Arturo

Thanks for posting the list of stars. Of course we'll grumble about the retread stars and/or movies, but there are choices I'm excited about, especially Deneuve, and the token Fox stars, Charles Farrell and Jeanne Crain; I just hope they feature many of their Fox movies, and not focus mostly on their post-Fox filmography.

Topbilled, since Rex' day is a Saturday, ANNA AND THE KING OF SIAM is the Essential repeat for that week. Here on the West Coast, THE FOXES OF HARROW is on at 9 PM, and it makes sense that it and the one prior, ESCAPE, are two of his 20th Century Fox titles, combined with AATKOS for a block of Fox movies that evening.

An interesting fact about Linda Darnell's movie career, which spanned a quarter century: Linda almost never played mothers in her movies; rarely did she have a child (of course when she started films she was herself just a child of 15). In the 40s, only in FOREVER AMBER (1947) did she have an offspring, Little Bruce; the book had her with a couple other illegitimate kids, but the Breen Office only allowed one for the movie. Given that she aged from 16 to 25 in the movie, and was involved with a number of men, it would seem odd that she hadn't become a mother in this epic. In the 50s, not counting when she played a governess once in 1951's THE LADY PAYS OFF (where it ends with the idea she will continue as Gigi Perreau's step-mother), she was a prostitute who had a child in the Italian production ANGELS OF DARKNESS (1953), and later, played a mother with a sick child in ZERO HOUR! (1957). That same year, in the TV movie HOMEWARD BORNE, which saw limited theatrical release in 1958, her adoption of a child was the crux of her problems with her husband. In fact, contrary to her feature films, Linda played a mother in several of her tv dramas she did in the second half of the 50s. Besides the aforementioned HOMEWARD BORNE, these include TRIAL BY FIRE and MY LITTLE GIRL. Her stage debut in A ROOMFUL OF ROSES also had her playing a mother with child troubles, as were the others. I guess by then Linda, approaching her mid-30s, was the right age to have kid problems, but it seems odd that when she was younger, she didn't seem to ever have even a newborn. PS-Of course in real life, Linda was unable to have a child, and had to adopt a daughter, Lola, with whom she would have a troubled relationship. Edited by: Arturo on May 12, 2013 8:32 PM

Early tomorrow morning on FMC is another "what if" movie that could've featured Linda Darnell, MOONTIDE. This is one of two plausible movie candidates for role that Linda was being pitched by Darryl F. Zanuck in October 1941, just as she became an 18 year old adult. This role Linda would lose because she refused Zanuck's sexual advance. The other possible movie is TO THE SHORES OF TRIPOLI (of course this is all speculation on my part, and it could be something else). The reason I think it is one of these is that they both started filming in late 1941, and both had to quickly have a leading lady brought in from elsewhere: Ida Lupino, borrowed from WB for MOONTIDE, Maureen O'Hara for TTSOT, with Fox negotiating half of her contract from RKO. My hunch tells me that the forlorn girl in MOONTIDE would have appealed to Linda more than being leading lady in a Technicolor flag-waver, and Zanuck would have wanted to sweeten the offer in the hopes that she would go for it. Anyway, whatever movie role it was, Linda did not do it. But if she had gotten it, this might have been an important part, just at the time her stock was sagging with the studio heads, and they may have given her some better assignments than the few (and poor ones) she got over the next two years.

Another showing on Fox Movie Channel, Sunday May 12, at 7:15 am eastern, 4:15 am pacific. FALLEN ANGEL, Otto Preminger's 1945 interesting noir followup to his breakthrough hit of the year before, LAURA, will be on Fox Movie Channel Friday, April 26 at 6 am eastern, 3 am pacific. Starring Alice Faye, Dana Andrews and Linda Darnell, it's backstory is almost as intriguing as what's on the screen. PS - Several other noirs and noirish dramas on FMC in the next several days. See the post on the Upcoming Fox Movies.... thread on Hot Topics, or the FMC website, for more info.

Well Welles had problems with the studio bosses, because in his quest to be true to himself, he ignored the rules and schedules, running up costs overbudget and often having the finished product taken away from him and (severely) edited by others. A few of these and they were happy to bid him adieu...from their POV, he could be as arty as he wished, but not with their money; they wouldn't indulge him in his indulgences.

Another slight sidetracking of the "what if's" in Linda Darnell's life, this time about her choices of husbands and other romantic relations with men. It had been suggested here awhile back, that what Linda should've done was get involved with some headline making scandals and affairs, a la Lana Turner, Ava Gardner and Liz Taylor, to have had that notoriety increase her value as a saleable commodity. Linda was always true to her heart, as were the above actresses, and she would never have gotten into an affair or marriage for the publicity value. In her first two-three years of her Hollywood stardom, she did make the rounds of nightclubs, often doing the town with friends like Lana. However, she was quoted as saying that she didn't think that any actress out jitterbugging every night could do a creditable job the next day on the set. She also stated that she would never marry an actor; "I haven't met one yet that's properly balanced". So while she dated any number of them, early on, and later between marriages, she didn't gravitate to partners that would have the papparazzi staking them out pr chasing them around town. Later, she came to loathe the Hollywood scene, and did it only sparingly. She DID get involved in relationships that were potentially scandalous, and/or publicity worthy, especially with Howard Hughes and Joseph Mankiewicz. But Hughes had so many girls, and was so publicity shy, that when Linda's first husband offered to divorce her for $25,000, he abandoned that relationship posthaste. Mankiewicz was married, as was Linda, when they became involved in mid-1948. While Linda soon separated, and would eventually divorce because of Joe, he could never leave his wife. This hopelessness led to Linda becoming dangerously despondent, to the point of contemplating suicide. But outsiders were clueless to all this, and as Linda paid her first husband $125,000 to keep quite about this affair, it never became public knowledge, which at the time of Ingrid Bergman's ostracism, might have caused Linda similar career reversals. Later, a la Bergman, Linda became involved in an affair with the married Italian producer of her films DONNE PROIBITE and GLI ULTIMI CINQUE MINUTI, Giuseppe Amato. This also could have had a detrimental effect on her career, but although it had the Italian press all worked up, and reports made it to the US, Linda denied the stories (plus unlike Ingrid, she was single at the time), and in due course, both affair and press coverage of same fizzled.

Lavender, Yes I agree: money was not the real motivator for Linda and her marriages. I really don't understand her first marriage choice to Pev Marley, 42, other than her statement of "He's what I want, an older experienced man", or something like that. She was trying to remain independent of the overpowering presences and pressures of her mother and Darryl Zanuck, both of who continued to view her as a child (she was 19). She had developed a deep friendship towards Pev, camerman on some of her earliest films, and as he joined the service during WW2, she realized how much she was missing him. On the other hand, the end of that marriage was fraught with money woes, as Marley demanded she pay him $125,000 to allow a quiet divorce (earlier he had tried to get $25,000 from Howard Hughes for the same reason). This payment led directly to Linda's future and constant financial troubles. Hubby No. 2, Phillip Leibmann, she did marry partially for security, but mostly to acquire money for her pet charity project, not for herself. She couldn't live with the idea that she married him for the wrong reasons, and divorced him within two years, wanting nothing from him even though she returned to an even worse financial reality. Her last husband, Merle "Robby" Robertson, made an okay living as a pilot, but he quickly, if haplessly and inadvertently, used and overextended Linda's name and credit to finance real estate deals, among other things. Later, he convinced her to let him run her career, and he pushed her in the direction of an ill-conceived and ill -fated nightclub act: he sunk a lot of (her) money into it, she did not want to do it, it flopped in Vegas. Later, when they divorced, he had left Linda's remaining credit a shambles, with her owing back taxes on her property, and her house being foreclosed upon. No, Linda did not really choose her spouses, even the second one, for money. Edited by: Arturo on May 6, 2013 10:13 PM

Harry Cohn was LIVID when he saw Rita in this, stating something like, "That SOB has ruined her image. Everyone knows the most beautiful thing about Rita is her hair". Plus he hated the movie, so he sat on it for awhile, which gave him to prepare a more "suitable' vehicle for her as she grew her hair back in. I think she looks beautiful, and the look works in the movie's context, but we're 65 years removed, and Rita's tresses were a source of much income for Columbia's coffers. PS-The movie was a flop of major proportions. Edited by: Arturo on May 6, 2013 3:41 PM

*Just a reminder that ESCAPE FROM FORT BRAVO will air on the Encore Westerns Channel on May 5th and May 15th.* About three or four months back, I bought a manufactured copy of the DVD for EFFB, as well as MANY RIVERS TO CROSS, at a silent auction at work. I guess a coworker (or family member) is an Eleanor Parker fan. Best part of all, I bought them for 25 cents each. Edited by: Arturo on May 6, 2013 3:13 PM

*Maybe he will be TCM's first SOTM from the Fox stable of contract players, next year on his 100th.* TB: Hopefully he'll be the second Fox SOTM, after Linda Darnell this October. That's two hopes, two long shots.

Well I for one have a dreaded feeling about this. Los Angeles, and by extension Hollywood, has a horrendous history of conserving historical and cultural landmarks; greased palms (I assume) are followed by statements about progress, innovation, remaining au courant, and jobs. The Cinerama Dome has been swamped by ArcLight; there is nothing left of the Ambassador Hotel-the Coconut Grove notwithstanding. And across the street from that, the tiny Brown Derby is barely visible on the roof of that late 80s eyesore that replaced it? And what happened to the one on Hollywood and Vine? Now I fear for the downtown movie palaces on Broadway.....nothing is sacred in this town...the little left here is not safe....Just this week, the unveiling of the proposal of $650 Million to revamp the perfectly adequate Los Angeles County Museum of Art, tearing out buildings barely 50 years old....I don't understand. And the LA Conservancy is a joke...they've caved in on high profile fights in the last couple of decades: the Ambassador Hotel, and St. Vibiana's Cathedral, to name just two. Sorry about my rant, but those that say it won't make a difference, well one at a time eventually means all. AND this is one of the reasons I love old movies, with views of LA when there were no freeways, City Hall towered over everything, and Bunker Hill was a real neighborhood.

In what I believe is a premiere for TCM, they will be showing this enjoyable 1939 film tomorrow evening. Conceived by 20th Century Fox as a vehicle for its top two stars, Alice Faye and Tyrone Power, this story of a singer and the gangster she became involved with struck Fanny Brice as too similar to her relationship with Nick Arnstein; she sued the studio. It was settled out of court. Also featuring Al Jolson, this is as good a lead-in as FUNNY GIRL will ever have. Or is it FUNNY GIRL is a good followup to ROSE OF WASHINGTON SQUARE? Edited by: Arturo to correct the spelling of this thread's title.

Arturo wrote:JJG, The LEading Ladies is one of a number of volumes written by James Robert Parish, with or without another person. I have most of the books in this series. One that I have, a good companion piece to the one you mention, is The Forties Gals, which among others, features some Warners stars: Ann Sheridan (on the cover), Ida Lupino, Lauren Bacall, Jane Wyman and Virginia Mayo (for the record, Susan Hayward and Esther Williams are also covered). jamesjazzguitar wrote:Thanks for the info. Sounds like a book worth having mostly for those so called lesser-known WB stars since I don't have much reference material about them and I really enjoy stars like Farrell, Francis (who was really the WB star until Davis became big), Leslie, Smith, Parker and a gal that never gets enough credit Ann Sheridan. Note that the best book I have about actresses is called The Leading Ladies. It features Blondell, Davis, Stanwyck, Russell, Crawford, and DeHavilland. The book covers their personal lives as well as the movies they made in chronological order. It has a good amount of text and pictures. i.e. it covers each in a good amount of detail. Thus it is a balance between a book that only features a few pages per person and having to buy a book just for one star (which I do buy but only for those I really love). JJG:Now that this thread has been bumped up, I realized that I didn't mention another in the series of books by Parish, 'The Hollywood Beauties", which covers the career of Kay Francis, along with mostly MGM stars: Dolores del Rio, Ava Gardner, Jean Harlow, Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor and Lana Turner. PS- Since I'm using the borrowed laptop, all of these posts may come out as one jumbled paragraph, since I can't space or highlight. If so, I will try to fix it Monday from my workstation computer.

James, good points you make here. Although in the case of Tierney, it is particularly jarring, after the fact, to see her crawling around in the dirt, with the studio dirt attempting to hide her patrician beauty, in TOBACCO ROAD. I think Fox knew immediately, and the critics (and fan mail probably) took them to task over this odd casting, yet it is very early in Gene's career, and her persona had not yet gelled (although she was an instant hit with the public), and she would soon get several more offbeat assignments as cinema exotics. With Linda, it would not have been too difficult to see her as a backwoods beauty in SWAMP WATER; she had already been cast as something similar in CHAD HANNA, she was being seen as playing girls lower on the social scale, especially with Tierney now on the lot, and this girl was not so weird as the Ellie May character in TR. But Zanuck was already thinking of phasing Linda out of some of the more prestigious ingenue assignments, and had already cast her in a rah-rah college musical of no great importance, RISE AND SHINE. Maybe it was that Linda's mom had alienated the studio hierarchy, but all of a sudden (and this would get excacerbated once she turned 18 in Oct 1941, and promptly turned Zanuck down), parts meant for her or that she could've done justice to, were suddenly going to other actresses, and what little she got, would be in poor pictures. This was the start of Linda's first falling from grace at 20th.

Well, as a matter of course, I do not look kindly to a remake of a classic motion picture, especially a 50s musical remake of a 30s (or in this case, early 40s) romantic comedy. But, HS is a rare exception, in that it comes close to being as good as the original....maybe because this one doesn't star June Allyson, and the cast is great overall, with strong chemistry between them, and the show features beautiful (Techni?)color, excellent songs, etc. Grace can't quite overcome Kate preformance-wise in my book, but she is a feast for the eyes nonetheless. And James Stewart is his usual annoying self, early on anyway (although I do enjoy him in his rare dispaly of passion in the "hearth fires" scene). TPS is tops, but HS is very good, especially for a remake.

NC1934 Thank you so much. You've fleshed out my choices so eloquently with those pics. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Well I'm a dunce at posting pics (so anyone who wants to help out, thanks in advance).Here goes...Gene Tierney, as mentioned for some others, just about any movie could be chosen, but I Have always been partial to the scene in THE RAZOR'S EDGE where she wears that black gown in Paris to try to seduce Tyrone Power....breathtakingly beautiful/ And my favorite, Linda Darnell, I think she is most beautiful overall in SLATTERY'S HURRICANE, but I think the scene in FALLEN ANGEL where she is dancing with Dana Andrews, and their profiles are looking at each other, and she is mostly in shadows, and Those Eyelashes for days ....amazingly beautiful (mind you, there are other movies where her more prominent assets are better displayed).

I just saw this thread, and not wishing to derail it (again), but a couple more actresses playing identical twins:Dolores Del Río in LA OTRA (1946), which was remade later as DEAD RINGERLinda Darnell in ALL FOR A MAN (1956)-although that was a TV movie.Back on topic....I enjoy the quiet acting of Glenn Ford, and am sorry I forgot to record THE LOVES OF CARMEN (for Rita of course); I hadn't seen it in awhile, had already started by the time I got home from work, and loved the Technicolor. I had never seen THE UNDERCOVER MAN, thought it was cool, and again enjoyed FRAMED. THE WHITE TOWER....ditto, why show it two days in a row (like FMC is prone), when there are so many other Ford movies to choose from.

Back to "what if" with Linda's husbands....What if she had never married her second husband, beer tycoon Phillipe Liebmann. She had turned him down a number of times, but finally agreed and married him, albeit secretly, in early 1954; Linda informed the press of this in July of that year. There are several reasons she finally relented. One, she was lonely, as she had just ended her affair with Joe Mankiewicz (although she still loved him); Two, she was having financial difficulties, and the wealthy Liebmann promised her a respite from her money woes as a Park Avenue matron; Three, she wanted to buy a ranch in New Mexico, and Liebmann agreed to purchase it for her; and Four, she wanted to get start-up money for her latest charity venture, founding a Girls' Town of Italy, the idea which came to her while filming in Rome the previous summer. Liebmann expected his trophy wife to accompany him around the world as he promoted his beer, and be a sort of visual spokesperson for his product He also wanted her to retire from moviemaking, and spend their time when not travleing in either New York or New Mexico. She could not quite fill these expectations. She was not Joan Crawford; she would not take on the identity of spokeswoman for her husband's drink. She would also not agree to giving up her career, but in the event, she only filmed one movie in Hollywood, THIS IS MY LOVE, for the duration of the marriage; another movie, THE LAST FIVE MINUTES she filmed in Rome in early 1955. She quickly grew bored of her role as a wealthy cafe society wife, and, wracked with guilt over the reasons she married him without loving him, she started to drink heavily again, and lashed out at him without much provocation. Finally, in December 1955, she got a quick divorce, and almost immediately resumed filming a movie, DAKOTA INCIDENT (although she had started doing TV dramas a few months earlier). But she had been out of the Hollywood social swirl for some two years, at a crucial time, and she didn't get many decent movie offers. She cut her asking price in order to be offered tv work. In the end, the marriage did not accomplish any of Linda's goals, other than the founding of Girl's Town; her loneliness continued as she soon pulled away from her husband's expectations; Liebmann took back the ranch, jewelry and other gifts he had showered her with. Her financial problems came back stronger than ever, and now, with the studio system dying and movie production cut back, and her lack of exposure to producers and others, the offers that would allow her to make a living and pay off her debts were no longer pouring in; PLUS she was getting paid substantially less for the tv work she was doing, notwithstanding her enjoyment in doing these dramas. So the marriage to Leibmann left her in a worse off position, financially and career-wise.

Fox Movie Channel will show MY DARLING CLEMENTINE this Saturday morning at 6am eastern, 3 am pacific, featuring Linda Darnell as the fiery Chihuahua in this classic John Ford western. Also stars Henry Fonda and Victor Mature, and a great cast.

Peterb10: Here's hoping this comes true. Btw, on a somewhat facetious note, have you noticed the response to the thread in Hot Topics devoted to "George Brent's Rear End"?! Now that one has had an amazing response. PS - One of my most fervent hopes is a restored and remastered DVD release of FOREVER AMBER, (hopefully) featuring some of the many deleted scenes. Edited by: Arturo on May 2, 2013 8:22 PM

A digression from the "what if's" in Linda Darnell's marriage choices to another "what if?"....Tomorrow morning, FMC will show SWAMP WATER. Linda had originally been cast in this bayou drama, and desperately wanted the opportunity at this chance at acting. However, her studio, perhaps stung by criticism in casting Gene Tierney in TOBACCO ROAD, didn't want to deal with criticisms of another of their beauties given this type of role, and reassigned the role to Anne Baxter. Linda was sorely disappointed. Could this have altered her future career had she done it at this early stage (1941)....We'll never know.

Linda DArnell met Phillip Leibman, the man who would become her second husband, while a beer commercial was filmed at her house in 1953. She had experienced profound feelings of loneliness since she had divorced Pev Marley two years earlier, exascerbated by her pining for Joe Mankiewicz, with whom she had an on and off affair, and who was spending most of his time in New York. In mid 1952, she had gone to Italy to finalize filmmaking with producer Giuseppe Amato, and was soon involved with Amato in an affair; this affair woudl resume a year later when she went to do the first of two films for Amato. Neither of these affairs with married men would do Linda any long-term good, either for her private life or for her career. As I've mentioned AVa Gardner's selection to be THE BAREFOOT CONTESSA ended Linda's relationship withMankiewicz, and her two films for Amato brought no dividends for her here, as only one was (barely and belatedly) released in the US. Rather, she would be away for extended periods, at a crucial time for her career, with the end result that she would lose valuable ground. By early 1954, Liebmann's persistent wooing would pay off More to follow.....

Tomorrow AM on FMC....Just another reminder for anybody interested: FALLEN ANGEL, Otto Preminger's 1945 interesting noir followup to his breakthrough hit of the year before, LAURA, will be on Fox Movie Channel Friday, April 26 at 6 am eastern, 3 am pacific. Starring Alice Faye, Dana Andrews and Linda Darnell, it's backstory is almost as intriguing as what's on the screen.