LAST EDITED ON 05-14-01 AT 08:51 PM (EST)>PS. Check out Blockbuster for Old 40's and 50's, B/W Mystery
>Movies for GLORIA GARHAM...Glamour "Bad Girl" of FilmNoir
>fame is a tough blonde who doublecrosses, shoots, lies, etc....
>she starred for 20 years w/every leading man but always in
>what were "B Movies" (ie: lesser known/cult type).
Ahhh, you can't get away with this on this board, Dalton -- you know better!
First, I think you're talking about Gloria Grahame.
Roles that I remember: Violet in "It's A Wonderful Life" (that should identify her to 99% of the readers), "The Bold and the Beautiful" (D!ck Powell's wife in a movie directed by Vincente Minnelli; Gloria won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for this movie featuring Kirk Douglas and Lana Turner), Debby in "The Big Heat" (director Fritz Lang's best-known sequence has her being permanently disfigured when Lee Marvin throws scalding coffee on her face), the elephant trainer Angel in Cecil B. deMille's "The Greatest Show on Earth" (probably best known today for the lead performance of an uncredited Jimmy Stewart as Buttons the Clown, who disguises his true identity behind his mask -- shakes, ever see this one?), Ado Annie ("I'm just a girl who cain't say no") in "Oklahoma!" ... not a B-movie in the bunch, and I'm sure I can find some more hits with a little time!
One of her best movies, for people who idolize Martin Scorsese, is a movie with Bogart called "In A Lonely Place," directed by Grahame's soon-to-be-ex-husband (and father of the first of her four children) Nicholas Ray. {In a touch that will be familiar to you Debb fans out there, Gloria later married Nicholas' son (her stepson) Tony Ray, who was the father of her last two children.} Dalton is right; she did many excellent movies and deserves to be remembered as one of the outstanding actresses in Hollywood during her prime.
Edited to add: I started to respond because I wanted to talk about "Eyes of Laura Mars" -- the first advance movie screening I ever attended. Jon Peters produced the movie (thanks, Barbra), and I got a pass from Columbia Records. Dalton, I had the exact same reaction you did. After "Network", I thought Faye Dunaway was going to be another Ingrid Bergman, combining an incredible screen presence with an even more incredible beauty. But "EoLM" was actually the beginning of the downturn in her career...