Yestergaze

[yestergaze]

Happy 80th Birthday to Dame Penelope Wilton who was born on June 3, 1946. An accomplished actress of stage and screen, she is probably best known for her role as the socially conscious Isobel Crawley in the much-loved ITV and PBS series, Downton Abbey.

[yestergaze]

Marion Hutton (left) and Betty Hutton were sisters who had a complicated relationship defined by a traumatic childhood, sibling rivalry, and careers in the entertainment industry. They were raised by an alcoholic mother who operated Prohibition-era speakeasies. The sisters were frequently made to sing and dance for nickels and dimes, which formed the foundation of their performing careers. Marion was discovered by bandleader Glenn Miller and became the featured female vocalist for Glenn Miller and his Orchestra from 1938 to 1942. She was known for her swinging, energetic delivery. Betty's career began with the Vincent Lopez Orchestra. Her explosive energy and comedic acting abilities led her to Hollywood stardom. She went on to star in major films in the 1940s and 1950s like The Miracle of Morgans Creek (1943), Annie Get Your Gun (1950) and The Greatest Show on Earth (1952). Both sisters battled heavy addictions to alcohol and prescription drugs later in life. Betty eventually achieved sobriety and found peace through a later-in-life religious conversion. Marion pursued a different path of recovery by becoming deeply dedicated to family counseling and founding treatment centers for female alcoholics. Marion died in 1987 at age 67. Betty died in 2007 at age 86.

[yestergaze]

In 1972, Diana Rigg and Anthony Hopkins starred in a critically acclaimed production of Shakespeare's Macbeth at the Royal National Theatre in London. At the time, Rigg was already a household name due to her role in the TV show, The Avengers, while Hopkins, a commanding stage actor, was transitioning into a well-known film actor. Diana Rigg died of cancer at the age of 82 in 2020. Anthony Hopkins is 88 years old today and still performing in movies. He has won two Academy Awards for Best Actor for The Silence of the Lambs (1991) and The Father (2020).

[toughtalkers]

🇺🇸 Henry Fonda ~ born May 16, 1905 in Grand Island, Nebraska

Fonda served in the military during World War II for the United States Navy during the height of his career. He was 37.

He joined as an enlisted man (Quartermaster Third Class) on the destroyer USS Satterlee, providing fire support for the Allied troops during the Normandy invasion.

In the Pacific Theater he applied to become an officer and was commissioned as a Lieutenant Junior Grade. He served as an Air Combat Intelligence Officer in the Central Pacific, helping plan operations for the Marianas, Western Carolines, and Iwo Jima campaigns.

He was awarded the Bronze Star Medal and a Navy Presidential Unit Citation for his meritorious service.

Conflicts: World War II, Pacific War, Mariana and Palau Islands campaign, Truk Lagoon, and the Battle of Iwo Jima (d; August 12, 1982 in Los Angeles, California, aged 77)

[xxhorace]

Jacqueline Bisset

[gatabella]

Hedy Lamarr, 1940s

[yestergaze]

Talullah Bankhead starred in the original 1939 Broadway production of The Little Foxes as Regina Giddens, a play written by Lillian Hellman that is considered a classic of 20th century drama. The Tony Awards were not yet established but Bankhead would win the Variety Award for Best Actress of the Year, as well as the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for her performance. Two years later when the film was to be made, Bette Davis was cast in the role of Regina, despite trying to persuade Warner Brothers to cast Bankhead. Bankhead accused Davis of imitating her performance in The Little Foxes, and also Dark Victory (1939) which she had also performed on stage before the film was made. When the two icons eventually met, Bankhead reportedly told Davis, "Oh, you're the person who plays all my parts in the films."

[yestergaze]

Karl Malden, Marlon Brando, Jessica Tandy and Kim Hunter starred in the original stage production of A Streetcar Named Desire written by Tennessee Williams. Directed by Elia Kazan, the play opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on December 3, 1947, and ran for 855 performances, winning the 1948 Pulitzer Prize for Drama and earning Jessica Tandy a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. Four years later, the film version would be made with all the same cast members except Tandy, who was replaced by Vivien Leigh as Blanche DuBois. Leigh would win the Oscar for her performance.

[yestergaze]

Barbara Stanwyck, circa 1929.

[yestergaze]

Elizabeth Taylor getting kissed by her husband Richard Burton and director Franco Zeffirelli at the end of the filming of The Taming of the Shrew on August 2, 1966, in Rome, Italy. The movie was released in 1967 and was celebrated for the fiery chemistry between Taylor (as Katherina) and Burton (as Petruchio). It was a huge commercial success and both Burton and Taylor received BAFTA nominations.

[yestergaze]

Marlon Brando poses with Greer Garson and Deborah Kerr, two of his costars in Julius Caesar (1953) an American film adaptation of William Shakespeare's play, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Brando played Mark Antony, Greer Garson was Calpurnia, and Kerr played Portia. Julius Caesar was played by Louis Calhern. The casting of Brando was met with some skepticism when it was announced, as he had acquired the nickname of "The Mumbler" following A Streetcar Named Desire (1951). However, Brando's performance was praised and the New York Times' critic, Bosley Crowther, stated in his review that “Happily, Mr. Brando's diction, which has been guttural and slurred in previous films, is clear and precise in this instance. In him a major talent has emerged."

[yestergaze]

A feisty Joan Crawford at the Excelsior Hotel in Rome in 1957 giving a photographer a taste of his own medicine.

[citizenscreen]

Martin Scorsese’s TAXI DRIVER won the Palme d'Or at the 29th Cannes Film Festival on May 28, 1976. Scorsese is pictured with Jodie Foster, Robert De Niro, and Harvey Keitel at the Cannes press conference.

[yestergaze]

Angela Lansbury was married to producer Peter Shaw for 53 years before his death in 2003 at age 84. After a brief marriage to actor Richard Crowmwell (1945-1946), Lansbury married Shaw in 1949, and the marriage produced three children. "We had the perfect relationship," Lansbury said after Shaw’s 2003 death, according to the Daily Mail. “Not many people can say that. He was everything to me: we were partners at work as well as husband and wife and lovers. I don't know how we had such a long marriage, but the simple fact was that we were devoted to one another.” Lansbury continued to work for many more years after her husband's death. She died in 2022 at age 96.

[randomchaplinfacts]

Limelight (1952)

“The genius of Chaplin is like an iceberg - you only see what’s above water, but you sense the depths. Humour above the water, tragedy below.“

 John Barrymore (Los Angeles Times, June 21,1925)

[yestergaze]

John Dall was a stage and film actor born on May 26, 1920. He spent several years working for various stock companies and on Broadway where he was eventually seen by Jack Warner's wife which led to a contract with Warner Brothers and his first film role in The Corn is Green (1945) with Bette Davis. His film debut brought him an Academy Award nomination as Best Supporting Actor. He would make only seven more films, the most memorable being Alfred Hitchcock's Rope (1948) as one of the Leopold and Loeb-like thrill killers. He died in 1971 at the age of 50 from cardiac arrest. Stephen Vagg of Filmink Magazine wrote: "Dall never got his due, it would seem, despite a strong career that included Rope and at least two other classic movies and an Oscar nomination... One can’t help but feel, however, that he could and should have done more. Because he was a hugely talented man."

[yestergaze]

Hollywood movie star, Rock Hudson, with the great Italian film star, Anna Magnani, photographed in 1957 at Cinecittà Studios in Rome. The two never worked in a movie together but were reportedly friends and shared an admiration for each other.