Yul Brynner

Kicking off the New Year our Star of the Month for January is very versatile actor Yul Brynner.  Born July 11, 1920 in Vladivostok Russia to a Swiss-Mongolian engineer (later refuted by his son) Boris Brynner and mother Marousia. His father abandoned the family and his mother took he and his sister to China and thence to Paris where he became a musician learning the guitar and began singing gypsy songs in Parisian nightclubs. Whilst in Paris he befriended a man named Jean Cocteau sparking rumors of his bisexuality he joined a repertory company.  Little known thereafter he became a trapeze artist but by age 21 he moved to the States joined a theater company and supplemented his income as a nude model and his acting career began when he enrolled with Russian teacher Michael Chekhov. He hit the Broadway stage in 1946 as a Chinese student named Tsai-Yong in a play called Lute Sang. 

The first film followed in 1949 Port of New York where he co-starred with Richard Rober and Scott Brady. Brynner plays a vicious but debonair drug dealer who will murder anyone who stands in his way. Next came what would be his most famous role in Oscar and Hammerstein’s The King and I in 1951 starring opposite Gertrude Lawrence. By the way Mary Martin as some may know was Larry Hagman’s mother of, I Dream of Jeannie and Dallas fame recommended Brynner for the role. Rex Harrison was first considered but he was unavailable but in hindsight the right actor got the role. Yul received wide acclaim both critical and commercial for his performance in this most remembered musical that is often covered again and again. 

The play ran for more than 3 years an unprecedented number of 1,246 performances for the time and it followed suit that he would reprise the role in film in 1956 and win the Oscar for best actor. It was Deborah Kerr who played the role of Anna. Kerr a huge star on her own did need dubbing of her singing however sang adroitly by Marni Nixon. The film won 5 Oscars and Kerr was also nominated for Best Actress. The role of the Siamese Monarch was his signature role but Brynner would leave his mark in many roles, as we will see. 

Brynner helped create the mystery about his persona by exaggeration and claiming that he was born on the Island of Sakhalin Island in Russia claimed his name was Taidje Khan his father a Mongol and his mother a gypsy and even fellow Hollywood actors were confused as to his true ethnicity, which helped foster the romanticizing   of him throughout his career especially among his women devotees.  

Yul and Hollywood took advantage of his all world look every chance he could. He starred in The Ten Commandments in 1956 as an Egyptian Pharaoh, a Russian general in Anastasia then a of all things a mercenary cowboy in The Magnificent Seven alongside Steve McQueen in 1960.  

In addition to his acting prowess Brynner was a noted photographer, wrote several books including a cookbook. Even after his death from lung cancer he appeared posthumously in a public service announcement wherein he linked his fatal lung cancer to cigarette smoking.  

Yul Brynner sired 5 children including 4 daughters and 1 son was married 4 times and had two significant others of notoriety in Claire Bloom and Marlene Dietrich.  Was one of the very few actors to garner both a Tony and Oscar for the same role. 

Yul Brynner was an arrogant SOB said some of those behind and in front of him in fact when confronted about all his conflicted biographical information he’d given he retorted: “Ordinary mortals need but one birthday” Later in life Frank Langella a costar stated Brynner was never far from a full length mirror. On the set of the Magnificent Seven he would feud openly and behind the scenes with the equally arrogant Steve McQueen as each looked to one up the other during the filming. Brynner did everything he could to avoid adoring fans every chance he could get. Yul worked assiduously at engraving his legend. Whether he was adorned in pleated skirts as pharoh or black denim as an outlaw he wore both costumes well especially with a clean-shaven head, arched eyebrows and penetrating stare. 

By the 70’s the gritty character he often portrayed with brooding expressions was becoming passé and last hurrah came in 1973’s West World wherein he played a murderous robot that malfunctioned. Now considered a cult classic. In the last decade of his life Yul spent much of his time reprising Mongkut in endless tours of The King and I and maximizing his merchandising including ones for his cookbook. He married for the 4th time at age 62 to a young ingénue of 24 a Malaysian ballerina but in that same year he found a lump in his vocal cords his throat was fine but he has inoperable lung cancer even though he has quit smoking a decade before. As mentioned before his posthumous ad said quote: Now that I’m gone, I tell you don’t smoke. Whatever you do, just don’t smoke. He died October 10, 1985. Yul Brynner loaded with egocentricities but nonetheless an icon.  

Natalie Wood

There are not many stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame that can lay claim to the icon of child star to teen starlet to adult movie star. Robert Osborne put her alongside legends Lauren Bacall, John Wayne, Lana Turner, Greta Garbo and Bette Davis. Anyone in the public might have turned away from Natalie in her 40-year career, but the fascination never faded and, in her death, and the ensuing mystery her legend continues to this day.

Born Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko in San Francisco on July 20, 1938 to Russian emigres who barely spoke English changed the family name to Gurdin when they became U.S. citizens. Her mother Maria was determined to make a star of her daughter and enrolled her at age 4 in ballet school and by age 5 this domineering parent had secured her young daughter a movie role an albeit small one of just 15 seconds in a movie called Happy Land in ’43. It was apparently enough to grab the attention of director Irving Pichel and he cast her opposite Orson Welles and Claudette Colbert playing a WWII orphan in Tomorrow is Forever just 2 years later. Welles was later to comment that Natalie was so good she was “terrifying”. Her next film made her a star and is today still a Christmas classic in the enduring Miracle on 34^th Street starring opposite Maureen O’Hara. So popular was the film that Macy’s invited her to their annual Thanksgiving Day Parade. 

California law at the time dictated that child actors had to spend at least 3 hours in the classroom and Natalie was a straight A student excelling in mathematics and Joseph L. Mankiewicz who directed her in the 1947 hit The Ghost and Mrs. Muir starring Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison said he never encountered a “smarter moppet”. Natalie was so conscientious though she felt that all the actors were waiting for her on the set to finish her schooling and would run like the dickens get back to filming because she felt so guilty. It might have been here that Natalie’s mental disturbances began coupled with her mother’s imperious persona driving her for perfection. 

Her next splash would come opposite the iconic James Dean in Nicholas Ray’s Rebel Without a Cause in 1955. Here as the love interest for Dean she was nominated for the first of her 3 Academy Award’s this one in a supporting role. Natalie followed with her least favorite film in which she had little screen time with John Wayne in what might be called the best Western of all time The Searchers in 1956. She felt she was miscast as a white woman abducted by Indians.

A number of minor roles followed until ’61 where she starred opposite on and off-screen lover Warren Beatty as a troubled young girl driven to near madness in Splendor in the Grass. That role earned her the second nomination this time for actor in a leading role. That year was only eclipsed though in her role as Maria in the 10-time Oscar Winning movie West Side Story. Natalie danced all her scenes, but her singing was dubbed by Marni Nixon. West Side Story a modern-day adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet remains in the annals of landmark films. Only Ben Hur, Titanic and The Lord of the Rings have won more awards at 11.

Mirroring her own life, she took on Gypsy in 1962 based on the true story of stripper Gypsy Rose Lee who was aggressively managed by her stage mother Mama Rose played by Rosalind Russell. The film a success garnered 3 nominations. The following year partnered with upcoming megastar Steve McQueen Natalie garnered her 3^rd nomination and plays an innocent Catholic girl discovering she’s pregnant during a one-night stand with McQueen playing a musician. The Catholic censors had a field day with this one as the Hays Code was just losing its grip.

A couple of nonsensical roles followed in Sex and the Single Girl in ’64 and The Great Race in ’65 and then Inside Daisy Clover opposite Robert Redford, which took a serious look at Hollywood’s treatment of stars as a commodity, but script and disjointed scenes kept the movie dark as it was from being a true hit. Natalie followed with Robert Redford with a much-improved script in This Property is Condemned set during the Great Depression.  It was in Daisy Clover that Redford discovered Wood’s extreme fear of the water when fooling around he picked up Natalie in his arms and jumped in the pool while on set with her. When he found out how petrified she was of the water he was crestfallen.

In 1969 Wood teaming with Robert Culp, Elliot Gould and Dyan Cannon in the Avant Garde classic and here the film explored the subject of group sex. Nominated for 4 Oscars it delved into a taboo for the first time that would catapult Hollywood into sex openly for the next decade and beyond. Tame by today’s standards but after that movie cinema was never the same. 

Natalie married actor Robert Wagner twice and she would appear in two of her husband’s TV shows Switch and Hart to Hart. Her last film before her death she costarred with Christopher Walken who some speculated she had an affair with in Brainstorm in ’81. This movie explored the world of artificial intelligence and was quite thought provoking for the time.

Natalie’s death is one that continues to remain open and suspicious in the minds of fans and authorities as some still suspect that her twice married husband Robert Wagner was somehow involved in bringing about her death. The idea that Natalie would end up drowning is so incongruous as stated earlier she was deathly afraid of the water. Natalie died November 29, 1981 at age 43.   

I've avoided many rumors about Natalie's drinking problems, suicide attempts and alleged affairs even two with Frank Sinatra 38 while she was 15 and with Nicholas Ray while filming Rebel Without a Cause. All these tales were laid at the doorstep of her Mother in her quest to make her a star. Natalie was indeed troubled and how many of these stories are true I will leave you to speculate about.  

 

Danny Kaye

Our November star Danny Kaye was an “acquired taste” so said Robert Osborne. David Daniel Kaminsky born January 18, 1911 in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn New York first listed his birth year as 1913 later corrected by his daughter Dena Kaye in an interview with Ben Mankewicz Osborne’s successor. 

A third son of an Ukrainian immigrant tailor Danny dropped out of High School at age 13 and ran away to Florida where he began singing in the streets as a “busker” and earned enough money to travel to the Catskills and the Borscht Belt performing comedy working for a radio station for camps and hotels. 

 Dena Kaye in describing her father said try to imagine Tommy Tune, Robin Williams and Tony Bennett on stage all at the same time and you might get an idea of the embodiment of the talent of her Dad Danny Kaye. She said her father could do anything dance, sing in a lilting voice and do it wittily and combine it with tongue twister lyrics. Kaye enunciated a complex dialogue written by his wife Sylvia Fine and invented his own gibberish of onomatopoeia interspersed with an odd spoken real word. Somehow he would make it all sound coherent and the meaning was crystal clear. His dance steps even when they seemed erratic were elegant. In White Christmas that adroitness was on display when he performed the Fred Astaire role. 

 What Danny didn’t know he learned like flying jet planes (he obtained a commercial 747 license) conducted more than 50 orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, owned part of a professional baseball team (The Seattle Mariners) and cooked Chinese meals for 3 French chefs, he took fencing lessons and became so skilled for his scene in The Court Jester that he held his own with the very talented Basil Rathbone. Watch it on You Tube it’s a classic. All these accomplishments coming from a man who dropped out of High School.  

Outside of his professional life he was a UNICEF ambassador (He raised millions) for more than 30 years and traveled on their watch once visiting 65 cities in 5 days. Danny never injected his agenda into anyone’s life including his daughters and his listening skills were uncanny. When he raised money for charities like the Musician’s Pension Fund he never expected or took a fee. He accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of UNICEF and received two for his humanitarian work. His daughter witnessed his oft humility as she watched him take a tray of hors d’oeuvres from a waitress at a party and served the guests until it was empty and then promptly left. 

Amongst all his talents of voice, dance, gymnastic countenance, lyrical complexity and exacting enunciation Danny had a ballet like expression with the use of his hands. It helped articulate his whole presentation as an orchestra leader uses his baton. 

This writer first got acquainted with Danny Kaye on my turntable when he released his single “The Ugly Duckling”. I hadn’t seen the movie wherein it was played called Hans Christian Anderson (1952)  a very loose fantasy interpretation by the legendary children’s storybook author but when I did I instantly became a fan and from that point on, I scanned back and forward to his complete compendium of releases. I might argue that The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947) was his most remembered but oddly his biggest box office success came in White Christmas (1954) wherein he starred opposite Bing Crosby, Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen. (Kings Academy just performed it spectacularly last Christmas) 

His first release came in 1944 in a movie Up In Arms starring opposite Dana Andrews and Dinah Shore. He plays a hypochondriac and it was here that we were introduced to his adroitness of singing a tongue twister intertwined with conversation and he literally steals the film. Danny portrayed as a coward ends up the hero capturing a platoon of Japanese soldiers. 

He followed with Wonder Man (1945) playing a dual role  with antithetical personalities. Next came The Kid From Brooklyn (1946). Then the much-heralded The Secret Life of Walter Mitty in (1947) a James Thurber short story that the author hated but audiences loved. Here he starred opposite the menacing Boris Karloff. Again Kaye plays the mouse turned lion as he wins the affection of his perennial  costar Virginia Mayo.  After Mitty, he followed with a remake of Ball of Fire (1941) renamed A Song is Born (1948) again opposite Virginia Mayo (An original Goldwyn Girl) That film didn’t come near the success of the original with Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. Next up was  The Inspector General followed (1949) with Walter Slezak, On the Riviera (another dual role) (1951) Knock on Wood (1954), The Court Jester (1956) opposite heavy and Sherlock Holmes star Basil Rathbone, Merry Andrew (1958) opposite the tragic Pier Angeli and The Five Pennies (1959) opposite the legendary Louis Armstrong. 

Danny had a successful run on television as well called simply The Danny Kaye Show it ran for 4 seasons from 1963-1967. It starred all the luminaries of the day stars like Lucille Ball, Art Carney, Nancy Wilson, Wayne Newton, Shirley Jones and Louis Armstrong to name but a few. Danny died of hepatitis and internal bleeding from contaminated blood during a transfusion during bypass surgery at age 76. He left a wife Sylvia Fine who passed in 1991 and is survived by his daughter Dena now 71. 

Danny Kaye may have been an acquired taste but like fine aged wine or scotch it suits the palate of many a moviegoer still today.  Check out also the The Pellet with the Poison from The Court Jester another gem.  

  

Mae West

Our Star for October is no stranger to you even though she made only 10 films from 1932 through 1943. The voice, gesticulations and intonation of Mae West made her a Hollywood icon for the ages. Born Mary Jane West in Brooklyn on August 17, 1893 to Matilda and John West. Her mother “Tillie” an aspiring actress and her father a prizefighter known as “Battlin’ Jack” for his fisticuffs in and outside of the ring.  He initially disapproved strongly to May’s thoughts of acting and to placate him their young daughter sought gainful employment as a garment worker but clandestinely never gave up on what she would ultimately become an internationally famous star stage and screen actress. (actor)  

When we think of Mae West we automatically think of movies with Cary Grant and W.C. Fields and maybe not of her acting in musical plays on stage but that is where she began and felt most comfortable and as we will see later scripted much of her dialogue which she is still so famous for today.  

Tillie tried to keep it a secret but May was her favorite and the precocious child at 3 began impersonating family members much to the delight of both her parents. With their gentle coaxing the young vixen to be began to realize how to command an audience. Her mother would bring her to vaudeville shows and the youngster was smitten by the magical world within. Mae would recount later that the African American performer Bert Williams was her early inspiration. It was he she claims that taught her the art of the double entendre, innuendo and bawdy comebacks that mark all of her movies. 

Incredibly she was on stage by 5 years old for a church social and although Dad wasn’t too happy Tillie her mother was nonplussed and her next step had her in dance class at 7 and then it was off to burlesque theaters under her new stage name “Baby May”. After she won her first contest Dad was fully enrolled. By age 14 she was impersonating popular burlesque stars of the day and her Mother as manager was making her costumes and the young West was singing and dancing popular songs and began adding in her sexual sensations.  

Her biggest break came in 1918 when she starred opposite Ed Wynn in a stage production called Sometime. It featured an eye popping move in which she would shake her shoulders wildly topped off with thrusting her chest out. It was here Mae started to rewrite her parts and then began writing her own plays under the pen name Jane Mast. 

In 1926 she wrote and starred in a Broadway play called Sex which was a hit but the critics panned it over content and was jailed for 10 days on a morals charge serving just 8 days on Roosevelt Island but it wasn’t too arduous as several times she dined with the warden and his wife. The media attention was worth it. Next she wrote and starred in a play about homosexuality called Drag, which she showcased in Connecticut and thought better of it of bringing it to New York fearing a second stint in the hoosegow. She continued to be successful with plays but she had to constantly rewrite them to conform to the moral codes of the day. 

It was 1932 and then Hollywood came calling and although she was 38 and old by standards back then her physique and beauty won the day and her first role with George Raft in a film titled Night After Night which at first she was miffed at because of her small part but then she was allowed to rewrite. It was here her movie career was launched.  In 1933, starring opposite newcomer Cary Grant in She Done Him Wrong inlaid with the classic line “Why don’t you come up sometime and see me?” It was nominated for Best Picture. It saved Paramount from bankruptcy it did so well. Her next film paired her again with Grant in I’m No Angel it was another financial success and West was number 8 at the box office. By 1935 Mae was the second highest paid person in America behind William Randolph Hearst. 

But the Hays Code and that same Randolph Hearst would be the lance in her side that ultimately would keep her star from rising further even though audiences flocked to see her wherever she went. In 1940 she was paired with another luminary W. C. Fields in the now classic My Little Chickadee another bonanza. Tension on the set between the two super ego stars however as Mae was a teetotaler and Fields a known heavy drinker but the film did well and remains a classic in the annals of Hollywood film.  

In 1943 Mae was coaxed back by an old friend that was in dire financial straits and she made The Heat’s On the flick didn’t do well and she didn’t return to the screen until 1970. In 1954 she put together a nightclub act and that ran several years. She surrounded herself with men with bulging physiques and as it was a great success she thought it might be a great time to retire.  She made some TV appearances like the Red Skelton Show and Mister Ed. In 1970 as mentioned she had a small part in Gore Vidal’s Myra Breckinridge not a box office success but a cult classic and then later in her own Sextette in 1978. 

In August of 1980 she had a severe fall and it was later diagnosed that she had a stroke a few months later she suffered a second stroke which left her partially paralyzed she was later released and convalesced at home but by November 22, 1980 at 87 she had passed away.  Mae West lived a full life and was way ahead of her time except Mr. Hays was there too.   

  

Vivien Leigh

Vivien Mary Hartley was an English stage and film actress and as Robert Osborne points out that 80% of the most sought after roles in Hollywood between 1939-59 were offered to our August Golden Age Star Vivien Leigh.  She was a staggeringly beautiful woman but when she was offered the lead in Gone With the Wind in 1939 many were incredulous that here was an English actress being offered the role of a lifetime as Southern Belle Scarlett O’Hara in Margaret Mitchell’s immortal classic. What was more incredible were some of the Hollywood stars who tried for the role and failed. Stars like; Paulette Goddard, Katherine Hepburn, Bette Davis, Lana Turner, Joan Bennett, Jean Arthur and Talullah Bankhead. But in the end Selznick Studios picked the right one as Leigh won her 1st Academy Award and the film 10 in all. (8 competitive and 2 honorary with 13 nominations in all)

Vivien Hartley born November 13, 1915 in India to a Yorkshire stockbroker and his Irish wife. The young Vivien began her education in a convent. At 6 years old she announced to a young friend that one day she would be famous. That childhood friend turned out to be Maureen O’Sullivan who encouraged her to begin an acting career. As she grew older her schooling beside took her abroad to France, Italy and Germany where she became fluent in both Italian and French. Married young at 19 to a German lawyer named Herbert Leigh Holiman she took his middle name and changed the spelling of her first name using e instead of the more common a.  

In 1935, she took to the stage in a play The Bash that wasn’t very successful but impressed a London producer Sydney Carroll and he gave her the lead in Things Are Looking Up. Not strangely things began to change radically after that as she began acting in Shakespearean plays and met her 2nd husband Laurence Olivier. Although both married at the time they cavorted publicly and collaborated in their acting career as well.  

After the success of Gone With The Wind the two married in 1940 and began to star on stage and in the movies but then chose to stay out of the limelight after highly public one whilst both married. In hindsight it might have been Vivien’s mental health, as they would often take breaks between performances. Leigh suffered from manic depression and it put a strain on their relationship in later years. In fact in 1944 while in rehearsal for Antony and Cleopatra she suffered a miscarriage and her health began to spiral downward with insomnia, bipolar disorder and then a respiratory ailment, which later was diagnosed as tuberculosis. Vivien tried shock treatment, which left burn marks on her temples and then her drinking escalated as well.  

Throughout she continued to work but no role could match the one of Scarlett until 1949 when she secured the part of Blanche Du Bois in a London production of Tennessee William’s play A Streetcar Named Desire. The play lasted a year and Elia Kazan quick to capitalize on it’s success had her reprise the role for Hollywood opposite Marlon Brando it was here she won her 2nd Academy Award. Her performance some say exceeded her role in GWTW. Vivien suggested her own struggles let her tap into the character and as she later recounted tipped her into “madness”  

Not long after she and Olivier made stage history when they simultaneously starred in a Shakespeare production of Antony and Cleopatra and George Bernard Shaw offering of Caesar and Cleopatra. Despite these monumental successes the bipolar disease tightened it's grip on Vivien and coupled with her 2nd miscarriage she had a full breakdown in 1953. Studio acrimony had her odds with productions afterward and her relationship with Laurence began to crumble and they ended their union in 1960.  

Maybe the change did her good as Olivier remarried and Vivien moved in with a younger man and her career seemed revitalized albeit for a short time as she earned a Tony Award in a musical adaptation of Tovarich in 1963 and two years later acclaim in the Academy Award winning Ship of Fools.  But in 1967 while filming A Delicate Balance the respiratory troubles of tuberculosis took Vivien’s life. She was only 53.  London’s theater district blacked out for an hour in her honor.  

Vivien would say I am not a film star I am an actress. Being a film star is such a false life, lived for fake values and for publicity. An interesting quote when juxtaposed against what some stars think of themselves today. She would also say that beauty could be a handicap as some might think if you look reasonable you can’t possibly act and as she only cared about acting she felt her looks worked against her sometimes.  And finally she said that she dreaded the truth in some of her lines but she told herself I could never let that show. 

Footnotes.

Vivien had a vixen side and husband Olivier couldn’t keep up with her marathon ways and it became burdensome for him. He affectionately referred to her as “Puss”. And during the filming of GWTW Vivien claimed that Gable tried to rape her probably getting overheated watching her getting tied in to a 16-inch waistcoat during filming of GWTW. 

Gene Tierney

“Jealousy is, I think the worst of all faults because it makes a victim of both parties.” I picked a quote from our star for July because it seems to ring true back then and even today. But let’s get started on this luminary shall we? She was of course a stunning beauty but contrary to the popular idiom her beauty ran much deeper than skin deep. Astonishing looks, high cheekbones and a classic overbite might have gotten her the start in Hollywood but it was her acting that carried her to the pinnacle of super stardom. Born in 1920 in Brooklyn to a privileged lifestyle her father was a successful insurance broker Gene received her schooling in Connecticut and Switzerland.  Her head turning looks got her started on Broadway at 18 in Mrs. O’Brien Entertains and before long Daryl Zanuck spotted her and secured her contract to Twentieth Century Fox.  

Her first feature came at just 20 in 1940’s The Return of Frank James opposite Henry Fonda. For a few years critics were nonplussed until 1943 when her breakthrough performance came that year in the comedy Heaven Can Wait but it was in the following year, 1944 that she is most remembered in the haunting mystery Laura starring opposite Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb and Vincent Price before he became the Prince of Horror. Gene although talked about and seen in flashbacks doesn’t actually show up until about 1/3 through the movie when it’s revealed she’s still alive not dead as the story leads us to believe. Truly one of Robert Osborne’s favorite stars Tierney is luminescent in this 88-minute romantic drama mystery wearing hats and gowns (designed by Bonnie Cashin) that framed her singular in nature countenance. 

Her success continued as she played the dark Ellen Berent in Leave Her to Heaven in 1945 receiving her nomination for Best Actress. Thence 2 years later in The Razor’s Edge with our previous star of the month Tyrone Power and then my personal favorite that same year in the fantasy ghost story opposite Rex Harrison where she portrays a headstrong widow up against a salty deceased sea captain in an unlikely love story. The movie spawned a short-lived TV series starring Hope Lange in 1968. Several smaller roles followed but she came back triumphantly opposite Spencer Tracy in 1952’s Plymouth Adventure and Never Let Me Go with Clark Gable. Two more smash hits to her credit followed in Night and the City and The Left Hand of God. 

It was the next decade however that her health and personal life would collide and help bring down a career in a heartbreaking and tragic conclusion. Depression and hospitalizations would keep Gene from the limelight and a marriage to playboy Oleg Cassini didn’t help matters. She bore him two daughters Daria and Christina and after Cassini she married Texas oil baron Howard Lee in 1960 until his death in 1981. Howard was married previously to another Hollywood beauty Hedy Lamarr.  

Oddly enough as beautiful as her adoring fans and most film aficionados felt she was our star often complained about her teeth. She would lament that they protruded too much. Hence that overbite that added to her looks she tried to cover with lipstick, broadening her lips and even tried to have dentists straighten.  They wouldn’t touch her. In fact the studio when alerted to her efforts made her stipulate that Gene not change a thing in her appearance, which she reluctantly agreed. A smart move as Mother Nature did not make a mistake in Gene Tierney’s case. 

Her first daughter was born retarded because Gene had contracted measles when she had made an appearance at the Hollywood Canteen and it was Howard Hughes that provided for her daughter’s medical care. Incidentally her daughter’s birth defect inspired the Agatha Christie movie The Mirror Crack’d.  

  

Gene had a notorious affair with John F. Kennedy in 1946 while filming Dragonwyck. The young 29-year old ended the affair, as we all know had political aspirations. Strangely she voted for Nixon but congratulated him when he won the Presidency.   She and Tyrone Power had a dalliance while filming The Razor’s Edge and she also found herself in a gambol with Prince Aly Khan in the early 50’s. 

 Admitted to Menninger’s Clinic in Kansas in 1957 for suicidal depression and shock treatment she was released in the year following. In 1959 Fox offered her the role in Holiday for Lovers but the stress proved to be just too much and she was forced to leave that production.  

Gene hated her voice in fact she claimed that it sounded like an angry Minnie Mouse and determined to make it sound lower she resorted to smoking. A terrible decision as she died of emphysema in 1991. Gene Tierney made 24 movies over a span from 1940 to 1964 her last being The Pleasure Seekers with Ann Margaret and Tony Franciosa.

One of our residents mentioned that I had missed something about Anthony Quinn and that was he painting prowess. My apologies. If you have comments please write me I’d love to hear from you at Jackbriant@mac.com What Gene said about jealousy is something for all of us to think about. Jealousy is the absence of love.  Until next month. 

Anthony Quinn

Our Golden Age star for June was one of those once in a lifetime icons that Robert Osborne called the most animated stars he ever met and later became friends with. He met A.Q. in 1999 in the series produced by TCM called Private Screenings and as he walked in the room as the cameras began to roll with his wide smile, bursting exuberance, and wild vivacity he recounted stories about his life and the people he met and worked with. It gave Osborne a real sense of the actor’s true charisma and as he called it whiz-bang personality that helped emblazon Quinn’s stardom during his tenure on the Silver Screen. Osborne adding his own exclamation point nicknamed him Tony the Tornado. 

 Anthony Rodolfo Quinn Oaxaca was born in Chihuahua, Mexico to an immigrant father from Cork Ireland and mother a native of Mexico this extraordinary talent would become one of the most versatile actors Hollywood would ever produce. Shortly after his birth his family settled in Los Angeles it was there young Anthony attended Catholic School and as early as age 6 he considered the Priesthood but when he was 9 his father had died and Anthony had to grow up fast taking odd jobs to support his family. Maybe unknown to we readers that in High School he won an architecture competition and was mentored by Frank Lloyd Wright who urged Quinn to enroll in acting school with the intention to hone his speaking quality for what would be on his future horizon. 

 They year 1936 saw his opportunity arrive as he starred with Mae West in his first movie Clean Beds and then Parole. This film was pivotal because it typecast him as the ethnic guy with the bad attitude. In that same year he played a menacing Cheyenne Indian opposite Gary Cooper in The Plainsman and then a more sympathetic one as Crazy Horse in They Died With Their Boots On opposite Errol Flynn. By the year 1947 Anthony Quinn appeared as a Hawaiian Chief, Filipino freedom fighter, an Arab sheik, Chinese guerilla, Mafia don, and even more Indians but it was this great versatility that yielded A.Q. his 2 Oscar wins. 

Some of his best work began in 1952 alongside Marlon Brando in Viva Zapata! For which he won best actor in a supporting role. He received that same award alongside Kirk Douglas in 1956’s Lust for Life and again that same year he won the Foreign Language Film Oscar in Fellini’s LaStrada.  The Best Actor nod nomination for Wild is the Wind in 1957 and maybe his best known film Zorba the Greek in 1964 and he achieved boffo box office success with Gregory Peck and David Niven in The Guns of Navarone in 1961 and Lawrence of Arabia with Peter O’Toole in 1962. Quinn had been a professional boxer earlier in his life and that might have helped in when he played as has been pugilist opposite Jackie Gleason as his manager and Mickey Rooney in the highly acclaimed Requiem for a Heavyweight. Six years later he found himself playing the Pontiff in Shoes of the Fisherman opposite the legendary Laurence Olivier. As one might observe Anthony Quinn many times played secondary roles but at times outshined the headliner and broke the mold for other character actors that followed.  

Quinn’s versatility extended to the stage as well. In 1947 he appeared in a Broadway production The Gentleman From Athens. He also took the replacement role of Stanley Kowalski, a Brando favorite in A Streetcar Named Desire and later in 1950 Borned in Texas, then Becket in 1960 and then Tony nominated for Tchin-Tchin in 1962.  

Did you know that A.Q.’s first wife was the daughter of famed director Cecille B. DeMille? Or that when John Barrymore needed a blood transfusion Quinn was there for his old friend? 

A.Q might have been known as Jack the Lad as well because he was married 3 times with multiple mistresses. He sired 13 children with his wives and mistresses and was accused of abuse by his second wife Yolanda that he disputed. He died of respiratory failure in Boston in 2001 he was 

Robert Mitchum

Robert Mitchum

Robert Osborne one of the nation’s best interviewers said of Mitchum when he interviewed him back in 2011 that he was a scoundrel. Before the mikes were turned on he was loquacious and charming but when the cameras began to roll Bob wouldn’t give a straight answer to any of Osborne’s simple queries. That was his style throughout his career and whenever he was interviewed he would become rhetorical rather than answer his interviewer and filled the content with hilarity and often vulgarity.  Our star for May never got caught up in his celebrity though in fact he reflected on it so casually and would say: “It sure beats working”. 

Born August 6, 1917 in Bridgeport Connecticut Mitchum would make over a 100 movies and what Hollywood studios and directors loved about him was that he would play anything from homicidal villains, heroic GI’s, flinty Private Eyes or the black hat in Hopalong Cassidy movies. Born to a railroad worker James Mitchum of Irish descent and daughter to a Norwegian ship captain Anne Harriet. Robert lost his father at age 2 to a railroad switching accident and his mother Anne became a linotype operator to support her 3 children. 

Leaving school at 14 Robert hopped freight trains around the country and made money as a laborer, a coal miner, aircraft assembler, even a boxer. He had many run-ins with the law, which gave him a lifelong repugnance to authority. Later in life he would face almost two months in jail on trumped up marijuana charges, which were later expunged. However marijuana had little to do with the deteriorating quality of life Robert Mitchum would later suffer from, as it was the chain smoking and alcoholic drinking that would distort his physiology and good looks even though he lived until he was 79.

Arriving in Long Beach California in 1936 with his sister he joined a local theater guild began as a ghost writer for an astrologer, worked as a stagehand then started acting as a bit player in some of the theater productions. He started writing poetry, songs and monologues for his sister Annette who was performing in nightclubs at the time.  Mitchum’s hiatus ensued as he returned to Maryland to marry his betrothed Dorothy Spence an enduring marriage until his death he sired 3 children with Dorothy and for a time worked as a machine operator with Lockheed. 

Mitchum would suffer a nervous breakdown precipitating a temporary blindness most likely from stress but after his recovery he would return to Hollywood as a villain opposite William Boyd Hopalong Cassidy in 1942-43. He then performed in a film opposite Randolph Scott in 1943 titled Gung Ho about war in the Pacific. Later he impressed Mervyn LeRoy in Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo and signed a seven-year contract with RKO. He followed with a moderately successful western Nevada but then was sent to United Artists for the critically acclaimed G.I. Joe in 1945 which was nominated for four Oscars including best supporting actor for Mitchum. He was then drafted and stayed in the army for less than a year and upon his return in 1947 he began to hit his stride with one hit after another starting with the iconic Film Noir Out of the Past costarring the now centenarian Kirk Douglas. It was early in 1948 when he was arrested on the much publicized marijuana charges along with actress Lila Leeds. The press had a field day taking pictures of him mopping floors in prison and the arrest only served to make Mitchum more popular than ever as his films afterward were box office hits. As was mentioned earlier the charge was a setup by the District Attorney’s office trying to entrap Hollywood actors. 

 Mitchum could play the white hat but would always return to Film Noir as some of his best film work rested there but it was his demonic portrayal of a preacher in 1955’s Night of the Hunter, which won him his biggest critical acclaim. Interestingly enough it was the only film that Charles Laughton directed. That same year Mitchum was thrown off the movie Blood Alley as it was reported he threw the transportation director into San Francisco Bay but it was most likely his erratic behavior that ended his role on that film. 

One of this writers favorite however I enjoyed as a youth was with Deborah Kerr in 1957’s Heaven Knows Mister Allison wherein he as a Marine corporal is shipwrecked on a Pacific island with a nun, Kerr. it was a riveting drama as the two battle the elements and an invading Japanese Army. The film nominated for two Academy Awards including best actress for Kerr and Mitchum was nominated for a BAFTA for his portrayal.   

Showing his versatility in 1960 Robert was reunited with Kerr in The Sundowners this time as husband and wife struggling in a depression era Australia. Kerr nominated again for best actress and the film for five Oscars. Mitchum won the National Board of Review for best Actor. In 1962 he returned to the predator role in Cape Fear opposite the iconic Gregory Peck. Rounding out his career he appeared in The Longest Day 1962, El Dorado 1967 and Anzio 1968.

Maybe you didn’t know that Robert Mitchum was both a composer and singer.  His voice can be heard in Rachel and the Stranger, River of No Return and The Night of the Hunter. He released an album on Capitol Records and his The Ballad of Thunder Road reached 62 on the Billboard Pop Singles chart. In 1991 Mitchum appeared on Saturday Night Live playing a parody of private eye Philip Marlowe in a short comedy sketch. That same year he was given a lifetime achievement award from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures and the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1992. Mitchum died weeks short of his 80th birthday complications of lung cancer and emphysema he was survived by his wife of 57 years Dorothy.  Robert Mitchum The Soul of Film Noir as Roger Ebert referred to him as. 

Thelma Todd

A decided departure for April’s Star of the Month but nonetheless a huge talent our feature was an underrated comedic screen pioneer whether she was paired with Zasu Pitts or Patsy Kelly or as a stand alone star when featured in film’s like Horse Feathers in 1932 that starred Titans like The Marx Brothers, Thelma Todd was a stunning blonde that kept her audiences in stitches with her captivating countenance, raw talent and pinpoint comic timing.  Her life cut short however under mysterious circumstances at age 29 remain unsolved to this day. We will explore that conundrum later. 

She was born in Lawrence Massachusetts in 1906 and was a gifted student and that being the case her original intention was to be a teacher but fortunately for the world that didn’t last long.  Thelma found herself working part time as a fashion model, which led her to compete and won her the Title of Miss Massachusetts of 1925. She then competed for Miss America but lost but no matter a Hollywood talent agent discovered her and enrolled her in acting school in New York the following year and she began landing supporting roles in silent films like Fascinating Youth in 1926 and The Noose in 1928. Then Hal Roach recognized the opportunity to create a female version of Laurel and Hardy already in his stable pairing her first with Zasu Pitts (17 films) and then to even greater success with Patsy Kelly (21 films). 

Anxious to be taken as a serious actress Thelma changed her name and worked briefly as Alison Lloyd in a crime thriller under the direction of and later boyfriend with Roland West with the release of Corsair 1931.  Extending her dramatic side she played the lover of Ricardo Cortez assuming the character of Dashiell Hammett’s Sam Spade in the original Maltese Falcon although it paled in comparison to the Humphrey Bogart edition released in 1941. Thelma Todd though was most at home in comedy and the perfect foil for the aforementioned Marx Brothers, Harold Lloyd, Jimmy Durante and Laurel and Hardy. Not to be outdone Thelma starred opposite A list actors Cary Grant in his first role This is the Night in 1932, a drama with John Barrymore Counselor at Law by William Wyler in 1933 and returning to comedy with Bing Crosby and Joan Bennett 1935’s Two for Tonight. 

Thelma made 119 films although most were shorts nearly all of them were hits and her lasting legacy will be a comedic genius whether as a duo or a solo she shined brightest among Hollywood’s finest comedian’s and held her own alongside the drama Kings and Queens of her day. The term screwball comedy probably originated with the likes of Thelma and her partners Pitts and Kelly and there were many more famous names to follow. Thelma Todd laid the groundwork for not only women comedians but for many of her male counterparts to follow as well.  The shorts she made with Patsy Kelly stand the test of time, as even today you’ll find yourself laughing throughout. These can be seen occasionally on TCM. 

Just before Christmas in 1935 Thelma was found outside her restaurant inside her car dead of an apparent accidental carbon monoxide poisoning. It was alleged she was warming up her car as the weather forecast was for a frosty morning that day in Los Angeles.  Conspiracy theories ran rampant soon afterward ranging from depression and suicide to money issues and murder and even extortion. The Grand Jury discovered that Thelma was bloodied about the mouth, which fueled the speculation that she had an altercation with ex-husband Pat DiCicco. They had physical abuse issues in their marriage.  Most disputed any notion that Thelma was depressed as she had just completed filming The Bohemian Girl and her restaurant Thelma Todd’s Sidewalk Café was drawing like gangbusters (no pun intended) and it was rumored the mob wanted in but Thelma and boyfriend Roland West didn’t want any part of them fleecing the Hollywood elite which also led some to believe had a hand in her demise. The underworld wanted Todd to turn her restaurant over to them and make it a gambling establishment. 

The medical examiner also found Thelma had cracked ribs, neck contusions, a broken nose, a chipped front tooth and partially digested food in her stomach. These facts alone would seem to rule out that Thelma was contemplating suicide and point more to her death was indeed a murder. The District Attorney at the time one Buron Fitts was rumored to be both corrupt and inept. If you’re interested in Thelma’s life there’s a few books out their Hot Toddy, which has mixed reviews and a more staid version The Ice Cream Blonde, and Testimony of a Death. 

Thelma Todd is not a name that might roll off your lips but The Ice Cream Blonde as a pioneer in comedy created a foundation that film historians like the late Robert Osborne took notice of and although she never got the recognition she deserved her comedic talents will be preserved forever