NATALIE WOOD (1938-1981)
Natalie Wood, original name Natalie Zackharenko, also known as Natasha Gurdin, (born July 20, 1938, San Francisco, California, U.S.—died November 29, 1981, off Santa Catalina Island, California), American film actress who transitioned from child stardom to a successful movie career as an adult. She was best known for ingenue roles that traded on her youthful appeal.
Zackharenko was born to Russian immigrant parents. She began appearing in movies at age five and received her first credit, as Natalie Wood, in the drama Tomorrow Is Forever (1946). She won particular acclaim for her role as a precocious Santa Claus skeptic in Miracle on 34th Street (1947) when she was only nine. Emerging as a dark-haired beauty in her teenage years, Wood moved into leading roles with Rebel Without a Cause (1955), in which she earned an Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of a troubled youth. She married actor Robert Wagner in 1957 (divorced 1962; remarried 1972) and the following year starred opposite Gene Kelly in Marjorie Morningstar.
In 1961 Wood cemented her reputation as one of Hollywood’s most likeable and sought-after stars with appearances in two high-profile films. In Splendor in the Grass, she portrayed a small-town young woman distraught over a romantic relationship; for the emotional role, she was again nominated for an Oscar. She then starred as Maria in the hit film adaptation of the musical West Side Story. After another musical film, Gypsy (1962), Wood landed roles in the modern romances Love with the Proper Stranger (1963), for which she scored a third Oscar nomination, and Sex and the Single Girl (1964), in which she portrayed writer Helen Gurley Brown. Several box-office disappointments followed, however—including the show-business drama Inside Daisy Clover (1965)—and she spent three years away from the camera.
Wood staged a comeback with the popular sex comedy Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969), but she acted only sporadically thereafter, with the television movie Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1976) and the miniseries From Here to Eternity (1979) providing her most notable performances. In 1981, while vacationing with Wagner on a yacht off the coast of Santa Catalina Island, California, Wood drowned under mysterious circumstances. For years the cause of her death was classified on her death certificate as an accident, but in 2012 it was formally changed to “undetermined” following a renewed investigation into the case.
Zackharenko was born to Russian immigrant parents. She began appearing in movies at age five and received her first credit, as Natalie Wood, in the drama Tomorrow Is Forever (1946). She won particular acclaim for her role as a precocious Santa Claus skeptic in Miracle on 34th Street (1947) when she was only nine. Emerging as a dark-haired beauty in her teenage years, Wood moved into leading roles with Rebel Without a Cause (1955), in which she earned an Academy Award nomination for her portrayal of a troubled youth. She married actor Robert Wagner in 1957 (divorced 1962; remarried 1972) and the following year starred opposite Gene Kelly in Marjorie Morningstar.
In 1961 Wood cemented her reputation as one of Hollywood’s most likeable and sought-after stars with appearances in two high-profile films. In Splendor in the Grass, she portrayed a small-town young woman distraught over a romantic relationship; for the emotional role, she was again nominated for an Oscar. She then starred as Maria in the hit film adaptation of the musical West Side Story. After another musical film, Gypsy (1962), Wood landed roles in the modern romances Love with the Proper Stranger (1963), for which she scored a third Oscar nomination, and Sex and the Single Girl (1964), in which she portrayed writer Helen Gurley Brown. Several box-office disappointments followed, however—including the show-business drama Inside Daisy Clover (1965)—and she spent three years away from the camera.
Wood staged a comeback with the popular sex comedy Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969), but she acted only sporadically thereafter, with the television movie Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1976) and the miniseries From Here to Eternity (1979) providing her most notable performances. In 1981, while vacationing with Wagner on a yacht off the coast of Santa Catalina Island, California, Wood drowned under mysterious circumstances. For years the cause of her death was classified on her death certificate as an accident, but in 2012 it was formally changed to “undetermined” following a renewed investigation into the case.
ELIZABETH TAYLOR (1932-2011)
Born: February 27, 1932
London, England
American actress
Elizabeth Taylor is one of film's most famous women, having starred in over fifty films and having won two Academy Awards. She also attracted attention because of her eight marriages and her devotion to raising money for research to fight acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS; a virus that destroys the body's ability to fight off infection).
Began acting at nine
Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor was born in London, England, on February 27, 1932, to American parents Francis and Sara Taylor. Her father was a successful art dealer who had his own gallery in London. Her mother was an actress who had been successful before marriage under the stage name Sara Sothern. Taylor has an older brother, Howard, who was born two years earlier. In 1939 the family moved to Los Angeles, California, where Taylor was encouraged and coached by her mother to seek work in the motion picture industry. Taylor was signed by Universal in 1941 for $200 a week.
Success and special treatment
In 1942 Taylor signed a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the biggest and best studio of the time, and landed a part in Lassie Come Home. In 1943 she was cast in National Velvet, the story of a young woman who wins a horse in the lottery and rides it in England's Grand National Steeplechase. Taylor was so determined to play the role that she exercised and dieted for four months. During filming she was thrown from a horse and suffered a broken back, but she forced herself to finish the project. National Velvet became both a critical and commercial success.
Taylor loved her work, the costumes, the makeup, and the attention. Columnist Hedda Hopper, a friend of Taylor's mother, declared that at fifteen Elizabeth was the most beautiful woman in the world. Making films such as Little Women, Father of the Bride, Cynthia, and A Place in the Sun, Taylor began to gain a reputation as a moody actress who demanded special treatment. In May 1950 she married Conrad N. Hilton Jr., whose family owned a chain of hotels, but the union lasted less than a year. After divorcing Hilton, she married British actor Michael Wilding in February 1952. They had two sons.
Between 1952 and 1956 Elizabeth Taylor played in many romantic films that did not demand great acting talent. In 1956 she played opposite James Dean (1931–1955) in Giant, followed by the powerful Raintree County (1957), for which she was nominated (put forward for consideration) for an Academy Award for the first time. In Suddenly Last Summer (1959) she received five hundred thousand dollars (the most ever earned by an actress for eight weeks of work) and another Academy Award nomination.
Movies and marriages
In 1956 Taylor and Wilding separated, and in February 1957 she married producer Mike Todd. Taylor was shaken by James Dean's death and her friend Montgomery Clift's (1920–1966) near-fatal automobile accident, which occurred when the actor was driving home from a party at her house. In March 1958 her husband Mike Todd died in a plane crash. Taylor began trying to ease her grief with pills and alcohol. Her performance in the film Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) won her an Academy Award nomination and led to a relationship with singer Eddie Fisher, who had been Mike Todd's best man at their wedding. Soon after his divorce from actress Debbie Reynolds (1932–), who had been Taylor's matron of honor, Taylor and Fisher were married in May 1959.
In 1960 Taylor turned in one of her best performances in Butterfield 8, for which she won an Oscar as Best Actress. A few months later, in 1961, she signed with 20th Century-Fox for $1 million for the film Cleopatra, also starring Richard Burton (1925–1984). The two stars were soon romancing off the set as well as on, leading to criticism from the Vatican, which referred to the two stars as "adult children." Upset and confused over her tangled relationships, Taylor attempted suicide in early 1962. By 1964, however, she and Burton had each divorced their spouses and were married.
Taylor won another Oscar for her performance alongside Burton in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966). Over a dozen films followed, as did a divorce from Burton. The couple remarried in October 1975 before divorcing for the second and final time in July 1976. In 1978 Taylor married for the seventh time. Her new husband was John Warner, a candidate for the U.S. Senate in Virginia. According to one biographer, Taylor broke "all the rules for being a good political wife." She had also gained considerable weight, and the press attacked her about it. After Warner was elected, he and Taylor divorced.
Pain and loss
Taylor then moved to Broadway for the first time in a well-received staging of The Little Foxes. She and Richard Burton appeared together in a 1983 production of Private Lives, but critics felt that the dramatic spark between them was no longer there. In 1983 Taylor checked into the Betty Ford Clinic in California for treatment for her alcohol addiction. The death of Burton in August 1984, however, combined with back pain and general ill health, led to her return to drinking and drugs.
Taylor was also alarmed as a number of her friends, including actor Rock Hudson (1925–1985) and fashion designer Halston, became ill with AIDS. Taylor began to speak out on behalf of AIDS research. In 1985 she became the cofounder and chair of the American Foundation for AIDS Research (AmFAR). Her "Commitment to Life" benefit of that year was the first major AIDS research fundraiser staged by the Hollywood community.
Taylor returned to the Betty Ford Clinic in 1988, where she met a forty-year old construction worker named Larry Fortensky. Their friendship continued outside the clinic and they married in 1991. In 1993 the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences honored Taylor with a special humanitarian (supporter of human welfare) award for her years with AmFAR. In 1994 Taylor returned to the movies after a fourteen-year absence for a small part in The Flintstones. She then announced her retirement from films. Her marriage to Fortensky ended in 1996.
Later years
In February 1997 Taylor participated in the ABC-TV (American Broadcasting Company-television) special, "Happy Birthday Elizabeth—A Celebration of Life," which marked her sixty-fifth birthday and raised money for AIDS research. The following day she underwent an operation to remove a two-inch tumor from her brain. She also underwent operations on her hip and broke her back in 1998. In the summer of 1999 she fell and suffered a fracture to her spine.
In May 2000 Taylor was dubbed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire, the female version of a knight. Queen Elizabeth (1926–) presented her with the award for services to the entertainment industry and to charity. That same year she was given the Marian Anderson Award for her efforts on behalf of the AIDS community. She also returned to the hospital briefly after coming down with pneumonia. Taylor is a beautiful, much-beloved woman with a larger-than-life presence, both on and off the screen.
MARILYN MONROE (1926-1962)
Monroe was born, Norma Jeane Mortenson, in June 1926. Her mother was Gladys Pearl Baker (née Monroe, 1902–84) Her father was unknown and she was baptised as Norma Jeane Baker. Her mother Gladys had a turbulent mental state and struggled to cope with bringing up her children. For the first six years, Marilyn was brought up by foster parents, Albert and Ida Bolender in the town of Hawthorne, California. Her mother then tried to take back Marilyn, but she suffered a mental breakdown and Marilyn was moved between different orphanages and foster homes. The traumatic childhood made her shy and reserved.
To earn a living, Marilyn took a job at a local munitions factory in Burbank, California. It was here that Marilyn got her first big break. Photographer David Conover was covering the munitions factory to show women at work for the War effort. He was struck by the beauty and photogenic nature of Norma, and he used her in many of his photographs. This enabled her to start a career as a model, and she was soon featured on the front of many magazine covers.
1946 was a pivotal year for Marilyn, she divorced her young husband and changed her name from, the boring, Norma Baker to the more glamorous Marilyn Monroe (after her grandma). She took drama lessons and got her first movie contract with Twentieth Century Fox. Her first few films were low key, but from these beginnings, it gained her more prominent roles in films such as All About Eve, Niagara and later Gentleman Prefer Blondes and How To Marry A Millionaire.
In 1955, she sought greater independence from Fox, and began her own movie production and began studying method acting. Despite the media often being dismissive of Monroe’s potential, her efforts to improve acting paid off, and later films received critical acclaim for her wider scope of acting. She was nominated for Golden Globe Best Actress Award for Bus Stop (1956). In 1959, she won a Golden Globe for her role in ‘Some Like It Hot‘.
Her relationship with Joe DiMaggio was quickly strained, due to his jealous and controlling nature. Monroe soon filed for divorce, though the couple retained a friendship despite the divorce. Monroe began dating playwright Arthur Miller and in 1956 married. To get married, Monroe converted to Judaism. The marriage received significant media interest for the combination of Miller the left-wing intellectual and Monroe, the perceived ‘dumb blonde’. The marriage was sometimes referred to, rather unkindly, as “Egghead Weds Hourglass”.
To complicate matters, Miller was under investigation for his alleged “Communist sympathies”, and media bosses encouraged Monroe to end the relationship, but Monroe was unmoved. The FBI opened a file on her, worried about the political views of her husband.
In the late 1950s, and early 1960, her health began to deteriorate. She suffered from a Barbiturate addiction and experienced periods of depression. Her marriage to Miller broke down, and she had affairs with Yves Montand, Frank Sinatra and others. During the 1960s, her ill health made shooting films challenging, and production was often delayed. She was still in great demand and often appeared on the front cover of glossy magazines. In 1962, she was invited to the White House to sing for J.F. Kennedy’s birthday.
Tragically, she died early from an overdose of barbiturates in 1962 aged just 36.
Although Monroe cultivated an image of the ‘dumb blonde’ – in fact, her image and persona was something she took care to cultivate and develop – through the media and the strength of her acting. Although many were dismissive at the time, she took on the powerful Hollywood studio system and, against expectations, developed her acting career with her own intentions. However, behind her confident public persona, she struggled with relationships and resorted to a heavy drug use, which had a damaging impact on both her mental and physical health. In one sense, Monroe lived the American dream – rising from anonymity to become a famous actress, but it was a dream tinged with sadness for fame did not bring peace of mind or happiness.
BETTE DAVIS (1908-1989)
Bette Davis is remembered as one of Hollywood's legendary leading ladies, famous for her larger-than-life persona and for her nearly 100 film appearances.
Synopsis
American actress Bette Davis was born on April 5, 1908, in Lowell, Massachusetts. After a brief theater career, she became one of the biggest stars in the Hollywood studio system, appearing in nearly 100 films before her death in 1989. Davis is still considered an icon for her performances in such films as All Above Eve and Dark Victory, as well as for her larger-than-life persona both on and off the silver screen.
Early Life
Bette Davis was born Ruth Elizabeth Davis on April 5, 1908, in Lowell Massachusetts, to Ruth (Favor) and Harlow Morrell Davis. When she was 7 years old, her father divorced her mother, who was left to raise Bette and younger daughter Barbara on her own.
As a teen, Davis began acting in school productions at the Cushing Academy in Massachusetts. After a stint in summer stock theater in Rochester, New York, Davis moved to New York City, where she attended the John Murray Anderson/Robert Milton School of Theatre and Dance. Lucille Ball was one of her classmates.
Broadway Debut and Early Film Career
Davis began to audition for theater parts in New York, and in 1929 she made her stage début at Greenwich Village's Provincetown Playhouse in The Earth Between. Later that year, at the age of 21, she made her first Broadway appearance in the comedy Broken Dishes.
A screen test landed Davis a contract with Hollywood's Universal Pictures, where she was assigned a small role in the film Bad Sister (1931), followed by similar minor parts in a few more movies. She moved to Warner Brothers in 1932, after gaining notice in that studio's production of The Man Who Played God. Following this breakthrough, Davis would go on to make 14 films over the next three years.
Career Highlights
In 1934, Warner Brothers loaned Davis to RKO Pictures for Of Human Bondage, a drama based on a novel by W. Somerset Maugham. Davis received her first Academy Award nomination for her performance as the vulgar, cold-hearted waitress Mildred. Throughout the rest of her career, she would portray many other strong-willed, even unlikable, women who defied society's rules.
Davis won her first Academy Award in 1935, for her role as a troubled young actress in Dangerous. She then appeared in The Petrified Forest with male stars Leslie Howard and Humphrey Bogart in 1937. After a rocky period at Warner Brothers, during which time she was suspended for turning down roles, sued the studio and spent some time in England, she returned to Hollywood, and was offered a higher salary and better choice of roles.
Davis received her second Oscar for her performance as a rebellion Southern belle in 1938's Jezebel. A number of critical and box-office successes followed: She played a heiress coming to terms with mortal illness in Dark Victory and Elizabeth I in The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (both released in 1939), and went on to deliver several well-received performances in films of the 1940s, including The Little Foxes; the comedy The Man Who Came to Dinner; the American drama Now, Voyager; and the drama The Corn is Green. By the time she severed ties with Warner Brothers in 1949, Davis was one of its largest talents.
In 1950, Davis gave one of her most indelible performances in the show-business drama All About Eve, starring as Margo Channing, a theater actress who fends off the insecurities of approaching middle age (and the scheming of a manipulative protégé) with sarcastic wit and more than a few cocktails. In one of her many memorable lines, she quipped, "Fasten your seatbelts: it's going to be a bumpy night."
Later Work
Davis depicted Elizabeth I again in The Virgin Queen (1955) and appeared in Tennessee Williams's The Night of the Iguana on Broadway in 1961. Some of her other work during this time was more lurid, however. In the horror movie (and camp classic) What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), she co-starred with Joan Crawford as a former child star caring for her disabled sister. She was featured in another horror film in 1964, Hush...Hush Sweet Charlotte, and then played an eye-patch-wearing matriarch in the melodrama The Anniversary in 1968.
Despite health problems in her late years, including a fight against breast cancer, Davis continued acting. She appeared in the horror movie Burnt Offerings (1976) and was part of the all-star ensemble cast of the Agatha Christie mystery Death on the Nile (1979). One of her final film roles was that of a blind woman in The Whales of August (1987), appearing opposite Lillian Gish. She also appeared on television, winning an Emmy Award for 1979's Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter.
Davis received many awards later in life, including the American Film Institute Life Achievement Award in 1977 and the Kennedy Center Honors Award in 1987.
Bette Davis died on October 6, 1989, in Neuilly-sur-Seine, France, at the age of 81. At the time of her death, she was on her way home from a film festival in Spain, where she had just been honored for her work in film.
JAMES DEAN (1931-1955)
Movie actor and cultural icon James Dean starred in 'East of Eden,' 'Rebel Without a Cause' and 'Giant.' He was killed in a tragic car accident at age 24.
Synopsis
James Dean was born on February 8, 1931, in Marion, Indiana. He starred in the film adaptation of the John Steinbeck novel East of Eden, for which he received a posthumous Oscar nomination. Dean's next starring role as an emotionally tortured teen in Rebel Without a Cause made him into the embodiment of his generation. In early autumn 1955, Dean was killed in a car crash, quickly becoming an enduring film icon whose legacy has endured for decades. His final film Giant, was also released posthumously.
Early Life
James Byron Dean was born on February 8, 1931, in Marion, Indiana, to Winton Dean and Mildred Wilson. Dean's father left farming to become a dentist and moved the family to Santa Monica, California, where Dean attended Brentwood Public School. Several years later, Dean's mother, whom he was very close to, died of cancer, and Dean's father sent him back to Indiana to live on his aunt and uncle's Quaker farm. During this time, Dean sought counsel from his pastor, the Rev. James DeWeerd, who influenced his later interest in car racing and theater. The two formed an intimate relationship that is rumored to have been sexual.
In 1949, Dean graduated from high school and moved back to California. He attended Santa Monica City College for a time, but eventually transferred to University of California, Los Angeles, and majored in theater.
TV and Stage Success
After appearing as Malcolm in the school's production of Macbeth, Dean dropped out of UCLA. His first television appearance was in a Pepsi Cola commercial, while his first big-screen parts, uncredited, were in 1951's Fixed Bayonets! and 1952's Sailor Beware, a comedy starring Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. To make ends meet, Dean worked as a parking-lot attendant at CBS Studios, where he met Rogers Brackett, a radio director who became his mentor, with the two also said to have been romantically attached.
(Over the years questions have continually arisen about Dean's sexuality, with varied accounts that he was involved with both men and women, including actresses Pier Angeli and Liz Sheridan. The latter penned a 2000 memoir about her and Dean's relationship.)
In 1951, Dean moved to New York City and was later admitted to the Actors Studio to study under Lee Strasberg, though the two were reputed to not have gotten along. Dean's career began to pick up, and he performed in such 1950s television shows as Kraft Television Theatre, Omnibus and General Electric Theater, with a high school fan club formed after his appearance as a contemporary John the Apostle in 1951's Hill Number One: A Story of Faith and Inspiration. The fledgling actor was also garnering a reputation for being unstructured in his technique, though the work continued to come.
After a Broadway role in the short-lived 1952 drama See the Jaguar, Dean's success as an Arab boy in 1954's The Immoralist led to interest from Hollywood.
Iconic Films
Over the ensuing months, Dean starred in three major motion pictures, beginning with the 1955 film adaptation of John Steinbeck's novel East of Eden. Director Elia Kazan chose Dean after the actor met with Steinbeck, who thought him perfect for the part. Many of Dean's scenes in the film were unscripted improvisations. He would eventually be nominated for an Academy Award for the role, making him the first actor in history to receive a posthumous Oscar nomination.
In his next film, Dean starred as the agonized teenager Jim Stark in 1955's Rebel Without a Cause, a part that would define his image in American culture. He co-starred in Rebel with Natalie Wood and Sal Mineo, with the film focusing on the emotional alienation of three youngsters and the devastating drama that ensues from adolescent rivalry.
Dean then landed a supporting role to Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson in the epic, intergenerational family saga Giant, with Hudson playing a well-off, racially prejudiced ranch owner to Dean's impoverished, racially prejudiced ranch hand. Giant, which was Dean's last film, had a running time of more than three hours and saw the actor portray a character whose fortunes change over the decades. He died before production was complete, with Giant ultimately released in 1956. Dean received an Academy Award nomination for this role as well, making him the only actor in history to receive more than one Oscar nomination posthumously.
Death
When Dean wasn't acting, he was a professional car racer. On Friday, September 30, 1955, Dean and his mechanic, Rolf Wuetherich, drove Dean's new Porsche 550 Spyder to a weekend race in Salinas, California. At 3:30 p.m., they were stopped south of Bakersfield and given a speeding ticket. Later, while driving along Route 466, a 23-year-old Cal Poly student named Donald Turnupseed, after turning at an intersection, collided with Dean's Porsche. The two cars hit each other almost head-on, with the Spyder devastated from the impact. Wuetherich was seriously injured but survived, while Dean was killed almost immediately. He was 24.
Burt Lancaster, in full Burton Stephen Lancaster, (born November 2, 1913, New York, New York, U.S.—died October 20, 1994, Century City, California), American film actor who projected a unique combination of physical toughness and emotional sensitivity.
One of five children born to a New York City postal worker, Lancaster exhibited considerable athletic prowess as a youth. At age 19 he joined the circus and performed in an acrobatic act with partner Nick Cravat, a lifelong friend who would go on to costar in several of Lancaster’s films. Lancaster served in the United States Army during World War II and became interested in acting as a result of performing in USO shows. Following the war, he landed his first professional acting job in the Broadway play A Sound of Hunting (1945). The play was short-lived, its run lasting only two weeks, but Lancaster’s performance was noticed by a talent scout who took the actor to Hollywood. Lancaster’s debut film, Desert Fury (1947), was delayed in its release; he first came to the attention of audiences in the film noir classic The Killers (1946). With this film, Lancaster established a duality to his screen persona: he was the rugged he-man of his publicized image but also a capable actor with a penchant for offbeat roles.
Lancaster quickly gained control over his career and thus avoided Hollywood typecasting. In 1948 he cofounded Hecht-Hill-Lancaster, one of the first star-owned production companies. Along with antitrust legislation that forced studios to divest themselves of their theatre holdings, such ventures were instrumental in the downfall of the studio system. Although the films that Lancaster made for Hecht-Hill-Lancaster were not the company’s most successful, the enterprise was important in establishing Lancaster’s reputation as a versatile actor.
Lancaster appeared in numerous films of quality throughout his career, particularly during his first two decades as a screen star. His drawing power steadily increased during the late 1940s and early ’50s because of his performances in such films as I Walk Alone (1948; the first of seven films in which he costarred with his friend Kirk Douglas), All My Sons (1948), Sorry, Wrong Number (1948), Criss Cross (1949), The Flame and the Arrow (1950), Jim Thorpe—All American (1951), The Crimson Pirate (1952), and Come Back, Little Sheba (1952). He earned his first Oscar (Academy Award) nomination for From Here to Eternity (1953), the classic film in which Lancaster and costar Deborah Kerr created one of the most indelible images in film history with their beachside love scene. His series of hit roles continued throughout the 1950s with such notable films as Apache (1954), The Rose Tattoo (1955), Trapeze (1956), The Rainmaker (1956), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), Sweet Smell of Success (1957), Run Silent, Run Deep (1958), and Separate Tables (1958).
Lancaster won an Academy Award for one of his most powerful and charismatic performances, that of a charlatan evangelist in Elmer Gantry (1960). He was memorable in a supporting role as a Nazi war criminal in Judgment at Nuremburg (1961), and received another Oscar nomination for his sensitive portrayal of Robert Stroud—a prison inmate who became one of the world’s leading ornithologists—in director John Frankenheimer’s Birdman of Alcatraz (1962). Lancaster’s other standout films from the 1960s include Luchino Visconti’s Il gattopardo (1963; The Leopard); two more films for Frankenheimer, Seven Days in May (1964) and The Train (1965); The Professionals (1966); and the cult favourite The Swimmer (1968).
Although his first film of the 1970s was the blockbuster disaster epic Airport (1970), Lancaster appeared in few films of note during that decade. His supporting performance in Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1900 (1976) was well-received, but not until 1980 did Lancaster revive his career with an Oscar-nominated performance as an aging, small-time bookie in director Louis Malle’s Atlantic City. Other memorable character roles followed, including a turn as a dreamy, star-gazing Texas oil billionaire in the comedy Local Hero (1983), an enjoyable reunion with Kirk Douglas in Tough Guys (1986), and his moving portrayal of an aging doctor who still regrets his missed opportunity in professional baseball in the immensely popular Field of Dreams (1989). Lancaster gave his final performance in the acclaimed TV miniseries Separate but Equal (1991), after which health problems forced his retirement.
Sandra Dee became the “Queen of Teens” in 1950s Hollywood, appearing in such films as Gidget and A Summer Place.
Synopsis
Born in Bayonne, New Jersey, on April 23, 1942, Sandra Dee made a splash portraying ingénues in 1950s and 1960s teen films. The late 1960s found her career stumbling, however, and her highly publicized marriage to singer/actor Bobby Darin ended in 1967.
Early Life
Sandra Dee was born Alexandra Zuck in Bayonne, New Jersey, on April 23, 1942. By age 12, she was a successful model, and she was just 14 when she was signed to her first film, Until They Sail (1957). In 1959, Dee hit box-office success with the beach movie Gidget and the young-love movie A Summer Place. The theme song from A Summer Place became a big hit, and the movie became a touchstone for many young people.
The 1960s
In 1960, Sandra Dee filmed Come September with pop idol Bobby Darin, and they married that same year. Although their marriage remained a secret for years, the couple appeared together in If a Man Answers (1962) and That Funny Feeling (1965). From 1960 through 1963, Dee was one of Hollywood’s top moneymakers, peaking in 1961, the year she took over the role of Tambrey “Tammy” Tyree from Debbie Reynolds, for whom the character was created in 1957’s Tammy and the Bachelor. Dee appeared in two “Tammy” films, but her portrayal of the character never caught on with audiences. Dee appeared in only six other films in the 1960s, and her 1967 divorce from Bobby Darin also marked the end of her short-lived stardom.
The 1970s and 1980s
Sandra Dee found herself a divorcee in 1967, and the landscape of Hollywood films had also changed: Audiences no longer lined up to see the sugary-sweet fare that made her a star in the early 1960s. Dee appeared in only one (verifiable) big-screen film in the 1970s, The Dunwich Horror (1970), although she starred in four made-for-TV movies. In the 1970s, she played roles on various TV series, such as Night Gallery; Love, American Style; and Fantasy Island. In 1983, she appeared again on Fantasy Island and in her final film, Lost.
Personal Life
Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin had one child together, Dodd Mitchell Darin. Dodd Mitchell later penned a book about his parents, Dream Lovers: The Magnificent Shattered Lives of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee, in which he chronicled his mother's anorexia, her drug and alcohol problems, and the sexual abuse Dee suffered as a child.
Six years after their divorce, in 1973, Bobby Darin died. Sandra Dee died from complications from kidney disease in February 2005 in Thousand Oaks, California.
Joan Crawford was an Oscar-winning actress, dancer and executive. She was known for films like Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and Mildred Pierce.
Synopsis
Born on March 23, 1905, in San Antonio, Texas, Joan Crawford began dancing at a young age, and went on to act in dozens of films. She was one of Hollywood's top stars of the 1930s, earning an Oscar for her lead role in 1945's Mildred Pierce. She later became known for the horror classic Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and was the subject of the memoir Mommie Dearest. She died on May 10, 1977, in New York City.
Early Life
Film actress Joan Crawford was born Lucille Fay LeSueur in San Antonio, Texas, on March 23, 1905 (though some sources have reported her birth date as 1908). Her parents separated before she was born, and her mother later married theater owner Harry Cassin. Crawford would come to be known as Billie Cassin growing up, and periodically throughout of her entertainment career.
After her mother and stepfather split, Crawford attended two private schools, where she worked on the premises to pay for tuition while also being treated harshly, receiving corporal punishment for perceived misdeeds. Because of her workload, she was unable to attend classes and her scholastic record was faked.
Big Break in 'Our Dancing Daughters'
After a short time at Stephens College, Crawford left to pursue a dancing career, a pastime to which she'd dedicated herself. She eventually danced in the Broadway show Innocent Eyes, and in 1925 started to work onscreen for MGM. She starred in a number of silent films during this period and was given the name "Joan Crawford" from a magazine contest sponsored by the studio. The actress hit it big with the smash Our Dancing Daughters (1928), in which she played a rich, lovelorn girl who moves to Charleston.
A prolific and long-lasting film career was to follow, with Crawford ultimately going on to star in more than five dozen films. She took on talking roles with projects like Hollywood Revue (1929) and Grand Hotel (1932), and her dancing skills were prominently displayed with Fred Astaire in the 1933 hit Dancing Lady. Clark Gable was also featured, and was a recurring co-star in works like Possessed (1931) and Strange Cargo (1940).
Tyrone Power, in full Tyrone Edmund Power, (born May 5, 1914, Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.—died November 15, 1958, Madrid, Spain), American actor best known for his action-adventure film roles.
Power’s Irish great-grandfather and namesake, Tyrone (1795–1841), was a popular actor and comedian; his granduncle Maurice (died 1849) a Shakespearean actor; and his father, Frederick Tyrone (1869–1931), an actor onstage and in Hollywood. Before Power’s Broadway debut in 1935 in Romeo and Juliet, he toured for several years with the Shakespeare Repertoire Company and took minor film roles. His first motion-picture success, Lloyd’s of London (1936), was followed by starring roles in a series of diverse hits that included Thin Ice and Café Metropole (1937), Alexander’s Ragtime Band and In Old Chicago (1938), Jesse James and The Rains Came (1939), Johnny Apollo and Brigham Young (1940), and A Yank in the R.A.F. and Blood and Sand (1941).
After serving in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II, Power returned to the screen in such vehicles as The Razor’s Edge (1946), Nightmare Alley (1947), Prince of Foxes (1949), The Black Rose (1950), The Eddie Duchin Story (1956), and Witness for the Prosecution (1957). He died while filming Solomon and Sheba on location in Spain.
Between films, Power kept returning to the stage. His most notable performances there were in Saint Joan (1936), Mr. Roberts (1950), The Devil’s Disciple (1950), John Brown’s Body (1952), The Dark Is Light Enough (1955), and Back to Methuselah (1958).
Jayne Mansfield was an American actress best known for her bombshell curves and film roles during the 1950s and '60s.
Synopsis
Jayne Mansfield was an American actress born on April 19, 1933, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. A provocateur of her time, she gained fame and pin-up status during the 1950s and was offered roles in several films such as Kiss Them for Me (1957), The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw (1958) and It Takes a Thief (1960). She experienced a career lull in the 1960s, though she did continue to act in small roles on film and stage. Mansfield died in a horrific car accident on June 29, 1967, at the age of 34. Her daughter, Mariska Hargitay, is a well-known and respected television actress.
Background and Early Life
Jayne Mansfield was born Vera Jayne Palmer on April 19, 1933, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Mansfield's father Herbert was an attorney and musician while her mother Vera had previously worked as a schoolteacher. Mansfield endured a childhood tragedy at the age of 3 when her father passed away from a heart attack while driving with the family. Reflecting back on the tragedy, Mansfield later said, "Something went out of my life. ... My earliest memories are the best. I always try to remember the good times when Daddy was alive."
Beginning of Hollywood Career
Mansfield's first years in Hollywood initially brought disappointment. She had unsuccessful auditions for Paramount and Warner Bros. and had to take a job selling candy at a movie theater. She also sought out modeling work, but at a professional photo shoot, an advertisement for General Electric, she was cropped out of the picture because she looked "too sexy" for 1954 audiences, according to photographer Gene Lester. Still, Mansfield was able to make her TV debut that year with an appearance in the Lux Video Theatre series.
As Mansfield struggled to break into show business, her marriage suffered, and in 1955 she and Paul split ways, though she opted to keep his last name. That same year, she made her big-screen debut via small parts in a trio of 1955 films: Pete Kelly's Blues, Hell on Frisco Bay and Illegal.
Original Wardrobe Malfunction
Mansfield proved to have a no-holds-barred for self-marketing, and she took steps to distinguish herself from the many curvy blonde starlets attempting to make it big in Hollywood at the time. The model/actress made pink her trademark color—she wore pink, drove a pink car and eventually bought a house decked out in pink that was dubbed "the pink palace."
When Mansfield was just starting to make a name for herself in the mid-'50s, she garnered nationwide publicity when, attending a media gathering related to Jane Russell's Underwater in Florida film, Mansfield's top mysteriously fell off in a pool flanked by numerous journalists.
Commercial Success
From then on, as one journalist put it, Mansfield "suffered so many on-stage strap and zipper mishaps that nudity was, for her, a professional hazard." Shortly after the Underwater incident, she signed a contract in 1955 with Warner Bros. and later that year landed the role of Rita Marlowe in the hit Broadway production Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, which ran for 444 shows. She also starred in the play's 1957 film adaptation. Those performances finally established Mansfield as a marquis actress, and she went on to be featured in such films as Kiss Them For Me (1957), co-starring Cary Grant, The Wayward Bus (1957), The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw (1958) and It Takes a Thief (1960).
Nevertheless, many more people saw her photograph than her movies—in just nine months, from September 1956 to May 1957, Mansfield reportedly appeared in an astonishing 2,500 newspaper photographs. She also modeled for the newly minted Playboy magazine at various times during the 1950s. Mansfield thus joined the era's pantheon of blonde sex symbols who evoked Marilyn Monroe. (Monroe was in fact quite dismayed about the way in which Mansfield seemed to parody her image, at one point wishing that she could sue the actress.)
Jack Lemmon, in full John Uhler Lemmon III, (born February 8, 1925, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.—died June 27, 2001, Los Angeles, California), American screen and stage actor adept at both comedy and drama and noted for his portrayals of high-strung or neurotic characters in American films from the 1950s onward.
Lemmon attended Harvard University and was president of the school’s Hasty Pudding Club, an organization renowned for its annual satiric revues. Upon graduation in 1947, he served in the navy, after which he moved to New York City. There he worked as a piano player and actor, making his Broadway debut in a revival of the farce Room Service (1953). Although the production was unsuccessful, his performance led to a contract with Columbia Pictures the following year.
His first two film appearances were opposite Judy Holliday in It Should Happen to You and Phffft! (both 1954). His Oscar-winning performance as Ensign Pulver in Mister Roberts (1955) firmly established him as one of the screen’s brightest new comic actors. He went on to deliver solid performances in other comedies, including My Sister Eileen (1955), Operation Mad Ball (1957), Bell, Book and Candle (1958), and It Happened to Jane (1959). Two films directed by Billy Wilder helped establish Lemmon as a major star. Some Like It Hot (1959), an American comedy classic, featured Lemmon as a jazz musician posing as a woman, and The Apartment (1960) reinforced the character type for which he became known, that of a tense, excitable, and baffled individual who painfully progresses to a deeper understanding of the world. He received Oscar nominations for both films, as well as for Days of Wine and Roses (1962), in which he gave a harrowing portrayal of an alcoholic advertising executive.
Wilder teamed Lemmon with Walter Matthau in The Fortune Cookie (1966), the first of many comedies for the pair. Their most famous teaming was in The Odd Couple (1968), based on Neil Simon’s stage hit. The film established the pattern for most of their appearances together, with a fussy neurotic (Lemmon) butting heads with a carefree scalawag (Matthau). Other Lemmon-Matthau films include The Front Page (1974), Buddy Buddy (1981), Grumpy Old Men (1993), Grumpier Old Men (1995), and The Odd Couple II (1998).
In the 1970s Lemmon made his directorial debut with Kotch (1970), starring Matthau, and won his second Oscar for his performance in Save the Tiger (1973). He appeared in two more Neil Simon comedies, The Out-of-Towners (1970) and The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1974), and garnered additional Oscar nominations for The China Syndrome (1979), Tribute (1980), and Missing (1982).
As he aged into character roles, Lemmon remained no less prolific. His acclaimed performances of later years include his portrayal of James Tyrone in Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night in both a stage revival (1986) and a television adaptation (1987); a down-and-out real estate salesman in Glengarry Glen Ross (1992); a smooth-talking con man in The Grass Harp (1995); and two TV renderings of classic American dramas, 12 Angry Men (1997) and Inherit the Wind (1999), both of which costarred George C. Scott. Lemmon also won an Emmy Award for his touching portrayal of a dying college professor in the television film Tuesdays with Morrie (1999).
Rudolph Valentino was an Italian actor who performed in American cinema. He was the preeminent male sex symbol of the silent film era. His nickname was "The Great Lover."
Rudolph Valentino was born Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Piero Filiberto Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antoguolla, in Castellaneta, Apulia, Italy, on May 6, 1895. Coincidently, he was born the same year cinema was invented. His father was a veterinarian; his mother doted on him extensively. He had an older brother, Alberto, and a younger sister, Maria. His father died when Rodolfo was 11 years old.
He was expelled from numerous schools, but finally obtained a diploma in the Science of Farming from the Academy of Agriculture. After school, Rodolfo went to Paris, learned to dance, and returned home broke. In December 1913, he took his inheritance and sailed for New York City.
After arriving in New York, Roldofo used up his inheritance, then endured a spell of poverty. He took odd jobs until he found work as a taxi dancer and instructor — gaining attention with his Argentine tango. Valentino later joined an operetta company that traveled to Utah and disbanded there.
He then found his way to San Francisco, California, and met actor Norman Kerry. Kerry persuaded him to try for a career in cinema, which was still in the silent era. He took Norman's advice and moved to Hollywood to pursue a career in film. Rodolfo won a small dancing part in Alimony in 1917. He performed half a dozen other small parts in films — always as the villain.
In 1919, Roldofo married actress Jean Acker. Their marriage was rumored never to have been consummated; they divorced in 1922. He then met scriptwriter June Mathis, who was impressed by a role in which she had seen him. Mathis persuaded director Rex Ingram to cast him in the lead role of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, in 1921. It was the industry's first million-dollar production, which saved Metro Studios and made Rudy a star — with his cinema name, Rudolph Valentino.
In 1921, Valentino was given his iconic role in the movie The Sheik. He met Natacha Rambova, a costume designer, while filming Uncharted Seas the same year. They became romantically involved and were married on May 13, 1922, in Mexicali, Mexico. He was arrested for bigamy, since his divorce from his first wife was not finalized. The couple remarried a year later.
In 1922, Blood and Sand was released, which further established Valentino as the leading male star of the era. A dispute with Paramount Pictures in 1923 resulted in an injunction that prohibited him from making films with other producers. To ensure that his name would remain in the public eye, Valentino set off on a national dance tour. He also traveled to Europe during this time, which included a memorable visit to his native town.
Valentino managed to negotiate a new contract in 1925 with United Artists. The document stipulated that his wife not be allowed on his movie sets — her presence had apparently delayed an earlier production. The couple separated shortly later. Valentino then had an affair with actress Pola Negri. During that time, he appeared in two of his most successful films, The Eagle (1925) and The Son of the Sheik in 1926, which was a sequel to The Sheik.
On August 15, 1926, Valentino collapsed at the Hotel Ambassador in New York City. He underwent surgery for a perforated ulcer. The surgery went well and he seemed to be recovering, when peritonitis set in and spread throughout his body. He died on August 23, 1926, at the age of 31.
The streets of New York were lined with an estimated 100,000 people who wanted to pay their respects at Valentino's funeral. Fans attempting to enter the funeral home caused a near riot. His funeral Mass in New York was celebrated at Saint Malachy’s Roman Catholic Church. Pola Negri collapsed in hysterics as she hovered over his coffin.
Valentino's body was taken by train across the country, and a second funeral was held on the West Coast. It was interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery of Hollywood, California.
The actor has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and, in 1994, he was honored with his image on a United States postage stamp designed by the noted caricaturist, Al Hirschfeld.
Truman Capote, original name Truman Streckfus Persons, (born September 30, 1924, New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.—died August 25, 1984, Los Angeles, California), American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright whose early writing extended the Southern Gothic tradition, though he later developed a more journalistic approach in the novel In Cold Blood (1965; film 1967), which, together with Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958; film 1961), remains his best-known work.
His parents were divorced when he was young, and he spent his childhood with various elderly relatives in small towns in Louisiana and Alabama. (He owed his surname to his mother’s remarriage, to Joseph Garcia Capote.) He attended private schools and eventually joined his mother and stepfather at Millbrook, Connecticut, where he completed his secondary education at Greenwich High School.
Capote drew on his childhood experiences for many of his early works of fiction. Having abandoned further schooling, he achieved early literary recognition in 1945 when his haunting short story “Miriam” was published in Mademoiselle magazine; the following year it won the O. Henry Memorial Award, the first of four such awards Capote was to receive. His first published novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948), was acclaimed as the work of a young writer of great promise. The book is a sensitive, partly autobiographical portrayal of a boy’s search for his father and his own sexual identity through a nightmarishly decadent Southern world. The short story “Shut a Final Door” (O. Henry Award, 1946) and other tales of loveless and isolated individuals were collected in A Tree of Night, and Other Stories (1949). The quasi-autobiographical novel The Grass Harp (1951) is a story of nonconforming innocents who temporarily retire from life to a tree house, returning renewed to the real world. One of Capote’s most popular works, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, is a novella about Holly Golightly, a young fey café society girl; it was first published in Esquire magazine in 1958 and then as a book, with several other stories.
Capote’s increasing preoccupation with journalism was reflected in his nonfiction novel In Cold Blood, a chilling account of the murders of four members of the Clutter family, committed in Kansas in 1959. Capote began researching the murders soon after they happened, and he spent six years interviewing the two men who were eventually executed for the crime. (That time included months spent in Kansas with his friend, childhood neighbour, and fellow novelist Harper Lee, who served as his “assistant researchist.”) In Cold Blood first appeared as a series of articles in 1965 in The New Yorker; the book version was published that same year. Its critical and popular success pushed Capote to the forefront of the emerging New Journalism, and it proved to be the high point of his dual careers as a writer and a celebrity socialite. Endowed with a quirky but attractive character, he entertained television audiences with outrageous tales recounted in his distinctively high-pitched lisping Southern drawl.
Capote’s later writings never approached the success of his earlier ones. In the late 1960s he adapted two short stories about his childhood, “A Christmas Memory” and “The Thanksgiving Visitor,” for television. The Dogs Bark: Public People and Private Spaces (1973) consists of collected essays and profiles over a 30-year span, while the collection Music for Chameleons: New Writing (1980) includes both fiction and nonfiction. In later years Capote’s growing dependence on drugs and alcohol stifled his productivity. Moreover, selections from a projected work that he considered to be his masterpiece, a social satire entitled Answered Prayers, appeared in Esquire in 1975–76 and raised a storm among friends and foes who were harshly depicted in the work (under the thinnest of disguises). He was thereafter ostracized by his former celebrity friends. The book, which had not been completed at the time of his death, was published as Answered Prayers: The Unfinished Novel in 1986. Summer Crossing, a short novel that Capote wrote in the 1940s and that was believed lost, was published in 2006.
BURT LANCASTER (1913-1994)
One of five children born to a New York City postal worker, Lancaster exhibited considerable athletic prowess as a youth. At age 19 he joined the circus and performed in an acrobatic act with partner Nick Cravat, a lifelong friend who would go on to costar in several of Lancaster’s films. Lancaster served in the United States Army during World War II and became interested in acting as a result of performing in USO shows. Following the war, he landed his first professional acting job in the Broadway play A Sound of Hunting (1945). The play was short-lived, its run lasting only two weeks, but Lancaster’s performance was noticed by a talent scout who took the actor to Hollywood. Lancaster’s debut film, Desert Fury (1947), was delayed in its release; he first came to the attention of audiences in the film noir classic The Killers (1946). With this film, Lancaster established a duality to his screen persona: he was the rugged he-man of his publicized image but also a capable actor with a penchant for offbeat roles.
Lancaster quickly gained control over his career and thus avoided Hollywood typecasting. In 1948 he cofounded Hecht-Hill-Lancaster, one of the first star-owned production companies. Along with antitrust legislation that forced studios to divest themselves of their theatre holdings, such ventures were instrumental in the downfall of the studio system. Although the films that Lancaster made for Hecht-Hill-Lancaster were not the company’s most successful, the enterprise was important in establishing Lancaster’s reputation as a versatile actor.
Lancaster appeared in numerous films of quality throughout his career, particularly during his first two decades as a screen star. His drawing power steadily increased during the late 1940s and early ’50s because of his performances in such films as I Walk Alone (1948; the first of seven films in which he costarred with his friend Kirk Douglas), All My Sons (1948), Sorry, Wrong Number (1948), Criss Cross (1949), The Flame and the Arrow (1950), Jim Thorpe—All American (1951), The Crimson Pirate (1952), and Come Back, Little Sheba (1952). He earned his first Oscar (Academy Award) nomination for From Here to Eternity (1953), the classic film in which Lancaster and costar Deborah Kerr created one of the most indelible images in film history with their beachside love scene. His series of hit roles continued throughout the 1950s with such notable films as Apache (1954), The Rose Tattoo (1955), Trapeze (1956), The Rainmaker (1956), Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), Sweet Smell of Success (1957), Run Silent, Run Deep (1958), and Separate Tables (1958).
Lancaster won an Academy Award for one of his most powerful and charismatic performances, that of a charlatan evangelist in Elmer Gantry (1960). He was memorable in a supporting role as a Nazi war criminal in Judgment at Nuremburg (1961), and received another Oscar nomination for his sensitive portrayal of Robert Stroud—a prison inmate who became one of the world’s leading ornithologists—in director John Frankenheimer’s Birdman of Alcatraz (1962). Lancaster’s other standout films from the 1960s include Luchino Visconti’s Il gattopardo (1963; The Leopard); two more films for Frankenheimer, Seven Days in May (1964) and The Train (1965); The Professionals (1966); and the cult favourite The Swimmer (1968).
Although his first film of the 1970s was the blockbuster disaster epic Airport (1970), Lancaster appeared in few films of note during that decade. His supporting performance in Bernardo Bertolucci’s 1900 (1976) was well-received, but not until 1980 did Lancaster revive his career with an Oscar-nominated performance as an aging, small-time bookie in director Louis Malle’s Atlantic City. Other memorable character roles followed, including a turn as a dreamy, star-gazing Texas oil billionaire in the comedy Local Hero (1983), an enjoyable reunion with Kirk Douglas in Tough Guys (1986), and his moving portrayal of an aging doctor who still regrets his missed opportunity in professional baseball in the immensely popular Field of Dreams (1989). Lancaster gave his final performance in the acclaimed TV miniseries Separate but Equal (1991), after which health problems forced his retirement.
SANDRA DEE (1942-2005)
Synopsis
Born in Bayonne, New Jersey, on April 23, 1942, Sandra Dee made a splash portraying ingénues in 1950s and 1960s teen films. The late 1960s found her career stumbling, however, and her highly publicized marriage to singer/actor Bobby Darin ended in 1967.
Early Life
Sandra Dee was born Alexandra Zuck in Bayonne, New Jersey, on April 23, 1942. By age 12, she was a successful model, and she was just 14 when she was signed to her first film, Until They Sail (1957). In 1959, Dee hit box-office success with the beach movie Gidget and the young-love movie A Summer Place. The theme song from A Summer Place became a big hit, and the movie became a touchstone for many young people.
The 1960s
In 1960, Sandra Dee filmed Come September with pop idol Bobby Darin, and they married that same year. Although their marriage remained a secret for years, the couple appeared together in If a Man Answers (1962) and That Funny Feeling (1965). From 1960 through 1963, Dee was one of Hollywood’s top moneymakers, peaking in 1961, the year she took over the role of Tambrey “Tammy” Tyree from Debbie Reynolds, for whom the character was created in 1957’s Tammy and the Bachelor. Dee appeared in two “Tammy” films, but her portrayal of the character never caught on with audiences. Dee appeared in only six other films in the 1960s, and her 1967 divorce from Bobby Darin also marked the end of her short-lived stardom.
The 1970s and 1980s
Sandra Dee found herself a divorcee in 1967, and the landscape of Hollywood films had also changed: Audiences no longer lined up to see the sugary-sweet fare that made her a star in the early 1960s. Dee appeared in only one (verifiable) big-screen film in the 1970s, The Dunwich Horror (1970), although she starred in four made-for-TV movies. In the 1970s, she played roles on various TV series, such as Night Gallery; Love, American Style; and Fantasy Island. In 1983, she appeared again on Fantasy Island and in her final film, Lost.
Personal Life
Sandra Dee and Bobby Darin had one child together, Dodd Mitchell Darin. Dodd Mitchell later penned a book about his parents, Dream Lovers: The Magnificent Shattered Lives of Bobby Darin and Sandra Dee, in which he chronicled his mother's anorexia, her drug and alcohol problems, and the sexual abuse Dee suffered as a child.
Six years after their divorce, in 1973, Bobby Darin died. Sandra Dee died from complications from kidney disease in February 2005 in Thousand Oaks, California.
JOAN CRAWFORD (1905-1977)
Synopsis
Born on March 23, 1905, in San Antonio, Texas, Joan Crawford began dancing at a young age, and went on to act in dozens of films. She was one of Hollywood's top stars of the 1930s, earning an Oscar for her lead role in 1945's Mildred Pierce. She later became known for the horror classic Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? and was the subject of the memoir Mommie Dearest. She died on May 10, 1977, in New York City.
Early Life
Film actress Joan Crawford was born Lucille Fay LeSueur in San Antonio, Texas, on March 23, 1905 (though some sources have reported her birth date as 1908). Her parents separated before she was born, and her mother later married theater owner Harry Cassin. Crawford would come to be known as Billie Cassin growing up, and periodically throughout of her entertainment career.
After her mother and stepfather split, Crawford attended two private schools, where she worked on the premises to pay for tuition while also being treated harshly, receiving corporal punishment for perceived misdeeds. Because of her workload, she was unable to attend classes and her scholastic record was faked.
Big Break in 'Our Dancing Daughters'
After a short time at Stephens College, Crawford left to pursue a dancing career, a pastime to which she'd dedicated herself. She eventually danced in the Broadway show Innocent Eyes, and in 1925 started to work onscreen for MGM. She starred in a number of silent films during this period and was given the name "Joan Crawford" from a magazine contest sponsored by the studio. The actress hit it big with the smash Our Dancing Daughters (1928), in which she played a rich, lovelorn girl who moves to Charleston.
A prolific and long-lasting film career was to follow, with Crawford ultimately going on to star in more than five dozen films. She took on talking roles with projects like Hollywood Revue (1929) and Grand Hotel (1932), and her dancing skills were prominently displayed with Fred Astaire in the 1933 hit Dancing Lady. Clark Gable was also featured, and was a recurring co-star in works like Possessed (1931) and Strange Cargo (1940).
TYRONE POWER
Power’s Irish great-grandfather and namesake, Tyrone (1795–1841), was a popular actor and comedian; his granduncle Maurice (died 1849) a Shakespearean actor; and his father, Frederick Tyrone (1869–1931), an actor onstage and in Hollywood. Before Power’s Broadway debut in 1935 in Romeo and Juliet, he toured for several years with the Shakespeare Repertoire Company and took minor film roles. His first motion-picture success, Lloyd’s of London (1936), was followed by starring roles in a series of diverse hits that included Thin Ice and Café Metropole (1937), Alexander’s Ragtime Band and In Old Chicago (1938), Jesse James and The Rains Came (1939), Johnny Apollo and Brigham Young (1940), and A Yank in the R.A.F. and Blood and Sand (1941).
After serving in the U.S. Marine Corps during World War II, Power returned to the screen in such vehicles as The Razor’s Edge (1946), Nightmare Alley (1947), Prince of Foxes (1949), The Black Rose (1950), The Eddie Duchin Story (1956), and Witness for the Prosecution (1957). He died while filming Solomon and Sheba on location in Spain.
Between films, Power kept returning to the stage. His most notable performances there were in Saint Joan (1936), Mr. Roberts (1950), The Devil’s Disciple (1950), John Brown’s Body (1952), The Dark Is Light Enough (1955), and Back to Methuselah (1958).
JAYNE MANSFIELD (1933-1967)
Jayne Mansfield was an American actress best known for her bombshell curves and film roles during the 1950s and '60s.
Synopsis
Jayne Mansfield was an American actress born on April 19, 1933, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. A provocateur of her time, she gained fame and pin-up status during the 1950s and was offered roles in several films such as Kiss Them for Me (1957), The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw (1958) and It Takes a Thief (1960). She experienced a career lull in the 1960s, though she did continue to act in small roles on film and stage. Mansfield died in a horrific car accident on June 29, 1967, at the age of 34. Her daughter, Mariska Hargitay, is a well-known and respected television actress.
Background and Early Life
Jayne Mansfield was born Vera Jayne Palmer on April 19, 1933, in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Mansfield's father Herbert was an attorney and musician while her mother Vera had previously worked as a schoolteacher. Mansfield endured a childhood tragedy at the age of 3 when her father passed away from a heart attack while driving with the family. Reflecting back on the tragedy, Mansfield later said, "Something went out of my life. ... My earliest memories are the best. I always try to remember the good times when Daddy was alive."
Beginning of Hollywood Career
Mansfield's first years in Hollywood initially brought disappointment. She had unsuccessful auditions for Paramount and Warner Bros. and had to take a job selling candy at a movie theater. She also sought out modeling work, but at a professional photo shoot, an advertisement for General Electric, she was cropped out of the picture because she looked "too sexy" for 1954 audiences, according to photographer Gene Lester. Still, Mansfield was able to make her TV debut that year with an appearance in the Lux Video Theatre series.
As Mansfield struggled to break into show business, her marriage suffered, and in 1955 she and Paul split ways, though she opted to keep his last name. That same year, she made her big-screen debut via small parts in a trio of 1955 films: Pete Kelly's Blues, Hell on Frisco Bay and Illegal.
Original Wardrobe Malfunction
Mansfield proved to have a no-holds-barred for self-marketing, and she took steps to distinguish herself from the many curvy blonde starlets attempting to make it big in Hollywood at the time. The model/actress made pink her trademark color—she wore pink, drove a pink car and eventually bought a house decked out in pink that was dubbed "the pink palace."
When Mansfield was just starting to make a name for herself in the mid-'50s, she garnered nationwide publicity when, attending a media gathering related to Jane Russell's Underwater in Florida film, Mansfield's top mysteriously fell off in a pool flanked by numerous journalists.
Commercial Success
From then on, as one journalist put it, Mansfield "suffered so many on-stage strap and zipper mishaps that nudity was, for her, a professional hazard." Shortly after the Underwater incident, she signed a contract in 1955 with Warner Bros. and later that year landed the role of Rita Marlowe in the hit Broadway production Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, which ran for 444 shows. She also starred in the play's 1957 film adaptation. Those performances finally established Mansfield as a marquis actress, and she went on to be featured in such films as Kiss Them For Me (1957), co-starring Cary Grant, The Wayward Bus (1957), The Sheriff of Fractured Jaw (1958) and It Takes a Thief (1960).
Nevertheless, many more people saw her photograph than her movies—in just nine months, from September 1956 to May 1957, Mansfield reportedly appeared in an astonishing 2,500 newspaper photographs. She also modeled for the newly minted Playboy magazine at various times during the 1950s. Mansfield thus joined the era's pantheon of blonde sex symbols who evoked Marilyn Monroe. (Monroe was in fact quite dismayed about the way in which Mansfield seemed to parody her image, at one point wishing that she could sue the actress.)
JACK LEMMON (1925-2001)
Jack Lemmon, in full John Uhler Lemmon III, (born February 8, 1925, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.—died June 27, 2001, Los Angeles, California), American screen and stage actor adept at both comedy and drama and noted for his portrayals of high-strung or neurotic characters in American films from the 1950s onward.
Lemmon attended Harvard University and was president of the school’s Hasty Pudding Club, an organization renowned for its annual satiric revues. Upon graduation in 1947, he served in the navy, after which he moved to New York City. There he worked as a piano player and actor, making his Broadway debut in a revival of the farce Room Service (1953). Although the production was unsuccessful, his performance led to a contract with Columbia Pictures the following year.
His first two film appearances were opposite Judy Holliday in It Should Happen to You and Phffft! (both 1954). His Oscar-winning performance as Ensign Pulver in Mister Roberts (1955) firmly established him as one of the screen’s brightest new comic actors. He went on to deliver solid performances in other comedies, including My Sister Eileen (1955), Operation Mad Ball (1957), Bell, Book and Candle (1958), and It Happened to Jane (1959). Two films directed by Billy Wilder helped establish Lemmon as a major star. Some Like It Hot (1959), an American comedy classic, featured Lemmon as a jazz musician posing as a woman, and The Apartment (1960) reinforced the character type for which he became known, that of a tense, excitable, and baffled individual who painfully progresses to a deeper understanding of the world. He received Oscar nominations for both films, as well as for Days of Wine and Roses (1962), in which he gave a harrowing portrayal of an alcoholic advertising executive.
Wilder teamed Lemmon with Walter Matthau in The Fortune Cookie (1966), the first of many comedies for the pair. Their most famous teaming was in The Odd Couple (1968), based on Neil Simon’s stage hit. The film established the pattern for most of their appearances together, with a fussy neurotic (Lemmon) butting heads with a carefree scalawag (Matthau). Other Lemmon-Matthau films include The Front Page (1974), Buddy Buddy (1981), Grumpy Old Men (1993), Grumpier Old Men (1995), and The Odd Couple II (1998).
In the 1970s Lemmon made his directorial debut with Kotch (1970), starring Matthau, and won his second Oscar for his performance in Save the Tiger (1973). He appeared in two more Neil Simon comedies, The Out-of-Towners (1970) and The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1974), and garnered additional Oscar nominations for The China Syndrome (1979), Tribute (1980), and Missing (1982).
As he aged into character roles, Lemmon remained no less prolific. His acclaimed performances of later years include his portrayal of James Tyrone in Eugene O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night in both a stage revival (1986) and a television adaptation (1987); a down-and-out real estate salesman in Glengarry Glen Ross (1992); a smooth-talking con man in The Grass Harp (1995); and two TV renderings of classic American dramas, 12 Angry Men (1997) and Inherit the Wind (1999), both of which costarred George C. Scott. Lemmon also won an Emmy Award for his touching portrayal of a dying college professor in the television film Tuesdays with Morrie (1999).
HATTIE McDANIEL (1895-1952)
Hattie McDaniel, (born June 10, 1895, Wichita, Kansas, U.S.—died October 26, 1952, Hollywood, California), American actress and singer who was the first African American to win an Academy Award. She received the honour for her performance as Mammy in Gone with the Wind (1939).
McDaniel was raised in Denver, Colorado, where she early exhibited her musical and dramatic talent. She left school in 1910 to become a performer in several traveling minstrel groups and later became one of the first black women to be broadcast over American radio. With the onset of the Great Depression, however, little work was to be found for minstrel or vaudeville players, and to support herself McDaniel went to work as a bathroom attendant at Sam Pick’s club in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Although the club as a rule hired only white performers, some of its patrons became aware of McDaniel’s vocal talents and encouraged the owner to make an exception. McDaniel performed at the club for more than a year until she left for Los Angeles, where her brother found her a small role on a local radio show, The Optimistic Do-Nuts; known as Hi-Hat Hattie, she became the show’s main attraction before long.
Two years after McDaniel’s film debut in 1932, she landed her first major part in John Ford’s Judge Priest (1934), in which she had an opportunity to sing a duet with humorist Will Rogers. Her role as a happy Southern servant in The Little Colonel (1935) made her a controversial figure in the liberal black community, which sought to end Hollywood’s stereotyping. When criticized for taking such roles, McDaniel responded that she would rather play a maid in the movies than be one in real life; and during the 1930s she played the role of maid or cook in nearly 40 films, including Alice Adams (1935), in which her comic characterization of a grumbling, far-from-submissive maid made the dinner party scene one of the best remembered from the film. She is probably most often associated with the supporting role of Mammy in the 1939 film Gone with the Wind, a role for which she became the first African American to win an Academy Award.
At the end of World War II, during which McDaniel organized entertainment for black troops, the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) and other liberal black groups lobbied Hollywood for an end to the stereotyped roles in which McDaniel had become typecast, and consequently her Hollywood opportunities declined. Radio, however, was slower to respond, and in 1947 she became the first African American to star in a weekly radio program aimed at a general audience when she agreed to play the role of a maid on The Beulah Show. In 1951, while filming the first six segments of a television version of the popular show, she had a heart attack. She recovered sufficiently to tape a number of radio shows in 1952 but died soon thereafter of breast cancer.
RUDOLPH VALENTINO (1895-1926)
Rudolph Valentino was born Rodolfo Alfonso Raffaello Piero Filiberto Guglielmi di Valentina d'Antoguolla, in Castellaneta, Apulia, Italy, on May 6, 1895. Coincidently, he was born the same year cinema was invented. His father was a veterinarian; his mother doted on him extensively. He had an older brother, Alberto, and a younger sister, Maria. His father died when Rodolfo was 11 years old.
He was expelled from numerous schools, but finally obtained a diploma in the Science of Farming from the Academy of Agriculture. After school, Rodolfo went to Paris, learned to dance, and returned home broke. In December 1913, he took his inheritance and sailed for New York City.
After arriving in New York, Roldofo used up his inheritance, then endured a spell of poverty. He took odd jobs until he found work as a taxi dancer and instructor — gaining attention with his Argentine tango. Valentino later joined an operetta company that traveled to Utah and disbanded there.
He then found his way to San Francisco, California, and met actor Norman Kerry. Kerry persuaded him to try for a career in cinema, which was still in the silent era. He took Norman's advice and moved to Hollywood to pursue a career in film. Rodolfo won a small dancing part in Alimony in 1917. He performed half a dozen other small parts in films — always as the villain.
In 1919, Roldofo married actress Jean Acker. Their marriage was rumored never to have been consummated; they divorced in 1922. He then met scriptwriter June Mathis, who was impressed by a role in which she had seen him. Mathis persuaded director Rex Ingram to cast him in the lead role of The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, in 1921. It was the industry's first million-dollar production, which saved Metro Studios and made Rudy a star — with his cinema name, Rudolph Valentino.
In 1921, Valentino was given his iconic role in the movie The Sheik. He met Natacha Rambova, a costume designer, while filming Uncharted Seas the same year. They became romantically involved and were married on May 13, 1922, in Mexicali, Mexico. He was arrested for bigamy, since his divorce from his first wife was not finalized. The couple remarried a year later.
In 1922, Blood and Sand was released, which further established Valentino as the leading male star of the era. A dispute with Paramount Pictures in 1923 resulted in an injunction that prohibited him from making films with other producers. To ensure that his name would remain in the public eye, Valentino set off on a national dance tour. He also traveled to Europe during this time, which included a memorable visit to his native town.
Valentino managed to negotiate a new contract in 1925 with United Artists. The document stipulated that his wife not be allowed on his movie sets — her presence had apparently delayed an earlier production. The couple separated shortly later. Valentino then had an affair with actress Pola Negri. During that time, he appeared in two of his most successful films, The Eagle (1925) and The Son of the Sheik in 1926, which was a sequel to The Sheik.
On August 15, 1926, Valentino collapsed at the Hotel Ambassador in New York City. He underwent surgery for a perforated ulcer. The surgery went well and he seemed to be recovering, when peritonitis set in and spread throughout his body. He died on August 23, 1926, at the age of 31.
The streets of New York were lined with an estimated 100,000 people who wanted to pay their respects at Valentino's funeral. Fans attempting to enter the funeral home caused a near riot. His funeral Mass in New York was celebrated at Saint Malachy’s Roman Catholic Church. Pola Negri collapsed in hysterics as she hovered over his coffin.
Valentino's body was taken by train across the country, and a second funeral was held on the West Coast. It was interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery of Hollywood, California.
The actor has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and, in 1994, he was honored with his image on a United States postage stamp designed by the noted caricaturist, Al Hirschfeld.
TRUMAN CAPOTE (1924-1964)
Truman Capote, original name Truman Streckfus Persons, (born September 30, 1924, New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.—died August 25, 1984, Los Angeles, California), American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright whose early writing extended the Southern Gothic tradition, though he later developed a more journalistic approach in the novel In Cold Blood (1965; film 1967), which, together with Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1958; film 1961), remains his best-known work.
His parents were divorced when he was young, and he spent his childhood with various elderly relatives in small towns in Louisiana and Alabama. (He owed his surname to his mother’s remarriage, to Joseph Garcia Capote.) He attended private schools and eventually joined his mother and stepfather at Millbrook, Connecticut, where he completed his secondary education at Greenwich High School.
Capote drew on his childhood experiences for many of his early works of fiction. Having abandoned further schooling, he achieved early literary recognition in 1945 when his haunting short story “Miriam” was published in Mademoiselle magazine; the following year it won the O. Henry Memorial Award, the first of four such awards Capote was to receive. His first published novel, Other Voices, Other Rooms (1948), was acclaimed as the work of a young writer of great promise. The book is a sensitive, partly autobiographical portrayal of a boy’s search for his father and his own sexual identity through a nightmarishly decadent Southern world. The short story “Shut a Final Door” (O. Henry Award, 1946) and other tales of loveless and isolated individuals were collected in A Tree of Night, and Other Stories (1949). The quasi-autobiographical novel The Grass Harp (1951) is a story of nonconforming innocents who temporarily retire from life to a tree house, returning renewed to the real world. One of Capote’s most popular works, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, is a novella about Holly Golightly, a young fey café society girl; it was first published in Esquire magazine in 1958 and then as a book, with several other stories.
Capote’s increasing preoccupation with journalism was reflected in his nonfiction novel In Cold Blood, a chilling account of the murders of four members of the Clutter family, committed in Kansas in 1959. Capote began researching the murders soon after they happened, and he spent six years interviewing the two men who were eventually executed for the crime. (That time included months spent in Kansas with his friend, childhood neighbour, and fellow novelist Harper Lee, who served as his “assistant researchist.”) In Cold Blood first appeared as a series of articles in 1965 in The New Yorker; the book version was published that same year. Its critical and popular success pushed Capote to the forefront of the emerging New Journalism, and it proved to be the high point of his dual careers as a writer and a celebrity socialite. Endowed with a quirky but attractive character, he entertained television audiences with outrageous tales recounted in his distinctively high-pitched lisping Southern drawl.
Capote’s later writings never approached the success of his earlier ones. In the late 1960s he adapted two short stories about his childhood, “A Christmas Memory” and “The Thanksgiving Visitor,” for television. The Dogs Bark: Public People and Private Spaces (1973) consists of collected essays and profiles over a 30-year span, while the collection Music for Chameleons: New Writing (1980) includes both fiction and nonfiction. In later years Capote’s growing dependence on drugs and alcohol stifled his productivity. Moreover, selections from a projected work that he considered to be his masterpiece, a social satire entitled Answered Prayers, appeared in Esquire in 1975–76 and raised a storm among friends and foes who were harshly depicted in the work (under the thinnest of disguises). He was thereafter ostracized by his former celebrity friends. The book, which had not been completed at the time of his death, was published as Answered Prayers: The Unfinished Novel in 1986. Summer Crossing, a short novel that Capote wrote in the 1940s and that was believed lost, was published in 2006.
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