Geraldine Page, "the greatest actress in the English language"

She's good, but I don't trust that jackass F. Murray Abraham. He's a jerk and a terrible actor.

She was certainly in the top 5, along with Vanessa Redgrave and a few others.

This woman is unwatchable.

I pity poor Wendy being obliged to play her sister.

If Geraldine Page married Ike Turner she'd be Geraldine Page-Turner

She tore through scenery like a beaver.

I love Gerry Page as much as the next fella, but Anne Bancroft, Vanessa Redgrave, and Maggie Smith were all in that conversation at that moment in time, with G, Jessica Lange, Diane Keaton, Sissy Spacek, and M all making big movies and getting lots of critical love, too, at that time.

F. Murray was just being textbook obsequious.

^ Worse than bette Davis. She was only capable of playing neurotics, nutcases and psychos.

She was in something with Paul Newman but it was so strained that I couldn't bear to watch more than 30 minutes.

Braying ego case chiming her seven tricks-&-tics in varied sequence like the Bristol Surprise Maximus played on the Bells of the Boston Stump.

I only know her through movies, but my parents rave about her. They saw her on Broadway in Agnes of God back in the 80s. They really enjoyed the the play and the three characters played by Page, Amanda Plummer, and Elizabeth Ashley.

She's sort of a rich man's Sandy Dennis...

It's funny, I sort of agree with a lot of the comments on here, but there was something about her...watch her in "Dear Heart" and "A Christmas Memory" and see what you think.

Big fan here! i find her mesmerizing for some reason. maybe it' was her smirk or voice or something.

At least with Sandy Dennis, you could enjoy some of the twitching and the crazy. With Page, you were just stuck with it, as if in a whirlwind.

She was lovely in Dear Heart, r7.

Geraldine Page was a absolutely in that top tier of our very best actresses. But show biz is ridiculous and she was not always cast in roles most favorable to her. She should have been a leading actress in a large national theater. But no, that could not be. We live in this shit hole of a country.

What? She couldn’t hold a candle to Jessica Tandy, now that was an actor’s actor.

I remember this. It was such pretentious actor poppy cock. No one even remembers her.

She's great in Bountiful. And had no problem playing a clothes horse rich snob in The Happiest Millionaire.

Why isn't this damn movie ever on?

Susannah York and Diana Rigg should also get a mention, they did great work away from their more financially motivated performances.

For those who enjoy Actors Studio mannerisms check out their TV production of The Three Sisters where you get Geraldine, Sandy Dennis, Kim Stanley and Shelley Winters.

She looked embarrassed when Abraham said that at the Oscars

R21 Did the add a fourth for that production?

Geraldine Page as Olga, Shelley Winters as Natalya, Kim Stanley as Masha, Sandy Dennis as Irina.

She had a huge arsenal of tricks and mannerisms. She never winged it or just looked into the camera and said it like she meant it.

I liked her in Summer and Smoke

And I believe Shirley Knight was Irina in the original production.

Happiest Millionaire...

R27 In Russia?

R15: Basically, you're agreeing that she was awful in lots of her roles. her enunciation as acting worked better on stage than on film.

R18: She was unwatchable in Bountiful. You just want her to stop talking every time she opens her mouth to say Boun-ti-ful.

Haha.

Nyet, r29.

Hammy, twitchy, affected.

No. She is not the greatest actress in the English language. Not even close.

Everybody knows who is!

We all know I'm the greatest actress in the English language!!!

R18, R28 Almost every performer in that odd, claustrophobic movie were simultaneously intriguing and repellant.

I loved her on LOVING

F. Murray Abraham was quite a piece of work according to this thread.

They way he says her name and the quote are so pretentious or haughty might be a better word.

I hate that he made it about him. Who cares what you thing? You were the grapes in a fruit of the loom commercial who lucked into one good role.

I love my life!!

It must have been nice vengeance for Page to beat Anne Bancroft who was nominated for the role in Agnes of God that Page created on Broadway but didn't get for the film.

She was an odd person. During the Oscar season when she won for Trip to Bountiful, she was filming a movie named Native Son (1986). I was a production assistant on that film. One of my duties was to drive the actors around. On another post, I talked about my experiences with Carroll Baker who was also in that film. The first time I met Ms. Page, was shortly after she won her Oscar. She had a doctor's appointment in Westwood and I had to drive her there and back to her hotel. When I arrived to pick her up, she appeared dressed like a "bag lady"; oversized parka-style coat, baggy pants, unkempt hair, and worn sneakers. I was already nervous because I had a ratty '76 Toyota Celica and it was hardly worthy of an actress of her stature. Anyway she didn't complain about my crappy car. She got in and I buckled up and she just sat there. I gently asked her if she would please put on her seat belt. She just looked out the window away from me and shook her head firmly and said, "Uh-uh, no. I wont." I said, "Well, I can't drive until we're both buckled. "No", she said. I couldn't make her. So I carefully began to drive down Sunset Blvd., the fast part that twists and winds all through Beverly Hills. The whole time I'm imagining the newspaper headlines "Absolute Nobody Kills Beloved Oscar-Winning Actress". Thankfully we made it to the doctor's without incident.

I also had to take her to the airport when she finished shooting. I knew we'd have problems because she had no luggage. She'd packed all her things in large pillow cases. I told her she wouldn't make it onto the plane with those things. Why did she pack like that? "Oh, they're so soft and fluffy!" What was I supposed to do? Sure enough, at the airport, they wouldn't allow her to check in with stuffed pillowcases. I had to work with the airline to find a way to get her stuff packed in moving boxes and taped up so she could check her belongings and make her flight. It was an ordeal. The entire time, she was off to the side swaying back and forth, humming to herself and playing with her hair. Once it was all taken care of, I let her know she could check in and get her boarding pass. "Oh, OK. Thank, you." Just odd, very odd. Sweet, but odd.

[quote] R3 I pity poor Wendy being obliged to play her sister.

Oof. Not her finest hour.

Didn’t she win because she had been nominated many times before and was decrepit, just like Glenn?

Rip Torn had a baby with another woman during their marriage yet she stayed with him. (I have vague memories of a Barbara Walters questioning her about this and getting odd responses.)

R41, in the 80s, I was responsible for a simple 60 second radio commercial with Miss Page and a stock music bed. She could not remember to come to the studio to record her 1 minute reading of the script. Three times the studio was booked and three times Miss Page went some place else.

We were almost entirely out of time when she was located at a rehearsal. Not her rehearsal, though. She mistakenly arrived at some other production's rehearsal at some other studio. Somehow the company found her.

I faxed the script to the rehearsal studio and someone there took Miss Page into the Ladies Room where she read the copy into a walkman. The cassette was bicycle messengered to us at the studio. A technician cleaned up that recording and mixed it with the music bed and it went on the air the next morning.

So I produced a commercial with an Academy Award winning actress and I never met her.

Saw her in Lie of the Mind in the mid 80's. Forty years on I mostly recall the amount of spittle she and Aidan Quinn flung at each other during dialog. Sitting in the front row we got our fair share of it.

Dear Heart was awful. A movie about a neurotic needy middle aged woman who falls for a sleazy cheating salesman. Yet this movie is supposed to be romantic? I don’t get the appeal.

haha i had a similar experience with Tony Lo Bianco spitting in A View from the Bridge.

r45 She wasn't all there.

R42: Gobbling the scenery like a crazed Wolverine! The sound track sounds like George Duning recycled it from "Picnic".

Dame Judi Dench, with a nod to Vanessa Redgrave, Maggie Smith, and Peggy Ashcroft. And for film, Helen Mirren and Meryl Streep.

I had the pleasure of seeing her onstage with Sandy Dennis in two different plays. They actually worked very well together and it never turned into one trying to out tic the other. Page was wonderful in Blithe Spirit. Knowing that she died alone and the only reason anyone bothered to check on her was because she didn’t show up for a matinee was heartbreaking. I don’t know how the rest of the cast performed after learning that she had just passed away.

I thought she could be extraordinarily and when she wasn’t, she was at least never boring. Abraham’s declaration was show-boaty and pretentious and over-claiming. She may have well have been the best of the actresses that year (this was when Streep’s one really extraordinary performance was Sophie’s Choice), Bancroft was superb in general, but Agnes of God was kinda schlocky and Bancroft nothing special in the role (Meg Tully was the standout in that film). Lange has been so much more interesting in other films—so had Page, but she was at the far end of her career. A good case could be made for Goldberg’s quiet, but deeply felt performance that year (better by far than anything else she’s ever done on film). I liked Page most in her films in the 60s-70s, but this was her last chance. I saw Tyson do the role onstage and liked her more, but I’m happy that an actress of Page’s gifts was rewarded, even if decades late and for not her best performance.

Incidentally, I think she does everything that can be done with the role in Dear Heart, but the script and the cardboard performance of Glenn Ford work against it. I end up sympathizing with Zlansbury’s character—I think her character would be easier to get along with over time.

Hammy with a side of smirks.

Last time there was a thread on Interiors someone made the keen observation about how wardrobe made a valiant attempt to hide Page's figure.

R52: Sandy Dennis & Geraldine Page. i can just imagine the unintended humor. Did Dennis drop dead during the run of one of these hamfests?

I'm sure Sandy Dennis' cats cared when she died.

I thought she was a big ole hambone.

You are all insane. Geraldine Page is up there with Julie Harris, Colleen Dewhurst, Sandy Dennis, Anne Bancroft, Zoe Caldwell and Elizabeth Wilson as one of the great American Theatre Actresses. Those who don't agree don't know what the fuck they are talking about.

Why wasn't Rip Torn at home to find her body?

By that time Rip was living with Amy Wright.

R58: Just watch the clips here. She practically lunges at the scenery to chew it. Harris, Dewhurst, Anne Bancroft, even Sandy Dennis could underplay and even be subtle, but Geraldine Page.....she probably should have done soaps, where she could have gotten away with that needy over emoting and enunciating.

Anya Taylor-Joy is currently the best young actress, and possibly the greatest living actress. Her performance in The Queen's Gambit was a cultural reset. Bette Davis and Meryl Streep rolled into one.

I’ll say this about Page...when she was onstage you couldn’t take your eyes off her. She was brilliant.

Among the disciples of the Actors Studio, 1950s-1970s, the giants of the New York stage, female category, were Geraldine Page, Kim Stanley, Julie Harris, and maybe Maureen Stapleton and Colleen Dewhurst. Those names were always bandied about as the greatest of their generation. However, critics of the Method sniffed that these actresses often gave manic, neurotic, and unnerving performances, full of tics and mannerisms. It's interesting to point out that all these women were legends of the stage, but never superstars of the silver screen.

[quote]R45 I was responsible for a simple 60 second radio commercial with Miss Page and a stock music bed. She could not remember to come to the studio to record her 1 minute reading of the script. Three times the studio was booked and three times Miss Page went some place else.

G-damn junkie whore.

Out scoring drugs!

F. MURRAY ABRAHAM IS A VULGARIAN!!!

[quote]R41 Native Son (1986) I was a production assistant on that film. One of my duties was to drive the actors around. On another post, I talked about my experiences with Carroll Baker who was also in that film.

Oh! Oh! Oh! What was she like??

I imagine her as being down to earth.

[quote]R33 Hammy, twitchy, affected.

All of that is divine in the right role!

I also adore her in this:

Why are so many of you ignoring Jessica Tandy? She is a triple crown winner, including four Tony’s and she originated Blanche fucking Dubois, and had she gotten the movie for it would have had a much earlier movie career. How many actresses have had a painting of themselves by one of the greatest American artists hanging in a major museum?

Well, should there be a movie of her life, we know that two (maybe soon to be three) time Oscar winner Frances McDormand will play her flawlessly.

"If Geraldine Page married Ike Turner she'd be Geraldine Page-Turner"

You realize she was married to Rip Torn and that their mailbox was labeled "Torn-Page?"

[quote]R64 Among the disciples of the Actors Studio the giants of the New York stage, female category, were Geraldine Page, Kim Stanley, Julie Harris, and maybe Maureen Stapleton and Colleen Dewhurst... but [they were] never superstars of the silver screen.

None of those ladies were traditionally beautiful, which hampered their movie careers.

Stanley kept promising to lose weight before shooting THE GODDESS, considering her character was to begin the film in her teens, but ultimately didn’t. This probably soured studios on her for a time.

I like my actresses a little weird, so I’m all for Page and her sometimes kooky mannerisms. The fact she was a bag lady only made her more endearing.

Laurie Metcalf I would consider to be our modern day answer to Page, Stanley, and Dennis. She doesn’t have the film opportunities they enjoyed, but is thrilling and endlessly inventive on stage.

Whoopi overacts in her happiness for Page. In real life I think she was bitter. She said on The View only a few years ago that she finally saw Bountiful. You'd think she'd be curious what beat her. I guess it stung.

the clip is interesting to see an awkward looking young Angelina Jolie with Jon Voight.

(and put your shoes on before the category is announced Geraldine)

oops the link

[quote]R70 Why are so many of you ignoring Jessica Tandy? She is a triple crown winner, including four Tony’s and she originated Blanche fucking Dubois

Because she didn’t make many movies, and wasn’t extraordinary in any of them.

[quote]How many actresses have had a painting of themselves by one of the greatest American artists hanging in a major museum?

She refused to shoot a recreation of that Benton painting with the cast for Life (or Look?) magazine. Her letter declining to do so is hilarious.

She says something like, “No doubt it is an excellent idea for publicity and would bring in many customers, but the play is sold out and [italic]we have no place to seat them!”

Tennessee Williams to Tandy:

[quote]Dear Jessica, I have been appointed intermediator in the delicate matter of persuading you to pose for a photographic duplication of the Thomas Hart Benton painting which our Lady Producer is to be surprised with at Christmas. I have seen a picture of the painting. It looks marvellous and of course Benton is a very outstanding painter. I can see how Blanche’s dress, or lack of it, might offend you, but I am assured that you will not have to be so anatomical and I supposed the idea is an excellent piece of promotion. Myself, I don’t see it is vulgar, but I cannot swear that my sense of vulgarity is the most impeccable in the world. Ever,Tennessee P.S. I believe Blanche would - - after some initial protest.

TANDY TO WILLIAMS

[quote] Dear Tennessee, You have the wrong impression of my objection to posing for a photographic duplicate of the Benton picture. Eight times a week, and to progressively less sensitive audiences, I have to make clear Blanche’s intricate and complex character …her background…her pathetic elegance…her indomitable spirit…her innate tenderness and honesty…her untruthfulness or manipulation of the truth…her inevitable tragedy. My protagonist, Stanley…my executioner, as you put it, is comparatively simple and easy for an audience to understand. The setting is a wonder mixture of the qualities of both these characters…decayed elegance and sheer unadulterated guts. I share your admiration for Benton as a painter, but in the painting, he has chosen to paint, it seems to me, the Stanley side of the picture. Even in the set, you are more conscious of telegraph poles than scrolled ironwork. There has always been a part of the audience who obviously expects a sexy, salacious play. I don’t want to do anything which will lead future audiences to think that they are going to see sex in the raw, as it were. I respect Mr. Benton’s right to paint any facet of the play that he sees and to exaggerate it in order to make clear his impressions. Please believe me when I say that Blanche’s lack of dress has nothing at all to do with my objection. I suppose the idea of printing the two photographs is an excellent piece of promotion. It is bound to bring a lot of people into the theatre, but we have no empty seats… Print the Benton picture…but no duplicate photograph. If Look’s interest is really in Mr. Benton’s painting, they should be content. There, Mr. Intermediater, is my initial protest. What do you say to that! Truly, affectionately, Jessica

WILLIAMS TO TANDY:

[quote] Dear Jessica, Many, many thanks for your letter on the Benton picture. You are so right that it really makes me ashamed of having lent my casual support to the idea. What you say about Blanche suddenly recalls to me all of my original conception of the character and what it was to me, from which you, in your delineation, have never once drifted away…Yes, the painting is only one side of the play, and the Stanley side of it. Perhaps from the painter’s point of view that was inevitable. A canvas cannot depict two worlds very easily: or the tragic division of the human spirit: at least not a painter of Benton’s realistic type. Well, I am still an admirer of the painting, but, believe me, still more an admirer of yours for seeing and feeling about it more clearly than I did at first, and I should have felt the same way. With love, Tennessee

Tandy, in R79's quote, says Benton painted "the Stanley side of the picture".

Kazan also did the Stanley side of the picture.

Geraldine Page was highly watchable and interesting mostly because she was an unabashed ham!

She was super eccentric in real life and had that kooky actress personality. I liked her on stage, but often she was just shameless in her mugging and scene stealing, but then again, isn't entertaining the audience the whole point?

[quote]"the greatest actress in the English language"

What does that even mean?

[quote]r75 (and put your shoes on before the category is announced Geraldine)

Maybe she didn't want to jinx it.

Hell no!

[quote] isn't entertaining the audience the whole point?

No, it isn't.

Who was better in bountiful better page or Cicely Tyson?

On stage with her greatest admirer in "The Madwoman of Chaillot".

I think my favorite Page performance was her one scene role in The Pope of Greenwich Village. I would have given her the Oscar for that.

R4 made me giggle on this cold morning heading to work. Thank you!

Still love Dear Heart...

A tribute...

I don't know about the English language (I mean, Wendy Hiller, Kim Stanley, Lillian Gish, Sybil Thornkike, and many others) but this clip is one of my all-time favorite scenes by anyone.

Who would want to fuck Jessica Tandy?

She's excellent and very watchable.

I can't believe the hate she's getting on a gay site.

Fuck DL

[quote]r95 Who would want to fuck Jessica Tandy? —JW

JW?? I thought you were Variety’s Dennis Harvey!

R95 Well Hume Cronyn for one, he tapped that for over five decades.

Geraldine Page always struggled with playing a smoker, as she never in her real life smoked. I know actors who worked with her and she knew she couldn't inhale like a real smoker, as you can see in the clip from "The Pope of Greenwich Village" she just puffs and blows out the smoke. She still manages to be wonderful.

Tandy's first husband was Jack Hawkins, 22 when they married and quite the looker back then.

Did she ever show tits or box in a movie?

R191 She was no Streisand.

It's sort of a back handed complement. It implies there is someone who acts in another language who is better than her.

R22: Anne Bancroft had the best reaction to : "the greatest actress in the English language". The expression was one of, "Oh, get on with it!"

Jess and M look quite pretty. M wore gold and lost so don't feel so bad G. (although M wore gold twice and won.)

Geraldine, looking uncannily like Madeline Kahn, in "Pete and Tillie." She has been asked her age and has a tough time answering.

[quote] Tandy's first husband was Jack Hawkins

Jack had a convex nose while Jessica's was concave.

I know I'm biased but I don't understand why Jessica Tandy abandoned the English stage and took up with that Hume Cronyn (who always seemed like an Appalachian hick to me)

I don't understand Geraldine's nomination for Pete & Tillie.

Cronyn had that look to me too R107. Far from it, actually — his mother was an heiress to the Labatt fortune and his father was a member of the Canadian Parliament.

Some photos from Geraldine Page's memorial service.

People include Rip Torn, Sissy Spacek, Angela Lansbury, Richard Chamberlain, Jason Robards, William Hurt, Marlee Matlin.....

R107 Well, in the end that look world beautifully, for Foxfire, which was their greatest triumph as a couple.

I would say Tandy & Cronin's biggest triumph was the Broadway production of "The Gin Game" in 1977. I saw "Foxfire" and it was fine, but more of a valedictory than a smash hit, which "The Gin Game" was.

R112 Yes, yes it was excellent and she got one of four Tonys (how many Tonys did GP have) for it, but Hume actually worked on adapting the original material (with children’s author Susan Cooper, his future second soulmate wife after Tandy died) and Tandy won, again, the Tony and then they did a TV production as well where she also got the Emmy.

R110 - Paul Newman was there too, but no Joanne.

I really couldn't stand her in The Trip to Bountiful. It was like she had every glance, every gesture mapped out ahead of time. However, strangely enough I liked her in Pete And Tillie and her fight scene with Carol Burnett.

Geraldine Page+ Wendy Hiller +n Dean Martin (????) =Toys in the Attic? Gotta find this...

Whoopi grew up in the same neighborhood as Geraldine Page and Rip Torn and used to see them around the neighborhood frequently, so she said that it was like a family member winning when he announced her name.

I don't recall her having any momentum that year to win. Whoopi or Meryl for Out of Africa were the leading actress performances that year. Much fuss was made about Cher getting snubbed for Mask as well. Kathleen Turner was also snubbed for Prizzi's Honor.

I wonder if for that moment Meryl thought Murray was talking about her when he said the greatest actress in the English language.

It's a bit of a potboiler, r116.

The Broadway cast included Jason Robards, Maureen Stapleton, Anne Revere (who won the Tony), and Irene Worth.

Wendy Hiller had played Geraldine Page's role in the London production of Lillian Hellman's play.

R18 - "The Happiest Millionaire", Geraldine Page was in a Disney film? WTF????

"F. Murray Abraham was quite a piece of work according to this thread."

Did not F. Murray Abraham play Jeff Goldblum's father is a story arc one season on Law & Order: Criminal Intent

r121, see r28

F was also a one scene guest star in Mimic. Or maybe two scenes.

Getting back to the "The Happiest Millionaire", my mind was playing tricks on me because for some reason I was sure that Dick Van Dyke not Fred MacMurray played the lead.

Well, at least you didn't think it was Hayley Mills!

[quote] The Happiest Millionaire", … I was sure that Dick Van Dyke not Fred MacMurray played the lead.

I think of that odd, claustrophobic movie as a kind of Mary Poppins remake.

The songs were done by the Mary Poppins songwriters.

I’m pretty sure no one posted this before and I meant to look earlier to see if it existed, but assumed someone else would have beaten me to it. Be Kind Rewind is one of the most professional and well researched Youtube channels out there producing mini high quality documentaries, most connected to the best actress Oscar winners and losers, but also about actresses in Hollywood as well. I cannot recommend highly enough her channel and I think it will be right up the alley of many of you engaged on this thread as well as all of DL. Enjoy.

the narrator's voice is a mix of vocal fry and Valley Girl.

R129 Don’t dismiss her based on that, she is very smart and has great insight and understanding of film, performance and criticism.

Oh god, I can't stand that chick's voice. I was watching someone else's video where she was a guest and every time it switched to her voice, I had to mute it. She's incredibly irritating.

I also like Be Kind, Rewind

Page is at her best repeating her stage role in the film of "Sweet Bird of Youth." She also never looked better.

Hondo

"The Trip to Bountiful", "Sweet Bird of Youth," "Summer and Smoke"...how can anyone forget her..especially in "The Trip to Bountiful."

And Dear Heart, r135...

I loved her in "The Beguiled"

For some reason I have always found F. Murray Abraham exhausting and unlikable.

R138 Which is why he was such a convincing villain in Amadeus.