9 ~ Luise Rainer in The Good Earth

In her role as O-Lan Lung in 1937’s The Good Earth, Luise Rainer gave one of the most masterful, haunting performances in history. Certainly an Oscar winning performance, Luise did win the Best Actress award for the second year in a row with this performance. Talkies were only about a decade old when this was released, even though Rainier’s dialogue was limited her use of visual and vocal acting was outstanding. She refused to wear heavy makeup, and her elfin look helped her to assay a Chinese woman with results far superior to those of Myrna Loy in her Oriental vamp phase.

Though after her biggest supporter, Irving Thalberg died during the filming of this film, Luise began a battle with the studios for meatier films. Unfortunate for us she lost many of those battles with Louis B. Mayer. Luise’s frustration with Hollywood was so complete, she abandoned movie acting in the early 1940s, after making the World War II drama Hostages (1943) for Paramount. Her retirement from the movies lasted for 53 years, until her come-back in The Gambler (1997), a movie based on Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s eponymous story. In the film, Rainer played the role of the matriarch of an aristocratic Russian family in the 1860s who are in hock due the family members’ obsession with gambling.

Not as well remembered as Davis, Crawford, Lombard or Hepburn, Luise Rainer was one of the best to ever grace the screen and it is obvious in Pearl Buck’s, The Good Earth.

 

10 ~ Margaret Hamilton in The Wizard of Oz

One of my all time favorite movies from the decade known as the Golden Age of Hollywood is the now classic, WIZARD OF OZ. So needless to say some of my favorite performances also came from the same movie. One of the best character actresses of Hollywood was the immortal, Margaret Hamilton. Even though most remember her as Cora the “Coffee Lady” from the Maxwell House commercials in the 1980’s, Margaret Hamilton had a career in Hollywood that spanned five decades.

Prior to her role as the Wicked Witch of the West, Margaret appeared in These Three (1936), Nothing Sacred (1937), and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938). Prior to acting, Hamilton taught kindergarten in Rye, NY. Hamilton was married briefly in the 1930s and had one son, whom she raised on her own.

In 1939, her life was to change forever when she played the role of the Wicked Witch of the West opposite Judy Garland’s Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and created not only her most famous role, but one of the screen’s most memorable villains. Hamilton was chosen when the more traditionally attractive Gale Sondergaard was unable and refused to wear makeup designed to make her appear ugly. Even though Hamilton suffered severe burns when the trapdoor elevator she was riding on the sound stage malfunctioned during the filming of her fiery exit from Munchkinland later on in life she would comment on the role of the witch in a light-hearted adoring fashion. Hamilton had to recuperate in a hospital and at home for six weeks after the accident before returning to the set to complete her work.

From the moment she rode on the dusty road from her home to the Gale’s home on her bicycle through the Kansas farmlands, she struck terror in the hearts of the movie goer. As she was transformed in Dorothy’s “dream” from Miss Elvira Gulch to the Witch, her performance would cause children for generations to jump, scream, and even cry. Regardless of what she would do later in her career, Margaret Hamilton would always be the Wicked Witch of the West for children for generations past and future.

 

Garbo Talks!

The 30’s brought the “Talkies”; Motion Pictures that had sound. Prior to that the movies were silent with storylines, narration and diolgue written across the screen. Many of the silent stars were not able to move from the silent movies to talkies, and their star power soon faded.

However there were some of the silent stars that were able to become even bigger stars once the audience heard them speak. The beautiful Greta Garbo was one of those stars. Having achieved enormous success as a silent movie star, she was one of the few who made the transition to talkies. After seeing many of her peers falling by the wayside due to the talkies, Greta delayed as long as possible, and the studio was even somewhat hesitant. They were not sure that audiences was ready for her voice. Her film The Kiss (1929) was the last film MGM made without dialog (it used a soundtrack with music and sound-effects only), and marked the end of an era.

But finally in 1930, Anna Chistie was released. MGM turned on the publicity machine and advertised as “GARBO TALKS!”. Her low, husky voice with her Swedish accent was heard on screen for the first time she spoke: “Gimme a vhiskey, ginger ale on the side. And don’t be stingy, baby”and the movie was a huge success, but Garbo personally hated her performance. It was Garbo’s first talkie and went on to be one of her best works on screen.

 

Classic Women in Cinema ~ NORMA SHEARER

Norma Shearer

1902 – 1983

 

#1 ~ Sally Field in Norma Rae

Sally Field’s acting in this movie is impeccable. She becomes Norma Rae. We can see her fear when she realizes what could happen if she fails. We can see her disgust when she reveals what the mill is doing and not doing for their employees and their families. And throughout the entire film we can see her passion. The passion she has for what she believes in, not just for herself, but for her family and the families of those co-workers. Some think the most powerful and memorable from the movie is her standing at the mill with the “Union” sign, I believe the most memorable scene is towards the end when she talks to her children, telling them what to expect. The movie tends to turn away from her children, but this scene focuses in on her relationship with them and the focus of why she did what she did, for her family.

Even though this film was released in 1979, Sally Field received her Oscar for Best Actress in 1980, but this was still a 1979 film, with an actress that would be remembered for decades to come. She would win a second Oscar in 1985 for another memorable role in Places in the Heart.

 

#2 ~ Diane Keaton in Annie Hall

Diane Keaton seemed to have exploded in Hollywood in the 70’s. With films like Play It Again Sam, The Godfather I & II, Looking For Mr. Goodbar she was everywhere. As Woody Allen’s girlfriend for a large part of the decade, Diane Keaton had made a name for herself as a talented, easy to work with young actress with ability for comedy as well as hard hitting drama.

Some say her Oscar should have came from her role in Looking For Mr. Goodbar, which was propelling, but her Oscar for Annie Hall was deserved. This role was written for her. She WAS Annie Hall. Her real name was Diane Hall and was nicknamed by many as Annie. She was somewhat shy and reserved and dated a very opinionated, open brash Woody Allen. Yes, she was Annie Hall. But what she brought to the screen was more than just a reflection of herself, but an open honest riveting portrayal of relationships in the 1970’s

 

Dream Lovers

On December 1, 1960, America’s Sweetheart Sandra Dee married American Teen Idol, Bobby Darin. Actress Sandra Dee, at 18 eloped with Bobby Darin (26) to Don Kirshner’s apartment in Elizabeth, New Jersey and were married at 3:00a.m.
Sandra Dee, best known for playing the title role in the teenybopper beach movie Gidget, marries her fellow teen idol singer Bobby Darin. Dee, who began acting as a child, made numerous lighthearted beach movies while under contract with Universal. Dee & Darin were married 7 years and had a son, Dodd born in 1961. The couple divorced in 1967.

 

November 29, 1981

Natalie Wood’s two marriages to actor Robert Wagner were publicized and stormy, but they were reconciled at the time of her death. In 1981, at the age of forty-three, Wood drowned while their yacht The Splendor was anchored at Catalina Island. An investigation by the Los Angeles coroner resulted in an official verdict of accidental drowning, although speculation about the circumstances continued.

Wood was on board the yacht with Wagner and actor Christopher Walken, with whom Natalie had currently finished filming her last movie with. There were reports Wagner and Walken had a loud argument and Wood apparently tried to either leave the yacht or to secure a dinghy that was banging against the hull when she accidentally slipped and fell overboard. A woman on shore said she heard cries for help from the water that night, along with voices replying “we’re coming.” Wagner, Walken, and the pilot of the Splendor said they heard nothing. The coroner revealed that Wood was legally intoxicated when she died and there were marks and bruises on her body, which could have been received as a result of her fall.

To this day, mystery and speculation continue to surround her death.

At the time of her death Wood was filming Brainstorm and preparing to make her stage debut in a LA production of Anastasia, opposite Dame Wendy Hiller.

 

#3 Meryl Streep in Kramer vs. Kramer

The performances in Kramer vs. Kramer are what drive the story to great drama. Both Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep won Academy Awards for their portrayals of the dueling Kramer’s. Streep plays a woman who has grown cold and distant from the family she once loved. Like many women, her troubles may lie in that she married too young; or, as she states, the fact that Ben’s love of his work is what dominates his life, not his love for his wife and child. Her assertiveness to leave is a sad fact among many married couples today—they don’t feel like working things out. On the flipside of that coin, Ben seems blinded to Joanna’s needs and feelings. His world revolves around making it to the top of the corporate ladder. Even when Joanna is trying to tell Ben she’s leaving him, his reaction is for her to wait one minute while he finishes up a task brought home from the office.

Streep is very good as Joanna, though she’s off-screen so much that her character almost seems to be even lower than supporting. Some say this Oscar was given due to the fact that she SHOULD have won the year before for her role in Deer Hunter. Regardless as to why, Meryl gave her all, as she always does.

 

#4 Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver

One of the saddest by-products of the Hollywood fame game is the Teenage Burn-Out. Once puberty robs them of their angelic looks and innate cuteness, child stars traditionally have a terrible time keeping their feet on the ladder. In a time when image and box office records mean everything, they’ve not only become another person but also carry the burden of not being able to provide what they once did. Think Macaulay Culkin, or the awful fall of Drew Barrymore. It should have happened to Jodie Foster, too. In fact, many people think it did. Popular wisdom has it that she broke precociously through as a 12-year-old whore in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, enjoyed a brief spell of success then disappeared, only to struggle heroically back with her Oscar-winning performance, ten years later, in The Accused.

But this is far from the truth. Jodie had actually been a Face from the age of 3, starring in TV commercials. Then came many TV and film roles, meaning that, come Taxi Driver she was already a seasoned veteran. After that burst of teen stardom, she chose college over a short-term career, then returned in a series of deliberately chosen “interesting” roles, as she studied techniques on both sides of the camera. And now, due to these efforts, she’s a producer, director, double Oscar-winner AND, as 2002’s hit Panic Room proved, a $10 million-a-picture actress, capable of carrying a Number One movie on her own.