Let's discuss the film Come Back, Little Sheba

Creeps the shit out of me and I want to pound her until she shuts the fuck up.

It’s pretty remarkable that Shirley Booth, a theater actress appearing in her first film in her fifties, won an Oscar for this performance. Would never happen today.

I do think she was a bit too broad at times, and she and Lancaster are completely disconnected—they don’t even share a thread of mutual embarrassment, which is what the script supplies, and it’s hard to believe Lola as the beauty queen she was supposed to have been in high school.

Susan Hayward or Bette Davis should have won the Oscar.

R3. What, for lip-syncing Jane Froman’s Singing or playing s version of Crawford? No, they got it right that time—BRW, Davis was considered for Booth’s role. I can’t remember whether she decided Booth could not be equaled (and, hence, comparisons would not be flattering) or whether the studio thought the draw would be seeing the original stage star. I do think Lancaster is just not well-cast—and I DO think he was a consistently good actor,

I’ve never seen a version of CBLS that equaled the 52 film. The TV version with Woodward and Oluvier was just unmemorable—Woodward was okay, but do bland it was difficult to imagine Doc being so taken with her when she was young. Olivier just didn’t do American characters convincingly. The Broadway revival a few years ago was touching. I love S. Epaths Merkerson and she deservedly got a Tony nomination, but her Lola was subdued and seemed like a nice neighbor lady more than the somewhat garish desperately lonely woman of the script. But she was touching. Kevin Anderson was s decent Dic. They didn’t do anything to foreground the interracial marriage, though I read an interview with Merkerson in which she said the actors and director developed s backstory where the cross race taboos of the time added to the isolation of the couple. Whatever worked for them, I guess, but it seems unnecessary. The play is now canonical enough in American drama that we can just see an actress of talent and craft playing an iconic role and not worry about her race. I thought of her as Lola, not “black Lola.” Not “I don’t see race,” just that it wasn’t important. Hers was s performance worth seeing, so why should race be an obstacle.

Booth was still the best. Wasn’t there an I’ll-fates musical with Kaye Ballard that didn’t make it to Broadway?

[R4] Bette was actually offered the role and turned it down, which she later stated was one of the great mistakes of her career. She didn’t think she could pull off the “gorgeous vagueness” Booth brought to the role and also had reservations about playing a “defeated woman.” Her instincts were probably right despite her regrets.

Was never considered good. Dreary, sentimental, obvious. That doesn't mean it wasn't popular. And that damn dog! UGH!

Shirley Booth is the essence of all those dreamy, slatternly, gabby, sentimental women who move one to pity by their harmlessness and to disgust with their vacuity.

Richard Jaeckel got my attention as a young gayling.

They cast Burt because they needed a box office name. He's so miscast and that's a drawback of the film.

Davis would've been worse than Booth. I doubt anyone seriously considered her for the role.

Booth owns that role, r10. And Bette would have been as miscast in it as she was in Catered Affair.

R3 The Oscar should have gone to Julie Harris for The Member of the Wedding. Incredibly, Harris was 26 when she played Frankie who is 12 or 14!

Bette Davis was offered the role. And I thought she was wonderful in The Catered Affair.

Booths performance is generally considered right near the top of all best actress wins. Right up there with Leigh GWTW and Fonda for Klute. She really inhabits this character and never strikes a false note. It’s interesting that her film career was so sleight. She was primarily a theater actress, but conquered all three mediums with multiple Tony and Emmy wins also. Big fan.

You're certainly entitled to your opinion, r13, and she certainly has some nice moments. I still think she was miscast. The role was such an average woman and was better served by Thelma Ritter.

I think it is pretty much a given had Booth not been nominated/won than the Oscar would easily have gone to Crawford for SF.

Dear god those violins. Those old movies felt like they had to tell you what emotion to feel.

Saw a B’way revival some years ago, with S. Epatha Merkerson, who was excellent. The scene on the phone stays with me. This production had the added benefit of Brian J. Smith, shirtless.

[R16] Crawford is sensational in Sudden Fear - a master class in screen acting.

Lola, as written, is rather clueless and not very bright, actually even a bit insensitive and self-indulgent. A good person but careless and unmotivated. I saw the revival with S. Epatha Merkerson and just felt she was miscast. She came off as too intelligent and self-aware, I never believed her vulnerability or that she couldn't take of herself and Doc. I remember thinking the kitchen and her costumes were all too clean and tidy. Kevin Anderson just didn't register for me. Zoe Kazan as the young boarder was too nerdy with no sex appeal. Dull direction! The brilliance of Shirley's performance is the total lack of vanity in playing a foolish and unlikeable character.

I think this play would have been far more interesting had it been cast with black actors in the leads and as the neighbors. I wonder if that might have helped Epatha's performance.

I remember Joanne Woodward in the TV version. Very dull, as a poster upthread says. What happened to her? She was such an interesting actress when she was young in 3 Faces of Eve, No Down Payment and The Long Hot Summer. She became so very dreary to watch.

I never found Woodward a particularly compelling actress.

I thought Shirley Booth was perfect as the slatternly, slovenly, sagging Lola. But I couldn't believe that in her youth she was so attractive that Doc couldn't keep his hands off her and got her pregnant. She said he told her "I was the prettiest girl you ever saw!" but that seems ridiculous coming from Shirley Booth. Shirley Booth was never pretty. Is the audience supposed to believe she was a knock out when she was young and only became plain when she got middle aged? How could Shirley Booth have ever been considered sexually attractive?

As for Burt Lancaster he was totally miscast. He looked younger than Booth and was too good looking for the role of the aging, alcoholic, defeated Doc.

No one considers this one of the best Best Actress wins

R23 untrue. It was a very popular win. Booth won everything in sight for it right up to the Oscar. If you look at her win on YouTube the audience loved her.

Amazing. Thanks r24

Amazing that Terry Moore is still in films after over 80 years in the business.

What an incredible career r26.

I didn't even realize she was still alive

Ok- what ARE the best Oscar winning performances. Sorry to hijack the thread...xxx

It may have been unbelievable that Shirley Booth as Lola was a beauty in her youth, but I don't find it difficult to see that she was once a quite cute and adorable teenager who could have seduced the young Doc. Just take a look at that sweet face in her Oscar acceptance clip at r24. Lancaster is the one who miscast and makes them seem an improbable couple.

My favorite performance of Booth's was as Dolly Levi in the 1958 film of The Matchmaker. She's a perfect depiction of Thornton Wilder's conception of the character as "a woman of indeterminate age and impoverished elegance." It's a fun smart film with a spectacular cast including the inimitable Paul Ford, adorable Tony Perkins and Robert Morse and a very well-cast and unaffected young Shirley MacLaine. I saw it as a little kid in its original release, promptly forgot it, and then years later saw Hello, Dolly! on Broadway with Pearl Bailey and thought to myself....hmmmm, this all seems very familiar!

Doc told Lola she was pretty to get into her pants and then they *had* to get married. That's why he resents her.

The Matchmaker...

R24, that doesn't mean it's considered one of the best Oscar wins in 2021

A friend of mine briefly dated Shirley Booth’s gynecologist, who had the distinction of prnouncingvher dead. Fame, thou glittering bauble!

R28

James Coburn Affliction, George Sanders All About Eve, Joe Pesci Goodfellas, Forest Whitaker The Last King of Scotland, Olivia De Haviland The Heiress, Ingrid Bergman Gaslight, Marlon Brando On the Waterfront, Vivian Leigh A Streetcar Named Desire, Bette Davis Jezebel, Timothy Hutton Ordinary People

R24 most film scholars and critics would put Booth in their top 10 if not top 5. I believe I think a good top 10 most would get behind are Booth, Fonda in Klute, ODH in the Heiress, Leigh in Streetcar and GWTW, Anna Magnani in the Rose Tattoo, Ingrid Bergman in Gaslight, Maggie Smith in TPOMJB, Sally Field in Norma Rae, and Sissy Spacek in CMD.

^^ And Faye in N

Don't forget BS in FG, BD in J, KH in TLIW, ST for ITH and LO for H.

The film is somewhat typical of it's time---the US equivalent of "kitchen sink" drama, which had less social commentary than it's British counterpart. Paddy Chayevsky, who knew how to do kitchen sink, would have been a better choice to adapt it than the guy who it.

If your high school homecoming queen (like mine) was no Einstein, attractive, but not the prettiest girl in school and she blew up like a balloon by the 10 year reunion than Booth as the character makes sense---our queen married a football player who also blew-up a bit but carried it better. and kept some semblance of his looks. Theirs became a loveless marriage that ended in tragedy when he died of cancer. Lancaster is a bit odder as casting, but it's Booth who carries the film, so it's not too much of a distraction. It's unusual for it's time, because a character player is the one who truly carries the film. Much as I like Thelma Ritter (6 Oscar noms w/o a statue! She was robbed), I'm not sure she could have carried the film as well as Booth, who brings heart to an unsympathetic part and knew this woman thoroughly from the Broadway run.

Hollywood likes to pat itself on the back for caring about art and this may have been a case of the Academy doing that by awarding the Oscar to a "serious actress from the legitimate theater". Usually it happens later in a career for something like Geraldine Page's hambone performance in "Trip to Bountiful", but here it was someone who was new to films but already well known on radio and on Broadway. Booth could never play an ingenue but she could play anything else and I'm sure people felt better voting for her than for Davis, Crawford or Hayward. Julie Harris would later become recognized as a serious stage actress, but this was Booth's year.

[quote]A friend of mine briefly dated Shirley Booth’s gynecologist, who had the distinction of prnouncingvher dead.

OMG -- her gynecologist pronounced her dead? She must have had a pussy to rival Cheryl's.

Much as I like Thelma Ritter (6 Oscar noms w/o a statue! She was robbed), I'm not sure she could have carried the film as well as Booth, who brings heart to an unsympathetic part and knew this woman thoroughly from the Broadway run.

Why would Thelma have been considered, r38? She never played a lead.

About Mrs. Leslie...

Let's be frank. This woman is as much a frump as the dead Marie Dressler. They could be sisters.

Let's...*not*... r42.

Shirley Booth winning isn’t a whole lot different than Kathy Bates, Hilary Swank or Marion Cotillard coming from out of nowhere to win Best Actress. A really amazing performance can still win when the stars all align.

R40: Read upthread.....Ritter gets mentioned.

Booth has much more depth than Kathy Bates, Swank, etc. and she already was well known from radio and the stage. No real comparison.

I'm the one who mentioned her, r45, in regards to the Catered Affair role. See r15. She would have been all wrong for Lola.

Song of the Ma

Richard Jaeckel was dreamy in his role,,,,short, but dreamy. But I liked him much better as he matured. I'll always remember him for that scene in "Sometimes A Great Notion" where Paul Newman slowly watches him die in a logging accident. He really didn't have much else to do in the movie, so that one scene earned him his Oscar nomination.

There is probably a VERY short list of character actresses like Booth who won an Oscar for a leading performance. Kathy Bates is one but I wouldn't say Swank or Cotillard would have been considered character actresses. Marie Dressler (for 1931's Min and Bill) is the only other one I can think of.

Lottie Gibson Specialty

Threads like these make DL worth the annual subscription fee

I love Shirley Booth's performance on the OBC of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn as Aunt Cissy even if her starry presence unbalances the show (little Francie is unbearable!).

There's a cynic here who says that giving an Oscar to certain people is a waste of an Oscar.

I'm assuming that they're talking about people who have no chance of 'carrying a movie' on their own name. I include Shirley Booth and F Murray Abraham in that list.

R49 there’s quite a few. Frances McDormand, Patricia Neal, Glenda Jackson, Louise Fletcher, Ellen Burstyn, Geraldine Page. R35 here I can’t believe I forgot Meryl in SC. Ok I’ll guess I’ll take Sissy off my top 10 but grudgingly.

While I'll admit the distinction can be muddy, I'd say that Glenda Jackson and Ellen Burstyn and even Patricia Neal were all in Leading Lady mode when they won their Oscars and Geraldine Page was a former Leading Lady who had aged.

Refinement

R37 Who is ST for ITH?

Shirley Temple for In the Heights

In Cloris Leachman’s autobiography, she wrote about being cast as the ingenue role in the original production of “Come Back, Little Sheba” — the role of the sexy boarder later played in the film by Terry Moore. But while the play was trying out on the road, Leachman received an offer to do Shakespeare with Katharine Hepburn. She thought that was a better opportunity for her, and left “Come Back, Little Sheba”, to be replaced by Joan Lorring.

And the rest as they say, r59...

I just have to bring this up...wtf was Deirdre such a cunt??? She'd hurt or sabotage Hazel. She'd have a bit of comeuppance at the end then another episode would come along and she'd be a total cunt all over again.

Ms. Booth was excellent in Come Back, Little Sheba.

At start of film yes, you see her as a slovenly wife and housekeeper, but you also feel and see an emptiness that comes from being a woman with much love to give but no outlet.

Doc and Lola Lola Delaney represent textbook case against shotgun marriages. Yes a woman's honor (and that of her family) was saved by her being married in white and in time; but many of those marriages were anything but happy. The husbands felt as if they'd been trapped and caught, then proceeded to take it out on the wife for "ruining" his life.

After Doc has a go at Lola and she calls her mother asking to come home for a bit to get away; only to be told her father still wants nothing to do with her because of the disgrace and shame she brought upon the family (unwed pregnancy), almost began crying. Never mind that the child died, but her father, mother, husband and seemingly entire world holds Lola responsible.

Lancaster never really became a real actor, he tried, but he was overacting usually and had to be reigned in by the director. The only time his exuberance worked was in The Rainmaker, where he really embodied Bill Starbuck head to toe.

Good thing about Lancaster is that he knew he had limitations as an actor and was willing to accommodate with his co-stars. His real Hollywood legacy lies in his work as a producer.

[quote]had to be reigned in by the director.

Oh, dear.

I'm surprised the play lasted only 5 months on Broadway. I thought it was a huge hit. "Picnic", "Bus Stop", and "The Dark at the Top of the Stairs" all ran for over a year.

The original male lead on Broadway was Sidney Blackmer better known to DL as Ruth Gordon's husband in Rosemary's Baby.

Couldn’t one of you guys taken the time to check our what Shirley Booth looked like when she was young?

Shirley Booth owns the role - she originated it on Broadway for which she won the Tony. The revival with S. Epatha Merkerson was quite good with the notable exception of the dreadful acting by Zoe Kazan. Her line readings were as bad as Sophia Coppola’s in “Godfather 3”.

And another^

[quote]At start of film yes, you see her as a slovenly wife and housekeeper, but you also feel and see an emptiness that comes from being a woman with much love to give but no outlet.

Excellent description, r62

Unwatchable due to Booth's hideous voice.

It is one of my very favorite movies - along with “A Catered Affair,” “Marty,” and “A Tree Groes in Brooklyn”

I love me some bleak 50s kitchen sink dramas.

She probably could have learned more from Booth than she ever could from Hepburn.

I remember seeing it as a kid and Shirley Booth just tore my heart out.

More Hepburn/Booth connection:

Hepburn, of course, famously starred in The Philadelphia Story on Broadway, which Philip Barrie wrote for her and revived her career after being declared "Box Office Poison" in Hollywood. Barrie gifted Hepburn with the film rights to the play, which she sold to MGM under the condition that she had rights over the other casting. Shirley Booth played the supporting role of newspaper photographer on stage but was replaced by Ruth Hussey when MGM filmed it with Hepburn.

Hepburn then proceeded to steal roles from two plays to recreate in Hollywood, which Booth created on the Broadway stage, The Desk Set, filmed as Desk Set and The Time of the Cuckoo, which was filmed as Summertime.

Polly (Vera Charles) Rowles and Dennis Weaver were understudies, r65.

Gott is Gut

"Come Back, Little Sheba" is a well made play, but not a great play. There's nothing anyone can do to change that. It's Inge, not Williams. While the play creaks with the 1950s conventions on which Inge relied, he wrote a character that fit Shirley Booth perfectly. She was an actress who easily connected to her emotional experience and the camera loved it. Just point it at her and tell her to act. And she did. Magnificently.

Imagine if she had filmed "The Glass Menagerie" instead of Gertrude Lawrence.

She later did “The Glass Menagerie” for TV, R78.

And, sadly, it isn't very good.

She wasn't happy with it. Didn't the director undercut Shirley's performance because he was enamored with Loden? Someone posted at r80:

*

Shirley Booth is more like a fishwife than a faded Southern Belle. Barbara Loden's hair and makeup is so 60's. She looks like a go-go dancer.

I watched "The Year Without a Santa Claus" a few years ago for the first time since I was a kid only to realize that Mrs. Clause was Shirley Booth (I don't think I had seen Hazel reruns when I was a kid watching the Miser Brothers). I just looked it up, it was her last role, even though she lived another 17 years.

I saw a stage performance of the Matchmaker and at the time thought it was a funny show. Makes me want to find the movie.

I'm amazed and impressed that with 82 replies, so far HAZEL has barely been mentioned. Nice to see that Shirley Booth has been remembered for so much more.

I think Lancaster became a wonderfully effective performer in his older age, but I don't know that he was acting so much as playing parts that dealt with aging, which I think Burt felt keenly. Atlantic City, The Swimmer: they work because he was once beautiful, and it's fading, and he was once vibrant, and he's now being passed over.

She certainly was a doozy, r83!

Hostess with the mostes'...

Shirley Booth was also originally cast as the mother in William Inge’s “A Loss of Roses” with Carol Haney and newcomer Warren Beatty, but she gave notice after the out-of-town opening when she felt that Inge’s infatuation with Beatty was damaging the production. Betty Field replaced Booth for the Broadway opening.

There used to be a couple of cuts from her Dorothy Parker recording on Youtube...

Thanks for this thread. In my elder years, I’m amazed at all the wonderful plays and films I’ve overlooked. I enjoy solitude now. So much out there to read and see— and I can comfortably be alone.

Like I’m in a film class at UCLA —

Or Burgess Meredith in The Twilight Zone, r89....

Bird Upon the Tree...from JUNO

I just turned the TV on and on this episode of Hazel... brace yourself...Deirdre is being... a CUNT!

r92, that's not news. Dierdre is always a Cunt. and I should know.

[quote]Shirley Booth is the essence of all those dreamy, slatternly, gabby, sentimental women who move one to pity by their harmlessness and to disgust with their vacuity.

Shelley Winters can exhibit the same "qualities." She did a great job in A Place in the Sun.

r93 - Hi Julie!

Winters was more annoying. Booth always had more "heart".

Shelley was always so kvetchy, r94. You could see why he'd want to do her in. Miss Sylvia Sidney brought poignancy to the role.

If Come Back Little Sheba had been set in a lower east side tenement, Sylvia Sidney would have been a fabulous Lola.

Years ago I was an apprentice at the Berkshire Theatre Festival and they announced Come Back Little Sheba before Lola was cast, although they'd already signed Dana Andrews as Doc (great casting, right?). There was talk that Gwen Verdon was offered Lola (spectacular casting!) and we joked that she could reprise Whatever Lola Wants as an Act II curtain raiser. Ultimately, the role was played by Rosemary Murphy and she was dull, dull, dull. I wish I could remember who played the young lovers.

There have been several mentions of Moore’s boyfriend in the movie, Rivhard Jaeckel., but no photo. He was pretty dreamy but went on to a pretty long career in tough guy roles.

R99 DL fave the late Catherine Burns played Marie in the Dana Andrews/Rosemary Murphy "Come Back Little Sheba". Turk was (the also deceased) Michael O'Hare, who was in the TV series "Babylon 5" in the 90s. I always thought he was cute.

Omg! I totally remember that now, r101. Thanks for jolting my memory. And yes, Michael O'Hare was a very hot young man. I followed his career after that summer, though he b=never got very far.

Oh for chrissakes, Deirdre YET AGAIN being a CUNT! She doesn't want Hazel to even audition for the amateur night benefit. It gets all maudlin at the end with Hazel singing to the children in the hospital. Deirdre feels really, really bad and Hazel's all forgiving. Yeah, yeah...

[quote]Dear god those violins.

Right! Who the hell mixed the sound on this picture?! I couldn't even hear her freaking dialogue in the phone scene.

Why did they sign Lancaster for this role? Was everyone else so dreary they needed some eye candy? Even as a kid, I never bought them as a couple. Booth carried both of them.

Re: The Matchmaker

Imagine if Booth had been cast as Dolly in "Hello Dolly!", rather than the horrid Carol Channing.

Here's Shirley on WML in 1963 looking great.

Ya gotta love Dorothy: "Do you play a domestic?"

She would have been marvelous in the "Dancing" number, r105.

^ oops

The description of today's episode:

"Hazel runs into problems when she tries to get to a shoe sale early."

The name of the episode is *Hazel's Navy Blue Tug-Boats".

Meryl Sheep's reboot was "Come Back, Little Sheep Baa"

Even though I love classic movies, that one always struck me as being sappy and a downer at the same time, and I never watched it.