Who Is The Worst Yet Busiest Old Time Actress/Actor

Walter Brennan

Robert Taylor was a pretty lousy actor and not as pretty as he was deemed to be, at least by contemporary tastes

Glenn Ford -- I guess he was all right as an actor, worked constantly; I didn't get the attraction to him though.

June Allyson -- meh; ok dancer, throaty and distinctive voice, not outstanding in looks, but very popular for quite a while

Charles Ruggles

Van Johnson. Unattractive, hammy, closeted. Yet incredibly popular in his day.

This cross eyed bitch:

Spencer Tracy. Fat, fugly one-note midget.

Bing Crosby - I can't for the life of myself understand what his appeal was during his heyday. I guess his singing voice was "ok". Just a different style and a different time I guess.

i don’t understand how Wallace Beery ever became a star.

Gloria Grahame. She may have won an Oscar but her face barely moves in "Oklahoma!" She worked steadily until the tabloids found out that she was married to Tony Ray, her stepson from her previous marriage to Nicholas Ray (which made her ex-husband also her father-in-law).

Gloria Grahame was great in film noir, usually playing the other woman or some variation of the femme fatale. "Oklahoma!" was not her usual type of role, though I think she nails a lot of the comedy in it.

You couldn't have a Z grade horror movie if John Carradine wasn't in it. He had cameos in every kinky horror film up until even after he died.

Joan Fontaine

Kathryn Grayson -- nowhere near as good Deanna Durbin or Jane Powell. Sinatra apparently said of Grayson that she's the only person who could brighten up a room by leaving it.

Debbie Reynolds, she peaked in 'Singin' in The Rain' and Marni Nixon did most of her vocals in that.

A lot of unfunny "second bananas" stunk up films often because of the old studio system. For instance, Jack Oakie wrecked 8 movies in 1932 alone.

Some of Bob Hope's, Red Skelton's and Jerry Lewis' shtick aren't that funny any more, though they were hugely popular. Jack Benny, and Burns and Allen, though, along with the Marx Brothers, are still terrific!

Lana Turner, an overacting non-actress. Vincente Minnelli somehow knew how to utilize this and make Bad and the Beautiful her finest hour.

Sandra Dee, even when they tailor the part to her (Romanoff and Juliet, The Reluctant Debutante). I waaant my fatha!

Ginger Rogers post-Astaire, especially in drama

vocally: Cyd Charisse, who acted as if she were underwater and spoke English as if she were ESL

Ginny Simms, induces narcolepsy in her audiences

Debbie Reynolds sings for herself in all of Singin in the Rain (Good Morning, All I Do Is Dream of You, her cut solo of You Are My Lucky Star that is an extra on the homevideo versions) except: Jean Hagen dubs her own dialogue, and when Debbie/Kathy is dubbing Lina, that's Betty Noyes, and at the very end in the Lucky Star duet, it's Betty again. It's never Marni.

Van Johnson and Glenn Ford, mentioned above, took me time to appreciate, but now I really like them. They really were among the busiest, in practically every genre. Though I don't think Ford ever did musicals.

Agreed about Ginger...she was a bad dramatic actress. Plus she had rather coarse facial features covered by all that peach fuzz.

Disagree about Ginger. She was excellent at comedy. Love her in Stage Door.

I never saw the appeal of Gary Cooper, Farley Granger or (especially) Robert Cummings.

Ginger's really good in "The Major and The Minor", too. But after about 1950, she became a bit more matronly and ham-handed in her manner and acting though, kind of like a grande dame who just a dame from the neighborhood acting all high-falutin' or something.

Gene Kelly was a fine dancer, but he seemed to be in love with himself-- a narcissistic dancer. Gene Nelson was even more athletic (check out his gymastics in "She's Working Her Way Through College") than Kelly, had a better singing voice and had a more personable personality, and he should have been a bigger star.

Johnny Weissmuller

gymnastics, that is

Here's Gene Nelson being astounding.

Rock Hudson. Incredibly good looking man but not much of an actor.

He was the top box office draw for a few years in the 1950's.

Leslie Caron as a musical ingenue was always inexplicable to me (though I've enjoyed her presence in recent decades as a sophisticated French matron). Charmless, unmusical, and unlovely in her youth.

I've never understood Betty Grable. Was it just her knockout figure? She wasn't even really pretty. And no kind of actress.

So many of the men are negligible talents. I don't really care about Westerns or war movies, anyway, but I can not imagine sitting through an entire John Wayne movie.

John Wayne consistently gave the same meh performance, like Matthew Broderick today in his own same way.

Betty Grable was the girl-next-door with great legs. PRed to death -- insured for a million bucks in the 1940s. She was pretty, not gorgeous, and sang and danced well if not outstandingly (even by her own admission). She also seems genuine and down to earth. So, she was in her own way was a really good package and was marketed as such. She and Rita Hayworth were the 2 most popular pin-up girls of WWII.

I don't want to derail this thread--perhaps we should start another one--but there's the subcategory of Not Worst But Certainly And Consistently Overrated Midcentury Movie Actors:

Elizabeth Taylor

Marlon Brando

Audrey Hepburn

[quote]Ginny Simms, induces narcolepsy in her audiences

She was really mainly a big band singer, not an actress.

I think she was someone's honeybun at MGM who was trying to make her a star. She had a really nice singing voice though, but otherwise not much energy. Lucille Bremer was also someone's squeeze (more than that) and had about 4 or 5 chances at stardom then mostly disappeared.

R27 I never understood the rabid energy around Grable's legs. I know the "gams" appreciation was bigger back when there were fewer skin peeks... of the rest of the body. But even then, her legs were not particular long, nor shapely, cellulite in the upper thighs.... I think it was partly that she represented the idea of hot legs... one man's enthusiasm igniting the next mans.

Betty Grable dances a lot with Gwen Verdon in "Meet Me After the Show," choreography by Jack Cole. Grable entirely holds her own against Verdon. If you want to be critical of Betty Grable, don't start with dancing. In that same film, she even tap dances in wedgies, something I would have thought was impossible to do.

Gwen Verdon and Betty Grable adored one another; Verdon used to teach Grable, Marilyn Monroe, and Jane Russell among others their routines, since she was Jack Cole's assistant. Grable made sure Verdon had billing on screen for their big number, too. Yes, Grable was a very good dancer, a very pleasant singer and personable endearing actress, too. Plus she was pretty. She had a lot going for her which is why she was a big star over a long period.

Rock Hudson got better as an actor, and he was wonderful in comedy, especially opposite Doris Day in their 3 films together.

r33 Not to mention those GAMS!

[quote]I've never understood Betty Grable. Was it just her knockout figure? She wasn't even really pretty. And no kind of actress.

I believe her heyday was during the war years. She was very "sunny American". I used to think her face was a bit on the fug side (by movie star standards), but one writer has pointed out that her more average qualities made her seem even more identifiable with audiences.

She was so fug that her $300,000 per year contract made her the highest paid entertainer in the world in 1947.

That would be roughly $3.5 million per year. That's a lot of fug.

Betty Grable has the grossest story about her. It’s in the book “Did She or Didn’t She?”

Apparently, Tyrone Power stopped dating her because her.... lady smell was making him sick. She went to her gynecologist, who fished an old condom out of her. It had been up there for months, and was what was causing the stench.

#Glamorous

It was the pinup pose that made Betty Grable's "legs" so famous. Turned away from the camera and wearing a bathing suit, Betty's ass is on display in a way that was unusual for a movie star in the '40s, and GIs went bonkers.

They could hardly write about Betty's ass, though, so instead all the PR focused on her legs.

Gloria Grahame? Ginger Rogers? Joan Fontaine? They gave great performances in many movies. Did you just see one of their roles and make your snap judgments?

I'm gonna get yelled at, but Ava Gardner was TERRIBLE in her first few films. She became quite a good actress and I love her, but she's awful in The Killers. Embarrassing.

I know she's beloved, but I never cared for Bette Davis or understood her appeal.

The same with Mae West.

Kim Novak.

Agreed about Kim Novak. She was an awful actress. There is something appealing about her, personally, but even with that on her side... she's not much of an actress. At all.

I feel bad for Kim Novak. She's so obviously trying.

I feel even worse laughing at her efforts, as I did with "The Legend of Lylah Claire"

Una O'Connor!

Yup. That one was no one's best work.

I can't stand threads like this, because of the mononic things people say about stars I like or love.

I think it's had its own thread r47.

It looks like we've all grown tired of the old stars. But of the insufferable I would emphasize Bob Hope (never said one funny thing) and Bing Crosby (phoney who beat his children).

I never liked Danny Kaye.

I liked Kim's performance in Strangers When We Meet. But she didn't have much of a range, no.

Tony Curtis.

Grace Kelly never gave a particularly good or interesting performance. Maybe she was too beautiful?

Jeanne Crain was the weakest link in every movie she made. Her performance in "A Letter to Three Wives" was abominable.

Yet, Darryl Zanuck insisted that Joseph Mankiewicz cast her as Eve Harrington in "All About Eve".

Mankiewicz refused and thankfully Zanuck relented.

R38, what's a condom?

George Brent. Though when you're cast opposite Miss Davis (for instance), your job is to stand there like a block of wood.

R9, It was much more lurid than that. Tony Ray was away at military school when his father Nick married Gloria.

When he came home during the holidays, Tony and Gloria met and sparks flew.

Nick came home to find his wife in bed with his 14-year-old son. He threw Tony out of the house and initiated divorce proceedings.

Years later, Gloria and Tony married, had two sons together and remained man and wife for 14 years.

Helen Lawson.

THREAD CLOSED

R18, If you want to see Ginger at her dramatic worst, check out "Black Widow"(1954).

Angela Lansbury owns this thread. That is, if we want any longer to call her an actress.

She gets it right on occasion, that cannot be denied. But mostly she rolls her eyes and twitches her shoulders and carries on like the worst ham who ever took over the stage in an amateur dramatic society.

Maggie Smith has fallen victim to the same disease. Both have talent. Both have done absolutely first rate work. But both have long ago sold-out and just keep dishing out the same old shit to their fangurls, of which there will be many at Data Lounge. They deliver the same grab bag of tics and shticks over and over and over again.

But at least Smith pretends to do it with a bit of dignity.

Never understood the popularity of George Raft.

Short, not handsome, lousy actor, etc.

Yet, he was once a major star and also managed to score some major quality pussy in his private life.

62 posts and no mention of Mickey Rooney?

Angela Lansbury. Apparently she keeps busy because she's very nice to work with and utterly professional.

Katharine Hepburn

M.

When I told a friend that I thought Kim Novak was effective in "Vertigo", years ago in his best pre-DL manner he replied, "Well, she IS playing a zomibie!"

I just meant that her face was kind of...pudgy and undefined when you compare it to the chiseled looks of most of her contemporaries.

But, she wasn't someone who made it solely on the basis of her looks, like Hedy Lamarr. She had actual skills that audiences enjoyed.

zombie, that is

^^ oh my

That was supposed to be in response to

[quote]Grable was so fug that her $300,000 per year contract made her the highest paid entertainer in the world in 1947. That would be roughly $3.5 million per year.

Celeste Holm and Terry Moore.

John Wayne.... usually bad, but spectacularly terrible in “Reunion in France”

Jane Russell. When Howard Hughes made her a star in THE OUTLAW, it was known as "The Sale of Two Titties."

Bless her, but Jane never had much else going on.

Jane had a good singing voice, at the very least, and she was personable, besides her figure. Plus she was pretty.

Here's Jane Russell's best moment on screen. I always liked her.

It's very gay too.

George Raft is a great example. He was apparently barely literate and rejected great scripts that went to other men on the Warners lot, especially Bogart.

OMG! Those look like bare bums!

Thank you r75

R75...If I didn't know better I would think that scene was directed by Allan Carr.

r29

Ginny singing, with Lucy O'Ball in the background.

r78 It's from Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, the movie with the Marilyn Monroe's Diamonds Are a Girl's Best Friend number. The choreographer was Jack Cole, gay of course.

Jane Russell is great. Give her great material, you get a great performance in return.

R80, Did any DLers see Jane when she replaced Elaine Stritch in the OBP of Company?

I think it was Betty Grable's wise cracking attitude, together with her pretty face and figure that made her a star.

She never pretended to be a big star, but she was funny and unthreatening during the WWII years. Even after - just think of her character of "Loco" in "How to Marry a Millionaire".

Very likeable.

P.S. She was pregnant when that famous pinup picture was taken. She told the photographer when she arrived for the photo shoot, and that's why she was photographed from the rear.

Ginger Rogers was great in Vivacious Lady (with Jimmy Stewart); Tom, Dick, And Harry; Bachelor Mother; The Major And The Minor; and her movies with Fred Astaire. She was also cute and funny in Monkey Business, with Cary Grant. She was also a major sex symbol which maybe some of you fail to appreciate.

In what film or other endeavor do you think Ginger Rogers was a major sex symbol?

[quote]r82 Did any DLers see Jane when she replaced Elaine Stritch in the OBP of Company?

There's some footage of her singing "The Ladies Who Lunch" with Dinah Shore... who has a bit of trouble with the tempo.

I loved going to Ginger’s house. She had a real soda fountain, the works! Also, she could make anything you could name. She knew it all! It really impressed me, of course I was 14 at the time. She gave me my first big break, I’ll never forget her.

[quote] In what film or other endeavor do you think Ginger Rogers was a major sex symbol?

You didn't know that? She was one of the sex symbols of the late-30's and the 40s. Why do you think she was cast in The Major And The Minor as a girl all the cadets go wild for?

I once thought that Gene Nelson would have been a bigger star if he had been at MGM rather than Warners, but I suspect the other Gene (Kelly) would have done anything he could to sabotage that.

Kelly was indeed a huge narcissist. His first big break was originating the title role on Broadway in PAL JOEY. The character is a heel and I doubt he had to do much acting.

It's a tossup between Lana Turner and Kim Novak. Both primarily coasted on their looks and sex appeal, and only gave a couple of watchable performances when teamed with a director who knew how to use their meager talents to good effect.

Turner: POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE & BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL

Novak: PUSHOVER (a thriller with Fred MacMurray) & VERTIGO. I know some here like her in PICNIC and BELL, BOOK & CANDLE, but I find her dull in both.

Since OP says "Pre-1955," I guess Turner wins since the bulk of Novak's career is 1955 and beyond.

Post-1955, I'd say Raquel Welch who was even more inept than Turner or Novak.

R90, Though post-1955, Lana received critical praise for "Peyton Place" and "Madame X".

R90 Henry Willson, Lana's agent, said Lana wasn't an actress. She was a movie star. Truth.

Lana was pretty dreadful in everything she was in, although she did get a little bit better as she got older.

Still, she was the weakest part of "Imitation of Life," playing a young, struggling ingenue at age 38 and romancing 28-year old John Gavin.

I think the best performance she gave was on the witness stand during her daughter's murder trial.

R89, Gene Nelson lived with Maureen Reagan during the 1970s.

R93 Eeewww.

R82 Recall a long-dead friend telling me Jane rented an apartment off 8th Avenue in the Theater District during her run in Company and she would invite fans to ring her downstairs buzzer and come up for drinks. Friend designed "hippy girl" fringed shoulder bags and Jane was a big client of his. So too was "Lanita" Turner.

Jane Russell is the last woman I would imagine to replace Stritch in anything, let alone COMPANY. But she looks good in the publicity stills.

Vivian Blaine replaced Russell. She's a natural for the role. How did they pass over her when Stritch was leaving?

And if Jane Russell was in NYC doing Broadway in 1971, how did Hal Prince not get her into FOLLIES? Perhaps with Yvonne DeCarlo on board, the stage was already filled with former sloe-eyed vamps it could accommodate.

Angela Lansbury acts as though she's trying to win a mugging contest.

John Wayne never acted at all -- he just spoke his memorized lines aloud.

Gene Kelly always seems to be acting as though he were looking in a mirror, adoringly. (I wish someone could explain why Gene Nelson, a far better actor and dancer, never hit the big time like Kelly -- did Kelly have something over him?)

Gene Kelly was a contract star at MGM. MGM protected him and developed him. He made them a LOT of money.

Therefore, there was no room at MGM for Gene Nelson. He had to get what he could at the other studios. And MGM was the top of the line for musical movies.

Ginger Rogers was always bragging about being related to Bennett Cerf. Who does that? Besides her, I mean.

[quote]Who does that?

Rogers never graduated from high school. Be related to a book publisher might feel very validating.

[quote]Gene Kelly was a fine dancer, but he seemed to be in love with himself-- a narcissistic dancer.

As much as I love looking at Gene Kelly and appreciate his skill, by many accounts he was a bit of a snob and had an ego as large as Texas.

R100, Ginger and Phyllis Cerf were cousins. There was no blood relation between Ginger and Bennett.

Ginger wasn't a nice person either - a bit of a right-wing bigot.

Ronald Reagan and Nancy Davis

[quote]r103 Ginger wasn't a nice person either - a bit of a right-wing bigot.

The movie "The Hard Way" (which was on youtube at one time, but disappeared!!) is based on Ginger and her cut-throat stage mom.

They were a pair of bitches.

Rita Horseface Hayworth.

[quote]The movie "The Hard Way" (which was on youtube at one time, but disappeared!!) is based on Ginger and her cut-throat stage mom.

They were a pair of bitches.

One of my favorite Ida Lupino movies. Not surprised who it is based on. Shocked but not surprised.

Stewart Granger, who my grandfather said was ambi-dextuous, if you know what I mean.

R108, It was long rumored that Stewart Granger and Michael Wilding were once lovers.

Ginger's mother, Lela Rogers, appears as her on-screen mother in the last few minutes of "The Major and The Minor". Lela was among the worst of the people during the McCarthy period doing the bullshit looking for Communists under every bed crap.

Gene Nelson at least was a great Will Parker in "Oklahoma!" and had some great co-stars in Doris Day and Jane Powell, on loan from MGM. She and Nelson were actually going to leave their spouses for each other but Nelson changed his mind apparently. Kelly's "Singin' In the Rain" is style and a great number, but nothing compared to some of Gene Nelson's difficult dancing in some of his films. Granted Kelly was really good, but I'd say Donald O'Connor was also better and like Gene Nelson, had a better singing voice and a really even more lovable personality. At least Gene Kelly was a Democrat who protested the McCarthy hearings apparently, along with Bogie and Bacall and others back then.

R107 - if you notice in THE HARD WAY, the characters talk about Ginger Rogers. That's the way a lot of movies and books get around basing a character on a real person - their excuse is: 'How could it be so and so when they're talking about [her]?'

Also, Gene Nelson starred in FOLLIES on Broadway!

I didn't know that, r109. Thanks.

That was my grandfather's comment when I came out to him and my grandmother. He was getting up there and some old Stewart Granger movie was on. It was a positive reaction.

I don't know if Ginger was as hard-line as her mother, but she apparently was a very dutiful daughter and pretty much went along with whatever Momma said.

I read that wardrobe people had to keep a close eye on Ginger Rogers, because she wanted to keep adding things (bows, jewelry, whatever) to her costumes. She had no restraint.

Look at her Oscar dress. It's already an elaborate, layered design on its own, using two types of fabric, and she's piled on a big necklace, flowers in the hair, a mantilla, shiny shoes and purse, a fur... I bet there's heavy bracelets somewhere in there, too!

Dear god.

Was it it Katharine Hepburn who said, about Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, "He gave her class, and she gave him sex?"

R115, the couture of the undeserving.

Fred Astaire also hated some of her costumes, like the elaborate feathers that got in the way during one of their dances and some trimming that actually weighed a lot and actually hit him at times during rehearsals. But they were Astaire AND Rogers, and a big success, so he dealt with it. I don't think he socialized or hung much with Ginger when they weren't doing their films though.

June Alysson. Everything about her irritated me.

R5 you forgot to sign your post "Mrs. Alfred Steele" !!!

I’d never heard of Gene Nelson! Sizemeat verificatia?

May Britt

Gene Nelson, after movie musicals started being made less and less, moved over to directing many tv shows and films and wrote at least one Elvis Presley film. Later on, he went back to the stage as Buddy in FOLLIES. What a wonderful body and arms he had in that gymnastics number! And what a beautiful smile, too.

R101 First person witness report from the 70s.... Kelley was a sleaze ball hook-up... would fuck her, leaving his dirty black socks on the whole time, slap her on the butt "thanks" and leave a $20 on the bedside table, unsolicited.

Victor Mature (or as my Dad referred to him, "Victor Manure") OWNS this thread.

[quote]r124 First person witness report from the 70s.... Kelley was a sleaze ball hook-up... would fuck her, leaving his dirty black socks on the whole time, slap her on the butt "thanks" and leave a $20 on the bedside table, unsolicited.

That little girl was me...

Nancy Cocksucker Davis.

Here's a sweet reunion of Astaire and Rogers at the 1967 Oscars.

COMPANY is a cringey show, they were lucky to get Jane Russell. I bet she livened it up!

Jack Oakie was a wonderful actor, he was very relatable and played characters with a lot of heart! Shame on whoever added the brilliant Charlie Ruggles and Una O'Connor! You people are crazy!

See how lousy Ginger Rogers can be in "Forever Female" (1952), it's an "All About Eve" knock off and it's embarrassing all around! I've never liked Grace Kelly at all, he really just acts snooty and mouths the lines.

Talent or no talent Lana Turner was fun to watch and nothing stops anyone from enjoying her movies even today!

Lana Turner

Does Ernest Borgnine count? I can't stand him.

George Kennedy is equally bad.

But in my opinion John Wayne was the worst famous male actor of pretty much all time.

I was never a fan of Anne Baxter. She's the weakest link in "All About Eve" by a county mile.

Most of the pre-war comedians leave me cold with the exception of the silent era and Laurel & Hardy, who were I think the only silent comic actors who transitioned successfully to sound.

R124 ewww. Didn’t know that he was so tacky.

R129, If you've never seen Lana Turner in "Love Has Many Faces"(1965), check it out.

Filmed in Acapulco, the cast includes Lana in lavish Edith Head designs, Cliff Robertson, Stefanie Powers, Ruth Roman, Virginia Grey and hunky Hugh O'Brian as a gigolo who appears in a variety of SPEEDOs that display his bulging package.

R113 What do you mean "It was a positive reaction".

Third-hand gossip and second-hand wishful thinking is no substitute for facts.

This ancient tattle-tale might gain a shred of credibility if one was given a date or a location to this alleged scuttlebutt.

Van Heflin

Loretta Young

Rex Harrison

Another vote for Lana Turner. The weirdest thing about her is that her whole career was based on her looks and she wasn't even that beautiful. Take the glam 1940s make-up and hair away and you're left with some very plain facial features. But she photographed well, I guess, gotta give her that.

Victor Mature wasn't a bad actor--he was limited one. He knew what he could do, and he did it effectively enough, without trying to do more. He never "overacted." I like him in the noirs he made at Fox in 40s.

Lucy O'Ball was in every other B movie along with Ann Sothern who was in the B movies, Lucy wasn't.

R137 Lana got famous for her tits before her face. Her first movie, "They Won't Forget," was essentially a cameo where she walked down the street in a tight sweater showing off her bouncing bosom.

That's where she got the nickname of "the sweater girl."

R137, There's nothing distinguishing about Lana's face. If you look at photos of her taken over time, it's not always easy to identify her.

[quote] [R129], If you've never seen Lana Turner in "Love Has Many Faces"(1965), check it out.

I have. It's a ton of fun, but she still can't act to save her life.

And Lana's career was not based on her face: it was based on her breasts.

R142, see R140.

Thinking of Lana Turner and how bloated she became, brought me to remember "Portrait in Black" an enjoyable stinker with Anthony Quinn. He's another candidate for this list.

I agree that Ginger Rogers became an inanimate lump onscreen at some point after 1950, but she is rarely credited for her strengths during her best years. Film critic Andrew Sarris wrote a famous essay decades ago reclaiming her as one of the Golden Era's unsung heroes .

Ginger could do it all: musicals, comedy, drama. She is one of the best things about STAGE DOOR, the much needed antidote to an insufferbly mannered Katherine Hepburn. She is bright and funny as part of the ensemble in 42nd STREET, one of her first big roles, and GOLD DIGGERS OF 1933. See also ROXIE HART, KITTY FOYLE (her Oscar win)... her career was much bigger and more substantial than just co-starring with Fred Astaire. And of those, SWING TIME and TOP HAT are for the ages.

On the subject of Astaire: Rogers did better than hold her own against him, consistently. Astaire was notoriously unkind to his dance partners (his favorite was the largely unknown and much, much younger Barrie Chase from his TV specials). Even Judy Garland disliked working with him. He was a brilliant dancer and a perfectionist who had regrettably little regard for sharing the screen.

Yes, Rogers was a right-winger, and her mother was a piece of work. But as a conservative Republican, she was in good company along with James Cagney, Loretta Young, James Stewart, Gary Cooper, Barbara Stanwyck, Clark Gable, and dozens of other celebrated names.

I don't think I've heard of stories of people disliking Astaire or working with him. He was tough and a perfectionist in his work, but he was that way first and foremost with himself.

Hi

Just stopping by to link this superb piece on Ginger.

Ginger Rogers was great at screwball comedy. She shows what a gifted mimic she is in "The Major and the Minor" where she's hilarious--she does spot on imitations of other characters in the film at one point or another in it (including Rita Johnson and her own mother, Leela Rogers). She's also very funny in "Tom, Dick, and Harry" and "Bachelor Mother."

[quote]"Love Has Many Faces"

But the mirror only has two.

[quote] She's also very funny in "Tom, Dick, and Harry" and "Bachelor Mother."

Both of those were remade as musicals: the first with Jane Powell and DL fave Kaye Ballard; the second with Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher.

It's almost time for you to come tell me again that I'm pretty, James.

You don't want to forget again, ever. Do you?

Mickey Rooney

Kim Novak and Ruby Keeler own this thread.

I loved Ginger in a homefront war movie Tender Comrade, written by Dalton Trumbo and directed by Edward Dmytryk, made in 1943 about a disparate group of women who rent a boardinghouse together and pitch in to help each other.

Later during the McCarthy Commie Witch Hunt in the 50s it was revealed that Trumbo and Dmytryk had included Communist ideals about the working class sharing the load. Ginger hit the ceiling when she found out and said she would never had done the picture if she had known that.

Although she was a not very bright, she still was very good in the movie.

But she really was a tiresome woman.

People doing "Hello, Dolly!" with Ginger on sites devoted to that show have mentioned they didn't really enjoy doing the show with her as much as they did with other Dollys during the original Broadway run.

Mickey Rooney was actually very good in "The Human Comedy" and could be fine when a strong director reined him in. But he is something of an acquired taste for when he was just allowed to do his thing.

Started to watch "The Owl and The Pussycat" last night with Streisand and George Segal, but was kind of turned off that her character let loose with a lot of homophobic slurs against him. I saw it years ago and mainly remember it was a lot of arguing with her character yelling a lot. I turned it out after 10 minutes of streaming. Does it get any better if I should continue watching the rest when I'm don't mind so much yelling?

[quote]Another vote for Lana Turner. The weirdest thing about her is that her whole career was based on her looks and she wasn't even that beautiful. Take the glam 1940s make-up and hair away and you're left with some very plain facial features. But she photographed well, I guess, gotta give her that.

And her body, over than her breasts, was nothing to write home about, with her short neck and flat behind. But she was taught very well by MGM on how to project, which hid her acting deficiencies. But I thought that she was good in films like GREEN DOLPHIN STREET and PEYTON PLACE. Most of her other stuff is not that memorable, save for IMITATION OF LIFE.

R136 Yes, Loretta Young. When I was little, my mother and grandmother never missed her tv show. I thought she was just so strange making her entrance always wearing a long flowing garment. I also thought her face was weird, she scared me.

Loretta Young was actually quite good.

If you ever see the screen tests Selznick made for the lead role in "Rebecca" (which are on the Criterion edition of the film), Young's is actually the most moving of all them women who tried out for the role--she's more affecting than Vivien Leigh, Anne Baxter, Margaret Sullavan, and even Joan Fontaine. I'm sure the problem with casting Young for that role was she was too beautiful to be believable as a dowdy young wife.

The horrid Anne Baxter, who may have gotten an Oscar and denied Bette Davis a third but couldn't convey a convincing human emotion. Any of them.

Well, except egotistical smugness.

But that's less of an emotion than a personality flaw.

Ginger Rogers proved that some people over time lose the ability to act well.

She was wonderful when young, but she sure went sour and crazy as she aged. And, boy, did she age.

Elizabeth Taylor.

Get real. She couldn't actually act. She learned how to use her three tricks to stomp and simmer and occasionally simper, but that woman couldn't act.

I enjoyed her sometimes as a performer, but she equated acting with looking slovenly or sublime, imitating on film the earlier performers of her roles on stage or earlier movies, or trying to "be her authentic self" - meaning imitating her own crazed (like pottery) persona. Her short and big-fitted frame was limited in its ability to convey much range, and her voice was consistently like a kookaburra with sinus problems.

But busy she was. And for years bigger than anyone.

I never watch Liz Taylor films for her acting; I just can't get over how obscenely beautiful she was. ELEPHANT WALK, THE LAST TIME I SAW PARIS, RHAPSODY, CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF even BUTTERFIELD 8, which was straight up trash. I cannot take my eyes off of her face.

When Ginger stopped dancing, she really put on the weight and got really thick, making her already coarse facial features even worse.

Jimmy Stewart.

He starred in a wide range of movie genres, but his acting range was always narrow. He was pretty much always the same - he came across as a querulous old man, even when he was young. When his characters aren't sounding like exasperated old men, you're bracing yourself for when they do start sounding like that, because you know it's coming. Plus, he looked and sounded like a bumpkin.

I can't stand Jimmy Stewart. The main reason to watch REAR WINDOW is to see Grace Kelly and Thelma Ritter walk off with the picture.

I can't stand Jimmy Stewart. The main reason to watch REAR WINDOW is to see Grace Kelly and Thelma Ritter walk off with the picture.

r156 There's nothing wrong with homophobic slurs if they're used for comedic effect.

R162 R163 Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolfe? a huge, huge, broadly gestured and loud performance... but some of the best acting of the 20th century.

^ Woolf (no 'e')

R169 No, that's the English writer... the ones with stones in her pockets.

This was the wife of an accountant in White Plains.

She placed stones in her pockets because she wanted to be successful in everything she attempted.

She was a successful writer who lived on her success.

Jerry Lewis

Jimmy Stewart wrecks Vertigo and Rear Window for me. He is never successful at conveying anything but the person he did eventually become - the kindly, mild-mannered old duffer with an IQ hovering somewhere around his sock size.

Stewart is good in "The Shop Around the Corner" and I'll give him "Harvey", too. Can't stand his yelling like a girl in the overrated and rather mostly not uplifting "It's A Wonderful Life". I guess he's fine in his Oscar-winning role in "Philadelphia Story" and also "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" he's effective. But after about 1943, anything requiring sexual tension or leading man charisma, he's kind of a wuss, though he's reasonably good playing the father and husband to Doris Day in "The Man Who Knew Too Much" since that doesn't really deal with his character having to have any sex appeal, unlike "Vertigo" or "Rear Window".

Lana Turner was the embodiment of the All-American milkmaid look that Louis B. Mayer and the other studio moguls favored. Judy Garland was madly jealous of Lana, though Judy had more talent in her pinky toe than there would have been in 5 Lanas. But Judy didn't have the right look, and MGM punished her for it throughout her years there.

Young Lana was incredibly pretty. Give her modern hair and make-up and she'd still be a knockout. Of course, a modern agent would make her lose about 20 pounds.

I'm glad that dumb Lana Turner got sick while making the 'The Sound And The Fury' in 1959.

It allowed the wonderfully skilful actress Margaret Leighton to replace her.

Tony Curtis was an excellent actor.

Helen Lawson was a superb actress. She deserved the 1958 Best Actress Oscar for 'Who Will Stop the Rain?' as much as Susan Hayward.

How did she get along with King Kong?

[quote] How did she get along with King Kong?

There was some tension between the two. King Kong allegedly said, 'And they say I'M an animal!'

[quote]I can't stand Jimmy Stewart. The main reason to watch REAR WINDOW is to see Grace Kelly and Thelma Ritter walk off with the picture.

Agreed. There is no way someone like Grace Kelly, in real life or in the confines of that picture would give two shits about someone like Stewart.

r163 The reason why Ginger Rogers aged so badly compared to some of her peers was that she refused to have any kind of plastic surgery because she was a devoted Christian Scientist.

Still she managed to look pretty good well into her 50s because she was an exercise enthusiast long before it was fashionable. The weight gain is was done her in when she reached her 60s.

Here's Ginger in 1969 at age 58

Ginger's face was looking bloated by the '40s even though she still had a good body.

Tony Curtis got better after being pretty lousy in his first few pictures. Then he was truly excellent in "Sweet Smell of Success" and "The Defiant Ones", among others.

Ginger's later in life weight gain was due to illness and medication.

By the time she was promoting her autobiography, she was immobile and her legs were as thick as telephone poles.

Can’t believe no one here has mentioned Joan Crawford. Little more than a robot, repeating memorized facial expressions and vocalisms, not to mention often slapping people onscreen, certainly more than anyone else.

I met a troubled hot guy years ago, who took me home, but, before we got to fucking, he kept showing me video clips of Crawford films, insisting that her performances were nothing more than a series of memorized mannerisms, repeated from film to film. Like I cared.

I said he was troubled.

I was charmed by how well Ginger spoke French.

R187, At least he was hot.

Joan Crawford could be excellent in parts that played up her innate sexiness and steeliness: Grand Hotel, Mildred Pierce, The Women, etc. In other types of roles she floundered.

r187 How big was this troubled guy's dick?

I saw Ginger on "The Love Boat" yesterday ... TONS of very obvious makeup and that awful long blonde hair, which just looks tacky on older women. Her love interest in the episode was Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., whose makeup looked like it had been done by a mortician. (He looks OK in this picture, but in the actual episode he had disturbingly red lips and a very unhealthy skin tone.)

Bette Davis

Jesus she made a bunch of movies in the thirties and forties

Ruined them all with her bug eyed cicada routine

[R191]: He had a good-sized cock, as well as a muscular, hairy chest. Said he’d been a cop, but was kicked off the SWAT team for being gay.

But it wasn’t his cock that I wanted, but his tight hole, with those legs up on my shoulders. “Bet you always wanted to fuck a cop,” he’d growl, staring at me intently.

Yep!

Sometimes when no one is looking I spit in my sister's chocolate milk.

r194 = Joan Crawford

Only on the DL could a discussion of old timey actors turn into a "Let's bash Ginger Rogers" thread.

The Love Boat was the only tv show where you would find a love triangle featuring Ginger Rogers, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and Helen Hayes.

[quote] I guess he's fine in his Oscar-winning role in "Philadelphia Story"

No way!!! It was a supporting role. 1940 was the year of the great robberies. The main victims being Joan Fontaine, Katharine Hepburn and Stewart's victim, Henry Fonda.

Reta Shaw

Reta Shaw stole scenes from Scruffy the dog (and sometimes Charles Nelson Reilly) on "The Ghost and Mrs. Muri"! Plus she could sing and dance well with Eddie Foy, Jr. in "The Pajama Game".

Muir, that is.

I'm sure Reta Shaw was less vulgar than Rita Webb

If you come for Reta Shaw you better be ready to come for me because I will TAKE YOU DOWN!

Hinsie? HINSIE!

June Allyson ruined every movie she was in. I cannot stand hearing her voice. I would've liked to slap her and order her to stop talking like that.

Randolph Scott

June Allyson had chronic bronchitis but I loved her voice. Sounded a lot like Margaret Sullavan.

[quote]I wish someone could explain why Gene Nelson, a far better actor and dancer, never hit the big time like Kelly -- did Kelly have something over him?)

I read stuff that's negative about Gene Kelly a lot more lately. He was very popular for years, I don't get why people now think he seemed vain or full of himself? He seemed like a regular guy, regular working class type of guy which is what he usually played. He was self-deprecating on screen (and off, at least publicly) so I don't get it. Have you seen him in a lot of things or are you basing it off one or two things? Is his reputation as a tough taskmaster as a choreographer and director coloring your opinion of his work?

Gene Nelson was hardly a far better actor than Gene Kelly. They were different types of dancers. I heard Gene Kelly praise him on occasion. Kelly had more sex appeal and star quality than Nelson, though. Also, Nelson couldn't really sing.

Gene Kelly was an Irish exhibitionist. He went to great effort to expose the line of his penis and drape of his buttocks.

R209, His ego was in high gear on this 1966 Merv Griffin Show appearance.

Gene Kelly was also at a better studio (MGM), won more awards, and was more than just a performer. He was a director-choreographer.

Watch the end of the "Good Morning" dance from SINGIN' IN THE RAIN - as they fall Gene Kelly jams his elbow into Debbie Reynolds' breasts hard!

He wasn't a nice man.

And that ASS....

Sigh.

Does anyone know if there was friction between Gene Kelly and Streisand when he directed "Hello, Dolly!"?

Gene Kelly ruined Xanadu

Another favorite Betty Grable story, during the making of FOOTLIGHT SERENADE (1942) with Phil Silvers and directed by Gregory Ratoff. As Silvers recalled, Ratoff’s thick Transylvanian-gypsy accent caused much amusement when he was instructing Grable how to play up to Mature’s character to secure a part in the show: “You arr chrruss girrl and he ees beeg star from price fighting, but now in show, you want to make heem think he’s terrific. You want to play up to heem. You want to suck heem.” What he meant was to flatter him, by sucking up to him, but when everyone of the set broke up laughing Ratoff innocently inquired “What did I sayed?” Grable never let him forget it, for in subsequent scenes before the camera rolled, she would lean toward Mature’s belt , get on her knees and ask, “I do it now?”

I love Gene Nelson also and also think he is very underrated. He had a really interesting career, went from skating with Sonja Henie in her live ice shows and partnering her in at least one of her 1930s Fox movies (and fucking her offstage) to going into "This Is The Army" on Broadway while in the service, signing with Fox i the late '40s as a chorus boy and sometime actor (he has bits in GENTLEMEN'S AGREEMENT and MIRACLE ON 34th STREET) then going to Warners. ...then going into directing ...the the film of OKLAHOMA! then.......FOLLIES!

But Kelly had a dark, brooding black Irish presence that was compelling and very different from the gummy cheerfulness of George Murphy or the all-American blond wholesomeness of Gene Nelson. Kelly also had a broad, muscular beefy body compared to Nelsons slender and lean solid muscle. He was more sexual than Nelson - though Nelson could be sexy as fuck had his super furry hot chest not been shaved in his musicals (it's beautifully on view in Warner's CRIME WAVE, where he is really good) -to be fair Kelly's chest was shaved as well. I would have loved to have seen Nelson work with Jack Cole at Fox or with anybody at MGM. I have no doubt that Kelly, who was very much a jock and super-competitive would have been unnerved by Nelson's superior abilities. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I do not believe there are any clips of Nelson in THAT'S DANCING, which Kelly was very much involved with.

tom fuking hanks.....

YUK

You want to see a truly lousy unifunny "comedian". Check out El Brendel.

Of all musical stars, the one whose popularity and success eludes me is June Haver, Fox's completely bland, second-string Grable. Her voice makes Grable loud like Garland in comparison, and her dancing talents were only refined in one of her last musicals, the dull THE DAUGHTER OF ROSIE O'GRADY at Warners where she trained with (and was fucked by) Gene Nelson. Bosley Crowther described her a "Blonde inconsequence in a shimmering void". Yet all her musicals were in Technicolor and all made money...and after a failed stint in a convent (One Fox wag thought her comeback movie should be titled "SECOND TO NUN") she married millionaire Fred MacMurray and retired - so she did alright.

She was the one co-star Betty Grable could not stand. Haver was outwardly a smug, moralistic Catholic who was getting regularly fucked by producer George Jessel and studio-head Zanuck while making THE DOLLY SISTERS with Grable . Cracked Betty "She arrives on-set with a Bible in one hand and condoms in the other."

Some queen should start a Betty Grable thread.

Seriously. The anecdotes about her are more entertaining than her movies.

r188 And how well she sang "La Marseillaise"?

r206 If you can find and view "The Shrike," give ol' June another chance. She is cast very much against type. She is also good as William Holden's wife in "Executive Suite."

Slightly off-topic: Start preparing, my friends, Labor Day will be here before you know it, and that means the annual showing of the film "Picnic"(one of my faves) and all the sturm und drang here, discussing what an execrable/outstanding movie it is. You have been alerted AND warned.

June's late career melodramas are also worth a look. I don't care for Strategic Air Command, The McConnell Story or The Stratton Story where she's in typical for that time woman on the sidelines roles. The Glenn Miller Story certainly gave her a hit film when she needed it. But she's fine when she plays her age.

She's too old for all those musical remakes: The Opposite Sex (one of her ballads is dubbed, so odd after listening to her particular laryngitic singing all these years), You Can't Run Away From It (I do like some of the songs) and My Man Godfrey.

The trio of late career melos some DLers might enjoy (as rainy day movies, not important cinematic accomplishments): Stranger in My Arms, Interlude, and The Shrike.

There's also the DL must Woman's World, a prototypical mid-1950s CinemaScope 20th Century Fox women's picture if there ever was one. It stars Clifton Webb, Lauren Bacall, and Arlene Dahl.

Executive Suite, which Junebug made right before WW and which is based on an excellent novel, has basically the same plot as Woman's World (who's going to take over the company now that the CEO has died?). ES has the better cast; WW has color and CinemaScope and a lighter tone.

It should also be noted that though MGM may have intended them to be rivals, Allyson always, always spoke lovingly and admiringly of Judy Garland.

Mary Pickford was playing little girls in her thirties.

Good News is one of the best movie musicals ever made and it couldn't have been if June hadn't been charming in it. Also she's terrific in her numbers in TTCRB.

Gene K had a star presence on screen which GN did not. Also GN came along later when movie musicals were losing steam. Kelly's career was petering out at the same time. He made his last hit musical in '52 while the older Astaire had a few good musicals left up his sleeve.

I like Allyson in BEST FOOT FORWARD a lot - a fun little MGM musical and (I think) Lucille Ball's first film for the studio. And "The Three 'B's" with June, Gloria deHaven and Nancy Walker (with Harry James and his Music Makers) is one of the Greatest Musicals numbers in any MGM film, not for its staging, but the way it's socked over.

R6 I strongly disagree about Spencer Tracy. He had a long career of good to great performances. He was the last person I expected to be mentioned here.

R226 Tracy was amaaaaazing in Bad Day at Black Rock. Such a great movie overall.

I really liked Spencer Tracy until I read that he had an affair with 15-year-old Judy Garland. Ick.

June Allyson, Walter Brennan, Thelma Ritter all pretty much played the same character in their movies. But at least Ritter was likable and something of a scene stealer. She'd get the best lines and she'd run with them.

R229, Eve Arden always played the wisecracking best friend in films.

r230 ..... and did it exceedingly well. She could always be relied on for good, witty banter and a softened archness. Never spiteful or mean, no air of film noir about her, even in a potboiler like "Mildred Pierce."

Van Johnson

Ava Gardner was a terrible actress. Even in movies where she was playing the earthy rough woman she was known to be, she never really pulls it off, like in MOGAMBO or NIGHT OF THE IGUANA . The only times she's good is when she's playing someone not called to emote much, like as herself in THE BANDWAGON.

Definitely Walter Brennan.

R233 I thought she was wonderful in Mogambo. And The Hucksters, The Snows Of Kilimanjaro. Not saying she was the greatest actress who ever lived, but she was good in a lot of things. She was very good in On The Beach, for one.

Ava was just sensational in her big breakthrough, THE KILLERS (46). I can't think of a bad performance she ever gave. But:

She was 53 in PERMISSION TO KILL (75), purportedly the mother of an 8 year-old with hot Bekim Fehmiu (14 years younger). It's on YouTube. Worth watching for Timothy Dalton playing a gay, bitchy Foreign Office diplomat, set up for blackmail by purportedly straight bitchy MI6 agent Dirk Bogarde.

Eleanor Parker was extremely successful (loved her in TSOM) but she was a TERRIBLE actress, wooden and posturing.

Henry Fonda. Yawn.

That girl who played Blossom is old and bad.

Norma Shearer maybe? Her mannerisms were straight from the silent era. Played to the cheap seats.

R238, you are dead on. NEVER saw the appeal of Fonda ever.

R238, you are dead on. NEVER saw the appeal of Fonda ever.

Give me Fonda over his BFF Jimmy Stewart any day.

R228 I thought Spencer Tracy was supposed to be GAY.

R244, Not buying our great love affair, huh?

Jane Russell had a ginormous head. She should never have worn blonde wigs. Blonde makes her massive dome look even bigger.

I think that June Allyson has been mentioned; maybe even by me already. I'm in my fifties now, so I'm allowed.

AND GET OFF OF MY LAWN!!!!

He's pretty much forgotten these days, but Paul Douglas was in a ton of films from the early to mid-1950s and I can't decide if he was a decent or terrible actor. Something about him annoys me when he's in a film!!

I agree with Joan Crawford at R5. Shearer was pretty, and did okay in comedy, but talent-wise, she was nowhere near deserving of her position, popularity,, and all of the acclaim. Even if she WAS fucking/married to Irving Thalberg.

R14 Betty Noyes, not Marni Nixon, dubbed Debbie R. in Singin'.

R247, Paul Douglas was cast in "The Apartment", but suffered a heart attack and died shortly before filming was to begin.

Billy Wilder replaced him with Fred MacMurray.

I can't believe the dislike here for Walter Brennan as an actor. Granted, he was allegedly a racist and probably not very likeable but he could play good and bad with equal relish and effectiveness, and was sometimes unrecognizable from one role to the next. It's no coincidence he won 3 Oscars.

R251 He wasn't "allegedly" a racist, he WAS a racist. There's a difference.

237 Eleanor Parker was sometimes bad when she overacted, but she wasn't untalented. She was really great in Detective Story (1950) with Kirk Douglas, I would watch that movie just for her performance. William Wyler who directed it obviously liked her enough to cast her again, in TSOM (he was the original director). She was also very good (and natural) in A Hole In The Head, with Frank Sinatra, directed by Frank Capra.

I don't get guys who say they 'never saw the appeal of Fonda? ' You don't even think he was handsome? Anyhow I think he was brilliant. I'll never forget that long monologue he had in Drums Along The Mohawk after running for miles to deliver a message from the fort. Or his performances in The Grapes Of Wrath, The Ox-Bow Incident, Mister Roberts, Daisy Kenyon, and On Golden Pond. But that's just me.

R253, Oscar nominated for "Caged" and rightly so.

R254, he always gave the same performance in every film. Just because the films were good, he got a pass for his boring acting.

R256, He was plywood on two feet.

Katharine Hepburn. The woman couldn’t simulate human emotion with any believability and she had zero sensuality. She came to prominence because she was freakishly original and writers and directors wanted to work with that.

Minnie Mouse

But for a brief moment, Kate Hepburn was stunning before her fair skin started prematurely aging. And while she has given some good performances, I don't believe that she was as talented as SHE thought she was.