The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (100 page)

She returned to America for
Music Is Magic
(35, George Marshall), and in 1936 she and Lyon went to London, first to play at the Palladium, but eventually to settle. She made two awful pictures there
—Not Wanted on Voyage
(36, Emil E. Reinert) and
The Return of Carol Deane
(38, Arthur Woods)—but had an enormous wartime success, with Lyon and Vic Oliver, in the radio show
Hi Gang!
A film was made of the show in 1941, directed by Marcel Varnel. After the war they went back to America and Bebe made
The Fabulous Joe
(48) for Hal Roach.

But they were soon back in London with their children, doing more radio shows, which led to the inevitable movie exploitation:
Life with the Lyons
(53, Val Guest) and
The Lyons in Paris
(55, Guest). She retired and spent her last ten years seriously ill.

Jeff Daniels
, b. Chelsea, Michigan, 1955
Was he
Dumb or Dumber
(94, Peter Farrelly)? And was that really appropriate preparation for playing George Washington on TV in
The Crossing
(00, Robert Harmon)? By then, aged forty-five or so, the long-suffering Jeff Daniels was smart enough to burn no boats, so, as William McDonald noted, “his expression generally remains as impenetrable as the one on the dollar bill.” Daniels seems a decent man and a likable, subtle actor, with at least one terrific picture built around his easygoing normalcy:
Something Wild
(86, Jonathan Demme), where he is blown inside out into his real nature by the pure force of Melanie Griffith.

In short, he has been the guy next door, often weak, yet the reliable carer for
101 Dalmatians
(96, Stephen Herek) and a valiant Colonel Joshua Chamberlain in
Gettysburg
(93, Ronald Maxwell). One has the hunch that he might yet deliver a fine performance as some kind of hesitating Everyman. Meanwhile, count on his survival.

He made his debut in
Ragtime
(81, Milos Forman) and followed it with the husband in
Terms of Endearment
(83, James L. Brooks);
The Purple Rose of Cairo
(85, Woody Allen);
Marie
(85, Roger Donaldson);
Heartburn
(86, Mike Nichols);
Radio Days
(87, Allen);
The House on Carroll Street
(88, Peter Yates);
Sweet Hearts Dance
(88, Robert Greenwald);
Checking Out
(89, David Leland);
Love Hurts
(90, Bud Yorkin);
Welcome Home, Roxy Carmichael
(90, Jim Abraham);
The Butcher’s Wife
(91, Terry Hughes);
There Goes the Neighborhood
(92, Bill Phillips);
Speed
(94, Jan de Bont);
2 Days in the Valley
(96, John Herzfeld);
Fly Away Home
(96, Carroll Ballard);
Trial and Error
(97, Jonathan Lynn);
Pleasantville
(98, Garry Ross);
My Favorite Martian
(99, Donald Petrie);
All the Rage
(99, James D. Stern);
Cheaters
(00, John Stockwell);
Chasing Sleep
(00, Michael Walker).

Another person beats within, as witness two attempts to write and direct—both greeted with derision:
Escanaba in da Moonlight
(01) and
Super Sucker
(02). But he returned to regular acting in
Blood Work
(02, Clint Eastwood);
The Hours
(02, Stephen Daldry); as Chamberlain again in
Gods and Generals
(03, Maxwell);
I Witness
(03, Rowdy Herrington); on TV in
The Goodbye Girl
(04, Richard Benjamin);
Because of Winn-Dixie
(04, Wayne Wang).

He signaled a new interest in small, indie pictures with
The Squid and the Whale
(05, Noah Baumbach);
Good Night and Good Luck
(05, George Clooney);
RV
(06, Barry Sonnenfeld); as the Kansas cop in
Infamous
(06, Douglas McGrath);
The Lookout
(07, Scott Frank);
Mamma’s Boy
(07, Tim Hamilton);
A Plumm Summer
(07, Caroline Zelder);
Sweet Nothing in My Ear
(08, Joseph Sargent);
Traitor
(08, Jeffrey Nachmanoff);
State of Play
(09, Kevin Macdonald);
The Answer Man
(09, John Hindman);
Away We Go
(09, Sam Mendes);
Paper Man
(09, Kieran and Michele Mulroney);
Howl
(10, Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman).

Frank Darabont
, b. Montebeliard, France, 1959
1994:
The Shawshank Redemption
. 1999:
The Green Mile
. 2001:
The Majestic
. 2007: episode from
Raines
(TV); episode from
The Shield
(TV);
The Mist
.

Twice now, Frank Darabont has drawn upon the writing of Stephen King to make circuitous parables about the mystery of fate in stories set in antiquated prison systems. It’s a kind of genre, I fear—frisson turned with prison—and I don’t want to have to face one more sentence behind these bars. It’s not that Darabont lacks skill or warmth, or even a sense of human vagary.
The Shawshank Redemption
established its own world and rhythm, not to mention charm. Equally, I think there’s a chance that the very expansiveness of its parable could quickly become vacant and hollow. So let this director go. Ask him to deal with liberty.

Darabont began as an assistant on
Hell Night
(81, Tom DeSimone), and he did set decoration on
Crimes of Passion
(84, Ken Russell). But by then he was writing scripts:
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
(87, Chuck Russell);
The Blob
(88, Russell);
The Fly II
(89, Chris Wales); and the dreadful
Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
(94, Kenneth Branagh), which seemingly persuaded some people that he was ready for higher things.

Of course,
Shawshank
won many awards and nominations, and among the young it often passes for a piece of profound humanism. Times are hard. But Darabont seems impressed by his following—as witness a kind of portentous gradualism that was awaiting him. At a full three hours
The Green Mile
was all limitless—even to the point where one wondered whether the title referred to the Tom Hanks character’s vexed urinary tract. Again, some were certain
The Green Mile
was profound. But when
The Majestic
came along, nothing could be discerned but the fragments of very soulful intentions.

He had a very high reputation: some people felt
The Shawshank Redemption
was a great film. So he produced
Collateral
(04, Michael Mann), nosed around in TV as a writer-director, and then made
The Mist
(from Stephen King again). King didn’t like his ending, but Darabont may be placed as the writer’s house director.

Linda Darnell
(Monetta Eloyse Darnell) (1921–65), b. Dallas, Texas
A dark-eyed, sultry actress, Darnell was one of the sirens of the 1940s whose rose-at-twilight looks seemed to stimulate every Fox cameraman—indeed, one of her husbands was photographer Peverell Marley. Her best work was done for Preminger, and she exists imaginatively as the loose-living sister of Gene Tierney, a girl bruised by experience but still making up her lips till they bulge with prospects. After working as a model, she made her debut in Gregory Ratoff’s
Hotel for Women
(39), then
DayTime Wife
(39, Ratoff), and she is a splendid female object in Hathaway’s
Brigham Young
(40); as Lolita in Mamoulian’s
The Mark of Zorro
(40); King’s
Chad Hanna
(40); and Mamoulian’s
Blood and Sand
(41)—all made while still in her teens. She was still not quite a star and played supporting parts:
Rise and Shine
(41, Allan Dwan); as the Virgin Mary (uncredited) in
The Song of Bernadette
(43, Henry King); as an Indian girl, Dawn Starlight, in
Buffalo Bill
(44, William Wellman); René Clair’s
It Happened Tomorrow
(44); Sirk’s
Summer Storm
(44); and Archie Mayo’s
Sweet and Lowdown
(44). Upon encountering Otto Preminger, she made four films:
Fallen Angel
(45);
Centennial Summer
(46); blonde in
Forever Amber
(47); and
The 13th Letter
(51). This counts as her best work, but she is also good in John Brahm’s
Hangover Square
(45);
The Great John L
. (45, Frank Tuttle); “I’m Chihuahua” in Ford’s
My Darling Clementine
(46); as Algeria Wedge in John Stahl’s
The Walls of Jericho
(48); as the wife in Preston Sturges’s
Unfaithfully Yours
(48), subtly different in Rex Harrison’s several daydreams for disposing of her; in
Slattery’s Hurricane
(49, André de Toth); and in two Joseph Mankiewicz films,
A Letter to Three Wives
(48) and
No Way Out
(50). Her success did not carry over into the 1950s and, after Robert Wise’s
Two Flags West
(50); Stuart Heisler’s
Saturday Island
(51); Raoul Walsh’s
Blackbeard the Pirate
(52); Rudolph Maté’s
Second Chance
(53);
This Is My Love
(54, Heisler); and
Zero Hour
(57, Hall Bartlett), she worked only intermittently.

She died in a fire that started while she was watching one of her own movies on TV.

Harry d’Abbadie d’Arrast
(1893–1968), b. Argentina
1927:
Service for Ladies; A Gentleman of Paris; Serenade
. 1928:
The Magnificent Flirt; Dry Martini
. 1930:
Raffles
(codirected with George Fitzmaurice);
Laughter
. 1933:
Topaze
. 1935:
The Three-Cornered Hat
.

From French aristocratic origins, d’Arrast came to Hollywood to assist Chaplin on
A Woman of Paris
(23) and
The Gold Rush
(25). A shadowy figure now, he had a reputation for smart comedy and highly strung fractiousness. He crossed cocktail sticks with Goldwyn on
Raffles
, with Selznick on
Topaze
, and eventually quit Hollywood for lack of work. He began at Paramount with three society romances starring Adolphe Menjou as, in order, head waiter, marquis, and famous composer.
The Magnificent Flirt
was a farce he wrote with Jean de Limur and Herman Mankiewicz that starred Albert Conti and Florence Vidor.
Dry Martini
, made at Fox with Mary Astor and Matt Moore, is the epitome of romantic cynicism undaunted by the Depression. After
Raffles
, he returned to his true home, Paramount, for Nancy Carroll and Fredric March in
Laughter
, written by himself and Donald Ogden Stewart and produced by Mankiewicz—a barrage of acerbity.
Topaze
came from the Pagnol play and starred John Barrymore. His last film had in its cast d’Arrast’s wife, Eleanor Boardman. Those huge Paramount salons, slim girls in satin, and waspish dark men may have been presented as clearly by d’Arrast as anyone. Paramount condescended to its audience, and he seemed to fit that tone.

Danielle Darrieux
, b. Bordeaux, France, 1917
For fifty years a leading French actress, she has made the occasional venture into American cinema and specialized in sophisticated, tender women. It was Max Ophuls who truly kindled her warmth: in
La Ronde
(50), she is the young woman in bed with Daniel Gélin. He has been thinking of it all day, but when the moment comes he cannot. She tells him not to worry. Gélin wonders if she has read Stendhal’s account of cavalry officers who talk all their sex away. There is a large close-up of Darrieux, with this direction in the script: “The young woman must not appear to be mocking. She should be very sympathetic, but not really convinced.” That instruction is close to the nerve of Ophuls’s sad smile, and Darrieux realizes it beautifully. She worked twice again for him: in the Maison Tellier episode of
Le Plaisir
(51) and as the heartrending wife in
Madame de …
(53). She was never as good elsewhere, but never less than beautiful, and always in good humor:
Le Bal
(31, William Thiele);
L’Or dans la Rue
(33, Kurt Bernhardt);
Mauvaise Graine
(34, Billy Wilder and Alexandre Esway);
Mayerling
(36, Anatole Litvak);
Abus de Confiance
(37, Henri Decoin, her then husband);
Katia
(38, Maurice Tourneur);
The Rage of Paris
(38, Henry Koster);
Battements de Coeur
(39, Decoin);
Premier Rendezvous
(41, Decoin);
La Fausse Maîtresse
(42, André Cayatte);
Ruy Blas
(47, Pierre Billon);
Occupe-Toi d’Amélie
(49, Claude Autant-Lara); scheming with James Mason in
Five Fingers
(52, Joseph L. Mankiewicz);
Rich, Young and Pretty
(51, Norman Taurog);
La Vérité sur le Bébé Donge
(51, Decoin);
Adorables Créatures
(52, Christian-Jaque);
Le Bon Dieu sans Confession
(53, Autant-Lara); as Madame de Renal in
Le Rouge et le Noir
(54, Autant-Lara);
Napoléon
(54, Sacha Guitry);
L’Amant de Lady Chatterley
(55, Marc Allégret);
Alexander the Great
(55, Robert Rossen);
Le Salaire du Péché
(56, Denys de la Patellière);
Pot-Bouille
(57, Julien Duvivier);
Marie-Octobre
(59, Duvivier);
The Greengage Summer
(61, Lewis Gilbert); as a victim of
Landru
(62, Claude Chabrol);
Patate
(64, Robert Thomas);
Le Dimanche de la Vie
(65, Jean Herman);
Le Coup de Grâce
(65, Jean Cayrol);
L’Homme à la Buick
(66, Gilles Grangier);
The Young Girls of Rochefort
(67, Jacques Demy), reluctant to marry a man named Monsieur Dame; as the madame in
Les Oiseaux Vont Mourir au Pérou
(68, Romain Gary);
24 Heures de la Vie d’une Femme
(68, Dominique Delouche);
La Maison de Campagne
(69, Jean Girault);
La Divine
(75, Delouche);
L’Année Sainte
(76, Girault);
Le Cavaleur
(78, Philippe de Broca);
Une Chambre à Ville
(82, Demy);
En Haut des Marches
(83, Paul Vecchiali);
Scene of the Crime
(86, André Téchiné); and
Quelques Jours avec Moi
(88, Claude Sautet).