Five Familiar Actresses in a Different Light

Posted by Stacy in Movies & SciFi, Neatorama Only on April 25, 2009 at 9:52 pm

The announcement of Bea Arthur’s death today made me think about actresses that we think of as kind of grandmotherly types. Obviously, they didn’t always look like nanas. Here are five ladies that we know and love(d) for their portrayal of older women, but I think the pictures will make you see them in a different light. They made me see them in a different light, at least!

Betty White


Betty White has been on the screen – small and silver – since 1945 when she had a part in Time to Kill, a George Reeves movie. But she was modeling before that, which I totally believe looking at that picture. Who knew Betty White was such a stunner? By the mid-50s she had her own sitcom called Life With Elizabeth (clip below) and ever since then she’s been in high demand, starring in shows such as Date with the Angels, Mary Tyler Moore, The Betty White Show, Mama’s Family, and, of course, Golden Girls. Her latest work is The Proposal, a movie due to be released in June starring Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock.

Angela Lansbury

Anyone who associates Angela Lansbury with Jessica Fletcher – and let’s face it, who doesn’t? – is probably pretty shocked by how gorgeous she was in her younger days. I know I was. She and her mother and brother moved to L.A. in the early ’40s when her mother, actress Moyna Macgill, decided to seek work there. A former resident of England, Angela’s mother often held parties and get-togethers for British actors and actresses who had come to L.A. to make it big just like she had. It was at one of these little shindigs that she met an actor who introduced her to a casting director who ended up putting Angela in The Picture of Dorian Gray and Gaslight. Both performances earned her Oscar nominations, so Angela was a sought-after actress right from her debut in Hollywood. Since then she’s done everything from playing a singing baker who specializes in people pies (Mrs. Lovett in Sweeney Todd) to voicing an animated tea pot (Mrs. Potts in Beauty and the Beast. And there’s obviously her Murder She Wrote streak – 12 Emmy noms in as many years. The picture is from 1943’s Samson and Delilah, which starred Hedy Lamarr. She would have been 18 or 19 at the time.

Jessica Tandy


I’ve only ever known Jessica Tandy for her roles as elderly women – Fried Green Tomatoes and Driving Miss Daisy to be exact. I love Alfred Hitchcock films and have been enjoying The Birds for years without realizing that she played Lydia Brenner – I didn’t recognize her at all. But I really didn’t recognize her in this amazing picture from Life magazine. She was only 16 when she started acting in London, starting her career out with the likes of Laurence Olivier. But when she and actor Jack Hawkins divorced, she picked up and moved to the U.S. to pursue a career there instead. She won a Tony for A Streetcar Named Desire in 1948, but lost the movie role to Vivien Leigh. Convinced her movie career wasn’t really going to pan out, she mostly stuck to Broadway for the next 30 years or so (except for couple of movies here and there, like The Birds). She returned to movies in the ’80s and started working with her husband, Hume Cronyn. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1989 for playing Miss Daisy Werthan – she was 80 at the time, making her the oldest actress to ever win an Oscar. She was also nominated for Fried Green Tomatoes in 1991 but was beaten by Mercedes Ruehl for The Fisher King. Jessica died in 1994 at the age of 85.

Gloria Stuart

These days, 98-year-old Gloria Stuart is best known for playing the older version of Rose in 1997’s Titanic, but she made her movie debut more than 60 years earlier. She graduated from Santa Monica High School in 1927 and immediately took up at the Pasadena Playhouse, where she was “discovered.” She was selected as a WAMPAS (Western Association of Motion Picture Advertisers) Baby Star in 1932 along with Ginger Rogers. She played Flora Cranley opposite Claude Rains in The Invisible Man (and received top billing!) and was a founding member of the Screen Actors Guild. By the end of the ’30s she had been in more than 40 films and was ready for a break; she took up oil painting and was good enough to book one-woman shows in galleries in New York. Gloria didn’t come back to the industry until the 1975 made-for-TV movie The Legend of Lizzie Borden – the one with Elizabeth Montgomery as Lizzie. It wasn’t until she played Rose in Titanic, though, that she really came back to light as an actress. She became the oldest person to ever be nominated for a non-honorary Oscar, but she lost out to Kim Basinger for L.A. Confidential. She’s still around today and is good friends with Olivia de Havilland – she, Oliva, Joan Fontaine, Shirley Temple, Maureen O’Hara, Deanna Durbin and Luise Rainer are the last of the big female stars from the ’30s.

Rue McClanahan

We can’t forget the other surviving Golden Girl, Miss Blanche Devereaux herself. Rue hails from Healdton, Oklahoma, and headed to New York to make her name on Broadway after she graduated from the University of Tulsa in 1957. She starred in a couple of B movies during the ’60s but really gained notoriety as Caroline Johnson on Another World in 1970. She and Bea Arthur first teamed up in 1972 on Maude and was on the first few seasons of Mama’s Family with Betty White, the Girls were all familiar with one another by the time Golden Girls rolled around in 1985. She’s still quite active today, appearing in various Broadway roles and TV guest spots. And she’s still pretty!

 
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Movie Trivia: The Silence of the Lambs

Posted by Stacy in Movies & SciFi, Neatorama Only on February 22, 2009 at 3:37 pm

Since the Oscars are tonight, I thought it would be fitting to do today’s Movie Trivia post on one of the most-celebrated films of all time. And if you don’t know what I mean, (I didn’t know this, ’til I started doing the research) you’ll see when you read the very first factoid.

  • Of the seven Academy Award nominations Silence of the Lambs received, it took home five – the Oscars Grand Slam of Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director and Best Screenplay (or Best Writing). Only two other movies have ever done this: It Happened One Night in 1934 at the seventh Academy Awards, and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in 1975 at the 48th Academy Awards.
  • Just before the Oscars, a group of gay activists crashed into the New York Film Critics Circle Awards to protest The Silence of the Lambs. They claimed it made drag queens and crossdressers look bad; that the movie implied that men who dress up as women must be sick and deranged. The matter was handled peacefully, though – no arrests were made.
  • MGM sort of accidentally garnered a lot of Oscar buzz. In 1992, it was still pretty common for films that were up for Oscars to avoid a video release until after the ceremony. But a horror movie hadn’t won a major award since 1941’s Rebecca, so MGM didn’t think they had a shot and figured it was no big deal if they released to VHS. This may have inadvertently been what earned it such Oscar support – Academy voters were able to watch the movie in their own homes.
  • The movie came out on Valentine’s Day in 1991. Perfect date movie, don’t you think?
  • Gene Hackman originally wanted to direct and write the screenplay for the movie based on the novel. He was also going to play Dr. Lecter himself. But time passed and he lost interest; Jonathan Demme picked it up and wanted Michelle Pfeiffer to play Clarice Starling. She, however, thought it was too dark. Of course, all three roles that were replaced – director, actor and actress – won Academy Awards.

  • Despite the fact that most people will forever link Anthony Hopkins with Dr. Lecter, Hopkins is only in the movie for 16 minutes. It’s the shortest lead role to ever win an Oscar.
  • The movie is one of only two Oscar winners Gene Siskel ever gave a thumbs-down to. The other was Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven.
  • Anthony Hopkins improvised a couple of really memorable moments in the movie. When Clarice and Lecter first meet, Hannibal the Cannibal mocks her Southern accent. This wasn’t scripted and Jodie Foster had no idea he was going to do it, so when she appears to be offended and shocked, she really is. He also improvised the slurpy noise Lecter makes after describing his meal of human flesh, fava beans and a nice chianti.
  • Horror movie veteran George Romero has a little cameo in the movie – he is with Chilton when the two guards remove Clarice from the area after her last meeting with Dr. Lecter. Roger Corman also has a cameo, as does Jonathan Demme himself. Corman plays FBI Director Hayden Burke and Demme can be spotted at the very end of the movie in the crowd scene wearing a blue cap.

  • Brooke Smith, who plays Buffalo Bill’s victim, was actually really good friends with Ted Levine (Buffalo Bill) on set. Because of this, Jodie Foster referred to her as “Patty Hearst.” Until recently, you could find both of these actors on T.V. – Brooke Smith was on Grey’s Anatomy, and Ted Levine is still on Monk. This disturbs my husband every time we see him on Monk.

  • The moth cocoon found in the victim’s throat was made from Tootsie Rolls and gummy bears, so it wouldn’t be a big deal if the actress accidentally swallowed it.
  • Dr. Lecter was based on several people, but he was largely inspired by Ted Bundy and the relationship he had with a criminology professor at the University of Washington. Anthony Hopkins also based some of Hannibal’s mannerisms on Charles Manson – specifically, he noticed that Manson very rarely blinked when giving an interview, and strived to do the same when on camera.

  • Likewise, Buffalo Bill is a combination of Ed Gein, Ted Bundy, and Gary Heidnick. Ed Gein skinned his victims, Ted Bundy tricked people into his van by acting like the cast on his hand was hampering him, and Gary Heidnick kept women in a pit in his basement.
  • The icon on the movie posters – the moth covering Jodie Foster’s mouth – has an element of Salvador Dali incorporated into it. The back of the Death’s-Head Hawk Moth is actually made up of naked women if you look closely; it’s Female Bodies as a Skull, which was later made into a portrait of Salvador Dali by famous photographer Philippe Halsman. Check out the whole story here.
  • Anthony Hopkins has said that his Hannibal voice was a mix of Truman Capote and Katharine Hepburn.
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    Academy Award Food Puns

    Posted by Miss Cellania in Food & Drinks, Movies & SciFi on February 21, 2009 at 11:58 pm

    Serious Eats has a suggested menu for Sunday night’s Oscar ceremonies that relies on the names of nominated movies and stars. Here’s a sample:

    Frosted Flakes/Nixon
    The Curious Case of Benjamin Mutton
    Flan Torino
    Hot Dog Millionaire
    Revolutionary Rolls
    Milk

    The movie star puns include Marisa Tomei-to Soup, Mickey Pork, and Frank Lan-jello. There are quite a few more! Link -via Buzzfeed

     
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    Did They Win An Oscar?

    Posted by Miss Cellania in Movies & SciFi on February 9, 2009 at 12:19 pm


    The Academy Awards will be given out on February 22nd. As we prepare for this year’s ceremonies, think back to past awards. Does anyone really remember who won Oscars in years past? Today’s Lunchtime Quiz at mental_floss tests your memory by asking you whether 15 stars ever won an Academy Award. I scored 60%, which is about how well I would’ve done if I had given the same answer for each of them. Link

     
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    An Early Oscar Prediction?

    Posted by Stacy in Movies & SciFi on January 5, 2009 at 11:30 am

    The folks at iBored posted this about a month ago, but now that we’re getting closer to the Oscars I thought it might be interesting to see what you guys think.

    Here’s my two cents: I thought Heath Ledger was awesome, and I don’t usually even like those movies. I really hated Batman Begins even though I love Christian Bale. Katie Holmes kinda ruined it for me. On second thought, maybe that’s why I liked The Dark Knight. I digress. Back to your thoughts – Is this poster a prediction of how the Oscars are going to go this year? Do you think it should be? Let us know in the comments. Either way, I think the poster is neat.

     
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