Shirley Booth

Her pussy stunk.

Come back, l'ul Sheba! Mistah B, Sheba's gone!

Because she ugly

She was a real doozy!

She was no Shirley Jones.

I nominate her for sainthood.

I loved Come Back Little Sheeba.

So there.

Burt Lancaster was WAY out of her league in Sheba.

Burt Lancaster had a big ol' gorgeous hairy cock!

She did 2 musicals.

Another try for Burt's bushy balls

Shirley needed a good squeeze of Dristan in each nostril.

In a thread entitled "Shirley Booth" you're gonna post photos of Burt Lancaster's balls?

DL? Don't ever change.

R13 any mention of a young Burt gets my pecker up!

Actually ibdb lists her in *five* musicals.

She was friends with DL patron saint Vivian Vance, who wrote in a 1955 article about her mental breakdown that "my dear friend Shirley Booth, who had had more than a spot of upset herself, would sit and try to cheer me over an endless succession of lunches at Sardis, driving in again and again with the affirmation that this too would pass."

Also, Vivian's husband, Phil Ober, appeared with Booth in two films: Come Back, Little Sheba and About Mrs. Leslie.

Well she did that shitty sitcom for starters.

Not to derail this thread but when and why did our Lady of Vivian Vance have a mental breakdown?

[quote]Not to derail this thread but when and why did our Lady of Vivian Vance have a mental breakdown?

She had one a few years before I Love Lucy. I think during ILL she was seeing a psychiatrist.

Late 1945, when she was performing in The Voice of the Turtle in Chicago, r19.

Why? Probably a mix of a traumatic childhood and an abusive husband.

The psychiatrist told Viv to lean on Desi and she took it literally.

She gave lousy head, even after I gave her private lessons.

Shirley Booth played the lonely American woman traveling alone in Italy in the Arthur Laurents play “Time of the Cuckoo” - later it was “Summertime” with Katherine Hepburn. Mary Astor played the part on the national tour. In her autobiography she says how hard that your was. She was in the shadow of Shirley Booth’s performance. She was unable to get the laughs and sympathy that Shirley got.

[quote]Well she did that shitty sitcom for starters.

R18 No, that shitty sitcom was not her starter. It was at the end of a long stage and film career. I'd compare it to Fred McMurray on My Three Sons. Actors who had great careers and just got tired and wanted to stay home in LA. Working in TV was their 'retirement.'

Joan Crawford might have been happier had she got some cushy, popular TV show to end her career on, but we all know how she felt about being a movie STAR

Hazel wouldn’t have happened without Shirley Booth, it was created for her (from a cartoon in the Sat Evening Post).

Hazel wasn’t a shitty sitcom. It brought power to the working class. Maids all over the USA were empowered by watching one of their own. Shirley Booth was a trailblazer. Once Julia Roberts is done with her Harriet Tubman biopic, maybe she’ll do Shirley Booth’s Hazel!

Great actress- talent trumps everything.

Her Amanda in The Glass Menagerie from the 60's is something. That warbly voice, You were praying someone would smother her with a pillow.

[quote]Burt Lancaster was WAY out of her league in Sheba.

It’s a movie trope, like Montgomery Clift and Shelley Winters in A Place in the Sun.

She was a great actress

She was MY saint.

People who only know her from Hazel don't know how much range she had as an actress. Listen to the Juno OBC sometime. She's heartbreaking, and that's just vocally. About Mrs. Leslie is not a great film, but you can see her play a leading romantic part beautifully. Earlier in her career, she played those Eve Arden type roles onstage, like Ruth in My Sister Eileen, and the photographer in The Philadelphia Story. An extraordinary actress.

[quote]Once Julia Roberts is done with her Harriet Tubman biopic, maybe she’ll do Shirley Booth’s Hazel!

The only Shirley I'm doing is CHISHOLM, baby!

Easy on the jelly Mr b. I've already let those pants out more than the dog.

I love Shirley but if she is known today if at all it's due to Hazel which is a pretty shitty sitcom. And I have a taste for lousy sitcoms from the 60s. But Hazel is beyond the pale.

Hazel probably made her very wealthy.

Once she kicked the smack addiction, she did pretty well.

"Hazel" didn't make her rich but it did secure her retirement.

The show does not hold up that well. The writing is full of sitcom trope and plots of its time. Booth said her job was to give Hazel (the character) heart, but the show probably went too far in that direction. In the cartoons, Hazel could be quite droll and sarcastic. I never got the sense that Booth ever went in that direction, although she had a reputation being able to play just about everything and anything.

I love Hazel. It holds up well as a period piece. Hazel is funny as hell. My favorite line is when she's on the phone and someone asks her how she is and she says oh still fat and Sassy.

When I was a kid I watched Hazel for the Ford commercials.

I thought Shirley was my mother.

I wonder what black actress could play Hazel for the reboot.

^She was actually a scissor sister to your mother, you dyke!!!!!

R45- Julia Roberts

Hazel was my grandmother’s favorite show when it was first on. I could never understand why. Even as a child I thought it was lame and didn’t make sense that Hazel acted like she thought she was a member of the family even though they treated her like a servant. She had no life of her own. And then they just abandoned her and their own kid! Strangest reboot ever.

R45 Hattie MacDaniel already did that and better.

[quote]It’s a movie trope, like Montgomery Clift and Shelley Winters in A Place in the Sun.

R31 How is the casting of Shirley Booth and Burt Lancaster a trope? Do you understand the meaning of 'trope'?

[quote]How is the casting of Shirley Booth and Burt Lancaster a trope? Do you understand the meaning of 'trope'?

Trope - a significant or recurrent theme; a motif.

Often, movies will cast a good looking person with someone who is not their equal in the looks department, hence a recurrent theme or trope.

^^interesting interpretation.

I always felt it was so obnoxious of the Seinfeld writers to have George describe his mother as being "uglier than Hazel." I can't imagine Estelle Harris was okay with that. And Shirley's family couldn't have been thrilled about it.

I'm guessing that Shirley would have laughed or at least gotten the last laugh.

R53: Booth was dead and her only survivor was a sister who may have been dead by the time that episode aired. It was a funny line and a good use of a boomer cultural reference---recognizable but not obvious. I doubt that Estelle Harris had much vanity about her looks.

I give her credit, she made an insufferable cunt of a character of Hazel likeable.

She was no Shirley Hemphill.

One note Shirley

[quote]didn’t make sense that Hazel acted like she thought she was a member of the family even though they treated her like a servant. She had no life of her own.

R48, she considered herself part of the family. Hazel had known Dorothy since she was a child and still called Dorothy "Missy." Hazel had boyfriends, was in a bowling league, a singing group and was otherwise active in the community.

I enjoyed seasons 1 and 2. My favorite episodes are when Hazel gets a color TV and when Hazel wheels and deals to get an air conditioner in the middle of a heatwave.

I didn't know I knew this much about Hazel until now. One summer, 5 or 6 years ago, I was home a few mornings a week, and I'd watch two episodes of McHale's Navy followed by two episodes of Hazel on Antenna TV.

My parents named our family dog, a beautiful boxer we brought home in 1952, Sheba, after the film.

Did you ever see your Sheba shimmy shake and all that jazz?

Kate Hepburn stole 2 roles that Shirley created and should have done as films: The Time of the Cuckoo that became the film Summertime and The Desk Set that became the film Desk Set.

Shirley was the second female lead in The Philadelphia Story opposite Hepburn on Broadway but when Hepburn, who controlled the film rights, sold it to MGM, Shirley was replaced by Ruth Hussy. I wonder if Hepburn was threatened by Shirley.

R59, yes I know Hazel worked for Dorothy’s family. I knew all that stuff too lol.

But Hazel was not part of their family. She was a servant and they treated her like one. She wore a uniform. She ate in the kitchen.

What really bugs me about this show is how Hazel seemed to be so proud to be a drudge for these people. She even had the chance to make a lot of money by being in a commercial or something like that but she turned it down because she didn’t want to leave the Baxters. Who didn’t think twice about leaving HER.

PS. R62, that was interesting. I love both Summertime and Desk Set and can’t imagine Shirley Booth in either one. I don’t know if this is true or not but I’ve read that the reason why Hazel moved on to a new family in the realllly bad final season was because they were trying to improve the falling ratings and that it was Booth’s decision to fire the Baxter couple actors… and that they found out they had been fired by reading about it in the press. So apparently she didn’t mind dishing it out herself.

The bests episodes were always the ones with Dierdre

[quote]The bests episodes were always the ones with Dierdre

When I was a gayling growing up, I thought that was the most wonderful name.

Lilies...

But r63 you say "I don't know if this is true or not" so I guess you're pretty good at "dishing it out" yourself.

If you've never seen Shirley Booth as Dolly Gallagher Levi, please watch the wonderful film of THE MATCHMAKER. She really is the best version of Dolly ever and it's a shame she never played her in the musical. The film is a charming pleasure of delights, very true to the original Thornton Wilder play, and has wonderful performances by young Shirley MacLaine, Tony Perkins and Robert Morse and the incomparable Paul Ford as the perfect Horace Vandergelder.

I originally saw that film as a child with my parents, enjoyed it and promptly forgot it. Then, in drama school, we read THE MATCHMAKER and it all came rushing back to me.

Hello, Dolly...

Dorothy she is the must infuriating woman I've ever met.

About Mrs. Leslie...

Hi ya Miss Thompson. Wow that your new mink coat? If it ever has pups can I have one?

Linda Watkins who played Gracie on three episodes.

The divine Maudie Prickett was a semi-regular as Rosie.

You'd figure just once Missy would remember that Thursday was Hazel's day off and could plan her event for another day.

Hazel didn’t get discounts the way Alice got discounts from Sam on The Brady Bunch.

Isn't her Oscar win for "Come Back, Little Sheba" one of those considered undeniable, as in no one else that year was going to challenge?

1: Shirley writhing on a couch while listening to radio program Taboo

2: Shirley's pilot for radio's Our Miss Brooks (audio only). Part went to Eve Arden. I think she could have done this very well. But it's a case of apples and oranges.

[quote]The divine Maudie Prickett was a semi-regular as Rosie.

Hazel stole not one but two men from her best friend Rosie.

Shirl was quite the DL Patron Saint -- at her death it was discovered she had shaved almost a decade off her true age.

I love Shirley Booth but that wouldn't surprise me, r81.

She was a talented, hard-working and reliable supporting character actress for over 2 decades, often cast older than her actual age, before the play and then the film of Come Back, Little Sheba suddenly sky rocketed her into Hollywood leading lady status and all kinds of long-awaited and deserved fame well into her middle age.

Her Lola in Sheba was compared to the legendary performance of Laurette Taylor in The Glass Menagerie but, unlike Taylor, the Sheba film allowed everyone to see what was so special. Actresses like Bette Davis admitted they didn't dare put themselves up for the film because of their awe of Shirley's performance.

Ultimately, and unsurprisingly, Hollywood didn't know quite what to do with her (she only made 4 more films) and she never came close to repeating the success of Sheba but she continued to work on Broadway in some legendary musical flops (of which she was often cited as the only saving grace) and, at least, TV success with Hazel, in her 70s, gave her financial security for the rest of her life (she died at age 94) and legions of new fans in younger audiences.

Someone once said she did a lot of regional theater towards the end of her life. She’d hop on a train with a bag of books and show up for a week or two engagement.

I think you're maybe confusing Shirley with Julie Harris, r83. Shirley retired to her home in Cape Cod in 1974 but lived to age 94 in1992.

[quote]I think you're maybe confusing Shirley with Julie Harris

Maybe somebody told me wrong.

I like The Matchmaker and Come Back, Little Sheba......but this might be my favorite.....About Mrs. Leslie.

R86 My best friend Gary died last month at 72 of an unexpected heart attack. He loved “About Mrs. Leslie” and watched it least 2-3 times a year. I could crack him up by imitating Booth saying “Mr. Leslie-honey.” His favorite line was “These are my days, whether I like them or not.” He, like “Mrs. Leslie,” deserved a devoted partner, but never found one (he wasn’t over-picky, but lived in rural, homophobic Nebraska.). He spent his last ten years back in Detroit, his hometown, where habits of solitude and slowing down because of a heart attack ten years ago gave him a modest life, but in a town he lived and occasional visits with friends from his days at Interlochen, where he went to high school. He was a great dancer and a devoted teacher. I’ll miss him every day of my life, though we only talked about once a month. And I’ll watch “About Mrs. Leslie” again in his honor. Rest in plie, dear man.

R1. A friend of mine briefly dates the doctor who declared Shirley Booth and Julie Harris dead. He never mention the olfactory state of either one’s pussy.

She’ll always be Mrs. Claus from “The Year Without A Santa Claus” to me.

I've never seen About Mrs. Leslie but the that clip of the first 10 minutes at is beyond intriguing! Can't imagine where it's going....

I'll have to find the entire film.

It looks interesting. Tennessee Williams without the psychosis.

Watch the video R66 posted. Look at her face. She is completely in character and it's fantastic. Five minutes on a variety show to promote her show and she give 150%. So impressive.

R77 Booth owned the category that year. Crawford or Hayward were probably a distant second. Joan said going into the Oscars she was counting on Shirley to win. If you look at her clip as she won, it was an enormously popular victory. The audience just loved her.

R63: The firing was probably done by CBS. Booth probably had a substantial interest in the show, but in those days, networks and sponsors played a bigger role. If CBS was willing to pick up the show and found two sponsors (Lever and Phillip Morris, according to Wiki) and the network (with some input from sponsors) would have decided how much they were willing to spend, what boneheaded changes to make to the format. Booth and the production team at Screen gems may have been given a relatively free hand in casting, but the network probably had a veto. Sponsors played a bigger role earlier in tv, but probably still had some influence, but Booth probably came last in the pecking order. Screen Gems would have controlled how the budget was spent and was known as a "cheap lot".

Team Mr B & Missy.

R86 - that was such a wonderful post!! I would hope that when I am gone A - someone will notice and B - that someone out there from my life would take the time to write such a colorful and thoughtful remembrance of me. you are a good friend!!

Her sister, Telephone, is much more talented.

r96, I'm assuming you meant r87.

R87 - I meant you in the post I sent to #86…. Wow - I am making too many mistakes lately. Little dumb ones. Thank you for clearing it up #86.

And About Mrs. Leslie features Shirley in a bathing suit and Philip Ober (Mr. Vivian Vance!).

[quote]Her sister, Telephone, is much more talented.

So was her uncle, John Wilkes.

R51- It's a fantasy for straight women who could never get a man that good looking in real life- Like on Sex and The City with some of the men that were lusting after Carrie and MUCH more so in GIRLS the boyfriends of Lens- especially her second boyfriend the teacher who was actually quite good looking and Lens dumps him.

I think Lola was supposed to be pretty in her youth. On stage you probably could believe that Booth was, but on film, not so much.

There was a musical of Come Back, Little Sheba planned, starring Gwen Verdon. She'd reprise "Whatever Lola Wants..."

About Mrs. Leslie is available on YouTube or on video at Ebay for $17.95 + shpg. Well worth it.

[quote]There was a musical of Come Back, Little Sheba planned

Actually, there was a musical version attempt. I attended a staged workshop of it, I guess it was around 1980.

Did the musical star Linda Lavin. I know she wrote a few songs for it.

There was a production of SHEBA done in the Berkshires the summer of 1977 when I worked there. And I think they did offer Gwen Verdon the role. She actually might have been brilliant, all Lola jokes aside. IIRC Rosemary played her, rather dully, but Dana Andrews, a recovering alcoholic, played Doc and he was amazing.

No wonder gays love Hazel.

The show opening features SMELLING COOKIES

R108 how did they handle the "Taboo" number?

S. Epatha Merkerson gave a lovely, touching performance—different from Booth’s (less boisterous, less lower-class) but quite valid in its own way.

Oh I thought Epatha was just dreadful. She got none of the character's foolishness or silly vanity, And very little vulnerability. Epatha is just too strong and smartand sensible to play that kind of character believably. I thought that whole production was very misguided and somehow sanitized and made it all feel like it was taking place in some kind of New Jersey suburbia.

Her relationship/co-dependency to Kevin whatshisname's Doc was entirely missing. He just wasn't much of a presence.

And don't get me started on Zoe Kazan as the most sexless Marie imaginable.

Cover girl!

DL doesn't go for domestics.

All the Booths were outstanding actors.

For R90, here's About Mrs. Leslie.

My majordomo would have managed her. I would not have known she existed.

Ouch! Watching it now. She looks older and homelier in the flashbacks than in the present day scenes. And that singing! She rivaled Alfalfa with her cover of “I’m in the Mood for Love”. I’m enjoying the dialogue though.

Why is it that men who can go through severe accidents, air raids, and any other major crisis always seems to think that they are at death's door when they have a simple head cold?

I never cared for Hazel, but I loved Shirley in Juno.

Well, “About Mrs. Leslie” was an effective tearjerker.

Did you notice where the porch was in the final shot, R121?