Mary Astor

lOVED her in Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte.

Miss Astor was a disaster.

Her book, "A Life on Film", is fascinating from start to finish. Tremendous actress--"The Maltese Falcon", "The Great Lie", "Dodsworth". I also loved her banter with Bogart in "Across the Pacific", but she unfortunately got mired in playing too many Mothers for Metro, as she says in her book. I would have loved to have seen her as Shirley Booth's replacement in "The Time of the Cuckoo" on stage.

"At a time like this talk about the chickens!" Loved her as Mrs. Smith in Meet Me In St. Louis.

She should have won a row of awards for "The Palm Beach Story" and "Return to Peyton Place." First-rate performer, interesting writer.

I'm reading "A Life on Film" now and it's tremendous. She was a gorgeous teen-ager manipulated by grasping parents. She adored John Barrymore and they had an affair during that time. He comes off as a great guy. He taught her how to act. The big scandal was when she had an affair with playwright George S. Kaufmann and her husband had her scandalousdiary entries published, and he tried to take their small daughter away from her. During the making of "Meet Me in St. Louis" she steamed into Judy Garland's dressing room and chewed her out for keeping everyone waiting all the time. "You were a professional, ONCE!" she told her. Judy then broke down in tears and said that she doesn't sleep and she's tense all the time...(the usual drill).

A guy on the TCM website discussed her at length. She apparently had a BIG drinking problem which hampered her career, especially in later years.

She's very frank about her alcoholism in her autobiography "My Life" and her stint in a sanatorium. She joined AA and converted to Roman Catholicism in the 1950s. Her 1959 autobiography -- which was a huge bestseller -- centers on her personal life, while "A Life on Film" focuses on her film career. She won an Oscar for "The Great Lie" which co-starred Bette Davis. She was cast at Davis' request, and shortly after filming commenced Davis took Astor aside to complain about the script. The two then worked together on improving it. "The Great Lie" is great soapsuds if you've never seen it.

The Diary scandal actually gave her career a boost. Surprisingly, the American public enjoyed the fact that Aster really loved sex.

You're joking, R5, right? She is absolutely dreadful in "Return to Peyton Place;" she overacts like crazy, but then that turkey contains a lot of bad acting (and assorted other bad things).

There is something fascinating about a matronly woman being such a trollup.

She wrote a great bio - honest and devastating. Barrymore was a bounder.

"Matronly" ? Really?

She was a slut. She was quite enraptured with the writer George F. Kauffman, rhapsodized about how he could stay "hard all the time." Anybody here ever seen a picture of him? He was HIDEOUS!

Attractive woman. Fine actress. Thank you for mentioning "Dodsworth," as strong as her other best performances in "Maltese Falcon," and "Great Lie." You know of course who threw that last picture to her and thus the Oscar.

Her cameo in Hush, Hush,Sweet Charlotte is a master class in subtlety in screen acting. She should have been Oscar-nominated.

[quote]She was a slut. She was quite enraptured with the writer George F. Kauffman, rhapsodized about how he could stay "hard all the time."

There's no denying Mary (or rather Lucille Langhanke, her real name) got around. But that business about George "staying hard all the time" and the other purple prose that she supposedly wrote in her diary was a total invention of the press. Contrary to "Hollywood Babylon", the diary Mary Astor actually wrote was never made public nor was it admitted into evidence in the custody trial concerning Mary's daughter because her ex's attorney did not offer the entire document. At the conclusion of the trial the real diary was destroyed on the judge's order.

George S. Kaufman was no oil painting, but he apparently did quite well with the ladies.

Wasn't Louis B Mayer so infatuated with her that he brought her to MGM in the 40s to play all of his beautiful shiksa mother fantasies, in spite of the earlier sex scandal?

Is that Judy Garland story in one of Mary's own books?

I've always found there to be something sad and haunting about her. Yet, at the same time, it's a relatable kind of unhappiness. Almost like seeing a friend in despair. She seems like a very real person, and that comes through in both of her books. The woman never wanted to be a star, and I think as good as she was, even at the end of her career she had doubts over whether being an actress was what she really wanted, or if it was something she did because her parents made her.

My favorite classic Hollywood film blogger, Self-Styled Siren, posted a fascinating interview with Astor's daughter not too long ago.

A link to the post is below.

Here's a follow-up post to the one I just linked to at the Self-Styled Siren blog, which provides some more fascinating info, as well as great photos.

Self Styled Siren would be better if she stopped calling herself "The Siren" on her blog. It's possible it's supposed to be hipster ironic, but it's grating and detracts from her content.

And, sadly, "The Great Lie" is not all that great. Everyone's performance is competent but one-note, and the plot mimics a Kay Francis vehicle from a few years earlier. It's just a plain old WB weekly release, and unlike films such as "Casablanca" which transcended the mediocrity of most of the studio's weekly films, "The Great Lie" wallows in it.

It's frustrating, too, because Astor can be so good. She really is a fine actress and she deserved the Oscar but, like so many other Oscars given over the decades, this was given to her for the wrong film.

Oh do give over, R22. Self Styled Siren is a marvelous writer and an erudite critic. You, however, are a whiner.

Mayer was infatuated with Greer Garson, not Mary.

Mary is brilliant in MIDNIGHT as well as THE PALM BEACH STORY. She and Claudette did not get on well. Lots of claws abounded.

Details, R25, about MARY! vs. Claudette.

Personally, I've never been able to stomach Colbert's saccharine screen personality. She comes off as whiny to me.

Class

She lost her virginity to John Barrymore

Did anyone get along with Claudette? Not surprised- next!

Well, Rex Harrison apparently gotten along very well with Claudette becaused they co-starred happily on Broadway twice in their later careers: The Kingfisher in 1978 and then Aren't We All in the early 80s.

They must have cancelled each other out.

Now, back to Mary, please.

Mary threw a good fuck.

[quote]She seems like a very real person, and that comes through in both of her books. Oh, my. All this time I thought she was a Disney animatronics figure.

Newspaper quote from one of her forged diaries: "Ah, desert night-with George's body plunging into mine, naked under the stars...." The real diary was sealed in a bank vault after the trial for 16 years, and it was burned in 1952 in front of a judge.

Her Holiday costar Ann Harding suggested she hire attorney Roland Woolley during that trial. Many of her "friends" dropped her while the trial went on except for Ruth Chatterton who stayed by her side all through it. Chatterton told her, "Courage, my dear! Be brave."

Dewitt Bodeen told James Robert Parish that Astor who was his next door neighbor at the Motion Picture Country Home stopped speaking to Ann Harding because she had supposedly turned lesbian late in life (Harding's recent biographer doesn't think she was, but Harding's first husband was bi). The biographer interviewed Marylyn Thorpe Roh, Astor's daughter, and she said, "My snobby mother! Of all the gay and lesbian friends in the 'business' she knew and surrounded herself with in her life--I have often wondered if she were not a 'Bi' herself--no proof. To give up a friend for that reason is pitiful. Possible jealousy involved in there. The past is past, and Ann isn't around to speak for herself with her own story."

Roh continued, "In those final years, Mom was very private, and very unsociable. Her family members had to always phone and make an appointment to see her on HER turf at her time. Ergo, busy with families, we didn't get to see her much. I can remember her saying, 'All my peers around me are dying--I hate living around these ol' farts!' She was in her 80s!

I learned all this in Scott O'Brien's recent biography, Ann Harding Cinema's Gallant Lady. He also did a good bio of Kay Francis.

I feel my heart beat faster, any time there's a movie with Mary Astor.

My grandma talked about Mary's luminous screen presence in silent movies as a leading lady and found her character work in the 40s through the 60s to be quite a sad comedown.

r30, Harrison called Colbert a no-neck. Doesn't sound chummy to me. Just saying.

Uh no r36, it was Noel Coward, when he directed and starred opposite Claudette in a 1950s TV special of Blithe Spirit, who said about her:

"I'd wring her neck if she had one!"

You may be understandably confused because Rex originated Coel's role in Blithe Spirit's West End debut (without Claudette!).

I think Rex called Claudette "the effing French dwarf," though.

But this is poor Mary's thread!

Any relation to Brooke ?

No, R39, like many stars of the era, she was given a new, more glamorous name once she became an actress. I haven't read her book in awhile, but I believe it was Jesse Lasky and Louella Parsons who came up with "Mary Astor," because "Mary" was easy to remember and "Astor" gave an allusion to grandeur.

Mary Astor, meet your master!

"She was a slut."

What are you, 12? Grow the fuck up.

Great write-up. What a woman and phenom actress. I just watched "Dodsworth" for the first time.I think I just fell in love with her.

Also, thanks OP for the thread.

[quote]Self Styled Siren would be better if she stopped calling herself "The Siren" on her blog. It's possible it's supposed to be hipster ironic, but it's grating and detracts from her content.

I agree r22. Every time she refers to [italic]The Siren[/italic], it pulls you away from the story. She wants you to be sure to remember that she's the important part of the tale. It's like reading something written by the sister of Kirker or Charlie.

I think I remember as a kid watching Perry Mason with my family and that episode, instead of the usual courtroom drama, was set on an island somewhere but Perry was there and he still solved the whodunnit and..........***SPOILER***........ Mary Astor's character was the murderer!

Any other oldies out there remember this or have I dreamt it?

Thanks for the link, R43--excellent article. Mary Astor was indeed quite tall for a woman of her generation, and she towers over Bette Davis in the few medium shots they have together in "A Great Lie". Bogart must have been standing on an apple crate during the filming of "The Maltese Falcon".

Loved her hair!

That article at r43 is fascinating...thanks for posting!

It's ironic that after all she'd been through personally and with the wide range of various bitches she played throughout the 30s for different studios, she wound up at MGM playing boring mother roles. One would have thought LB Mayer, of all producers, wouldn't have touched her.

Dodsworth, the ultimate perfect love interest Midnight, the ultimate sophisticated playgirl wife Meet Me In St. Louis, the ultimate perfect mother Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte, the ultimate feisty old lady The Maltese Falcon, the ultimate femme fatale The Great LIe, the ultimate bitch from hell all good performances, all indelibly portrayed archtypes, and all very different

Did she get booted out of MGM?

r18

Yes, Astor recounts the St. Louis / Garland story in "My Life On Film."

Garland would keep cast and crew waiting for hours before emerging from her trailer.

Astor writes that for the most part Garland was spending the time fussing with her hair (wigs) and make-up.

Astor stopped working at MGM with any regularity in 1949, but that's when a lot of contract players (especially those billed below the line) were being let go. She made "The Power and the Prize" for the studio in 1956, but the studio system had drastically changed by then.

She's amazing in "Dodsworth". Astor's acting style was very sophisticated for the time, very low-key. She was a great contrast to Ruth Chatterton, who was on the way down, and was chewing any piece of scenery she could get her hands on! Astor came out of retirement to do "Hush, Hush Sweet Charlotte" at Bette Davis' pleading to play Jewel Mayhew. Bette knew Astor would nail the role.

MA was great in Hush, Hush.

Mary Astor and Olivia DeHavilland were the only two actress Bette Davis actually liked.

Ruth Chatterton was a famous Broadway star when Hollywood came calling at the dawn of the sound era, desperate for anyone who could speak dialogue with a shred of grace.

Ina Claire was another one.

Their work in film (and stage) is totally forgotten today even though both were hugely popular leading ladies in the earliest 30s.

Surely, neither have ever had a DL thread?

And Anne Baxter, r56.

Mary Astor and Lizbeth Scott in "Desert Fury" (1947) have some of the most deliciously Sapphic/incestuous subtext in the world. Fabulous movie, with another relationship (between Wendell Corey and John Hodiak) that is SOOOOO gay. And the color is so vivid it almost hurts the eyes.

I don't think it's on DVD, and they rarely show it on TCM... if anyone can find a copy, it's a must see.

Bette Davis had several nice things to say about Ruth Chatterton when they made THE RICH ARE ALWAYS WITH US in her book THE LONELY LIFE.

"The Rich Are Always With Us" is pretty good, too. I don't think Chatterton is completely forgotten, as "Female" alone gives her a certain amount of notoriety.

You can get copies of "Desert Fury" from other countries, if you have a region-free DVD player.

I love Mary in Meet Me in St. Louis. I always thought it a great prize to get such a wonderful talent in a "Mother" role, but it's actually a very good part for any actress. She is especially droll and modern in the opening scenes where they are making ketchup. I always find that scene especially interesting.

The pregnancy cabin scenes in The Great Lie are hilarious with Astor being irritable and complaining about everything Bette Davis does. Climax is when she pushes over a table and tries to burn the place down. You burned me! You burned me! AHHHHHHH. Face slap.

I love Desert Fury too. How many times does Astor slap Lizabeth Scott?

I read somewhere recently that the scenes that Astor played with Crawford in Hush Hush SC played much better than the ones she did with Olivia DH.

Astor is also good in a small part in Act of Violence.

That's believable. Olivia D is a dull actress. She can't even make a bad girl fun.

Astor didn't film any scenes with Crawford in CHARLOTTE, unfortunately, because they would have been crackling. But Livvie more than holds her own in them.

Here's the quote I read (granted, it's not hard evidence) from Joseph Cotten's wife:

[quote]Patricia Medina Cotten: Well, as regards to Joan Crawford, the little that I knew her, I found her extremely well mannered. Very polite, yes. She was a good actress, and Jo liked her. It’s a shame she left the film. Bette and Joan, despite every thing, had good chemistry on the screen. Joan phoned me from the hospital and told me she was sick. Bette joked with me and told me I should replace Crawford, and we, Jo, Bette, and I, could finish the picture. Of course, they brought in Olivia de Havilland for the part. I know Jo said that Mary Astor gave a much better performance with Joan than with Olivia. She was just marvelous with Crawford. Even Bette agreed that Astor was great with Crawford. Later on, I made a film with Aldrich called The Killing of Sister George. I played a prostitute, and they cut my best scene. I was just sick over it. It was a very funny scene, and they cut it.

A good drinking game is to take a drink every time Pete is named in The Great Lie. One time it is said twice in the same sentence, when Mary Astor says "Pete, you'll have to be patient with me, Pete".

What the fuck is going on?

Bitches in heat.

Why Astor didn't marry George S. Kaufman, after she broke up with her hubby?

If I were as handsome a man as Astor was a beautiful a woman I would have been a big slut too.

What exactly is wrong with that?

Though I don't get the George Kaufman thing.

But I guess you had to know him.

Love her. And she is the absolute best thing about Hush Hush, Sweet Charlotte. That scene outside her house where she gives the letter to the old journalist and just fans herself. So fucking amazing. I love that movie, but she was acting on a whole different level than everyone else. (Including Bette Davis, who I think completely misfires that performance. What that film really needed was Vivien Leigh as Charlotte! Then Olivia as a co-star would have been fabulous.)

And the fact that Mary Astor was a slut makes me like her more.

[quote]Rex originated Coel's role in Blithe Spirit's West End debut (without Claudette!).

You're all confused, darling. Coward originated his own role in the West End, and Clifton Webb took over on Broadway. Sexy Rexy did the movie version, which is quite wonderful.

[quote]What that film really needed was Vivien Leigh as Charlotte! Then Olivia as a co-star would have been fabulous.)

Oh my God. A Viven Leigh/Olivia DH reunion scare movie would have been the most divine thing ever.

Where are my smelling salts?

R75...it would have been so good. And then swap Agnes Moorehead for Butterfly McQueen. Heaven.

Agnes Moorehead WAS the movie!

Even in a musical like MMiSL, Mary's acting is modern, real, and naturalistic. She gets better and more substantial in it with each viewing. I love that ketchup-making scene too.

Scene stealer with a heart.

Bette Davis adored her which says a lot.

"Dodsworth" is one of American cinema's very best, a spectacular cast, including Astor, but personally I think Ruth Chatterton walked off with it, and no mean feat, either.

No matter how many times I've seen "The Maltese Falcon" I'll always sit down for it just to get to the shot of Astor's face going down the elevator at the end to her doom.

The thing about Astor was that when she was onscreen, you couldn't look at anyone else, and there's no way you can teach that to someone. They're born with it inside them or they aren't . . .