Which classic and modern films stars "shut the door"?

Joan Crawford is the prime example.

I don't even consider Garbo, Bardot, Novak and Hedren to be recluses. They may have shut the door on their movie careers, but they remained active in other areas, and had their circle of friends to keep them company. True recluses are shut-ins, who have withdrawn from society and live a life of solitude. Howard Hughes and the Beales come to mind.

Rita had Alzheimer’s. This writer is an uninformed asshole.

Hedy Lamarr.

It's Hedley damn it!

Only in public, R5.

Wow, that’s funny someone is blaming the divas for walking away.

It’s not true. Hollywood studios are the ones who “shut the door” on actors because they’re not young and beautiful anymore — past their physical prime.

Mary Pickford. Billy Wilder intended for Pickford to play the Norma Desmond role in "Sunset Boulevard."

R8, why pick on her? It’s not fair. The poor woman had termites infecting her home.

Helen Lawson.

Fucking bitch lives next door to me. RENTS her condo. Feeds the damn strays so there are at least two dozen saucers with dried flecks of Fancy Feast on her back porch and hundreds of hard little turds dried in the baking Cathedral City desert sun. Plays that damn "Tree" song repeatedly. Smells like piss, not sure which pussy it belongs to.

God, I wish she would die already.

OP, where did you dig up that swill? Sorry. I meant bilge.

R2 is correct, there's a huge difference between shutting the door on Hollywood, and shutting the door on all humanity. The first is good sense, the second means there's something seriously wrong.

Garbo is one who shut the door on Hollywood, but continued to live an active life with many friends and interests and a lovely home in NYC. Nothing wrong with that, she was probably happier than those who stay in the game as they age, clinging to their youth and the tattered shreds of stardom.

Joanne Woodward

Does Doris Day qualify?

The prime example is actually Marlene. She decided at some point that enough was enough and retired to her Paris apartment and became a recluse, letting the public remember her as she was. Her daughter's book is pretty brutal about her last years.

[quote] Smells like piss, not sure which pussy it belongs to.

Tehe.

Kay Francis during her heyday said, "I can't wait to be forgotten". She finished out her Warner Brothers contract in 1939 in B movies, went onto play some glamorous schemers and mothers on free-lance, toured with several women to entertain the troops, made three films at Monogram that are better than the average B movie fare, returned to Broadway in "State of the Union", and toured in stock for a few years. She tried TV but didn't like the pacing. I believe by 1954, she was out of the spotlight completely and spent the next 14 years of her life not quite a recluse but turning down the infrequent offer like the Constance Bennett role in "Madame X". Her films were mainly late show fare for years until TCM resurrected her name, two biographies of her came out, and she was on the cover of Jeanine Basinger's book "A Woman's View". People had forgotten that she was once the "Queen of Warner Brothers" with the highest salary (but mostly for films that were not box office hits) and considered Hollywood's most fashionable woman. For the last decade of her life, the pictures in the books about her show her as a vivacious older woman with family, very close to her nieces and nephews. I find her fascinating.

R17, please link pics of her as an old broad.

I shut the door years ago. I've been trying to get it back open ever since.

Silly me.

Deanna Durbin for sure.

Was the Helen Lawson stuff ever funny, or fresh? I don't understand why that troll works so hard at it.

[quote]Joan Crawford is the prime example.

Crawford went into hiding relatively late in her life. Garbo is the prime example.

I keep my door propped wide open at all times, but the industry and some bitchy gay guys keep slamming it shut when I'm not watching.

And of course DL's all time favorite, Shelley Duvall. She didn't shut the door, it shut on her.

"Garbo is the prime example. "

No she wasn't. As someone said above, Garbo may have walked away from Hollywood, but she had an active social life with many friends, and spent her days with them, or traveling, or seeing her relatives in Sweden, or just taking long walks through New York where she lived. She wasn't a recluse, she just avoided publicity.

Marlene Dietrich became a genuine recluse in her last years, she stopped seeing anyone, didn't leave her apartment, never left her bed although she wasn't ill.

Marlene Dietrich spent the last thirteen years of her life as a recluse in her Paris apartment. Thirteen years!

Re: Marlene - I remember hearing the story about how she fell or tripped on stage during one of her concerts, for some reason I think it was in New Orleans. Anyway, after being hospitalised for the fall, she flew back to Paris, and was never again to leave her apartment. She wanted to be remembered as the glamorous woman she was, not seen as someone aging, growing frail.

Don’t know how much of or if any of it is true as regards why she became a recluse. I do remember reading that while she was cut off in her apartment, she spent hours on the phone daily with friends, family throughout the world. All the calls ran to thousands of dollars a month in phone bills.

Did anyone ever see the documentary on her by Maximilian Schell? He did an interview where he went over the process of getting Marlene to agree to it. They were great friends, so that helped his cause, but she wouldn’t allow any filming of her, and none of his crew were allowed to see her. I think even the scenes shot thru a doorway and Max interviewing her, where you just see her gesticulating with her hands as she spoke, which was all you saw of her ever in the film, were filmed after with a stand-in, as Marlene wouldn’t allow even that small bit of her on film.

Again, it’s been years, so some bits may be mixed up in my mind, but overall I’d give Marlene to top spot in our DL list of famous recluses.

Norma Shearer shut the door on her movie career but stayed active for nearly 30 years. She became ill with dementia in the last 10 years of her. She died in the Motion Picture Retirement Hime. At least she had a happy and enduring marriage for over 40 years. Nobody had a career as big as hers.

[quote] All the calls ran to thousands of dollars a month in phone bills.

She should have gotten an unlimited plan.

Liz did not shut the door. She could be seen at the Abbey in her wheelchair up until a year or so before she died.

I guess she wasn't a film star, but she was acclaimed for her stage performances in London and New York, and shut the door ten years ago.

Kate Nelligan

Didn't Mary Pickford shut the door after her film career ended? I think she just stayed in Pickfair and drank? I think the stars who depended to a great extent on their looks like Crawford and Dietrich shut the door when they felt they couldnt maintain the illusion of their looks.

[quote] Didn't Mary Pickford shut the door after her film career ended? I think she just stayed in Pickfair and drank?

You would too if your house were infested with termites!

Mary Astor took up residence in the Motion Picture Home for the last 16 years of her life. Her final film appearance was in 1964, she died in 1987.

James Cagney stayed out of the public eye for many years, until he was coaxed out of retirement to take a small role in the film "Ragtime".

[quote] Was the Helen Lawson stuff ever funny, or fresh?

Actually, yes.

But certainly not in the example above.

Yvette Vickers. Her door was shut, and covered in cobwebs.

[quote]Mary Astor took up residence in the Motion Picture Home for the last 16 years of her life. Her final film appearance was in 1964, she died in 1987.

That last film appearance was as Jewel Mayhew in DL fave "Hush . . . Hush, Sweet Charlotte."

R23 Miss Faye moved to New York City over two years ago.

Hedy Lamarr

R40, are you R4?

Ahem!

"She decided at some point that enough was enough and retired."

Actually, she stopped performing because of a leg injury she sustained when she fell off a stage. Drunk (she was an alcoholic) and encased in a skin tight dress that was like a suit of armor, she wobbled and fell; she later blamed it on some poor conductor, saying he grabbed her hand to shake it and pulled her off the stage. Anyway, that really did it; she was physically not fit to perform anymore. Not wishing to have anyone see her aging, she holed up in her apartment until her death at 90. There's a good documentary about her, "Marlene", directed by Maximilian Schell. He had a hard time making it; at first she allowed him to film her, then changed her mind, so the film only features her voice. But he created an original, affecting documentary from what he had to work with, despite Dietrich's tendency not to cooperate.

Cameron Diaz.

Norma Desmond

Barbara Jean Trenton

Kate Hepburn

Pola Negri

Clara Bow

Veronica Lake

Louise Brooks

Joan Fontaine

Jean Arthur

Ida Lupino

Claudette Colbert

R50, Not really. She was still appearing on Broadway and in a television miniseries right up to the end.

Madge...are you listening ???

Richard Simmons is a good one, apparently he's not just stopped making public appearances, he isn't seeing his friends either.

My guess is that he got fat again, and can't bear to let anyone see him like that.

Marlene Dietrich had circulation problems in her legs for years, and that caused a lot of pain. She drank to cope with it. The pain and circulatory problems forced her to give up smoking, and I've read that when she quit smoking she really became impossible to deal with.

Marlene had really one of the best runs as a entertainer. She didn't embarrass herself often, and she was a genuine class act in WWII. She deserved her bed and gin. Apparently she was on the phone to VIPs around the world, hours a day.

Jean Arthur retired early rebuffing job offers after she filmed “Shane.”

Jean Arthur never made another film after Shane, but she didn’t stop working. She appeared on stage and television through the ‘60s, and had a (short-lived) TV series in 1966. Then she began teaching acting at Vassar (where she saw student Meryl Streep act and called her "a movie star") until she retired at age 73 in 1973.

although not a movie star, The Duchess of Windsors' last years were pitiful

Debra Paget

Yvette Mimieux

Paula Prentiss

Sue Lyon

Carroll Baker

Sandy Dennis became a cat lady

[quote]Was the Helen Lawson stuff ever funny, or fresh?

Was Lawson herself ever funny or fresh?

Yvette Vickers still did conventions shortly before her death. She also corresponded with fans and a few close friends. She seemed to start drinking later in life and started to become mentally unwell and paranoid.

The cobwebs were there because she was dead for several months and no one and been in or out of the house. Still one of the sadder celeb deaths.

ggfc

[quote] ggfc

Golden Girls fuck cluster

Olivia de Havilland

Taylor would have continued being out and about in her last decade if not for the broken back and brain tumor surgery. But yes, even after her health had completely collapsed, she was still out and about on her wheelchair whenever possible.

Dolores Hart

Yes, Liz Taylor didn't completely shut herself away. Her health was bad and her mobility was limited, but she still got out when she could. Greta Garbo went out walking every day and traveled, and had a small circle of friends she socialized with.

Dietrich is probably the ultimate example, still. She was a true recluse for well over a decade, and her last years were quite sad.

Dietrich had visitors.

Very few visitors. Outside of her family, she wouldn't allow old friends to see her.

Liza Minnelli

No photos, Schwein!!!

This article is all over the road. Apparently “becoming a recluse” is a euphemism for “getting old.”

That wasn't Dietrich r72. This photos is Dietrich, taken in her late 80s.

R73, what kind of creature are you?

[quote] Liza Minnelli

Liza Minnelli film star?

R74 looks okay, but that's some pallor.

Whatever did Mary Astor DO for sixteen years at the Motion Picture Home? It seems like a long time to be in assisted living. I am an actor, and I know that The Actors Fund has assisted-living as well as a more hospital-like set up both in their Woodland Hills and New Jersey facilities, but do they have little bungalows for people who are just out of money too?

Whenever an obituary lists Woodland Hills, or Englewood New Jersey as the place of death, that means the actor died at the Motion Picture nursing homes.

Mary took it easy. Smelled the flowers. Watched some soaps. Whipped up a mean lasagna now and then. Looked at her Oscar° Reminisced with Norma Shearer about Clark Gable. She'd earned it.

Marlene told Schell she'd let him show her in his documentary, for a high price. He didn't have the money. It's all in her daughters book. It's great.

[quote]Whatever did Mary Astor DO for sixteen years at the Motion Picture Home?

Indulged in chronic masturbation.

Mary Astor later moved to Fountain Valley, California, where she lived near her son, Tono del Campo (from her third marriage to Mexican film editor Manuel del Campo), and his family, until 1971. That same year, suffering from a chronic heart condition, she moved to a small cottage on the grounds of the Motion Picture & Television Country House, the industry's retirement facility in Woodland Hills, California, where she had a private table when she chose to eat in the resident dining room.

Sometimes she'd call up Bette Davis and they'd reenact the desert sequence from "The Great Lie."

I believe Peg Entwistle closed the door more effectively than most.

Dolores Hart

Have to agree Marlene owns this thread. Getting old, going into a home, a fading career, is not shutting the door. Marlene shut the door went to bed and NEVER fucking got up again. The only people who saw her were her daughter and paid help. As has been said. Read her daughters' book. She didn't get out of bed even to take a dump or piss. If old friends rang the door, she pretended to be the maid on the intercom. The problems with her legs became severe because she refused to seek medical help. No one, absolutely no one could know the goddess was human, getting old and frail. When the illusion could no longer be maintained she shut the door and went to bed. Talk about dedication th the image. Even if it was grim, you have to admire her style, even in this.

Olivia owns this thread now, never seen out,

Lola Falana. After she was diagnosed with MS, she disappeared from Vegas and moved back to Philadelphia.

Brigitte Bardot wins this thread

She didn't quite "shut the door" but Alice Faye walked off a lucrative 20th Century Fox contract at the height of her career in 1945 when she'd simply had enough. She wanted to spend more time with her family and also saw that Zanuck was building up the careers of Betty Grable, Linda Darnell and June Haver. She worked in radio on her husband band leader Phil Harris' show but led a happy private life.

When she broke her contract Zanuck had her blackballed at all the other studios and she didn't return to the screen until 1962 in State Fair.

Matt Lattanzi. Wait, is this the ass thread?

If Richard Simmons qualifies as a classic or modern film star that shut the door, then so do I.

R87 Olivia goes out all the time. She's just a master of disguise. Yesterday I realized that the little mustachioed man from whom I bought a copy of Paris Match was in fact she.

More about Bridgette Bardot, please. Hasn't she become an animal hoarder in her old age?

As for Garbo, she's an example of healthy aging, if anything. If you're single and aging, do like her and manage your money well, see your friends, travel, take long walks, stay interested in the world around you, and play with the elves under the bed. Everyone needs a hobby.

Garbo retired in her mid-30s, was filthy rich for the rest of her life, had a fabulous NYC apartment and did whatever she wanted. That sounds pretty damn good to me.

Kim Novak is being profiled on tomorrow's CBS Sunday Morning.

I don't think I've seen a photo of Jack Nicholson in years, and he was EVERYWHERE.

"play with the elves under the bed. "

But the elves under my bed are dead and I can't reach them.

God it smells in here.

Vera-Ellen, Lucille Bremer

Hasn't Liza Minelli done it now, retreated from public life?

Liza has mostly retreated from public life, but she’s not a recluse. I saw her perform in July 2018 and she’s done a few random appearances since then as well as doing some Instagram posts that had her singing. She’s just in poor health and seemingly confined to a wheelchair now so I get her not being out and about.

I only wish I'd kept the door shut.

I hear that, sister.

Jack Nicholson had a stroke a few years ago and he hasn’t been right since.

America's ex-sweetheart.

Sue Lyon. She gave one interview on French television in 1987 and was never heard from again.

What happened to Jessica Lange? Debra Winger? Meg Ryan?

[quote]What happened to Jessica Lange?

Don't watch a lot of TV, R107?

I was going to mention Kate Nelligan in the Amber Alert thread. She was really talented.

Julianne Phillips, Springsteen’s ex-wife. Had a solid television and modeling career for a while, then nothing.

[quote] No she wasn't. As someone said above, Garbo may have walked away from Hollywood, but she had an active social life with many friends, and spent her days with them, or traveling, or seeing her relatives in Sweden, or just taking long walks through New York where she lived. She wasn't a recluse, she just avoided publicity.

Yes, she was.

"Avoiding publicity" and not doing work anymore is exactly what this thread is about--no star ever shuts themselves up for all time in a house and sees no one. (Mary Pickford, one of the most reclusive of all Hollywood silent stars, still saw people at Pickfair until she went senile.) Even Norma Desmond regularly had her friends from the silent days (whom Joe Gillis calls "the waxworks") over to her house to play cards.

Garbo is the epitome of what the OP is talking about. She did still have a very active social life, but she refused to do any acting or publicity after "a Woman's Face." That's what "shutting the door" means.

One of the most extreme examples of this was the child star Virginia Weidler, who was Little Mary in "The Women" and also famous for "the Philadelphia Story" and "Babes on Broadway" and "Best Foot Forward." She refused to do any interviews after she left Hollywood, and refused to talk about her Hollywood days even with her children. For years they had no idea she was a child star.

Some of these people just stopped getting work. They didn't deliberately "shut the door" - they just stopped being relevant

Maggie McNamara...she walked away at one point, right?

Dolores Hart

Betty Hutton retreated to working in a convent as a kind of housekeeper.

Dolores Hart forsook a busy film career to actually become a nun, and is now mother superior of a convent in Connecticut. Though she seemed to have been pretty reclusive for years, she now gives the occasional interview, and has even maintained her membership in the Screen Actors Guild.

I seem to recall both Greer Garson and Irene Dunne married well and retired to private life. Garson had an uneventful comeback as John Davidson’s mother, in the ill-fated “Happiest Millionaire,” but Dunne apparently had no interest in interviews, let alone a comeback.

Child actor Claude Jarman Jr. retired after he outgrew his film career, and now lives peacefully with a longterm partner in the San Francisco area.

San Francisco was also the home of former action star Kerwin Mathews, who ran an antique shop with his longterm partner for many years.

After Richard Beymer’s film career petered out, he turned to other pursuits. Not so much a retreat as a forced exile.

Did Richard Beymer ever come out?

Norma Shearer...after foolishly turning down the lead in MRS. MINIVER, she made two back to back rom coms that were poorly received, then she decided to retire. Without the sure hand of her husband Irving Thalberg, her career lost its glow. Plus he left her financially well off when he died and she didn’t have to work. Then she married her sexy French ski instructor and lived happily ever after. She still attended Hollywood events and was active in war work. She also discovered Janet Leigh at a ski lodge. But when she quit, she quit.

Bardot turned into a right wing harpy, complaining about Jews, Muslims and African immigrants in France. We’re better off without her. All she has to do now is die. Hurry Brigitte...

Brigitte also made anti-gay comments

Not surprised r121...she is truly the antithesis of the sophisticated and Sensual French woman he handlers made her out to be.

Ann Harding was a major star in the 1930's, nominated for an Oscar for playing a very free thinking female in the original screen version of "Holiday". For the remainder of her leading lady career (mostly at RKO up until 1937), she played extremely noble women and that got tiresome fast. She did some stage, returned to film in 1942 after a bad marriage, and played character parts through the mid 1950's. Other than some TV and a few stage appearances, she was basically done with the limelight. I don't think she did anything acting wise after 1964. In 1971, a film historian contacted her for an interview, and she politely begged to be excused, saying she was content being done with the industry. She passed away pretty much forgotten in 1981 and has only garnered attention because of cable TV and her films being released on VHS and more of them on DVD.

Ann Harding had such a cool, noble beauty.

I think Ann looked like Jeanne Eagels

I think she looks like me, except not as sexy!

Giggle.

Jack Nicholson was in talks to play Bruce Dern's part in Nebraska and then later in a remake of Toni Erdmann but that looks like it won't happen now. Sad his last film will probably be the Reese Witherspoon film How Do You Know

Gene Hackman and Sean Connery

Norma made some very good films after Irving died and she probably would have gotten Philadelphia Story if Kate didn't own the rights. Which is exactly why Kate owned the rights. She knew she wouldn't get the role. She was no longer on top as Norma still was.

Norma had to fight Mayer hard for Irving's financial compensation. She made some important films with Cukor but completely ignored him when they saw each other on the street years later. She also 'discovered' Robert Evans.

Norma was a tad narcissistic, wasn’t she? She had the best facial profile of any other actress onscreen.

I'm really okay with Jack Nicholson shutting the door.... on his career, or to his crypt.

Jack’s ex just wants to be alone.

Jack Nicholson is an odious human being. There used to be photos of him online in blackface...looks as if they were scrubbed. But I’ve seen them. He was allegedly abusive towards Lara Flynn Boyle too.

I'm a big Norma fan but a tad narcissistic is definitely understating it I believe someone a child actress no less overheard her fighting with Mayer and right in front her as Norma was leaving yelling at Louis B I've fucked too many men to get where I am!

Angie Dickinson?

OP - I said NO COMMENT!

I find the Richard Simmons situation heartbreaking. I think he did a lot of good for people and it's sad that maybe there's no one there for him. He's not that old, I hope he pulls out of it.