Category: The Players

In Memoriam: Gena Rowlands: A Luminary of Emotion and Depth dies at 94

Saying goodbye to authentic, complex & fearless Gena Rowlands

Oscar-nominated actress Gena Rowlands, renowned for her powerful performances in films like “A Woman Under the Influence” and “Gloria,” has passed away at the age of 94. Her illustrious career, which spanned nearly seven decades, included significant collaborations with her husband, director John Cassavetes, and earned her numerous accolades, including three Primetime Emmy Awards and an honorary Academy Award in 2015.

Gena Rowlands began her career in dramatic television with notable performances in anthology series like Robert Montgomery Presents, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, showcasing her talent in complex roles that would later define her film career.

In the gripping episode “The Lonely Hours” of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour, Gena Rowlands delivered a riveting performance as a young mother locked in a psychological battle with Nancy Kelly’s character, a deranged woman who kidnaps Rowlands’ son. Rowlands skillfully portrayed the anguish and determination of a parent facing every mother’s nightmare while engaging in tense verbal exchanges with her son’s captor. Her nuanced portrayal showcased her ability to convey complex emotions, foreshadowing the intense dramatic roles that would define her later career.

Her portrayal of a mother confronting her son’s AIDS diagnosis in An Early Frost earned her critical acclaim and her first Emmy nomination, highlighting her ability to tackle sensitive and challenging subjects on screen. She even appeared in the episode Playback that aired on March 2, 1975, of Columbo, where she plays Elizabeth Van Wick, the wheelchair-bound wife of the murderer Harold Van Wick, portrayed by Oskar Werner, who kills her mother, Myrna Loy.

Rowlands broke new ground in Indie cinema. In The Notebook, Gena Rowlands delivered a poignant performance as the elderly Allie Calhoun, skillfully portraying the emotional depth of a woman grappling with dementia while reflecting on a profound romance from her youth. Her ability to channel personal experiences, particularly her own mother’s battle with Alzheimer’s, added authenticity to the role, resonating deeply with audiences and contributing to the film’s lasting impact.

Gena Rowlands: A Woman Under the Influence of Brilliance

The alchemy of Gena Rowland's acting style is how she integrates her craft with an indescribable beauty and presence that is reminiscent of Hollywood's Golden Age.

Before the emotionally distilled and complex actress emerged as an icon, Gena Rowlands set out with her husband, John Cassavetes, to create a new naturalistic landscape of independent American movies in the 1970s that inspired generations of filmmakers. She began showing the attractive pull of her strength in dramatic teleplays for early television programming.

Shows like Robert Montgomery Presents, Ponds Theater Armstrong Circle Theatre Studio One, The United States Steel Hour, Goodyear Playhouse, General Electric Theater, and of course Alfred Hitchcock Presents and The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. She had a regular stint on the television police procedural series 87th Precinct, playing cop Robert Lansing's deaf wife. In 1975, she starred alongside Peter Falk (One of Cassavete's inner sanctum of actors along with Ben Gazzara) in Columbo's season 4 episode Playback.

In feature films, she was cast as Jerry Bondi in Lonely Are the Brave in 1962, in Cassavetes' A Child is Waiting in 1963, and in Gordon Douglas' Tony Rome 1967, starring friends Frank Sinatra and Richard Conte.

Working since the mid-1950s, Rowlands began to give shades of the forceful performances to come in the three episodes of Hitchcock's series, in particular, The Lonely Hours, playing off veteran stage actress Nancy Kelly.

Gena Rowlands was nominated for two Academy Awards for her performances in director/actor husband John Cassavetes' films. In 1974 for A Woman Under the Influence and in 1980 for her gutsy portrait of one tough broad in Gloria 1980.

She was also nominated for eight Golden Globes having won two, and eight Emmys winning three. On November 14th, Gena Rowlands was finally given an Honorary Oscar at the Governors Awards ceremony.

"With her bold bone structure and the curtain of her wheat-gold Jackie O coif, Gena Rowlands is the classic Hollywood icon that got away"¦. Had she been born into the Studio ear of the 1930s or 1940s, one suspects that she would have sured up a career running across the grand roles, from the tough boots molls through to the stoic others and peppery femme fatales. She has the angular hardness which typifies the best of them in that period- one can imagine her, as easily as Crawford, Davis, Stanwyck or Bacall." -bfi.org.uk

"I'd never seen anyone that beautiful with a certain gravitas. It was particularly unique in that time, when many women were trying to be girlish, affecting a superficial, "˜I'm a pretty girl' attitude. It seemed to be the best way to succeed, but Gena did none of that. There was a directness"”not that she wasn't fun and didn't smolder"”but it came from a place that was both genuine and deep." "“ Mia Farrow

Director Sidney Lumet in an interview with critic James Grissom, said: "The highest compliment I can pay to her"”to anyone"”is that the talent frightens me, making me aware of the lack of it in so many and the power that accrues to those who have it and use it well. And the talent educates and illuminates. She is admirable, which can be said of only a few of us."

In Faces 1968, nominated for 3 Oscars, Rowlands plays prostitute Jeannie with director Cassavetes with something like steel and fearlessness behind her eyes, asserting a challenge to try and reach her after being crushed by men. Rowland manifests a performance "˜aching with wordless solitude' (Ebert)

In the visual poem about loneliness and the feeling of isolation, Minnie & Moskowitz 1971 stars Rowland as the edgy blonde Minnie who perceptively flickers with co-star Seymour Cassel and displays her captivating sensuality under Cyclopean sunglasses.

Minnie works in a museum and has never forgiven the movies for selling her a bill of goods. "The movies lead you on," she tells her friend Florence. "They make you believe in romance and love . . . and, Florence, there just aren't any Clark Gables, not in the real world. Still, Minnie dreams, and keeps a romantic secret locked in her heart: She's glad the movies sold her that bill of goods. (Roger Ebert)

Rowlands garnered her first Oscar nomination for her unforgettable performance as Mabel Longhetti in A Woman Under the Influence 1974, co-starring Peter Falk, who is in the grips of Mabel's mental illness.

"It left me exhausted and depressed-feeling. Some of the time, when you're walking out there where the air is thin, you just hope you can walk back again." -Gena Rowlands.

From an interview with Matt Zoler Seitz "“ talking about A Woman Under the Influence-

"That was my favorite movie. I loved doing that movie. I loved it because I loved working with Peter Falk, I loved the mix of comedy in it, that was sort of real comedy. 

The film was about a woman who was obsessed with the love of her husband, for her husband. And he was a regular guy, worked for the city, had to do his work at night, or in daytime when there was a call for it. She plans so heavily for a romantic night, gets her mother to take her children over to her house, gets house in tiptop shape"”she was a woman who was really obsessed. Then he got a call that the water line had broken and had to call her and say that he couldn't come home later, and then he came back the next morning with all of his friends, and she was very happy to see him to offer them all breakfast, but mostly because she wanted to please him always, and she offers to make them spaghetti. Do you remember that scene?

Yes, I remember the spaghetti scene. Everybody remembers that scene, it was a great scene.

"It's so wonderful to do a scene like that, where it feels so true. You can tell a lot about her in that scene. You see that everything she did was to please him"¦

I also liked the fact that in that film, I was a little wacko, but my husband understood that and he loved me, and it didn't bother him that I was as strange as I could be. When I have this terrible breakdown and have to go away for a while, leave him and my children, oh"”that's a hard scene. We're showing a hard moment in a person's life, a terribly hard moment. Then she comes back and they try to make it easy for her as possible. It's just so good, all the scenes."

As Myrtle Gordon, Rowlands gives another masterful performance in Cassavetes' Opening Night portraying a successful stage actress's "˜final agony of bottoming out' (Ebert), rehearsing a production of The Second Woman in New Haven, whose life is turned upside down after she witnesses a 17-year-old fan's death outside the theater.

Gena Rowlands in Opening Night 1977.

Rowlands plays the role "At perfect pitch: She is able to suggest, even in the midst of seemingly ordinary moments, the controlled panic of a person who needs a drink, right here, right now." (Roger Ebert)

She captures the restless energy that imbues the behind-the-scenes world of the theater and the "˜dreary perspective of Myrtle's uninspiring production she stars in.' (Chris Wiegand- The Guardian).

"All while descending into a prolonged crack-up involving binge drinking, consultations with mediums, and a repeat hallucination of a young girl"¦ Early on, when Myrtle is first confronted with the hallucination/girl, there's a closeup of Rowlands' face that is an example of her unique genius. Even very talented actors feel the need to show an audience "what a moment is about." Not Rowlands. In that closeup, Myrtle stares at the girl, wondering if she has finally lost her mind, and then she puts an almost welcoming expression on her face, before mouthing the word, "Hello!" It's hair-raising." Ebert)

Nipping at booze, Myrtle trips between reality on and off stage, drenched in an alcoholic delirium "“ "Rowlands' drunkenness in "Opening Night" is in the pantheon of Great Drunks onscreen." (Roger Ebert).

Myrtle drifts in and out of character, conjuring visions of two women who do not exist. Virginia the role for which she is wary of, struggles to portray an older woman for the first time, a character who is aesthetically defined by her age. And embracing the phantom of Nancy, the young girl who died, whose youthful receptiveness is what she seeks to direct, all within an oppressive environment driven by the men she works with, director (Ben Gazzara) and ex-lover co-star (Cassavetes).

How can you bring a character alive if you don't believe in them "“ Myrtle asks playwright Sarah Goode played by Joan Blondell. Myrtle needs to reclaim her identity on stage and for herself.

"The scenes in which Myrtle in Opening Night consults first one and then another spiritualist are typical of Cassavetes' genius in filming madness. He gives us characters who are clearly breaking apart inside, and then sends them hurtling around crazily in search of quick fixes and Band-Aids. (In "Love Streams," the hard-drinking Cassavetes surrounds himself with hookers, while Sarah (Rowlands), as his sister, fills a taxicab with animals she has "rescued" from a pet store; in "A Woman Under the Influence," a crowd of basket cases sit down to eat a big dinner that has been whipped together under the delusion that life is normal and everybody is having a great time." Roger Ebert

Gena Rowland in Gordon Douglas' Tony Rome 1967.

In Gloria 1980 directed by John Cassavetes, a film Rowlands considers a "˜gangster comedy,' gets to play the hard-edged gun moll she would have perfected in the best film noirs of the 1940s. The film takes an unexpected approach to motherhood- as Gloria Swenson becomes the reluctant guardian of a little boy whose family is murdered by the mob. The two go on the run in the gritty streets of New York City in possession of a book that the mob wants. Rowland is never fake while she roars and swears at the thugs chasing her on the subway, moving like the wind down the sidewalks of New York in her silk suits, handling her gun like an uncompromising pro. "˜"˜I don't want to be a victim! Victim, that's passe; I've played a victim. I don't want to be a victimized, you know, a victimized person again"¦This is a victimized person, isn't it?'  he assures her -"˜' No, it's not a victimized person. A very strong person. You're not a victim; you're an "˜anti-victim." "Good, don't get it in your mind that I'm a victim!'" (Rowlands from a conversation with husband John Cassavetes).

Cassel and Rowlands in Minnie and Moskowitz in 1971.

Gloria for Gena Rowlands is where she gives flight her roles rooted in vulnerability and deep psychological storms. In the film, she attains ascendency puts a gun to the head of the personal victimization, and defies some of her older collaborative roles with Cassavetes interpreted by instability and downward spirals. She wouldn't allow herself to be trapped by stereotypes of "˜eccentric, middle-aged women.' which was a role that established her on-screen persona in the 1970s.

"Love is a stream. It is continuous. It doesn't stop."

In 1984's Love Streams, directed by John Cassavetes, Gena Rowlands portrays Sarah Lawson, a character whose life has been unexpectedly upended when she finds herself in the midst of a divorce from her husband Jack, portrayed by Seymour Cassel.

Adding to her pain, her young daughter Debbie (Risa Martha Blewitt) chooses to live with her father instead. At a time when she questions whether she is worthy of love, experiencing an emotional breakdown she reaches out to her brother Robert (Cassavetes).

Rowlands objected to Cassavete's script, finding herself once again playing a "˜victimized person', but he assured her that Sarah was truly strong.

Sarah's divergence from the past "˜madwoman archetype' is in her resilience from her earlier roles in the 70s "“ as Mabel in A Woman Under the Influence whereas her therapist in Love Streams has a similar commentary that her love is "too strong for her family,''

Unlike Minnie, who is stripped down by Cassel in Minnie and Moskowitz in 1971, and Myrtle Gordon, whose mind becomes fractured during the New York premiere of her play in Opening Night, Sarah comes to a reckoning about how love flows and can be reached. And no one but Rowlands could compel heartache to emerge out of a smile.

Source Andrew Key

Source Chris Wiegand The Guardian

Source: RogerEbert.Com

Unraveling the Knot: Don’t Look Now (1973) A Mesmeric Paradox of Grief in Uncanny Red: Part 2

Of Grief & Ghosts: The Plot of Don’t Look Now (1973)

“The story evolves like a mosaic with the important pieces missing, just like one of those that John is restoring. Not unlike how the dissolution of the sealing material destroys the structures in the church, the reality of Baxters' life is falling apart, too. These cracks either should be mended, or they allow the forces from beyond and under to creep through them. The latter is especially true for John with his gift of clairvoyance, although resisted, or maybe especially because he resists it.” "” from Film Obsessive article by Magda Mariamidze

“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you. If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.""” Gospel of Thomas

John (Donald Sutherland) and Laura Baxter (Julie Christie) bear the mark of a curse, a chilling revelation hinted at at the film's outset. Don't Look Now is a film about grief and loss. This is the most potent horror there is. Aside from the killings in Venice, it is these principles that are the true nature of this horror film. Roeg's masterpiece, the specter of death, and its companion grief are palpable and agonizingly real. The titles in quotations are baptized by the torrential British rain that licks the screen.

A Tragic Prelude: or In the Wake of Loss: The Opening of Don’t Look Now:

John Baxter: What are you reading?
Laura Baxter: I was just trying to find the answer to a question Christine was asking me: if the world’s round, why is a frozen lake flat?
John Baxter: Huh. That’s a good question.
Laura Baxter: [flipping through a book] Ah-ha. “Lake Ontario curves more than 3 degrees from its easternmost shore to its westernmost shore.” So, frozen water really isn’t flat!
John Baxter: Nothing is what it seems.

The juxtaposition of these images is Roeg’s way of highlighting the profuse symbolism consciously scattered throughout key scenes of Don’t Look Now. Here, I found a visible but not readily apparent cue signaling the dichotomy between the forces at work. Laura and the Red Devil, with their backs, turned to us.

Though it's a sunny day, we get a sense that it is a typically damp English morning mist in the yard of a country estate. The film cuts back and forth between the Baxters and their two children, playing outside by the pond. Christine and Johnny's parents are lost in a world of idle contentment within the house. The air hangs heavy with a bourgeois harmony. Both are tuned into their work, though, with an unhurried cadence.

Laura is reading Beyond The Fragile Geometry of Space, a book that can be seen on the sofa, so that she can answer Christine's question about the earth’s shape. John comments, " Nothing is as it seems."

Alongside du Maurier's narrative, the film begins with Laura investigating the answer to Christine's insightful curiosity: ” If the earth is round, why is a frozen pond flat?” This question highlights a paradox, as both statements can be seen as valid yet fundamentally contradictory.

The remnants of a lazy Sunday lunch linger: dishes abandoned, forks and knives scattered, while a thin ribbon of smoke rises from a forgotten cigarette in an ashtray, painting a picture of contented indulgence.

Their two young children, Johnny and Christine, continue to play around the pond on their bucolic property. Christine (Sharon Williams), an angelic little blonde girl in a shiny red Mac with the bright look of fresh blood"”red like a bleeding heart"”wanders around the pond pushing a wheelbarrow and chasing a bouncing ball. The sunny blue day surrounds the murky surface of the pond choked with reeds. The pond doesn't reflect the sky, but the water is like a mirror to Christine's red raincoat as she skirts her playful path. Meanwhile, her brother weaves through the trees on his bike, a silent fluttering moth against the verdant backdrop.

Christine’s playful moments with her ball create an unsettling visual dance. The little sphere, adorned with a crimson geometric design against the hazy day, seems to pulse and warp as it tumbles across the ground into the pond. This optical illusion subtly disturbs our perception, adding to the film’s undercurrent of unease without drawing attention to itself. She is holding her brother's toy soldier, Action Man, who, when you pull the string, possesses the recorded voice of a woman calling out strategic military commands.

As soon as Christine tugs the string on her doll, it utters, “Enemy 1000 feet…fall in.” In that instant, Johnny topples over his bike, is felled by a rock, and is cut by a shard of broken glass after he has ridden his bike over a pane of glass, shattering it beneath the with of his tires.

In this stunning opening sequence, architect John Baxter is prepping for a restoration of a church in Venice. He scrutinizes his projector loaded with slides"”of an Italian church. Laura Baxter reads her books, and John is studying his slides of the medieval church he will be reviving. He focuses on one slide, in particular, of a stained glass window; the façade of piety is splendid, with the figure of Christ adorned in red robes. However, he has no solid faith or spirituality of his own to cling to.

It is the shadowy corner of the slide that catches John's eye"”a small, enigmatic red form huddled in a pew, cloaked in a red coat and hood. The sight triggers a sudden, curious feeling. This intruding presence, small, perhaps childlike in appearance, becomes the catalyst for John's sudden, horrifying vision"”an intuitive warning to him that Christine is in danger.

John accidentally knocks over a glass of water and watches with curiosity as a red stain emerges from the small figure, like blood, creeping across the slide. A seemingly unremarkable mishap ignites an unsettling vision that John's mind conjures. The red figure melts into a disambiguated crimson swirl that coils around the church's stained-glass window. By the time it settles, it is almost fetal in shape; the veiled red figure, once a mere curiosity, now takes on a sinister aspect. A vision of Christine wearing the same evocative color, red, becoming submerged in the murky depths of the nearby pond.

He leaps to his feet and heads for the door. Laura asks him what is happening. "Nothing," he tells her.
Laura tosses a slide onto the book on metaphysics as the image continues to bleed.

John runs out of the house, hurls himself at the pond, past his son, his hand cut from the piece of broken glass; he screams, "Dad!"

When John reaches the water, it feels like it takes forever for him to reach Christine; frozen by his anguish, he then plunges in and pulls his red angel from the watery nothingness, her lifeless body wrenched up into his arms as he agonizes over her limp body with drenched blonde wisps. Roeg intercuts this moment of visual artistry with the harrowing sight of John trying to trudge through the water until he breaks through. Christine’s lifeless body is cradled in his arms as time and reality blur – in an unreadable mixture that will become past and present.

Continue reading “Unraveling the Knot: Don’t Look Now (1973) A Mesmeric Paradox of Grief in Uncanny Red: Part 2” →

Unraveling the Knot: Don’t Look Now (1973) A Mesmeric Paradox of Grief in Uncanny Red: Part 1

The basic tenet of horror movies – "˜ Nothing is as it seems "˜ and for me, Don't Look Now is a death of all certainties.

In the early seventies, when even mainstream films could be fearless and experimental, smashing taboos and taunting the censors, it was non-conformists who offered cinemagoing a uniquely intense experience.

 “Don't Look Now 1973 retains its power and mystery today thanks to Roeg's mastery of what Alfred Hitchcock famously called "pure cinema," manifest in his visual sleight of hand and, above all, in his refusal to be bound by the conventions of dialogue-driven narrative and simple chronology. All this has shaped a style that has justifiably come to be described as "Roegian."– (David Thompson: Seeing Red 2015 article CRITERION )

“Nothing is what it seems," says John Baxter, the protagonist of Don't Look Now, at the start of the film. The rest of the movie depicts the tragedy of Baxter's incapacity to apply this fundamental wisdom in his own life. "Nothing is what it seems" may be an untested platitude, but it's a truism when it comes to movies, and Don't Look Now is one of the great "movies-about-movie-watching" ever made. Primarily, it is about the act of perception itself"¦ By seeing an event that has not yet happened as something that is already happening (what-will-be as what-is), he (John) fatally confuses the signs and makes the future the past, i.e., irrevocable, inescapable. Like a movie stamped on celluloid, or the glimpse of the satanic dwarf on the slide Baxter is handling in the opening scene, he fixes something in time, and thereby turns life into death.""” (article – Jasun Horsley Cinephilia and Beyond)

"He was a genius, Nic. A visionary. He made a love scene between a grieving wife and herhusband with no cries of passion, no sounds of orgasm, no words. All you hear is Pino Donaggio's music as Nic intercuts their making love with them getting dressed to go out to dinner. Magical. You don't see that scene as a voyeur. You watch it and it reminds you of yourself, of you being loving and you being loved. We decided it would be wisest not to shoot John's death scene until we'd done everything else, in case the unreliable prop knife failed and my throat would be cut, spilling red. Fragmented, abstract images colour and tell his stories. Look at Omar Sharif on a camel, coming from the other end of the desert towards the camera. That's Nic. Look at the Sahara's empty foreground and suddenly the smokestacks of a steamer crossing from left to right along the unseen Suez canal. That's Nic. He was the was the first to use Panavision's R-200°, which meant he had 15 degrees more shutter for Don't Look Now than the 185°s that were the best before. He was everything I ever wanted from a filmmaker. He changed my life forever. Francine and I asked him if we could name our firstborn after him. He said yes. Our glorious son is named Roeg." -  (Interview – Donald Sutherland)

Continue reading “Unraveling the Knot: Don’t Look Now (1973) A Mesmeric Paradox of Grief in Uncanny Red: Part 1” →

Around the corner at The Last Drive In

In just a few days, I’ll be publishing my feature article for Nicolas Roeg’s meditation on grief, Don’t Look Now 1973. This is perfect timing to pay tribute to one of the most prolific, beloved actors, Donald Sutherland, who we just lost a few days ago.

Donald Sutherland (NY Times article), whose unforgettably versatile performances in films like Don’t Look Now has left an indelible mark on cinema and the artistry that defined his impressive career. Films that include M*A*S*H 1970, Kelly’s Heroes 1970s, Klute 1971, Casanova 1976, Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1978, and Ordinary People 1980.

I am also really, really excited to announce… my upcoming interview with the indomitable Adrienne Barbeau, A Trailblazer of Stage and Screen!

So grab a box of raisinets and get ready for some good ol’ long-winded stuff from your EverLovin’ Joey!

Enter Teresa Wright in The Little Foxes 1941 – Behold, tomorrow I will bring locusts"¦ and they shall eat every tree of yours that grows in the field.

"I only ever wanted to be an actress, not a star."

Teresa Wright may seem lamblike at first glance, but don't let the soft smile fool you into thinking there isn't something gutsy within that charming glow. She is one of the most engaging actors, and she shows a resolute luster and independence to take on Hollywood with the same veracity she pursued wicked Uncle Charlie in Shadow of a Doubt.

Wright was not only endearing, but her acting and personal life lacked ceremony and authenticity. She was discovered by Samuel Goldwyn and gained early recognition for her exceptional performances in her first three films. She became the only actor to receive Oscar nominations for each of them. Wright earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress and one for Mrs. Miniver.

Teresa Wright and Greer Garson in William Wyler’s Mrs. Miniver (1942).

It stands to reason that Times drama editor Edwin Schallert described Wright's burgeoning career as "one of the most remarkably brilliant for a young player in Hollywood.""¨Despite being a Hollywood star, she remained true to herself and rejected the pretentiousness that came along with being a star. She achieved Hollywood stardom on her own terms, without selling out for the sake of glamour.

Teresa Wright was resolute in her refusal to pose for photographs while wearing bathing suits and to subject herself to superficial interviews in gossipy fan magazines. At first, Goldwyn told her he was not of "the bathing suit school of Hollywood producers."

Muriel Teresa Wright was born in Harlem, New York City. She discovered a passion for acting while attending the exclusive Rosehaven School in Tenafly, New Jersey, after watching Helen Hayes in "Victoria Regina." While attending high school in Maplewood, N.J., Wright participated in theatrical productions. Although one teacher advised her to pursue typing instead, a public-speaking teacher mentored her and provided her with plays to read. He also arranged for her to spend two summers at the Wharf Theater in Provincetown.

After receiving a scholarship in the two summers preceding her graduation, she began apprenticing at the Wharf Theatre in Massachusetts, appearing in plays such as The Vinegar Tree and Susan and God.
She performed in school plays and graduated from Columbia High School in Maplewood, New Jersey, in 1938. She then decided to pursue acting professionally and moved to New York.

Wright had to drop her first name when she discovered that another actress named Muriel Wright was already registered with Actors Equity.

In 1938, in her first play, she landed an understudy role in Thornton Wilder's "Our Town" on Broadway and then toured in the play.

It was a minor role, but it also served as a chance to understudy the lead ingénue character of Emily, actress Dorothy Maguire; however, when Maguire failed to return, Teresa continued in the same role under Martha Scott. Wright eventually replaced Martha Scott when the actress adapted the role of Emily in the film version.

Following her successful stage performances, Wright made her remarkable Broadway debut as Mary in Life With Father in 1939. This caught the attention of playwright Lillian Hellman, who recommended her to Goldwyn for the screen version of Hellman's The Little Foxes.

Teresa Wright as Alexandra (Zan) Gibbons in Lillian Hellman/William Wyler The Little Foxes (1941).

She gained recognition for her work alongside Bette Davis (who played the cold, calculating mother Regina) and Patricia Collinge who reprised her unparalleled Broadway role as the mercurial Aunt Birdie) in the film.

At that time, she had signed a contract with MGM but refused to do publicity stunts or cheese-cake shots that would turn her into a centerfold:

" The aforementioned Teresa Wright shall not be required to pose for photographs in a bathing suit unless she is in the water. Neither may she be photographed running on the beach with her hair flying in the wind. Nor may she pose in any of the following situations: In shorts, playing with a cocker spaniel; digging in a garden; whipping up a meal; attired in firecrackers and holding skyrockets for the Fourth of July; looking insinuatingly at a turkey for Thanksgiving; wearing a bunny cap with long ears for Easter; twinkling on prop snow in a skiing outfit while a fan blows her scarf; assuming an athletic stance while pretending to hit something with a bow and arrow."

Though she became the unwilling pin-up girl, Teresa Wright became Goldwyn's biggest overall star during the 1940s.

Teresa Wright and Gary Cooper in Pride of the Yankees (1942) image RKO via Getty Images.

Teresa received Oscar nominations for her roles in Mrs. Miniver (1942), the only movie she made for her studio MGM, and The Pride of the Yankees (1942), winning the Best Supporting Actress trophy for Mrs. Miniver.

In both roles, Teresa Wright gave heartwarming performances as the granddaughter in the sentimental war-era Mrs. Miniver and as baseball icon Lou Gehrig's kindhearted wife in Pride of the Yankees, starring opposite Gary Cooper. Wright, now one of the most appealing newcomers in Hollywood, garnered two Best Supporting Actress and Best Actress nods in the same year. She holds the record for receiving back-to-back Academy Award nominations in her first three film roles, which still stands today.

Teresa Wright received top billing for Shadow of a Doubt, a film that was her personal favorite and earned every bit of that limelight in Alfred Hitchcock's psychological thriller. The film places Wright as serial killer Joseph Cotten's unsuspecting niece, Charlie, at the story’s center. Unsuspecting at first"¦

When Young Charlie (Wright) is over the moon about her favorite Uncle Charlie coming to her sleeping California town for a visit, the whole family celebrates his arrival. Her mother, Emma, Charlie's older sister (Patricia Collings, who appeared with Wright in The Little Foxes and Casanova Brown), can't wait to dote on her baby brother. But soon, it comes to light that Charlie might have left strangled wealthy women in his wake, and in fact, maybe The Merry Widow killer.

Teresa Wright gives a nuanced performance as Charlie Newton, who daringly holds her own in a game of cat and mouse with Joseph Cotten. They are tangled up in danger as she carefully draws out his murderous impulses.

But in the shadows beyond the edges, the family is unaware of the two characters diverge "“ one set on self-preservation with a malignant disgust for fat lazy wives who live off their husbands and the other who seeks out the truth and bends toward humanity. Their same names are where it begins and ends. Wright is a glowing jewel in the blackness of Hitchcock's nightmare.

Continue reading “Enter Teresa Wright in The Little Foxes 1941 – Behold, tomorrow I will bring locusts"¦ and they shall eat every tree of yours that grows in the field.” →

Feature & Interview with Iconic Actress, Dancer, and Photographer, Barbara Parkins

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 is an icon of the 1960s, appearing in two of the decade's most popular and legendary film and television productions.

Barbara's exquisite beauty is undeniable, but her captivating performances in Peyton Place and Valley of the Dolls truly secured her legacy in Hollywood history and our collective consciousness. As beloved – Betty Anderson in the television series Peyton Place and as Anne Welles in the notorious adaptation of Jacqueline Susann's sensational novel Valley of the Dolls (1967). These memorable roles continue to resonate with audiences today.

But beyond any of it, the glamour, serious drama, pulp fiction, or even the camp, there is an actress who possesses an otherworldly beauty and a depth of character and quality. Not only has she touched our hearts with her performances as these two classic heroines, but she is also one of those recognizable actresses who project strength, confidence, and poise.

Barbara Parkins will undoubtedly be remembered for her portrayal of Betty Anderson Cord in the iconic 1960s prime-time operatic melodrama Peyton Place, which ran from 1964 to 1969.

Based on Grace Metalious's "˜dirty book,' Peyton Place blew the lid off of the hypocritical conformity of small-town America, capturing the complexities of American morality through high drama, showing the dark underbelly of a quaint community of "˜wholesome' families striving for normalcy amid controversial issues. That everything is not safe, it's not always comfortable, and it is without real struggle. And sometimes, life can be downright ugly. Her novel captures the "complexities of human existence"”the dramas, highs and lows, conflicts, and teenage sexuality"”depicting life’s un-romanticized, unvarnished reality. While the book offended some readers, it intrigued others, and despite being a popular show, critics often deem it shocking yet captivating." (The Baltimore Sun 1999 Laurie Kaplan article THE WOMEN OF PEYTON PLACE)

“Barbara Parkins has caught the public's eye, partly because of her beauty, partly because she is a capable little actress. But mostly because she seems to have an inner fire. She's a volcano in a tight dress.'' (From an article BARBARA PARKINS: MOST PROMISING NEWCOMER – Niagra Falls Gazette March, 1965 by Dick Kleiner)

 

Continue reading “Feature & Interview with Iconic Actress, Dancer, and Photographer, Barbara Parkins” →

TAM LIN 1970 & BABA YAGA 1973 – Ava Gardner & Carroll Baker: THE FAERIE QUEEN"¦ & VALENTINA'S DREAM: Two Hollywood icons in search of mythology. Part 2

Baba Yaga or the Devil Witch the (United Kingdom) titles, or Kiss Me, Kill Me/Black Magic (1973) the (US) titles

“Weird {is} the operative word here. Though framed by a simple story, director Corrado Farina's approach to the film is every bit as avant-garde and surrealist as its source material. The plot had me scratching my head in bewilderment. Compelling visuals kept me watching.'' "” from Brian Lindsey’s Eccentric Cinema review.

☞ SPOILER ALERT:

READ PART 1 Tam Lin HERE

In Slavic/Russian folklore, the Baba Yaga is a strikingly revolting witch who flies around in a giant pestle – and steals and eats children. In the middle of a Russian forest, she lives in a shack built on top of giant chicken legs that can move at will. The folklore Baby Yaga is a sinister, macabre mythological presence, unlike the deviant sensual being that Carroll Baker portrays in Corrado Farina's Euro-horror film. This iteration of Baba Yaga is the seductive sorceress who manages to summon – with simmering antagonism, a world of pain – "˜symbolically' baring her predatory, wanting lips, which desire the heroine – Valentina.

According to the Monthly Film Bulletin review from 1974, critic Geoff Brown noted that he reviewed an 81-minute dubbed version of the film Baba Yaga. Brown stated that “due to 20 minutes of the film being cut and through the English-language dub, “the film had lost some of Farina’s socio-political arguments.” However, Brown also commented that most of these removed elements were reduced to “modish chit-chat” on topics ranging through various ideas.”

In the 70s, while exploring Giallo and Euro-exploitation films, I remember my first shudder and first impression of Baba Yaga. I had the feeling that something odd and erotic had taken place, and for me, it was like waking up from a hazy, surreal dream. Carroll Baker has always captivated me, and in the role of Baba Yaga, I felt she brought a level of Old World Hollywood class to a very provocative horror film.

An Italian/ French co-production, Baba Yaga is a delirious mixture of the supernatural, psychoanalysis, dream interpretation, vivid color schemes, pop art, eroticism, and fetishistic imagery. Baba Yaga, the film, revamps Russian folklore and transports the story into contemporary Milan.

As a stylish arthouse horror film from the 1970s, Baba Yaga explores the borderline between reality and imagination, embracing the sleazy allure of after-dark cinema"”fascinating and perhaps too challenging to define. There are striking elements that establish themselves with a clear sapphic element that already existed in Crepax’s work, creating an eroticized vision seen through the heterosexual ‘male gaze’ and driven by what Laura Mulvey termed "to be looked at-ness" that are kept in Farina’s film.

While I am still drawn to the film as an artifact of this decade's concentrated influence on an unmistakably hybrid genre (Horror, Euro-Exploitation, Giallo), Baba Yaga still manages to weaponize the straight male visual pleasure of actualizing their faulty version of lesbianism and bases the narrative around male sexual fantasies.

Farina and Crepax reveal the inherent bias fueled by a male-centric culture through a lens shaped by a male-centric point of view, which emphasizes the heteronormative expectation of female-female sexual exploitation.

Setting these critical observations aside"¦ The backdrop of Baba Yaga's 1970s fashion and Italian pop culture adds washes of a chic, mod, and bold cinematic experience.

Director Corrado Farina, who had previously envisioned another strange art-horror film, They Have Changed Their Faces (1971), now delivers this strange film with a mesmerizing array of visuals. The film seamlessly transitions from sharp pop design to muted Gothic hues and vents into full-fledged experimental cinema. Farina roams free with unrepentant visual skill frame by frame.

Baba Yaga, adapted from the risqué S&M erotic graphic novel series "˜Valentina' by Guido Crepax, thrives on its invocation and sense of a comic book world. Crepax, who earned his reputation as the world's most seductive cartoonist, stands as one of the eminent figures in the realm of adult comics and garnered greater recognition during the 1960s and 1970s.

Crepax's prominence stems not only from his introduction of erotic themes but also from his innovative approach to storytelling within the medium, incorporating nudity and daring themes.

Continue reading “TAM LIN 1970 & BABA YAGA 1973 – Ava Gardner & Carroll Baker: THE FAERIE QUEEN"¦ & VALENTINA'S DREAM: Two Hollywood icons in search of mythology. Part 2” →

TAM LIN 1970 & BABA YAGA 1973 – Ava Gardner & Carroll Baker: THE FAERIE QUEEN"¦ & VALENTINA'S DREAM: Two Hollywood icons in search of mythology. Part 1

“I shall waste you and waste you and waste you”¦”

The Ballad of Tam Lin, Tam Lin, Games and Toys or The Devil’s Widow 1970

“McDowall builds a broodingly enigmatic sense of menace out of stray allusions and apparitions that hover without ever really being explained or over-exploited: the snatches of [Robert] Burns intimating the presence of diabolic machinations; the girl terrified by her own unspoken Tarot prophecies; the dialogue that rings like blank verse, as though it had been used over and over again. Above all, though, this menace is effective chiefly because it is rhymed with a mounting sense of quiet decorum, as though reality, the world of the ordinary, everyday banality, were suddenly present to Tom for the first time.”“¨”” Tom Milne, Monthly Film Bulletin, June 1977

“She Drained Them Of Their Manhood–And Then Of Their Lives! “

That’s the tagline American International Pictures exploited to promote this obscure British fantasy/horror film. Made as a last hurrah at the close of the 1960s, The Ballad of Tam Lin or Tam Lin, emerged from a singular blend of McDowall’s audacious, unwavering, and fearless vision to subvert cinematic tradition and bring on board first-rate talent to see that vision realized.

Back in the day, I was armed with my VCR at the ready to capture those late-night TV excursions into obscure horror. Tam Lin would be one of those hidden gems that still lingers in my mind like a nostalgia hangover.

Dear friends, Ava Gardner and Roddy McDowall on the Tam Lin set.

“The film is a gothic fairytale modernized. When viewed in those terms and in the context of the original folklore – it makes perfect sense.” -McDowall.

Legendary Hollywood Goddess Ava Gardner is the evil “Queen of the Fairies” in Roddy McDowall’s wickedly provocative adult fairytale. Initially presented as a horror film, Tam Lin, with its hauntingly beautiful narrative, emerges more as a tragic fable of love and revenge. Or it can be seen as a dark, cautionary adult fairytale with a tangible Brother’s Grimmesque tale of beware the wrath of a slighted Queen, or there is terror amidst the remote woods. With the emergence of the counterculture of the 1960s, there was a growing fascination with all things pagan and folk-sy, with the use of symbolism, iconography, and formal tropes. For instance, the use of bridges we see throughout Tam Lin has often represented those liminal spaces between divergent realms.

Among its myriad titles, at the heart of Tam Lin lies Michaela “˜Micky’ Cazarete – a worldly Aesthete or  ‘sorceress,’ however you choose to see her… embodied by the luminous Ava Gardner in one of her 44th and final leading roles. As ravishingly beautiful as ever, Gardner plays the succubus-like enchantress always wrapped in stunning, opulent attire and a flickering flame, drawing the wings of any naive lad she captures for her bed.

This post contains SPOILER!:

READ PART 2 BABA YAGA: HERE

The story retells the artfulness of a wicked enchantress, a queen of the faeries who enraptures the young with her otherworldly beauty and beguiles and mesmerizes them to drain their vitality. And there is a cruel twist to this Gothic fable. At sunset of the seventh year, she is compelled to sacrifice her favorite male love to replenish her (life force or her desire.) Eternally restless, she is a damned soul; she is a paradox both breathtaking and horrifying, filled with a hunger that can never be satiated.

Psychedelic Folkloristic cinema like Tam Lin represents a cultural paradigm situated at a point in time where things were poised to move away from the psychedelic utopianism and iconoclasm of the 1960s, which began to pivot towards more introspective, darker turns. Similar in an impressionistic aesthetic, Tam Lin evokes for me another moody art piece horror, Queens Of Evil, aka /Le Regine 1970/Il delitto del diavolo.

Above are two images from Queens of Evil (1970).

Both films stylistically point to the florid decadence that was evolving into the weary and hostile era to come. Like Ian McShane, with his piercing and intense blue eyes crowned by dark brows and lashes, the charismatic bad boy with a sculpted physique, Ray Lovelock, is lavished with adoration within an idyllic setting until he is ultimately led as a lamb to the slaughter.

A striking parallel exists between the archetypal narratives of wayward, virile princes ensnared within a pastoral paradise and the insatiable, evil queens and seductive sirens who seek to possess them. This clash of archetypes, the untamed masculine spirit versus the ruthless feminine intellect, reflects the deep-seated cultural anxieties and preoccupations surrounding the nature of power, desire, and the fear of women’s primacy, in particular, as with Tam Lin, older women’s primacy.

Scene from The Night of the Iguana 1964.

Ava Gardner circa 1960.

I can include another early 70s horror favorite that registers with its mod/post-modern indulgence  – Messiah of Evil 1973. Messiah of Evil began to show signs of a crack in the shimmery good vibes of the 1960s as it dips its toes – heavily –  into the stark contrast of the coming brutal, gritty tone of later 1970s horror films. Tam Lin and Queens of Evil feel akin to the Psychedelic Folkloristic cinema, which captures that brief moment when fashionable trends were turning towards folklore motifs. Films thrive on a strong narrative, and legends are fed by things that are false and things that are true.

Some critics consider it as one of the original folk horror films. Others see it as an improvisation of the post-Rosemary’s Baby cycle of genre films.

Above are two scenes from the folk horror film The Wicker Man (1973).

A pioneering work of folk horror, Tam Lin can be considered a proto-folk horror film. Not only does it predate The Wicker Man by four years, but it shares some striking thematic similarities. Both films delve into the darkness of cults, driven by a need to appease deities through ritual sacrifice. An unsettling yet obscured supernatural atmosphere permeates both narratives, further accentuated by their remote, rural settings, fertile ground for tales of witchcraft and pagan practices. Notably, both films boast innovative and provocative British soundtracks and share the distinction of being primarily filmed in the evocative landscapes of Scotland.

Tam Lin anticipates Blood on Satan’s Claw, released in 1971, and yes, once again, like  The Wicker Man in 1973, showcasing its creeping pastoral horrors. The film’s ’60s art-house decadence and its aesthetic serve as many of the films that could be perfectly placed inside a time capsule from the merging decades of the late ’60s & 1970s. A film movement that draws inspiration from the rich period of European art cinema. Tam Lin’s dreamy and, at times, barely lucid tone frames this moody lyrical love story set in the bucolic countryside of Scotland until it moves into a horror-filled, phantasmagorical manifestation of the original poem the story is based on. Midway, the film shows a visual shift of spiritual flight, transformation, and salvation from supernatural retribution.

Continue reading “TAM LIN 1970 & BABA YAGA 1973 – Ava Gardner & Carroll Baker: THE FAERIE QUEEN"¦ & VALENTINA'S DREAM: Two Hollywood icons in search of mythology. Part 1” →

Beverly Washburn: Reel Tears – Real Laughter! Part 2

This is the second of two features about Beverly Washburn. You can read Part One here.

THE INTERVIEW:

1. Your first part in a film was for the 1950 film noir classic The Killer that Stalked New York starring Evelyn Keyes. You were supposed to be the first victim, a little girl who gets smallpox from Keyes who is on the run spreading the plague. And it was a speaking part. The script said, "˜'There sits little Walda Kowalski with her great big brown eyes and brown hair'' but you had blonde hair and blue eyes. You immediately thought that you wouldn't get the part. But Western star Jock Mahoney lied to the producers of the film at Columbia Studios after he saw you in the lobby while auditioning for the part of Walda. Mahoney met you 3 months earlier at one of your sister Audrey's shows. He was very taken with you, so he raved to the producer that you had done all this work even though you had no credits. And you got the part!

Essentially it was Mahoney's misdirection that helped your career! "¨"¨Does it ever make you laugh that it took a harmless lie, a few speaking lines, and tragically dying from smallpox in a Columbia Studios production to give you the leverage you needed to move forward in your acting career? Can you tell us about that experience?

Getting my first big break was perhaps a little unusual particularly since it was based on a little lie!
I had met Jock Mahoney a few months prior to the audition for the role in “The Killer That Stalked New York” which was to be filmed at Columbia Studios. At 6 years old, I had an agent who had sent me on countless auditions, none of which I ever got due to the fact that I had no experience other than having worked as a model of children’s clothes.

The role of little Walda Kowalski was listed in the script as a little girl with big brown eyes and brown hair. Now that description wasn’t pertinent to the actual role, however when a writer writes in a character, he or she typically envisions what they might look like. Well, right off the bat, it seemed apparent that I wasn’t what they were looking for because I had blue eyes and blonde hair.  As I was sitting in the lobby among many little brown-eyed and brown-haired other hopefuls and my not having any experience, it seemed that this would just be another letdown and another rejection for me. As I waited to go in, something marvelous happened. Jock Mahoney happened to walk through the lobby!  He remembered me as we had met at the Veteran’s Hospital in Long Beach California where he had been the guest of honor and where my sister was performing her act for the Veterans.  He asked my mother what I was doing there and when she told him I was reading for the part of Walda, he said “I’ll be right back.” What we found out later was that he went into the office of the Casting director and told them that I was perfect for the role, that I had done this and I had done that,  when the reality was, I hadn’t done a thing other than model!  He was under contract at the time and had some clout,  so they took his word for it. So as the story goes, he lied, they believed him and I got the part!

I do laugh sometimes thinking about how that all came about. I think about him from time to time and realize how blessed I was to have it unfold the way it did because after I had that one speaking role, it was then that I was able to continue on."¨ It’s such a “catch-22 ” situation because they don’t want to hire you if you don’t have experience, but how do you get the experience if they don’t hire you? I of course will forever be grateful to him for allowing me that one break, albeit he had to tell a little white lie in order for them to give me the role!

Continue reading “Beverly Washburn: Reel Tears – Real Laughter! Part 2” →

Beverly Washburn: Reel Tears – Real Laughter! Part 1

This is the first of two features about Beverly Washburn. You can read my interview with her here.

First off, I'd like to thank Beverly Washburn who graciously lent her valuable time in collaborating with me and guiding me to make this a proper tribute.

Two times a year (every April and October) I get to ramble through the crowds of unwavering fans at The Chiller Theater Convention here in New Jersey.

These events allow us to meet and engage in conversations with beloved actors who stir up a sense of nostalgia for their classic films and television roles, all having now achieved cult status. We celebrate these fond memories and possess a vast appreciation for the legacy of their work. We go to Chiller fanatical about these guests. Some may be a bit austere, but so many are incredibly gracious, funny, down to earth, and grateful for our devotion.

In October of 2023, I went to spend time with my friend Sara Karloff. but also to get the chance to meet someone I've had a long-time fan affection for: Beverly Washburn.

Beverly turned out to be a charming, kind, and genuine person who still possesses that unique intonation to her voice. She has the same sweetness and organically winsome smile she had as a young actor. And I would be careless if I didn't state up front that she is also a champion of animals and has become a true friend.

She might be legendary for her adeptness at weeping, but she can also laugh on a dime. Her laughter comes off without a hitch. It’s a very natural practice for her, showing her marvelous sense of humor with a lightness that flickers from her blue eyes.

Her biography Reel Tears: The Beverly Washburn Story ‘Take Two' ( click the link to purchase) is filled with truly poignant, humorous, and engaging anecdotes about the golden age of Hollywood and beyond. Her writing is refreshing, delightful, and unpretentious. But she is also a courageous writer who shares with bare honesty her very personal journey sometimes tinged with tragedy and her productive career in television growing up as a beloved child actor. Her memoirs include an affectionate forward by her friend Tony Dow of Leave It To Beaver fame.

During the golden years of Hollywood, Beverly Washburn graced the silver screen as a luminary child actor in the 1950s and 1960s. She found the careful balance between comedy and "˜real tears' with the uncanny gift of crying on cue.

A consummate performer, she effortlessly cut across the terrain of both humor and drama, leaving an everlasting mark on the hearts of her audience.

Beverly as Lisbeth Searcy in Old Yeller (1957).

Not only is she the timeless muse who appeared in some of the most cherished movies of the time, but during the Golden Age when television was redefining American culture, Beverly appeared in countless shows as a natural whenever she was featured in the storyline. She always summoned the ability to adopt a serious mood or show with an aptitude for humor that began the moment she stepped on the stage with comedian Jack Benny in 1952. As a favorite child actor during the rise of live television in the 1950s, the little blonde pixie eventually grew into a very pretty ingenue taking the teen fan magazines by storm in the 1960s.

Beverly Washburn appeared in nearly 100 television shows. During her Hollywood years, many of her feature films were nominated for Academy Awards. She worked with some of the most notable directors such as Cecil B. DeMille, George Stevens, and Frank Capra. She also worked alongside some of the greatest Hollywood actresses including Jane Wyman, Anne Baxter, Piper Laurie, Dorothy McGuire, and Barbara Stanwyck.

She was the girl who could not only cry on cue but could reduce the audience to tears. Often asked how she was able to cry so easily on screen, she has said in interviews that she's overly sensitive and just tried to put herself in the character's place in that situation.

Talking to her now, she feels extremely blessed when looking back over her long career, and she never forgets to express the love she has for her fans whenever she's been interviewed. She is also very grateful that her parents were very supportive yet they never pushed her into acting.

She writes in her wonderfully colorful biography filled with joyful photographs and hilarious anecdotes that even though there may have been times when her family might have had only a half of a bean, her mom would share it with anyone. Beverly’s mom and dad were by her side every step of the way and were very well-liked by both cast members and crew. Her mom kept her grounded, humble, and realistic and helped her stay on a good path while navigating the business.

Beverly Washburn grew up in a humble middle-class home in Hollywood California. Acting was something that she realized she wanted to do and truly enjoyed. Beverly is not only incredibly grateful to her many fans, she readily embraces them as the reason she has remained so popular and valued as an actor. And it makes her truly happy when she puts a smile on someone's face.

She followed in the footsteps of a talented family of entertainers, her father's brothers and sisters were in Vaudeville, traveling the circuit with a song and dance act called The Four Pearls. In the 1950s her sister Audrey went to Hollywood High and was a classmate of Carol Burnett. The two became friends and both worked as ushers at the Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Boulevard. Audrey became Penny Marshall's stand-in for Laverne & Shirley and wound up singing backup for Marlene Dietrich in Las Vegas. It was Audrey's show biz career that eventually led Beverly down that path.

Beverly was merely 3 years old when she started modeling children's clothes. When Beverly was 5 years old, she tagged along with her mom and sister Audrey, an acrobat, to entertain veterans at Long Beach Hospital. On one particular occasion, she had a dancing gig at the Capitol Theatre in Yakima Washington. The emcee asked Beverly to come up on stage and sing ‘I'm a Big Girl Now.’ Beverly felt very comfortable in front of an audience. She was a natural.

There she met Western movie star Jock Mahoney – the Range Rider. She was mesmerized by this tall handsome cowboy. He would play a role in setting Beverly's career in motion. Her lack of experience was a hurdle but she and her mom persevered. Beverly's mom saw her potential and hired an agent, Lola Moore, who represented some of the best-known child actors in Hollywood at the time. It wasn't easy at first to get this notable agent's attention. She was turned away by Moore's overwhelmed secretary. But her tenacious mother was not willing to take no for an answer even when Moore's office in Hollywood was overflowing with anxious little girls looking to be the next child star.

In the busy agent's office, her mom managed to catch sight of Lola Moore's photo, so she and Beverly waited in the parking lot. When Moore got back from her meeting at 20th Century Fox, she was met by a little blonde cutie who wasn't afraid to speak her mind. " I sure like your hat, Miss Moore." Beverly flashed that bright smile of hers. Moore who had been an imposing figure had no time for anything but serious business. Studying Beverly with delight, she answered with a hearty " Well you're the only one who does! Know why I wear such large hats?” "No Ma'am I don't." "It's my signature. I want people to know I'm around. I want them to see me coming.''

Beverly was an honest and polite child who looked straight at Moore she said, "I don't know how they could have missed you anyway.''

Lola Moore found this refreshing and laughed and invited the two up to her office to talk. Understanding that Beverly had no acting experience, or whether the camera was going to take to her, Moore set her up with a drama coach Mildred Gardner and she began taking voice lessons, diction, and other important acting techniques. Though Beverly had no formal training, she was a natural. She never got involved as a Method actor. She was briefly taught by Gardner but after a few weeks she informed Beverly’s mother, ” Your daughter has a natural ability to act, and taking lessons would only ruin it.”While the utmost compliment, Beverly has imagined how far she might have gone if she had formerly studied.

This is where she perfected her famous ability to "˜cry' so well. Beverly has described this gift stating that she would think of what she was supposed to be crying about, imagining herself in that situation, and the waterworks would follow. Beverly says of herself that she's a very sensitive and emotional person. TV guide wrote a two-page article entitled BEVERLY WASHBURN EARNS HER SALT BY CRYING ON CUE. In the book Ladies of the Western written by Boyd Majors and Michael Fitzgerald, they included a chapter called ‘Queen of the Criers.’

Beverly loved to be in front of the camera, but when she was ready she was faced with a dilemma. Every time they sent her out on an interview she didn't get it because she had no experience or credits to her name. It was a real Catch-22.

Beverly with Evelyn Keyes in The Killer That Stalked New York (1950).

Then, essentially fate stepped in a couple of months later while auditioning at Columbia Studios for a speaking part in the classic film noir thriller The Killer That Stalked New York which would be released in 1950. Beverly was 6 at the time of filming. Jock Mahoney who was under contract with Columbia, happened to be walking through the lobby and remembered meeting her at sister Audrey's show.

Beverly didn't fit the description of Walda Kowalski, the little girl the script describes as having "˜brown hair and brown eyes' in the film. She thought she wasn't going to possibly get the part because she had blonde hair and blue eyes. Her mother told her in a very soft-spoken voice,” Honey you're not gonna get this part, but just go in and do your best.''

Mahoney asked Beverly's mother why she was at the studio, and she told him that she was going to be reading for a part in the film, and had been getting turned down numerous times because she had no experience. He told her " I'll be right back.'' Later she would come to find out that he went to the producer and raved about all the work she had done even though she hadn't done a darn thing. They believed him and she got the part. On the first day of shooting, Beverly was excited to be sitting in the big makeup chair getting her makeup and hair done which they put in little curls, possibly trying to make her look like Shirley Temple which was fine with Beverly since she was a big fan of Shirley Temple.

The Killer That Stalked New York (1950) is a classic film noir about a woman, Evelyn Keyes, who smuggles jewelry into New York from Cuba. After she contracts smallpox she goes around infecting everyone she meets in the city. The authorities try to track her down before an epidemic breaks out.

Beverly plays the first victim who gets smallpox from Keyes, and that's how they learn about the outbreak. She had two scenes in the motion picture. One is where Keyes gives her a pretty brooch and the second is when she buys the farm. The makeup department afforded her a deathly look by making her as pale as possible, which in B&W made her look grayish. Shown in an oxygen tent, it was a very melodramatic death! After The Killer that Stalked New York, she continued to go on auditions but now she had a big credit to go with her name.

Here Comes the Groom (1951) starring Bing Crosby and Jane Wyman. Beverly with Jacques Gencel.

Because of that one speaking role for Columbia Pictures, other opportunities opened up. After the noir thriller, she was called to a screen test for her next film Here Comes the Groom in 1951. It would be a role in a motion picture directed by Frank Capra and starring Bing Crosby, Jane Wyman, Alexis Smith, and Franchot Tone. The film also featured fashions by costume designer Edith Head and cameos by Louis Armstrong, Dorothy Lamour, Phil Harris, Cass Daley, and Frank Fontaine. Here Comes the Groom was a huge B&W musical, and an important part throughout the film. She plays a refugee who speaks very little French, makes the funniest faces, and shows off a natural sense of comedy at such an early age, as she plays off Jacques Gencel.

Beverly worked on the film for 3 months, afterwards Bing Crosby gave her a beautiful doll that she named Dixie, after Crosby's wife at the time. After filming wrapped up, Crosby signed a photograph for Beverly saying, " I hope to play in your next picture.”

This would not be the only wonderful treasure Beverly would receive from actors. Even Jane Wyman gave her a beautiful dress. While the motion picture was not a huge success at the box office, it did win an Oscar for Best Song "˜'In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening'' written by Hogie Carmichael and Johnny Mercer.

In 1951, her next little part took the form of a theatrical film featuring the iconic superhero, Superman. Titled Superman and the Mole-Men, this film served as the pilot for the subsequent TV series starring George Reeves as the eponymous hero and Phyllis Coates as Lois Lane, the fearless reporter. The TV series ran from 1952 to 1958.

Beverly had so much fun cast as a little girl who plays with a radioactive ball in her bedroom. Two of the mole men (who are not space aliens but come from inner earth) climb through the window and she plays with them until her mother discovers the strange little men with her daughter and screams!

Continue reading “Beverly Washburn: Reel Tears – Real Laughter! Part 1” →