (1990), a unique Allen-esque spin on Lewis Carroll’s tale. Her final two films with Woody Allen – “Shadows and Fog” (1991) and “Husbands and Wives” (1992) – arrived in theaters just as the life she had created with the venerated director – which included a son and two more adopted children – began to unravel. Upon discovering several pornographic photographs in his home, a stunned Farrow realized that Allen had begun a romantic relationship with one of the adopted daughters from her earlier marriage, 21-year-old Soon-Yi Previn, who had posed for his camera. Instantly, the sordid affair became fodder for an insatiable tabloid media, driven to a near frenzy when Farrow later accused Allen of molesting another of their younger adoptive children.

The disturbing, vindictive and messy battle played itself out in the press and the courtroom for more than a year, concluding with molestation charges against Allen being dropped, full custody of the children being awarded to Farrow, and Soon-Yi marrying the unrepentant director. Meanwhile, the emotionally battered actress sought comfort in the two usual places – family and work. Adopting six more children between 1992 and 1995, she embarked on the next phase of her career, sans Allen. She employed her seemingly fragile persona to good effect in the dark comedy “Widow’s Peak” (1994). Farrow then joined the ensemble cast of the poorly-received romantic comedy “Miami Rhapsody” (1995), before taking part in another misfire, the dark comedy “Reckless” (1995), adapted from the stage play of the same name by Craig Lucas. As the 1990s wound down, the actress returned to the small screen to play a Danish woman aiding Jews during WWII in “Miracle at Midnight” (ABC, 1998), and essayed a victim of Alzheimer’s disease in “Forget Me Never” (CBS, 1999). Farrow also made a rare appearance in episodic television – something she had not done since her days on “Peyton Place” – with a recurring role as Mona Mitchell on the drama “Third Watch” (NBC, 1999-2005). One of the few high points in the film, Farrow was perfectly cast as the satanic nanny, Mrs. Baylock, in the otherwise disappointing remake of “The Omen” (2006). Also that year, she voiced the character of Granny for “Arthur and the Invisibles” (2006), the first of three entries in the animated fantasy series, produced by French filmmaker, Luc Besson.

Other roles included a turn as Amanda Peet’s mother in the lackluster comedy “The Ex” (2006) and a supporting role in eclectic director Michael Gondry’s oddball comedy-drama “Be Kind Rewind” (2008). As it had so many times before, tragedy struck her family once again when her daughter, Lark, died on Christmas day 2008, after a prolonged illness. Although the cause of death was not officially divulged, years earlier, Lark’s then-husband had claimed that she was infected by the AIDS virus after being tattooed with a dirty needle. Farrow’s already shaken world was rocked further when her brother Patrick, a noted artist and sculptor, committed suicide in his Vermont gallery in 2009. Moving forward, she narrated the documentary short “The Darfur Archives” (2010), a project close to her heart that reflected Farrow’s deep and abiding commitment to activism which began more than a decade earlier with frequent visits to the impoverished, war-torn region of Northeast Africa’s Sudan. In the mid-2000s she began writing extensively about the humanitarian crisis in various national publications and on her personal website, miafarrow.org. Farrow was named one of the world’s 100 most influential people by TIME magazine after her public chastising of director Steven Spielberg prompted the filmmaker to withdraw his involvement in the opening ceremonies of the 2008 Summer Olympics being held in China, a strong supporter of the Sudanese government.

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

Margaret Hayes was born in 1916 in Baltimore. She gave a fine performance as a fellow teacher to Glenn Ford in 1955’s “The Blackboard Jungle”. She was featured in “Girl’s Town” and “The Beat Generation” both with Mamie Van Doren. She died in 1977.

IMDB entry:

Auburn-haired Margaret ‘Maggie’ Hayes made her Broadway debut in 1940 and was signed by Paramount the following year. She generally played second leads, often as ‘the other woman’, but was never quite fulfilled in her profession. Instead, she pursued diverse other career paths outside of acting, both in between performing, and after her retirement in 1962: as fashion designer, model, owner of a boutique in Palm Beach and designing/selling jewelry in New York. She even worked for a while as a public relations executive for luxury goods department store Bergdorf Goodman on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. In the late 40’s, she became fashion editor for ‘Life Magazine’, before returning to the New York stage and acting in television where she had some of her best roles.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: I.S.Mowis

Margaret was born in Baltimore, Maryland. Her father was Jack Lewis Ottenheimer, musician, theatrical man and one of the first “gag” men in the entertainment field. He prepared much of the stage material for Thurston, the Magician. After graduating from Forrest Park High School, Margaret went to work for the May Company in Baltimore as a window dresser. As a diversion, she joined the Emerson Cook Stock Company, where she decided to make acting her life’s career. She entered Johns Hopkins under-graduate school with an alternative idea to become a nurse, but stuck to her dramatic ambitions. While studying at Johns Hopkins, Margaret joined “The Barnstormers”, a theatrical organization. Then came an opportunity to act professionally with a stock company at Deer Lake, Penn. Her first Broadway role, in 1940, was in “Bright Rebel” and followed that with a role in Broadway’s “The Family” , which led to a motion picture contract with Paramount Pictures.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: Les Adams <longhorn1939@suddenlink.net>

The above IMDB entry can be accessed online here.

Sue Lyon

Sue Lyon was born in Davenport, Iowa in 1946. She shot to fame in the title role of “Lolita” in 1962. Other roles included “The Night of the Iguana” directed by John Huston with Richard Burton, Ava Gardner and Deborah Kerr and “7 Women” the last film directed by John Ford.

TCM Overview:

This blonde ingenue made a rocky transition to leading lady. Lyon won the controversial role of Dolores Haze, the sexually charged adolescent and the object of an older man’s obsessions in Stanley Kubrick’s “Lolita” (1962). From the Vladimir Nabokov novel of the same name, Kubrick’s “Lolita”, although a toned-down version of the story, was nonetheless one of the most notorious films of its day and Lyon rode to fame on its coattails. She played a similar role in John Huston’s “Night of the Iguana” (1964), competing for the affections of Richard Burton’s defrocked alcoholic preacher against the likes of Deborah Kerr and Ava Gardner, and she played an innocent in John Ford’s last film, “Seven Women” (1965). She continued to work in films and television throughout the 1960s and 70s. Sue Lyon died in 2019.

Sue Lyon obituary in “The Guardian” in 2019.

A much celebrated movie poster shows Sue Lyon peering over a pair of heart-shaped sunglasses while sucking a red lollipop under the legend “How did they ever make a movie of Lolita?” The answer lay in the casting of 14-year-old Lyon in the title role of Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation of the controversial Vladimir Nabokov novel, in which Lolita is 12 years old.

Although Kubrick later complained about having to stick to the Hollywood Production Code, he said of Lyon, who has died aged 73, “she’s a one-in-a-million find”, and Nabokov thought her “the perfect nymphet”, a noun he coined in his 1955 novel. Her performance in Lolita (1962), her first feature, won the Golden Globe for most promising newcomer. Few film actors can claim such a prestigious start to their careers.

Her first three pictures were directed by three cinema greats: Kubrick, John Huston (The Night of the Iguana, 1964) and John Ford (Seven Women, 1966). Unfortunately, from such heights there was nowhere else to go but down, and whatever she did, whether professional or personal, Lolita would be evoked without fail.

She was born Suellyn Lyon in Davenport, Iowa, the last of five children of Sue Karr Lyon, who worked as a hospital house mother. She was 10 months old when her father died. At 11, to help pay the bills, she got jobs as a model with the JC Penney agency, while still going to school in Los Angeles.

She soon got small parts in the TV series Dennis the Menace and The Loretta Young Show (both 1959). It was after seeing her in the latter that Kubrick suggested that she audition for the part of Lolita, beating, as rumour has it, 800 other young women. “Even in the way she walked in for her interview, casually sat down, walked out, she was cool and non-giggly,” Kubrick recalled. “She was enigmatic… She could get people guessing about how much Lolita knew about life.”

It was just this quality that Lyon brought to her role – teasing Humbert Humbert (James Mason), the middle-aged British professor, sexually infatuated by her.

Lyon retained some of Lolita in The Night of the Iguana, among a group of Baptist teachers in Mexico. As the 16-year-old niece of the leader of the school, she seduces the tour guide, a defrocked priest (Richard Burton), or vice versa. “You’re as dangerous as you are young and lovely,” he tells her.

In contrast, in Ford’s final film, the underestimated Seven Women, Lyon brought an air of naivety to the role of the youngest in a group of Christian missionaries in rural China in 1935. There is a subtle implication that the head of the mission (Margaret Leighton) has more than a maternal interest in the young woman and is jealous of the fascination she holds for an atheist doctor from New York (Anne Bancroft). It was a performance that should have brought Lyon more laurels than it did.

Her first grown-up role came as the romantic interest in The Flim-Flam Man (1966), directed by Irvin Kershner. A less good performance might have slowed up the lively comedy in which she played an affluent woman, a potential victim of George C Scott and Michael Sarrazin as a couple of con men.

Lyon played Diana Pines in Tony Rome (1967), a typically brash 1960 neo-noir starring Frank Sinatra as the titular private eye, and was the long-suffering wife of the famous stunt man in Evel Knievel (1971), a biopic starring George Hamilton.

After making a few low-budget international thrillers and guest appearances in Police Story and Fantasy Island (both 1978), she retired from show business in 1980.

Lyon was married and divorced five times. Her husbands were the film-maker Hampton Fancher, Roland Harrison, a photographer and football coach, Gary Adamson, whom she married while he was in prison, Edward Weathers and, in 1985, Richard Rudman, a radio engineer; they divorced in 2002.

She is survived by Nona, her daughter from her second marriage.

• Sue (Suellyn) Lyon, actor, born 10 July 1946; died 26 December 2019

Katharine Helmond was born in Galvaston, Texas in 1928. Her films include “The Hospital” with George C. Scott in 1971, “The Hindenburg” again with Scott and “Family Plot” the last film directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Ms Helmond died in 2019 at the age of 89.

TCM Overview:

Most noted for playing outspoken, bawdy or endearingly ditzy matriarchs, actress Katherine Helmond enjoyed a career lengthier and more diverse than her beloved television roles might have suggested. After more than a decade of scattered parts in film and on television, the classically trained stage actress earned a 1973 Tony Award for her performance in Eugene O’Neill’s “The Great God Brown.” Following her work on TV movies like “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” (CBS, 1974) and “The Legend of Lizzie Borden” (ABC, 1975), Helmond landed her breakout role as the spacey Jessica Tate on the envelope-pushing sitcom “Soap” (ABC, 1977-1981), earning the actress her first Golden Globe in 1980. Tapping into her inner “grotesque,” Helmond collaborated with filmmaker Terry Gilliam for a pair of horrifyingly hilarious appearances in “Time Bandits” (1981) and “Brazil” (1985). Offbeat mothers seemed to be her bread and butter, and she successfully modulated her Jessica character for roles on “Who’s The Boss” (ABC, 1984-1992) and “Everybody Loves Raymond” (CBS, 1996-2005). Continuing to work well into her eighties, she lent her talents to such diverse projects as the animated Disney-Pixar blockbuster “Cars” (2006) and the gore and sex soaked vampire soap opera “True Blood” (HBO, 2008- ). Whether playing a delightfully addled socialite, a plastic surgery addict in the dystopian future, or a sexually voracious grandmother, Helmond brought her uniquely manic and seemingly inexhaustible energy to each and every role.

Biographies of Helmond never mention her father’s influence on her early years. Born Katherine Marie Helmond in Galveston, TX on July 5, 1928, she was raised by her mother, Thelma Malone, and grandmother. Withdrawn as a youth, she was assigned a role in a school play by the sisters at her Catholic school and discovered that acting provided a new way to express her emotions. The stage soon became her main passion, and she worked behind the scenes at her local theater before heading to South Carolina to attend the fundamentalist private college, Bob Jones University. While there, Helmond made her film debut in “Wine of Morning” (1955), a film version of the novel of the same name by the university’s president, Bob Jones Jr., who also funded the project. Her professional stage debut came in a New York production of Shakespeare’s “As You Like It,” and she was an active member of the state’s theatrical community throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s. In addition to her regular performances, Helmond operated a summer theater in the Catskills and taught acting classes at various universities. Television also afforded her an outlet for her talents. She made her small screen debut in an episode of “Car 54, Where Are You?” (NBC, 1961-63) in 1962.

The 1970s saw the true blossoming of Helmond’s career and the launch of her status as a TV favorite. A 1973 Tony Award as Best Supporting Actress in a production of Eugene O’Neill’s “The Great God Brown” signaled that she was a performer to watch. Her film career also began in earnest with supporting turns in “Believe in Me” (1971), a disturbing drama about drug addiction, as well as the Paddy Chayefsky-penned black comedy “The Hospital” (1971), “The Hindenburg” (1975) and Alfred Hitchcock’s final film, “Family Plot” (1976). However, television took the fullest advantage of her abilities, and she was put to excellent use as society ladies, mothers of all stripes and professional types in Emmy-winning projects like “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman” (CBS, 1974) and “The Legend of Lizzie Borden” (ABC, 1975).

Helmond’s first turn as a series regular was something of a doozy. “Soap” (ABC, 1977-1981) was a primetime parody of daytime soap operas that left no hot button issue untouched in its pursuit of laughs. Helmond played Jessica Tate, the wealthier of two sisters whose extended and deranged families filled out the show’s massive cast of characters. Blissfully ignorant of the chaos that surrounded her, Jessica’s sole interest seemed to be sex, which she sought from her husband Chester (Robert Mandan) to no avail. Instead, she found relief in the arms of numerous men, including a private investigator (Robert Urich), whose murder lead to a first season cliffhanger concerning her innocence. Jessica later became involved with a South American dictator known as “El Puerco” (Gregory Sierra) and found herself on the wrong end of a firing squad. Unfortunately, fans of the show never got to see if she escaped this demise, as the show was unceremoniously cancelled in 1981. Viewers who tuned into its more successful spin-off, “Benson” (ABC, 1979-1986), received something of an answer about Jessica’s fate in a 1983 episode featuring Helmond as Jessica’s wandering but still confused spirit.

Save for Billy Crystal, Helmond’s career received the most positive impact from appearing on “Soap;” a four-time Emmy nominee and 1981 Golden Globe recipient for her work on the show, it made her a welcome presence for television viewers and producers, who sought her out for comic roles in their own projects. Most were generic TV sitcoms, though there were interesting roles as Rosemary Clooney’s mother in the dramatic “Rosie: The Rosemary Clooney Story” (CBS, 1982) and an episode of Shelley Duvall’s “Faerie Tale Theatre” (Showtime, 1982-87) as Jack’s mother in “Jack and the Beanstalk” (1983). The British seemed to appreciate her sense of humor as well, and she was well cast as the dithering wife of an ogre (Peter Vaughn) in Terry Gilliam’s feature film, “Time Bandits” (1982) as well as in the bizarre cult comedy “Shadey” (1985). The former was the first of several enjoyable big screen collaborations with Gilliam, the best of which was “Brazil” (1985), which cast her as Jonathan Pryce’s scheming mother, whose addiction to plastic surgery reached absurdist limits. In addition to her acting roles, Helmond enrolled in the American Film Institute’s Directing Workshop, which led to her helming episodes of “Benson” and her next series, “Who’s the Boss” (ABC, 1984-1992).

Helmond returned to work as a series regular on “Boss,” the popular sitcom with Tony Danza and Judith Light as a housekeeper and his employer, respectively. Helmond effectively stole all of her scenes as Light’s uber-confident and man-hungry mother Mona, who garnered the lion’s share of the laughs with her outrageous statements. Though at first blush a kissing cousin to Jessica Tate, Mona was decidedly more together than the “Soap” character and could even be counted on to provide some honest advice to Danza’s daughter (Alyssa Milano). She even opened her own ad agency with her daughter in later seasons. A ratings success during the majority of its network run, “Who’s the Boss” netted Helmond two additional Emmy nominations and her second Golden Globe in 1989. Though “Who’s the Boss” kept Helmond busy for nearly a decade, she remained exceptionally active in TV movies and the occasional feature. Chief among these big screen offerings was the underrated ghost story “Lady in White” (1988), which cast her as a tragic spinster with connections to a small town spirit, and the cult comedy “Inside Monkey Zetterland” (1993) as a former soap opera star facing unemployment. In 1995, she began a recurring role on “Coach” (1989-1997) as the eccentric, money-mad owner of a fictional football team that hires Hayden Fox (Craig T. Nelson) as its head coach.

In 1996, Helmond marked the first of several appearances on “Everybody Loves Raymond” (CBS, 1996-2005) as Patricia Heaton’s well-bred mother, who invariably came to loggerheads with Ray’s working class parents (Doris Roberts and Peter Boyle). Well paired with an impossibly tanned and beaming Robert Culp for these episodes, Helmond received a fifth Emmy nomination for a 2002 episode of the series. While on “Raymond,” Helmond could be found in numerous television movies and episodes, as well as the occasional feature, including a brief turn as a desk clerk in Gilliam’s surreal adaptation of “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” (1998) and as the voice of a Model T named Lizzie in Pixar’s mega-successful “Cars” (2006). Television continued to be her best showcase, and in the midst of her seventh decade, she successfully stole away such projects as “Mister St. Nick” (2005), which cast her as Mrs. Santa Claus, and as an veteran song-and-dance actress opposite Ernest Borgnine in “A Grandpa for Christmas” (2207). After a three-year break, Helmond returned to television with guest turns on the Everglades-based drama “The Glades” (A&E, 2010- ) and the “Who’s the Boss” redux, “Melissa & Joey” (ABC Family, 2010- ). She increased her output the following year when she once again gave voice to Lizzy in “Cars 2” (2011) and made appearances on such primetime series as “True Blood” (HBO, 2008- ) and “Harry’s Law” (NBC, 2010- ) opposite Kathy Bates.

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

Collection of Classic Hollywood Actors

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Sue Lyon obituary in “The Guardian” in 2019.

Katharine Helmond

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