Hollywood Actors Archives - Page 38 of 125

Shirley Booth

David Shipman’s 1992 “Independent” obituary:

Thelma Booth Ford (Shirley Booth), actress, born 30 August 1898, married 1929 Edward Gardner (marriage dissolved 1941), 1943 William Baker (died 1951), died Chatham Massachusetts 16 October 1992

SHIRLEY BOOTH was a magnificent actress with a broad range but she was still unknown in Britain when the film of Come Back Little Sheba appeared in 1953. She had been acting on Broadway since 1925 – and with some success when she played Mabel in Three Men on a Horse 10 years later. Among her later roles were the journalists in The Philadelphia Story (1939) and My Sister Eileen (1940) – played on screen respectively by Ruth Hussey and Rosalind Russell. Booth was a less glamorous version than either, but she was regarded as a sleek career-woman with a nifty line in wisecracks. She used her skill at these in a popular radio show, Duffy’s Tavern, which starred her then husband, Ed Gardner.

As Miss Duffy, she presented a homely image – and that was something she was obliged to take on again in Come Back Little Sheba, on Broadway in 1950. The author, William Inge, was sub- Tennessee-Williams, complete to the poetic titles, and this is certainly his best play. Lola, as played by Booth, shuffled about in a dressing-gown, forgetful and fantasising (about Sheba, the dog of the title), enjoying radio soap operas, spying on the young lovers in the parlour and hoping against hope that her husband has abandoned alcohol without understanding what drew him towards it in the first place – a woman blowsy, good-natured and shabby.

Sidney Blackmer played the dipsomaniac husband, but when the producer Hal Wallis decided to film the play he replaced him, as box-office insurance, with Burt Lancaster. Wallis turned down Bette Davis’s request to play the wife, and cast Booth over Paramount’s objections because, in his own words, ‘she was a great actress’. Britain’s best critic, Richard Winnington, wrote: ‘Miss Booth is a magnificent actress of patently wide range, who accomplishes the miracle of making Lola at once repulsive and beneath her load of pain, longing and stupidity, oddly beautiful.’

Among the other actresses nominated for an Oscar that year were Davis, Joan Crawford and Susan Hayward – whom we may regard as traditional Hollywood actresses when we see that the critic of the New York Herald Tribune wrote that Booth had ‘an acting style like the best modern French and Italian motion pictures’. Booth’s Oscar for Best Actress was an enormously popular one and the film was very successful.

In the meantime she had played Aunt Cissy (the role Joan Blondell took in the movie) in the musical version of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1951), with a couple of comic songs, including a hymn to her slob of a husband, ‘He Had Refinement’. Another musical, By the Beautiful Sea (1954), was written especially for her, and she glowed in it. After 30 years in the business she had become one of New York’s most beloved actresses.

Before that, she had had a stunning success in Arthur Laurents’s romantic comedy The Time of the Cuckoo (1952), as a spinster schoolteacher who has her first, and possibly last, affair with an eye-to-the-main-chance Lothario while on holiday in Venice. William Marchant also wrote Desk Set (1955) for Booth, but in both cases the screen versions were offered to Katharine Hepburn (The Time of the Cuckoo became Summer Madness or Summertime on film). Since Hepburn and Booth had been friends since they had appeared on Broadway in The Philadelphia Story, Hepburn asked whether she minded that she took over the roles – but not only did Booth not mind, she gave Hepburn some tips on how the roles should be played.

Wallis had been looking for a screen role for Booth, to follow her Oscar, and he came up with a Back Street-type story, About Mr Leslie, in which she was a night- club singer sharing the life of Robert Ryan for just a couple of weeks every year. It was not a success – which was why Wallis dropped his plan to film The Time of the Cuckoo. He tried twice more with Booth, in 1958. Hot Spell found her as Anthony Quinn’s put-upon wife, and despite too many echoes of other family dramas of the time – including those of Inge and Williams – it worked beautifully because of Booth’s warm performance. Her three films had been directed by Daniel Mann, but Wallis handed her over to Joseph Anthony when he produced Thornton Wilder’s comedy The Matchmaker. In the title-role Booth was much funnier than Ruth Gordon had been on the stage (both in London and New York), and she was probably better than the many stars who played the role when it was musicalised as Hello Dolly].

But once again the public was not very interested, and Paramount’s executives, who had not seen movie-star potential in Booth in the first place, did not encourage Wallis to continue with movie plans for her. She agreed with Paramount; Robert Ryan observed that she was ‘uncomfortable working in the movies. She is a very timid woman and walked part of the way to work before someone told her she could park her car on the Paramount lot. In fact, I told her.’

She turned down other movie roles, including A Pocketful of Miracles and Airport, but continued working on the stage until the Seventies, in, among other plays, Juno and the Paycock and Hay Fever. But she was happiest with a television sitcom, Hazel, based on the Saturday Evening Post cartoon about an obstreperous and none- too-efficient household maid. It began in 1961, and ran for several years, bringing Booth another clutch of awards. During her life it was assumed that Booth was born in 1905, but her family has announced that she was 94 years old at the time of her death.

For myself, I cherish her four screen appearances. I remember vividly her playing Amanda – the mother – in a television version of The Glass Menagerie in 1967. I’m told that she was miscast, but as far as I’m concerned it didn’t matter.

As the New York Post said when reviewing A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Shirley Booth was ‘one of the wonders of the American stage; a superb actress, a magnificent comedienne and all-round performer of seemingly endless variety.’

The above “Independent” obituary can also be accessed online here.

TCM overview:

Though he spent almost a decade struggling to make a name for himself, actor Billy Bob Thornton took matters into his own hands when he wrote, directed and starred in the career-making independent drama, “Sling Blade” (1996), which earned the then-unknown performer an Oscar for Best Screenplay and another nomination for Best Actor. Ever since his sudden rise to stardom, Thornton became a prominent leading man and supporting player whose short-lived but high-profile marriage to offbeat starlet Angelina Jolie overshadowed his exemplary work in films like “Monster’s Ball” and “The Man Who Wasn’t There” (2001). After their divorce, Thornton receded a bit from the public eye, though he continued his streak of fine performances in “Bad Santa” (2003) and “Friday Night Lights” (2004), two wildly different films that displayed his prowess for disappearing into what ever character he played. Occasionally, Thornton incorporated his own personal issues – namely his battles with eating and obsessive-compulsive disorders, like a fear of Louis XIV furniture – into his characters, as he did in “Bandits” (2001). Despite his seemingly bizarre personal life, Thornton nonetheless maintained a steady stream of quality work that always kept him near the top of the game.

Born on Aug. 4, 1955 in Alpine, AK, Thornton was raised in a poor family by his father, Billy Ray, a basketball coach, and Virginia, a psychic. Until he was eight or nine years old, Thornton lived with his grandparents in a small house in a small town that had no electricity nor running water. In fact, the only illumination came from the sun or coal oil lamps. He then moved to a larger town called Malvern – about 20 miles from Hot Springs – where life revolved around the local high school football team. It was around this time that he met future writing partner, Tom Epperson. While in high school, Thornton began acting and eventually decided to pursue a performing career. After graduation, he attended Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, AK, where he majored in psychology until dropping out after two semesters. In 1977, he and Epperson briefly moved to New York before heading westward to Hollywood. Once they settled in Los Angeles, Thornton worked variously as a rock singer, drummer and actor. He and Epperson wrote scripts which they attempted to sell, although they met with little initial enthusiasm.

On the small screen, Thornton played the conveniently named Billy Bob in the busted pilot “Circus” (ABC, 1987) before making his series debut as an ex-greaser who was a surrogate brother to a gang in “The Outsiders” (Fox, 1989). After making his feature debut in the forgettable direct-to-video release “Hunter’s Blood” (1988), he carved a niche portraying good ole’ boys in sitcoms like “Evening Shade” (CBS, 1990-93) and “Hearts Afire” (CBS, 1992-95). He earned acclaim for his featured role in Carl Franklin’s “One False Move” (1992), which he co-wrote with Epperson. His portrayal of a sociopathic ex-con involved with a black woman (Cynda Williams, who was briefly Thornton’s third wife) earned him critical praise and, more importantly, industry recognition, which led to supporting roles in “Bound by Honor” (1993), “On Deadly Ground” (1994) and “Dead Man” (1995). With his career on a roll, Thornton collaborated with Epperson again on, “A Family Thing” (1996), an earnest drama about a white man (Robert Duvall) who discovers he has a black half-brother (James Earl Jones). Duvall brought the germ of the idea to the writing duo, who fashioned a vehicle for the Oscar-winning actor. With Epperson, Thornton co-wrote “Don’t Look Back” (HBO, 1996), directed by Geoff Murphy and starring Eric Stoltz as a musician-addict who stumbles onto drug money with near fatal results.

Thornton finally became a Hollywood player with “Sling Blade” (1996), a film in which he did triple duty as star, screenwriter and director. The project had its genesis in a monologue he created to channel his frustrations on the set of his first television movie, “The Man Who Broke 1,000 Chains” (HBO, 1987). Thornton created Karl Childers, a mentally-challenged murderer, and nurtured the character for close to a decade; first performing the soliloquies on stage then in the short film “Some Folks Call It a Sling Blade” (1994). By the time he expanded the story to feature length, Thornton had made a deal to direct as well as write and star in “Sling Blade,” a film that propelled Thornton into stardom. With close-cropped hair, a clean-shaven face and using slow, raspy vocals punctuated with growls, Thornton was barely recognizable as Karl, whose close bond with a young boy (Lucas Black) leads him to confront and eventually repeat his dark past. And though the film alternated between static set pieces – betraying its stage origins – and leisurely-paced exterior scenes, “Sling Blade” featured a strong cast that included Natalie Canerday as the boy’s mother, John Ritter as a gay man for whom the boy’s mother works and Dwight Yoakam as the mother’s bigoted, abusive boyfriend. In an Oscar year dominated by independent films, “Sling Blade” was a critical darling that earned Thornton an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and another nomination as Best Actor.

Thornton’s career – which had gradually been building steam – exploded with the success of “Sling Blade.” He signed a three-picture deal with Miramax Films and was suddenly one of the most sought-after actors working in Hollywood. He was nearly unrecognizable as a psychotic mechanic in Oliver Stone’s “U-Turn” (1997) before playing a reluctant religious convert in Duvall’s “The Apostle” (1997). The following year found him as a would-be marijuana kingpin in “Homegrown” (1998), a wily southern political advisor patterned after real-life spin doctor James Carville in “Primary Colors” (1998) and the Mission Control leader in the summer blockbuster “Armageddon” (1998). Thornton earned more critical kudos for playing Bill Paxton’s half-wit brother in “A Simple Plan” (1998), a tense character study about three friends whose lives fall apart after finding and trying to keep $4 million. Once again, Thornton significantly altered his appearance on his way to earning an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Meanwhile, Thornton returned to the director’s chair to helm “All the Pretty Horses” (2000), which he adapted from Cormac McCarthy’s novel.

Thorton’s most critically acclaimed role since “Sling Blade” came when he starred opposite Halle Berry in “Monster’s Ball” (2001). Thornton played a hardened jail warden whose life is emerged in his own bitter history and ingrained racism. His character transforms and ends up falling in love with a black woman whose husband he executed. Thornton’s exquisite portrait of an agonized man trying to embrace love for the first time in years earned him an impressive array of critical plaudits and award nominations, though in the end he was overshadowed by Berry’s Oscar-winning performance. Thornton may have been his own worst enemy when it came to competing for Oscar gold, as he also turned in particularly fine performances in two other films that same year with a comedic turn in Barry Levinson’s “Bandits” (2001) and a sharp, haunting role as the barber drawn into a dark melodrama in the Coen Brothers’ loopy noir “The Man Who Wasn’t There” (2001). Oscar-watchers suggested that Thornton split his own vote among the three roles, resulting in zero nominations for the actor.

Thornton’s always-reliable acting was also often overshadowed by his bizarre tabloid-made relationship with the much-younger actress Angelina Jolie, who became his fifth wife in 2000 after the two met on the film “Pushing Tin” (1999) and he broke off his engagement with Laura Dern. Their surprise union was characterized by dramatic, obsessive affectations which included acquiring tattoos of each other’s names and wearing vials that contained a drop of the other’s blood when separated. But the marriage lasted only two years: Jolie filed for divorce in 2002, shortly after adopting a Cambodian orphan who took Thornton’s name. On screen in 2002, the actor appeared in a pair of low-profile duds, playing a philanderer in the offbeat comedy “Waking Up in Reno” which also starred Charlize Theron, Patrick Swayze and Natasha Richardson, then a parolee who becomes involved with the unknowing wife of the man he killed in “Levity.” But Thornton was in fine, appropriately over-the-top form when he reunited with the Coen Brothers’ screwball effort “Intolerable Cruelty” (2003), playing a Texas billionaire who’s about to become the latest victim of a gold-digging serial divorcee (Catherine Zeta-Jones). The actor followed with a pleasing low-key cameo as a libidinous U.S. president in the witty British romantic comedy “Love, Actually” (2003).

Thornton returned to center stage in peak form in director Terry Zwigoff’s deliriously cynical holiday comedy, “Bad Santa” (2003) – based on a one-line concept by the Coen Brothers – playing the whiskey-slugging, womanizing safecracker Willie T. Stokes who annually arises from a hazy hibernation to team up with three-foot-tall, foul-mouthed mastermind Marcus (Tony Cox) and – under the benevolent cover of Santa and Elf – clean out the department store where they are employed. Thornton’s performance was a comedic masterstroke, especially when he let loose with his stinging, profane and sarcastic invective. He followed with a measured, intelligent portrayal of high school football coach in the gridiron-obsessed small town of Odessa, TX, in the hit film “Friday Night Lights” (2004). He took on a less serious sports-minded project when he accepted the role of Little League baseball coach Morris Buttermaker (originally played by Walter Matthau) in the remake of the classic “The Bad News Bears” (2005). As a high school baseball sensation who once earned a Major League tryout in his youth, Thornton was well-suited to the role of the inebriated, washed-up Buttermaker riding herd over a profane team of young misfits. But the film suffered in its adherence to the original and a refusal to sharpen the story’s edges for a more contemporary audience.

Thornton took on his second anti-Christmas-themed film with “The Ice Harvest” (2005), director Harold Ramis’ film noir with pitch black comic undercurrents, playing the potentially untrustworthy partner in crime of a mob accountant (John Cusack) who steals a bundle from his boss and endures a perilous Christmas Eve as they prepare to flee. For his next feature, Thornton wasted his talents as a lifestyle coach for losers in “School for Scoundrels” (2006), a lame and rather predictable comedy from Todd Phillips about a top secret confidence-building class run by a deviant huckster (Thornton) whose tough love tactics and compulsion for prying into his students’ lives leads them to overcome their deep-rooted anxieties to exact revenge. Thornton remained productive in the following year, starring in “The Astronaut Farmer” (2007), a satirical look at an astronaut forced to leave NASA to save his family’s farm, and “Mr. Woodcock” (2007), which featured Thornton as a sadistic gym teacher who terrorizes a best-selling self-help author (Seann William Scott) in his youth and is now ready to marry the writer’s widowed mother (Susan Sarandon). He next played a government agent hunting down two fugitives (Shia LaBeouf and Michelle Monaghan) in the paranoid thriller “Eagle Eye” (2008). After several years spent working in low-budget films like Mark Polish’s comedy-drama “The Smell of Success” (2009) and his own late ’60s period piece “Jayne Mansfield’s Car” (2013), Thornton returned to television as the villain in “Fargo” (FX 2014- ), a comedy-drama based on Joel and Ethan Coen’s film of the same name.

The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.

Hong Kong Affair, poster, US poster art, Jack Kelly, 1958. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)

Jack Kelly was born in 1927 in Astoria, Queens, New York. His sister was the actress Nancy Kelly. He was featured in the science-fiction classic “Forbidden Planet” in 1956. In 1957 he starred with James Garner in the very popular TV series “Maverick” which ran until 1962. Kelly stayed with the series for the duration. His films innclude “Commandos” with Lee Van Cleef in 1968 and “Young Billy Young” in 1969 with Robert Mitchum and Angie Dickinson. In his later years he entered politics. He died in 1992 at the age of 65.

IMDB entry:

Jack Kelly started acting at age two, modeling in soap ads and garnering a lifetime supply of soap for his pay. Jack continued to model until the age of nine when he appeared in his first play with Hope Emerson called “Swing Your Lady”. Broadway shows and radio followed until his family moved to California in 1938. He attended St. John’s Military Academy and spent two years as a law student at the University of California in Los Angeles. For three years Jack dropped acting to concentrate on school and making money. He worked as a shoe salesman, gas station attendant, lifeguard, grocery delivery boy, and mens clothing salesman. In 1945, Jack was inducted into the army taking basic train at Camp Roberts in California. He was sent to Alaska as a weather observer and was on the first B-29 to fly over the Arctic circle. After his discharge in 1946, Jack returned to UCLA and worked nights on various radio programs including, “Lux Radio theater”, “Suspense”, “Tell It Again”, and “Romance of the Ranchos”. Upon leaving school he joined the circle Theater in Los Angeles appearing in “Time of Your Life”, “The Adding Machine”, and “Love On The Dole”. In 1949 he acted in “Anna Lucasta” at the coronet Theater. This performance brought Jack to the attention of several Hollywood directors. He then made his film debut in “Fighting Man Of The Plains” starring Randolph Scott. In 1955, Jack was signed by Warner Bros. to star as Dr. Parris Mitchell in the “King’s Row” series of “Warner Bros. Presents.” The show debuted in September, 1955. He had served an acting apprenticeship that included movies, television, radio, and stage. His hobbies include ship models, reading historical literature, sculpturing, and listening to show tunes records. He also enjoyed such sports as sailing, badminton, skin diving, golf, horseback riding and flying.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: Bill Hafker thehuntzie@yahoo.com

The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.

James Taylor was born on 12th March 1948 in Boston where his father was a doctor. His career is of couse as a major singer/songwriter. He has though appeared on film and had a leading role in the movie “Two-Lane Blacktop” directed by Monte Hellman in 1971.

TCM overview:

The epitome of the sensitive singer-songwriter in the 1970s, James Taylor’s warm, introspective music soothed a generation of listeners worn down by the turmoil of the 1960s, who longed for the simple joys of his best songs like “Carolina in My Mind,” “Fire and Rain,” “Shower the People” and “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You).” His best material reflected his own life, which was marked in its early years by depression and drug addiction before finding spiritual rebirth and redemption as a father and husband to singer Carly Simon in the mid-1970s. The collapse of that marriage in the early 1980s followed a downward turn in his career and health before he rebounded later in the decade to become a gentle, avuncular figure for music fans who came to his annual summer shows to bask in the nostalgic pleasures of his song catalog. The 1990s and 2000s saw a major return to form with Grammy-winning albums and a lucrative reunion with Carole King, who had penned his only No. 1 hit, “You’ve Got a Friend.” Throughout his countless trips up and down the music industry ladder, Taylor’s graceful voice and presence, and his unerring ability to strike an emotional chord through his music, not only went untouched but gained strength, gravity and undeniable beauty over the course of his four-decade career.

James Vernon Taylor was born on March 12, 1948 at Massachusetts General Hospital in Lenox, MA, where his father, Dr. Isaac Taylor, was a resident physician. He was the second of five children by Dr. Taylor and his wife, Gertrude, including older brother Alex and younger siblings Kate, Livingston and Hugh, all of whom would go on to enjoy their own music careers in subsequent decades. In 1951, three-year-old Taylor and his family moved to Chapel Hill, NC, where his father served as Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine. There, the family lived in relative wealth, frequently returning to New England for summers on Martha’s Vineyard, but Dr. Taylor’s career required him to be away from home for lengthy stays in Maryland or in Antarctica as part of the military-coordinated Operation Deep Freeze. Taylor began playing cello as a child before switching to guitar at the age of 12. His primary influences at the time were folk singers like Woody Guthrie, as well as rhythm and blues and more traditional music like gospel hymns and holiday carols. In 1961, he began attending Milton Academy, a prep boarding school in Massachusetts, before returning to Martha’s Vineyard for the summer of 1962. There, he met Danny Kortchmar, an aspiring guitarist from New York with whom he founded an immediate and lasting friendship. Kortchmar was astonished by the power and soulfulness of Taylor’s voice, and the pair became a staple of the island’s coffeehouses as the duo Jamie & Kootch.

By 1963, Taylor was beginning to struggle with the high pressures of study at Milton Academy, and soon returned to North Carolina to finish his junior year. While there, he joined his brother Alex’s band, The Corsayers, and cut a single, “Cha Cha Blues” (1964), which was his first recorded single. He then returned to Milton to complete his studies there, and began applying to colleges. But Taylor, who had always been a sensitive soul, began to experience severe bouts of depression, and committed himself to a nine-month stay at the McLean Hospital in Belmont, MA. Upon his release in 1966, Taylor moved to New York to join Kortchmar in a new band, The Flying Machine, which attracted a following in Greenwich Village on the strength of Taylor’s highly confessional songs, which often addressed his stint at McLean. But Taylor’s personal demons soon got the better of him, and he developed an addiction to heroin that cut deeply into their ability to perform and record songs. The Flying Machine disbanded in 1967, and Taylor slid into dissolution and despair until his father came to New York to bring him home for treatment.

After completing rehabilitation and throat surgery to repair his damaged vocal chords, Taylor moved to London, where he recorded several demos as a solo act. The tracks were brought to Peter Asher, formerly of the pop group Peter and Gordon, who in 1967 was working as the head of A&R for the Beatles’ label, Apple Records. The songs impressed Paul McCartney, who made Taylor the label’s first non-British act. Both McCartney and George Harrison played on “Carolina in My Mind,” one of several songs Taylor had written for his solo debut, along with “Something in the Way She Moves.” While completing the recording sessions in 1968, Taylor fell back into heroin use, and underwent methadone treatment before returning to Massachusetts for rehabilitation at the Austen Riggs Center. Apple released his eponymous debut album in early 1969 to critical acclaim, but Taylor’s hospitalization prevented him from promoting the record with live performances, and it soon disappeared from the charts.

That same year, Asher left Apple Records as it began to fall apart from disorganization and internal strife, and instead became Taylor’s manager. He arranged for a six-night stand at Los Angeles’ acclaimed Troubadour nightclub, which helped to develop interest in Taylor’s music. A closing night stint at the Newport Folk Festival was well received and seemed to indicate that Taylor was gaining some momentum, but the upward swing was halted when the singer broke both hands and feet in a motorcycle accident on Martha’s Vineyard. He wrote songs throughout his recuperation, and by October 1969, had a record deal with Warner Bros.

In 1969, Taylor recorded his second album, Sweet Baby James, which featured one of his most enduring tunes, “Fire and Rain.” A haunting remembrance of a childhood friend, Suzanne Schnerr, who committed suicide while he was recording his first album in London, as well as his battles with drug addiction, the song’s lyrical progression from darkness to redemption, as well as Taylor’s heartfelt vocals, sent it to No. 3 on the Billboard singles charts and helped make the album a million seller in its first year. More importantly, it minted Taylor as a leading voice in the singer-songwriter movement, which soon took note of his blend of folk, soul and intimate lyrics and adopted him as its standard bearer. A second single from Sweet Baby James, the gentle “Country Road,” broke the Top 40 in 1971, while interest in Taylor sparked a revival of his debut album and sent “Carolina in My Mind” up the charts as well.

While Sweet Baby James climbed the charts, Taylor made his acting debut in Monte Hellman’s cult favorite “Two-Lane Blacktop” (1971) as a sullen, car-obsessed driver locked in a seemingly pointless road race with Warren Oates’ loud-mouthed GTO owner. Though not a hit, the film, along with his music, helped to establish Taylor as a sort of thinking-man’s pop idol, especially among female listeners, who responded positively to a 1971 TIME magazine cover feature that compared him to Heathcliff of Wuthering Heights. Taylor shunned such coverage, preferring to focus on his music, and in 1972, released his third album, Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon, which featured his first No. 1 single, a Grammy-winning cover of Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend.” Taylor’s then-girlfriend, Joni Mitchell, provided backing vocals on the track, but the relationship soon ended due to his involvement with up-and-coming singer Carly Simon.

The couple were wed at a post-concert party following Taylor’s performance at Radio City Music Hall in November 1972, and for a while, the pair was the focus of considerable media attention. But as Simon’s stock rose on the strength of songs like “Anticipation” and “You’re So Vain,” Taylor’s career began an inexorable slide that would last for the better part of the decade. His fourth LP, a concept album called One Man Dog, failed to match the success of its previous releases, with its lead single, “Don’t Let Me Be Lonely Tonight,” barely breaking into the Top 20. He took off much of 1973 to prepare for the birth of his daughter, Sally, who was born in 1974. He began recording sessions for his fifth album, Walking Man, that same month, but despite contributions from Paul McCartney, it too failed to find an audience.

A brief reprieve came with 1975’s Gorilla, which featured a hit cover of Marvin Gaye’s “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You” and the sunny “Mexico,” which featured David Crosby and Graham Nash on backing vocals. But its follow-up,In The Pocket (1976) failed to reproduce its success, despite the presence of such all-star guests as Bonnie Raitt, Stevie Wonder and Art Garfunkel. The album also signaled the end of his contract with Warner Bros., which releasedJames Taylor’s Greatest Hits at the end of the year. The album, which featured re-recorded versions of “Something In the Way She Moves” and “Carolina in My Mind” due to difficulties in obtaining the original song masters from Apple, became his best-selling release over the course of the next three decades.

Taylor rebounded again with 1977’s JT, his first for Columbia Records. The album featured a remarkably relaxed, soulful take on the Jimmy Jones oldie “Handy Man,” which broke the Top Five on Billboard‘s Hot 100, and brought him a Grammy for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance. Another single, the sunny “Your Smiling Face” landed in the Top 20, which helped to make JT his second best-selling studio album. A Top 20 cover of Sam Cooke’s song “Wonderful World” with Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel preceded a year-long break, during which he worked on and appeared in a Broadway musical version of journalist Studs Terkel’s study of the middle class, Working. The production was short-lived, and Taylor folded his two contributions, “Millworker” and “Brother Trucker,” into his 1979 album Flag, which also featured his Top 30 cover of the Drifters’ “Up on the Roof.” He closed out the year with a memorable duet with Simon of Charlie and Inez Foxx’s “Mockingbird,” which they performed as part of the No Nukes concert at Madison Square Garden, which was captured in the documentary “No Nukes” (1980).

Taylor’s tireless work schedule provided a cover for the turmoil of his personal life. He had lapsed back into drug addiction, specifically heroin addiction, which caused considerable friction in his marriage to Simon. Allegations of physical abuse and lack of solid parenting for his children, which included a son, Benjamin, born in 1977, led to an ultimatum from Simon: either cut back on his touring and recording or face a divorce. Taylor’s response was summed up in the title of his 1981 album, Dad Loves His Work. Its melancholy tone was echoed in its hit single, a duet with J.D. Souther called “Her Town Too.” Though it reached No. 10 on the album charts, its success was entirely overshadowed by his separation from Simon that same year, with the divorce becoming final in 1983.

Inspired in part by the drug-related deaths of close friends John Belushi and Beach Boy Dennis Wilson, Taylor defeated his heroin addiction for good in 1983, and devoted more time to his children while weighing the option of retiring from the music business. But a performance at Brazil’s colossal Rock in Rio Festival in 1985 spurred his creative energies, and he responded with That’s Why I’m Here, a lovely, polished collection of original songs celebrating his mental and spiritual rebirth, as well as a spry cover of Buddy Holly’s “Every Day.” That same year, he married actress Kathryn Walker, and began a tradition of launching yearly summer tours that brought longtime fans and first-timers in a familial get-together bound by the warmth of Taylor’s presence and his established songs. He recorded sporadically during this period, scoring a minor hit with 1988’s Never Die Young before earning a platinum disc with 1991’s New Moon Shine. Critics noted that the “new” Taylor’s work had lost much of its youthful angst; instead focusing on nostalgic looks at times gone by or celebrating the innocent pop of his childhood. Listeners responded overwhelmingly to the soothing balm of his voice and words, and by the late ’90s, Taylor had come full circle again, returning back to the top of the charts while enjoying his newfound status as one of pop’s elder statesmen and best-loved father figures.

Taylor continued to focus much of his energies on his live performances, while carefully honing new material for his albums. In 1997, he scored his first Top 10 album in nearly two decades with Hourglass, a contemplative look back at his troubled past as seen from the perspective of a survivor who felt both amazed and rueful about his present. The alcohol-related death of his brother, Alex, in 1993, weighed heavily on the song “Enough to be on Your Way,” and “Jump Up Behind Me” reflected on the long drive from New York to North Carolina taken by Taylor and his father after his bottoming out in 1966. The failure of his marriage to Walker also lent a note of sadness and depth to the album, which won a Grammy for Best Pop Album in 1998.

The new millennium found Taylor more popular than ever as a live act and a recording artist, while his past achievements continued to reap considerable rewards. In 2000, his Greatest Hits collection attained Diamond status for selling over 10 million copies, and was soon followed by Greatest Hits, Volume 2, covering the late ’70s through the mid-’90s. He closed out the year with inductions into both the Rock and Roll and the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and launched 2001 by marrying Caroline Smedvig, the public relations director for the Boston Pops, with whom he would have twin sons, Rufus and Henry. This wave of joy seemed to inform his 2002 release, October Road, his last for Columbia, which earned two Grammy nominations and platinum sales status. In 2003, the Chapel Hill Museum in North Carolina opened a permanent exhibit about Taylor’s life, while a highway bridge over Morgan Creek near the site of his childhood home was named in his honor.

Taylor spent much of 2004 and beyond stumping for various liberal causes, including benefit concerts for John Kerry’s presidential campaign. He released James Taylor: A Christmas Album that year through Hallmark Cards, then re-released it in a slightly different form two years later as James Taylor at Christmas through Columbia/Sony; the album earned a Grammy nomination in 2007. His song “Our Town” for the Pixar animated film “Cars” (2006) received an Oscar nomination in 2007, the same year he released One Man Band through Hear Music, a new label owned by the Starbucks coffee company. The album presented some of his best-loved material in a stripped-down format with anecdotes about their creation. Taylor also reunited with Carole King and members of his original touring band, including Danny Kortchmar, for a six-night stint at the Troubadour to celebrate the beginning of their careers in the 1970s, with ticket sales benefiting an array of charitable organizations.

He returned to recording in 2008 with a collection of country and soul covers titled, appropriately enough, Covers, which netted two Grammy nominations and generated a mini-album follow-up, Other Covers, in 2009. That same year, he performed “Shower the People” with John Legend and Jennifer Nettles of Sugarland at Barack Obama’s presidential election, and contributed a humorous cameo as himself in Judd Apatow’s critically acclaimed feature “Funny People.” In 2010, he launched a wildly successful reunion tour with Carole King, which found the pair playing arenas in order to accommodate the extraordinary response from generations of fans who had grown up listening to their music. The following year found him firmly established as one of America’s cultural icons with a performance at the dedication of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial.

The above TCM overview can be accessed online here.

Lee Van Cleef was one of great Western actors. He also carved a niche in gangster movies ofthe 1950’s. He was born in 1925 in New Jersey to Dutch parents. He served in the U.S. Navy during World War Two. After demob, he had a brief career as an accountant. He made his mark on film as one of the evil gunslingers eager to mow down Gary Cooper in the classic 1952 Western, “High Noon”. He went on to feature in “Kansas City Confidential”, “The Beat From 20,000 Fathoms” and “Vice Squad”. He was a prolific actor in the 1950’s and then became a major Western star with his lead role in 1965 with Cliont Eastwood in Sergio Leone’s “For A Few Dollars More”. He went on to star with Eastwood again in “The Godd, the Bad and The Ugly”. His last film was “Thieves of Fortune” in 1989, the year he died at the age of 64. He is one of my favourite actors.

“New York Times” obituary:

Lee Van Cleef, the film actor whose steely eyes and rugged features led to a long career portraying Western arch-villains, died, apparently of a heart attack, early today at St. John’s Regional Medical Center. He was 64 years old and lived in Oxnard. Mr. Van Cleef, who had a history of heart disease, collapsed at his home, about 60 miles north of Los Angeles, late Friday night, said a deputy Ventura County coroner, Craig Stevens.

Mr. Van Cleef got his first film break as one of the desperadoes faced down by Gary Cooper in the 1952 movie ”High Noon.” He went on to play a series of gunmen and caught the eye of the Italian director Sergio Leone, famous for his ”spaghetti Westerns.” ‘Real Violence Turns You Off’ Their association led to Mr. Van Cleef’s starring in ”The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” portraying ”the bad.”

Among Mr. Van Cleef’s other film credits were the Westerns ”A Fistful of Dollars” ”For a Few Dollars More,” ”Take a Hard Ride,” ”Sabata,” ”El Condor,” and ”The Magnificent Seven Ride!” He also acted in the science-fiction thriller ”Escape From New York.” ”I believe in showing real violence, not toy violence,” Mr. Van Cleef said in a 1970 interview. ”Real violence turns you off because you know it’s not the thing to do. If you show violence realistic enough people don’t want to do it.” Lee Van Cleef was born in Somerville, N.J., on Jan. 9, 1925. His first job was as a farm worker in his home state. He then worked as an accountant in Somerville before beginning in his movie career in 1950.

He is survived by his wife, the former Barbara Havelone, and three children from a previous marriage, Alan, Deborah and David.

IMDB entry:

One of the great movie villains, Lee Van Cleef started out as an accountant. He served in the U.S. Navy aboard minesweepers and subchasers during World War II. After the war he worked as an office administrator, becoming involved in amateur theatrics in his spare time. An audition for a professional role led to a touring company job in “Mr. Roberts”. His performance was seen by Stanley Kramer, who cast him as henchman Jack Colby in High Noon (1952), a role that brought him great recognition despite the fact that he had no dialogue. For the next decade he played a string of memorably villainous characters, primarily in westerns but also in crime dramas such as The Big Combo (1955). His hawk nose and steely, slit eyes seemed destined to keep him always in the realm of heavies, but in the mid-’60s Sergio Leone cast him as the tough but decent Col. Mortimer oppositeClint Eastwood in For a Few Dollars More (1965). A new career as a western hero (or at least anti-hero) opened up, and Van Cleef became an international star, though in films of decreasing quality. In the 1980s he moved easily into action and martial-arts movies, and starred in The Master (1984), a TV series featuring almost non-stop martial arts action. He died of a heart attack in December 1989, and was buried at Forest Lawn in the Hollywood Hills.

– IMDb Mini Biography By: Jim Beaver <jumblejim@prodigy.net>

The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.

Angel, poster, US poster art, from left: Marlene Dietrich, Herbert Marshall, 1937. (Photo by LMPC via Getty Images)

Herbert Marshall was a British actor who had an amazingly long career in Hollywood movies from the late 1920’s until the late 1960’s. He was born in London in 1890. He was a soldier in World War One and lost a leg in combat. He was leading man to some of the major actresses of their time, including Great Garbo, Bette Davis, Miriam Hopkins and Joan Crawford. He was especially terrific in “The Little Foxes” in 1941. His last movie was “The Third Day” in 1965 with George Peppard and Elizabeth Ashley.

TCM overview:Urbane mature, British leading man whose good looks and finely modulated voice made him an ideal romantic lead. Marshall starred opposite such stars as Marlene Dietrich, in “Blonde Venus” (1932), and Greta Garbo, in “The Painted Veil” (1934), as well as in two Hitchcock films, “Murder” (1930) and “Foreign Correspondent” (1940). He proved an able opponent-husband to Bette Davis in “The Letter” (1940) and “The Little Foxes” (1941), both directed by William Wyler, and displayed a delightful flair for comedy in Ernst Lubitsch’s brilliant “Trouble in Paradise” (1932). The son of actors Percy F. Marshall and Ethel May Turner, he was married to actresses Edna Best (1928-1940) and Boots Mallory. Marshall lost a leg during WWI and his wooden replacement limb was known to trouble him considerably through the years.

Virginia Grey was a major character actress in Hollywood films especially in the 1940’s, 50’s and 60’s. She is especially associated with the film s produced by Ross Hunter. She was born in 1917 in Los Angeles. Her major movies include “All That Heaven Allows” in 1955, “Back Street” in 1961, “Madame X” in 1965 and “Airport” in 1970. She died in 2004 aged 87.

“Telegraph” obituary:

Virginia Grey, who has died aged 87, spent a career before the cameras hoping for a role that would catapult her to international stardom; but she never showed the spark which launched her contemporaries Ruth Hussey and Laraine Day, and had to content herself with second lead ingenues.

In more than 100 films she had supporting roles to such stars as Joan Crawford, Betty Grable, Susan Hayward, and even the Marx Brothers (in The Big Store, 1941). Off screen she attracted publicity by dating Clark Gable; she gave him a dachshund. But although she waited patiently for his divorce from Rhea Langham to come through, Gable married Carole Lombard instead. Heartbroken, Virginia Grey vowed never to let herself become too close to a man again and, although George Raft became a figure in her life, she never married. Pressed to talk about her affair with Gable in 2003, she replied simply: “I adored him, I always will.”

Virginia Grey was born in Hollywood on March 22 1917, the daughter of Ray Grey, an original Keystone Cop who became Universal Studio’s comedy films director; among her babysitters was the actress Gloria Swanson. After Ray’s death in 1925, Virginia’s mother became a film cutter at the studio.

When Mrs Grey heard that the studio was planning to remake Uncle Tom’s Cabin in 1927, she encouraged young Virginia to do a screen test, which won her the role of Little Eva. Parts followed in Heart to Heart, with Mary Astor (1927); Jazz Mad, with Marian Nixon and George Lewis (1928); and the western The Michigan Kid, about two boys who become rivals for the same girl (1928).

Virginia Grey then retired for three years to go to school, but – after starting to train as a nurse – she returned to the screen in the indifferent comedy Misbehaving Ladies.

Tall and elegant with shoulder-length hair, Virginia Grey embarked on a tireless journey through pictures, playing small parts in Mary Pickford’s Secrets (1933) and in the musicals Dames (1934), Gold Diggers of 1935 (1934), and in The Great Ziegfeld (1936), which won Luise Rainer an Oscar for Best Actress. At the same time, Virginia Grey modelled for Vanity Fair.

Her fortunes rose in 1937 when she was given the lead in the MGM “B” movie Bad Guy, opposite Bruce Cabot. She was then loaned to Republic Pictures for Ladies in Distress (1938), only to become one of “Les Blondes” chorus line in Idiot’s Delight (1939), in which Clark Gable was a dancer. Her next big chance came when MGM gave her a sizeable build-up in Thunder Afloat (1939), in which she played Wallace Beery’s daughter. The veteran actor thought that she had an understated talent, and told the studio head Louis B Mayer: “Let her free. You might learn something.”

Her next film was The Women (1939), in which she had a small part as a perfume-counter assistant; one critic singled her out as “particularly catty” and “a delight”. Virginia Grey recalled that while Joan Crawford was sweet to her, the star bickered with Norma Shearer over billing. Virginia Grey’s other films of that period included Sweet Rosie O’Grady (1943), Wyoming (1947) and Cecil B De Mille’s Unconquered (1947).

With the advent of television, she rode the range in such westerns as The Fighting Lawman (1952), Desert Pursuit (1952) and The Last Command (1955). Some regarded her finest role on the small screen as that of the ailing former sweetheart of Ward Bond in Wagon Train; but she also made a mark as a fading star who sees Kim Novak winning “her” part in the stage production of Rain.

Most important for Virginia Grey’s film career during the 1960s was her close friendship with the producer Ross Hunter. He first used her in his plush All That Heaven Allows, then cast her as a succession of well-dressed spinsters, secretaries and as a headmistress in Tammy, Tell Me True (1961). In Airport (1970), she had a tiny part as a passenger with a precocious brat of a child.

Perhaps her most interesting role during the twilight of her career was that of Irene Talbot, a bored, rich housewife living in Mexico who seeks the pleasures of a gigolo in Love Has Many Faces (1965). Bejewelled, and sporting Edith Head creations and an unconvincing blonde wig to make her look as youthful as possible, Virginia Grey had a somewhat desperate, eager-to-please look which was perhaps a telling commentary on her own life.

In 1980, after a short run in the play Sugar and Spice, which fizzled in Toronto, she found herself a new agent and appeared in the soap operas General Hospital, Moneychangers and Love, American Style.

Virginia Grey, who died on July 31, took a pragmatic view of her career: “I consider myself a professional who acts, not to express my soul or elevate the cinema, but to entertain and get paid for it.”

The above “Telegraph” can also be accessed online here.

John McCormack was a world famous tenor from the 1910s until the 1940’s. He was born in Athlone, Ireland in 1884. In 1905 he went to Italy to train for a singing career. In 1911 he sang with Dame Nellie Melba in Australia. He sang in all the major concert hall throughout the world. In 1929 he had the lead role in the Hollywood movie “Song O mY Heart” with Maureen O’Sullivan. In 1932 he sang before thousands of people in the Phoenix Park in Dublin at the Eucharistic Congress. He was subsequently made a Papal Count. In 1937 he was featured in the glorious British made “Wings of the Morning” with Annabella and Henry Fonda. He died in 1945.

“Irish America” article:

By Tom Deignan, Contributor
December / January 2009

The year was 1906. The setting was a stage in Savona, Italy, a northwestern port town south of Milan. The opera to be performed that particular evening was L’Amico Fritz by Pietro Mascagni, with a fresh-faced 21-year-old named Giovanni Foli included among the cast members. Though he had only a supporting role, Foli earned quite a bit of attention for his performance. This should not be surprising. After all, this performer would go on to conquer the world, becoming one of the most popular singers of the first half of the 20th century. He shattered box office records during his many trips to the U.S., where he became one of radio’s first mega-stars, and was, according to one account, “the best-paid concert singer in history.”

If you can’t recall any popular singers named Giovanni Foli, that’s because it was a decidedly operatic stage name for the acclaimed Irish tenor John McCormack (1884 – 1945).

“Almost everybody who owned a talking machine in the days of World War I was sure to have, along with Caruso’s Pagliacci, John McCormack’s ‘Mother Machree,’” Time noted, after McCormack died at the age of 61. “He sang up & down the land, and was always good for a benefit — for the Irish, the Red Cross, the Catholics, the U.S. (he sold a half-million dollars’ worth of Liberty Bonds).”

A Gala Concert
To some, McCormack is simply Ireland’s greatest musical artist. Others have compared his massive U.S. popularity in the 1920s to that of Elvis Presley in the 1950s. McCormack also paved the way for later crooning stars such as Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra.

But while audiences and critics remain fascinated with Elvis, Sinatra and Crosby, McCormack’s light has dimmed somewhat. In terms of sheer talent and popularity, however, McCormack should always be remembered — especially by the Irish in America.

Towards that end, a very special concert will be held at Carnegie Hall’s Stern Auditorium in Manhattan on December 17, 2009. “Icon of an Age: A John McCormack Gala Tribute Concert” will feature songs made popular by McCormack.

Next year also marks the 80th anniversary of another important McCormack concert, this one in Dublin. The year was 1929, and the Irish were celebrating the 100th anniversary of Catholic emancipation. The world, of course, would soon be sinking into a Great Depression. Ireland itself was only a few years removed from a grueling Civil War. But McCormack was able to transcend these divisions, blending art, faith and history through his powerful music, which one critic has said “speaks from the heart, to the heart.”

So who, exactly, was John McCormack? How did a fellow dubbed Giovanni Foli become the first in a long line of popular Irish tenors? And what role did he play in cultivating Irish-American pride?

McCormack was born on June 14, 1884, the fourth of 11 children, and baptized at St. Mary’s Church in Athlone, County Westmeath. McCormack’s parents worked in nearby mills, but despite this working-class upbringing, young John was able to cultivate his impressive singing talents. Though countries such as Italy are better known for producing opera singers, Ireland’s musical tradition served McCormack well. John sang in the church choir as did his father Andrew. He went to the 1903 Feis Ceoil (the Irish National Music Festival) in Dublin and emerged as a gold medal winner.

McCormack first gained U.S. attention while performing at the Irish Village section of the 1904 World Exposition in St. Louis. His engagement was short-lived as he objected to the “stage-Irish” aspect of the show. He quit, but not before he met the love of his life, Lily Foley, also a member of the troupe, whom he would marry two years later.

It was a performance by another towering artist the following year that left a lasting impression upon McCormack. At London’s Covent Garden, McCormack watched Enrico Caruso in La Boheme. “The best lesson I ever received,” McCormack later said.

McCormack now knew what he wanted to do, and also knew he had the raw talent. So, he traveled to Italy, where the acclaimed Vincenzo Sabatini was charged with honing the Irishman’s technical singing skills.

McCormack then made his famous debut in Savano, before, in the fall of 1907, he made his London debut. McCormack was just 23 years old, making him the youngest principal tenor ever to sing at Covent Garden, according to the John McCormack Society, founded in 1960 to preserve the Irish tenor’s great achievements.

McCormack quickly showed he had the stuff to be an international star, selling out shows in Ireland, England, the U.S. and Australia. This wide appeal can be explained, in part, by the fact that McCormack blended high artistic music and more popular, accessible singing. In fact, McCormack biographer Gordon Ledbetter believes the tenor was the last singer to successfully bring together such divergent styles. Attempting to convey McCormack’s widespread fan base to contemporary audiences, another biographer said John McCormack was Pavarotti, Madonna and Johnny Carson all rolled up into one.

Though he was a hit around the world, Irish songs were always a favorite of McCormack’s. Given the events of the day as well as his Irish background, it makes sense that McCormack’s was the first well-received version of “It’s a Long Way to Tipperary,” recorded after World War I broke out in 1914.

McCormack also recorded nationalist songs, such as “The Wearing of the Green,” which did cost him some British fans. But the singer’s devotion to his adopted country (he became a U.S. citizen) could never be questioned. McCormack donated thousands of dollars to the U.S. effort during World War I, after America entered the war in 1917.

This begins to illustrate why McCormack may have been so popular among Irish-Americans. “Growing up, almost every Irish household in New York would have a John McCormack record,” a distant McCormack relative (found driving a taxi cab in New York City) told one documentary filmmaker. But McCormack was not merely a great singer who happened to have been born in Ireland. The era in which McCormack performed was also important for the Irish. After all, many Irish nationalists on both sides of the Atlantic were skeptical about or openly opposed to U.S. involvement in World War I. This rekindled the old charge that Irish Catholics could never become truly American. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson was among those who suggested “hyphenated Americans” were inherently disloyal to the U.S. – especially the Irish, given their anger towards the British, who were America’s ally in World War I.

Enjoying McCormack’s music was one way Irish-Americans could prove they were patriotic, while also displaying pride in their native land.

Of course, it was not the just the Irish who embraced McCormack. He sold out venues all over the country, and when he came to any large city, he was greeted by their most famous residents, such as Detroit’s Henry Ford. By the time Caruso died in 1921, it was widely believed McCormack was not just the most popular, but also the most talented, singer alive.

As sales of recorded music increased, and the reach of radio widened, McCormack was there to ride the new technological wave. He also crossed over into the movies. In 1929, he was paid $500,000 to appear in a stage-Irish film entitled Song O’ My Heart.

At various times McCormack had an apartment on Park Avenue, a farm in Connecticut and a home in the Hollywood Hills. But despite his nearly global reach – he also toured Asia to great acclaim – McCormack never forgot where he came from.

In 1925, the McCormacks spent their summers on a large estate in Kildare. That same year he honored his parents at a Dublin concert, singing “When You Are Old and Grey” to his father, while seranading his mother with his show-stopper “Mother Machree.”

Understanding how blessed he was, McCormack also dedicated his life to helping others. The Red Cross and various Catholic charities were among the many causes to which he donated vast sums of money.

Following his performance at the 100th centennial of Catholic Emancipation in Dublin, McCormack was named a Count of the Holy Roman Empire, an honor he cherished. So dedicated to these causes was McCormack that at times he failed to take his own health into account, touring until he was exhausted. By 1938, McCormack had more or less retired, performing only at his son’s wedding in 1941.

McCormack died a few years later but his legacy clearly lives on. “The Irish tenor” is now a beloved brand on the international music scene, thanks to the trail first blazed by John McCormack. Meanwhile, every time the latest pop singer or rap star crosses over into movies or television, they should be reminded that McCormack did it almost a century earlier. Not only that, he worked tirelessly to return the many blessings he’d received. Not bad for a young kid from Athlone named Giovanni . . . uh, John, that is.

The above “Irish America” article can also be accessed online here.

Sheet music cover image of ‘It’s a Long, Long Way to Tipperary The Song They Sing as They March Along’ by Jack Judge and Harry Williams, with lithographic or engraving notes reading ‘Lithographograph courtesy of Leslie’s Weekly (copyrighted) of Tommy Atkins,’ New York, New York, 1912. (Photo by Sheridan Libraries/Levy/Gado/Getty Images)

Veronica Lake was one of the major Hollywood stars of the 1940’s. She was know for her glorious long blonde hair which fell over one eye. Born in 1922 in Brooklyn, New York. She came to fame in 1941 in “I Wanted Wings”. She starred in several films with Alan Ladd including “This Gun For Hire”, “”The Glass Key” and “The Blue Dahlia”. Her other films include “So Proudly We Hail” and “Sullivan’s Travel’s”. Her film career had waned significantly by the end of the 1940’s. She died in 1973 aged only 50 in Vermont.

TCM overview:

An icy blonde whose trademark hairstyle – a cascade of golden tresses that obscured one heavy-lidded eye – remained among the enduring images of Hollywood glamour, Veronica Lake was for a time, one of the most popular and sought-after actresses in motion pictures. She starred in a handful of features that, though the years, earned legendary status, including the film noirs, “This Gun for Hire” (1942) and “The Blue Dahlia” (1946), as well as the smart comedies, “Sullivan’s Travels” (1941) and “I Married a Witch” (1942). She also motivated a generation of women to imitate her cool sexuality and chic style, at the same time, causing an equal number of men – particularly fighting WWII G.I.s – to fall for her. Unfortunately, her success was short-lived, her star fizzling under the weight of personal tragedies, gossip and metal illness. Despite her fall from grace, Lake stood the test of time as a Tinseltown icon, inspiring tribute in songs, literature, and movies – most notably Kim Basinger’s Academy Award-winning turn in “L.A. Confidential” (1997), as a prostitute whose glacial beauty is modeled after Lake.

Born Constance Ockelman in Brooklyn, NY, on Nov. 14, 1919, Lake lost her father, oil company employee Harry Ockelman, when she was 12. Her mother, also named Constance, married Anthony Keane a year later, causing the family to move several times over the next few years. The diminutive teenager – legendarily standing only 4’11” – blossomed into a beauty in her teenage years. After gaining some fame in beauty pageants in Florida, she and her parents relocated to Beverly Hills, CA, enrolling Lake in the Bliss Hayden School of Acting in Hollywood. Her big break happened almost immediately. After signing with RKO, she made her film debut in John Farrow’s romantic drama, “Sorority House” (1939), in which she was initially billed as Constance Keane. Bit roles in other features followed – Lake’s parts were so small that her characters rarely had a name – but she persevered; even gaining a bit of attention for her unique, smoky look.

In 1940, she took time out from trying to become a star to marry art director John Detlie, giving birth to a daughter Elaine the following year. Ironically, the arrival of Elaine also heralded an upswing in her career; she was signed to a contract at Paramount in 1941, and while there, famed producer Arthur Hornblow redubbed her Veronica Lake – “Lake” being inspired by the blueness of her eyes, and according to Hornblow, the name Veronica suggesting a classic beauty.

Lake’s ascendancy to star status occurred almost immediately after signing with Paramount. She made a major impact as William Holden’s smoldering love interest in the military drama “I Wanted Wings” (1941), leaving producers wondering just who that girl w/ the hair was and lining up to offer her lead roles in their films. For the next two years, Lake appeared in a string of box-office hits, showing considerable comic talent as a struggling actress who accompanies Joel McCrea on his cross-country trip in Preston Sturges’ cutting social commentary, “Sullivan’s Travels” (1941) and as a 17th-century sorceress who falls for the ancestor of the man who condemned her to death in Rene Clair’s “I Married A Witch” (1941).

But it was her pairing with an equally diminutive co-star that, along with the cascading hair, created and solidified the Lake legend. Cast opposite screen newcomer Alan Ladd in the brutish noir thriller, “This Gun for Hire” (1942), the couple’s unexpected partnership proved very popular with film audiences – so popular, that they would appear together in seven films, including such moneymakers as “The Glass Key” (1942) and “The Blue Dahlia” (1946). Paramount liked them together too – especially because Lake was the only actress on the lot who was shorter than the 5’5″ Ladd – invariably removing the bothersome, embarrassing box Ladd was forced to stand on when filmed next to other leading ladies.

By the onset of WWII, Lake’s appeal with audiences transcended the box office. Women adored her signature hairstyle – dubbed “the peek-a-boo;” making Lake “the Peek-a-boo blonde” for all eternity – and tortured their hair in an attempt to match her color and wavy locks. Composers feted her in song, with famed composers Rogers and Hart citing her look in 1943’s “The Girl I Love to Leave Behind” and Lake even singing a tune about herself in the 1942 wartime morale booster film “Star-Spangled Rhythm.” Most importantly, G.I.’s placed her glamorous pin-up next to their Betty Grable and Rita Hayworth pics in almost equal frequency. Her impact on society was so dramatic, that during the war, she was forced by the government to temporarily change her peek-a-boo hair-do after women in factories were becoming injured when their long locks were catching in assembly-line machinery.

Some would later suggest that this dramatic change in appearance had a negative effect on Lake’s career, but in reality, there were a number of factors that contributed to the decline of her star status. Lake had a reputation for being difficult on the set, and many of her co-stars were open in their dislike of her; Fredric March refused to speak about her in interviews, and even the genial Eddie Bracken (her co-star in “Star-Spangled Rhythm”) had nothing but caustic words about her. In 1942, she divorced John Detlie, and the following year she stumbled over a cable during the making of “The Hour Before Dawn” (1944), which led to the premature birth of her son, William. To make matters worse, critics savaged her performance as a Nazi sympathizer in “Dawn.” Lake also reportedly began drinking during this period, with rumors of mental instability – which had plagued her since childhood – beginning to run through the industry.

Unfortunately for her, her next choice in companions was the least suited to her particular mental state. Lake married the reportedly violent director Andre De Toth in 1944, bearing a son, Andre, the following year. Around this time, her drinking apparently worsened and De Toth did little to encourage her to seek help. Paramount pushed her through a string of forgettable features – save for 1946’s “The Blue Dahlia,” which received an Academy Award nomination for its script by Raymond Chandler. Unfortunately, Lake’s reputation continued to dog her – both Chandler and Ladd were none too charitable in their comments about her – and by 1948, she was done at Paramount. The one positive note about this period: Lake took advantage of her down time and earned her pilot’s license; in 1946, eventually flying solo from Los Angeles to New York.

20th Century Fox picked up her contract in 1948 – the same year she gave birth to her fourth child, Diana. But like all wartime glamour girls, Lake’s career continued its inevitable downward spiral; her Fox films were even more disposable than her later Paramount films. By 1952, she was up to her neck in trouble. Her film “Stronghold” (1952) was a flop and would be her last for decades; the IRS was pursuing her for unpaid taxes; and her tumultuous marriage to de Toth finally came to a bitter end. Lake managed to find sporadic work on television and in touring stage productions. She even married again in 1955; this time to songwriter Joseph A. McCarthy. But the end was nearing.

The final turn of bad luck came in 1959, when she broke her ankle and found herself unable to show up for the pitiable second-string work she had managed to scrounge up. Alcoholism set in with a vengeance, and Lake disappeared from the public eye. She divorced McCarthy and made the news only when she was picked up by the police for disorderly conduct. A sad slide indeed, for a woman who had at one time inspired songs, literature and an army fighting for peace overseas.

In the early 1960s, a reporter discovered her working as a waitress at a hotel bar in Manhattan, and leaped on the obvious angle of “oh how the mighty have tumbled.” The publicity generated by the story – to say nothing of the sympathy factor it produced – gave her acting career a jolt. She served as the hostess of a weekly movie showcase in Baltimore and appeared in several small theater productions. In 1966, she made a return to feature films in the obscure Canadian production, “Footsteps in the Snow,” but the movie was largely unseen. Lake consequently went into semi-retirement in Hollywood, FL, where she penned a well-received autobiography, Veronica, which detailed her many struggles with temperament, mental illness and alcoholism. With one last ditch effort for her long-past-its-prime career, Lake managed to co-finance her final film, a dreary, Florida-lensed horror movie called “Flesh Feast” (1970), in which she played a doctor experimenting with a youth formula involving maggots. The film was not a box office success.

Lake relocated to England in the early ’70s, where she married again, this time to a commercial fisherman; the union was short-lived, and by 1973, she was back in the United States, hospitalized with declining health brought on by hepatitis and renal failure – both complications of her alcohol addiction. Her mental facilities were also in sharp decline. Lake had suffered from steadily increasing paranoia since the mid-’60s. Estranged from her children, Lake died alone on July 7, 1973. Rumor had it that it took days for someone to identify her body. Some of her ashes were scattered in the Virgin Islands three years later, but in 2004, it was discovered that another portion had reportedly remained in possession of a friend and that it had made its way to an antique store in the Catskills.

Despite – or maybe because of – her sad slide to the bottom, Lake remained a favorite of “old” Hollywood movie buffs. And if her life and career has faded in the minds of modern audiences, her ethereal glamour stayed as iconic as ever. References to Lake’s peek-a-boo style and ice queen demeanor were seen in everything from the neo-noir flick, “L.A. Confidential” to the animated femme fatale, Jessica Rabbit, who sports a scarlet version of Lake’s peek-a-boo in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” (1988). Pop singers Britney Spears and the late singer-actress, Aaliyah, both assumed the peek-a-boo in music videos in an attempt to summon Lake’s timeless appeal. Even the comics’ Archie Andrews’ longtime love, brunette vixen Veronica Rogers, got both her name and some of her feminine wiles from Lake. Decades after her death, Veronica Lake’s particular smoky appeal lingered as one of Hollywood’s most enduring and recognizable symbols of sexiness and class.

The above TCM overview can be also accessed online here.

Collection of Classic Hollywood Actors

Shirley Booth

Billy Bob Thornton

Jack Kelly

James Taylor

Lee Van Cleef

Herbert Marshall

Virginia Gray

Count John McCormack

Veronica Lake

ABOUT ME

CATEGORIES

RECENT POSTS