And...scene!: Wyman

Showing posts with label Wyman. Show all posts

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Table Talk!

Carole Lombard and Clark Gable

Frank Sinatra and Walter Pidgeon

Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner

Leslie Howard, Gary Cooper and Charles Farrell

Helen Hayes, Claudette Colbert and Ruth Gordon

Fay Wray and Cary Grant

George and Gracie Burns with Jane Wyman and Ronald Reagan

Susan Hayward and Ingrid Bergman

Tonight on TCM!

Merchant Ivory- who knew I was such a fan? I have seen all but one in the line-up tonight!

The Remains of the Day (1993)

Howards End (1992)

A Room With a View (1985)
Maurice (1987)

Monday, February 14, 2011

Long time alcoholic, Don Birnam (Ray Milland) is about to experience the worst weekend of his life. Evading a long weekend trip to the country with his brother Wick (Phillip Terry) and ignoring his girlfriend Helen's (Jane Wyman) obvious concern, Don manages to have a weekend alone after ten torturous days of sobriety.
Don is a writer with a monkey on his back. Not confident enough to get a decent story down on paper, he turns to the bottle for comfort. In a series of flashbacks, he tells his local bartender Nat (Howard Da Silva), about his life with Helen and supporting brother Wick, a story he desperately wants to get written. We see Don for the coward he is, how his problem has affected the people around him and his own reputation. Stealing the ten dollars meant for the maid, he goes on a drunken spree hitting rock bottom by Saturday morning when he has neither booze nor any money to buy it. Determined to sell the one thing he needs most, his typewriter, Don is more than upset when he realizes all the pawn shops in town are closed due to a religious holiday. Turning to fellow barfly, Gloria (Doris Dowling), who has a major crush on Don and was stood up the night before by him, he at first receives a cold reception until he kisses her and begs her for five dollars. After getting the money, Don loses his balance on her apartment stars and takes a major fall. When he regains consciousness, he is in the alcohol ward due to his blood alcohol level being severely high.
Barely managing to escape the ward that refuses to discharge him until he gives his address, Don waits for the liquor store to open and robs it of a bottle of rye. When he finally makes it home he begins to experience what Bim (Frank Faylen) the hospital nurse called the DTs. Don perceives there is a mouse escaping from his wall only to be bloodily murdered by a bat. Hearing his screams, Helen, who has been periodically checking in on him to no avail, has the apartment broken into. There she sees the mess Don has made tearing the place apartment looking for liquor. She gets him cleaned up and to bed. The next morning she wakes up to find Don stealing her fur coat. When she runs into him outside the pawn shop they have a confrontation where Helen admits she is finally done with him.. When she asks the pawnbroker how much he got for the coat, he tells her Don exchanged it for a gun. Helen rushes back to Don's apartment for one final showdown.

An intensely realistic portrait of a man literally drowning in his own shortcomings, Milland plays his part superbly! Though a depressing film, it really does display the depth Milland was capable of despite most thinking he wouldn't be able to carry such a heavy role.

Ray Milland garned his first and only Academy Award win for Best Actor for his role in The Lost Weekend. He's on record for giving the shortest Oscar speech- having forgotten it completely, he simply accepted his Oscar, bowed to the audience, and left the stage. Bob Hope, the host of the ceremonies quipped, "I'm surprised they just handed Ray Milland the Oscar, I thought they would hide it in the chandelier." A direct reference to the film.

Jane Wyman won her first and only Academy Award for Best Actress for her role in Johnny Belinda. She too was breif when it came to her acceptance speech saying, “I accept this very gratefully for keeping my mouth shut for once. I think I'll do it again.”

Director Billy Wilder had eight nominations for an Academy Award for Best Director in his career. This makes him the second most nominated director in the history of the Academy Awards, behind William Wyler. Out of these nominations, Wilder won twice for the films The Lost Weekend and The Apartment.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Stars! They're just like us!

They enjoy drag!

They play horseshoes!

They wait for mail!

They stay active!

They teach table tennis!

They dress themselves!

Tonight on TCM!

Bogart in the fifties!

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Marriage Among the Stars...

In the next few blog entries I will be posting pics and information about several classic actors and actresses and their marriages. I will be focusing on star on star marriages.

It's a well documented fact that being in the limelight is not conducive to a healthy marriage. The likes of Elizabeth Taylor, Clark Gable, Gloria Swanson, and Cary Grant to name a few, are perfect examples of serial marrieds. Hectic schedules, romantic scenes with aesthetically pleasing co-stars, and basic human error often play roles of their own.

Let's begin with the stars that married more than one star.

George Brent's first wife was Ruth Chatterton (who was married to actor Ralph Forbes beforehand). After that marriage dissolved he tried his hand years later with the lovely Ann Sheridan.

Orson Welles was a talented man, he also had great taste in women. Before Rita Hayworth "couldn't take his genius anymore", he had a torrid affair with domestic partner Dolores del Río.

I was suprised to learn that Joan Blondell (who was also married to the notorious Mike Todd) and Dick Powell were married. I always thought it was just him and June Allyson.

I think Reagan would have been a one-time marriage guy if Jane Wyman had stuck around, from what I read she really broke his heart. But Nancy Davis put it back together and thus history was made.

I was under the impression that it wasn't really proven that Charlie Chaplin and Paulette Goddard had married, I thoguht the general consensus was that they travelled extensively together until things went kaput. Guess they did. After Chaplin Goddard married funnyman Burgess Meredith and ironically (at least for me) I just read that she was also married to Erich Maria Remarque the author of All Quiet on the Western Front- a phrase I kept repeating to myself last night as I cooked dinner (I have no idea why).

Bogie and Bacall is practically a household name but little did I know that Bacall also married Jason Robards the crochety old man I remember fondly from Parenthood.

Ava Gardner first married Mickey Rooney (pardon me but, WTF?) Then she married Frank Sinatra who left his wife for her thus catipulting Ava into fame and leaving Frank to dependent on her studio clout to get him a desired part that brought him back into favor again. Ah, Hollywood.

Joan Crawford reportedly ended her marriage to Douglas Fairbanks Jr. due to her affair with Clark Gable (whom she starred in eight films with) and then married Franchot Tone (another repeat offender, he also married actresses Jean Wallace, Barbara Payton and Dolores Dorn) but it was Joan who reportedly took him into her home and cared for him until his death from lung cancer.

Carole Lombard knew how to pick em! She got herself two fine actors, William Powell and Clark Gable.

After his first marriage to actress Virginia Cherrill, Cary Grant went on to marry two more actresses, Betsy Drake and Dyan Cannon.

Other repeat offenders are:

George Sanders got himself two Gabors. Pictured above is Zsa Zsa and after his longest marriage stint to Benita Hume (who married him after the death of Ronald Colman), he married Zsa Zsa's sister, Magda. Whoa.
Benita Hume was married to Ronald Colman then George Sanders.

Mary Pickford left actor Owen Moore to marry Douglas Fairbanks Sr.. Then she married actor Charles "Buddy" Rogers.

Bogey was also married to actress Mary Phillips and also to Mayo Methot whom he divorced before marrying Bacall only two weeks later.

The king of them: John Barrymore married only actresses. Besides Dolores Costello, pictured below, he married Katherine Corri Harris, Blanche Oelrichs, and Elaine Barrie.