Eleanor Parker -- great actress, long career - what sayeth DL?

as Marjorie Lawrence, I left out the film's title "Interrupted Melody" with opera great Eileen Farrell supplying the great singing voice

Forgotten, talented, stunning, intelligent, private, managed her career fairly well. Shirley MacLaine’s daughter wrote in her memoir that Eleanor and her father Steve Parker had a relationship for years while they were both married to other people.

She seems totally committed to her performance and thus very believable to watch. Plus she's very different in her films, like a character actress with leading lady looks who's not afraid to not look pretty when it suits the role.

She's very bad in some things but very good (though still too "grand lady") in Detective Story, when directed by William Wyler. I like her but she wasn't that great. Terrible in the remake of Of Human Bondage.

two dataloungers and Eleanor tour in "Applause"

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What happened with that "Pal Joey" in NY where she and the Joey were replaced? She apparently could sing from what I've read, and she did do "Applause", though of course Bacall kinda, sorta, sang in that.

She was in "The Man With The Golden Arm"....as the sister in a wheelchair, but faked it. It was her way to control her junkie brother (Frank Sinatra).

Eleanor is so fab. I view TSOM from the Baroness’ perspective. That cuntface Maria waltzing in and stealing her man. Baroness Schrader was so beautiful and sophisticated. Maria looks like a sexless transman.

Had an affair with Robert Taylor.

[quote]She was in "The Man With The Golden Arm"....as the sister in a wheelchair, but faked it. It was her way to control her junkie brother (Frank Sinatra).

R7 She was his wife, not his sister.

You can't forget her turn as a fashion designer Regine Danton in She's Dressed to Kill. Featuring DL favorites Connie Selleca, Joanna Cassidy and Jessica Walters.

With the added bonus of GOWNS by Travilla.

If only she had brought along her harmonica.

For certain viewers, she throws the dynamic off in The Sound of Music -- she's so regal, glamorous, radiant as the Baroness, some of us would rather hang out with her than with dowdy Maria.

She's fantastic in Caged, which has one of the best ensemble casts of women ever in a movie.

“Caged” was her finest film. She was spectacular!

You're right R10.. thanks.

If you've never seen it, check out "Eye of the Cat"

Her Baroness is a bit catty in how she manipulates Maria to leave and go back to the Abbey, but I still think Parker makes Elsa seem real and a kind of vulnerable herself. I feel a bit sorry for her, but with her beauty and money, she'll make out all right. But I think she conveys that she really does love Georg. So her exit is ultimately poignant, and Parker's skill as an actress is really quite admirable.

Eleanor pretty much got along with everyone -- especially liked John Garfield, but said Glenn Ford was the only one who gave her problems in a film; he insisted on top billing in "Interrupted Melody", even though it was her character's story. She agreed to it, for the good of the film, since she did want him as the husband. But she said on set and while shooting he would do stuff to try to upstage her, by making her turn away from the camera to steal focus. It worked out all right -- she's superb in the film.

Watched "Lizzie" the other night. It's very good, and yes, quite similar to "Three Faces of Eve", though the trauma of the split personality is different. Besides fine performances by Parker, Richard Boone and Joan Blondell (and Marian Ross!), there's a rare film appearance of a young, gorgeous Johnny Mathis singing 2 of his hits in a club/bar.

Nice tits.

R8 I agree completely. Baroness was so stunning and elegant next to that dishrag Maria.

Love her in the 70's TV movie slasher "Home For the Holidays" but she will always be Maggie Tarrow, star of stage and screen, in one of my favorite Murder She Wrote episodes

She chewed the scenery in Otto Preminger’s “The Man with the Golden Arm”, and went way WAY over the top in “An American Dream”.

When did she not go way over the top?

Here's Home for the Holidays.

Yes she was a little "over the top" but was truly excellent in several great performances. I know I must sound like a treasonous heretic, but I honestly believe she should have won the other for "Caged" over both Bette Davis and Gloria Swanson. Bette and Gloria were showy roles yes, but I think Eleanor had the more difficult part.

She was the perfect balance to the saccharine Maria in TSOM. While I love the movie dearly, I find the stage show more satisfying and much less cuteypie, icky sweet. The libretto is much more sophisticated. There is an even a slightly risque very short scene before Maria's wedding where the nuns help her pack and found a very sheer negligee; One nun holds it up and the Mother Superior says something like "I imagine the forgot the lining". Also remember there was no "puppet show" for the kiddies during "Lonely Goatherd", which was sung in place of "My Favorite Things" to the children during the rainstorm. The two songs for the Baroness and Max for the movie are also very sophisticated, not to mention "An Ordinary Couple", which although not exactly sophisticated, is still much more superior than that godawful "Something Good".

R25 All the songs Dick wrote w/out Oscar fr the film are godawful.

I remember seeing her in Hans Brinker on TV as a kid and thinking she was beautiful. Did she really sing in it?

She did one of those Dick Dinman audio interviews when she was old, and I heard it. Thought she seemed very down to earth. more than in her performances.

I ran into her once at a Hollywood party and she farted on my face!

My favorite film of hers.

Home from the Hill is a great film. Eleanor Parker, Robert Mitchum, George Peppard and Luana Patten. Even George Hamilton doesn't stink in it.

OP In reminiscing about the Sound of Music Christopher Plummer referred to her as a beautiful woman

She's terrific in the movie Caged. She was nominated for three Oscars including one for Caged which is probably her best performance.

She's in the camp classic The Oscar (1966) and she's the best thing about An American Dream (1966) aka See You in Hell Darling! a dreadful film based on Norman Mailer's novel. 'The first 15 minutes of Eleanor Parker in and out of bed can be recommended to connoisseurs of the tawdry though the movie as a whole doesn't rank with the Oscar' -Pauline Kael'

She's in a 1969 horror movie The Eye of the Cat and in a TV movie Maybe I'll Come Home in Spring playing Sally field's mother. Her voice deepened as she got older and at times she sounds very much like Kathleen Turner.

here's the scene