Siegel S., Siegel B. The Encyclopedia Of Hollywood
Подождите немного. Документ загружается.
Her real film fame, however, came not from
FRANCIS FORD
COPPOLA
’s hits but from her neurotic and endearing per-
formance in the film version of Play It Again, Sam (1972).
Critics and audiences loved the film and, though it was
clearly a Woody Allen vehicle, Keaton was singled out for
considerable praise. Though she starred in other non-Allen
films during the 1970s, such as I Will, I Will . . . for Now
(1976) and Harry and Walter Go to New York (1976), her early
reputation was built on her costarring leads in the Woody
Allen classics Sleeper (1973), Love and Death (1975), Interiors
(1978), and Manhattan (1979). Her most important Allen
film was Annie Hall (1977), which was loosely based on
Keaton’s relationship with her director—even to the point of
giving the title character her actual last name. She won the
Best Actress Oscar for her performance in that film, while
also starting a fashion trend known as the “Annie Hall look.”
In the same year as Annie Hall, Keaton also starred in
what was then her most important dramatic role, the lead in
Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977). The provocative and much-
discussed film concerning sexual repression highlighted
Keaton’s acting versatility and surprised a great many critics.
After her amicable breakup with Woody Allen, she went
on to make mostly dramatic movies, including Reds (1981)—
a hit romantic film of ideas with
WARREN BEATTY
—and a
powerful, critically acclaimed movie about divorce, Shoot the
Moon (1982). But then she hit a rough spot in her career with
two major bombs, The Little Drummer Girl (1984) and Mrs.
Soffel (1984). Keaton bounced back, though, with several
highly regarded films, among them Crimes of the Heart
(1986), Baby Boom (1987), and The Good Mother (1988).
In the late 1980s, Keaton also made her directorial debut
with the rather controversial Heaven (1987), putting together
a melange of interviews and film clips concerning people’s
ideas of the hereafter.
In The Lemon Sisters (1990), Keaton was one of three
women performers who struggle to buy their own club and to
deal with the men in their lives; this sisterhood act would be
reflected in her other films, such as Marvin’s Room (1996) in
which she has to deal with sister Meryl Streep. In The First
Wives Club (1996), she is one of three women who struggle to
deal with the aftermath of divorce, but this time, the three
(including Keaton, Bette Midler, and
GOLDIE HAWN
) are
very successful, as was the film, especially with women.
Reuniting professionally with Woody Allen for Manhattan
Murder Mystery (1993), Keaton was nominated for a Golden
Globe Best Actress award. She also earned an Oscar nomina-
tion for Best Actress for her performance in Marvin’s Room.
Keaton also played her share of mother roles during the
1990s. She was the mother in Father of the Bride (1991), star-
ring
STEVE MARTIN
, who completely took over the film. In
Father of the Bride: Part Two (1995), she had a sort of revenge,
becoming pregnant and presenting Steve Martin with yet
another problem. As the uptight mother of a mentally hand-
icapped daughter in The Other Sister (1998), she was convinc-
ing and moving. Other roles during the 1990s included her
final turn as the WASP wife to a Mafia don in The Godfather,
Part 3 (1990), and Hanging Up (2000) with
MEG RYAN
;
Keaton played Ryan’s older sister, a high-powered New York
magazine editor. In 2001 she was one of a large cast wasted
in Town and Country. Keaton seems to have been successful in
making the generational leap and continuing to find good
roles, particularly in the critically lauded Something’s Gotta
Give (2003), for which she was nominated for an Oscar.
Keitel, Harvey (1939– ) Harvey Keitel got his start in
movies as a result of his work with director
MARTIN SCORSESE
,
who used him in most of his major films: Mean Streets (1973),
Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore (1974), Taxi Driver (1976), and
The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), for example. Later, Keitel
became one of the first Hollywood actors to lend his talents to
young independent directors, a direct result of which was
QUENTIN TARANTINO
’s Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction
(1994). In the course of his career, he has moved from playing
tough, street-smart hoodlums and misogynists to caring, sym-
pathetic men who relate well to women.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, to lower-middle-class
orthodox Jewish parents, Harvey Keitel flunked out of school
at 17 and enlisted in the Marines. After three years in the
marines, he returned to Brooklyn in 1965 and worked for
eight years as a courtroom stenographer while taking classes
at Stella Adler’s School of Acting. At this juncture, he also
met director Martin Scorsese, who cast him in Who’s That
Knocking at My Door? (1968), based upon Scorsese’s experi-
ences as a young man growing up in Little Italy. Some five
years later, he was reunited with Scorsese for Mean Streets
(1973), the director’s breakthrough picture. Although Keitel
played one of the two central figures,
ROBERT DE NIRO
stole
the film and went immediately to stardom, while Keitel’s
career stalled.
In Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, one of the first fem-
inist films, Scorsese cast him in a role calling for him to ter-
rify his wife (Ellen Burstyn). Seventeen years later, in
Thelma and Louise (1991), Keitel’s role was much more sym-
pathetic and compassionate as a detective. That compassion
reappeared in the award-winning The Piano (1993), in which
he played George, a colonial New Zealand landowner,
opposite Holly Hunter as Ada, a mute Scots widow with a
young daughter, who was married to an insensitive and
cruel husband.
In the course of a productive film career, Keitel has
worked with some of the best actors (such as
JACK NICHOL
-
SON
and De Niro) and a number of mainstream directors
besides Scorsese, Tarantino, and Jane Campion: Nicolas
Roeg (Bad Timing, 1980), Tony Richardson (The Border,
1982),
BARRY LEVINSON
(Bugsy, 1991), Phil Kaufman (Rising
Sun, 1993), Wayne Wang (Smoke and Blue in the Face, both
1995),
ROBERT ALTMAN
(Buffalo Bill and the Indians, 1976),
Ridley Scott (The Duellists, 1977),
PAUL SCHRADER
(Blue Col-
lar, 1978), and Spike Lee (Clockers, 1995).
Kelly, Gene (1912–1996) A dancer, actor, choreogra-
pher, director, and producer whose contributions to the Hol-
lywood musical made him the unquestioned heir of
FRED
ASTAIRE
. Kelly’s impact on the movie musical was due in par-
KEITEL, HARVEY
228
ticular to his innovative dancing style and choreography. In
the postwar era, his exuberant athleticism was just right for a
nation anxious to jump back to life. He was square-jawed and
handsome, with a smile as winning and winsome as ever
graced a big screen. Like Astaire, Kelly did not possess a
beautiful singing voice, but he knew how to put a song over.
He had a thin, reedy voice, but it had a pleasing rasp to it.
Although his dramatic acting and his directing of films in the
1960s and beyond did not stir critics or audiences, his
achievements in the years between 1942 and 1957 were cer-
tainly worthy of the special Oscar he received in 1951, given
“in appreciation of his versatility as an actor, singer, director,
and dancer; specifically for his brilliant achievements in the
art of choreography on film.”
Born Eugene Curran Kelly, the future movie star was a
dance instructor in his home town of Pittsburgh before he left
for New York to make his way in the theater. He was a success
almost from the first, quickly landing a role in the chorus of
the Broadway show Leave It to Me in 1938. He became a
Broadway luminary as a result of his dramatic portrayal of the
young hoofer in William Saroyan’s The Time of Your Life (1939)
and soon has the opportunity to show his wide-ranging talents
when he won the starring role in the 1940 production of Pal
Joey.
DAVID O
.
SELZNICK
saw Kelly on stage and immediately
signed him for Hollywood. In the end, however, it was MGM
that bore the fruit of Selznick’s discovery.
Kelly was loaned by Selznick to MGM for his film debut
in For Me and My Gal (1942), costarring
JUDY GARLAND
. The
film and Kelly were instant hits. He first began to do the cho-
reography for his own films with Cover Girl (1944), and he
became a major star and a force in movie musicals when he
made Anchors Aweigh (1945), for which he won an Academy
Award nomination as Best Actor.
Kelly entered his golden era during the late 1940s and
1950s, starring in many of MGM’s best-loved musicals,
including The Pirate (1948), Take Me Out to the Ball Game
(1949), Summer Stock (1950), Brigadoon (1954), and Les Girls
(1957). Among his musicals of that era were three films that
he codirected with
STANLEY DONEN
, two of which have
become classics, the innovative On the Town (1949), the first
MGM musical to be shot on location (in New York), and Sin-
gin’ in the Rain (1952), which was a delight from start to fin-
ish and provided Gene Kelly with his theme song in the title
number. Yet many consider his greatest achievement to be
the Oscar winner as Best Picture of 1951, An American in
Paris, beloved for its ballet, which was, of course, also chore-
ographed by Kelly.
Kelly went on to direct, choreograph, and star in Invita-
tion to the Dance (1956), an experimental film without dia-
logue in which three stories were told by means of dance
only. It was, in some respects, his last great dancing film.
While Kelly’s importance as film star rests mostly on his
achievements in the musical, he was also effective in dramatic
roles, including such films as The Cross of Lorraine (1943),
Marjorie Morningstar (1958), Inherit the Wind (1960), and
many others.
In his later years, he directed such films as Gigot (1962),
A Guide for the Married Man (1967), Hello, Dolly! (1969), and
The Cheyenne Social Club (1970). All were done competently,
but none of them had the flair of his earlier work with Stan-
ley Donen.
Kelly did not limit himself to the movies. He has, among
other things, directed for the theater, putting his stamp on
the 1958 Broadway show Flower Drum Song. Beginning in
the late 1950s, he also did a great deal of work in television,
including a number of classic dance specials. Though few
may remember it, he was also Father O’Malley in the 1962
prime-time TV series version of the
ACADEMY AWARD
–win-
ning
BING CROSBY
vehicle Going My Way (1944).
He was last seen dancing on screen (or, rather, skating) in
an awful Olivia Newton-John musical, Xanadu (1980). He
was, as one might expect, the best thing in the film, making
one wish for the magical days of MGM’s movie musicals.
Kelly, Grace (1928–1982) She was an actress whose
cool, aloof exterior belied an alluring sexuality. Her Holly-
wood career was brief—just five years—but her impact was
considerable, due to both the quality of her work and the
manner in which she left the film industry, exchanging the
KELLY, GRACE
229
Gene Kelly sang and danced his way into Hollywood
immortality in Singin’ in the Rain (1952), but his reputation
could have been made by any number of other classic per-
formances during the height of the MGM musical era of the
1940s and 1950s.
(PHOTO COURTESY OF GENE KELLY)
make-believe royalty of Hollywood for a real-life prince—
Rainier III of Monaco.
Kelly came from an accomplished family. Her father, Jack
Kelly, was a rich businessman and a one-time world cham-
pion oarsman. Her mother had been a model and a cover girl.
Her uncle, George Kelly, a playwright, won a Pulitzer Prize
for penning Craig’s Wife.
The young girl was first touched by the acting bug when
she was 10 years old, appearing in a local (Philadelphia) play.
After her education in elite private schools, Kelly set off for
New York to follow in her mother’s footsteps and become a
model. At the same time, she also took acting classes. After
appearing in cigarette commercials on TV, she had her fist
big break, appearing in a 1949 Broadway revival of August
Strindberg’s The Father.
Kelly’s first film appearance was little more than a walk-
on in Fourteen Hours (1951), but in spite of her inexperience
as a film or theater actress, she was next thrust into the female
lead as
GARY COOPER
’s Quaker wife in High Noon (1952).
The film was a major hit, saving Cooper’s career and launch-
ing Kelly’s. In her very next movie, Mogambo (1953), a
remake of Red Dust (1932), she played the part of the prim
wife, which had once been played by Mary Astor, and gar-
nered a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination. Her
career was in high gear and moving ever faster.
1954 was the best year of her career. She starred in four
films, all successful at the box office, three critically
acclaimed. Though Green Fire was forgettable, she tri-
umphed in two
ALFRED HITCHCOCK
hits, Dial M for Murder
and Rear Window, plus the film for which she won an Oscar
for Best Actress, The Country Girl, playing against type as the
bitter wife of an alcoholic (
BING CROSBY
, in what was also
one of his best performances).
Kelly starred in but four more films, The Bridges at Toko-
Ri (1955), To Catch a Thief (1955), The Swan (1956), and her
only musical, High Society (1956). During location shooting
in the south of France for Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief, Kelly
met Prince Rainier III of Monaco. Her storybook wedding
might have provided the perfect ending for a Hollywood
movie, but Kelly’s real end was tragic. Princess Grace died in
an automobile accident along the treacherous roads of the
French Riviera near her principality. A question remains con-
cerning whether she or her daughter, Princess Stephanie, was
actually at the wheel when the car went out of control and
plunged off the road.
Kern, Jerome (1885–1945) An influential composer
whose music graced more than 20 movie musicals. He wrote
a staggering 38 Broadway musicals, eight of which were
turned into movies, many of them more than once. In addi-
tion to his shows that were adapted to film, Kern also wrote
expressly for the movies.
Unlike many of his self-taught contemporaries, Kern was
a trained musician who had studied at the New York College
of Music. But he was firmly drawn to popular music, as evi-
denced by his first song hit in 1905, “How’d You Like to
Spoon with Me?” His later show tunes during the 1910s and
1920s influenced future composers for the Broadway stage,
including
GEORGE GERSHWIN
and
RICHARD RODGERS
, who,
in turn, influenced the direction, style, and substance of what
became the modern, popular Broadway and Hollywood
musical comedy.
Kern began to write for the movies as early as 1916 when
he wrote a film score designed to accompany the silent serial
Gloria’s Romance (1916), but not until 1930 did he move to
Hollywood to stay.
Kern’s lyricist was usually Oscar Hammerstein II, and
together, they wrote, among others, the shows Show Boat
(filmed in 1929, 1936, and 1951), Sunny (filmed in 1930 and
1941), and Roberta (filmed in 1935 and, under the title Lovely
to Look At, in 1952).
Working with other lyricists, he also composed the music
for such popular musicals as Swing Time (1936), High, Wide,
and Handsome (1937), and Cover Girl (1944).
Kern won two Oscars for Best Song, first for “The Way
You Look Tonight” from Swing Time, and the second for
“The Last Time I Saw Paris” from Lady Be Good (1941). The
latter tune was created in reaction to the fall of Paris to the
Nazis in 1940.
Like several other famous popular composers who died
during the late 1930s and 1940s, Kern was made the subject
of a biopic called Till the Clouds Roll By (1946), with Robert
Walker as Kern.
Kerr, Deborah (1921– ) An actress known for her
poise and cool restraint, she often played high-toned charac-
ters in a film career that spanned 44 films and three decades.
In her long and distinguished career, she was nominated for
six Academy Awards as Best Actress but never won the Oscar.
Born Deborah J. Kerr-Trimmer, she was a trained balle-
rina who danced on the London stage. Feeling more attuned
to the theater than the dance, however, she began to act on
the stage in small parts in the late 1930s. In 1941 she made
her film debut in a modest role in the British production of
Major Barbara. Eight increasingly larger roles in English
movies followed, the most memorable being in The Life and
Death of Colonel Blimp (1943) and Black Narcissus (1947).
On the basis of the latter film, MGM signed her up and
whisked her to Hollywood to star with
CLARK GABLE
in The
Hucksters (1947). Except for a number of English productions
in the 1960s, Kerr continued to make most of her movies in
Hollywood during the next 22 years. In all that time, she was
a leading lady, making her early mark in Edward, My Son
(1949), for which she garnered her first Oscar nomination.
If the film industry wasn’t doing well in the 1950s, Kerr
was not affected, and she appeared in a large number of hits,
among them King Solomon’s Mines (1950), Quo Vadis (1951),
The Prisoner of Zenda (1952), and the
JOSEPH L
.
MANKIEWICZ
all-star production of Julius Caesar (1953). But even so, her
biggest hits were yet to come.
In many of her early Hollywood films, Kerr had played
the upper-crust lady, but her torrid love scene in the surf with
BURT LANCASTER
in From Here to Eternity (1953) brought
her down from her pedestal. The film won eight Oscars and
KERN, JEROME
230
was a huge hit. It also brought Kerr her second Oscar nomi-
nation for Best Actress.
Both hits and Oscar nominations kept coming her way
during the rest of the 1950s. Between 1956 and 1960, she was
nominated every year but one (1959). Her Oscar-nominated
performances were in The King and I (1956), Heaven Knows,
Mr. Allison (1957), Separate Tables (1958), and The Sundowners
(1960). In addition to her performances in highly regarded
Oscar-nominated films, she also scored with audiences in
such movies as Tea and Sympathy (1956), An Affair to Remem-
ber (1957), and Bonjour Tristesse (1958).
Kerr’s career began to wane in the 1960s when she
appeared in few hits and even fewer good movies. She
worked as steadily as she had in the past but without the same
success. Her best work of the decade was in The Innocents
(1961), The Night of the Iguana (1964), and Prudence and the
Pill (1968). But few good roles were being written for older
actresses and the turbulent 1960s simply wasn’t the decade
for reserved, well-bred actors in any case.
Kerr’s last film before semiretiring was
ELIA KAZAN
’s The
Arrangement (1969). She has since been seen occasionally on
television. Kerr, who had been nominated for but never
received an Oscar, was presented with an honorary Oscar by
actress
GLENN CLOSE
in 1994.
Kidman, Nicole (1967– ) Nicole Kidman was born
in Honolulu, Hawaii, but her family soon moved to Australia,
where she began her entertainment career as a ballet dancer.
When she was 14, she persuaded her parents to send her to
drama school, and at 16 she appeared in her first film, BMX
Bandits (1983). She had roles in several other Australian films
and in Five Mile Creek, a Disney miniseries, before she
became an Australian star with her role in Kennedy Miller’s
Vietnam, another miniseries. Such was her popularity that she
was voted Best Australian Actress of the year when she was
only 17.
Her last Australian film, Dead Calm (1989), brought her
to the attention of American audiences, and in 1990 she
appeared as
TOM CRUISE
’s girlfriend in Days of Thunder. She
and Cruise later married and starred together in Far and
Away (1992); they also appeared together in
STANLEY
KUBRICK
’s enigmatic Eyes Wide Shut (1999).
Other notable roles during the 1990s were as Chase
Meridian, the sexy psychologist in Batman Forever (1995); the
ambitious and ruthless Suzanne Stone in To Die For (1995);
and the independent American wife of the
JOHN MALKOVICH
character in the film adaptation of Henry James’s Portrait of a
Lady (1996). Kidman has aggressively pursued roles that
appeal to her and has also sought the spotlight.
She began the new century with two critically acclaimed
box-office hits: Moulin Rouge (2001) and The Hours (2002). In
the first film, she demonstrates her dancing (the tall, stat-
uesque Kidman has legs like
CYD CHARISSE
) and acting abil-
ity in a film that assaults the senses and divided audiences into
detractors and enthusiastic fans. In the second she plays, with
the aid of a Herculean effort by the makeup department, Vir-
ginia Woolf; although there were some initial reservations
about the casting, Kidman showed her acting range and has
consequently established herself as one of the most outstand-
ing actresses of her generation. She was nominated for a Best
Actress Oscar for both roles and won it for the second.
King, Henry (1888–1982) A director for nearly 50
years, from 1915 to 1962, he was the epitome of the solid,
efficient craftsman. King made a significant number of hit
films in a wide variety of genres, but relatively few of them
have withstood the test of time. King rarely shaped his mate-
rial to fit any sort of personal vision and the lack of deep com-
mitment to his movies shows in a languid, plodding visual
style. Nonetheless, King is representative of a large number
of talented directors who worked best under the yoke of
strong-minded studio producers who gave purpose to their
filmmaking.
King’s youth was spent on the family plantation in Vir-
ginia, but an interest in acting led him to shuck work and hit
the boards. King appeared in everything from burlesque to
legitimate theater but was not a terribly successful actor,
which led him, in 1912 to condescend to appear in the
movies. By 1915, he had begun to direct one-reelers for
Pathé, usually acting in these as well. Among his action-ori-
ented movies during that era were Who Pays? (1915), To ld at
Twilight (1917), The Ghost of Rosy Taylor (1918), When a Man
Rides Alone (1918), and This Hero Stuff (1919). Though his
films were consistently successful, he didn’t score a genuinely
big hit until 23
1
⁄
2
Hours Leave (1919), a service comedy that
suggested that King could direct more than just action films.
Other strong efforts followed and King was emboldened
to join silent film superstar
RICHARD BARTHELMESS
in estab-
lishing their own production company, Inspiration Films.
Together, they made Tol’able David (1921), a critical and box-
office milestone that glorified rural America and won the
praise of the Russian director and film theorist Vsevolod
Pudovkin, as well. While Inspiration Films didn’t last, King’s
career continued to grow with films such as Sonny (1922),
Romola (1924), Stella Dallas (1925), and The Winning of Bar-
bara Worth (1926). By the end of the silent era, King was one
of Hollywood’s most consistently successful directors.
The director began to work for Fox in 1930, and he
would continue to work for that studio for the rest of his
career. At first, the association did not bode well. Without a
strong hand at the wheel of the tottering studio, King’s
movies were nothing special. His best efforts were those in
which a major star held the film together, as was the case with
the Will Rogers vehicles Lightnin’ (1930) and State Fair
(1933). Once Fox and Twentieth Century merged and
DAR
-
RYL F
.
ZANUCK
took over, King’s fortunes also rose.
King became one of Zanuck’s most trusted directors,
receiving many of the studio’s “A” movie assignments. Among
King’s triumphs during the second half of the 1930s and into
the 1950s were such films as Lloyds of London (1936), In Old
Chicago (1938), Alexander’s Ragtime Band (1938), Stanley and
Livingstone (1939), Chad Hanna (1940), The Black Swan (1942),
Song of Bernadette (1943), for which he received an Academy
Award nomination for Best Director, Wilson (1944), for which
KING, HENRY
231
he earned his second—and last—Best Director Oscar nomi-
nation, Margie (1946), Twelve O’Clock High (1949), The Gun-
fighter (1950), Love Is a Many Splendored Thing (1955), and
Carousel (1956). In the 1950s he also began to direct more lit-
erary works, most notably The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952),
The Sun Also Rises (1957), and Tender Is the Night (1962), the
last of these marking the end of his directorial career.
Kramer, Stanley (1913–2001) Despite his reputation
as a producer and director of sometimes heavy-handed mes-
sage movies, Kramer brought social issues to the screen when
many others lacked the courage to do so. Though some may
be loathe to admit it, Kramer was also both critically and
commercially successful in selling his liberal messages, par-
ticularly in midcareer. If one occasionally winces at his films
today, it is likely because the issues he addressed have either
changed or have become far more complex. To his credit,
Kramer was never accused of being insincere and, having
been an early pioneer in independent producing, he certainly
put his money where his beliefs were. In all, he produced 35
movies, directing 15 of them. Six of his films received Acad-
emy Award nominations for Best Picture, and he was nomi-
nated for Best Director four times. Though he never won an
Oscar for any of his films, he was honored as early as 1961
with the Irving Thalberg Award for outstanding motion pic-
ture production.
Born in New York City, Kramer traveled to Hollywood
not long after his graduation from New York University.
After working as a film editor at Twentieth Century–Fox, he
moved to the story department at MGM where he also wrote
“B” pictures. He gained modest experience as an associate
producer working for independent producers David Loew
and Albert Lewin before leaving to join the service during
World War II.
When Kramer was mustered out, his old job was no
longer available, and he took the gamble of starting his own
company, Screen Plays, Inc. His first independently pro-
duced film was So This Is New York (1948). It hardly por-
tended the success that would immediately follow when he
produced the hit boxing movie Champion (1949), a film nom-
inated for six Oscars.
Early in his producing career, Kramer often looked to
the theater for his films, and many of his memorable pro-
ductions were adapted from hit plays. For instance, he was
responsible for the film versions of Cyrano de Bergerac
(1950), Death of a Salesman (1951), Member of the Wedding
(1953), and The Caine Mutiny (1954); the last won a Best Pic-
ture Oscar nomination. He also began to make his message
movies during the early 1950s with films such as The Men
(1950), which introduced
MARLON BRANDO
to the movies in
a film detailing the plight of wounded war veterans, and
High Noon (1952), a western that was also a subtle attack
upon those who refused to stand up and fight McCarthyism
and that was nominated as Best Picture.
Once he began to direct his own films in 1955, Kramer
soon made many more message movies. He dealt with all
sorts of issues, from racism in two of his Best Picture and Best
Director nominated films, The Defiant Ones (1958) and Guess
Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), to nuclear war in On the Beach
(1959), and from war crimes in yet another Best Picture- and
Best Director-nominated film, Judgment at Nuremberg
(1961), to saving animals from extinction in Bless the Beasts
and Children (1971).
Between 1958 and 1967, Kramer seemed to have his fin-
ger smack dab on the pulse of the American public. Serious
issues were in vogue, and with big budgets and all-star casts,
he combined entertainment with socially conscious film-
making to memorable effect. Among his other films during
this, his most successful period were Inherit the Wind (1960),
A Child Is Waiting (1963), and yet another Best Picture– and
Best Director–nominated movie, Ship of Fools (1965).
Kramer was also not above merely having a cinematic good
time; he produced and directed It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad
World (1963).
Kramer was less successful in the 1970s; he lost touch
with younger audiences when he tried to make a statement
about the youth culture in RPM (1970). None of his later
films caught on either, despite strong performances by
GEORGE C
.
SCOTT
in Oklahoma Crude (1973) and Dick Van
KRAMER, STANLEY
232
Director Stanley Kramer was the king of the message
movie. More than any other modern director of commercial
cinema, Kramer used his films to educate and influence the
moviegoing public. While Kramer has his critics, no one
has ever doubted his sincerity.
(PHOTO COURTESY OF
STANLEY KRAMER)
Dyke in The Runner Stumbles (1979). Kramer shot the latter
film in Seattle, and the director stayed in the city teaching
and writing for six years thereafter.
Kubrick, Stanley (1928–1999) One of the few con-
temporary American directors who did not serve an appren-
ticeship with a studio nor gain his training at a film school.
Almost entirely self-taught, Kubrick soon became one of a
handful of directors (beginning in the 1960s) whose name
alone was as much of a selling point as the stars who appeared
in his films. Although some critics have complained that the
director was merely a cold technician, many others have
called him one of the great film artists of our time.
Born in the Bronx, Kubrick was a poor student who was
encouraged by his physician father to take up photography as
a hobby. By the time he graduated from high school, young
Kubrick was so accomplished as a photographer that he
landed a job with Look magazine. His interest in all things
visual led him to pursue a budding interest in filmmaking by
writing, directing, editing, and producing (with borrowed
funds from relatives) a one-reel documentary called Day of the
Fight (1951). It cost $3,900 to make, and he eventually sold it
to RKO-Pathé for a $100 profit. He sold a second documen-
tary, The Flying Padre (1951), to RKO-Pathé and then quit his
job at Look. He was hooked on filmmaking.
At the age of 25, he was virtually the entire creative and
technical crew for his first feature film, a privately funded (by
family and friends) movie called Fear and Desire (1953). It
found modest distribution in the art-house circuit and
encouraged yet other small investors to help Kubrick make
Killer’s Kiss (1955). Neither film turned a profit.
Kubrick’s movies caught the attention of producer Jim
Harris, with whom he formed a production company. Still on
a low budget but with enough money to hire stars and a crew,
Kubrick wrote and directed the taut, suspenseful crime movie
The Killing (1956). The film received good reviews, though it
bore more than a passing resemblance to
JOHN HUSTON
’s
The Asphalt Jungle (1950), to the extent that it even starred
the same actor,
STERLING HAYDEN
.
His next movie, however, was an original masterpiece:
Paths of Glory (1957), still considered by some to be Kubrick’s
finest achievement. Yet this bitter and deeply touching anti-
war film, set against the backdrop of World War I, was almost
never produced. Kubrick peddled the script around Holly-
wood, but no one was willing to finance it until
KIRK DOU
-
GLAS
agreed to be the film’s star. Kubrick had chosen to
retain a percentage of the profits of both The Killing and Paths
of Glory rather than take a salary, and as both films failed at
the box office, he didn’t make a dime.
He had worked on the script of One-Eyed Jacks (1961) and
was supposed to direct it, but at the last moment
MARLON
BRANDO
decided to work both sides of the camera. At that
point, Kubrick was hired to replace director
ANTHONY MANN
on the troubled epic Spartacus (1960). He did a credible job
and the film was successful, but the director doesn’t include it
among his own works, the rest of which he was far more
deeply involved in as a writer, director, and often as a producer.
After Spartacus, Kubrick left America to make Lolita (1962)
in England. Though the film was set in the United States, the
only funding he could get was British because American stu-
dios were afraid of the sexual nature of Nabokov’s story. Lolita,
however, was a critical and box-office hit that stretched the
acceptable limits of sexual material allowed in the movies, no
doubt because it was a comedy (albeit a dark one).
No other comedy of its time, however, was as dark as
Kubrick’s next film, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop
Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964). Clearly, Kubrick was not
interested in a mass audience, but his film was a surprise hit,
and Kubrick’s reputation as a director was growing. Kubrick
made Dr. Strangelove in England because Peter Sellers, one of
his principal stars of the film, could not leave the country.
Kubrick, who found England an agreeable place to work,
decided to continue making his films there.
Kubrick’s next film was, in some ways, even more contro-
versial than Dr. Strangelove. 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) was
a science-fiction epic that divided critics into those who
thought it was empty headed and silly or those who found it
provocatively prophetic. But both critical camps agreed that
the film was visually stunning, and young audiences in par-
ticular flocked to the film to experience its stunning visual
images, often under the influence of various drugs.
Kubrick successfully married both style and substance in
A Clockwork Orange (1971), a futuristic fable about a violent,
sex-crazed society. The movie was another smash hit, further
enhancing his image as a thinking-person’s director who
could deliver commercially. His interest in visual composi-
tion, however, got the better of him in Barry Lyndon (1975).
An overwhelmingly beautiful film to watch, the story moves
along so ponderously, however, that it failed to draw an audi-
ence beyond Kubrick’s devoted fans. It was the director’s first
commercial flop since Paths of Glory.
It appeared as if Kubrick was back on track commercially
when he adapted Stephen King’s horror novel The Shining
(1980) and hired
JACK NICHOLSON
to star. King’s novels,
however, have not often been transferred successfully to the
screen, and The Shining did not turn into the hit that many
expected it would be.
Although The Shining did not meet with the approval of
novelist Stephen King (because it shifted emphasis from the
psychic boy, Danny, to his psychotic father and made other
convenient changes), it was an interesting and challenging
adaptation. In fact, nearly all of Kubrick’s films were adapted
from literary sources. Kubrick’s method was to take certain
liberties with his sources.
His next film, Full Metal Jacket (1987) was adapted from
the novel by Vietnam War veteran Gustav Hasford, The Short-
Timers. It was more straightforward in its criticism of the mil-
itary than
OLIVER STONE
’s Platoon (1986), which was far more
mythic and stylized. Full Metal Jacket, like Paths of Glory, was
fiercely critical of military conditioning and leadership.
As Kubrick became a perfectionist, the length of time
between features increased because of the director’s intense
involvement in every detail of the film’s development from
conception to production to promotion. Shy, gentle, and never
one to blow his own horn or seek attention to himself, Kubrick
KUBRICK, STANLEY
233
gradually and unfairly developed a reputation for being an
eccentric recluse, although his family constantly rejected this
simplistic public perception of the husband, father, and artist
they knew.
High-powered actors made sacrifices to appear in his pic-
tures, as was the case for
TOM CRUISE
and
NICOLE KIDMAN
,
who starred in his last released picture, Eyes Wide Shut
(1999). It was made 12 years after Full Metal Jacket, based on
Arthur Schnitzler’s Traumnovelle, and, according to Kubrick,
was his “best film ever.” Critics did not agree, but the film
hardly had time to sink into their consciousness: Within a
week of the picture’s completion, Stanley Kubrick died on
March 7, 1999. Entertainment Weekly’s film critic Owen
Gleiberman compared Kubrick’s movies to a “sinister
voyeuristic ritual taped off a surveillance camera to be shown
on a global TV network of the dystopian future.” Kubrick’s
administrative assistant, Anthony Frewin, told the London
Sunday Telegraph on July 11, 1999, that “The system won’t
allow another Stanley, someone who says, give me the money
and I’ll get back to you when I have something to show you,
and you can’t touch a frame of it.”
See also
ANTIWAR FILMS
;
BLACK COMEDY
.
KUBRICK, STANLEY
234
Ladd, Alan (1913–1964) Though as an actor he had
very little range, he did have presence. Playing either a con-
temporary tough guy in the 1940s or a western hero in the
1950s, Ladd enjoyed nearly two decades of stardom, but he is
largely remembered for only one film, Shane (1953). But even
if his films were not memorable, his tough-guy image sur-
vives: Ladd in his trenchcoat, holding a pistol, with
VERON
-
ICA LAKE
smirking into his handsome face.
Ladd was only 20 years old when he broke into the
movies. He was signed by Universal Pictures, which
intended to groom him for stardom but decided to drop him
six months later. After a series of odd jobs that included a
stint as a grip at Warner Bros. and some extra work, he met
Sue Carol, a former actress turned agent, who made it her
job to turn Ladd into a star. Eventually, she also turned him
into a husband.
At first he was cast in mostly “B” movies, such as Rulers of
the Sea (1939) and Petticoat Politics (1941). He had a small role
as a reporter (seen only in shadow) in Citizen Kane (1941) and
a more significant part in The Black Cat (1941). The latter
film brought him some attention and a chance to play an even
larger role in Joan of Paris (1942), in which he showed gen-
uine star quality.
Paramount was impressed and the studio gave him a plum
part in This Gun for Hire (1942), pairing him with another
relative newcomer, Veronica Lake. The two clicked on screen
(though Ladd would later say he never liked working with
her), and a new team was born. The pair would act together
in only four films, but they were the definitive 1940s screen
couple until Bogart and Bacall.
Ladd was rushed into more tough-guy roles, and both he
and the audience responded. The remake of Dashiell Ham-
mett’s The Glass Key (1942), with Lake, was a solid hit, and
then he showed that he could carry a film without Lake when
he played the cynical hero in China (1943).
With films like The Blue Dahlia (1946) and Whispering
Smith (1948), Ladd maintained his popularity throughout the
1940s, until he overreached and played Jay Gatsby in The
Great Gatsby (1949). His fans didn’t want to see him in a “seri-
ous” film, and neither did the critics. He tried to recoup with
several action films, but his career appeared to be on a slide.
Then came Shane (1953), which many feel to be the best
film that Ladd made and which was undoubtedly his most
successful, earning more than $9 million. The actor might
have been associated with yet another classic if he hadn’t
turned down the role eventually taken by James Dean in
Giant (1956).
Alan Ladd spent the rest of the 1950s and early 1960s in
films of lesser and lesser quality, the best of which was prob-
ably The Proud Rebel (1958). Unfortunately, he didn’t age
well, and heavy drinking made his face look puffy. His drink-
ing, coupled with pills, led to his death in 1964, just before
the release of The Carpetbaggers (1964), in which he made his
last film appearance.
One of Alan Ladd’s sons, Alan Ladd Jr., became a major
force in Hollywood as a producer in the late 1970s and 1980s.
Laemmle, Carl See
UNIVERSAL PICTURES
.
Lake, Veronica (1919–1973) She had a short, mete-
oric career as a tough blonde in the early 1940s, based more
on her looks than her acting ability. Yet despite her limita-
tions as an actress, Lake had a come-hither quality that made
her especially appealing when teamed with an “I don’t give a
damn” actor, who was, in most cases,
ALAN LADD
.
Born Constance Ockelman, she had very little acting
training but riveting looks. After making the beauty contest
circuit, she went to Hollywood to take some acting classes,
235
L
quickly managing to land a few roles in local plays. Spotted
by RKO, she made a screen test, and her film career was soon
under way. After her debut in a small role in Sorority House
(1939), Paramount tried the actress in minor parts in a few
more films, but then the studio gambled and gave her a major
role in I Wanted Wings (1941). The gamble paid off.
With her “peek-a-boo” hairstyle (long blond hair curled on
one side partially obscuring her face), Lake became an instant
star. Her next film was unquestionably her best. She played a
tough, down-on-her-luck beauty who befriends
JOEL MCCREA
in
PRESTON STURGES
’s classic comedy Sullivan’s Travels (1941).
If Sullivan’s Travels was her best film, This Gun for Hire
(1942), costarring Alan Ladd, was the most important to her
career. Lake’s four films with Ladd would define her Holly-
wood image, one of vulnerability balanced by taunting sen-
suality, which made the most of Ladd’s limited romantic
appeal. Their other films together were The Glass Key (1942),
The Blue Dahlia (1946), and Saigon (1948).
Veronica Lake’s star, however, began to fade even before
she finished her four movies with Ladd. One factor in her
slide can be traced directly to the U.S. government. Her hair-
style, copied by so many women during World War II, was
causing an alarming number of women to get their long hair
caught in defense-industry machinery. Lake was asked, for
the good of the war effort, to change her hairstyle. She did,
and her popularity plummeted.
The actress continued to appear in minor movies
throughout the rest of the 1940s, saved from total oblivion by
her last two pairings with Alan Ladd. Her last film in Holly-
wood was Slattery’s Hurricane (1949). She made a movie in
Mexico in 1952 and then a couple of cheapies in 1966 and
1970 after she had been discovered by a New York newspa-
per working as a cocktail waitress.
Lamarr, Hedy (1913–2000) An actress, she came to
the United States from Austria in 1938 with the unofficial title
of “The World’s Most Beautiful Woman.” With her delicate
features, aquiline nose, alluring eyes, sensuous mouth, perfect
skin, and exquisite figure, it was a title well deserved. Unfor-
tunately, her acting ability wasn’t the equal of her good looks,
and having had little emotional rapport with her audiences, it
was inevitable that her career would fade with her beauty.
Born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler in Vienna, Lamarr was
the daughter of a well-to-do banker. Discovered by Max
Reinhardt, she went on to appear in Central and Eastern
European films in the early 1930s, culminating in the 1933
Czech film Ecstasy, which featured her infamous nude swim-
ming scene. She was typecast forevermore as a sex goddess.
Following such European actresses who conquered Hol-
lywood as
GRETA GARBO
and
MARLENE DIETRICH
had, Hedy
Lamarr arrived in America with a contract and a major build-
up from MGM. She had her first starring role opposite
CHARLES BOYER
in Algiers (1938), a solid hit, which was fol-
lowed by several other successful films, such as Lady of the
Tropics (1939), Boom Town (1940), and Comrade X (1940).
Considering her Germanic roots, Lamarr’s career didn’t
suffer unduly during the war years. Cast as an exotic beauty,
she seemed less German than merely foreign. She appeared in
some fine films, such as H. M. Pulham, Esq. (1941), White
Cargo (1942), in which she was a delight to behold as a native
girl, and the gripping mystery Experiment Perilous (1944). One
could therefore forgive such clunkers as The Heavenly Body
(1944) and Her Highness and the Bellboy (1945). Her career,
however, would have been much better served—in fact, she
might have become a superstar—had she not refused to star in
Casablanca (1942), Gaslight (1944), and Laura (1944).
In most of her earlier films, Lamarr was cast with strong
male stars such as
CLARK GABLE
,
SPENCER TRACY
, and
WILLIAM POWELL
. After the war, she was made to carry her
own films, and her career faltered as a result. Then she was
offered the part of Delilah in Paramount’s production of
Samson and Delilah (1949) and scored her greatest success; it
represented the pinnacle of her Hollywood career. She suf-
fered a swift descent, immediately falling into “B” movies
such as A Lady without a Passport (1950) and Copper Canyon
(1950). Playing second banana to
BOB HOPE
in his comedy
My Favorite Spy (1951) signaled the end of Lamarr’s glamour
era, and she fled Hollywood to make European films, coming
LAMARR, HEDY
236
Hedy Lamarr may not have been much of an actress, but her
exquisite looks and scandalous reputation (she filmed a nude
scene in the 1933 Czech film Ecstasy) brought her a high
degree of publicity and a decade of Hollywood stardom.
(PHOTO COURTESY OF MOVIE STAR NEWS)
back to America in the later 1950s to appear in just two more
movies, The Story of Mankind in 1957 (as Joan of Arc) and as
Jane Powell’s mother in The Female Animal (1958).
Lamarr left the limelight only to resurface in 1965 when
she was arrested for shoplifting. In 1966 she published her
autobiography, Ecstasy and Me, and then sued her collabora-
tor on the book before finally fading into obscurity.
See also
SEX SYMBOLS
:
FEMALE
.
Lamour, Dorothy (1914–1996) The actress who
made the sarong famous. Lamour—her real name was
Dorothy Kaumeyer—had a dark, exotic look that brought
her stardom (and typecasting) as a “native girl.”
Lamour was born and grew up in Louisiana, becoming
“Miss New Orleans” in 1931. After a short career as a band
singer, she was signed by Paramount and immediately cast in
the title role of The Jungle Princess (1936); the movie did
rather well. In the latter 1930s she worked steadily, although
she rarely starred in her own pictures.
Her career took a fateful turn when she was loaned to
SAMUEL GOLDWYN
for the
JOHN FORD
film Hurricane
(1937). She played the young native girl with whom Jon Hall
fell in love. The movie caused a tidal wave at the box office.
Lamour and her sarong (which she wore the first time in that
film) became sensations.
Her image had been set. Movies like Her Jungle Love
(1938) and Tropic Holiday (1938) were natural follow-ups. Of
course, not all of her films required her to wear a sarong—
witness Spawn of the North and St. Louis Blues (1939).
Finally in 1940, Lamour was teamed with
BOB HOPE
and
BING CROSBY
in their first road picture, The Road to
Singapore. Just as Margaret Dumont was considered by
many to be the fourth Marx “Brother,” Lamour was very
much a part of the Hope/Crosby team. She appeared in all
seven of the road movies.
Lamour’s career in the 1940s and early 1950s—apart
from the road films—was relatively minor. Her best movies
were My Favorite Brunette (1947) with Bob Hope and The
Greatest Show on Earth (1952). She did little else of quality.
But the road films were something special and Lamour
was more than mere decoration. She had a playful sexiness,
never taking herself too seriously. She struck the right bal-
ance between the two male stars and could handle a quip and
toss it back at either Hope or Crosby with élan.
Going into semiretirement in 1953, she appeared not
only in the final road movie but also in small parts in Dono-
van’s Reef (1963) and Pajama Party (1965), as well as occa-
sionally on TV.
Lamour often made fun of her own image; after all, she
was never really a sex symbol and she knew it. The sarong
image, in fact, embarrassed her. But the sarong and Lamour
have been forever linked.
Lancaster, Burt (1913–1994) An actor with a com-
manding screen presence who succeeded at being both a star
of action films and a sensitive, thoughtful player in art-house
fare. In fact, at the height of his popularity, he would alter-
nate between more and less commercial projects. Even into
his 70s, Lancaster’s masculine good looks made him a favorite
of both male and female fans in a film career that began with
immediate success in 1946. Though critics tended to dispar-
age him initially—perhaps because he was so popular—he
came to be recognized not only as a unique movie personal-
ity but also a truly talented performer whose work on film
seems better with each viewing. Lancaster was also a pro-
ducer; he formed a production company in 1948 that went on
to make a number of important movies, chief among them
the Oscar-winning sleeper hit of 1955, Marty.
He was born Burton Stephen Lancaster to a lower-
middle-class family in New York City and grew up on the
rough-and-tumble streets of East Harlem. Tall and athletic,
Lancaster excelled at sports and won a scholarship to New
York University. His college career ended abruptly, however,
when he decided to become a professional acrobat, teaming
up with his childhood friend, Nick Cravat, who later
appeared in a number of Lancaster’s swashbuckler films.
Lancaster and Cravat led a grueling life, working for cir-
cuses and appearing in vaudeville with only sporadic success.
Finally, they gave up, and Lancaster took a series of conven-
tional jobs, including refrigerator repairman. World War II
LANCASTER, BURT
237
Dorothy Lamour’s career included more than 50 films. She
is best remembered as the woman whom Bob Hope and
Bing Crosby fought over in their seven road movies.
(PHOTO COURTESY OF DOROTHY LAMOUR HOWARD)