Lenny Baker, who won a Tony award in 1977 for his performance in the Broadway musical ”I Love My Wife” and who starred in the movie ”Next Stop, Greenwich Village,” died of cancer yesterday in a hospital in Hallandale, Fla. He was 37 years old.
Mr. Baker won high praise for his leading role in ”I Love My Wife,” a musical comedy about two couples who decide to swap partners. Clive Barnes wrote in The New York Times: ”Mr. Baker, with his look of heroic idiocy, his good nature and baffled mind, is a total joy. As an actor he has always been one of a kind.” Walter Kerr, also writing in The Times, said, ”There’s a zany on the prowl who will in the future (and right now) have to be reckoned with.”
The actor was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his role as the hero who flees Brooklyn to become an actor in Paul Mazursky’s 1976 autobiographical movie ”Next Stop, Greenwich Village.” His other film credits included ”The Hospital” (1971) and ”The Paper Chase” (1973). Made Debut in 1974
Making his Broadway debut in 1974 in ”The Freedom of the City,” he was seen in 1976 in repertory in the Phoenix Theater’s productions of ”Secret Service” and ”Boy Meets Girl.” Earlier, he worked frequently in the Off Broadway theater, in such plays as ”Conerico Was Here to Stay,” ”Paradise Gardens East,” ”The Year Boston Won the Pennant” and ”Summertree.” He also appeared in 1976 in ”Henry V” and ”Measure for Measure” with the New York Shakespeare Festival in the Delacorte Theater in Central Park.
Mr. Baker, who was graduated from Boston University, played regional theaters and spent several summers at the O’Neill Center’s National Playwrights Conference in Waterford, Conn. He told an interviewer in 1977 that the center was instrumental in his career, partly because he saw the National Theater for the Deaf there. ”It’s perhaps because of watching them work,” he said, ”that I can be so brazen with comic uses of my body.”
Surviving are his parents, Bertha and William Baker, and two brothers, Alan and Malcolm. A memorial service will be held in the Little Theater of the Public Theater, 425 Lafayette Street, Friday at 11 A.
By his mid-20s, this burly, multi-faceted talent had achieved considerable success in both theater and cinema directing, writing and acting in cultivated, witty comedies. Peter Ustinov later won international acclaim and reached the peak of his fame in the early 1960s for his appearances in sweeping epics and lighthearted romps. He won two Best Supporting Actor Oscars, for his clown in “Spartacus” (1960) and his engaging con man in “Topkapi” (1964). Ustinov has also earned critical praise for his directorial efforts (which he also produced, starred in and wrote): “Romanoff and Juliet” (1962), a biting Cold War satire based on his own play, the bracing “Billy Budd” (1962) and the “Faust”-inspired Elizabeth Taylor-Richard Burton vehicle “Hammersmith Is Out” (1972). The spotlight fell on Ustinov as a personality, too. Throughout the 60s and early 70s, he was a favored raconteur on talk shows whether or not he was publicizing a film. Yet his increasing girth often made his screen work seem either effortless or as if he were holding back and only giving a lazy indication of what he could muster.
Ustinov was only 17 years old when he made his stage debut in “The Wood Demon” in the provinces. The following year, he made his London debut in the title role of “The Bishop of Limpopoland”, a sketch at the Players Club, which he also wrote. His first play to reach NYC was “The Loves of Four Colonels” (1953) but it was not until 1957 that he made his Broadway acting debut as The General in “Romanoff and Juliet”, which he wrote. (He later toured the USA and the Soviet Union with the show.) By the time of his American debut, Ustinov was a top draw in England, having either written or starred in numerous stage productions. He continued playing roles on stage well into the 80s and in 1990 performed internationally in the one-man show “An Evening With Peter Ustinov”. Proving to be a true man of the theater, Ustinov has not only performed in and written shows but also has directed (e.g., “Fishing for Shadows” 1940) and designed sets and costumes (for the 1973 London production of “The Unknown Soldier and His Wife”). Among his successes as playwright are “Who’s Who in Hell” (1974), and “Beethoven’s Tenth” (1984).
Moving to the big screen in 1940, the portly, often mustachioed actor was featured in the British propaganda film “Mein Kampf, My Crimes”. He went on to play the title role in “Private Angelo” (1949), a deserter from the Italian army who accidentally becomes a hero, and garnered kudos for his turn as Emperor Nero in the costume epic “Quo Vadis” (1951). Some critics claim he stole the show as Lentulus Batiatus in “Spartacus” as he unquestionably did in “Topkapi”, as the duped con man turned mole. (The scene in which he is asked to hold the rope during the crime is alone worth the price of admission.) “Romanoff and Juliet” (1961) was adapted from the stage play, with Ustinov recreating his role. “Viva Max!” (1969) found him playing a Mexican general retaking the Alamo, and in 1978, he began his impersonations of Agatha Christie’s master detective Hercule Poirot in “Death on the Nile”, a role he again essayed in “Evil Under the Sun” (1982) and in three TV-movies produced in the 80s. More recently, he was a stuffy expert in “Lorenzo’s Oil (1992).
On the small screen, Ustinov’s work has often tilted towards the high brow, or substantive or prestige projects. He appeared in numerous installments of NBC’s “Omnibus” series in the late 50s, including an Emmy-winning portrayal of Dr Samuel Johnson, and was a regal Herod the Great in Franco Zeffirelli’s miniseries “Jesus of Nazareth” (NBC, 1977). Mostly, Ustinov is remembered for several remarkable Emmy-winning performances in “Hallmark Hall of Fame” specials: as Socrates in “Barefoot in Athens” (1966) and as a Jewish deli owner who takes in a black youth in “A Storm in Summer” (1970). he also was “Gideon” (NBC, 1971), the Israelite who defeats the oppressors only to have his own vainglory defeat himself. Ustinov has frequently hosted and/or narrated reality-based shows, such as “Omni: The New Frontier” (syndicated, 1981), and numerous specials. Although very British in manners, he was outwardly proud of his Russian heritage, speaking of it often and creating and hosting: “Peter Ustinov’s Russia: A Personal History” for the BBC in 1986.
The above TCM biography can also be accessed online here.
Keller has appeared in Europe and America in plays, directed opera and as a speaker on classical music in the last twenty years. For example, in 2001, Keller appeared in a Broadway adaptation of Abby Mann‘s play “Judgment at Nuremberg” as “Mrs. Bertholt” (the role played by Marlene Dietrich in the 1961 Stanley Kramer film version). She was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Featured Actress for this performance.
In addition to her work in film and theatre, Keller has developed a career in classical music as a speaker and opera director. She has performed the speaking role of “Joan of Arc” in the oratorio “Jeanne d’Arc au Bûcher of Arthur Honegger” on several occasions, with conductors such as Seiji Ozawa and Kurt Masur. She has recorded the role for Deutsche Grammophon with Ozawa (DG 429 412-2). Keller has also recited the spoken part in Igor Stravinsky‘s “Perséphone”. She has performed classical music melodramas for speaker and piano in recital. The Swiss composer Michael Jarrell wrote the melodrama “Cassandre”, after the novel of Christa Wolf, for Keller, who gave the world premiere in 1994. Keller’s first production as an opera director was “Dialogues des Carmélites”, for Opéra National du Rhin, in 1999. This production subsequently received a semi-staged performance in London that year. She has also directed “Lucia di Lammermoor” for the Washington National Opera and for the Los Angeles Opera. Her directorial debut at the Metropolitan Opera was in a 2004 production of “Don Giovanni”.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Marthe Keller
Marthe Keller (born January 28, 1945, Basel, Switzerland) is a Swiss actress. She studied ballet as a child but stopped after a skiing accident at age 16. She changed to acting, and worked in Berlin at the Schiller Theatre and the Berliner Ensemble.[1] Keller’s earliest film appearances were in Funeral in Berlin (1966) (uncredited) and the German film Wild Rider Ltd. (1967). She appeared in a series of French films in the 1970s, including A Loser(1972), The Right of the Maddest (1973) and And Now My Love (1974) (And Now My Love, 1974). Her most famous American film appearances are her Golden Globe-nominated performance as Dustin Hoffman‘s girlfriend in Marathon Man (1976) and her performance as an Arab terrorist who leads an attack on the Super Bowl in Black Sunday (1977). Keller also acted with William Holden in the 1978 Billy Wilder film Fedora (1978). She appeared alongside Al Pacino in the auto racing film Bobby Deerfield (1977), and subsequently the two of them were involved in a relationship. Since then, Keller has worked more steadily in European cinema compared to American movies. Her later films include Dark Eyes (1987), with Marcello Mastroianni.[2] In 2001, Keller appeared in a Broadway adaptation of Abby Mann‘s play “Judgment at Nuremberg” as “Mrs. Bertholt” (the role played by Marlene Dietrichin the 1961 Stanley Kramer film version).[3] [4] She was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Featured Actress for this performance. In addition to her work in film and theatre, Keller has developed a career in classical music as a speaker and opera director. She has performed the speaking role of “Joan of Arc” in the oratorio “Jeanne d’Arc au Bûcher of Arthur Honegger” on several occasions, with conductors such as Seiji Ozawa[5] Kurt Masur[7]. She has recorded the role for Deutsche Grammophon with Ozawa (DG 429 412-2). Keller has also recited the spoken part in Igor Stravinsky‘s “Perséphone”[8] [9]. She has performed classical music melodramas for speaker and piano in recital.[10] The Swiss composer Michael Jarrell wrote the melodrama “Cassandre”, after the novel of Christa Wolf, for Keller, who gave the world premiere in 1994. Keller’s first production as an opera director was “Dialogues des Carmélites”, for the Opéra National du Rhin, in 1999. This production subsequently received a semi-staged performance in London that year.[11] She has also directed “Lucia di Lammermoor” for the Washington National Opera and for the Los Angeles Opera.[12] Her directorial debut at the Metropolitan Opera was in a 2004 production of “Don Giovanni”.[13] [14] [15] Keller has a son, Alexandre (born 1971), from her relationship with Philippe de Broca.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: A.Nonymous
The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.
Ronald Bergan’s obituary in “The Guardian” in 2000:
For fans of straight, no-nonsense, taciturn cowboy heroes in traditional westerns, with much bang-bang and a little kiss-kiss, George Montgomery, who has died aged 84, was just the ticket. Out of the scores of pictures he made during four decades, more than half of them were good, solid westerns, at that time the staple of cinemas, especially towards the end of the 1950s.
The handsome, well-built Montgomery was certainly made to be a Hollywood he-man. Born George Montgomery Letz, the youngest of 15 children of an immigrant Russian farmer, he was raised on a remote Montana ranch, where he learned many of the roping and riding skills he displayed in his films.
At the University of Montana, where he majored in interior design, he boxed as a heavyweight and was also active in athletics. But he dropped out after a year and moved to Los Angeles to find work as a stuntman.
In 1935, he was hired to perform stunts in the Gene Autry western The Singing Vagabond. Billed as George Letz, he continued as stuntman and bit-part player in further Autry movies. He also appeared in The Lone Ranger serial (1938).
In 1940, he was given a contract by 20th Century-Fox, who changed his name to George Montgomery, and immediately gave him a good supporting part in The Cisco Kid and the Lady, starring Cesar Romero. His first leading role came in The Cowboy and the Blonde (1941), where he played a rodeo star who “tames” a shrewish actress (Mary Beth Hughes).
Montgomery’s future wife, Dinah Shore, the toothy singer with the mellifluous voice, claimed that she fell in love with him on seeing him in the picture. They were married two years later, but not before Montgomery had affairs with Hedy Lamarr and Ginger Rogers.
Rogers was his co-star in William Wellman’s Roxie Hart (1942), the basis for the musical Chicago. Although, as the newsman reporting the murder trial of an amoral showgirl, he was outshone by his leading lady, it was one of Montgomery’s best films.
In the same year, he starred as a military cadet standing up to the bullying commander in Ten Gentlemen From West Point, opposite Maureen O’Hara, and as a trumpeter (dubbed) with the Glenn Miller band in Orchestra Wives.
By now, Montgomery was one of Fox’s regular leading men, usually filling in for more charismatic stars such as Tyrone Power and Don Ameche. He served well enough as support to two of the studio’s resident blondes, Betty Grable in Coney Island (1943), and June Haver in Three Little Girls In Blue (1946). But his stolid personality didn’t suit fluffy musicals.
Montgomery, who had served for three years in the Army Air Corps during the second world war, found westerns more in his line. However, he first tackled the role of private eye Philip Marlowe in The Brasher Doubloon (1947), based on Raymond Chandler’s The High Window.
On leaving Fox, Montgomery began his “have gun, will travel” career in a plethora of entertaining, politically incorrect (vis-a-vis “Red Indians” and women) low-budget movies, mostly under journeymen directors such as Sidney Salkow, William Castle and Ray Nazzarro.
Montgomery, sounding more and more like Clark Gable, rode alone into many a lawless town and cleaned it up. He played the title role in Davy Crockett – Indian Scout (1950); was Fenimore Cooper’s Hawkeye in The Iroquois Trail (1950); and the outlaw Bat Masterson in Masterson of Kansas (1955). In the TV series Cimarron City (1958), which he produced, he played a peace-loving rancher who becomes mayor and aids the townsfolk during the city’s boom days in the 1890s.
Montgomery’s few non-westerns were blood-and- thunder adventures like Huk! (1956), in which he defends his rice and sugar plantation in the Philippines from a guerrilla army. Montgomery would return to the Philippines in the 1960s to produce, direct, write and star in four unconvincing action movies concerned with fighting the Japanese. He was good as a war-weary army sergeant in the seemingly endless Battle of the Bulge (1965), but the roles became fewer and fewer.
Instead, he concentrated on furniture-making, painting and sculpture at his desert home in California. One of his bronzes was of his old friend Ronald Reagan on horseback.
Montgomery, who divorced Shore in 1963 after 19 years of marriage, is survived by a son and daughter.
George Montgomery, actor; born August 19, 1916; died December 12, 2000
The above “Guardian” obituary can also be accessed online here.
Jarma Lewis was born on June 5, 1931 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, USA. She was an actress, known for Raintree County (1957), The Tender Trap (1955) and It’s a Dog’s Life (1955). She died on November 12, 1985 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
Became a writer in the 1970’s.
Studied acting at the Neighbourhood Playhouse in New York.
Was spotted by the director Henry Hathaway, while working as a receptionist in a Beverly Hills dental clinic, subsequently cast in a small role in “Prince Valiant”. Briefly a starlet at 20th Century Fox (1954) and MGM (1955-57).
In 1955, married bowling alley tycoon Benjamin Edward Bensinger III.
Served for fifteen years on the executive board of the UCLA Art Council.
Sir John Standing is one of England’s most respected stage, film and television actors. From a distinguished acting dynasty which includes his great-grandfather Herbert Standing(1846-1923) and his grandfather Sir Guy Standing (1873-1937) and his mother, the actress Kay Hammond. He succeeded his father Sir Ronald Leon, as the 4th baronet in 1964. Sir John has worked productively on both the London and New York stages over the decades with leading parts in “The Importance of Being Earnest,” “Ring Around the Moon,” “A Sense of Detachment” by John Osborne, and, most notably, in Noel Coward‘s “Private Lives,” with Maggie Smith. Lesser known for his film work, he has nevertheless supported and enhanced such cinematic offerings as Young and Willing (1962), his debut film, King Rat(1965), The Psychopath (1966), Walk Don’t Run (1966), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), The Elephant Man (1980), Nightflyers (1987), Mrs Dalloway (1997), and A Good Woman (2004). His prestigious television roles have included the classic mini-series The First Churchills(1969), Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1979), and The Choir (1995), and King Solomon’s Mines(2004). In the U.S., he has graced numerous weekly programmes including L.A. Law(1986), Civil Wars (1991), and Murder, She Wrote (1984) and co-starred briefly with Robert Wagner and the late Samantha Smith in the action series Lime Street (1985), which ended abruptly with the young girl’s death in a plane crash. The 13-year-old Smith became an instant celebrity after writing a touching and concerned letter to the then Soviet PresidentYuri Andropov about the relations between the two dominant powers and being invited to Russia. His second wife is the actress Sarah Forbes, who is the daughter of the directorBryan Forbes and actress Nanette Newman.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net
Kathryn Hays was born on July 26, 1933 in Joliet, Illinois, USA as Kay Piper. She is an actress, known for Guiding Light (1952), As the World Turns (1956) and The Road West(1966). She was previously married to Wolfgang G Lieschke and Glenn Ford. Kathryn Hays died in 2022 aged i7.
Obituary
Kathryn Hays, known for playing the character of “Kim” on As The World Turns for 38 years – and for her portrayal of “Gem” in the original Star Trek episode “The Empath” – died Friday, March 25th in Fairfield, CT, at the age of 87. Her career also included Broadway productions of “Ladybug, Ladybug”, “The Irregular Verb To Love” and “Hot September”, summer stock productions of Showboat and Richard Roger’s Two By Two, Follies at the Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera, Dames at Sea at the Papermill Playhouse, and playing Desiree in A Little Night Music at the Equity Library Theater in NYC, described by the New York Times as “just possibly the best musical in town”. She made guest appearances on over 40 classic TV shows, from Dr Kildare to Law and Order. Born in Princeton, IL and raised in the midwest, she remained a good midwestern girl – but with a layer of “New Yorker “added on over the years. Think Donna Reed in It’s A Wonderful Life, with a bit of Bette Davis thrown in for good measure. Her family and friends knew her as a source of love and laughter. Raucous laughter, much of the time, because she had a spot-on sense of humor. No one who was present will ever forget when she dressed up to play Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny. She was raised to value family and made sure that her parents, Daisy and Dick Gottlieb, were cared for as they aged. She worked hard to raise and educate her daughter, and to enrich the lives of her grandchildren. She leaves behind her daughter and son-in-law, Sherri and Bob Mancusi, three grandchildren, Kate, Cameron and Garrett Wells, plus her great-grandson Jack, who will be taught the lessons that she taught us. She loved music, her church and was nuts about dogs. Those wishing to honor her memory may contribute to: The Greater Bridgeport Symphony in Bridgeport, CT, The First Church of Christ, Scientist in Westport, CT or your favorite dog rescue organization. Private memorial services will be held following cremation
Joan Leslie was born in Detroit and began acting as a child performer. She was never able to escape the good girl role in her early work. She married Dr. William Caldwell in 1950. She quit her acting career to raise her identical twin daughters Patrice and Ellen. Both daughters are now Doctors teaching at universities.
Two-time Oscar-winner Melvyn Douglas was one of America’s finest actors. In addition to his two Oscars, he also won a Tony Award and an Emmy. Douglas would enjoy cinema immortality if for no other reason than his being the man who made Greta Garbo laugh inErnst Lubitsch‘s classic comedy Ninotchka (1939), but he was much, much more.
He was born Melvyn Edouard Hesselberg on April 5, 1901, in Macon, Georgia. His father, Edouard Gregory Hesselberg, was a Latvian Jewish immigrant (from Riga). His mother, from Clark Furnace, Tennessee, was from a family with deep roots in the United States; she had English ancestry (including antecedents who were Mayflower passengers), and remote Italian roots (from the Taliaferro family). His father was a concert pianist who supported his family by teaching music at university-based conservatories. Melvyn dropped out of high school to pursue his dream of becoming an actor.
He made his Broadway debut in the drama “A Free Soul (1931)” at the Playhouse Theatre on January 12, 1928, playing the role of a raffish gangster (a part that would later makeClark Gable‘s career when the play was adapted to the screen). “A Free Soul” was a modest success, running for 100 performances. His next three plays were flops: “Back Here” and “Now-a-Days” each lasted one week, while “Recapture” lasted all of three before closing. He was much luckier with his next play, “Tonight or Never,” which opened on November 18, 1930, at legendary producer David Belasco‘s theater. Not only did the play run for 232 performances, but Douglas met the woman who would be his wife of nearly 50 years: his co-star, Helen Gahagan. They were married in 1931.
The movies came a-calling in 1932 and Douglas had the unique pleasure of assaying completely different characters in widely divergent films. He first appeared opposite his future Ninotchka (1939) co-star Greta Garbo in the screen adaptation of Luigi Pirandello‘sAs You Desire Me (1932), proving himself a sophisticated leading man as, aside from his first-rate performance, he was able to shine in the light thrown off by Garbo, the cinema’s greatest star. In typical Hollywood fashion, however, this terrific performance in a top-rank film from a major studio was balanced by his appearance in a low-budget horror film for the independent Mayfair studio, The Vampire Bat (1933). However, the leading man won out, and that’s how he first came to fame in the 1930s in such films as She Married Her Boss(1935) and Garbo’s final film, Two-Faced Woman (1941). Douglas had shown he could play both straight drama and light comedy.
Douglas was a great liberal and was a pillar of the anti-Nazi Popular Front in the Hollywood of the 1930s. A big supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, he and his wife Helen were invited to spend a night at the White House in November 1939. Douglas’ leftism would come back to haunt him after the death of FDR.
Well-connected with the Roosevelt White House, Douglas served as a director of the Arts Council in the Office of Civilian Defense before joining the Army during World War II. He was very active in politics and was one of the leading lights of the anti-Communist left in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Helen Gahagan Douglas, who also was politically active, was elected to Congress from the 14th District in Los Angeles in 1944, the first of three terms.
Returning to films after the war, Douglas’ screen persona evolved and he took on more mature roles, in such films as The Sea of Grass (1947) (Elia Kazan‘s directorial debut) andMr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948). His political past caught up with him, however, in the late 1940s, and he – along with fellow liberals Robinson and Henry Fonda (a registered Republican!) – were “gray-listed” (not explicitly blacklisted, they just weren’t offered any work).
The late 1940s brought the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) to Hollywood, a move that sowed the seeds of the McCarthy anti-red hysteria that would wrack Hollywood and sweep America in the 1950s. In 1950, Helen Gahagan Douglas ran as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate and was opposed by the Republican nominee, a small-time red-baiting candidate from Whittier named Richard Nixon. While Nixon did not go so far as to accuse her of actually being a Communist, he did charge her with being soft on Communism due to her opposition to HUAC and her stance insisting that the U.S. improve its relations with the USSR. Nixon tarred her as a fellow traveler of Communists, a pinko who was “pink right down to her underwear.” Her opponent in the Democratic primary had given her the nickname “The Pink Lady”, erroneously attributed to Nixon. But it was Helene Gahagan Douglas who gave Nixon his most famous nickname, “Tricky Dicky”. While many historians have written that she was defeated by Nixon because of his unethical behavior and dirty campaign tactics, her pro-Soviet, anti-Cold War stance had alienated President Harry S. Truman, who had refused to campaign for her, and other Democratic Cold Warriors like Congressman John F. Kennedy, who hailed the election of fellow-Cold Warrior Nixon to the Senate.
The blacklist was implemented by Hollywood in 1947, after the HUAC grilling of the Hollywood help led to the “exposure” and subsequent persecution of the Hollywood 10. The post-World War II Red Scare targeted New Deal liberals as much as actual, genuine communists in a push to roll back liberalism, and Douglas was a marked man. After appearing in six films as a leading man and second lead in A-List pictures from 1947-49, Douglas made just two films in the decade of the 1950s – supporting roles at RKO in 1951 – until he reappeared a decade later in Peter Ustinov‘s Billy Budd (1962) in 1962. In the meantime, Douglas did play the eponymous private detective in the TV series Steve Randall(1952) in the 1952-53 season for the doomed DuMont network, which failed the next year, and, following the example of his old friend Reagan in his stint on General Electric Theater(1953), appeared as the host of the western omnibus TV series Frontier Justice (1958) in 1958. Throughout the 1950s Douglas secured roles on such prestigious omnibus drama showcases as Playhouse 90 (1956) and even appeared on Reagan’s General Electric Theater(1953).
Then there was the theater. Douglas made many appearances on Broadway in the 1940s and 1950s, including in a notable 1959 flop, making his musical debut playing Captain Boyle in Marc Blitzstein‘s “Juno.” The musical, based on Sean O’Casey‘s play “Juno and the Paycock”, closed in less than three weeks. Douglas was much luckier in his next trip to the post: he won a Tony for his Broadway lead role in the 1960 play “The Best Man” by Gore Vidal.
In 1960, with the election of the Democratic President John F. Kennedy, the erstwhile Nixon supporter who had defeated Tricky Dicky for the Big Brass Ring of American electoral politics. About this time, as the civil rights movement became stronger and found more support among Democrats and the Kennedy administration, former liberal activist and two-term Screen Actors Guild president Reagan was in the process of completing his evolution into a right-wing Republican. Reagan and Douglas’ friendship lapsed. After Reagan was elected President of the United States in 1980, Douglas said of his former friend that Reagan had begun to believe in the pro-business speeches he delivered for General Electric when he was the host of the General Electric Theater (1953).
Douglas’ own evolution into a premier character actor was completed by the early 1960s. His years of movie exile seemed to deepen him, making him richer, and he returned to the big screen a more authoritative actor. For his second role after coming off of the graylist, he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar as Paul Newman‘s father in Hud (1963). Other films in which he shined were Paddy Chayefsky‘s The Americanization of Emily (1964), CBS Playhouse (1967) (a 1967 episode directed by George Schaefer called “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”, for which he won a Best Actor Emmy) and The Candidate (1972), in which he played Robert Redford‘s father. It was for his performance playing Gene Hackman‘s father that Douglas got his sole Best Actor Academy Award nod, in I Never Sang for My Father (1970). He had a career renaissance in the late 1970s, appearing in The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979), Being There (1979) and Ghost Story (1981). He won his second Oscar for “Being There.”
Helen Gahagan Douglas died in 1980 and Melvyn followed her in 1981. He was 80 years old.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Jon C. Hopwood
The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.
