Hollywood’s Forgotten Stars: Part 3

Here in the third of a series of four pieces I will be looking back on twenty of Hollywood’s forgotten stars. We have done the actresses with Norma Shearer coming out as number one, so this week it’s all about men and the actors numbered 10 - 6 in my countdown. I hope you enjoy it. As always your comments are more than welcome.

Five forgotten male stars from the 1920s through to the 70s

N.B.: This list is not intended to be definitive. It is merely intended to highlight the talent of ten largely forgotten actors who played a significant role in Hollywood history, be it as a great box-office star, an Oscar winner, a pioneer or an unfulfilled talent that shone all too briefly. In deciding on my order, I have rated the actors on both their contribution to cinema and how little I perceive them to be remembered by the general public. The biggest star will not necessarily come out on top.

10 – John Cazale
No discussion of forgotten talent would be complete without a nod to John Cazale, although the recent surge of interest in his career meant he was by no means an automatic inclusion on my list. Cazale was more of a supporting actor but his early death at 42 from cancer denied him the chance to build on a quite incredible six years of film work. He would have been battling Pacino and De Niro for roles during the 1980s had illness not taken him shortly after completing his work on ‘The Deer Hunter’ (1978). Cazale only made five films but all of them are considered classics and all were nominated for a ‘Best Picture’ Academy Award. His performances as Fredo in ‘The Godfather’ (1972) and ‘The Godfather Part 2’ (1974) showed the depth of emotion that Cazale could bring to a character, even if they weren’t the main focus of the movie. He simply stole the show from Pacino in ‘Dog Day Afternoon’ (1975) despite originally being considered totally unsuitable for the role by the director Sidney Lumet. The cult of Cazale has grown in recent years through books, magazine articles and a documentary film on his life and ironically, whilst he won’t ever become an icon like James Dean, his early death added to the quality of his screen appearances may yet ensure his name remains better remembered than many of the bigger stars on this list.
Watch John Cazale in: Cazale made an impact no matter how small the part but it is his turn as bank robber Sal in ‘Dog Day Afternoon’ that gives a really tantalising glimpse of how good he could be.

9 – Charley Chase
The world of silent comedy was a crowded one. The public liked to see people being kicked up the bum, Model T Fords falling apart and fat dowagers fall into ridiculously deep puddles to such an extent that studios (lots and lots and lots of long forgotten studios like Vim, King Bee, Mutual, etc.) churned them out at a phenomenal rate. This also meant that there were literally hundreds of actors who made these movies, entertained the masses and were promptly forgotten (ever heard of Max Davidson, Louise Fazenda or Ford Sterling?). In the 21st century we are pretty much left with five people who have any sort of reputation: Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy and that is a real shame. I could have gone for the Chaplin-esque (in ego as well as style) Larry Semon or the sad-faced Keaton-a-like Harry Langdon but the one who deserves more recognition is Charley Chase because the situation comedy in its present form started with him. Chase was more like Harold Lloyd in appearance – nothing outrageous, no silly costumes or the like – but there wasn’t the reliance on physical humour that most of his contemporaries had though as ‘Never the Dames Shall Meet’ (1927) showed he could pratfall with the best of them. He was the king of the comedy of embarrassment which is a type of comedy that has rarely as been as popular as it is today. Ricky Gervais, Mitchell and Webb, and Larry David are all currently flying the flag for a style of comedy that is reliant on putting people in excruciatingly unsuitable situations that will end in their humiliation. Chase was a natural at this; most famously when discovering a naked Viola Richard in the back of his car in ‘Limousine Love’ (1928) and so as most silent comedy is written off as crude slapstick and endless custard pie fights it is odd that one of the least physical of the accomplished silent clowns has been forgotten.
Watch Charley Chase in: The Chase performance that has lasted longest in the public eye is his supporting role in Laurel and Hardy’s ‘Sons of the Desert’ (1933) but the best short he made as the star is ‘Mighty Like a Moose’ (1926), a comedy about plastic surgery fifty-odd years before Jordan was even born.

8 – Clifton Webb
As career boosts go, Clifton Webb being chosen by Otto Preminger to take a part in the film noir ‘Laura’ (1944) must be one of the strangest. Webb was not only in his mid-fifties, he was also a Broadway musical comedy star with virtually no silver screen experience. He was dancer and singer who had worked on shows written by every great ‘Tin Pan Alley’ composer you would care to mention so it was understandable that Daryl F. Zanuck, head of 20th Century Fox, was perturbed by Preminger’s decision to cast Webb as the elegant, evil Waldo Lydecker. As unlikely as the casting was it was truly inspired as Webb gave a fantastically hiss-worthy performance in possibly the greatest example of the genre. The film was a big hit and Webb had an instant following amongst the public. Fox signed him up and cast him in similar roles in ‘The Dark Corner’ and ‘The Razor’s Edge’ (both 1946) and both were successes at the box office. Webb’s brand of classy malevolence only really had a parallel in the great George Sanders but, unlike Sanders, Webb showed that sharp-tongued characters had a place in comedy and as the main attraction, not just a supporting player , when he was cast as male nanny extraordinaire Lynn Belvedere in ‘Sitting Pretty’ (1948). Belvedere was Mary Poppins mixed with Noel Coward and whilst Robert Young and Maureen O’Hara were billed as the stars, this was a one-man show. Webb reprised the role in two less successful (and less accomplished) sequels but Webb’s output during the 1950s continued to be, at the very least, interesting. ‘Stars and Stripes Forever’ (1952), ‘Titanic’ (1953) and ‘Three Coins in the Fountain’ (1954) continued this most unlikely of star careers before a series of forgettable ensemble romances brought Webb’s Hollywood career to a close. He did have time to make the British war movie ‘The Man Who Never Was’ (1956) during this period and it is a fascinating curiosity, made cheaply but strangely brilliantly. Webb died in 1966 after never recovering from the death of his elderly mother (Webb himself was 71 when she died). He had left a legacy that was as curious, entertaining and unexpected as it is forgotten.
Watch Clifton Webb in: ‘Laura’ is truly brilliant but Lynn Belvedere is Clifton Webb’s most masterful creation. As such ‘Sitting Pretty’ comes highly recommended.

7 – Tyrone Power
Romantic lead, swashbuckling hero, sleazy womaniser, grizzled cowboy, musical star - Tyrone Power did it all. Unusually for a star of the studio era, Power didn’t seem to suffer from typecasting and portrayed a wide variety of characters during his career which was cut short by a heart attack he suffered whilst filming ‘Solomon and Sheba’ (1958). Power’s early successes included the pioneering disaster movie ‘In Old Chicago’ (1937), the lively musical ‘Alexander’s Ragtime Band’ (1938) and the superb western ‘Jesse James’ (1939). His most famous role was in 1940 when he donned the black mask for ‘The Mark of Zorro’. His fencing ability, honed especially for the role, has gone down in Hollywood history after his co-star Basil Rathbone said “he could fence Errol Flynn into a cocked hat”. Despite a couple more swashbucklers like ‘The Black Swan’ (1942), Power changed direction again in the mid-1940s with forays into film noir. ‘The Razor’s Edge’ (1946) with Gene Tierney and Clifton Webb was a particular success but Power was already limiting his screen appearances so that he could spend time acting in the theatre. His popularity never again reached its peak of 1939 and 1940 but this allowed the versatile actor to play the character parts he always felt his good looks had stopped him from being considered for. The last film he completed before his death, ‘Witness for the Prosecution’ (1957), was a perfect example of this as Power had to hold his own when sharing a screen with Marlene Dietrich and Charles Laughton, two of the screens most memorable personalities. The performance is one of Power’s best but the immortality afforded to his co-stars has never materialised despite being one of the studio systems most popular stars.
Watch Tyrone Power in: It has to be ‘The Mark of Zorro’ - with the exception of ‘The Adventures of Robin Hood’ (1938) it is probably the best example of its kind.

6 - Robert Donat
Robert Donat’s chronic ill health meant that he only appeared in twenty films in a twenty-six year career that ended with his death at 53 (which, amazingly, meant he reached an older age than Cazale, Chase and Power who all died in their forties). To begin with he was the urbane alternative to Errol Flynn in movies like ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ (1934), ‘The 39 Steps’ (1935) and ‘Knight Without Armour’ (1937) and his style of acting was very much like that of David Niven (whose career undoubtedly benefited from Donat’s misfortune). With ‘The Citadel’ (1938) he made the move into straight drama which made more of his acting talent than his ailing physical prowess. In the following year when ‘Goodbye Mr. Chips’ (1939) was released he won the Academy Award for best actor, sensationally beating Clark Gable for ‘Gone With the Wind’ (1939). The film was Donat’s last for three years as ill-health and his desire to do more work on the stage reduced his movie credits to about one a year in an era where the big stars studio contracts demanded much more. None of his 1940s output was particularly memorable, though 1948’s ‘The Winslow Boy’ was an excellent courtroom drama. As his health further declined in the 1950s, Donat concentrated more than ever on his theatre work. He made only four films in eight years, dying before the release of ‘The Inn of the Sixth Happiness’ in 1958. As long as ‘The 39 Steps’ is revived for film, TV and theatre productions, Donat will never quite vanish from the wider public consciousness but his current reputation doesn’t match what he put on the screen – great performances and great entertainment.
Watch Robert Donat in: His late release ‘Lease of Life’ (1955) was a contender but this is really a straight choice between ‘The 39 Steps’ and ‘Goodbye, Mr. Chips’, the latter of which I will go for due to Donat’s tear-jerking brilliance in the lead role. Anyone who doesn’t well up just isn’t human.

Hollywood’s Forgotten Stars: Part 2

Here in the second of a series of four pieces I will be looking back on twenty of Hollywood’s forgotten stars. This week it’s the actresses numbered 5 - 1 in my countdown. I hope you enjoy it. As always your comments are more than welcome.

A dancer, a southern belle, a girl next door, a bag of nerves and a Queen

N.B.: This list is not intended to be definitive. It is merely intended to highlight the talent of ten largely forgotten actresses who played a significant role in Hollywood history, be it as a great box-office star, an Oscar winner, a pioneer or an unfulfilled talent that shone all too briefly. In deciding on my order, I have rated the actresses on both their contribution to cinema and how little I perceive them to be remembered by the general public. The biggest star will not necessarily come out on top.

5 – Eleanor Powell
Imagine a world where Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra were still as celebrated but no-one remembered Judy Garland. Or one where Clark Gable and Cary Grant were still regarded as great stars but Greta Garbo’s name was only familiar to a small, hardcore group of fans. It wouldn’t seem quite fair, would it? However, when we think of the great dancers of the screen we think of Fred Astaire in his top hat and tails or Gene Kelly splashing about in puddles and we forget the fleet footed brilliance of Eleanor Powell. Powell is best known for the ‘Broadway Melody’ series of films made between 1936 and 1940. They were typical early musicals – a love story set to the backdrop of a young hopeful getting their chance in a big show. There wasn’t much in the way of plot but there was always simply brilliant dancing from Powell. Her tap skills and the music of the great Cole Porter (who scored three of Powell’s movies) was a marriage made in heaven, almost certainly seen to best advantage in the ‘Begin the Beguine’ number from ‘The Broadway Melody of 1940’ (1940) with Powell and Astaire tapping up a storm. Unfortunately for Powell her career in the 1940s began to be that of a guest performer who was included for one or two sequences that were nothing to do with the main plot of the film. For fans of great tap dancing these brief cameos were worth the price of admission alone.
Watch Eleanor Powell in: As with many performers whose careers featured predominantly black-and-white movies, Powell’s films can be hard to get hold of and we are therefore reliant on compilation movies like ‘That’s Entertainment’ to see her in action. However, I have managed to see ‘Rosalie’ (1936) and if you watch it you may forget Astaire and Kelly ever existed… for 90 minutes at least.

4 – Lee Remick
Sometimes perky, sometimes sultry, sometimes perky and sultry, Lee Remick was the most talented of the numerous forgotten cinematic sex symbols of an era dominated by Marilyn Monroe and Elizabeth Taylor. Her career got off to a fine start with roles in ‘A Face in the Crowd’ (1957), ‘The Long Hot Summer’ (1958) and ‘Anatomy of a Murder’ (1959) all of which helped to define her as a sexually forward but frustrated southern girl. However, Remick was not present purely for the purposes of decoration. These were great roles for a relatively unknown actress to launch her movie career with and her acting ability was much in evidence in all three roles as well as her physical appeal. She was cast as the bank teller blackmailed into robbery in Blake Edwards’ ‘Experiment in Terror’ (1962) which marked her first departure to a different type of role. The emotional vulnerability was still there but her looks were not as significant in shaping the character. Remick excelled in ‘Experiment in Terror’ and her next film ‘The Days of Wine and Roses’ (1962), again directed by Edwards, and then tried her hand at comedy in films like ‘The Wheeler Dealers’ (1963) and ‘The Hallelujah Trail’ (1965). Remick continued to choose interesting roles well into the 1970s but she never again recaptured the sort of magic we saw in her early years. However, for her to be remembered primarily as Damien’s adoptive mother in ‘The Omen’ (1976) is a terrible injustice to a lively, beautiful and skilled actress.
Watch Lee Remick in: Normally I would take any opportunity to recommend ‘Anatomy of a Murder’ but Remick is just one of a tremendous ensemble cast in that. Her performance opposite Jack Lemmon as a couple battling alcoholism in ‘The Days of Wine and Roses’ is probably Remick’s finest career appearance anyway.

3 – Teresa Wright
Teresa Wright’s film career started with a bang. She was nominated for an Oscar for each of her first three movies (the only actor ever to achieve that feat), winning once for ‘Mrs Miniver’ (1942). Her fourth movie ‘Shadow of a Doubt’ (1943) is one of the best of all Alfred Hitchcock’s thrillers and her sixth film ‘The Best Years of Our Lives’ (1946) was a multi-award winner and the sixth biggest box-office hit of the 1940s (and if you discount the all-conquering Disney studio of that era it was the biggest film of 1946 and the second most successful of the decade). After that almost anything would be considered a disappointment but Wright continued to make very good films like ‘Pursued’ (1947), ‘The Men’ (1950) and ‘The Actress’ (1953). Like so many stars of the era, her disillusionment with the studio system had a deep effect on her career but, as well as this, her popularity began to fade towards the end of the 40s. It was almost as if Wright was undone by her unprecedented early success and as she got older audiences didn’t accept her as anything but ‘the girl next door’. Her roles were far more layered than that and those ‘girls next door’ always had many more facets to their character than the lazy pigeon-hole normally allows. No-one since Wright has played those roles in anything like her style or with her ability.
Watch Teresa Wright in: ‘Shadow of a Doubt’ is a tense and unnerving thriller where Wright plays a girl who idolises her Uncle Charlie until she suspects he is hiding a terrible secret. Absolute magic.

2 – Jean Arthur
Once described as the quintessential comedic leading lady, Jean Arthur had a dazzling screen career despite suffering from such terrible nerves that she was violently sick before takes and left a number of stage plays early in their run due to stage fright. Those nerves actually contributed to what is felt to be Arthur’s trademark, her high pitched, slightly shaky voice. After a number of supporting roles in serials and B-features she scored her break opposite Edward G. Robinson in ‘The Whole Town’s Talking’ (1935). Over the next nine years she made a series of films of a quality that was almost certainly unmatched by any other star working at that time. She was the great Frank Capra’s favourite actress and worked with him on ‘Mr. Deeds Goes to Town’ (1936), ‘You Can’t Take it With You’ (1938) and ‘Mr. Smith Goes to Washington’ (1939), three of the director’s most acclaimed and best-loved works. She was also a favourite of George Stevens’ and he directed her in two further classics ‘The Talk of the Town’ (1942) and ‘The More the Merrier’ (1943). All of these movies were made at Columbia Studios along with here other notable films (‘The Plainsman’ (1936), ‘Easy Living’ (1937), ‘Only Angels Have Wings’ (1939) and ‘The Devil and Miss Jones’ (1941)). When her contract expired she ran through the lot shouting “I’m free!” and then retired, only appearing on the big screen again twice in Billy Wilder’s ‘A Foreign Affair’ (1948) and Stevens’ ‘Shane’ (1953). Easily one of the greatest stars of the so-called ‘Golden Age of Hollywood’, the only thing more remarkable that Arthur battling her crippling nerves to make so many top-drawer films is the sad fact that her name is now so little known.
Watch Jean Arthur in: With so many great performances to choose from it seems almost silly to single out one but I will go for ‘Mr. Deeds Goes to Town’. It’s one of the greatest comedies ever filmed and alongside Gary Cooper she shines.

1 – Norma Shearer
In compiling this list I tried to consider as many actresses as I could and then measure their contribution to the history of cinema, their star power, their ability to act and how little they are recognised or known today. I will not deny that some of the choices have had a more personal touch to them but, as I state at the top, a list of this kind can never be definitive. Many came close to inclusion – Joan Fontaine, Luise Rainer, Kathryn Grayson – but no matter whom you thought deserved inclusion, I don’t think many will argue with my number one choice once they know why I think Norma Shearer is the biggest forgotten star in Hollywood history.

During the 1930s, Norma Shearer was the female equivalent of Clark Gable. Clark was ‘King’, Norma was ‘Queen’. She made movies for the biggest studio, MGM, and she was their biggest female star. Yes, she was married to Irving Thalberg (MGM's legendary ‘boy-wonder’ Vice-President) but no matter how she became a star there were few bigger than Shearer. She started in ‘girl next door’ roles in silent movies though her dual role in ‘Lady of the Night’ (1925) showed her versatility. From the beginning of her career she scored 19 successive box office smashes before she made ‘The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg’ (1927) for Ernst Lubitsch. Even though the film lost money, it was one of MGM’s ‘marquee’ pictures of the year – in other words a film that was made primarily for artistic and critical praise, not for financial gain. When talkies came in Shearer’s clear, medium pitched voice ensured her continued popularity whilst others fell by the wayside due to unsuitably high or foreign accented voices. Shearer, though, didn’t stop at reinventing herself as a talking star. She employed a photographer to take a set of sexy studio portraits in an effort to shed her good girl image. It worked and Shearer scored her biggest successes yet in a series of racy romantic comedies including ‘The Divorcee’ (1930) for which she won an Academy Award. For the rest of the 1930s Shearer continued to alternate between highly successful box-office hits (‘Strange Interlude’ (1932), ‘The Barretts of Wimpole Street’ (1934)) with prestigious productions (‘Romeo and Juliet’ (1936), ‘Marie Antoinette’ (1938)). Shearer retired from the screen in 1942 and her career was always plagued by suggestions that her relationship with Thalberg was the only reason for her prominence. However, she was already MGM’s biggest star before she started dating him and her popularity continued after his early death in 1936. And besides any one who has seen Shearer in action, be it silent or sound, can feel that appeal radiating from the screen that only certain stars had. Shearer was a golden presence in a golden age and whilst time seems to have forgotten her, it hasn’t diminished her lustre.
Watch Norma Shearer in: Like so many silent movies, a lot of Shearer’s output pre-1929 is lost so maybe it isn’t fair to judge. From the sound era you can’t go wrong with her role as Elizabeth Barrett Browning in ‘The Barretts of Wimpole Street'.