Ms Shirley Booth

Shirley Booth was indeed a wonderful actress. She was also a no funny business boss. She owned the Hazel series and called the shots. Ray Fulmer who planed Steve Baxter (George's brother) during the last season said he learned a lot about the craft from working with Shirley Booth. I've seen all her performances (that I know of) and I don't recall a bad performance from her.

You asked my opinion but I have nothing nice to say.

Tough old dyke who had a distinguished, award-winning career. You wouldn't want to mess with her.

If you enjoyed her in Sheba, seek out The Matchmaker. She is just terrific in it.

Love her.

Shirl singing in a honky-tonk ......

She was offered Dolly but chose the Broadway musical sensation Look to the Lilies instead.

Considered by most theater queens an even finer score than Gypsy.

She played a prostitute in the Broadway show "Coastwise Annie"

I was wrong, you CAN buck a nun.

Her voice was as sweet as Marmalade!

She's wonderful on a record doing Dorothy Parker short stories. I know it also came out on cassette. This is the only one I could find on youtube.

Again, she played a prostitute on Broadway

R11, what a fascinating find! Years ago I was either here at DL or it was through Facebook and I ended up down a rabbit hole listening to Nancy Walker recordings... she was amazing, the song choices terrific, the arrangements, great. I'll try to do the same with the Booth/Parker recordings.

Come Back, Little Sheba

for those who haven't seen it

Nancy Walker who played Sophia's horrid sister on Golden Girls?

From By the Beautiful Sea.......

Lottie Gibson Specialty

Look Who's Dancing......

He Had Refinement.....

Well, she was no Ann B. Davis.

While most of us know her either from Hazel or her Oscar-winning Lola in Sheba, she actually had far from "few roles"--it's just that she was first and foremost a stage actress. She won 3 Tonys in the first decade the award existed!

She was an amazing Mrs Claus in many of the Rankin Bass Christmas shows

She always reminded me of my grandmother.

There's an equally wonderful recording out there of Maureen Stapleton doing Shirley Jackson short stories, r13. Can't find any tracks of those on youtube.

Loved her as Hazel. She retired to Cape Cod and died alone at 94. I believe her money went to Cape Cod Playhouse.

Gertrude Lawrence gave her a snood and a prop reticule she used in The King and I. They were listed on eBay over 15 years ago.

Sheba and Hazel both tour de force performances. Not a dyke.

Hot Spell.....

1964 Ford Falcon commercial....

Philadelphia Story......

She had a plain spoken charm that accompanied a keen sense of perception, not so far removed from that of another Brooklyn actress, Judy Holliday.

She could establish almost instantaneous empathy with the audience with a naked vulnerability and a kind heart.

That kind of quality comes around very seldom.

Laurents wrote of being frustrated with her because she shied away from Leona's difficult side due to wanting the audience to like her.

Whitney Blake hated her. but Lynn Borden adored her.

Shirley was blind when she died. She's buried at Mount Hebron Cemetery in Montclair, New Jersey.with second husband, William Baker who died in 1951.

So why would she be cast as a prostitute?

Why did Whitney Blake hate Shirley Booth?

As written Leona isn't difficult she's downright unlikeable and unpleasant. Which is why despite the continuing popularity of the film Summertime Cuckoo and Waltz are rarely done.

Booth and Rodgers were right.

And Redford and was right concerning his character in The Way We Were and demanding the screenplay be cut. Nobody wants a husband to dump his wife because she stands for her principles.

Best Amanda Wingfield ever!!!!

Many centuries ago (in 1970) I was an apprentice at a summer stock theater and Ms Booth came in for a week with a new (and very mediocre) play. i have only lovely memories of her. She was very sweet to all of us, if a bit isolated.

As a very conservative but lovable suburban mother, she had a line to her hippie daughter: "Was it a nice love-in?" Shirley insisted the line be changed to: "How was the love-in?" Either way, she got a huge laugh. Well, it was 1970 and love-ins were in the air.

Sorry, Shirley, for a slight topic drift as Come Back Little Sheba is a great movie. I always think of Richard Jaeckel, who was hot there. I wonder if anyone else saw a suggestion of closet gay in Burt Lancaster’s character and some lustful looks at Jaecke?

Love her!

PBS did a documentary a few years ago about the history of Broadway, and they interviewed a ton of theater actors, producers, designers, etc. When asked the question of which was the most moving or important performance they saw by an actor, a bunch of these legends talked about Laurette Taylor playing Amanda Wingfield. They all talked about how natural she was and how she changed their approach to acting. Laurette Taylor, erstwhile a footnote in the story of American drama and film. I think it might have been Jerry Orbach or Brian Dennehy who said he thought that Laurette was some woman who had wandered onto the stage off the street, that she just embodied the role without a whiff of "acting".

This is the best way to describe how I feel about Shirley Booth in [italic]Sheba[/italic]. The scene where she swallows her pride and calls her mother for help re: Doc was one of the most natural, truly felt things I've ever seen in a Hollywood movie. It was as though they went to an Al-anon family meeting and just plucked a frumpy, depressed woman and filmed her for an afternoon.

[quote] Well, she was no Ann B. Davis.

On the plus side, this meant no drag queens served her breadsticks they had stuck up their butts beforehand.

It seems that every single person who saw Taylor in Menagerie says it was the greatest performance they ever saw. There isn't one person who said she was meh or overrated or good but not great.

This is hard for us to tell today from her affected screen test for Selznick.

Her Oscar for Sheba is one of the truly most deserved of all time. Let's face it, sometimes they do a shitty job. But she was just fantastic and absolutely heartbreaking in that film.

[quote] Whitney Blake hated her. but Lynn Borden adored her.

The series was cancelled by NBC after season 4 and picked up by CBS. Whitney Blake was mysteriously "not available" for season 5, and she and Don DeFore were cut supposedly because CBS didn't want to pay their higher salaries. Poor DeFore found out he'd been fired by reading about it in the newspaper. Shirley's health was declining and thankfully season 5 was the last. That sad stuttering Ray Fulmer was a poor substitute for "Mr. B". And Lynn Borden needed to be slapped most of the time.

Trivia: Borden and Mala Powers, who played the snooty next door neighbor/friend "Mona" were lifelong personal friends.

Many people don't recognize a very young Ann Jillian in season 5 playing the role of Millie Ballard, Steve Baxter's secretary.

Wasn't it Maud Adams who did the screen test for Selznick? Laurette Taylor took one look at the camera lens and hustled herself right off the soundstage.

Ray Fulmer was not a great actor, but he was hot. Any shirtless shots?

Poor Sport. Bobby Buntrock, killed in a car wreck at 21.

Bobby Buntrock was pretty much unrecognizable after he got older.

[quote]Why did Whitney Blake hate Shirley Booth?

Because she was only Meredith Baxter-Lesbian AFTER Miss Booths daily visits to her playhouse.

Shirley Booth is awesome in Hot Spell. Basically you have a sympathetic character played by Booth and Booth plays her so well, by the end of the movie, you actually feel Alma (Booth's character) had it coming, even though she was a total victim.. Booth was the professional victim of her time.

One area Shirley failed was in the role of Miss Brooks. She took roles so seriously she couldn't enjoy them. Listen to the link below for her audition and you can see. The producers said, was too wrapped up in the underpaid teacher bit to have fun with it. Teachers were underpaid but never as much as Miss Brooks made out. She was the same way on Hazel, she was very supportive of maids and and did a lot of work on their behalf to gain the profession respect.

I love Shirley's work but she did not work out as Miss Brooks, and she did work out well in her other radio roles.

For you, r48.....

R22 She was wonderful but voiced Mrs C only once in Rankin Bass "Year Without A Santa Claus" (1974)

The original Ruth Sherwood in "My Sister Eileen". Wish she had kept her stage role in the film of "Philadelphia Story" (Ruth Hussey was OK, but....)

We have a very long thread about "Hazel" here OP. Booth was such a fabulous actor she made a horrible selfish character loveable.

Her turn as Amanda in Menagerie is on youtube. Well worth the watch.

Encores should do "Look To The Lilies".

Sorry R53 but that IS NOT Ray Fulmer. Just because you do a Google search and it comes up with a picture that does not mean it's a picture of the person you searched for. It could be a picture of some guy with Ray or Fullmer in his name, but not the one you're looking for.

My Sister Eileen.....

Whitney Blake co-created “One Day at a Time”. She served as one of the show’s writers. She put most of DL through 9 fucking years of Bonnie Franklin. Shirley Booth probably yelled “DAMN IT WHITNEY!!!!”, on a few occasions.

Not a pic of Bobby Buntrock either. That is the late lamented Disney kid actor Bobby Driscoll who died from an OD in obscurity. He was buried in a Potter's Field type graveyard until he was finally identified through DNA testing or something similar.

R50, are you insane? Not only does the guy in the picture look nothing like Bobby Buntrock, he has jet black hair! And that photo was clearly taken in the early to mid 60s when Buntrock still was young and looked like he did on Hazel. Buntrock would've been "older" in the early 70s, when people stopped taking photos like that.

What is wrong with people, where they automatically assume that anything they find on the internet is accurate even though common sense should tell them that it's not? It's so scary how gullible people are.

Ah, damn! Just noticed that R62 posted the correct info before I posted. Thanks, R62.

There are no photos of an older Bobby Buntrock posted anywhere on the web. Websites have been trying to pass off photos as being him but they're all bogus. Besides Bobby Driscoll, another photo that gets passed off as Buntrock is one of Luke Halpin. Looks kinda sorta like you'd imagine an older Buntrock looking like but not him.

No I believe it is Taylor in that screen test and Maude Adams is the one who said I'm outta here.

Why don't they revive Peg O' My Heart anymore?

You're more Lady Macbeth, r65.

Was Kate Hepburn paranoid about Shirley's scene stealing abilities on Broadway in The Philadelphia Story? Is that why she wasn't cast in the film? And then Kate stole 2 of Shirley's Broadway hits for her own films: The Desk Set (Desk Set) and The Time of the Cuckoo (Summertime).

Who would have ever thought those actresses could so easily share roles? Of course, they also both played Amanda Wingfield on TV.

The Desk Set.....

I loved her in "The Smugglers" (1968). She played the typical American woman of the 1960s touring Europe. What a hoot!

I read that she was offered Helen Hayes' role in 'Airport,' but had to turn it down due to health issues. For an actress who seldom worked in film, she could have been 2/2 at the Oscars.

Coulda played in an American cast of "The Killing of Sister George."

r65, I guess we're both right.

It was Laurette Taylor who made the screen test for Selznick. I just watched it again on youtube as part of Hollywood: The Selznick Years, a wonderful old TV documentary (I think from from the 1970s).

But there's also a little footage of Maud Adams there, also briefly testing....though she was not happy in Hollywood and abruptly left the next day, not even waiting to watch the test.

Nevertheless, both in the Shirley Booth mold of ultra-natural acting. Btw, it's worth watching that documentary. It's really wonderful.

D.C. could sure use Pearl Mesta now!

r73 PERLE, not Pearl.

Damn! I kept looking at it trying to figure out why it didn't look right....and then......I just hit Post anyway. I did know better.....really, r74.

R72 Thanks for the heads up, getting now

R47, they both may have. I remember Taylor's has her quoting a line by Dante Rosetti,"beauty without the beloved is like a knife through the heart." She was wonderful. Sad she didn't do film.

r77 meet r72.

R14 Thanks for posting that. I can see Jessica Lange play Lola in a remake.

Shirley Booth In Sheba and Vivien Leigh in GWTW are the dual zenith of Oscar winning performances. No one else comes close. Full stop.

I'm so glad Bette turned down the Lola role.

Shirley Booth was not an "ultra-natural" actress.

She was a closely trained technical actress who knew how to assemble a character and give it a sheen of believability. Her numerous tricks were wonderful. Of course her range was limited, although she also wasn't casted in a "let's stretch her" way. She essentially was a character actress.

I assume "ultra-natural" means homespun, non-grand and quirky.

Haven't we seen enough acting in our lives to know that often that is both the most "unnatural" acting and the most consciously constructed that seems "natural"? And that is a tribute to the skills of the actor or actress.

[quote] Why don't they revive Peg O' My Heart anymore?

Because it's incredibly dated and not a very good play.

I saw it in the 80s in Minneapolis/st. Paul and could not understand how it was ever a hit.

R61. Actually, probably not--Booth was known for not liking it when people swore in front of her.

r83 They should do it in repertory with "Abie's Irish Rose."

Throw in Tobacco Road, r85.

Don't forget Lightnin' and Three Men on a Horse.

And then the actors washed their feet and called it Angel Street.

Off topic , but I've always wanted Don DeFore in me deeply.

R80, add to that Vivien in Streetcar.

Hazel rocked.

Mr B and Missy would never leave their retard son with his bland uncle and his attractive but untalented wife.

Harold had many skills like, skipping backwards, sitting in trees and throwing leaves, hiding the car keys, refusing to wear a raincoat and carrying groceries to name but a few.

I only saw her in Sheeba and fell in love with her. I don't think she made many movies

She didn't, r94. Here's her IMDB page. Mae West didn't make all that many movies either, considering her Golden Age icon status.

Her IBDB page.....

And she was Hazel, FFS. HAZEL!!!

Did you ever hear

Of that terrible year

Way back before you were born

When Santa Claus took a holiday

On the night before Christmas morn!

I always felt sorry for Doc in CBLS.

Has anyone seen this version filmed for TV with Olivier, Joanne Woodward, and Carrie Fisher?

I like the Hazel show.