So this blog seems to be a place for obituaries now as another classic Hollywood star has died. Rod Taylor, best known as the voice of Pongo onDisney's 101 Dalmatians (1961) and for his role in Hitchcock's The Birds (1963), died on the 7th, of natural causes. He would have been 85 on Sunday the 11th.
Here is a quick look at some of his most well known films, as well as one of my favorites:
The Time Machine (1960) - the movie that launched his film career
101 Dalmatians (1961) - voice
The Birds (1963) - classic Hitchcock
Sunday in New York (1963) - a (very 60s) romantic comedy with Jane Fonda and the incredibly handsome Cliff Robertson
What an awkward way to meet!
Rod Taylor, Jane Fonda, Jo Morrow, & Cliff Roberson
36 Hours (1964) - with James Garner (this movie was fantastic!)
The Train Robbers (1973) - with John Wayne and Ann-Margaret
Inglourious Basterds (2009) - as Winston Churchill in his final film
Other films that look interesting:
Catch TCM's Tribute to Rod Taylor on Thursday, Jan. 29, starting at 8pm Eastern time. I strongly recommend Sunday in New York. I, myself will be watching The Time Machine and recording The Glass Bottom Boat on my dvr.
Here is a article that talks about all the stars we lost last year, including ones I did not know died or did not recognize their names (like Errol Flynn's third wife Patrice Wymore) - NY Observer
The first celebrity death of 2015 is already here. Donna Douglas, who played Elly May on The Beverly Hillbillies, died on January 1 at the age of 81. Here are some articles if you want to read more.
Don't have a glamorous party to go to tonight? Watch one of these classic films! No one has a better party than them!
The Gold Rush (1925) - silent Charlie Chaplin film (on HuluPlus)
Like most holidays, New Year's Eve is meant to be spent with friends and family -- and in the movies, any character who spends the evening alone is more than likely feeling pretty melancholy. Charlie Chaplin's 1925 classic The Gold Rush provides a particularly poignant example with its classic New Year's Eve sequence, in which Chaplin is duped into believing the object of his affection will be stopping by his poverty-stricken cabin to celebrate, only to be stood up -- and eventually fall asleep at his table, dreaming he's the life of the party after all. Calling it "the outstanding gem of all Chaplin's pictures," Mordaunt Hall of the New York Times wrote, "Here is a comedy with streaks of poetry, pathos, tenderness, linked with brusqueness and boisterousness." source
One Way Passage (1932) - William Powell & Kay Francis (sad but good)
After the Thin Man (1936) - William Powell & Myrna Loy, James Stewart
Holiday (1938) - Cary Grant & Katharine Hepburn
Bachelor Mother (1939) - David Niven & Ginger Rogers, Charles Coburn
Clips from classic movies featuring the song Auld Lang Syne. In order, the clips are from Ocean's 11, One Way Passage, The Gold Rush, Waterloo Bridge, An Affair to Remember, Wee Willy Winkie, Scandal, The Apartment, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Bachelor Mother and It's a Wonderful Life.
There has been one more Hollywood death before the close of 2014, a year that saw the death of two child stars, a poker playin' cowboy, an ugly cowboy, a girl who could whistle, and a comedian. Luise Rainer (pronounced "Rye-ner") was a bright star the dimmed quickly, yet who will always be remembered in Hollywood history.
Born Jan. 12, 1910 in Germany (some sources say Vienna).
Died Dec. 30, 2014 (pneumonia) in Eaton Square, London (in an apartment once occupied by Vivien Leigh).
Nicknames: The Viennese Teardrop, The New Garbo
Height: 5'4"
With first husband, playwright Clifford Odets, whom she met while filming her first movie, Escapade. Her marriage ended with divorce in 1940.
With her second husband, Robert Knittel, a New York publisher, with whom she had one daughter, Francesca. They were married from 1945 to his death in 1989.
Her Films
Rainer's Hollywood career consisted of only nine movies.
Escapade (1935): Set in Vienna in the early 1900s. The wives of two brothers are in love with an artist (Powell). He paints one of them (disguised in furs) and is then confronted by their husbands. He denies knowing either lady and makes up a name for the woman he painted. It turns out there really is a lady by that name (Rainer). They in turn fall in love. Complications arise.
Also starring: Frank Morgan, Virginia Bruce, Reginald Owen
Fun Fact: Myrna Loy was set to play the lead female part but dropped out. Rainer was chosen to replace her. She received rave reviews for her debut performance: "There is no need to tell you about any of the players except Miss Rainer. You are already aware that there is no man on the screen who can top Mr. Powell when it comes to playing the role of a fascinating philanderer. Nor can a word from this observer add anything to the reputations of such artists as Mr. Morgan and Mr. Owen. If either of them ever gave a bad performance, I missed the film. But about Miss Rainer: her great charm is her simplicity and directness. Because of her wide-eyed facial expressions, the manner in which she pronounces some words, plus certain tricks of inflection in reading lines, Miss Rainer will be accused of imitating Elisabeth Bergner." - source
The Great Ziegfeld (1936): A sumptuous, three-hour long biography of Florenz Ziegfeld (Powell), from his beginnings in show business to his final show.
Also starring: Frank Morgan, Myrna Loy (playing Ziegfeld's second wife, Billie Burke), Fannie Brice, Virginia Bruce, Reginald Owen, and Ray Bolger.
Rainer plays Ziegfeld's first wife. Her part is small but the telephone scene (which was almost cut) garnered Rainer her first Oscar nomination and win. She based the scene on part of a play by Jean Cocteau, "The Human Voice."
Fun Facts: Was the first biopic to win an Academy Award for "Best Picture."
Billie Burke (who was originally supposed to play herself) visited the set and posed for a photograph with Myrna Loy, who was playing her. Loy is only in the last 40 minutes of the film.
The Good Earth (1937): Based on the book of the same name by Pearl S. Buck. The story of a farmer in China: a story of humility and bravery. His father gives Wang Lung (Paul Muni) a freed slave as wife (Rainer). By diligence and frugality the two manage to enlarge their property. But then a famine forces them to leave their land and live in the town. However it turns out to be a blessing in disguise for them
Rainer plays O-Lan, originally offered to Chinese-born Anna May Wong
Her second Oscar dress - a nightgown. Here is a dress that reminded me of it.
Rainer won a second award for her role in The Good Earth. This made her the first actor/actress to win back-to-back Acadamy Awards. She was also the first actor/actress to win two Academy Awards. The following year, 1938, Spencer Tracy , Bette Davis and Walter Brennan also became double Oscar winners.
Rainer was forced to attend the Oscar ceremony by Louis B. Mayer to receive her Oscar. In the early Academy Awards ceremonies the winners were announced beforehand in the newspapers. A team of MGM staff arrived at her house and made her dress in appropriate evening wear, and rushed her to the show - just in time.
For my second and third pictures, I won Academy Awards. Nothing worse could have happened to me.
The Emperor's Candlesticks (1937): A male Polish secret agent (Powell) and a female Russian secret-police spy (Rainer) smuggle messages to St. Petersburg in candlesticks. While chasing after stolen candlesticks they discover each other's identity and fall in love. You can read my post on this movie here.
Also starring: Robert Young, Frank Morgan, and Maureen O'Sullivan.
Big City (1937): To avoid a taxi war, city officials blame a gang bombing on driver Joe Benton's (Tracy) wife Anna (Rainer)and put her on a ship to deport her. The mayor is speaker at a boxers' banquet where Joe pleads for them to go with him to the wharf and rescue Anna (about to deliver their baby) from the ship.
The Toy Wife (1938): The beautiful and frivolous wife (Rainer) of a plantation owner (Douglas) in antebellum Louisiana, proves unsatisfactory at running the household, leading her serious-minded husband to enlist the help of her unmarried sister. The end is a real tear-jerker.
Also starring: Robert Young.
The Great Waltz
The Great Waltz (1938): A biopic about Johann Strauss set in 1845 Vienna. Features a classic triangle with Rainer as the self-sacrificing wife.
Dramatic School (1938): Aspiring actress Louise Muban (Rainer) attends the prestigious Paris School of Drama during the day and works at a dreary factory assembling gas meters at night. She daydreams and "acts" her way through life, and her fellow students at school begin to suspect her stories are just that - fabrications. After Louise begins to weave an actual meeting with a debonair playboy into a fantasy of club dates and romance, her co-student Nana (Goddard) discovers the lie when she too meets the playboy. Nana sets a trap for Louise, and the result is an end to one fantasy and the realization of another.
Also starring: Virginia Grey, Paulette Goddard, Lana Turner, & Ann Rutherford
Fun Fact: MGM had planned for Greer Garson to make her film debut in the film, but shortly before shooting began, Garson injured her back and the role was recast with Luise Rainer.
On Rainer's performance: "Her portrait of the young actress almost insanely devoted to becoming a star is among the most coherent any performer of the Thirties achieved." ~ John Baxter, Hollywood in the Thirties (1968).
Hostages (1943): An anti-Nazi film, a comeback, and an end to Rainer's movie career. Watch it here.
Still from The Toy Wife
I don't believe in acting. I think that people in life act, but when you are on the stage, or in my case also on screen, you have to be true.
[on quitting Hollywood] I was very young. There were a lot of things I was unprepared for. I was too honest, I talked serious instead of with my eyelashes and Hollywood thought I was cuckoo. I worked in seven big pictures in three years. I have to be inspired to give a good performance. I complained to a studio executive that the source was dried up. The executive told me, 'Why worry about the source. Let the director worry about that.' I didn't run away from anybody in Hollywood. I ran away from myself.
With her two Oscars (one of which she used as a door stop)
Of all the living winners of a competitive Oscar Rainer had hers the longest.
She shares the honor of having several firsts with the Academy Awards. She was the first actor to achieve the perfect Oscar track record (two nominations-two wins). Only five other actors have achieved this. She was the first actor to receive double Oscars consecutively. She was the first to obtain two Oscars and was the first to achieve double Oscars before turning 30. She was the first actress to win an Academy Award for portraying a real-life person.
The first (and so far the only) multiple oscar winning actor or actress to reach the age of 100.
In what was meant to be a birthday tribute, TCM will be showing all but her first and last films on Jan. 12
