The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (103 page)

As a freelancer, she made
All About Eve
(50, Joseph L. Mankiewicz). But if that looked like the dawn of a new pop-eyed opulence, it deceived. She faltered throughout the 1950s in efforts to revive earlier successes:
Payment on Demand
(51, Bernhardt);
Another Man’s Poison
(52, Rapper);
Phone Call from a Stranger
(52, Jean Negulesco);
The Star
(53, Stuart Heisler);
The Virgin Queen
(55, Henry Koster);
Storm Center
(56, Daniel Taradash);
The Catered Affair
(56, Richard Brooks);
The Scapegoat
(58, Robert Hamer); J
ohn Paul Jones
(59, John Farrow); and
Pocketful of Miracles
(61, Frank Capra).

Her career, like that of Joan Crawford, was given a new lease on life by Robert Aldrich’s
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?
(62), an extraordinary extension of the sadomasochistic strains in their film work. It made Davis henceforward the star of a number of subhorror films. She was not unsuited to these, but she was alien to their camp knowingness. Her classic period had dealt with silly, overblown material, but she had always compelled audiences into sharing her belief in it. That faith was being modishly exploited in the sad spectacle of an actress submitting to a carpetbagger perversion of what was a rich and neurotic personality:
Dead Ringer
(64, Paul Henreid);
Where Love Has Gone
(64, Edward Dmytryk);
Hush … Hush, Sweet Charlotte
(64, Aldrich), much better than the rest, if just as calculated; nicely starched as
The Nanny
(65, Seth Holt);
The Anniversary
(67, Roy Ward Baker);
Connecting Rooms
(70, Franklin Gollings); and
Bunny O’Hare
(70, Gerd Oswald).

In 1977, the American Film Institute chose her as the first woman to receive its Life Achievement Award—a deserved prize, sadly offset by the death of Joan Crawford a few weeks later.

She made only a few more films—
Return from Witch Mountain
(77, John Hough);
Death on the Nile
(78, John Guillermin);
The Watcher in the Woods
(81, Hough);
The Whales of August
(87, Lindsay Anderson); and
The Wicked Stepmother
(90, Larry Cohen). She became frighteningly thin and bizarre in her public appearances. She had a feud with her daughter, B. D. Hyman. And her best late work was on television:
Strangers: The Story of a Mother and Daughter
(79, Milton Katselas), in which she was paired with Gena Rowlands and for which she won an Emmy;
White Mama
(80, Jackie Cooper);
Skyward
(80, Ron Howard);
Family Reunion
(81, Fielder Cook);
A Piano for Mrs. Cimino
(82, George Schaefer);
Little Gloria … Happy at Last
(82, Waris Hussein); with James Stewart in
Right of Way
(82, Schaefer); and
As Summers Die
(86, Jean-Claude Tramont).

Geena Davis
(Virginia Davis), b. Wareham, Massachusetts, 1957
Geena Davis is so smart, funny, gorgeous, full-mouthed, and knowing that it’s just a little too much to believe, in
Thelma and Louise
(91, Ridley Scott), that she has been stewing in that marriage and that part of the humdrum Southwest without ever getting her rocks off or being hired into the movies. There
is
a look that slips past the best acting: it says this one is hot, and anyone can see it. But if we are going to have a good time at the movies, we have to know when voyeurism needs to turn a blind eye. Many, many actresses have depended on it, for we have not yet found a way of having movies in which waifs, strays, wallflowers, and slowpoke earth girls look less than a hot fudge sundae.

Geena Davis went from theatre studies at Boston University to the Zoli modeling agency, and from there into a small, eye-catching role in
Tootsie
(82, Sydney Pollack). She was in
Fletch
(85, Michael Ritchie), and a vampire in
Transylvania 6-5000
(85, Rudy DeLuca), where she met her future husband, Jeff Goldblum. They were together, and very touching, in
The Fly
(86, David Cronenberg), before—somewhat unexpectedly—she won the supporting actress Oscar as Muriel, the dog trainer, in
The Accidental Tourist
(88, Lawrence Kasdan). Since then she has done
Beetlejuice
(88, Tim Burton);
Earth Girls Are Easy
(89, Julien Temple)—with Goldblum again, just before their breakup;
Quick Change
(90, Bill Murray and Howard Franklin); and
A League of Their Own
(92, Penny Marshall).

She also played in the TV series
Buffalo Bill
(1983–84), and wrote one episode of it. Her future may well depend on her ability to shape (or write) her own material—she had the promise of a new Carole Lombard or Jean Arthur. But hot comes in great supply, and
Hero
(92, Stephen Frears) did not make enough use of her. In 1993, she married director Renny Harlin and acted in
Angie
(94, Martha Coolidge).

More mysterious careers have lasted longer. But few pretty bubbles burst as suddenly as hers. Her new marriage led to
Cutthroat Island
(95, Harlin), a major disaster, and then
The Long Kiss Goodnight
(96, Harlin), a role too muddled and gloomy to suit her. Since then, she has done only
Stuart Little
(99, Rob Minkoff); a TV sitcom,
The Geena Davis Show
, to which too many people said, “Who?”; and
Stuart Little 2
(02, Minkoff).

Judy Davis
, b. Perth, Australia, 1955
Not many actresses these days have such a rich line of gruffness, intelligence, and superiority; none can give such rapid hints of the perverse or the eccentric; and no one has ever been so unabashedly freckled and scrawny, without losing an atom of appeal. It will take brave ventures to cast Judy Davis. She does not seem interested in having the love of the people. But there is a cult following her, and it thrills to stories from Australia that she is an outstanding stage actress. Imagine her Miss Julie, Hedda Gabler, Lady Macbeth, Mother Courage, and Tracy Lord (she does have a Hepburnish brusqueness).

She attended the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney and, apparently, left a convent school to sing rock and roll: liturgy and abandon have shaped her. It is a career of moments and scenes and of films that killed her off or hardly had the nerve to run with her:
High Rolling
(77, Igor Auzins);
My Brilliant Career
(79, Gillian Armstrong);
Heatwave
(81, Phillip Noyce);
The Winter of Our Dreams
(81, John Duigan);
The Final Option
(82, Ian Sharp); rather neglected as Miss Quested in
A Passage to India
(84, David Lean), but nominated for best actress;
Kangaroo
(86, Tim Burstall), with her husband, Colin Friels, playing versions of D. H. Lawrence and Frieda;
High Tide
(87, Armstrong);
Alice
(90, Woody Allen); as George Sand in
Impromptu
(91, James Lapine);
Where Angels Fear to Tread
(91, Charles Sturridge); as a Southern ghostwriter in
Barton Fink
(91, Joel and Ethan Coen); fighting the Nazis on TV in
One Against the Wind
(91, Larry Elikann), where she resembles Vivien Leigh;
Naked Lunch
(92, David Cronenberg);
Shadows and Fog
(92, Allen); nominated for supporting actress in
Husbands and Wives
(92, Allen), in which she has some spot-on Bette Davis scenes;
The Ref
(94, Ted Demme).

The difficulty in casting, or exercising her fully, began to show: she had small roles and wayward films, and more and more TV. Yet she continues to triumph, one of the few unmissable actresses of our time:
The New Age
(94, Michael Tolkin); very good in
Serving in Silence: The Margarethe Cammermeyer Story
(95, Jeff Bleckner); brilliant in
Children of the Revolution
(96, Peter Duncan); horribly abused in
Blood & Wine
(96, Bob Rafelson);
Deconstructing Harry
(97, Allen); regarded as a bitch in
Absolute Power
(97, Clint Eastwood);
Celebrity
(98, Allen); as Ms. Hellman, opposite Sam Shepard, in
Dash and Lilly
(99, Kathy Bates);
Gaudi Afternoon
(01, Susan Seidelman). But her difficulties were compensated for by her inspired
Life with Judy Garland: Me and My Shadows
(01, Robert Allan Ackerman);
The Man Who Sued God
(01, Mark Joffe);
Swimming Upstream
(03, Russell Mulcahy);
Coast to Coast
(03, Paul Mazursky) and Nancy in
The Reagans
(03, Ackerman) both for TV.

She played Mme de Noailles in
Marie Antoinette
(06, Sofia Coppola) and in
The BreakUp
(06, Vince Vaughn), and then she went to TV to be
The Starter Wife
.

No doubt, being past fifty shows—but she has been Lillian Hellman, Judy Garland, and Nancy Reagan already. Be warned.

Doris Day
(Doris von Kappelhoff), b. Cincinnati, Ohio, 1924
Doris Day is redolent of the early 1950s, a pop-art blonde who lived on to an age when her simplicity was reinterpreted by instant nostalgia. She hoped to suggest that the world was okay, that wholesome blonde girls with cheerful voices and big tits were destined to meet nice guys who would woo them chastely and tunefully
On Moonlight Bay
(51, Roy del Ruth) or in some such Californian paradise. She was the home fire that refused to admit the cold war. She was, too, a grand confidence trick, boasting in
Young at Heart
(54, Gordon Douglas) that she was “Ready, Willing and Able” but demonstrating throughout her career the very opposite. Above all, she was optimistic, just as the years of her first success were defiantly hopeful and religiously preoccupied with dating, 78s, and banana splits. She is easy to deride. But her fans were devoted and her energy was authentic. She was not sophisticated, but in the early 1950s that in itself was cool. What is most impressive about her professionalism is the way she survived into the 1960s, riding new fashions without actually changing her nature.

She was a famous band singer seen by Michael Curtiz, who gave her a starring debut in
Romance
on the High Seas
(48). She had a few straight roles—in
Young Man With a Horn
(50, Curtiz) and
Storm Warning
(50, Stuart Heisler)—but it was in Warners musicals that she found fame: as the studio waitress in
It’s a Great Feeling
(49, David Butler);
My Dream Is Yours
(49, Curtiz);
Tea for Two
(50, Butler);
The West Point Story
(50, del Ruth);
Lullaby of Broadway
(51, Butler);
I’ll See You in My Dreams
(51, Curtiz);
April in Paris
(52, Butler);
By the Light of the Silvery Moon
(52, Butler);
Calamity Jane
(53, Butler); and
Lucky Me
(54, Jack Donohue). Nor should it be forgotten that she was one of the first singers whose records were bought as “pop” by teenagers. I can remember girls who worked to look like Doris, and boys who responded warmly to those efforts.

We should not underestimate the quality of her voice. Not only was she a fine singer, technically, but her singing voice had a natural dramatic force that carried her beyond her acting ability. Thus, in many cases, her songs deepen the movie she is in—I am thinking especially of “Secret Love” in
Calamity Jane
and most of
Love Me or Leave Me
(57, Charles Vidor), where she had a triumph playing singer Ruth Etting and proved her readiness for musicals of more developed content. (If only she and Sondheim could have worked together.) Listening to her sound tracks makes you believe her films were richer or more moving than was really the case.

In addition to
Love Me or Leave Me
, in the mid-fifties she broadened her range, emoting enormously and slipping a ludicrous song (“Che Sera Sera”) into
The Man Who Knew Too Much
(55, Alfred Hitchcock); somehow managing to land an aeroplane in J
ulie
(56, Andrew L. Stone); and her best film,
The Pajama Game
(57, Stanley Donen and George Abbott), which harnessed her bounce to the role of factory shop steward. Her work turned to romantic comedy in
The Tunnel of Love
(58, Gene Kelly) and
Teacher’s Pet
(58, George Seaton), and she contrived to become the untainted subject of Ross Hunter’s sexual innuendo (and a top boxoffice attraction) in
Pillow Talk
(59, Michael Gordon);
Lover Come Back
(61, Delbert Mann); and
That Touch of Mink
(62, Mann). She was wide-eyed with fright in
Midnight Lace
(60, David Miller); funny in
Please Don’t Eat the Daisies
(60, Charles Walters); and returned to music in
Billy Rose’s Jumbo
(62, Walters), but pillow talk held sway:
The Thrill of It All
(63, Norman Jewison);
Move Over, Darling
(63, Gordon);
Send Me No Flowers
(64, Jewison); and
Do Not Disturb
(64, Ralph Levy). But since two Frank Tashlin films—the amusing
The Glass Bottom Boat
(66) and the woeful
Caprice
(67)—she has made nothing of interest and now seems to have retired to the world of margarine commercials and looking after animals.

This may also have been influenced by the death in 1968 of Martin Melcher, her husband and frequent producer—and also the embezzler of about $20 million of her money.