1:23 pm. Grand Central Station, New York. A packed commuter train is hijacked. A ransom is set – at one million dollars. The subway is a closed system. For the four hijackers, surely there is no way out. But they have a deadly plan.
Directed by Joseph Sargent (Colossus: The Forbin Project 1970, White Lightning 1973, predominantly a director for television series and made for TV movies- Gunsmoke, The Fugitive, The Man from U.N.C.L.E, The Invaders) with a screenplay by Peter Stone (known writer Charade 1963, Father Goose 1963, Sweet Charity 1969) The iconic sneeze which leads to one of the most memorable endings in 70s films was actually conceptualized by Stone. And based on the best-selling American crime novel by John Godey.
Stunning visual auteur and cinematographer Owen Roizman (The French Connection 1971, The Exorcist 1973, The Stepford Wives 1975, Three Days of the Condor 1975, Network 1976, True Confessions 1981) and driving score by David Shire (The Conversation 1974, All the President’s Men 1976, Saturday Night Fever 1977, Norma Rae 1979). Like the score, the film itself begins with the sense of dialogue and characterizations just as accelerated as a runaway train. The initial part of the film is completely immersed underground with its murky greens, grays, and shadows lit only by the subway lamps.
Director Joseph Sargent instructed Owen Roizman to shoot the picture on a Wide Screen, which would create the effect of not having a high ceiling, the overhead and bottom of the screen being cut off giving the film more of the closeness and claustrophobia of being in a subway car. They filmed the picture at The Spike in Brooklyn which was totally closed off at the time. Director Sargent referred to it as “hell on earth” and actor Robert Shaw dubbed it “Dante’s Inferno.” Like The French Connection and 3 Days of the Condor also filmed by Roizman, these were films that were at a defining time in history portraying a gritty New York lensed with a perspective toward realism. The camera’s were lightweight, moved quickly through the streets, and utilized natural lighting. The colors are muted browns, faded greens, and grays. The film demonstrates the alienation of the city and the urban nightmare.
One of the films from the seventies utilizes the subway as a symbol of the ‘changing nature of the city partly from the perspective of its citizens primarily its commuters.
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) is one of the most definitive films of the seventies that features an all-star cast of great character actors with standout performances by Walter Matthau as Lt. Zachary Garber, Tom Pedi as Caz Dolowicz who only gives a damn about his trains running on time.
“Oh, come on. If I’ve got to watch my language just because they let a few broads in, I’m going to quit. How the hell can you run a goddamn railroad without swearing?”
James Broderick as Denny Doyle’s head motorman, Dick O’Neill as the foul-mouthed Correll, Jerry Stiller as Lt. Rico Patrone, Rudy Bond as Police Commissioner, Kenneth McMillan as the Borough Commander, Doris Roberts as the Mayor’s wife.
And of course, our four colorful criminals, Mr. Blue (Robert Shaw) Mr. Green (Martin Balsam) Hector Elizondo (Mr. Gray), and Mr. Brown (Earl Hindman ) match the primary tones of the film. Their faces are obscured by disguises that are caricatures. An interesting note the color of the men’s hats corresponds with their pseudonyms. In contrast to the earthy tones of the film, Garber wears a banana-yellow tie. Quentin Tarantino paid homage to the titular nicknames in his ultra-violent Reservoir Dogs 1992.
There is no real set-up or background relationship between the four hijackers. After seeing Martin Balsam exit a yellow cab, and Shire’s dynamic score comes into play, the film has an immediate tempo of being out of control. The film opens with one of the most popular scores of the seventies, David Shires, driving aural waves of dissonant jazz. With military-type snare drum rolls and resounding trombones and electronica. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974) is perhaps one of the most iconic action thrillers of the seventies era. Opening with the dynamic life force of a pulsing New York City. Cabs, bodies in motion, unique to the city with its dialect “Fifty Foist Street” And the mania of people rushing down below in the subways, hot, grimy, and anonymous.
When subway line Pelham One Two Three which is a subway car that begins from the Lexington Avenue station is hijacked by four seemingly random criminals Mr. Green, Mr. Blue, Mr. Gray, and Mr. Brown all dressed in hats to match the colors of their pseudonyms, overcoats, black-rimmed glasses, and phony mustaches it throws the New York City transit into chaos. The Transit Authority personnel as well as the subway’s passengers are portrayed as stereotypically New Yorkers, rough around the edges of various ethnicities.
The train’s passengers are represented as a row of assorted stereotypes including the wise-but-kvetchy Jew, the “fairy,” the Black pimp, the hysterical Hispanic woman, the disarrayed mother who has no control over her children, the long-haired hippie, the tough as nails whore and the clueless drunk who sleeps through the whole nightmare. What comes off with this device is that the ordeal of the story is just an everyday occurrence on the New York City subway.
And these passengers are actually listed in the credits as The Maid, The Mother, The Homosexual, The Secretary, The Delivery Boy, The Salesman, The Hooker, The Old Jewish Man, The Older Son, The Spanish Woman, The Alcoholic (who sleeps through the entire seizure), The Pimp, Coed #1, Coed #2, The Hippie and The W.A.S.P. One of my complaints of seventies cinema — though it is one of my favorite sub-genres of cinema– is the inherent misogyny and easily permissive racism and homophobia.
Mr. Blue calmly informs them that they want one million dollars or they will execute one hostage for every minute they don’t receive the ransom.
Dick O’Neill’s gruffness is delivered fluently as he grunts over the microphone at Mr. Blue “Keep dreamin’ maniac!”
Walter Matthau, who is the master of owning any picture he’s in, throws out more hilarious one-liners which bring the much-needed levity to the nervous tension. That is not to say that Tom Pedi and Dick O’Neill veteran stage and character actors don’t supply their share of snarky New York witticisms.
While the commuting passengers are concentrating on getting to where they need to go, one at a time the four hijackers board the train. Mr. Blue (Robert Shaw who plays a very composed and menacing British Mercenary). Accompanying Mr. Blue is Mr. Green, the continually sneezing Martin Balsam (who was fired from the transit department as a motormen suspected of trafficking drugs in the train cars) Later Garber figures out that one of the hijackers must have knowledge of handling a train, “Somebody down there knows how to drive a train. You don’t pick that up watching Sesame Street.”
Mr. Green (Shaw) enters the conductor’s car and holds a gun on the head of motorman James Broderick. “I’m taking your train.”
They begin to set up their scheme. Hector Elizondo who plays Mr. Gray is an unstable psychopath whose infantile outbursts and uncontrollable belligerence show him capable of violence at any given moment. “I’ll shoot your pee pee off.” Later on Mr. Green tells Mr. Blue that he doesn’t trust Mr. Grey (Hector Elizondo who is playing to type) and to keep an eye on Mr. Gray “I also think that he is mad. Why do you think they threw him out of the Mafia.”
Lastly Mr. Brown enters with a box for long-stem roses. When the time comes, they pull out high-powered automatic weapons and announce their plans to the horrified New Yorkers.
George Lee Miles as the pimp and Mr. Green (Robert Shaw) exchange cutting remarks as commentary on the post-Vietnam weariness and racism. “What’s wrong dude? Ain’t you never seen a sunset before?”
While the takeover of Pelham One Two Three is underway, we are privy to the pressurized control room where the core of operations happens. Lt. Garber is showing a group of Japanese men who run the subway system in Tokyo, the works while throwing out wisecracks, “In the course of a normal work week, the average TA policeman deals with such crimes as robbery, assault, murder, drunkenness illness, vandalism, mishegas, abusiveness, sexual molestation, exhibitionism… “ means of mocking the four visiting Japanese executive’s assumed that they do not speak perfect English. Garber tells Rico- “Take these monkeys up to 13” Garber is enlightened after these very quietly polite men tell him that it was a most interesting tour.
The film boasts its built-in racism and visits its bias through a series of faux pas. Garber (Walter Matthau) has the privilege of his comedic traits and can get away with lines as when he meets Inspector Daniels who is black played by Julius Harris. Garber uncomfortable tells him, “I hadn’t realized you were… so tall.”
Kenneth McMillan veteran character actor adds his bellicose bluster to the film!
Of course, there are also the prevalent acceptable and misguided jokes in 70s films wielding homophobia. As seen in 70s films for example, the psychopathic drag queen in Freebie and the Bean (1974) and the flaming hitchhikers in Vanishing Point (1971) Garber assures the undercover long-haired hippie cop who’s been wounded and lying face down on the tracks, “We’ll have an ambulance here in no time, Miss.”
Along with his colleagues who assume they don’t speak English. Lt Rico ( Jerry Stiller ) adds his comedic genius for instance when he tells the executives, “We had a bomb scare in the Bronx yesterday, it turned out to be a cantaloupe!”Â
The Taking of Pelham One Two Threeis not only a tight-moving tribute to the implicit action films that emerged during the seventies, but it is also dominated by some of the best dialogue of that decade’s action/thriller genre.
Once the hijackers have taken control of the subway train the command center tries to raise them on the radio.
“How come that gate isn’t locked?” “Who’s gonna steal a subway car?”
Once the control center realizes that something is wrong, they watch on the computerized board that tracks all the trains. The four men disconnected the last set of cars and released a group of passengers with the head motorman leaving the front car, the conductor, and 18 passengers.
“For Jesus Christ’s Sake, the dumb bastard is moving backward.”
Meanwhile, at the control center, they see that the train has stopped between stations. “Well stopped is better than backwards.”
They inform the passengers, “What’s happening is you’re all being held by four very dangerous men with machine guns.”
What the control center sees is that Pelham has powered off their radio and jumped its load. Mr. Green’s nose begins its trail of sneezes and eventual Gesundheits which will become part of the plot’s shtick.
Mr. Blue (Robert Shaw) in his usual chillingly sober manner tells Garber “Your train has been taken.” He informs Garber of three essential points. 1) Pelham is in our control 2) We have automatic weapons and 3) We have no scruples about killing. One of the most central forces of the suspense is how Robert Shaw’s unwavering voice sounds so wickedly, deliciously deadpan when he takes up that microphone to talk to Walter Matthau.
They want $1,000,000 for the release of the passengers. Garber asks “Who am I speaking to?”
Blue stiffly tells him, “I’m the man who stole your train.”
The old Jewish passenger asks Mr. Blue “Excuse me sir what’s gonna happen if you don’t get what you want?” “Excuse me, sir, we will get what we want.”
Earl Hindman as the more subdued Mr. Brown
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is a pragmatic depiction of inured and balsy New Yorkers at that time in the city. One of the passengers, the prostitute tells the hijackers, “What do you mean you’re hijacking the train? I have an important appointment.”Â
Mr. Blue doing the crossword puzzle while making his deadly serious demands…
Mr. Gray “Hold it right there, cowboy!”
Caz Dolowicz “Who the fuck are you?”
Mr. Gray “Well you’ll find out if you take one more step!”
Caz Dolowicz “I’m warnin’ you, mister, that’s city property you’re fooling around with!
Mr. Gray “Well that’s too fucking bad!”
Caz Dolowicz Why didn’t you go grab a goddamn airplane like everybody else?”
Mr. Gray “Cause we’re afraid of flyin’! Now get back or I’ll shoot your goddam ass off!”
Caz Dolowicz “The hell with you, I’m comin’ on board!”
Mr. Gray “I warned ya, stupid!”
It is immediately after Mr. Green warns Mr. Blue that Mr. Gray is mad, that he opens fire on Caz Dolowicz. When Fat Caz (Tom Pedi) goes underground and tramples the tracks insisting to get aboard his train, crazy Mr. Gray opens up on him with his machine gun.
Nathan George (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) as Ptl. James who is monitoring the siege down in the tunnel. Rico asks if Caz Dolowicz is dead. “Wouldn’t you be Lt.?”
Dick O’Neill as Frank Correll bellyaches throughout the entire film. He does not care that the subway is under siege. He is the epitome of the perceived typical attitudes of an older generation of New Yorkers who only see the hijacking as an inconvenience to him for keeping his trains scheduled on time. “Screw the goddamned passengers.” “What do they expect for their lousy 35c – to live forever?!”
Garber hears Mr. Green sneeze and there begins the first “Gesundheit” “Thank you” replies Mr. Green casually.
The mayor (Lee Wallace) laughably resembles Mayor Koch who wouldn’t become Mayor until 1978-1989, is portrayed as an incompetent bureaucrat surrounded by his nurse, tissues and a trudge of indecision, who needs advice from the real brains in Gracie Mansion his wife Doris Roberts.
Frank Correll (Dick O’Neill) tells Garber “You’re playing grab ass with a bunch of goddam pirates.”
Garber follows his hunch and has them start to go through the files for any motormen discharged for cause. In the meantime, they are told to restore power, turn all signals green, and remove all police from the tunnel. With all the details worked out and going their way, Garber figures they also have a plan to make their escape out of the subway tunnels.
Everyone is baffled when Pelham starts to move too soon before Command Central has everything set up, and everyone in the control room keeps asking — who’s moving? Garber responds, “What’s the matter with everybody? How many hijacked trains we got around here, anyway?”
With the green lights on the train will be able to continue on without being stopped, and this doesn’t trouble Garber at first because he knows there is a safety catch involved referred to as “Dead Man’s Feature” which is a handle the train is equipped with in the event the motorman dies while driving the train and they need to come to a stop. Pelham stops below 18th Street. They haven’t cleared the tracks yet. Garber orders cops at every point of the tunnel and exits. They figure that the four won’t be able to get off the train without being stopped. What they don’t know is that Mr. Green has constructed a makeshift metal bar that acts as an arm to hold down the Dead Man’s Feature and while they sneak off by an exit in the Village the train and its passengers are now speeding out of control with all the green lights go and no way to stop it from heading toward a crash.
“No one’s on the breaks!” “There’s nobody driving the fucking train!”
My favorite, is Martin Balsam as Mr. Green aka Harold Longman rolling in the cash…
This is your EverLovin’ Joey saying hang on to your seats and stay tuned for Part 3!
The early seventies witnessed a fertile moment in film-making that reflected a uniquely framed vision of sexual exploration and an ever-changing measurement of morality. The studios too were taking more risks with their films conveying realism. What developed on screen was an explosion of symbolic portrayals featuring sex and violence and explicit imagery for American audiences to process. With the arrival of the women’s movement during the mid-sixties through the seventies, until it was killed off in the eighties by Reagenism, these films did not push forward an evolved perspective or positive representation of women. Often the suggestion of women’s sexual freedom was portrayed as demeaning and counter-productive to women’s empowerment. As feminist theorist and critic Molly Haskell writes “The ten years from 1963 to 1973 have been the most disheartening in screen history.”
Conversely, men were portrayed as rogue outsiders and anti-heroes, not unlike noir figures but pushing the envelope with a hyper-violent masculinity often without the usual fatalistic culmination of judgment and universal law that bound their destiny. When they die, it is their decision, they are in a dance with death, and it is not an unmitigated penalty for breaking the rules. In particular, these themes are seen within the suspense-thriller.
The seventies offered a gritty, stylized world that enhanced and synthesized focus on the dark underbelly of society, cultural unrest, paranoia, masochism, neurosis, and psycho-sexual wiles. From American Cinema of the 1970s: Themes and Variations — Movies and the Exploitation of Excess by Mia Mask, “Women Take Center Stage: Klute and McCabe & Mrs. Miller- “For feminist critics and scholars, Alan J. Pakula’s Klute perfectly exemplifies this period’s ambivalence toward women, particularly in regard to its prostitute-heroine Bree Daniels (Jane Fonda). The film recasts and updates conventions of classic film noir by centralizing the investigatory/confessional pattern while making sexuality figure more obviously in the narrative.”
One man is missing. Two girls lie dead. …and someone breathing on the other end of the phone.
You’d never take her for a call girl. You’d never take him for a cop.
“There are little corners of everyone that are better left alone.”
Klute (1971) directed by Alan J. Pakula (The Parallax View 1974, All the President’s Men 1976, producer To Kill a Mockingbird 1962, Love with the Proper Stranger, Up the Down Staircase and director of Sophie’s Choice 1982) written by brothers Andy Lewis and Dave Lewis who mainly wrote for television drama series. Cinematography by Gordon Willis nicknamed The Prince of Darkness (The Landlord 1970, The Godfather 1972, The Godfather II 1974, The Paper Chase 1973, Annie Hall 1977).
Pakula on Willis and setting up the framing of the cinematography- “From the visual point of view, I wanted Klute to be a vertical film. And with Gordon Willis, the director of photography, I tried to go against the horizontal format of Panavision, by seeking out verticals. Horizontals open out, create a pastoral feeling, and I wanted tension. Bree’s apartment should have been seen as if at the end of a long tunnel. I framed a lot of shots with the back of another character in front, to mask a part of the screen, or made use of other sombre surfaces as masks, in order to create this feeling of claustrophobia which reflects the life of this girl.” – from 1972
The evocative score adds to the illusory tension and arresting mood of the film. The music is written by Michael Small (The Stepford Wives 1975, Night Moves 1975, Marathon Man 1976, Audrey Rose 1977, The Postman Always Rings Twice 1981, Black Widow 1987). Small’s haunting lullaby blankets the film in a pensive swaddle, with the uneasy tinkling of a piano like a childlike music box and vocalizations. The score awakens a voyeuristic ambiance as if someone is watching, which they are– throughout the entire film.
“New York City as a site of, and metaphor for, the extremes of urban existence.
It places them in film history, New York City history, and U.S. urban history more generally, finding that they offer an update on earlier century narratives of the connections between urban areas and deviant sexuality. In this modern version, it is not just a moral tale but also an economic one, where, because of the historical decline of the U.S.city and of New York in particular,sex work becomes a plausible, if unsettling means of support.These films find both narrative and spatial terms for advancing the contemporary anti-urban narrative, envisioning New York as an impinging vertical space and seeing possible redemption only in the protagonists leaving the city.” From Stanley Corkin’s Sex and the City in Decline: Midnight Cowboy (1969) and Klute (1971)-Journal of Urban History
The film stars Jane Fonda (who was coming off playing ingenues in Barefoot in the Park and Barbarellawhen she had her breakthrough performance in Sidney Pollack’s They Shoot Horses Don’t They? 1969) as call-girl Bree Daniels with complex inner life, Donald Sutherland as the quiet spectator detective John Klute, Charles Cioffi as psycho Peter Cable, Roy Scheider as pimp Frank Ligourin, Dorothy Tristan as Arlyn Page, Rita Gam as Trina Gruneman, Vivian Nathan as the psychotherapist, Morris Strassberg as Mr. Goldfarb, the nice old Jewish john who works in the garment district, and Shirley Stoler (The Honeymoon Killers 1969) as Mama Reese. With appearances by Jean Stapleton as Mr. Goldfarb’s secretary, Richard Jordan as the young man who kisses Jane Fonda in the bar scene, porn star Harry Reems at the Discothèque, and Candy Darling.Â
The film brings into play various traditions of film noir as it lays out the search for the missing Gruneman and emphasizes the relationship between the cop and the call girl.
Klute was nominated for two academy awards, best actress and best screenplay, with Jane Fonda winning the Oscar.
From Mark Harris “menace seems to choke every frame, contains almost no violence at all”
The use of tape recorders as visually recurring iconography “finally deployed as a monstrous psychological weapon at the film’s climax.”
“When Alan J. Pakula began preparing for the production of Klute (1971), he screened a lot of Alfred Hitchcock films…{…} instead he came away dispirited at the thought that he was about to make might contradict one of Hitchcock’s central principles: “You don’t try to do a character study in a melodrama” Pakula said. “Klute, of course, is a violation of that.”
Klute features Donald Sutherland as the film’s protagonist John Klute, a Tuscarora Pennsylvania private investigator hired to locate a friend Tom Gruneman who has vanished in New York City and may be living a double life. Obscene letters to an NYC prostitute have been uncovered in his desk at work “written by a very disturbed man”. Gruneman went missing six months prior and John Klute offers to leave his suburban shelter to investigate in the big bad city. The trail leads Klute to a complicated and seductive New York call girl Bree Daniels an “emotionally introspective” prostitute (skillfully brought out by Jane Fonda). Bree is an unwitting connection to a brutal murder and Klute becomes her paternalistic protector/lover. Bree is shut off from her feelings, driven by her instincts of suspicion, ambivalence, and low-self esteem. “I wish I was faceless and body-less and be left alone.”
Bree is a complex character who seeks to emotionally remove herself from society through the flawed principle that she is in control of her life and her body. Frequenting a psychotherapist, going on modeling cattle-calls, (similarly, she is peddling her flesh, though legally and publicly) studying acting, smoking grass, and reading books like Linda Goodman’s Sun Signs, a primer of the seventies metaphysical movement. Living in her own private world of her Manhattan apartment with her calico cat, Bree surrounds herself with the only space that truly insulates and isolates her from the vicious and people-eating world. A world of sin, glitter, and wickedness. A world of voyeurs.
Klute watches as well as listens to Bree’s conversations recording equipment to tap her phone from his little dank room as one of her voyeurs. She tells him “Go get those tapes and we’ll have a party.”
“Men would pay $200 for me, and here you are turning down a freebie. You could get a perfectly good dishwasher for that.”
She also admits to him that she’s in the midst of paranoia “I’m afraid of the dark, it’s just nerves I’m a nervous broad.” But this is not paranoia, the fear is real… everyone is watching everyone else.
He watches her when she visits the old Jewish widow where Bree dresses like a cabaret singer, regaling the gentle Mr. Goldfarb of her nights in Cannes with a sophisticated older man not unlike himself. She tells Klute he never lays a hand on her. Klute’s silent, morally superior, unemotional manner seems to provoke Bree’s animosity toward family-type men and uptight provincial.
“What’s your bag, Klute? What do you like? Are you a talker? A button freak? Maybe you like to get your chest walked around with high-heeled shoes. Or make ’em watch you tinkle. Or maybe you get off wearing women’s clothes. Goddamned hypocrite squares!” When he asks her about the john who tried to kill her and beat her up, “he wasn’t kidding, usually it’s a fake out.”
She shrugs Klute off, “Look, will you please just try to get it from my side? A year ago I was in the life full time. I was living on Park Avenue. It was a very nice apartment, leather furniture… and then the cops dropped on me, they caged me. They started asking me about a guy, some guy, that I’m supposed to have seen a year before that. Two years ago! He could be in Yemen. Gruneman… what does that mean? It’s a name! I don’t know him! And they start showing me these pictures, and they don’t mean anything to me. And then they started asking me if I’ve been getting letters from some guy out in Cabbageville.”
After Bree comes down to Klute’s little room in her pajamas and they have sex, she mocks him “Don’t feel bad about losing your virtue. I sort of knew you would. Everybody always does.” Once Bree starts to feel some kind of emotion toward Klute, she feels the need to destroy it, she had more control over her tricks.
During her various appointments with her shrink, Bree asks her “Why do I still want to trick?” Her therapist becomes more forceful explaining that she can’t just fix Bree, telling her she has “no magic potion.” “Cause when you’re a call girl you can control it. They want a woman and I know I’m good… And for an hour… for an hour, I’m the best actress in the world and the best fuck in the world.” “Why do you say you’re the best actress in the world.” “Well, because it’s an act.”
There is a bit of not only a slight intrusion of a laugh, in the midst of all the darkness when Bree is in bed with a john and she’s doing an acting job as if he’s turning her on while he’s on top of her, she coos for him- “Oh my angel! Oh my angel!” looking over his shoulder at her watch… It’s telling of how Bree can cut herself off from being a sex worker and the men she is with, how she aspires to be an actress, and basically how many women may feel while they are having sex they feel nothing. Bree is great at role-playing believes there is nothing wrong with it morally and doesn’t enjoy it physically.
Bree- “You don’t have to feel anything, care for anybody, just lead them by the ring in their nose. In the direction that they think they want to go in. Get a lot of money out of them in as short of period of time as possible. And you control it, and you call the shots, and I always feel just great afterwards.”
Therapist- “And you enjoyed it?”Â
Bree- “No”
Therapist- “Why not? You said there’s nothing wrong with it. Why not?”
Bree- “Well there’s a difference. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it morally, I didn’t enjoy it physically. I came to enjoy it because it made me feel good. It made me feel like I wasn’t alone. It made me feel like I had some control over myself that I had some control over my life. That I could determine things for myself.”
We learn about Bree’s impressions of the world, her motivations, and hints at past trauma through the scenes involving sessions with her therapist (Vivian Nathan). As a neo-noir film, it follows that the heroine experiences alienation and is punished for her female sexuality and excesses. Even as the film opens depicting a scene at a ‘family’ dinner, the intrusion of Bree’s lifestyle shows the downfall and breakdown of the American family. Invading the bourgeois landscape, we see the tableau of desperate junkies, disco dives, and the pimp’s flat, — all decadent and corrupt secret underworlds of the city, damned for their self-indulgence, materialism, and perverted gratifications.
In some ways, there are certain divergences from the noir traditions of the 1940s. There is a linear movement in the narrative with the hero retaining control of the events, in contrast to the revolving story, reversals, and breaks in the plot. In terms of the investigation and the heroine’s sexuality, Bree’s place is different within the story, she is not the catalyst of Tom Gruneman’s fate she is the signpost to discovering his outcome. Therefore the relationship between John Klute and Bree is very different from what is usually the case in classic film noir. In this way, Pakula explores the potential of the genre through a contemporary lens. “The metaphoric power of noir conventions is brought into more conscious play”(Gledhill)
Another consideration of Pakula’s film depicting a feminist backlash is how the women are positioned as ‘objects’ and physical products, emblematic not only by the scenes where Bree is selling her body but where she sits in a line-up with other beautiful women waiting to be chosen for a modeling job. The agency executives’ heads are cut off in the scene which accentuates the human disconnection and impersonal enterprise of being picked for profitability and worth. Each one is scanned and then dismissed because of their perceived faults, both models and prostitutes symbolize the fetishization of desirability and society’s measurement of a woman’s value. If dissecting the film’s symbology more closely there are carefully placed clues as suggested by Judith Gustafson who observes the images behind the model’s impersonal scrutiny and the wall photos behind them of a face dotted in silver-like ‘bullet holes’ on either side depicted by the identical image yet in negative that makes the female face appear as an ‘alien being.’
“Has anybody talked to you about the financial arrangements? Well that depends naturally on how long you want me for, and what you want to do. I know you, it will be very nice. Well I’d like to spend the evening with you if its, if you’d like that. Have you ever done it with a woman before, paying her? Do you like it? I mean I have the feeling that that turns you on very particularly. What turns me on is because I have a good imagination, and I like pleasing. Do you mind if I take my sweater off. Well I think in the confines of one’s house one should be free of clothing and inhibitions. Oh inhibitions are nice, cause its always to nice to overcome. Don’t be afraid, I’m not. As long as you don’t hurt me, more than I like to be hurt. I will do anything you ask. You should never be ashamed of things like that. I mean you mustn’t be. You know there’s nothing wrong. Nothing. Nothing is wrong. I think the only way that any of us can ever be happy is to, is to let it all hang out ya know. Do it all and fuck it!”
When Klute meets Bree she toys with him, flaunting her independence and manifesting a casual attitude about his investigation. Her self-aligned liberation dictates contempt for convention and criticism. Hard-edged Bree enjoys her freedom though she is seduced by the need to pick up the phone and maintain her high-class status as a pimp-free call girl. Roy Scheider plays her old predatory pimp Frank Ligourin who flashes his Italian silk shirts and his Mephistophelean smile. Ligourin and call-girl Janie McKenna who was jealous of Bree are the ones responsible for sending Bree to the psycho John who beat her up. “put the freak onto Bree.”
Though it’s not what drives the story, in the darkened halls of the film is the sadistic degenerate Peter Cable (first-time actor Charles Cioffi), affluent businessman and friend and associate of the missing Tom Gruneman (Robert Milli), and detective John Klute.
Cable is a psychopathic misogynist who obsessively listens to the secret recordings of his exploits with Bree. He begins stalking her, suspecting that she may reveal his identity as the perverted John who beat her up and murdered her friend Janie and eventually kills another prostitute, a strung-out junkie Arlyn Page (Dorothy Tristan).
“Make a man think that he’s accepted. It’s all a great big game to you. I mean, you’re all obviously too lazy and too warped to do anything meaningful with your lives so you prey upon the sexual fantasies of others. I’m sure it comes as no great surprise to you when I say that there are little corners in everyone which were better off left alone; sicknesses, weaknesses, which-which should never be exposed. But… that’s your stock in trade, isn’t it – a man’s weakness? And I was never really fully aware of mine… until you brought them out.”
Pretty much into the beginning of the picture, we know who the killer is. The plotline is more focused on the journey and relationship/character study of silent John Klute and turbulent Bree Daniels, and drawing the killer out into the open. It is the examination of the darker side of human nature, collective disorder, and the undercurrent of psycho-sexual machinations as one of the central points of the film.
According to Joan Mellen not only is Klutea study in female sexuality, villain Peter Cable is the “projection of Bree’s self-contempt — a materialization of her fear of the dark.” Though the film presents an atmosphere of paranoia the threat is very real. Cable “He also represents what she believes she deserves, the all-destroying punisher who will make her pay for having bartered herself so cheaply.”
Jane Fonda’s Bree Daniels is shown in her room as Willis’ camera pulls back it informs us that she is afraid of the phone ringing and the menacing breather on the other end. This is when John Klute first shows up. There is an interesting correlation between the two men, the cop, and the killer.Â
The idea that this film is feminist in nature because of the sexual freedom of it’s central character is best challenged by feminist scholar Christine Gledhill. “The ideological project surrounding this version of the independent woman stereotype is the same as when it emerged in the 1890s under the guise of the New Woman… However fascinating, different, admirable the would-be-emancipated woman, struggling to assert her own identity in a male world, and professing a new, nonrepressive sexual morality, in the end she is really neurotic, fragile, lonely and unhappy.”
Critic Pauline Kael had a much different experience of the film upon its initial release, she called Bree Daniels “one of the strongest feminine characters to reach the screen” Though Fonda’s brilliant performance creates a complexity worthy of analysis, in the end, she is still an object of male fantasy.
While the film’s critics focus mainly on feminist shortcomings there is also the understanding by some that it also shines a lens on masculinity. Klute “lacks dynamism” “sexless” and “out of place” perhaps or virtual psychopaths, and castrated males. Perhaps a commentary on men’s sweeping fear of the women’s movement and the transformations of femininity and masculinity. Also, an interesting observation by Mia Mask is how the protagonist John Klute and psychopath Peter Cable though essentially an antithesis of each other’s persona there is an element of a ‘doppelgänger motif’. Diane Giddis points at the threat of Cable, Bree’s potential killer can be seen as the incarnation of the emotional danger she feels threatened by with the emergence of John Klute. From the beginning of the film, “the two men are almost always shown in juxtaposition.”The morning after Bree gets the eerie ‘breather’ phone call from her stalker, Klute appears at her door.
“Like Cable, Klute appears uninvited at her door. He, too, spies on her through windows and from archways. He, too, violates the privacy of her telephone by secretly recording her calls, just as Cable secretly records his session with her. The film even emphasized these parallels by showing the men in similar shots…{…} Ultimately Klute and Cable are two sides of the same male personality. One side punishes women for their sexuality and power plays; the other neutralizes the threat by inviting child-like dependence.” –Judith Gustafson from Cineaste (1981) The Whore with the Heart of Gold
At the time of Klute’s release, it gave the appearance of not only a straight suspense story but a radical film, filled with contradictions between what feminist critics would say is artifice and what represents women in real situations. Within this ‘new American cinema’ the film purports to be about a ‘liberated’ heroine inhabiting the structure of a thriller with an homage to the femme fatales of film noir. The contradictory implications lie between the film’s ‘modernity’, psychotherapy, and the problem of women places it within a humanist realist tradition of European art cinema’ (Gledhill). Yet it also bares the stylistic qualities –a highly detailed visual polish and ‘baroque stereotypes’ in noir thrillers, an atmosphere predominately summoned by American films of the seventies. “The real world and fictional production” Gledhill asserts that stems from the Women’s Movement rather than studies in film theory. The idea of realism and genre are in total opposition to each other. Klute presents as an independent heroine yet each frame reveals the attack on Bree’s free will.
“While realism embraces such cultural values as ‘real life’, truth or credibility, genre production holds negative connotations such as ‘illusion’, ‘myth’, ‘conventionality’, ‘stereotypes’. The Hollywood genres represent the fictional elaboration of a patriarchal culture which produces macho heroes and a subordinate, demeaning and objectified place for women.”
And beyond the constructs of film noir, seventies thriller genre and criticism by feminist theorists of Pakula’s Klute, Bree Daniel’s conflicts are a universal struggle for women’s assertion of love vs the affirmation of self-determination. Bree’s uneasy self-reflection makes the perspective of a movie prostitute a breakthrough characterization. She isn’t a tragic figure nor is she weak or contemptible. Bree explores her compulsion and potential self-destructive behavior as a sex worker as an externalized symptom stemming from past mental and internalized physical injury and she strives to uncover the answers in her own way.
Pakula re-invents some of the noir traditions and places them within an examination of the modern world. With his masterful film, he strives not only for visual ecstasy, the dramatic flourish of the thriller genre, and though there has been acute dissection of his film, he seeks to divulge a truth that becomes a revelation of acting by Jane Fonda.
In a 2019 interview with Jane Fonda conducted by Illeana Douglas, Fonda refers to Alan J. Pakula whom she worked in subsequent films, Comes a Horseman and Rollover, as a “still director.” “He allowed time for things to happen.” Jane Fonda explains that she loves films from the seventies because there was time left for things to happen. “more silence, than words.”
During the rehearsal for KluteJane Fonda in order to prepare for her role as Bree Daniels, arranged to spend a lot of time with call-girls, streetwalkers and madams. Prostitutes on the bottom rung, strung out from the underbelly of the city and very wealthy madams, whom Fonda said made it clear the more money the client the weirder the sexual appetites and fantasies. She also talked about her decade living in France where she got to know the legendary Madam Claude, famous for taking beautiful women and molding them into high price call girls. Jane Fonda got to know many of them. Many she met were tough, often sexually aggressive she she said, and also sexually confident. She had learned that often they were the survivors of sexual abuse. What she referred having their ‘agency taken away’. These women inspired Fonda to model Bree after them. This is why Fonda’s performance pivots so well from self-confidence to vulnerability.
Illeana Douglas compliments Fonda by telling her that there’s “something going on in your eyes” which made Fonda recall that acting instructor Lee Strasberg had told her the very same thing in his class, that something was going on in her eyes that made him think that more is going on.
Fonda also had what she calls a ‘hair epiphany’. She had just come off filming cult sensation directed by husband, Roger Vadim’s Barbarella where she had all those blonde waves. Her friend hairdresser Paul MacGregor who lived in the village worked on what is now her iconic hair style from Klute.
Jane Fonda worried that as a white privileged middle class actress couldn’t possibly bring to life a prostitute and make it believable. She insisted to her director Alan J. Pakula that he hire Faye Dunaway instead. Pakula burst out laughing.
Jane Fonda was allowed to add a lot of her own insight into the character of Bree, little details and director Pakula often took them as excellent suggestions that worked well with the story. For instance, it was Fonda’s idea to live in the apartment for weeks. She lay there at night as if she were Bree trying to get inside Bree’s head and summon up the things she would do within her private time. We don’t know the backstory behind Bree Daniels many permutations. We are only to privy to hints of the damage.
Jane Fonda conceptualized many of the set’s subtleties. What would Bree read, what would adorn her little space. She thought of having a cat, because cats symbolize independence and Fonda imagined that Bree’s persona wanted a companion that would be more like herself. In many ways, Jane Fonda dressed the set with these little introspective details. The film became a very personal experience for her. And one that initiated her feminist transformation. Even when she was smoking the spliff in her apartment, it wasn’t in the script but she spontaneously began to sing that little hymn, it was very natural and emphasized how real her character was. Fonda tells of how this was a very spontaneous improvisation as a plot detail that was not in the script but struck her at the moment.
Illeana Douglas also astutely pointed out that there was a lot of glamour to the film. There were moments where Klute was framed with close ups of Bree. Even with the evocative Cymbalon melody – the Klezmer (traditional Eastern European Jewish music) movement that guides the scene it reminds of the languid strut of Marlene Dietrich, the allure of Greta Garbo and had the flavor of night club singers in Paris and Germany. When I watched the incredibly thoughtful and in-depth interview it hit me how much that was true. I saw it as clear as day, that Jane Fonda’s aura did truly give off that mystique that essence of glamour of the great actresses’ personae. Superb fashion and costume designer Ann Roth chose the alluring dress that Bree wears when she visits the old man, Mr. Goldfarb.Â
Jane Fonda also points out that Bree could have been a great actress but within her craft something would have triggered her to return to selling her body, which is a violation to the soul, and it’s very different than acting, as it comes from a deep place of trauma and the need to control and not open up her heart.
[voiceover] “I have no idea what’s going to happen. I… I just can’t stay in this city, you know? Maybe I’ll come back. You’ll probably see me next week.”
 This is your EverLovin Joey saying see you on the tracks! Part 2 coming up!
There is a rugged sensuality about Stuart Whitman with his thick black hair and that sexy cleft in his strong chin. I’ve been totally gone gaga over the man for as long as I can remember. Although he doesn’t possess the typical pretty leading man who looks like Paul Newman or Marlon Brando, Whitman has an offbeat sex appeal that I’m drawn to more than the obviously handsome guy. Maybe it’s his commanding brows framing his deep drawn blue eyes. Or perhaps it’s his raspy suede voice one octave down from middle C and that outre cool swagger that gets me. I love the self-assured manner that he exudes in every one of his roles. There are over 180 films and television roles to his credit. It seems like he lived a very full life on his terms, and had a great appreciation for the ladies– lucky them! He was also long-time friends with many of his working colleagues and that says a lot to me.
Stuart Whitman was born on Feb. 1, 1928, in San Francisco. He appeared in summer stock plays in New York until the age of 12. After living in New York his family moved to Los Angeles in the mid-1940s. He graduated from Hollywood High School in 1945, then enlisted in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for three years. While in the service he was secretly trained in boxing by his uncle, and won boxing matches as a light-heavyweight. After an honorable discharge, he attended acting classes at night with the Michael Chekhov Stage Society and studied for four years.
He joined the Ben Bard Drama School in Hollywood debuting in the school’s production of Here Comes Mr. Jordan, which ran for six months.
20th Century Fox scooped Stuart Whitman up while amassing new talent during the late 1950s.
In 1952, Stuart Whitman continued to appear in small roles in George Archainbard’s Barbed Wire and Tay Garnett’s One Minute to Zero. Universal signed him In December 1952, which got him a tiny part in Douglas Sirk’s All I Desire with Barbara Stanwyck and The All American.
His most memorable and brave portrayal is of Kim Fuller in The Mark.
In The Mark, Stuart Whitman takes on the compelling, challenging role of Jim Fuller, who after serving three years in prison for the abduction and attempted molestation of a nine-year-old girl, is let out. Jim Fuller coming to terms with his past has gone through extensive therapy with psychiatrist McNally (Rod Steiger) and is released a reformed man, given a good job, and tries to acclimate himself back into normal society. He starts up a relationship with the company secretary Ruth (Maria Schell) who has a 10-year-old little daughter. The ugly monster that is his past creeps up behind him and challenges his chance at a new life. While the film’s subject is still one of revulsion, the character of James Fuller is framed sympathetically, partly because he never went through with committing the crime. The film gives a well-explained symptomology through Dr. McNally’s compassionate trained eye for uncovering the truth, and flashbacks aid us in seeing Fuller’s utter agony with what he contemplated doing. He stops himself from going through with the assault and vomits at the thought of it. He drives the little girl back to town where he is met with an angry mob. He asks to be locked up because he is sick.
The Mark explores without reservation the conflicted Jim Fuller, which in the cinema at that time breaks ground. He finds solace in his relationship with a sympathetic psychiatrist Rod Steiger. The Mark costars Maria Schell.
While the film is quite black & white with its Freudian brush strokes, the story is still compelling and Guy Green’s direction works well to light the flame under the kettle slowly. The Mark was released at a time in film when sexual ‘deviation’ was being experimented with at the cinema. Director Basil Dearden’s taut drama Victim (1961) starring Dirk Bogarde about homosexuality and blackmail, director Joseph L. Mankiewicz’sSuddenly, Last Summer (1959) deals with mental illness, homosexuality, and cannibalism, and Lillian Hellman’s story directed by William Wyler The Children’s Hour (1961) that deals with the stigma of lesbianism.
Originally Richard Burton was cast in the part of Jim Fuller and the part of Ruth was to be Jean Simmons. And while Burton is of course one of those incredible actors who is laudable at dancing the waltz with complex and damage, Whitman is profoundly adept at pouring out multitudinous levels of torturous self-loathing and social anxiety in a plot full of minefields the protagonist can step on. The film earned him the Oscar nomination for Best Actor not only for his incredibly nuanced performance but partly for his brave and challenging accomplishment. The Mark features Whitman’s complex portrayal of a sexual deviant and a self-reflexive man struggling to come to terms with his predilections while finding his way back into society again. There’s a good reason he was nominated for Best Actor… he deserved the award.
Excerpts from an Interview From Shock Cinema Magazine by Anthony Petkovich
SC: What was the challenge for you in making THE MARK?
STUART WHITMAN: “I was doing a screen test at 20th with Lee Remick for a movie called The Candy Man which Tony Richardson was going to direct. And I got a telephone call from Kurt Frings my agent at the time. And Kurt tells me, "Don't go back" "˜but I'm shooting right now I said. "Don't go to the set." He said "What do you mean?" "˜Don't go back Just go home, pack a bag and catch the four o'clock to London this afternoon. You're gonna shoot a movie in Ireland." I asked "Well, what's the name of the picture?" "Not to worry. Don't ask any questions. Just get on the plane and go." And I remember racing to the airport to catch the plane and running into the actor Dane Clark, "Where you going Stuart?" He asked me " I'm off to do a thing called THE MARK" I told him, "but I don't know anything about it." THE MARK? He said "My God, I really wanted to play that role, Jesus Christ." So that was the only indication I received that it was something special"¦ Well Richard Burton was originally supposed to do my role in THE MARK but he was starring in Camelot and couldn't get out of his commitment to do the play. So Kurt–who handled Burton and Maria School, the female lead in THE MARK and wonderful to work with-he squared me into the thing.”
“So they put me up in a hotel in London, and I had three days there before going on location to Ireland. Now when I arrived at the London hotel, all of these British reporters were asking me "What do you think about doing this movie?" "˜I haven't read it" I told them " I don't know. Let me read it , then I will tell ya" So I got rid of all of the reporters because I really didn't know what the fuck the movie was all about. And in my hotel room, when I finally read the script, I kind of freaked out. So much so that I was thinking to myself "Well, I could get sick and tell them that I can't do the movie"”I had all kinds of excuses that I was going to lay on "˜em so that I didn't have to tackle this project. Then I thought, "Well, fuck it. If I"m in the right business or the wrong business I"ll know if I can pull this one off. And if I can I"ll be alright, But yeah it was difficult to do. And that's when I first met Rod Steiger. Since Rod and I had a lot of scenes together, he said "you want to come over to my house and we'll just run over the lines and get familiar with it?" "Absolutely" I said to him.”
After the dreaded Night of the Lepus, Whitman survived the blip in his momentum and proclaimed his comeback with multiple entertaining films and television roles, many which helped him attain cult status. Including Lawrence Harvey's excursion into cannibalism Welcome to Arrow Beach, and master of horror Tobe Hooper's sub-genre of horror films"” the hillbilly slasher Eaten Alive starring Neville Brand and Carolyn Jones. My favorite is his performance as the love-sick paramour of Piper Laurie in Curtis Harrington's Ruby (1977). The underrated nightmarish ghost story and a great vehicle for Piper Laurie. Whitman brings that wonderful 70s sensibility to the film as he aches for his lover to return his affections.
Meg Foster and Stuart Whitman in Lawrence Harvey’s Welcome to Arrow Beach.
Stuart Whitman and Rory Calhoun in Night of the Lepus.
Stuart Whitman also stepped into the role of cult leader of People's Temple Jim Jones with a hyperbolic performance in GUYANA: CULT OF THE DAMNED.
Aside from some of his more obvious diversions into the cult market, Stuart Whitman delivered memorable roles in films like director Monte Hellman's Shatter 1974 where he plays a cool character, an international hitman who is now himself a target. Whitman can slip into a diverse range of characters from sympathetic child molesters, to homicidal cult leaders/mass murderers, cutthroats and heroes, urbane hitmen, or a variety of sheriffs. From the 60s decade through the 70s Stuart Whitman’s roles ran the gamut.
The 1960s were a golden time for Whitman where he found himself to be one of the leading stars in Hollywood. Another outstanding example of his versatile acting ability is showcased in the intense crime drama based on New York gangsters — Murder, Inc. 1960 and 1964 psychologically disturbing, psychotronic Shock Treatment 1965. Whitman plays an actor Dale Nelson who is hired to locate $1 million in stolen money, so he gets himself committed to the institution run by Lauren Bacall. But finds himself immersed in the depths of insanity inside the asylum. Then there was the internationally assembled cast for the aviation extravaganza comedy Those Magnificent Men and their Flying Machines and the fantastic adventure film The Sands of the Kalahari.
Stuart Whitman in The Sands of the Kalahari (1965).
Murder, Inc. Year: 1960 USA Stuart Whitman Director: Burt Balaban.
Stuart Rosenberg’s directorial debut Murder, Inc (1960) co-starred Peter Falk in his explosive role as Abe Reles.
SC:Hey, I don't want to forget about MURDER, INC.
STUART WHITMAN: “I did that while I was still under contract to 20th They said "you're going off to New York to do this thing called Murder, Inc. So on the plane I'm reading the script, and I'm thinking "wow! What a role here"¦ Abe Reles"¦ And when I got to New York and they picked me up in a limo at the airport, they asked me "how did you like the script? "Oh God, I just loved it" And they said "we got an interesting young guy, a character actor named Peter Falk who's gonna plays Abe Reles" "Wait" I said, "I thought that was my role" "No, no You're going to play the kid in it.. with May Britt.. the love affair part of the story." And I said "Oh shit, I don't want to do it. SO I called up (Spyros) Skouras (president of 20th Century Fox from 42 to 62) and said "Now Mrs Skouras that's not the role I wanted to do" No do it" he said.
Anyhow, Peter Falk and I were getting along, getting some good stuff into the picture but when they fired the director Stuart Rosenberg, we had a sit down strike between us actors. But then a full out strike was coming along, and 20th said "The strike is coming up, so we have to finish this picture right away"”before it hits." Well, the very day we finished the picture, the strike hit. But that's why there are two directors credited on Murder Inc. Burt Balaban was the producer so when Rosenberg got fired he stepped in.”
Stuart Whitman was very physically fit and started doing a lot of macho-type movies around this time, like Westerns Rio Conchos 1964 and The Comancheros 1961. Whitman has top billing in the well-cast western, The Comancheros, and maintains a glorious chemistry with Wayne. He plays a womanizing gambler who kills a nobleman’s son in a dual. He escapes the noose but is hunted down by the honest Captain of the Texas Rangers Jake Cutter (John Wayne). It’s directed by Michael Curtiz, and both men exchange quick-witted dialogue. Inevitably the two become friends. Cimarron Strip 1967-68 was Whitman's short-lived highly charged 90-minute TV western which was his show starring the serious Marshal Jim Crown. The episodes featured other great actors like Richard Boone, Warren Oates, and Robert Duvall. I read that Cimarron Strip was of Whitman's favorite projects.
Stuart Whitman as Marshal Jim Crown in the television western series Cimarron Strip 1967-68.
Stuart Whitman in Rio Conchos (1964).
Stuart Whitman and co-star John Wayne in Michael Curtiz’s The Comancheros (1961).
Stuart Whitman appeared in various tv movies, including City Beneath the Sea (1971), and Revenge! (1971) co-starring Shelley Winters, The Woman Hunter (1972), co-starring Barbara Eden.
Donald Randolph, Tony Curtis, Richard Long, Stuart Whitman, and Palmer Lee in “The All American” 1953 Universal ** B.D.M.
Under contract to Universal, Stuart Whitman was still cast in minimal parts in 1953. The first is with director Budd Boetticher’s The Man from the Alamo. Then he worked with Jacques Tourneur his crime thriller Appointment in Honduras. Then followed The Veils of Bagdad and Walking My Baby Back Home.
in 1954, he was still getting cast in small roles in Charles Vidor’s Rhapsody, loaned out to MGM. Stuart Whitman appeared in Brigadoon. He performed on stage at the Coast Theater in Christopher Fry’s Venus Observed.
1955, Whitman maintained his brief images like the man on the beach in Curtis Bernhardt’s Interrupted Melody. Also that year, Whitman had a minor role in the serial King of the Carnival. In that same vein he appeared in Allan Dwan’s war drama Hold Back the Night. Then came Budd Boetticher’s western Seven Men from Now in 1956 co-starring Lee Marvin and Randolph Scott.
Finally, In 1957, Stuart Whitman’s film presence gained visibility in Gerd Oswald’s noir thriller Crime of Passion, and Reginald Le Borg’s War Drums. He got his first leading role in John H. Auer’s Johnny Trouble. Where Whitman plays Johnny Chandler a belligerent young man whom Ethel Barrymore believes is her grandson. Films that followed were Hell Bound co-starring Broderick Crawford and James Mason and Howard W. Koch’s psycho-sexual shocker The Girl in Black Stockings (1957).
Stuart Whitman as Prentiss in The Girl in the Black Stockings (1957).
Carolyn Jones and Stuart Whitman in Johnny Trouble (1957)
Also in 1957, Whitman had a notable role in the military series, Harbor Command based on the United States Coast Guard.
He had a recurring role as police officer Sgt. Walters on the television series Highway Patrol. Whitman and his co-star Broderick Crawford hit it off and became friends.
He was cast in bit parts in film and stage productions. Then he finally had his breakthrough with the drama Johnny Trouble in 1957 co-starring Ethel Barrymore in her last role. Then he co-starred with Gary Cooper in Ten North Frederick (1958) Stuart Whitman co-starred with Dorothy Dandridge in the crime drama The Decks Ran Red in 1958 where the two kissed showcasing one of the first interracial kisses in Hollywood at the time.
STUART WHITMAN & DOROTHY DANDRIDGE Film ‘THE DECKS RAN RED’ (1958) Directed By ANDREW L. STONE 10 October 1958 CT2447 Allstar/Cinetext/MGM
Dorothy Dandridge and Stuart Whitman in The Decks Ran Red (1958)
excerpts from an Interview From Shock Cinema Magazine by Anthony Petkovich
SC: “You also starred with Broderick Crawford (they worked together in Highway Patrol) in The Decks Ran Red 1958.”
STUART WHITMAN: “Dorothy Dandridge, poor baby"¦ She was previously married to one of the two Nicholas brothers {Harold} and their daughter, who was (brain-damaged), eventually had to be placed in a mental institution. And poor Dorothy was going through all of that turmoil while she was making the movie. A goddess, that's what she was. "You know how Brod got that picture? Listen to this"¦ Andrew and Virginia Stone both produced it with Andrew directing. And I said to them "who are you going to get to play this role (of Henry Scott)?" And they said, "Oh God, we'd love to have Broderick Crawford but he's a drunk" And I said "Wait a second, if he tells you he's not going to drink, then he won't drink" No, they said. And I said "look. Call him up and talk to him. Tell him that I'm in the picture." So they called Brod up and hired him. And just as I told them Brod didn't touch a drop until the last day of shooting-then he let go But that' show he got that job It was actually a good little movie. James Mason was an interesting guy, and we became fast friends. Oh God, he was a sweetheart. But Brod and he just didn't get along.”
Came 1958, Charlton Heston left William Wellman’s film Darby’s Rangers. Its star James Garner took over the role and Stuart Whitman took Garner’s original character. Starting in production that year was Richard Fleischer’s western These Thousand Hills, and beginning it’s theatrical run was Ten North Frederick. Whitman remarked, “Many good things came from that”.
In 1958, Hedda Hopper wrote a piece on Whitman which said he could be the “new Clark Gable” :
This is a fresh personality with tremendous impact. He’s tall and lean with shock of unruly black hair and dark hazel eyes which harden to slate grey when he plays a bad man or turns on the heat in a love scene. When he comes into camera range, the audience sits up and says: “Who dat?”
The Decks Ran Red directed by Andrew L. Stone followed and according to Whitman, he got MGM to hire his friend Broderick Crawford with the condition that he remain sober during the shooting.
In 1959, Stuart Whitman replaced Robert Wagner in The Sound and the Fury co-starring Joanne Woodward and Yul Brynner. Woodward and Whitman would find themselves acting together once again in the taut thriller Signpost to Murder 1964. Also that year he appeared in an episode of the popular television show by writer/produced by Gene Roddenberry Have Gun-Will Travel.
Whitman finally started getting leading man roles in director Don Siegel’s Hound Dog Man. Whitman played a rogue his “fourth heel in a row… I had a ball because the character was a real louse, with everything hanging off him, and no inhibitions. I like those kinds of guys, I suppose because I can’t be that way myself.”
In 1960, he starred in the Biblical drama The Story of Ruth, replacing Stephen Boyd as Boaz.
Stuart Whitman in “The Story of Ruth” 1960 (Photo by RDB/ullstein bild via Getty Images)
That year he co-starred in the darkly violent crime biopic Murder, Inc. Whitman had originally thought that he was to be cast in the Peter Falk role, but wound up playing the romantic lead instead. The film’s production was problematic from the beginning. Director Stuart Rosenberg was fired for taking too long to set up shots. After the actors’ strike, the studio was pressured to finish the film so they hired Burt Balaban to finish production.
Then came 1961 and the role that earned him the Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. Stuart Whitman was frustrated with the kinds of roles he was getting. “I had been knocking around and not getting anything to test my ability” When Richard Burton dropped out of the production of Guy Green’s The Mark, to take the part in the stage production of Camelot, Whitman was contacted by his agent, the actor not knowing the controversial content of the film, he flew to Ireland to read the script. Though it was a challenge he felt that he could tackle the role of a child molester, and he was right as he garnered an Oscar nomination for his performance. Whitman acknowledged that it “doubled my rating as an actor” yet “I had a tough time breaking my image in that movie… it blocked my image as a gutsy outdoorsman.”
Whitman then starred in The Fiercest Heart filmed in South Africa. Then he appeared in Michael Curtiz’s religious biopic Francis of Assisi. Curtiz wanted Whitman, to appear in his next film The Comancheros. John Wayne had to negotiate with the studio to get Whitman released from a prior commitment with the studio. Stuart Whitman plays Paul Regret who escapes from the law but is eventually captured by Texas Ranger Jake Cutter (John Wayne).
1962, Whitman starred in Millard Kaufman’s crime drama Convicts 4 and was cast in the all-star feature The Longest Day (1962) The events of D-Day, were told on a grand scale from both the Allied and German points of view.Â
In 1963, Stuart Whitman appeared in an episode called “Killing at Sundial” of the first season of Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre. Whitman plays a Native American seeking to avenge his father who was hanged years ago.
1964, Whitman was cast in the expository psychological shiver as the unfortunate Dale Nelson who gets cast into the snake pit of Shock Treatment (1964). Then came the western directed by Gordon Douglas- Rio Conchos co-starring two other leading men Richard Boone and Tony Franciosa. Whitman said that he didn’t like the script, but producer Darryl F. Zanuck dangled the carrot of the lead role in Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines in 1965. After Stuart Whitman met with Richard Boone and director Douglas he agreed to take the part. Director Annakin had wanted Dick Van Dyke for the lead role in this aviation extravaganza but he had to accept the studio’s choice and wound up being pleased with Whitman’s wonderful performance.
In 1965 he appeared in the director George Englund’s film noir Signpost to Murder co-starring Joanne Woodward. Signpost to Murder is perhaps one of Stuart Whitman’s most compelling performances. He plays Alex Forrester an escaped patient from an asylum – who takes refuge in Molly Thomas’ (Woodward) house and has secrets of her own. This contemplative thriller with twists is an incredibly underrated psychological thriller and deserves more attention paid to it for its narrative precision. There is an evocative score by master composer Lyn Murray that underlines the moody discord of the plot. Whitman is superb as the desperate man trying to free himself from being labeled insane, culminating in the emotional eruption of violence. “What a terrible way to live out the one life I have. Shut up. Shut off. Forever lost.”
He got the lead in Cy Endfield’s Sands of the Kalahari. Other actors considered for the role were Richard Burton, Robert Mitchum, and Marlon Brando. Whitman had a horrendous time during the shoot, due to the extreme heat on location in Africa, and the baboons whom he had to fight with weren’t trained. And finally the release of director Ken Annakin’s comedy centered around the aviation craze circa 1910 with an ensemble cast. Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines with Whitman featured as the American participating in the race from London to Paris.
In 1966, Whitman starred opposite Eleanor Parker in Robert Gist’s An American Dream aka See You in Hell, Darling based on the novel by Norman Mailer. The film is a self-indulgent cynical journey as Whitman is suspected of killing his wife (Parker) who plays a miserable alcoholic. Whitman then appeared once again on the dramatic television series Bob Hope Presents in the episode The Highest Fall of All. He played a suicidal stuntman with a death wish who is willing to do a dangerous fall.
In 1967, Whitman came into American living rooms for the first time as U.S. Marshal Jim Crown, the lead character in the television western Cimarron Strip.
Stuart Whitman and Margit Saad in The Last Escape (1970)
1970, Whitman appeared in the episode “Murder off-camera” of Bracken’s World. Also that year, Stuart Whitman starred in The Last Escape and The Invincible Six. He was also in an episode of The FBI. In 1971, Whitman acted in director Alexander Singer’s Captain Apache co-starring Carroll Baker and Lee Van Cleef.
Whitman plays a psychic who is hired by Carol Rossen to find her missing husband in the Grand Guignol made-for-television thriller Revenge! starring Shelley Winters as a twisted vengeful mother who is holding Bradford Dillman captive in her cellar. He appeared in another made-for-television sci-fi adventure The City Beneath the Sea. In 1972, he plays a hardened, solitary sea captain who catches a mermaid in “Lindemann’s Catch”, an episode of Rod Serling’s horror/fantasy series Night Gallery. Serling wrote the episode and Jeff Corey directed it.
City Beneath the Sea (1971) made for tv movie.
Also in 1972, he appeared in Disney’s Run, Cougar, Run, and an episode of Fantasy Island called “Carnival/The Vaudevillians“. He did another episode of Night Gallery called “Fright Night” where he must take care of a mysterious trunk in an old family estate. Having a proclivity toward starring in horror he appeared in a television episode of Circle of Fear/Ghost Story called “The Concrete Captain co-starring Gena Rowlands. That same year he appeared in another television movie, The Woman Hunter starring Barbara Eden. Came 1972 Whitman appears as a hitman in “The Set Up” episode of The Streets of San Francisco, and the made for the television film The Man Who Died Twice. He also appeared in Love, American Style, and an episode of Hec Ramsey called “A Hard Road to Vengeance.” Curtis Harrington’s Made for Television horror The Cat Creature (1973) co-starring Gale Sondergaard.
In 1974 he took to the horror stage again appearing in the outre creepy and violent Welcome to Arrow Beach co-starring Lawrence Harvey and Joanna Pettet about a veteran who craves human flesh. Harvey who directed had asked Whitman to play the lead role, but he told him he didn’t want to play a cannibal but he’d play the deputy because he wanted to work with Lawrence Harvey.
In 1975, he had the lead role in Call Him Mr. Shatter, and an episode of Cannon called “Man in the Middle”. He co-starred with Fred Williamson in Mean Johnny Barrows. That same year he starred in Jonathan Demme’s exploitation film Crazy Mama co-starring Cloris Leachman. Several generations of women go on to be outlaws robbing banks so they can reclaim the farm in Arkansas that was taken away from them by the bank. Whitman plays Jim Bob who is along for the ride with Melba (Cloris Leachman). In Mean Johnny Barrows(1975) Whitman co-stars as a crime boss with Fred Williamson.
In 1976 he starred in the television series S.W.A.T. episode “The Running Man” and then he took to the Italian action genre working with director Alberto De Martino in his Giallo feature where Whitman plays Capt. Tony Saitta co-stars with John Saxon and Martin Landau in the very slick mystery Strange Shadows in an Empty Room. He appeared alongside Rod Taylor and Elke Sommer in Treasure Seeker. He acted in television’s Harry O with friend David Janssen and appeared in the series Ellery Queen. He played the sheriff in Tobe Hooper’s nasty horror gorge- Eaten Alive.
In 1977, television called Stuart Whitman once again to appear in Quincy, M.E. in the highly charged episode “Hot Ice Cold Hearts” He appeared in one of my favorite horror films starring the great Piper Laurie. He starred in J. Lee Thompson’s The White Buffalo co-starring Charles Bronson.
In 1978 Whitman appeared in several television miniseries, The Pirate written by Harold Robins, and The Seekers. He also starred in Delta Fox.
“A lot of big people told me I was the number one man the networks wanted,” said Whitman. “I always wanted to play a cop with a heart, a guy who would use every possible means not to kill a man,” he said. “TV has needed a superhero… and I think Crown can be the guy.”
The Los Angeles Times did a profile on Whitman around this time, calling him “an actor of growing importance in a business that needs stalwarts to follow in the steps of the Clark Gables, Gary Coopers, and John Waynes… Whitman is like a finely trained athletic champion "“ a modest but self-assured chap who seems to know where he is going.”
“I’ve done lots of different parts since I left Hollywood High School and City College”, said Whitman in a 1960 interview, “so the sudden switch didn’t bother me too much. I hope 20th Century Fox will keep the roles varied and interesting.”
"I didn't need to act to make a living, but I had a real passion for it," he told writer Nick Thomas. "I just loved to act."
Whitman described himself to Hedda Hopper as “a real American "“ have a little bit of English, Irish, Scotch and Russian "“ so I get along with everyone.”
“I went to so many schools"”26 in all!"”that I was always an outsider,” he later recalled. “It wasn’t until high school that I could really read . . . I always sat in the back of the room.”
Whitman’s early love for acting came through when he did three summer stock plays in New York when he was 12, but “nobody took that seriously,” he said.
“I reached a point where I said, ‘What are you going to do with your life? You got to get something going.'” he said. “I decided I wanted to spend most of my time on me. So I decided to develop me and educate me.”
According to John Gregory Dunne’s “The Studio,” Whitman was suggested for the title role in The Boston Strangler by John Bottomly, the Massachusetts assistant attorney general who prosecuted Albert DeSalvo. Instead, the role went to Tony Curtis.
Whitman had turned down a number of offers to star on television series over the years, including Mannix and Judd for the Defense. “I wanted more diversity in acting,” he said. “I felt I would limit myself.”
Whitman admitted, “I’m the type who must work constantly.”In the early 1970s, he worked increasingly in Europe. “I left Hollywood because it was getting to be a mad mess!” he said. “There are only about two really good scripts going around and they always go to the industry’s two top stars. I thought that in Europe, something better might come my way"”and it did! I’ve made mistakes in the past, but I kept bouncing back. I always thought that an actor is destined to act, but I now realize that if you do one role well, you get stuck with it!”
Stuart Whitman retired from film and television after 2000 after his final appearance in The President’s Man.
“The Comancheros” John Wayne, Stuart Whitman 1961 20th Century Fox.
“I was filming Francis of Assisi 1961 In Italy with director Michael Curtiz IT was wintertime and a hard shoot And near the end of the film, Michael said "Stuart take a look at this script. It's called The Comancheros" I read it over and said "˜boy, there's a role in there that I'd love to be in" And he said I'd love to have you in it. I'm directing it. But the studio has got somebody else cast for that particular part. But we don't start filming for another month, so when you get back to Hollywood see if you can get on the picture. I'd like to have you. "When I got back, I asked the studio and they said No you can't do it We've got it all sewn up. So I called up Kurt Frings and told him what Curtiz said to me "Well he said "go see the Duke at Paramount He's on Stage 17 Go talk to him.
Anyhow I worked my way into Paramount went to Stage 17 and when I got there (Wayne) was just going off to his dressing room. So I followed him in"” "and Michael Curtiz wants me in your next picture. I really want to do it but the studio is putting up some blockage there. So I hung around there with Wayne for part of the day. And at the end of the day he asked me, "you really want to do the picture huh? Okay You've to the job. That's how I got The Comancheros.”-Stuart Whitman
Was a light-heavyweight boxer while serving the United States Army. Ironically, it was his role as a prizefighter in the play “Dr. Christian” that brought him his first leading role in a movie, playing Johnny in Johnny Trouble (1957) opposite Ethel Barrymore.
In 1960, MGM toyed with the idea of doing an all-male remake of The Women (1939) which would’ve been entitled “Gentlemen’s Club.” Stuart Whitman would have been cast as (Oliver, the bartender who spills the beans about the illicit affair).
Another The Decks Ran Red co-star Whitman commented on was Dorothy Dandridge, who was going through a divorce and had to institutionalize her mentally ill daughter. Whitman was impressed with her strength and described her as a goddess.
Whitman told that when he first met Peter Falk on the set of Murder, Inc., they had differences but eventually became friends. Whitman found The Mark director Guy Green difficult to work with, finding him demanding and too strict, but they became good friends afterwards. On the set of Sands of the Kalahari, Whitman said he became best friends with fellow cast members Stanley Baker and Theodore Bikel, while he didn’t click with Jim Brown at first, they too became friends.
S.W.A.T. – Season Two – “The Running Man” 12/2/75 Stuart Whitman
FILM CLIPS HERE:
Cimarron Strip television show
Johnny Trouble 1957 as Johnny
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Darby’s Rangers 1958 as Sgt. Hank Bishop
Ten North Frederick 1958 as Charley Bongiorno
The Decks Ran Red 1958 as Leroy Martin
The Sound and the Fury 1959 as Charlie Busch
Murder, Inc 1960 as Joey Collins
The Mark 1961 as Jim Fuller
The Comancheros 1961 as Paul Regret
Convicts 4 (1961) as Principal Keeper
The Day and the Hour 1963 as Capt. Allan Morley
Shock Treatment 1964 as Dale Nelson
Signpost to Murder 1964 as Alex Forrester
An American Dream 1966 as Stephen Richard Rojack
The Invincible Six 1970 as Tex
Captain Apache 1971 as Griffin
Revenge! 1971 tv movie as Mark Hembric
Night Gallery 1972 Capt. Hendrick Lindemann (segment “Lindemann’s Catch”)
The Streets of San Fransisco 1973 episode: “The Set-Up”) (1973) as Nick Carl
Shatter 1974 as Shatter
Crazy Mama 1975 as Jim Bob
Mean Johnny Barrows 1976 as Mario Racconi
Strange Shadows in an Empty Room 1976 as Capt. Tony Saitta
10th July 1970: Studio portrait of American actor Lee Grant, wearing a flower-patterned dress in front of a light backdrop, (Photo by Jack Robinson/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
LEE GRANT at the 63rd annual Writers Guild Awards at the AXA equitable Center 2-5-11-Photo by John Barrett/Globe Photos, INC.2011
Jo: Hi, Lee. It's Jo, how're you doing?
Lee: Hi Jo!
Jo: What's going on? How's your day?
Lee: Good so far.
Jo: So hopefully it'll just even get better now. [laughs]
Lee: Of course!
Jo: Are you ready to talk a little bit?
Lee: Sure!
Jo: Ok, great! Um, God, I don't even know where to start because I'm just really excited and very grateful that you're spending time talking to me.
Lee: Sure!
Jo: Um, so, before I start asking you any questions, I mean I guess I could just start asking you some questions. We spoke a little yesterday, and you know how much I love your work. I've just followed you for such a long time. And I'm kind of in awe of you, so I'm a little starstruck. [laughs]
Lee: Oh, good! [laughs] You're so cute and I don't think there are many people who would say that anymore. So it's yummy.
Jo: No, that's not true, let me tell you, you've got fans! There are so many people who just adore you. You are memorable! You are a beautiful spitfire. You're complex, you're powerful, you're evocative, and very memorable. So don't think I'm the only one. [laughs]
Lee: Ok, I give in!
Jo: Ok, you give in!
Lee: I give in, I am memorable!
Jo: You are memorable, you really really are. I mean, seriously, it's like every time something would come on TV, a show or a movie, and I would say "Oh, Lee Grant is in this!" I would get so excited. No matter what it was, I would watch it. If it was like a television program, even if I wasn't familiar with the show or the film, I'd be like "Well, Lee is in it, I've got to see this now!" So I'm going to start asking away and hopefully, they're good questions.
Lee: Where's Wendy?
Jo: Oh, Wendy's here, too.
Wendy: I'm actually here, Lee. Hi! I'm the technical person so I'm here to make sure everything goes ok.
Lee: Hi Wendy. Ok!
Wendy: And I do have a question for you at the end, too. I couldn't resist!
Jo: The sociologist in her!
Lee: You know, I'm just glad to hear from you girls. You were so alive and interested and interesting when we met, and here we are, what is it 3 months later? You meet someone on an airplane and you see somebody and you sit and you talk for 6 hours and then you get off and you never see them again. So this is nice!
Jo: It was really amazing to just walk into this big room with all these people fluttering about, swarming about like a hive. And then to see you standing there [Lee laughs] and you're like this legend. This utter legend, stuck in the corner of a room!
Lee: Yeah, and you know, I've been writing a lot. And that deserves its own story.
Jo: It does. It definitely does… To walk over and just talk to you like that"”I wanted to grab a big pot of coffee and a couple of chairs and just sit. So now we're doing it, really.
Lee: We're doing it! And I have the coffee, too. I'm not sure it counts, though.
Jo: So, I'm going to just start asking questions. And I think I told you yesterday that I do these little setups because it helps me bridge to the question.
Lee: Whatever, just go honey!
Jo: You were in films with diverging mainstream audience appeal"¦ showing the wide range and versatility of your acting such as In the Heat of the Night with Sidney Poitier and Rod Steiger which dealt with racism. Valley of the Dolls became a cult pop sensation, and Plaza Suite where you were sublimely hilarious in Neil Simon's timeless comedy at its best. What is it that makes you such a versatile actress?
Lee: Well, I was a very compelled actress. You know I was blacklisted for 12 years, and those were the years from age 24 to age 36. I couldn’t work in film or television because I was married to a writer who was called a communist and therefore I was asked to name my own husband in front of the Unamerican Activities Committee, and my loathing"”I was going to say fear and loathing, but there was no fear. My loathing for that kind of activity and McCarthyism. You know, I can feel it in my stomach as I'm talking to you, it's so great. It's the feeling I have about Trump and that little lawyer Roy Cohn. You know, I was taken out of the acting system for the most important years of my life, I thought at the time. So when I came back, you know, they hired me for Peyton Place, and let me see, it would've been 1952-1964. Peyton Place at that time was the biggest television show in the country.
Jo: Yes, I just finished binge-watching it.
Lee: I went from near obscurity to being the bad girl"”Stella Chernack"”on Peyton Place which was seen by America three times a week. And not the same show three times a week. The appetite for it was so great that they did three new shows each week. So all of a sudden I was everybody's bad girl. You know, and my hunger for work, for acting, for reestablishing myself, for getting back at the bad guy was so intense, that all the film or TV show had to say was "Do you want to?" And I said yes. That was the title of my book, I said yes to everything. Yes, yes, yes because the appetite was unfillable, to work, to act. And with each part, you know you talk about my first movie, the movie that Norman Jewison directed, the one with Sidney Poitier and Rod Stieger.
Jo: Of course, In the Heat of the Night…
Lee: You know, when Norman interviewed me, he knew my background. This was a decade of intensely liberal filmmakers in Hollywood. Intensely liberal filmmakers. And the producer of Peyton Place, too. It was like they couldn't wait to hire me. They couldn't wait to make up for"”and it makes me cry a little bit"”all the years I didn't work. Their generosity, their kindness, their focus, their need to say "You're ok now, we got you." And for them to see that as an actor I was ready to take on the kind of roles that they were ready to give me. And I was.
Jo: And with an extra fierceness. You probably had an extra fierceness to show yourself because you had this fuel, this anger. This impetus.
Lee: It wasn't to sell myself, it was to act. It was to drop into that character and live that new life. After all, I'm a method actress. And I was starved to act. So I just couldn't get enough after wanting to act for all those young years. And I had to lie about my age because I was 36 when I got back in, so I got Mayor Yorty to change my driver's license. We had no computers then so nobody would know. You know, it was like everything to get back that they took away.
Jo: Everything that they stole from you! You mentioned being a method actress"¦
When you act what are you tapping into, beyond the acting Method you studied, and beyond the imagination of little Lyova Rosenthal? You take words in the script and make them come to life like no other actor. Lee Grant has her own unique way of expressing herself. You bring a unique identity to each role. Did it come from starting out with Meisner, or teaching at Uta Hagen's studio working with improvisation? Where does your genius come from?
Lee: It absolutely came from Meisner, because I was 17 when I went into the neighborhood playhouse. I was a failing high school student, and all I wanted were boys, boys, boys, and all I did was flirt, flirt, flirt. And when I went into that class and he gave me an objective. Jo, you know what an objective is"”it's to want something.
Jo: Oh yeah, yeah.
Lee: And the situation he set up with another boy in class was to get him out of the room, that he'd been a boyfriend and he wanted to get him out of the room. Well, this, there's a Jewish word for it"”a guerilla, a goomba, whatever it is, came out of me so this boy had no chance. The rage that I never knew"”I never knew I had– this impulse, this fierceness, of carrying out that objective to get that poor guy out of the room. With my voice, with my hands, it overwhelmed me. It overwhelmed him. And my strength was born. My strength was born in that first improvisation at 17. And to be given the benefit of saying "I want to do this" and then within safe circumstances, which is the play, you get to carry it out. You may not carry it out in life, but in that room, for that moment you can do anything because you have the objective.
Jo: That's incredible. That's an incredible background story. And I understand it's like that moment, that epiphany when there it is, it's born.
Lee: That was it. And that became my life. That was it.
Jo: Well thank god for that because we've enjoyed the outcome of that.
Lee: Thank god for that is right! I could've gone anyway, I could've been breaking up marriages.
Jo: Well, now I have a fun question"”You are our favorite Columbo murderer"¦ you were also in the Balcony with Peter Falk"¦
This is a 2 part question. You worked with Peter Falk in several roles, from plays like Prisoner of 2nd Ave. to an emotional episode of Ben Casey (you both gave a wonderfully passionate and heart-wrenching performance!), to the very post-modern The Balcony, and then, famously, as our favorite Columbo murderer the lady lawyer Lesley Willams in Ransom for a Deadman. What was it like to work with him? How did you end up working with him so much?
Columbo was one of those shows that were set up in such an interesting way because there were certain murderers who were "˜sympathetic', and you were one of them. You could tell Columbo had a lot of respect for your character's savvy. Did you enjoy playing cat and mouse with each other (like when you say to him "It's always the jugular he's going for" and then when you take him for that terrifying joy ride in your airplane and he doesn't want to talk for a while, and you're enjoying his discomfort)? How much fun were you both having on the set?
Lee: Oh, you're so funny! [laughs]
Jo: And I promised myself I wouldn't ask you about Shelley Winters (co-star in The Balcony), but maybe if we have time I'll ask you about Shelley"¦ [laughs](back to Peter Falk)
Lee: It was a good marriage.
Jo: That's a good way to put it.
Lee: Yeah, it was a good marriage. All of the parts we played, or were thrown in to play together, since it certainly wasn't planned. Peter was in it and I was hired, or I was in it, and then Peter. And we found ourselves each time within a new situation with a new role to play with each other. Never the same role. And we were not friends.
Jo: You weren't? Oh, that's what I was curious about because it almost seemed like you had such a natural flow together.
Lee: I think that’s one of the things that worked for us. That we were familiar as actors and felt each other as actors, but we had no history that would get in the way of whatever that character was. Whoever he was playing went through many versions certainly, and in his big show, I was the enemy. So it was fun to attack him freshly in whatever character he was and whatever character I was at the time"”friend, enemy, enemy, friend. And at each time find an actor who could spar with you, you know, fence with you.
Jo: And you did it so well. I mean it's funny because with Columbo there are several instances in the series where there are sympathetic murderers. And Wendy and I both think that you're one of them. You, and Joyce Van Patten, I loved her character. ( actually, Lee was one of the more ‘ruthless’ murderers – maybe I just love her so much that I was on her side!)
Lee: Oh, Joyce is one of my best friends.
Jo: Ah, love her! And Ruth Gordon, we love the one with Ruth Gordon. If Ruth were here Wendy and I would try to get you three to sit and have lunch with us and celebrate the best Columbo murderers.
Lee: I would do it any time, to have lunch with Ruth Gordon any time. And Joyce is one of my three very very very very best friends.
Jo: We love her. She's another one, we just light up when we see her. She's so wonderful. That's so nice to hear that you are such good friends. Tell her we said hi.
Lee: I knew Joyce Van Patten when I saw her on stage as a child actor. I saw her on stage when she was about 13 or 14.
Jo: Really? Wow, so you have a long history together.
Lee: We have a long history.
Jo: Awwww that's wonderful. And it's interesting that you both were that sympathetic murderer, and he really had that kind of respect for you. Because no matter what hell you put him through, like flying in that plane and making him suffer, you can tell he says, "Don't talk to me for a few minutes."
Lee: Well the thing is also that I'm the worst driver in the world. I have no sense of direction. So getting me to fly a plane like I knew where I was going and I knew what buttons to push was such a kick for me.
Jo: Oh, that's great! This is an interesting question and something I really wanted to know."¦
Do you feel that your roles in non-mainstream films (pause) or television series like Peyton Place Do you feel like they were less constrained for you as an actor?
Lee: Than what?
Jo: Thank doing a major motion picture. The smaller television series.
I wish there were more roles for you like Stella Chernak or the wandering mother/wife in The Neon Ceiling. Or Mrs. Enders, the mother in the Landlord, or Marilyn Kim Novak's neighbor in Middle of the Night. One of my favorites and you’re going to laugh at this, but sassy Edna from Storm Fear. They were very complex, and reflexive, quirky, and substantive roles for women?
Jo: Storm Fear directed by Cornel Wilde. It was that… ok I'm glad you're laughing"¦ I'm going to ask you about that now.
Lee: [laughs] Where did you ever get to see it?
Jo: Well I've seen most all your work anyway, but because I knew I was going to talk to you I started re-watching a lot of your films again because I just wanted to spend time with Lee Grant.
Lee: Oh honey, that's funny.
Jo: Ok, I have my question about Storm Fear"¦ this will make you laugh even more"¦
I get the sense Cornel Wilde didn't give a lot of direction in Storm Fear. But Edna was a very bright light in an otherwise conventional heist movie. Edna was rough around the edges, likable, and kind. There's a great scene where she's walking in the snow, in her fancy boots and snow shoes, swinging her purse. And she says about her mink coat "If it gets left behind, I'm gonna be in it." And in the end, they leave Edna dying in the snow with her two broken ankles, a wad of cash, and her mink coat. We were so upset at the end for you! Is Edna still out there in the snow? What was your experience working on that film?
Lee: "I'll kill ya!" Do you remember his reading of "I'll kill ya!"? Cornel Wilde would say "ok, cut. Now listen to me Steve (Steven Hill), "I'll kill you." "I'll kill you. Now you try it." And Steve goes "I'll kill you." And Cornel would say "ok, you've got it, Steve. Alright, and action!" And Steve would say "I'll kill YA!" "I'll kill YA!" [laughs]
Jo: [laughs] That's too hilarious! So I suspected right"¦ that you two did your thing and were the highlight of the film. There's the great scene"”you'll remember this"”where you're walking in the snow in your fancy shoes. And you're swinging your purse and you're wearing the mink coat. And you say "If this gets left behind I'm going to be in it!" And that's exactly what happens. They leave you dying in the snow with two broken ankles and a wad of cash in your mink coat.
Lee: [laughs] Falling down into the ravine.
Jo: You had fallen into the ravine. And Wendy and I are "“ I'm the kind of person, I yell at the television set"”And Wendy and I were like "Where's Edna?" I'm like "What about Edna?!"
Lee: Thank you! Thank you! I needed that!
Jo: I’m like all upset, what are you leaving her down there in the snow for? Give some closure. Where is she? Rescue her! Dammit! Rescue her! She's got broken ankles!
Lee: That is so funny.
Edna-“I hate you, you creep! I hate you!!!!”
Jo: But you were great in that. And those are the kind of roles that I really do love.
Lee: Well you know the thing about that is, historically speaking, that was an absolute crossover moment in my life because I was still blacklisted. Cornel Wilde who was a really, really decent guy hired me as a blacklisted actress in an important part in which he wanted to introduce his wife, the non-actress, as the lead. With Dan Duryea, who is no small pickings. Dan Duryea is one of the great character actors of all time.
Jo: Yes, I love him.
Lee: Now Cornel hired me when I was still deep on the blacklist and nobody else would hire me. And we made enough money to have my daughter. She was conceived in Hollywood at that time because we had enough money to have another baby, and to have my baby, as I had two stepchildren. So you know it was a ridiculous thing, stomping in the snow with these big snowshoes and a black satin dress, and my blistered scalp because they dyed my hair from dark red to platinum blonde. So my head was all blistered. But bless Cornel Wilde. He did a remarkable and wonderful thing, and I had the most important thing in my life. Dina saved me through that whole blacklisted period. Having a little girl to take care of and to be there. And she was the best, the funniest, the sweetest, the most interesting. So she saved my life, and that came out of Storm Fear. I mean, it's so interesting when you think about it.
Jo: It really is. And your performance is almost bright and glowing. There's something emanating from Edna. I just love Edna. And maybe that's what I was picking up on.
Lee: Oh yes, sweetheart. But having daughter Dina was the thing that held me together through the whole thing.
Jo: And she's a hoot.
Lee: She's the best. The best. I just came back from being with her.
Jo: I love that she's in that episode of The Golden Girls when Blanche, Rue MacLanahan, keeps slamming the door in her face. It is just so hilarious. The comedic timing between the two of them is brilliant. I mean, she's got your"¦ she's got the gift.
Lee: Yes, she does.
Jo: It's in her genes. Ok, now we'll move on and I'll ask you another question"”I'm glad we had a good laugh"¦
I loved the scene in Hal Ashby's film The Landlord when you and Pearl Bailey are getting drunk on pot liquor, and you walk out with the ham hock in your bag. Mrs. Enders is such a fabulous character, did you have any particular inspiration for her character? Did you enjoy working with Pearl? And, do you have any great stories from that film? He's a great director, and Mrs. Enders is another fabulous character that you've played.
What was the inspiration for her character"¦?
Lee: Yes! [laughs] Well, my mother and my aunt, yes. And I had just finished doing In the Heat of the Night which was all about losing my first husband who died of a heart attack, Norman Jewison knew that and Hal Ashby was his editor at that time, so they knew that I would come in to do In the Heat of the Night with an experience that they knew I had, and Sidney and I really improvised that scene. But that's how they knew me. And then as a friend they let me read The Landlord, and I said I can do that part and their whole image of me was of the grieving widow. And I said, "Let me just do it for you because that's my mother, that's my aunt." And they told me that they had Jessica Tandy attached to it and I found some blonde wig, and I stood under the lights in the hallway so that I looked older. And I did it for them and they got it. And they gave it to me. So you know to go from the first, In the Heat of the Night, to Mrs. Enders was just everything I ever wanted. To plumb both of those things. So it was just thrilling for me. First of all, the movie is a masterpiece. And it was Hal's first directing job.
Jo: So it Was his first movie.
Lee: Yes, then he did the one with Ruth Gordon.
*Hal Ashby on the set of Harold and Maude with Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon.*
Jo: Wendy and I were sold on him after he did Harold and Maude.
Lee: Harold and Maude is one of the great masterpieces ever made.
Jo: It absolutely is"¦
Lee: And I wanted to do Ruth Gordon's part, too. It shows you how hungry and stupid I was at the same time.
Jo: I wouldn't say stupid.
Lee: Well, how hungry and ambitious.
Jo: Right.
Lee: Not ambitious, how starved I was. I was so starved that when you showed a piece of marrow bone, like Ruth Gordon's part, I was like "Let me have it, let me have it" but I never saw a piece of work as brilliant as her"¦
Jo: Oh yes, she is a whole other subject"¦ she's something else!
Lee: She is. She is to be worshiped.
Jo: I think so. But I mean so are you, really!
Lee: Oh, ok!
Jo: We're worshiping you today! [laughs]
Lee: Worship away! [laughs]
Jo: Ok I'm going to ask you about Shampoo"¦ I think there should've been more of you"¦
You won an academy award for Shampoo. We're huge fans of the brilliant filmmaker Hal Ashby. People experience this movie as the 1970s, romanticized, sexual freedom film.
I experience the film as a deification of Warren Beatty's insatiable sexual prowess running around with his phallic blowdryer. I just think there should have been a lot more of you. Do you think the film would've benefited from more development of the women characters and their sexuality? You also mention in your wonderful book that Warren Beatty tried to direct you and you almost quit the film. Do you think the film needed more of your vision and direction to bring the women characters more into focus?
Lee: Well I think there should've been more of me!
Jo: I think so!
Lee: I think there should've been a lot more of me in everything that I've ever been in. But unfortunately, there are other actors and there is a plot and there are other ramifications. So while I always think there should be a lot more of me, practically speaking it's not the thing to do. I think that the woman I played was sound. I think her needs, her bitterness. The rejection of her within the Hollywood framework of that time. And that glowing gorgeous daughter played by"¦
Jo: Carrie Fisher.
Lee: She was the most beautifully white-skinned little girl, Carrie Fisher. And for me to be a mother who was hungry and rejected and to have that child right downstairs in the house. My character was just filled with conflict and unfulfillment. And all I seem to care about in that film was my coat and my hair and getting shtupped. And grabbing at whatever I could that would fill this emptiness. I hated Hollywood at that time.
Jo: But you were more interesting and intricate than Warren Beatty's character. I didn't find his character as complex as I did yours.
Lee: I don’t think that he intended to be"¦ to be"¦ you know, Warren wrote that with Robert Towne. A great, great, great writer. And the character he wrote was a very simple guy who likes to please. He likes to please everyone. He likes to please the Jack Warden character as much as he does with the women whose hair he does, his customers. He is guaranteed to please. Because certainly, he's not that attracted to me. Right before he goes to bed with me, my daughter seduces him. And you know one of the real arguments that Warren and I had in that film was that right before the scene when I come home and I go to Carrie's door, and I'm expecting him to be there. I'm expecting him to go upstairs and make love to me. The day before we do that scene he sits me down at the table and says "You know Lee, Felecia (which is the character I played), Felicia does not know when she opens the door to her daughter’s room that the daughter and he has"¦" And I was so enraged that he would tell me what to think before I open that door that I quit the next day.
Jo: I read that in your book!
Lee: Yes, I quit the next day. And of course, he apologized and we moved on with the scene but I said "If you ever tell me what I'm supposed to think, I won't be there." But the thing was, that I opened the door and of course I knew that they had gone to bed. I mean, I'm no dummy!
Jo: Of course!
Lee: And my own need was so ferocious that it didn't matter! And that's the way I played that scene when I went upstairs. I kept on my coat. I kept on my curlers in my hair. I just pulled down my stockings and pulled him over to me. You know, it was my need.
Jo: Right, yes. And it's a powerful scene and a powerful role. And that's why you won the Academy Award for it!
Lee: Well, you know I'd been nominated a lot of times.
Jo: Oh, I know.
Lee: So usually when you're nominated and you don't win then you're just a thing in the way after that. At first, it's like "Lee, Lee, look this way!" And then when you don't win, they want you out of the way.
Jo: That's rotten!
Lee: But I knew even when I went up to get the award finally that I was now at the age where they wouldn't hire me. That I was going into 50, and this was probably the last big movie.
Jo: But it wasn't.
Lee: Only one more.
Jo: What was the movie after?
Lee: Oh, the Jewish"¦ the boat"¦
Jo: Oh, yes, Voyage of the Damned.
Lee: Yes, Voyage of the Damned.
Jo: I watched the scene where you cut your hair. It's a very difficult movie for me to watch. And, I had a relative on the ship.
Lee: What?
Jo: Yes, she was a child and she survived it. She made her way back.
Lee: Where?
Jo: Eventually she made her way to France and she is now a biochemist and a professor at Harvard. I lost relatives in the Holocaust but she was on the ship and I don't have her name in front of me. This is terrible. My brother has been doing historical research to find our relatives and where we came from in a small town that is now part of Poland.
Lee: That's where my father came from.
Jo: Yes, and it was Austria at the time.
Lee: We're little strong Polish Jews!
Jo: Yes, yes, and we came to New York and it made us even stronger.
Lee: Oh yes.
Jo: We're tough.
Lee: Something about us makes us tough.
Jo: And my mother was Russian.
Lee: So was mine! My mishpocha, honey! [laughs]
Jo: My mishpocha, yes! [laughs] That's why I called you Bubbie (short for bubbles-friend not grandmother) yesterday and then felt bad. I said, "I'll talk to you later, bubble!" [laughs] And then I was like "Oy, should I have said that?"
Lee: [laughs] I'll be your bubbie!
Jo: Oh, good, good! Ok, so now I'm going to ask you about Stella Chernack because we were talking about that bad girl you played. Again, you won a much-deserved Emmy for that. And I did watch the entire show, because of you, and I knew you were in it. So I watched Peyton Place"¦ now, Stella is amazing. An amazing character.
Again, you won a much-deserved Emmy for your portrayal of Stella Chernak. Stella leaves her working-class background in Peyton Place to become a biochemist, returning when her brother gets into trouble. This is when the writing and the show were the most cohesive and well thought out. It's one of my favorite roles. Stella is very complex and there are lots of layers to your performance. She is a bit of a Tennessee William's character, even in the way she struts the dusty streets of the town. Did you channel any of that feeling in her character? It was an intense character study and one hell of a performance. What did Stella mean to you?
Lee: Well, the whole thing was like stepping into heaven. First of all, Stella's an angry girl.
Jo: Yes
Lee: And I was an angry girl. And Stella was fighting the unfairness of the things around her. And I had been fighting. So this was a funnel through which all of Lee and Stella's resentment and anger and feeling of unfairness in the world around her could go. It was like made for me.
Jo: It gave you a place to channel that anger.
Lee: It channeled it. It channeled everything. And don't forget that I went from obscurity into America's favorite program.
Jo: Right, and one of the greatest characters, I think. Very complex. She was angry but she was also very sympathetic. You understood where she was coming from, you know?
Lee: Yup.
Jo: And that's what I loved about her. That's what you brought to the show. The show is really good. After you left, things just kind of went a little crazy but still I watched the whole thing. I love Barbara Parkins, and I love a lot of the actors on the show, too.
Lee: Barbara Parkins was given her first shot in that movie"¦
Jo: Yes, Valley of the Dolls
Lee: Valley of the Dolls, where I played Stella again as Sharon. You know, and Patty Duke. Those were their first shots after television. And of course, it went down like a log.
Jo: The film is such a pop culture icon. I mean, people are fanatical.
Lee: That's because it's so bad.
Jo: Did you know that it was going to become a pop religious experience for some people?
Lee: [laughs]
Jo: It is, I'm telling you!
Lee: Because it's so bad. [laughs]
Jo: But it is and it isn't. I mean, yes, it is. [laughs] But it's bad in a good way.
Lee: [laughs] It could be worse, but people embrace those things and raise them up.
Jo: I can see why. You do need that kind of alternative to the heavy stuff that's out there. You need that counterbalance of the delicious–
Lee: It was pop.
Jo: It was pop. And the acting was still good!
The name of your book is "I Said Yes to Everything." And you did say yes to films like Visiting Hours, The Swarm, and Airport '77"” the last two big-budget disaster films. I was sad you ended up floating face down in Airport '77. Did you at least have fun making these films and working with actors like Olivia de Havilland and Jack Lemmon? Do you have any good stories to tell?
I watched you in Visiting Hours with the parrot.
Lee: Oh no! tisk tisk tisk! Don't even talk about it!
Jo: Ok, I won't talk about it. I won't talk about Visiting Hours. We'll bury it. Can I talk about The Swarm and Airport ’77 where you played Christopher Lee’s wife who’s a lush?
Lee: Ohhh, absolutely! [laughs]
Jo: Ok [laughs]
Lee: Visiting Hours was what made me absolutely shut down as an actor and turn to directing.
Jo: I understand why.
Lee: You know, one of my very best friends, a writer, I took to see it in the movie house. And he wouldn't talk to me on the way home"”"You can't need money that much." And I knew that I couldn't do"¦
Jo: Look, every actor has done that. Every single actor has done a movie like that.
Jo: I mean, you ended up floating face down in the water. And again, Wendy and I were yelling "No!"
Lee: [laughs] Well I have to tell you I had it in my contract that I didn't have to jump in the water. They had a double. But, when the water scene came up, 60-year-old Olivia de Havilland raised her hand and said "Let me be the first! Let me!"
Jo: [laughs] Oh my god!
Lee: I was so shamed that when it came time for me to do it
Jo: You had to do it!
Lee: They said "Well let's get Lee's double" and I went "No no no I don't have a double!" I didn't want them to know what a coward I was.
Jo: [laughs] So you did it.
Lee: So I just jumped! Because I wanted to be like Olivia, you know. She's just so amazing.
Jo: Yes, she is.
Lee: What a hero Olivia de Havilland is. I mean, think about it.
Jo: We share the same birthday so every time it's my birthday I always toast Olivia. Because, wow we have the same birthday and she loves cats.
Lee: I do too.
Jo: Oh, you do? I thought you were a dog person.
Lee: Yes, we have 2 cats. But what a woman, what a spirit! Let me be the first, she said, climbing down from the rafters.
Jo: [laughs]
Lee: All through Airport '77 she sat in the rafters with the lighting guys and chatted with them.
Jo: Do you know Wendy was a lighting designer before she was a sociologist.
Lee: Of course she was! Wendy the lighting designer sociologist, of course!
Jo: Same thing, right?
Lee: Same thing! Shed the light someplace!
Jo: Exactly, beautifully put. See, leave it to you. I have a few more questions, is that ok?
Lee: I'm just lying here on the chaise lounge in my nightgown as comfortable as somebody who just woke up.
Jo: That sounds lovely!
Lee: And having a wonderful time with you.
Jo: Oh good! We're having a blast, too! There are several performances of yours I've never seen and that makes me upset because I'm a completist. I want to see everything you did. And in your book, you write about the show The Defenders. I love the show, but that episode is unavailable. The particular episode that you did is not out, or not yet at least.
Like a few others, there are several performances of yours that I haven't been able to see because they're unavailable. For example, there's an episode of The Defenders in which, as I read in your book, director Stuart Rosenberg lit you in a way that was your favorite. There was The Doctors and the Nurses, another incredible dramatic television series. And then there is the motion picture An Affair of the Skin (1963) where you co-starred with the brilliant Diana Sands, who died tragically at 39. I would love to see your work in that film. Can you tell me about the film and about working with Diana?
Lee: I know, she was in"¦ Raisin in the Sun.
Jo: Raisin in the Sun
Lee: Yes, and the other movie with Pearl Bailey"¦ The Landlord
Jo: Yes! She was The Landlord, too, that's right. So you worked with her twice. What did you think of the film Affair of the Skin, because I don't know much about it?
Lee: I don't remember it. Vivica Lindfors was in it. And I just don't remember it. I don't remember what I did or anything.
Jo: Maybe somebody will find the film.
Lee: I hope not!
Jo: Ok, then maybe they’ll find a way to get it buried so it never comes out. Did you enjoy working with Diana I love her work and I find it so tragic that she died so young. She was kind of one of the first Black women who had a much different kind of persona. She wasn't doing the roles"”well maybe Ruby Dee and Cicely Tyson did"”but she wasn't playing the maids and she wasn't playing the nurses.
Lee: Well, also Hal Ashby didn't get them maids and nurses to play. The Landlord was a brilliant script and it highlighted the difference between the Long Island whites and Harlem. And Bo Bridges, I mean he was astonishing in it. His sweetness, his openness. You know, that was a script for the ages. And I personified again that kind of closed-minded rich stupid mother.
Jo: Well, insulated maybe.
Lee: Yes, totally insulated. You know no idea beyond the house and the garden and the friends what life was about at all. And it's such an astonishing piece of work.
Jo: Yes, it was. Did you get to work much with Diana in that?
Lee: Yes, well, we hung out. And after the film was over I gave a party at the apartment in New York, as we all stayed in New York, and Diana and I were sitting there waiting for Hal because we both had a crush on him. And his girlfriend, who he later married, at the time she would not let him come.
Jo: Possessive! Oh really [laughs]
Lee: So Diana and I sat and drank wine and talked about how mean she was and how much we loved him. [laughs]
Jo: Did he help you pick out clothes, did I read that right?
Lee: Yes, he did. In the Heat of the Night.
Jo: Yes, in the Heat of the Night he helped you pick out the clothes. He was the editor on the film.
Lee: Yes, yes.
Jo: Ok, you might not want to talk about this movie either, and if you don't want to you don't have to. But first, I noticed recently you did an interview for a documentary on Boris Karloff. You worked with him on "Even the Weariest River" on the Alcoha Hour. And I haven't been able to see it. A lot of the Alcoha Hour and those dramatic television performances from the 50s are hard to get. But Boris Karloff is my idol. I've always said I wanted him to be my grandfather because he's the most gentle soul. And I met his daughter Sarah and she's just wonderful.
You worked with Boris Karloff in 1956 on the Alcoa Hour "Even the Weariest River" It hasn't been released so there's no way to see it. I have to ask you what was it like to work with him? Do you have any stories about working with him?
Lee: Well, you know, I just remember that when I was blacklisted and he was playing on Broadway, maybe it was St. Joan, I don't know but there was something so gracious and so magnanimous, and so grandfatherly, and beautiful about him. And he would always sign all my petitions. I was the little girl who couldn't work. And, you know, it was dangerous to sign petitions, you know you couldn't work either if you did. And Kim Stanley and Maureen Stapleton were the ones who were always working on Broadway and also signed my petitions. But you know I hadn't remembered working with him in this television movie. I know they brought it to me, and the people in it"¦ I was the only girl. And it was during the blacklist so the director had to be a very very brave guy. A very brave guy. Because I was the only woman and he cast me in it.
Jo: So you stood out.
Lee: Yes, it was with Boris Karloff and Christopher Plumber. It's a terrible movie.
Jo: Oh is it really? [laughs]
Lee: Yes, but very interesting. I mean because it's all packed. In those days you shot on set. There wasn't a closeup. You kind of walked into the shot.
Jo: Right, it was live theatre, really, right?
Lee: Yes, it was shooting live theatre. So it had that kind of rushed feeling. But the story was meaningful, and I was just so surprised to see me there. And I've just forgotten a lot of what I did.
Jo: Well I didn't even realize you had done something with Boris Karloff.
Lee: I didn't, either. [laughs]
Jo: [laughs] Well, you know he's so iconic, and thinking of you and him together is such an interesting confluence. Ok, so I'm going to ask you about a movie you might not want to talk about"¦
Lee: Which could that be?
Jo: Ah, The Mafu Cage?
Lee: [laughs] Oh, yes!
Jo: Because you worked with Carol Kane. She's brilliant, she's such a noodlehead. She's just something else.
Lee: Yes, she is.
Jo: I thought that The Mafu Cage, directed by Karen Arthur, is a very primal and dark film. It seemed like a difficult and disturbing narrative for both you and Carol Kane to step into. It's a psycho-sexual minefield, almost filmed like a stage play, about captivity and dependency. It must have been a tough movie to film. Was it difficult for you two seasoned actors? Can you tell me what the process was like for you?
Lee: Oh, of course! Oh, I don't know, there must've been some spare time to do it. And it was a woman director, Karen Arthur. And I don't remember what year it was. But I know I thought, why not? It was Carol Kane, who was a delicious friend. And it was an absurd concept. You know, for her to have this relationship with a"¦
Jo: An orangutan maybe?
Lee: It was a gorilla, you know, Carol and the gorilla. So I mean it was absurd enough to say why not? It didn't take very long and so it was like going to a bad nightclub, you know what I'm saying?
Jo: Yes! [laughs]
Lee: Oh, let's go in there and see what happens.
Jo: Yes, dark and scary and there's a little journey in there.
Lee: Yes, yeah. It was a why not, you know?
Jo: But the thing is it's an interesting, disturbing film but there's a lot in it. And your performances, you made it a good film. I think it's really kind of an unsung horror/ psychological thriller. I don't think it's a bad film at all, maybe it could've been a stage play.
Lee: The thing is that Karen Arthur conceived it and directed it and she got Carol Kane and me, and James Olson, to do it. Wow! I would like to be able to say that I did that. That I pulled it off and made that movie. So it's really Karen Arthur's triumph.
Jo: Yes sure.
Lee: And any time a female director"”especially at that time"”with that concept, to pull it off and make that movie. You know, my hat off to her!
Jo: Yes, absolutely! She did a really amazing job because I walked away from the film kind of speechless. And thinking about things, and when a movie sends you away thinking about something, speechless, you know that there's something going on there.
Lee: Yes and don't forget there were no women directors then. There were like 2 in New York and that's it.
Jo: Right, that's another reason to applaud the film, the fact that her vision was realized. It's very good. And then, this is one is probably one of my favorite performances of yours, The Neon Ceiling, where you play the mother who leaves her husband and just drives into the desert. It's a special film"¦
In The Neon Ceiling, you play a mother who leaves her husband and just drives "” winding up in the desert with her teenage daughter. It's a very unusual and special little film co-starring Gig Young and Denise Nickerson, a talented young actress. Wendy and I were really enchanted by it. I found your performance as Carrie Miller profoundly moving because it was so un-selfconscious and powerful. At the risk of sounding contrived, what was your inspiration for bringing that character to life?
Lee: Well, first of all, that character was the part of me I never got to play.
Jo: In real life?
Lee: In real life, yeah. The part of me in my first marriage where my husband fault with me, that I wasn't this enough, or that enough, or, or, I was never enough. And I wasn't smart enough. And so that whole beginning with the husband that I run away from. Where I can't do anything right, I can't even shop for groceries"¦
Jo: It kind of paralleled"¦
Lee: Yes, yes, and I had a daughter. I had Dina. So Denise was Dina. And so if I could've known how to run away, in my early years I would have. And going into the desert"¦ the desert was a very new experience for me as a person. I'd never been in the desert. And the peace. Sitting on the back porch of this gas station and just looking out at the desert became, it became a totally new experience for me. And something that I needed but didn't know that I need. And there was an Indian tribe there who would come and ask for the lunch that we had every day. It was like the small remnants of what 20 people didn't eat. And a woman in the tribe who was leading the tribe became a mentor. So she was so strong and so calm. And the things that she asked for were so real. That she became somebody I admired and wanted to be like. And she gave me a puppy.
Jo: That's right, I read about the puppy Nusski given to you by the Sioux.
Lee: Yes!
Jo: Who was with you for many many years?
Lee: Yes, who came with us to New York. And Gig, he was so attractive and so hurt someplace.
Jo: I know, it's so tragic.
Lee: He needed caring for. You know, and so did Denise in her way. She asked for it, he didn't. And somehow me, tickled as I was, I felt a soul there that I connected with. And it was so beautiful and the writer created something that nobody else created.
Jo: Was that Carol Sobieski who also wrote for Peyton Place?
Lee: Yes, Carol Sobieski. She was extraordinary.
Jo: Yes, she's a great writer.
Lee: She's a great writer and I felt it was a privilege"”a privilege of all the things I've done"”being able to go there.
Jo: Yes, there's something"¦ I guess that's what we're doing, witnessing a lot of your transformations on screen. We're seeing, you know, you're in the desert and you're having this transcendence. And it's coming through to your character, Carrie.
Lee: Yes, yes.
Jo: It's such a beautiful performance. It's so subtle and so quiet and so beautiful. And so painful.
Lee: Yes.
Jo: You convey all of that and that's hard to do and you do it. You just pull it off like nobody else could. And that's the thing I love are these other women that you play, are these roles and these women that deserve to be looked at. And I've certainly been having a great time delving into your work.
Lee: And have you! Wow!
Jo: Maybe I've been digging too deep!
Lee: You've found things I've forgotten. That one I knew is just so special. It's interesting because Frank who directed it"”Frank Pierson. A very very close friend, too. He also, much later did The Life of Roy Cohn.
Jo: Oh, Frank Pierson.
Lee: Yes, Frank Pierson. On HBO, he called me then and he said "Do you want to be Roy Cohn's mother? Or do you want to be the one who was killed? The spy." Anyway, he was the writer who became the director, because he had nothing to do with writing that, Carol wrote it. And he came to be the night before and said, "You know, I'd like to do some changes in this. And you know she really isn't as good as all that." And I said, "Well, hire another actor. Because if you touch this script. (The Neon Ceiling) " You know why would you do that? Why, why? And he said "Oh, I"¦" and I said "You don't like women. You don't like women." And in that particular incidence, he didn't. And in everything else"”because I worked with him many times"”he's a great writer and a great director"”but this was too simple for him.
Jo: I know of his work and have seen a lot of it. So they kept it the same way?
Lee: Absolutely, he took it back. And we left the next day.
Jo: We just have a couple more questions. And Wendy wanted to talk with you. You know, I saw a scene you directed"”we'll get into your directing in a minute"”I watched a scene from Tell Me a Riddle with Melvin Douglas and Lela Kedrova that you directed. And just the little scene that I saw ripped my guts up. I just—
Lee: Mine too.
Jo: It's so heartbreaking. I know that you're a wonderful director and I know it's probably not hard to direct Melvin Douglas and Lela Kedrova, but you absolutely created this poignant journey. But Wendy here is a sociologist who teaches social movements and she shows documentaries in classes and has used your documentaries in classes. And she wanted to ask you about the documentaries that you did, you know back in the day when they became movies of the week and there was a wide audience for them. And you started asking socially relevant questions.
Wendy: Hi Lee, I teach sociology classes and I use documentaries all the time. So I'm always looking for ones that are good and well done. And I was really intrigued by the ones you did in the 1980s. The ones that really gave voice to marginalized individuals. So you did the film about poverty"”Down and Out in America"”which is still unfortunately relevant today.
In the early 1980s, you started directing documentary films, specifically films that give voice to marginalized individuals way before others were doing so Down and Out in America (the poor, transgender individuals WHAT SEX AM I, women in prison who killed their abusive husbands in self-defense, the Willmar 8, etc.). Some of these were released as movies of the week to very large audiences. What led you to start making these kinds of documentaries? Were there social and political triggers?
Lee: Yes, unfortunately, it's still relevant.
Wendy: And it was also, to me, when it came out in the mid-80s, very much a response to Ronald Reagan's trickle-down economics. You can really see it situated in that.
Lee: You put your finger right on it.
Wendy: And I talk about that when I teach inequality so it's good to give students that context and history. Then there's the documentary you did in the 1980s on transgender individuals, which no one had really done yet.
Lee: Yes, What Sex Am I?
Wendy: The Women in Prison, the Willmar 8, about women bankers who went on strike and I cannot find that one anywhere but I would love to use it because I teach about activism and social movements so I'm always looking for things about activism and I couldn't find that one anywhere so I haven't seen it. I was just curious about what made you switch, to not just directing, but directing these documentaries about marginalized populations. Like what were the social and political triggers of that for you?
Lee: Well, you know during the early years and not being able to say anything. And even when I was in LA, I was careful about what I said about it. You know, I acted in things that said things. And I have a best friend, Marybeth Yarrow, who had been married to Peter Yarrow. And in her small town in Willmar, there were 7 women who went on strike at the bank because the bank president there would have them train these boys in the bank, and then have them be the women's bosses. So these little boys that they would train would suddenly tell them what to do and get a higher salary. So the women went out on strike. And Marybeth read that to me, and I had just been at AFI and had taken a women's directing workshop. Their first women's directing workshop. I said let's go there and make a documentary. And that kicked open the whole tunnel. Her husband, Peter, raised like 30,000 dollars and went to Willmar. It was the middle of the winter. So cold that you couldn't open your mouth to ask a question.
Jo and Wendy: [laugh]
Lee: I mean your mouth froze. And those 7 women were out there on strike in front of the bank. They could hardly walk it was so cold. And you know it kicked open a door in me that had said, don't talk, be quiet. You know, save yourself, don't talk, be quiet. And I thought you know, thank God, I can do this. I can get away with this. I can put it on film. Finally, I've found my voice. I have found my voice. And it just meant everything to me. Finally, I'd landed on my feet and there was no fear. So I was just starved for that. And I made one after another after another after another. I loved that I had to go to all different places and open all kinds of doors. You know our second film was in the prison system
Wendy: Yes, we saw parts of it.
Lee: You know, what a revelation! I was free! I was free! I was really free of the blacklist finally! And not only that, I had tools that could fight the blacklist. I could show what the truth was.
Wendy: Right, which is why I love showing documentaries because it shows students individuals"”gives voice to individuals"”who I can't bring to the classroom.
Lee: Right, exactly.
Wendy: Especially the women in prison film, I don't think anybody was talking about whether or not women should be in prison for killing an abusive spouse in the 1980s no one was covering that. And Down and Out in America is also unfortunately still relevant but also shows how devastating politics was in the 1980s while we tend to misremember it as being some golden era in America, right? Well compared to what we’re living in now"¦
Lee: Well, I don't know whether you were able to get hold of my Texas film?
Wendy: I don't think so.
Jo: No"¦
Lee: HBO was sued so it was only shown once.
Jo: Oh, about the children being taken away from their mothers"¦?
Lee: It was judges in Texas who took children away from the mothers and gave them to the fathers who were suspected of abusing them.
Jo: Oh my God! Wow.
Lee: Yeah.
Jo: You were sued for that?
Lee: HBO got sued, and that show was only on one time.
Wendy: I wonder if it's in any college libraries someplace still?
Lee: I have it! So at some point, I can lend it to you to make a copy of and you can use it.
Wendy: Oh that would be wonderful.
Lee: But also if and when this documentary thing happens in October and my films are shown.
Jo: Yes, the retrospective!
Lee: Yes, I can't wait for the documentaries to be shown.
Wendy: And I have so many sociologist friends in and around NYC who would totally be there for it. We're all big fans of well-made interesting documentaries.
Jo: And we'll be there.
Wendy: Yes, I love to nerd-out on documentaries. Jo watches her classic films and I'm watching 13th on Netflix"¦
Jo: Yes, she's watching her serious and depressing documentaries. I mean, I'm just so dark because of what's going on in the world in politics, because it's like a Stanley Kubrick nightmare that you imagine would never happen in real life.
Lee: Yes, it's so disturbing, this nightmare. It's like having Roy Cohn as president, you know, because"¦
Jo: It's dystopian"¦
Lee: Yes, and there aren't words and there's just no way to describe it"¦ This is a nightmare.
Jo: And there's a collective depression and angst that people are feeling in their lives.
Lee: And there is. It is.
Jo: And that's what's tragic and it's America's Id so then you've got the people that support him"¦
Wendy: I like to focus on"”because I study social movements and activism"”I like to focus on activism.
Jo: Yes, she's the glass-half-full person.
Wendy: Yes, I focus on the people making the change. That's what my research is about and that's what I try to teach my students to raise some hell. And voting. Because otherwise, I'd just lose my mind.
Lee: Yes, all of us. I mean living within this screenplay, being a character within a screenplay that we loath and detest and want to get out of. And are trapped in.
Jo: Yes, Well, is there an end in sight? When will we get out of this madness? We need relief.
Lee: Yes, it's madness.
Jo: We need to be able to breathe again!
Lee: And I'm overwhelmed. It's overwhelming. Everywhere I look is horror. And it's not like oh this is something that really has been addressed, it's not like we need to just shake this or show people"¦ this is horror.
Jo: Yes, it’s organic horror.
Lee: And it's death. It's killing people.
Jo: If not only in body but also in spirit.
Wendy: And actually in the body.
Lee: Yes, it's killing people. All over the world. Yesterday I was listening to the television and Saudi Arabia hires African soldiers to kill other Arabs. Instead of doing it themselves, they hire African soldiers into that Arab conclave that's left"”Yemen. It was like wow, hired professionals.
Wendy: We would just sleep better if we knew there were people in the office trying to make things better instead of worse.
Jo: I just don't understand, how we got here.
Lee: We got here in a minute.
Jo: Yes.
Lee: And watch out for this. I feel that the way Bernie Sanders treated Hillary Clinton"¦
Wendy: Oh yeah don't even get me started.
Lee: It was the beginning of the end. Kicked open the door for Trump.
Jo: Yes. When I saw his scowling face at the convention, I wanted to smack him.
Lee: Bernie, yes. He was so abusive to her. And of course, all my leftie friends are like "But Bernie's the best, Bernie's"¦" But look how he's treating her. It was like how my communist husband treated me. Like she's a dummy, she's Wall Street.
Jo: Yeah, we're in agreement!
Lee: And I think there was a democratic disaffection"”20% of democrats voted for Bernie and that's what pushed this bully"¦
Wendy: Yup, and we can thank them for the Supreme Court and a lot of crap.
Lee: That's right. You're the only ones who get it!
Wendy: There are others that get it, but it seems like we're few and far between. There are a lot of us who are not Bernie fans for good solid reasons. I'm happy Bernie's light seems to be dimmer this time around and he's not polling as well as he did before. People don't seem as excited about him now.
Lee: I'm just worried about it.
Wendy: Yeah, like are we going to get our acts together on the left?
Lee: Yes, are we?
Jo: Oh, but we should not totally veer off into politics. We should close with a good film or acting question! I wanted to ask you about your performance in Electra. I was reading your book and almost peeing my pants laughing as you're describing wearing that crimson red velvet gown. And it's raining and you get drenched in the rain.
I read in your book about how you worked with Joe Papp on Shakespeare in the Park, playing Electra by Sophocles. I can visualize this powerful performance, the method training, that rainy day, you dragging Theoni's Aldridge's crimson gown, the heavy fabric soaked through across the stage. And there's the audience floating away in the deluge as devoted as ever. You said it was the most risky, challenging role. Alfred Ryder a wonderful actor played Hamlet before this and his performance was televised, but it was a disaster, and it nearly ruined his acting career. Do you regret that your performance of Electra was not televised and recorded so that we could see it today? I would've loved to see you on stage, even in the flood.
Lee: And the whole audience is drenched!
Jo: And the papers are floating away, and you're out there shouting. And the show's ended and they're still out there clapping in the rain.
Lee: Talk about a switch from bleak and bad, to emboldened and powerful playing Electra!
Jo: Yes, we needed some Electra!
Lee: Jo Papp gave me Electra and saw that I was ready to spew and all lessons he gave me, the teachers who came in to correct my language so that I was ready to take on that role. And to let go of all that rage and fierceness, under the cover of the state at Central Park. It was such a release for me to play that.
Jo: Yeah, you said it was a very risky role for you. Challenging.
Lee: Very. And he handed it to me.
Jo: Wow.
Lee: And what a thing to do.
Jo: A gift.
Lee: Yes, what a gift. What a thing to do. The most powerful theatre man in New York and the most liberal and radical, and gorgeous.
Jo: Gorgeous?
Lee: Gorgeous, gorgeous [laughs]
Jo: He knew you could do it. So in your book, you mentioned that Alfred Rider had done Hamlet. And when they televised it and it didn’t go over very well. Electra… It doesn't exist. Do you regret that there is no visual evidence of that performance?
Lee: No, no.
Jo: I wish I couldn't see you on stage. Even in Prisoner on Second Avenue I wish I could've seen you on stage. So you’re really not sorry that they didn't televise it?
Lee: No. No, it's an experience.
Jo: It's one of those moments it exists like a firefly.
Lee: It was a live experience. Like a marriage. And you know it lifted me.
Jo: So you're laying on your chaise, did you finish your coffee?
Lee: Oh, it's half finished. I'm still in my nightgown. [laughs]
Jo: I could talk with you all day like this!
Lee: I know!
Jo: What is a great way to end this?
Lee: What's a great way to end this?
Jo: Is there something you want to talk about? That we didn't cover. You've got such an impressive career in theatre, film, and television. On both sides of the camera. You've worked with amazing people. You have great friends.
Lee: How about Al"”who's the one who was thrown out of office? Al Franken? How about Al Franken? He didn't have a choice to leave but I want him back. And that's what I want to write about.
Wendy: What are you working on for writing?
Lee: I've just been writing in spurts, just things that I have to get out of my system, as you can hear when I talk to you. There are things I have to spew, and get down on paper to get it out of me. And so what's I'm going to do, I'm going to write about the stupidity and short-sightedness of getting rid of the only one in Congress that I know of who could go up against Trump and just demolish him, with his humor and his knowledge. That was the stupidest action that could be taken.
Jo: I was so mad at him for messing up because we needed him. And so mad at him for stepping down.
Lee: He was pushed out. He was forced out. Did you read that New Yorker article about the woman who came to his defense?
Jo: No, we haven't seen that one.
Lee: It's like 2 weeks ago. So you can read it.
Wendy: I'll look it up. I keep more up on the political stuff than Jo does. Jo likes to live in her classic film bubble.
Jo: I like to live in my classic film world and if I don't"¦ I'll go mad.
Lee: Oh, I understand. And I'm sorry to break through that.
Jo: No, no. It's fine. And I don't want to give the impression that I'm not proactive. I do what needs to be done.
Lee: Oh, I'm not accusing you, I'm just opening my arms and pulling you into my world.
Jo: Oh I love your world, and I know that. And it's Wendy's world. I hear about it"¦ all about it, and friends who are very active.
Wendy: And we have friends who go to the TCM movie festival and a couple of years ago you were there and made a speech, and they were all tweeting and texting about it, saying oh my God, this is so awesome! And I was like, of course, it's Lee Grant! And that makes her even more amazing that you would give this really political speech!
Lee: It does, girls, it just makes me more amazing! Every single day.
Wendy: Hell yeah! People have to speak out!
Lee: On that note, we will end this.
Jo: Ok.
Lee: But I've had such a great time and I love you.
Jo: Oh, we love you too, Lee!
Lee: And I've had fun. And so we may not be still doing your thing, but we can still talk and still have a relationship.
Jo: We would love to stay in touch.
Wendy: And if you have copies of any of your documentaries, I would love it. If they would be easy for me to copy because I would show them in class.
Jo: Maybe someday soon we could come into the city and have coffee with you.
Lee: Yes, maybe you can do that and take things and make copies if you know how to do that. Because I don't know how to do anything.
Wendy: Ok, I'm good with the technical stuff.
Jo: So next time, we’ll come into the city and do it.
Lee: Yes, we'll do that. You're both adorable.
Jo: Lee speaks truth to power and wants to be heard.
Wendy: Great, so we'll be in touch.
Lee: Have a good day, girls!
Jo: Take care, Lee!
This has been YourEverlovin’ Joey saying what more is there to say… but I love you, Lee Grant!
"The dichotomy of my genius status at home and my slightly below par status in the outside world gave me a sense of instability and unreality throughout all of my life about exactly who I was and what I was capable of. Could that be why I grabbed so ferociously at acting? Grounding myself in a structure that worked for me, the observant child?"
"” And excerpt from I Said Yes to Everything -Lee Grant talking about Sandy Meisner and The Neighborhood Playhouse.
How do you start out a biography about someone who is a virtual legend?
When I attended the Chiller Theatre Expo I had the exciting opportunity to meet one of my favorite actors, Academy Award winner Lee Grant. This meeting turned out to be one of the great highlights of my life. While I've followed her work my entire life, after connecting with her, I began my exploration into Lee Grant's life by immersing myself first in her incredibly honest and potent autobiography. "I Said Yes to Everything"Â is an expository journey written long-hand by Lee herself in classic black and white note books. It's a well-written intimate portrait of a courageous and brilliant actor.
"Lee Grant's I Said Yes to Everything is heart-stopping. More than just a show-business memoir or chronicle of the Hollywood blacklist era, it is a terrifying account of a gifted artist's tumultuous journey"”both personal and professional. You will feel every jolt of terror that Grant endured, wondering if you would have been as brave. Her triumph becomes our own. Readers of this gripping book will surely reach the final page shouting a victorious "Yes! To everything that is Lee Grant."-Marlo Thomas
With every role Lee Grant undertakes "”from stage to early dramatic teleplays, to television series, and onto the big screen"” she transports an inner truth and an understanding of the world's pleasures, and too, its miseries. Never afraid to take risks, she turned a career that was at one time silenced, into a great triumph by reclaiming her place in Hollywood. She then forged her own road into directing, where her voice and compassionate vision helped marginalized people have their say as well.
This is the spirit of Lee Grant, a woman who kicked down the door, prevailed over the madness of the blacklist, and without settling, became a formidable actress, director, legend, and friend.
Reading about her incredible life story, I Said Yes to Everything, brought me closer to the actress whom I already admired and loved for so many years. It's a reflexive reminiscence, at times brutal, and at other times it evokes laughter. Lee Grant has a primal and candid sense of humor that is so invigorating to experience. And hearing it from Lee herself is life-altering and beyond meaningful.
Portrait of American actress Lee Grant, New York, New York, July 1970. (Photo by Jack Robinson/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
I also reexamined a lot of her great work so I could surround myself with the essence of her talent. It not only fortified what I had already felt about her capacity to engage each role, but I also met several characters that I hadn't seen before. And was completely knocked over by Lee Grant's awe-inspiring performances. To have the opportunity to talk to someone you've known as an acting legend can make you quite a star struck as you try to find your own voice without sounding like a fool. But Lee Grant is a real and raw person. She's one of those people you meet by chance in life, striking up a wonderful connection as if you've known them for years. This is just another layer of greatness to an already great actor.
Lee Grant is one of the most expository of actors. She uses her distinctive voice, that moves along the walls of your mind like an elegant cat, with an expressiveness that brings to bear even the most subtle of gestures. She has an attentiveness to detail, and her extraordinary sensuality is deep-rooted with a swift and clever sense of humor.
As an actor, she brings intimacy to her roles, complex, passionate sensual dynamic versatile, and authentic. A talent caught up in the net of the HUAC insanity that ruined lives, and literally took her act of belonging away in Hollywood and from an industry where time is essential in order to obtain recognition and primacy.
I suspected that Lee always put a little of her real self in each role. It turns out I was right as you'll learn from our conversation about her performances. There is no one quite like Lee. Absolutely no other actor like her.
Lee with one of her original oil paintings.
Like David fighting Goliath, she kept her resilience during those dark years of the blacklist. She's an actor who is truthful enough to bare her vulnerabilities, machinations, fears, fancies, the quirks, and chinks in the armor"” it's all out there, and wonderfully bold and ballsy an individualist, and unfailingly frank. She is fragile and fierce, honest, courageous, and unwilling to be shut off or out.
The insanity of the McCarthy Era and fanatics like Vincent Hartnett tried to steal 12 years from Lee Grant. But she refused to be silenced. To this day she speaks truth to the powers that be. She has earned the right to be seen and heard. She's a woman who has become a firebrand with her socially conscious lens as a filmmaker, documentarian, director, activist, writer, and a mother to yet another gifted soul, Dinah Manoff. Talent and fierceness"”it runs in the blood.
Lee Grant to me, is someone I'll always regard with a sense of awe and respect. I'm incredibly honored that she allowed me a glimpse into her life and shared that sense of humor and her determination to be heard. And what a story she has to tell!
Actress Lee Grant poses for a portrait circa 1971. (Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
American actress Carol Lynley, who stars in the film The Cardinal, pictured wearing a winter coat and leather gloves in a London park on 17th December 1963. (Photo by Blackman/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
We’ve lost Carol Lynley, actress of 60s & 70s film and television. Carol was born Carol Anne Jones on Feb. 13, 1942 in New York City. Lynley worked as a model and in television from her teen years and performed on numerous early live dramatic television shows.
She suffered a heart attack on September 3rd at the age of 77. Perhaps she is best known for her role in the disaster epic The Poseidon Adventure (1972) playing Nonnie, the bright-eyed nymph on the doomed ocean liner turned upside down after a giant tidal wave hits the ship on New Year’s Eve. The Poseidon Adventure launched her into the public consciousness after Lynley lip synced over Maureen McGovern’s singing onscreen, as the ill-fated ship's lead singer of the band, her brother flaunting his bad 70s hair and mutton chops at the piano. The song "The Morning After," went on to win the 1973 Oscar for Best Song.
I’ve always been taken with Carol Lynley for many other roles along her diverse career. A child model who made it to the cover of Life magazine at age 15. After appearing in the 1958 Broadway play, she delivered a moving performance in the controversial screen version of Blue Denim in 1959, co-starring cutie Brandon De Wilde. She was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer! She then co-starred with Clifton Webb and Jane Wyman in Holiday For Lovers (1959).
Afterward she appeared in a variety of popular films, Return to Peyton Place(1961), and Under the Yum Yum Tree (1963) with Jack Lemmon. Carol Lynley appeared in the Otto Preminger film The Cardinal (1963). She was also in The Stripper (1963), and Shock Treatment (1964) where she plays a very disturbed young girl with hyper-sexual tendencies. In the same year she played Maggie Williams in The Pleasure Seekers. Lynley also took the role of Jean Harlow in the biopic Harlow (1965).
Carol Lynley in The Stripper (1963)
Carol Lynley and Gene Tierney in The Pleasure Seekers (1964)
Carol Lynley as Harlow
As Ann Lake she is superb playing a mother who claims her little girl vanishes after a day at school. Otto Preminger’s Bunny Lake is Missing (1965), is one of my favorite psychological thrillers partly due in part to Lynley’s ability to show her growing paranoia. She also appeared in the very dark and twisted The Shuttered Room (1965) co-starring Oliver Reed and Gig Young based on a story by horror writer August Derleth.
She was in Once You Kiss a Stranger… (1969)
In the pilot episode that launched the iconic television series The Night Stalker (1972), the cult chiller directed by John Llewellyn Moxey, I adore Lynely as the character of Gail Foster, who was portrayed as the girlfriend of Darren McGavin’s journalist of the bizarre and the occult. As the stalwart reporter investigating the uncanny and supernatural, Carl Kolchak, often puts Gail through the wringer. This groundbreaking classic television series developed by Dan Curtis went on to inspire popular shows like “The X Files”.
Carol Lynley appeared in various television shows, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, It Takes a Thief, Night Gallery, The Invaders, Kojak, The Man from U.N.C.L.E, Journey to the Unknown, The Sixth Sense, The Magician, The Evil Touch, Quincy M.E. and Police Woman, just to mention my favorites.
Vince Edwards and Carol Lynley in Alfred Hitchcock Presents (1955) episode The Young One
Christopher Walken and Carol Lynley in Kojak 1973
Carol Lynley possessed a certain kind of rare beauty and inner light, a subtle essence of fairy in her smile and soft glimmer in her eyes.
Mandatory Credit: Photo by Barry Peake/Shutterstock (605004b) Carol Lynley-Mar 1967
This is your EverLovin Joey saying goodbye Carol Lynley, gone but not forgotten. There will always be a morning after and my eternal love for you, beautiful girl.
The Raven-haired sylph who “walks in beauty like the night… Of cloudless climes and starry skies; And all that's best of dark and bright; Meet in her aspect and her eyes…” — Lord Byron
Barbara Parkins as B.A. in a scene from the film ‘The Kremlin Letter’, 1970. (Photo by 20th Century-Fox/Getty)
It is so easy to look upon Barbara Parkins’ exquisite beauty and make that – the initial distinction you recall about her as an actress before recounting the roles she’s contributed to, the iconic roles that have left an impression on our cultural consciousness.
As Betty Anderson of Peyton Place and Anne Welles in Valley of the Dolls. But beyond the glamour and the pulp fiction and the melodrama and the camp, there is an actress who not only possessed an otherworldly beauty but a depth of character and quality. As Betty Anderson, she broke ground in a role that framed her as a young woman whose trajectory became more empowered within the small, moralistic New England town like Peyton Place that would first judge her. And through a lot of painful, solitary self-discovery, newly mined, and self-respect. Barbara Parkins was one of the actresses who led the way as a strong figure on television in that decade.
I have always been drawn to Barbara Parkins, her inherent sensuality, sophistication, and dreamy voice. There’s a deep well of desire and poetry simmering below that obvious beauty. She brings that sensuality to every versatile role as an actress. And that is why I’ve been in love with her since I first saw her.
Bradford Dillman in a scene from the film ‘Circle Of Deception’, 1960. (Photo by 20th Century-Fox/Getty Images)
Untroubled good looks, faraway poise & self-control, with a satyric smile and brushed-aside sophistication – that’s Bradford Dillman
Bradford Dillman is one of those ubiquitous & versatile actors who you find popping up just about everywhere, and whenever I either see him in the credits or think about some of his performances, I am immediately happified by his presence in my mind and on screen. It’s this familiarity that signposts for me that whatever upcoming diversion I’m in store for will be something memorable indeed.
He’s been cast as a saint, a psychopath, an elite ivy league intellectual with an edge, an unconventional scientist, a military figure, a droll, and prickly individualist, a clueless bureaucrat, or drunken malcontents and he’s got a sort of cool that is wholly appealing.
Bradford Dillman was omnipresent starting out on the stage, and in major motion pictures at the end of the 50s, and by the 1960s he began his foray into popular episodic television series and appeared in a slew of unique made-for-television movies throughout the 1970s and 80s, with the addition of major motion picture releases through to the 90s. His work intersects many different genres from melodramas, historical dramas, thrillers, science fiction, and horror.
There are a few actors of the 1960s & 70s decades that cause that same sense of blissed-out flutters in my heart — that is of course if you’re as nostalgic about those days of classic cinema and television as I am. I get that feeling when I see actors like Stuart Whitman, Dean Stockwell, Roy Thinnes, Scott Marlow, Warren Oates, James Coburn, Lee Grant David Janssen, Michael Parks, Barbara Parkins, Joanna Pettet, Joan Hackett, Sheree North, Diana Sands, Piper Laurie, Susan Oliver, and Diane Baker. I have a fanciful worship for the actors who were busy working in those decades, who weren’t Hollywood starlets or male heartthrobs yet they possessed a realness, likability, a certain individual knack, and raw sex appeal.
Bradford Dillman was born in San Francisco in 1930 to a prominent local family. During the war, he was sent to The Hotchkiss School in Lakeville, Connecticut. At Hotchkiss, his senior year he played Hamlet. At Yale, he studied English Literature and performed in amateur theatrical productions, and worked at the Playhouse in Connecticut. Dillman served in the US Marines in Korea (1951-1953) and made a pact that he’d give himself five years to succeed as an actor before he called it quits. Lucky for us, he didn’t wind up in finance the way his father wanted him to.
Actor Bradford Dillman (Photo by ÂÂ John Springer Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)
Dillman enrolled and studied at the Actors Studio, he spent several seasons apprenticing with the Sharon Connecticut Playhouse before making his professional acting debut in an adaptation of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “The Scarecrow” in 1953 with fellow Studio students Eli Wallach and James Dean. Dillman referred to Dean as ‘a wacky kid’ but ‘very gifted’.
He only appeared in two shows in October 1962 The Fun Couple in 1957 with Dyan Cannon and Jane Fonda before the play closed in New York only after two days.
We lost Bradford Dillman last year in January 2018. I was so saddened to hear the news. And I missed the chance to tribute to his work then, but now that his birthday is here, I feel like celebrating his life rather than mourning his death, so it’s just as well.
Bradford Dillman wrote an autobiography called Are You, Anybody? An Actor’s Life, published in 1997 with a (foreword by Suzy Parker) in which he downplays the prolific contribution he made to film and television and acting in general. Though Dillman didn’t always hold a high opinion of some of the work he was involved in, appearing in such a vast assortment of projects, he always came across as upbeat and invested in the role.
“Bradford Dillman sounded like a distinguished, phony, theatrical name, so I kept it.”
[about his career] “I’m not bitter, though. I’ve had a wonderful life. I married the most beautiful woman in the world. Together we raised six children, each remarkable in his or her own way and every one a responsible citizen. I was fortunate to work in a profession where I looked forward to going to work every day. I was rewarded with modest success. The work sent me to places all over the world I’d never been able to afford visiting otherwise. I keep busy and I’m happy. And there are a few good films out there that I might be remembered for.”
Like his colleague Roman Polanski,Skolimowski uses water in his films, and here in Deep End especially- it is used as a liminal space where the characters may move in and out of reality. Its significance here is a passage between childhood and maturity and life and death. All of the narratives is geared toward flow and not necessarily structured.
Actor, writer, producer, and director Jerzy Skolimowski (King, Queen, Knave 1972, The Shout 1978-actor in Mars Attacks! 1996, Before Night Falls 2000) Here he directs and has written the screenplay with Jerzy Gruza and Boleslaw Sulik for Deep End 1970.
Cinematography by Charly Steinberger creates a surreal and dreamlike landscape that lends itself to metaphorical interpretations of pubescent angst and awakening, set against a squalid London at the end of the 1960s. With a soundtrack by Cat Stevens using his song under the opening title ‘But I Might Die Tonight’ and German band The Can with their song ‘Mother Sky.’
Skolimowski uses the recurring theme of the color red in much the way – red was used as symbolism as illustrated in the poster of the blood trailing downward, it reminds me of the same motif used by Nicholas Roeg’s adaption of Daphne du Maurier’s incredibly haunting Don’t Look Now (1973) a particular favorite 70s horror of mine.
The grotesque and creepily moving tableau- a seedy Bathhouse where Mike (John Moulder-Brown) a 15-year-old towel boy whose awakening sexuality is aroused by Susan (Jane Asher-Masque of the Red Death 1964, Alfie 1966) a beautiful redhead who provokes and baits his distorted hormonal urges to the verge of madness. Mike is sexually inexperienced and obsessed with Susan until he transforms into a voyeuristic stalker.
Jane Asher’s character of Susan, a slightly older co-worker turns Mike into the secret world that goes on in the private rooms of the bathhouse where certain of the clientèle indulge in their deviant proclivities and are willing to pay for it. Among them is the blonde Rubenesque British actress Diana Dors who taunts Mike in a libidinous bizarre scene.
Skolimowski refers to Dors type of character as a “withered rose’ the presence of an older woman who once was famous for her sex appeal but is now pathetic as she tries to seduce much younger men or comparing herself to favorite male past times as seen with the Physical Ed teacher (Karl Michael Vogler) who was in reality older that Dors. And with Mike whom she taunts unmercifully.
“Mother’s Sky” is utilized in a great scene where Mike stalks Susan ‘the object of his fixation’ to a London Club, and then moves onto a seedy strip joint where his dreams become even more subverted when he sees the large cardboard cut-out of Susan, then he meets an old prostitute, and finally we follow them to the London Underground where he confronts her. When Mike’s obsession devolves it ends with tragic consequences as the story plays out with the quivers of young sexual innocence that quickly turns from disturbing pervy fixation to the kinky shivers of death. John Moulder-Brown is so perfect at playing at radiating a damaged boyish psyche.
If you love to luxuriate in odd British psycho-thrillers as I do, then Deep End will certainly fulfill that fancy mate!
Your EverLovin’ Joey saying, stay out of the deep end, and bring your own towel!
