Paul's Website
Memories And Recollections Of Days Gone Bye!
When Stars We Ladies First!
It is nice to be old enough to remember with leading ladies were just that, ladies!
Agnes Moorehead
Agnes
Robertson Moorehead (December 6, 1900 – April 30, 1974) was an Oscar-nominated
American character actress.
Although she appeared in more than 70 films and on dozens of television
shows during a career that spanned more than 30 years, Moorehead is probably
most widely known to modern audiences for her role as the witch Endora in
the television series Bewitched.
While rarely playing leads in films, Moorehead's skill at character development
and range earned her one Emmy, and two Golden Globe awards in addition to
four Oscar and six Emmy nominations.
Moorehead's transition to television won acclaim and accolades for her work
in drama and in comedy.
She could play many different character types, but often portrayed haughty,
arrogant characters.
Grace Kelly
Grace,
Princess of Monaco née Grace Patricia Kelly (November 12, 1929 –
September 14, 1982) was an Academy Award-winning American film and stage
actress who, upon marriage to Rainier III, Prince of Monaco in 1956,
became Her Serene Highness The Princess of Monaco, but was generally
known as Princess Gracia Patricia of Monaco.
Princess Grace maintained
dual American and Monegasque citizenship after her marriage.
The
principality's current Sovereign Prince, Albert II is the son of Prince
Rainier and Princess Grace. The American Film Institute ranked Kelly No.
13 amongst the Greatest Female Stars of All Time.
Doris Day
Doris
Mary Ann von Kappelhoff (born April 3, 1924)[1] is an American singer,
actress, and animal welfare advocate known as Doris Day. A vivacious
blonde with a wholesome image, Day was one of the most prolific
actresses of the 1950s and 1960s. Able to sing, dance, and play comedy
and dramatic roles, she has been an all-round star whose personality has
permeated many popular and diverse movies.
In 1959, Day entered her most successful phase as a film actress with a
series of romantic comedies, starting with the hugely popular Pillow
Talk, co-starring Rock Hudson, who became a lifelong friend. The film
received positive reviews and was a box office favorite. It also brought
a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Actress for Day. She and
Hudson made two more films together, and she also made two films
alongside James Garner, starting with 1963's The Thrill of It All. Many
of her 1960s films ignored her singing abilities and painted her as a
good-hearted woman with a strong will, a hint of naïveté, and the purest
virtue. Algonquin Round Table member and show business wit Oscar Levant,
who had known Day earlier in her career, summed up the paradox of Day's
late-blooming ingénue phase when he famously said, "I knew Doris Day
before she was a virgin." But the public loved Day's light, frothy
comedies of this period, buying enough tickets to make her by far the
top female movie star in America during the first half of the 1960s.
By the late 1960s, the sexual revolution and the widely discussed
promiscuity of the maturing baby boomer generation had refocused public
attitudes about sex and sexuality. Times changed, but Day's films did
not. Critics, comics, and pundits dubbed Day "the world's oldest virgin"
and audiences began to shy away from her repetitive, gimmicky roles. As
a result, she slipped from the list of top Box-Office stars, last
appearing in the Top 10 in 1966, with The Glass Bottom Boat being her
final substantial hit.
Elizabeth Montgomery
Elizabeth
Victoria Montgomery (April 15, 1933 – May 18, 1995) was an American film
and television actress whose career spanned several decades. She is best
remembered for her famous roles as Samantha Stephens in Bewitched, as
Ellen Harrod in A Case of Rape and as Lizzie Borden in The Legend of
Lizzie Borden.
Born in Los Angeles, California, Elizabeth Montgomery was born to actor
Robert Montgomery and his wife, Broadway actress Elizabeth Bryan Allen.
She had an older sister, Martha Bryan Montgomery, who died before she
was born, and a brother, Robert Montgomery, Jr., who was born in 1936.
She attended The Spence School.
Even though she was a goofy leftist, she still provided entertainment
and did not stoop to the gutter like the "stars" of today!
Kathryn Hepburn
Katharine
Houghton Hepburn (May 12, 1907 – June 29, 2003) was an iconic American
star of film, television and stage, widely recognized for her sharp wit,
New England gentility and fierce independence.
A screen legend, Hepburn holds the record for the most Best Actress
Oscar wins with four, from twelve nominations (Meryl Streep currently
holds the record for most overall acting nominations with fourteen).
Hepburn won an Emmy Award in 1975 for her lead role in Love Among the
Ruins opposite her friend Laurence Olivier, and was nominated for four
other Emmys and two Tony Awards during the course of her more than
70-year acting career. In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked
Hepburn as the top female star of all time.
Hepburn had a famous and longtime romance with Spencer Tracy, both on-
and off-screen.
June Allison
June
Allyson (October 7, 1917 – July 8, 2006) was a Golden Globe-winning
American film and television actress, popular in the 1940s and 1950s.
Allyson was a very popular motion picture star in the 1940s and 1950s.
She won a Golden Globe Award for her performance in the comedy Too Young
To Kiss in 1951. In 1955, she was named the ninth most popular movie
star in the annual Quigley Exhibitor's Poll, and the second most popular
female star (behind Grace Kelly). In 1956, she starred with a young
then-rising star named Jack Lemmon in the musical comedy, You Can't Run
Away from It.
After her film career ended in the late 1950s, Allyson starred on
television as hostess and occasional star of The DuPont Show with June
Allyson. The anthology series lasted two seasons. In later years the
actress appeared on television shows such as The Love Boat and Murder,
She Wrote.
For her contribution to the motion picture industry, June Allyson
received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1537 Vine Street
Ann Margret
Ann-Margret
(born April 28, 1941) is a five-time Golden Globe Award-winning, Academy
Award, Emmy Award and Grammy nominated Swedish actress, singer and
dancer
Ann-Margret was born Ann-Margret Olsson in Valsjöbyn, Jämtland, Sweden[
to Anna Aronsson and Gustav Olsson, a native of Örnsköldsvik. She grew
up in a small town 'of lumberjacks and farmers high up near the Arctic
Circle'. Her father worked in the United States during his youth and
immigrated back in 1942, working with the Johnson Electrical Company.
Ann-Margret and her mother moved to the United States four years later
and her mother worked as a funeral parlor receptionist after her father
became too ill for his job. She grew up in Wilmette Illinois and
attended Northwestern University for a time but did not graduate. She
became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1949. She was
discovered singing in a nightclub by George Burns. She was often
referred to as a 'sex-kitten' and the 'female Elvis'.
Barbara Eden
Barbara
Eden (born August 23, 1934 in Tucson, Arizona) is an American film and
television actress and singer who is best known for her starring role in
the sitcom I Dream of Jeannie.
By age three she would become Barbara Jean Huffman upon her mother's
marriage to Connor Huffman. The change from "Huffman" to "Eden" came at
the behest of her manager who thought the name Huffman would not sell in
Hollywood. Eden agreed to change her last name, but insisted on keeping
her first name, stating that she could not answer to anything else. She
graduated from Abraham Lincoln High School in San Francisco in 1949, and
was elected Miss San Francisco, 1951, a preliminary to Miss America.
Ann Miller
Ann
Miller (April 12, 1923 1 – January 22, 2004) was an American dancer,
singer and actress, who was christened Johnnie Lucille Collier.
Born in Chireno, Texas (some sources cite Houston, where she was
raised), her father insisted on the name Johnnie because he had wanted a
boy, but she was often called Annie. She took up dancing to exercise her
legs to help her rickets.
She was considered a child dance prodigy. In an interview featured in a
"behind the scenes" documentary on the making of the compilation That's
Entertainment III, she said that Eleanor Powell was an early
inspiration. Miller was given a contract with RKO at the age of thirteen
(she had told them she was eighteen), and remained there until 1940.
The following year, Miller was offered a contract at Columbia Pictures,
where she bumped friend Lucille Ball from the throne as "Queen of the
B-Movies". She finally hit her mark (starting in the late 1940s) in her
roles in MGM musicals such as Kiss Me, Kate, Easter Parade, and On the
Town.
Miller was famed for her speed in tap dancing; she claimed to be able to
tap 500 times per minute. She was known as well, especially later in her
career, for her distinctive appearance, which reflected a studio-era
ideal of glamour: massive black bouffant hair, heavy makeup with a slash
of crimson lipstick, and fashions that emphasized her lithe figure and
long dancer's legs.
Her film career effectively ended in 1956 as the studio system lost
steam to television, but she remained active in the theatre and on
television. In 1979 she astounded audiences in the Broadway show Sugar
Babies with fellow MGM veteran Mickey Rooney, which toured the United
States extensively after its Broadway run. In 1983 she won the Sarah
Siddons Award for her work in Chicago theatre.
Lynda Carter
Lynda
Carter (born July 24, 1951) is an American actress. She is known for the
Amazonian title role in the fantasy-adventure TV series Wonder Woman
which aired from 1975 to 1979
Her acting career did not take off until she landed her starring role in
the Wonder Woman television series. Her earnest performance endeared her
to fans and critics and the series lasted for three seasons. Thirty
years after first taking on the role, Carter continues to be closely
identified with Wonder Woman, so much so that it has proved difficult
for producers to find a suitable candidate to play the character in
subsequent aborted productions (work on the most recent attempt was
announced in 2005).