Lee Remick or Natalie Wood - Who would of played Beth Jarrett (Ordinary People) Better

Would of?

Opps wrote the poll wrong, ok let's go by alphabetical order

Yes = Lee Remick No = Natalie Wood

Vivian

Bless your heart.

I don’t think Natalie was able to play a cold-hearted bitch.

This is the most hilariously fucked up poll in DL history.

Start again, OP.

I think it was Mary Tyler Moore herself that made that character work so well. Having an actress known for dramatic parts play her, would have made the character seem like a regular starchy wasp. However, because people were so used to seeing Tyler-Moore playing light and smiling, you were jolted by the characters coldness. Especially when they showed the flashback scene of her laughing at the son who ultimately died. Tyler-Moore brought a real truth to that one time happiness now lost.

I think if I had to pick from Remick or Wood for the part, I’d go with Wood. It would have been interesting to see her play that role. Remick, was too right on paper for the part and the character would have been lost in her performance.

R7, I think you’re right. If it had been Sada Thompson, people would have thought, “Again?”

Lee Remick, definitely. She could convey that uber-Wasp image better than anyone. And she was a better actress's than MTM.

None of these bitches could have beaten me , y’all.

Natalie Wood was an awful actress.

Remick had the WASP bitch thing down cold.

MTM was amazing. It was like she was channeling my mother. Her performance shook me to the core.

Poor OP. You barely speak English and you can't create a poll.

You should have played Beth.

Remick would have been better. I bet Redford cast Moore for the publicity - smiley sitcom star scores as ice cold mom. I didn't really believe her. I know actors "perform" but she was performing that thing. Remick would have been ideal. Wood a joke. Her reaction just reeks of her lifelong entitlement that even her daughter Natasha acknowledges.

and then there's Maude!

Another name that was in the running was Ann-margret . Vanity Fair wrote an extensive piece about her years ago and said Redford came close to casting her after her audition.

I didn't realize retarded people knew who Lee Remick was.

Who would of thought of it? To quote a representative of the group.

I've posted this before, but I remember reading an interview about casting MTM at the time the movie came out. The point wasn't her ability to play cold bitch as opposed to chipper and cheerful; the rationale was that MTM was great at portraying perfectionism. The point stuck with me, because it made perfect sense and because it was such an insightful way of casting the role. The key to Beth wasn't her coldness, it was her utter inability to accept chaos and imperfection (a point which comes across more strongly in the book). There was certainly an aspect of that need for control in Mary Richards' determined cheerfulness. It was brilliant of Redford to see what was really driving Beth, not the more superficial aspects of the character, and cast accordingly.

I would add that I think the point of the scene where Beth was laughing with Buck was to highlight that she wasn't an inherently cold person. When her world was perfect and predictable she could be just as nice and cheerful as the next person, or Mary Richards for that matter.

It was MTM who made that part work, but more importantly made the movie feel universal and endure.

She had an everywoman quality. And coming into people's living rooms and bedrooms on TV for years created an intimacy between her and the audience.

Legions of gay men would not have been declaring that their mom was just like Beth Jarrett if Lee Remick had played that part.

And it pains me a bit to say it, because I think Lee is one of the most underrated actors of all time and gets nowhere near the recognition she deserves. She would have rocked the part, as expected, it just would have been ... expected.

Op stated that Natalie Wood was furious with Robert Redford for not casting her in his movie and never spoke to him again.

In her memoir Joan Collins wrote that Natalie had an attitude and if you got on her shit list, watch out!

Lee Remick. Natalie was completely, totally, forever wrong for it. Lee had range. MTM was a quivering mess.

I have read in places that Lee Remick was the runner-up. I've read in other places that Ann-Margret was the runner-up.

What's the real story?

Timothy Hutton said he actually screen-tested with Ann-Margret.

[quote] I have read in places that Lee Remick was the runner-up.

Lee was the runner-up, Ann-Margaret thought she was in the running, but Redford used her to screen-test other potential "Conrad's"

Lee Remick had played a lot of cold women in movies and on TV. It wouldn't have been as shocking.

MTM brought a wounded quality to it beneath the coldness.

The Remick firing from Agnes of God was strange. They blamed it on the smoking at the time but some of the reviews from Boston singled her out as being weak in it.

Lee was the better actress, so her.

lee was a fab actor ~~~!!!!!

Patty Duke.

Would OF? How about would've or would have.

Dumbass

Mary Tyler Moore actually lived that role as a cold mother in real life. I was surprised to hear that cheerful Mary Richards had neglected her only child and at 24, he shot himself; first ruled as a suicide, later accidental. That would have devastated anyone but she wasn't really close to him.

[quote] "I demanded a lot of Richie. I was responsible for a lot of alienation," she admitted. "There is no question about it. By the time Richie was 5, I had already let him down. When he needed me the most, I was busier and even more self-concerned than I had been when he was an impressionable infant."

Well, no one believed Mary Tyler Moore was a good choice at that time. She was superb.

Natalie could have brought a different interpretation of Beth. Perhaps Robert Redford thought he was too close to Natalie to effectively direct her. It could have revived her movie career. Did Natalie ever portray a ice cold bitch?

As for Lee Remeck, she would have been an excellent choice, by bringing the icy but vulnerable dichotomy of Beth.

INSIPID OP.

Didn’t her son shot himself while having a conversation with her over the phone? Also MYM’s sister also killed herself.

It would have been interesting for Natalie Wood to have played Beth. I think it would have been more of a stretch for her than for Remick.

Moore pulled off a decent performance and helped make the movie a box office hit. However, an accomplished film actress such as Remick would have been better. Wood, as stated above, was hopelessly wrong for the role.

Neither. Elizabeth Berkley would've been amazing in that role.

No, Berkely in the Elizabeth McGovern role , but play it as Nomi.

"Oh, Conrad!"

Lucille Ball was offered the role, but Gary talked her out of it.

Ann-Margret was considered for the part. She would have knocked it out of the park.

R18 makes an excellent point. And I think MTM was perfect in the role for that reasons.

Getting back to OP's question, certainly Remick would have been far better than Natalie Wood, who was never a great actress. I think Remick could have captured the "perfectionism" aspect of the character just as well, but there wouldn't have been the surprise element that you got from MTM doing the part.

Much as I like Ann-Margret, I think she tends to want to make her characters sympathetic (even her bitch white-trash mom in OUR SONS got mushy in the end) and I don't know if she would have given Redford what the character needed.

Stockyard Cunting or Olivia Newton-Lez would've been better than Mary Tyler Moore.

If Natalie Wood had gotten the role in OP, she would have been nominated and it would have perceived as a huge career comeback. She would have turned down the role in ‘Brainstorm’ opposite Christopher Walken and never would have even met him; hence the events that culminated in her drowning on that tragic night would never have happened. So, in essence, Robert Redford killed Natalie Wood.

Moore's performance won't stand up to the test of time. As soon as she is forgotten as Mary Richards, people will be wondering why she acted like a dragon lady and why was she allowed to overact her emotional breakdown.

I disagree, R44. Mary Tyler Moore’s performance as Beth stands the test of time. She didn’t overact, and in fact gave a very controlled performance which was appropriate for Beth Garrett.

Lee Remick in happier times before she was FIRED from Agnes of God

Then they had to change the movie poster

R44 = Ann-Margret, chasing a Google Alert

I would say 38 years qualifies as "the test of time."

And her "emotional breakdown" is probably the least overacted emotional breakdown put on film.

I can see Lee Remick being wrong for Agnes of God on stage. She was never physically prepossessing.

You needed a big old horsey ham like Elizabeth Ashley to make the part register.

Lee would have been great for the film, though.

A very good friend was a finalist for Jeannine. They read them in teams and Elizabeth was teamed with Hutton and my friend was teamed with Eric Roberts. Even though Hutton seems the obvious choice, Redford also decided he wanted Conrad to look more like the mother than the father.

Did she go after Hutton or Roberts's dick, R50? I would've.

Buck never would have hired Natalie Wood or Lee Remick.

Those Agnes of God posters strangely still seem to be in circulation. I've seen them in restaurants or someplace with Remick's name still on it.

The trooper that Lee Remick was, even after she was fired she insisted on finishing the out-of-town tryouts as it was her name on the marquee that people were coming to see.

God, Natalie Wood would have been awful and the film would have never garnered the universal praise and awards it did. She was a terrible actress. Zero talent whatsoever.

I also can't picture Eric Roberts as Conrad. Very good actor, but so not right.

[quote] Mary Tyler Moore actually lived that role as a cold mother in real life. I was surprised to hear that cheerful Mary Richards had neglected her only child and at 24, he shot himself; first ruled as a suicide, later accidental.

Didn't that happen after the making and release of Ordinary People?

Also, if it was an accident, what would that have to do with whether or not she was a cold mother?

[quote] what would that have to do with whether or not she was a cold mother?

She sent her child away as she was more focused on her career and didn'r have time for her child, Years later she admitted she was a lousy mother

R56: It wasn't an accident. People in the biz called "Show" always say it was an accident.

Beth BITCHERY on full display!

This scene where Calvin tells Beth "It's Over". This scene actually had to be re-done, but because MTM was in NYC on Broadway they had to film the scene Separately. First they filmed all of Donald Sutherland's dialogue, with Robert Redford off-camera saying MTM lines. Then they inserted all of MTM reaction shots they had previously filmed.

Buck would have typed “would of.”

r56 the son's death happened one month after Ordinary People's release.

She wrote in her bio and did interviews at that time saying she failed as a parent. The father really raised him. She was like 18 when she had him and was distracted by her career. She called herself an "ineffectual parent" when she did Inside the Actor's Studio.

No one really knows for sure if he killed himself intentionally or not. Mary seemed to need to believe that it was an accident and that it happened when he was cleaning the gun. She said it had a "hair trigger" that was eventually taken off the market. His roommates said he wasn't depressed but I don't think it can ever really be determined what was in his head at the second of the shot.

Wood would have been great in the part. Like she was in a similar part in the cracker factory. Redford was an asshole to her. She needed the lift back and he didn't send it. Without her that talentless bland phony actor would be best remembered today as the father in law of 'Brett' or 'Kathleen' in the young and the restless. Steve mc,queen would have played Gatsby. He would have won an oscar and cut the booze. He would have had children with macgraw. He would be happy and still be alive today. So Redford killed Wood AND Mcqueen. Bastard.

R51, she didn't deal with Hutton much and said Roberts was very, very weird. She said she tried to get a handle on it, as if he was really trying to be Conrad in real life so it would help him get the role. She came away believing he was just weird.

Sorry. Couldn't get past "would of."

Adding to that, you seem intellectually incapable of creating a poll.

You aren't worth answering, OP. Only ridicule.

R65 nobody cares, get over it

Oh, I care. No one appointed you anyone's spokesmodel, r66.

R67 and you and those who care can fit in a phone booth

R18 excellent observation. and right on. i find lee remick too cold for my tastes here. and too placid actually. mary tyler moore has an edge of hysteria as one of her qualities. it worked on her show so brilliantly in a variety of ways. and in ORDINARY PEOPLE it's used beautifully too. when she's in buck's room alone and hutton surprises her. the amazing way she demonstrates the pigeon. the one that was the closest thing to a pet they ever had. the laugh, the teeth, the eyes-"calvin give me the camera." even the way she disposes of the french toast. everything's about to explode. beneath the smile and the clothes and the house. (and the amazing trick-or-treats she serves) it is danger high voltage. i love lee remick. but don't think she would have been as fully emotional in the role. mary is definitive for me. the whole cast is for that matter.

I thought Mary Tyler Moore was brilliant up until the very end, when she has that breakdown when she's getting the suitcase out of the closet. To me, it seemed forced and a bit phony. I always thought that scene cost her the Oscar.

I just revisited this movie because of this thread. I can't believe Donald Sutherland wasn't nominated for an Oscar.

Also, I had completely forgotten Elizabeth McGovern ever existed.

Not a fan of Downton Abbey, are you dear ?🙂

“Would of?” Good lord, OP, are you even the least bit aware of how stupid you are?

Ann Margaret could be a good actress when she wanted to be but she was just too beautiful to play the lead female role - her eternal sex persona would have gotten in the way. The movie was called Ordinary People and ordinary she wasn't no matter how much they might have tried to turn down the volume on Miss Volupulous. Plainer looking Mary Tyler Moore was perfect for the part.

Ann was just too warm and earthy to play Beth.

I would have rather seen Blythe Danner take a shot at it.

One thing people are forgetting is that Beth is seen as very happy and cheerful outside of the family. When she goes to that party at the beginning she is very popular and everybody likes her. She's very social and hates that Conrad has exposed the family flaws. The cheerful Mary Richards personna really helped convey that.

I've read that Judith Guest originally was going to call the book, "Everybody Loves Beth." (Calvin says that line when he meets with the psychiatrist....and this was way before Everybody Loved Raymond.

Wood lacked gravitas for this. Remick would have been more calculated in her coldness whereas MTM was simply cold and remote. Ann-Margaret would have been awful.

[quote]R11 Natalie Wood was an awful actress. Remick had the WASP bitch thing down cold.

I agree: Remick by a mile.

Natalie Wood wasn't the kind of performer who could play anything outside her own experience, emotionally. She seems to have been a warm and lovely person, but the little Hollywood chickie was no Sarah Bernhardt.

R42, Olivia would have been too young to play Beth. Even Stockard would have been a bit of a stretch back then.

I turned it down. They wrote the mother as old.

Lee Remick was a good actress, but she had a softness about her that would not have fit Beth. Even in DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES, she comes across as so sympathetic. Natalie Wood was such an emotional actress, also not good for Beth.

MTM had a hard edge about her, just in her look alone, that was perfect for Beth.

PS. Steve McQueen would have been HORRIBLY miscast as Gatsby, whereas Ali MacGraw would have been a perfect Daisy.

It's WOULD HAVE, you fat whore!

Also, which is your favorite vegetable? Answer yes or no!

[quote]R82 Lee Remick was a good actress, but she had a softness about her that would not have fit Beth. Even in DAYS OF WINE AND ROSES, she comes across as so sympathetic. Natalie Wood was such an emotional actress, also not good for Beth.

Lee Remick did some miniseries in the 80s where she played a real life socialite murderess (one Frances Schreuder) in NUTCRACKER: MONEY, MADNESS AND MURDER! I've never been able to find the whole thing online, but I imagine she was very capable in it. Stephanie Powers was in a rival version called AT MOTHER'S REQUEST the same year, 1987.

They should have let Isabell Sanford play Beth.

[quote] Natalie Wood was such an emotional actress, also not good for Beth.

Emotional? She ran the gamut from A to A-. They didn't call her Wood for nothing.

R87 Very witty! I think Natalie Wood was in the right place at the right time to become an actress. She got lucky. Not one of the all times greats.

R88, Remick wasn't one of the all time greats either. Pauline Kael aptly noted that studios kept trying to push her on the audiences as a star but they knew better.

Natalie Wood was nominated for an Oscar 3 times so she must have had some talent. But I fail to see any great talent there. Tried and true, part of the star system at the time, but that's about it.

MTM was perfectly cast and gave an amazing performance...

[quote] Natalie Wood was nominated for an Oscar 3 times so she must have had some talent. But I fail to see any great talent there. Tried and true, part of the star system at the time, but that's about it.

One can even win an Oscar and still have no talent.

Ask Jennifer Hudson.

Natalie Wood with a forced smile as she presents the Best Actress Golden Globe (Drama) to Mary Tyler Moore for Ordinary People.

NUTCRACKER was a great book by Shana Alexander. INSANE true crime story.

Neither one of those miniseries really did it justice.

Did MTM ever have a successful film after Ordinary People? I find her performance very difficult to watch. Why? Because she reminds me of so many of the women in my family (cold hearted Irish bitches). I thought all of the leads were perfectly cast including Donald Sutherland as the helpless husband/father. Regarding Lee Remick and Agnes of God she once made the comment 'they didn't want me and I didn't want them' so it must have been artistic differences. Liz Ashley was VERY theatrical and it was one of her better performances.

[quote]Moore's performance won't stand up to the test of time. As soon as she is forgotten as Mary Richards, people will be wondering why she acted like a dragon lady and why was she allowed to overact her emotional breakdown.

It's really important to try to hurt me, isn't it, R44?

[quote]Moore pulled off a decent performance and helped make the movie a box office hit. However, an accomplished film actress such as Remick would have been better.

This might be how they talk at the hospital, but we're not at the hospital now.

R95, I really liked her in Flirting With Disaster.

Colleen Dewhurst could have done it. But they'd have to cast a more burly actor for her husband, like George Kennedy or Gene Hackman.

R99 Gene Hackman was the first choice for the Donald Sutherland role

Jeez, Colleen Dewhurst and Gene Hackman - way too old - unless they were playing the grandparents

And they aren't really...Lake Forest people, if you know what I mean

Just random thoughts

Natalie Wood was too small and non-threatening to be Beth

Beth totally intimidated Con and Calvin

Ann-Margret, WTF?

She would've sex-kittened it up - and her huge, old tits would NOT have conveyed the kind of needle-up-her-ass WASP image Mary captured so perfectly

And Ann-Margret would've come across as if she were the heavy drinker - Calvin's character was a drinker in the book IIRC - but it's a been a long time since I read it

Valerie Harper says that she was the original choice, but gave it to Mary because she felt bad her series had failed twice.

I could have created that poll after 2 glasses of wine.

Natalie all the way.

OP wins this week’s DL “Slack-Jawed ‘Tard” Award for the most hilariously inept “Poll” in recent memory.

R29 I agree

[quote]Tragically, Redford telling Wood that she just wasn't a fit for "Beth".

is not a sentence.

MTM was spectacular - great choice to go against type. From sweet Laura Petrie & Mary Richards to subtle / controlled icy cold mom. MTM had said she was actually a lot more like Beth than she was Mary Richards. They should have put her in the "Supporting Actress" category where she could have easily won. No beating Sissy Spacek that year. My second choice would be Ann-Margret. Taking a likeable & nice personality like MTM really worked. It could have worked very well with A-M as well. Lee Remick already had an icy / waspy veneer. By then (1980) Natalie Wood was over & out....even though i liked her very much. You could see the booze showing as she reached her late 30's and early 40's. Very happy for MTM this great movie is a part of her legacy.

Lee Remick. My God, she would have won the Oscar too.

Natalie was lovely and she had "presence" but she was not a good actress. With the exception of scenes displaying hysteria -- she was fantastic when that was required.

Remick was also gorgeous and a very good actress.

I love Natalie Wood and never card for Lee Remick but IMO, Remick would have been the better pick for that role.

I also think that Redford was likely right about not casting Natalie. Maybe she could have pulled it off but I just can't see her playing cold cold cold.

I could have been a standout in that role. Sadly, my good friend Bob didn't think I was right for the part. He was wrong and he knows me. We've worked together before with great success.

that role is tyler moores. the end.,

mary tyler Moore: One Emotionally Withholding Bitch

Ann Margaret would have been awful. This isn't a campy role like Kitten with a Whip.

I think either would have been very good but Mary owns the role, she seems as cold as ice.

[quote]R102 Ann-Margret, WTF? She would've sex-kittened it up - and her huge, old tits would NOT have conveyed the kind of needle-up-her-ass WASP image....

Yuh....I don't see it, either.

Everyone knows it should have been Lucille Ball.

I though Mary was perfect, and the reason we’re writing about it 38 years later.

OP, I think you’re perfect, too.

I wonder who else was considered for the Elizabeth McGovern role. She was unique in this. Her slighlty goofy quality didn't play well else where but she was kind of bright spot in this.

McGovern was attending Julliard when she was cast in this. I think she had already done one other acting role outside school, and they said she couldn't also make this film while enrolled at Juilliard (they want their students to be focusing on their training), and she was like, "Okay, BYE!"

I wonder why McGovern didn't get the wife part in Amadeus. There is some documentary where you can see her all in costume working on a screen test I guess with Milos Foreman (she had done him well in Ragtime with an Oscar nomination.)

He didn't hire her though. I think she would have been perfect. The wife works better when she is a little goofy like McGovern is. First they hired Meg Tilly who would have been very serious I'd assume and then when she got hurt they brought in Elizabeth Berridge who got savaged by critics I think. (In seeing it recently I didn't think she was that bad but she does seem very contemporary.)

They should have had Dick Van Dyke play Cal.

'Would of'?

Lee fucked JFK.

OP, I had always heard/read that Redford never actually told Natalie he wouldn't hire her to play "Beth", rather he chose not to return her phone calls, which greatly hurt her feelings. Not only had she lobbied to have him cast in "Inside Daisy Clover", she had also asked that he be cast in "This Property is Condemned", plus she made a cameo appearance in "The Candidate" as a favor to Redford. Plus, he served as best man at her second wedding to Richard Gregson. He should have returned her calls.

[quote]I wonder why McGovern didn't get the wife part in Amadeus.

Because with her wonky eye, audiences wouldn't be able to tell whether she was looking at Mozart or Salieri.

Lee Remick made a vicious attack on Frances Schreuder, the most generous patron in the history of the NYCB.

Among her accomplishments, Frances single-handedly underwrote Balanchine's last great work, "Robert Schumann's Davidsbundlertanze."

Shortly after Lee's ugly attack on Mrs Schreuder, Remick died.

Karma?

[quote] Lee Remick made a vicious attack on Frances Schreuder, the most generous patron in the history of the NYCB.

Can you provide more details? Was Remick the type to make vicious attacks?

Anne Margaret would have been great as the woman he married after the divorce.

I think Mummy should do a remake of Ordinary People. If Oprah can remake that Shirley MacLaine flick and Kenneth Branagh can remake "Murder on the Orient Express" then why shouldn't Mummy get the opportunity to add Beth Jarrett to her resume. You can get that British chap, Charlie Stempel, to play the son.

If anyone's Mummy is starring in a remake of Ordinary People, it's going be mine!

Mummy, can you call Uncle Harvey and secure the rights?

R129 Remick made a vicious film that slandered Frances Schreuder called Nutcracker. It was mostly fictional but presented as fact.

(Mrs Schreuder was a Manhattan philanthropist and benefactor of the NYC Ballet. One - or both - of her sons murdered her father and claimed, without a shred of proof, that the crime was committed "at mother's request.")

R129 Rather useless without a quote and some background, gurl.

sorry..............wrong thread!

Apologies to the innocently slandered R129

Contrition?

R128

Remick was also part of 20th Century Fox's effort to smear Marilyn Monroe during Something's Got to Give.

She's a lot like Joan Crawford in that. Talented enough to mimic a pleasant, warm persona but, under the facade, a steely, cold cunt.

Lee Remick died of cancer at only 55. Toward the end she became bloated and had to helped in public but she was brave to go out in her condition. She's been dead for 27 years now.

R137

Remick later said that she'd never said any of the things about Marilyn that were printed after MM' firing. Also, she wasn't in the running to replace MM for long as Dean Martin had co-star approval & he told FOX "No Marilyn, (then) no Dino !"

R125

Not proven. JFK allegedly made a play for her. It's alleged that because she too was from Massachusetts, JFK thought he had a good in.

Well, R139, Fox thought she was in the running. They announced her having been cast and showed her with Cukor being rehearsed. But you're right that Dean said no.

But after reading R138 I feel bad about calling her a cold cunt :(

Barbara Eden would have been an interesting choice.

[quote]Barbara Eden would have been an interesting choice.

And this would have been the music them instead of "Canon In D".

them= theme

[quote]R141 But after reading [R138] I feel bad about calling her a cold cunt :(

Remick owed 20th Century Fox one more film on her contract and knew she would never actually replace Monroe. She got it in writing that by just announcing her name the obligation was fulfilled, even if the film was scrapped. She posed for some publicity photos with Cukor, and was out the door. The publicity department wrote and released the two quotes attributed to Remick.

As someone mentioned, MTM is funny in a supporting role in FLIRTING WITH DISASTER (1996)

Eden was too busy doing dinner theater in those days. Besides Redford was probably to much of a gentleman to leave her with some Desi Arnaz anecdote that she could run into the ground.

Mary deserved a best supporting actress win for Flirting With Disaster than as lead for Ordinary People. She was that fucking hysterical.

Mary Tyler Moore as Beth Jarrett is absolutely one of the best film performances ever. Like many DLers, I have watched Ordinary Peeps many times and I am never less than stunned and amazed by her portrayal.

Just imagining anyone else playing the role is blasphemous. But for fun I’ll throw one out there for your consideration:

Joan Hackett

I would have gone with Bonnie Franklin.

Hold me, Cal.

I'm hearing the slap that Bonnie would have give Conrad

Dammit, Conrad!

Julie, stop fucking your father!

Of course, the only actress who really could have brought Beth Jarrett to life was Miss Betty Buckley. But they went with a lesser choice of some sitcom actress.

R154 wow. what an interesting choice. and certain elements of betty buckley would be fantastic in the role. we've never gotten to see her sustain a female lead in a film of that weight and size have we? in things like ANOTHER WOMAN and TENDER MERCIES she gets those small but unbelievably great scenes where she is magnificent. and owns the movie for that bit of it. in CARRIE she's marvelous too. and the arc is longer. but it's not carrying the movie in the same way. i don't think anyone could do better than mary tyler moore in ORDINARY PEOPLE. but it is too bad we've not seen betty buckley do more film roles. she is one of the best actresses out there. so smart too. she knew who abby bradford was supposed to be on the show. she never pushed it further. or tried to make it more than it was. even though her talent was bigger than that role. again, very smart.

R128 where are you getting your revisionist history from? She was a proven sociopath on every level. That's nice that she gave money to the ABT (after she had her father murdered) as part of her social climbing but that doesn't make her a "philanthropist." The only "slander" is perhaps that they got someone SO much more attractive to play the part, but that's Hollywood.

And r146 I love that clip and at performance and the whole movie for that matter, which deserves a dedicated thread.

Wood was a bit of a ham. Never cared for her acting.

r138: wow. i had no idea remick died so young.....i keep seeing her in The Detective on some corny station i get.....

Wood could never have pulled this role off. Never.

Blythe Danner would have been ideal for Beth, though MTM was excellent as well.

As for Ann-Margret, Beth was certainly not a good role for her, but A-M did play a de-glammed spinster sister in the film RETURN OF THE SOLDIER with Glenda Jackson, Julie Christie, and Alan Bates, and she was very good indeed.

How about Lana Wood?

Sexy, grieving mom.

Actually, Julie Christie would have been a good Beth, though am not sure she could do an American accent

I think Faye Dunaway would have made a great Beth. But MTM was wonderful.

I think we all saw how Faye would have portrayed Beth about one year later...

"How about Lana Wood?"

Over my dead body!

Oh, wait...

I would of liked to have seen what Kelly Ripa would of done if she were the right age for the part. I think it would of been real interesting.

I just read that Patricia Heaton is doing the remake for TNT,

There is no way anyone would have been better than MTM. No way. How could you possibly get any better than this?

I love the suggestion of Joan Hackett. She would have been terrific.