Showpeople (15): Bogarde and pals

I have done some 'Showpeople' posts on Dirk Bogarde previously, with the likes of pals Kay Kendall and Rex Harrison, meeting Rock Hudson - did the closeted British and American heart-throbs compare notes? - and with co-stars like Jean Simmons, Anouk Aimee (whom he knew since she was a teenager), Monica Vitti, Julie Christie, Lilli Palmer - did he and Lilli discuss the Rex and Kay story?, Lilli being the previous Mrs Harrison. (Left, another shot from that DARLING premiere with Christie and Vitti. Glamour!)

Below with Kay and Kenneth More in DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE, and with Muriel Pavlow, another Rank Organisation stalwart and co-star, and with Capucine. Dirk and Kay were also guests at Kenneth More's "This Is Your Life" tv show in 1959.









I suggest that Lauren Bacall and Dirk really are the people who knew everybody - and SHE visited HIM the day before he died in 1999, and I love the photo of her with Kay, Vivien Leigh and Coward back in 1959, and with Kay at the theatre that year! [Showpeople label]. He worked of course with all the English talent of the time including those newcomers Courtenay, Fox, Miles ("dainty Miles" as he referred to her at one of his NFT discussions), Christie, Stamp, York - Michael and Susannah, etc. Then of course he knew all the European ladies: the young Bardot in DOCTOR AT SEA, Thulin, Seyrig, Aimee, Vitti, Mangano, and became great friends with Charlotte Rampling and Jane Birkin, he was also pals with Simone Signoret and Yvonne Mitchell though did not work with them, and of course his later co-stars like Lee Remick and Glenda Jackson. [It is a shame that Romy Schneider did not get to play the Austrian princess in Losey's ACCIDENT in '67, as originally planned - she would have brought so much more to the role and made her a real tease, rather than Sassard's blankness]. Then of course there are the Garland, Capucine and Ava Gardner stories, as per his books ... here is a further selection then:

Awards time in 1965 with Lee Marvin, Julie C and Patricia Neal - later of course he and Glenda Jackson did THE PATRICIA NEAL STORY for television; and that silent scene with Delphine Seyrig in ACCIDENT and with Anouk in JUSTINE, and Bjorn from DEATH IN VENICE!

Movies I love: A Star Is Born (for Stanley and Gary)

The 1954 one of course!

Like JOHNNY GUITAR, A STAR IS BORN is another from my first year of movie-going, aged 8. It must have been one of the first films I saw,
(my parents must have taken me, my mother and I went to I COULD GO ON SINGING later) again I was fascinated by the widescreen images, that beach house with the sea reflected in the windows as the man goes into the sea, and that slap scene at the awards. Over the years it's richness and complexity have got to me, that lustrous rich Warnercolor, and George Hoyningen-Heune's color co-ordination (a Cukor regular). I do not see it as a musical as such, but as a drama with music. For a big film it is surprisingly intimate - there are really only 5 people in it: Esther/Vicki and Norman Maine, Charles Bickford as Oliver Niles the avuncular head of the studio, Jack Carson as Libby the vicious press agent, and Tommy Noonan as the bandleader who is also there for Judy. The Cinemascope images still dazzle, that movie premier, Norman being drunk, then when he takes the lipstick and makes the heart symbol on the wall, and later when he awakes and sits up in bed remembering .... that amusing scene where he is on the prowl in the nightclub and then busting in on "The Man That Got Away", and the lovely scene at the studio in the morning where Esther is getting ready for her screen test after being made over by the experts and he wipes away all the gunk off her face and a radiant lovely Estehr emerges. Later we have Judy's "I am discovered on a rather simple divan" for the "Somewhere there is a Someone" number, and of course during "Born in a Trunk" the drunk interrupting with "sing Melancholy Baby" and the agent going "Yes!" to Judy's "No!" as she does the rounds. Then at the studio "We can see your face" as she plays an extra, and "Go to L" when Esther signs on for her paycheck only to find she is now Vicki Lester! So, a film of great moments, from the Moss Hart screenplay, the Harold Arlen songs and that marvellous look of the film. Then those dramatic scenes later on, as Vicki begs Oliver to give Norman one more chance, and her appearance at his court hearing...

My best friend Stan had the soundtrack album which we played a lot, and then in 1970 my 1963 "Films and Filming" penfriend Gary from Brisbane arrived in London and took me to a screeing at the old Starlight Cinema at The Mayfair Hotel - it was marvellous seeing it on the big screen again, as back in that pre-video/dvd age one only saw movies at cinemas or on small black and white televisions!

So I relished the 2-disk dvd release with the restored scenes which make more sense of the story, and those 3 alternate versions of "The Man That Got Away" all as brilliant as the version in the film, with great Scope compositions and Judy being a powerhouse as ever. I was never a total Garland fan, but this and I COULD GO ON SINGING are two special films for me. It is actually Mason who is astounding here - it is a multi-layed marvellous performance, if it hadn't been Brando's year, James should surely have been best actor. That scene where he overhears Bickford and Garland talking about him is so brilliantly realised, the irony of course being that it was Garland who was the ravaged self-destructive star who was really all washed up in Hollywood by 1954. One only hopes all the early admirers of the film got to get the dvd restoration, as they will love it even more (particularly David McGillivray, author of "The Hollywood Musical"). Bob Willoughby's photographs [above] from the set are terrific too, as per his book "The Hollywood Special".

Of course I went to the Streisand version in 1976, and of course loathed it - that finished my Streisand fandom for a very long time, even Pauline Kael her great admirer was appalled. Suddenly it was A STAR IS BORING. Beyonce (going by her show at Glastonbury) could be marvellous with the right co-star if the new proposed version by Clint Eastwood goes ahead .... but we will always have Cukor's definitive version.
One can see now though why classy new girl Grace Kelly won the best actress Oscar that year (for looking dowdy in a cardigan) - Judy at 32 was considered an old-timer and difficult, it seems Jack Warner lost faith in the movie, which was a difficult shoot, and cut it to fit more screenings. Judy's weight and looks vary from scene to scene, but that slim look of hers in the award scene in the movie was something that I just found totally fascinating...



Another marvellous item on the restored dvds is the premiere footage, including that one in LA when everyone came out for Judy, one realises what a big event the film was and they all wanted Judy to be a hit. There's Doris Day, Peggy Lee waiting to be recognised, Debbie and Eddie, Tony and Janet, Liz and Wilding, Joan Crawford joshing with her old MILDRED PIERCE co-star Jack Carson, who was the MC, and all hollywood's hot shots, including Lauren Bacall [the woman who knew everyone] lighting up a cigarette next to Judy and Jack Warner - oh, and a bashful Raymond Burr "just back from Korea" with a cute young marine in tow!. Fascinating stuff ... I want to see it all again now. A STAR IS BORN will always be in my top 10.

Showpeople (10): Judy's duets

I was far too young of course to see any of Judy Garland's early 60s tv shows, but a programme of duets from it makes for fascinating viewing now - and dvds are available too! Fantastic seeing the young Streisand with Judy and the obvious respect and rapport the two have for each other - and Judy with the likes of Peggy Lee and Lena Horne, Bobby Darin and young Jack Jones [below] (Michael Buble? who he? - it's reminded me I liked an album of Jones' back in the late 60s "Without Her", a nice contrast to all that Doors and Airplane stuff). There's also Judy with Ethel, Mel Torme, and of course Liza ....

I have read though the book Mel Torme (who worked on the shows) wrote on his unhappy time on the Judy show, as though settling scores with Judy, which though mean-spirited also showed how demanding she could be. But Judy looks good here - her weight see-sawed a lot then, but in '63 she looks her best, as she did in that last film from then I COULD GO ON SINGING. This has also reminded me of how different and fantastic young Barbra was then - no wonder she was the new sensation and we rushed out for those early albums of hers. I didn't have to wait too long to see her in 1966 in the London FUNNY GIRL .... touching too to see those troupers Judy and Mickey still in full flow.

Showpeople (8): Troupers

Whether climbing the ladder of success or basking at the top today's selection of showpeople show how it is done:

Hedda with a starlet / Rock, Tony and RJ Wagner circa '57? / Marlene and Noel in 1959 and Judy and Mickey in '63 are the very essence of show-biz troupers / Kay and Rex in '57 / and young Barbra (with Michael Craig) getting into her stride as Fanny Brice in the London run of FUNNY GIRL in 1966 (I saw that from the front row). Omar got the movie gig though!, and speaking of troupers, here (for TJB) is Susan Hayward as MAME at Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas - wish I could have seen that!:

200th post

Just because ! 4 from that magic year 1954 ( when I was 8 and just discovering cinema ) :



REAR WINDOW, A STAR IS BORN, Sophia and Marcello in TOO BAD SHE'S BAD [didn't see that till last year!], Dirk and Kay Kendall in DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE, and those westerns which were my first movie experiences...(more on 1954 at label)

Showpeople (6): on location - at work and play

Marilyn and Mongomery Clift on the set of THE MISFITS - is she the most photographed woman ever? We are still finding pictures of her [all from that 12 year period 1950-1962] which we had not seen before, almost 50 years later, and new MM books roll off the presses, including now fragments from her archives

Monty and Liz on RAINTREE COUNTY, 1957

Back to THE MISFITS: Monty and the boys

Another chance to run this super shot of Marilyn and Marlene in 1955

A 1966 fashion show: Barbra Streisand, Elsa Martinelli and Marlene again... don't know who the others are!

More Marlene - lighting up with Frank, everyone smokes in these old photos !

Kay Kendall and Lauren Bacall at the theatre in early 1959 (Kay died later that year). I wonder what they were seeing at the Royal Court? They don't seem to be enjoying themselves....

Neither do Kay's pals Dirk and Judy: a shot I had not seen before: Dirk Bogarde and Judy Garland in what must have been a break during their long scene (which they wrote) in I COULD GO ON SINGING, 1963. It looks like they were not speaking by this stage as it was a very troubled shoot with Judy alienating everybody including her pal Bogarde....

Two favourites together: Dirk and Lee Remick,THE VISION, 1988

Gregory Peck and Mary Badham rehearsing on set for TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

Belmondo and Delon with director Jacques Deray on BORSALINO, 1970

Delon and Romy Schneider, very early '60s

I don't usually go a bundle on McLaine, but Shirley looks good settling in for a transatlantic flight, lots of leg room too...[maybe this was to promote WHAT A WAY TO GO with Gene Kelly].

Marlon skipping

Ava catches up with her ironing.