Who did Ann Baxter have to blow to get her role in Walk on the Wild Side (1962).

Que quieres beber?

Who's a homo besides Harvey?

Barbara Stanwyck was really fun as probably one of the first, if not the first major star in a Hollywood film playing a lesbian. Ok, she has a legless husband, but it's very much hinted at that she likes her ladies, enough to move the plot along to its conclusion.

Anne Baxter already had an Academy Award for "The Razor's Edge", had starred in "All About Eve" and had gone bonkers for Charlton Heston's Moses in "The 10 Commandments", so she was another star in a feature role. Strange to have her playing a Mexican, and while the accent isn't steady, she for once toned down the histrionics and actually otherwise gave a good performance.

This movie is a masterpiece of lurid trash.

Stanwyck is sensational.

Anne Baxter has been miscast and everything I've ever seen her in. She was awful. Always the same hammy style, no matter the role.

She was fairly restrained in this.

Interesting that Laurence Harvey for once was playing the good guy. He usually played arrogant and/or sex sons of bitches like in "Room at the Top" or "Manchurian Candidate". His Texas accent was reasonably good, and he was actually pretty good in the film. Jane Fonda was having fun, in what I think was her second film, after having debuted in "Tall Story". She's a bit over the top though, but at least she's not anchoring the film. Capucine looked beautiful (in out of the period '60s clothes in a film set in the 1930s) and did better than many models-turned-actresses.

It’s Anne with an e, OP. Ann looks just dreadful, but Anne with an e looks much more distinguished!

Anne Baxter was a serious contender for the head in Rebecca as was Vivien Leigh. She had a terrific audition but was considered too young at 16! Leigh wanted to play the part opposite Olivier but wasn’t as convincing, with coaching, as Fontaine. I think Leigh was still busy with GWTW.

Baxter said she had mounting bills and was pregnant when her agent (Arthur Park, whom Julie Andrews credits with convincing her to do "The Sound of Music") offered her "Walk on the Wild Side" or a live TV special. She wasn't impressed with either script, but "Wild Side" payed more, so she took it. The producer Charles K. Feldman insisted on seeing her in person before filming began, which prompted Baxter to write, "I burned inwardly. What the hell did they think--that I had turned into a cow?"

I'd take anything that payed more.

Feldman was Capucine's boyfriend, responsible for most of her film career; maybe he wanted to see that she also didn't appear too glamourous to outshine his protege?

Charles K Feldman was too cheap to buy Audrey Hepburn.

So he found a counterfeit Audrey Hepburn. It was another emaciated European lady with bags under her eyes and lumpy nose and invented the name Capucine.

I like Anne Baxter and, yes, she can be hammy, but she was touching in The Razor’s Edge and quite good in All About Eve. And even when she’s hammy, she’s always entertaining.

Leave. Anne. Alone!

Baxter had a dumpy body with wide hips.

Anne had no neck.

Ann's inability to ever convey any semblance of authenticity was why she was the perfect Eve.

[quote] Anne had no neck.

Anne had an egomaniac for an uncle.

R16 'dumpy body with wide hips' Maybe that's why she got the role she fit the wardrobe

Wasn't her grandfather Frank Lloyd Wright? She's quite good also in the "Magnificent Ambersons".

I think she and Hugh Marlowe are the two weak links in All About Eve. Everyone else is wonderful.

I read somewhere that the WOTWS set was a nightmare because of Laurence Harvey's resentment about cut dialogue Two camps developed. Harvey and Baxter vs Capucine and Jane Fonda. Stanwyck stayed out of it. It was so bad the director quit.

I know a very aged guy in Palm Springs who said he once came upon Robert Wagner fucking Laurance Harvey in the steam room at the downtown Indian Spa Hotel.

I believe this guy because he did all kinds of service jobs for many celebs. He was Jolie Gabor's driver (he has many Gabor stories). He did booze runs for William Holden, etc.

Harvey was married 3 times but he was gay Gay GAY.

Agreed, R22. I've read several times over the years that Eve is supposed to be an obvious con artist. Really? Why? They couldn't see that giant piece of ham and cheese coming? Please.

The movie is a classic for sure. But I believe a more subtle actress could have added to its greatness.

I've seen Baxter in AAE, The Razor's Edge, Walk on the Wild Side and a handful of others. She never changes or surprises. WotWS was embarrassing -- and not just because of her being cast as a Mexican. During The Blue Gardenia, I know I was supposed to sympathize with her character, but I spent the entire movie hoping she'd go down for a murder she didn't commit.

Yes, Anne Baxter is ludicrous in this movie. And Laurence Harvey was ridiculously miscast although he was a damn fine piece of ass. He was truly a beautiful (looking) man (he was a shit as a person, by many accounts). Stanwyck is sensationally campy.

I’d read that Zanuck cast her in The Razor’s Edge because one of his golfing buddies, a producer who was a friend of Anne’s, told Zanuck she was a good lay! He was lying but that’s how actresses got ahead in the Golden Age of Hollywood!

Jane went from this easy gal with her sexuality role to virginal should-I-or shouldn't-I in following year's wonderful "Sunday in New York" with sexy Rod Taylor.

Jane Fonda is a pain in the culo in this film.

It's also the character who's a pain, too. She tries to steal from Laurence Harvey in the truck, plays sick and steals from Anne Baxter after she's been nice to her, and at least finally redeems herself later on when she reappears later in the film after a while.

Loved Todd Armstrong in this movie. What a beautiful looking man

.,.,

R31 Pretty Todd would have outshone the weasel Larry Skikne.

Harvey was a decent actor but hot? Ewww. Weasel face. Frank Burns with a posh UK accent…

She's no Ann Blyth!

She's no Ann Boleyn!

Who would WANT that shitty role in Walk on the Wild Side?

I'm with [R34] re Laurence Harvey. Sexy? N-O. And that hair! EWWWWWWW.

I'll say it again.

Ann Baxter was a terrible actress whose mannered bullshit undermined every movie she was in. She inherited the arrogance from Gramps Frank Lloyd Wright, who of course was one of the biggest egotists in the world.

Thankfully "All About Eve" was bulletproof.

ANNE Baxter completely changed when she got older - husky whisky voiced with an Attitude. God she was annoying and self important on talk shows, like she doing them a favor. She far out Bacalled Lauren Bacall. Baxter even took over the Margo Channing role in the musical Applause when Bacall left. I saw it!

Baxter was never attractive never mind beautiful. Plus she had affectations that made her difficult to watch IMO. Bitch needed a good slap down.

Laurence Harvey must have had some redeeming qualities because Elizabeth Taylor was very fond of him. But everything one reads about him indicates that he was a nightmare on the set of every film he made and a shit in his personal life

He appeared in many wonderful fims: Room at the Top, Darling, Butterfield 8, etc. Quite the successful career.

Laurence Harvey died very young at age 43 from stomach cancer; he was a heavy smoker. He was pretty impressive in many of his roles. I think one of his last films was "Night Watch" with Elizabeth Taylor.

Bill Sampson?

You wanna *real* south of the border tootsie?

I forgot AFFECTED

[quote]Laurence Harvey must have had some redeeming qualities because Elizabeth Taylor was very fond of him

Yeah, he was gay

From what I've read, Barbara Stanwyck ripped him a new one when he tried his antics on the set of Wild Side. She was absolutely gestapo when it came to actors coming in on time and knowing their lines. Because of her stature she could go after the lazy ones, though I've heard she even did it in the 1930s.

If nothing else, AnnE Baxter was one of the few actresses Bette Davis enjoyed working with so that's saying something.

R47, Stanwyck also allegedly ran June Allyson off the set of “Executive Suite” for the same thing. Miss Allyson fled in tears. 😆

Strange to hear that, since Stanwyck was considered one of the most well-liked people; but she was also known for being really professional on the set -- knew her lines, ready to work.

Stanwyck was popular with the director and crew, R50. A few actors like Linda Evans and William Holden liked her too.

So Rita Moreno wasn't available??

Marry me, R9!

Stanwyck also read the bitters to several of the younger cast members of “The Colbys” whenever they were late or unprepared.

William Holden loved Barbara also because she saved him from being fired from "Golden Boy" which turned out to be the film that made him a star.

I find that Stanwyck/Allyson incident suspect.

By the time of Executive Suite (1954), June was a long-time season pro in Hollywood and hardly someone who would have dared disrespect her fellow cast members, especially at her very disciplined MGM home studio. Of course, maybe there was something else going on between the two ladies, but I doubt the issue was about June's laziness.

"Walk on the Wild Side" could have been Chita Rivera's big chance in pictures if Rita wasn't available. Maybe she was in the middle of her "Bye Bye Birdie" run.

My POV is tainted perhaps r56, because I despise Allyson. I read it in that Stanwyck biography by Axel Madsen.

SOURCE, R56? Don't say Wikipedia which comes from fans.

Source? It's my (educated) opinion, r59.

She was my Nefertari, the flat-chested cunt.

Who did Ann Blythe have to blow to get her role on Murder, She Wrote? She stank!

June Allyson was a lush - that was her problem.

June and Judy shitfaced according to Mel Torme who wrote about this scene in his autobio. He says they threw tea cakes at him and mocked him cruelly between takes. How I wish we had film of that

Stanwyck loved the sauce too, especially after her divorce, but her ass was always prepared.

So much for surprise anal...

R64, there is video of some of that - I saw it on the "extras" of that episode of The Judy Garland Show DVDs that were released 20 years ago.

I can only make out about every 6th word in that drunken exchange between Judy and June. Are they rude to our Jane Powell at the end?

Jane Powell !

I liked how Vida Boheme used Anne-as-Nefertari as a model of feminine grace and deportment in [italic]To Wong Foo.[/italic]

The bitch was insufferable:

[Quote]They divorced in 1953. At the time, she said they were "basically incompatible",[20] but in her book she blamed herself for the separation: "I had loved John as much", she wrote. "But we'd eventually congealed in the longest winter in the world. Daily estrangement. Things unsaid. Even a fight would have warmed us. To my shame, I'd picked one at last in order to unfreeze the word 'divorce.'"[2

Who the hell are you quoting, r71?

THE AGE OF NO SOURCES OTHER THAN WIKIPEDIA

^^ It's a quote from Baxter's autobio, Lenny.