Old time actors and directors that you were surprised to find out were married to each other once upon a time

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He was also in The Swarm!

henry s, Monday, 13 December 2021 13:57 (two years ago) link

John Carradine in The Bees (1978, Mexico)

When Smeato Met Moaty (Tom D.), Monday, 13 December 2021 14:02 (two years ago) link

The Beeatles in Let It Bee

Halfway there but for you, Monday, 13 December 2021 14:08 (two years ago) link

new thread proposal: "bedrock Hollywood stars slumming in crap bee-movies at the tail end of their careers."

henry s, Monday, 13 December 2021 14:21 (two years ago) link

Okay, sure, go ahead, please.

Santa’s Got a Brand New Borad (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 13 December 2021 14:24 (two years ago) link

I have a pretty strong memory of the run-in between Desi and Lucy and Ida and Howard, especially since I had no idea who Howard was.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RseZL4_5kvg

Santa’s Got a Brand New Borad (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 13 December 2021 17:36 (two years ago) link

Mel Tormé & Janette Scott... the surprising part of that union being that Thora Hird was therefore Mel Tormé's mother-in-law!

When Smeato Met Moaty (Tom D.), Sunday, 19 December 2021 00:21 (two years ago) link

Laura Antonelli and Jean-Paul Belmondo were an item for about a decade, it seems.

Heatmiserlou (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 27 December 2021 03:39 (two years ago) link

two weeks pass...

Also not married but Pam Grier and Freddie Prinze.

Presenting the Fabulous Redettes Featuring James (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 15 January 2022 02:21 (two years ago) link

Now that gets more interesting... Freddie Prinze was actually briefly engaged to Kitty Bruce, who is Lenny Bruce's daughter. Kitty Bruce was mainly a singer but acted in a couple of films, including the Jack Hill-directed Switchblade Sisters (1975). The year before he directed that film Jack Hill directed Foxy Brown starring Pam Grier.

Josefa, Saturday, 15 January 2022 02:52 (two years ago) link

I had to blink and check if it was April Fool’s Day when I saw that Liza Minnelli was once married to Jack Haley Jr. I guess John Lahr was unavailable.

This couple also figure into the Pam Grier story, what with them being present to defend her honor from an out-of-control Sammy Davis Jr.

Presenting the Fabulous Redettes Featuring James (James Redd and the Blecchs), Saturday, 15 January 2022 03:33 (two years ago) link

Omg Nicholas Ray, what an epic life or three---this may look like a lot, but so much more:
...As 1932 ended, Ray left college, and, now calling himself Nicholas Ray, sought new opportunities, including, with the help of Thornton Wilder, meeting Frank Lloyd Wright, with the hope of joining Wright's Fellowship at Taliesin. Lacking the tuition fee, in 1933 Ray ventured to New York City, where, staying in Greenwich Village, he had his first encounters with the city's bohemia.[100] There, shortly before his stint at Taliesin, Ray met young writer Jean Evans (born Jean Abrahams, later Abrams), and they started a relationship.[101][102] After he returned east, they lived together, and married in 1936. When Ray took a position at the WPA in Washington, by January 1937 they had moved to Arlington, Virginia.[103] They had one son, Anthony Nicholas (born November 24, 1937), known as Tony, and named for Ray's friend and fellow Federal Theatre director Anthony Mann.[104] Washington government life wore on both Ray and Evans, and Ray's drinking and unfaithfulness strained their marriage. Evans moved back to New York in 1940, having found a job at PM, the new leftist newspaper. Ray returned to New York as well, in May of that year, but soon the couple separated. A few months later he again attempted to reconcile, while also living at Almanac House, a Greenwich Village loft occupied by Pete Seeger, Lee Hays, and Millard Lampell, core members of the Almanac Singers. He committed himself for a time to psychoanalysis, but in time fell back into old habits. Evans filed for divorce in December 1941, and the process was finalized the next summer.[105][106]

...Relocating to Los Angeles to work with Elia Kazan, Ray first lived in a flat at the Villa Primavera,[108] on the corner of Harper and Fountain, that became the model for the apartment building in In A Lonely Place, before moving into a house in Santa Monica. While at Fox, he socialized with fellow transplanted east coasters and theatre folk at Gene Kelly and Betsy Blair's house, among them Judith Tuvim, soon to be known as Judy Holliday, whom he had briefly, unsuccessfully pursued in New York, after his marriage ended. On one occasion, fueled by alcohol, they waded into Santa Monica Bay, an excursion that turned into a halfhearted double suicide attempt, before they changed their minds and struggled back to dry land.[109]

While directing A Woman's Secret, he became involved with the film's co-star, Gloria Grahame, later remembering, "I was infatuated with her but I didn't like her very much."[110] Nonetheless, they married in Las Vegas on June 1, 1948, just five hours after her divorce from her first husband was granted, and five months before the birth of their son, Timothy, on November 12. (RKO announced that he was born "almost four months before the date he was expected.")[111] Tensions in their marriage were known early on, and by autumn 1949, while shooting In A Lonely Place, they had separated for the first time, keeping the split a secret from studio executives.[112][113] At the end of the year, they announced that they planned to travel to Wisconsin, to spend the holidays with Ray's family there, but he went alone, reuniting with his mother and three sisters, and then on to New York and Boston, to prepare his next project, On Dangerous Ground, and to see his ex-wife and firstborn.[114][115] In 1950, as that project was ending and as In A Lonely Place was opening, Ray and Grahame were reported to have reconciled, living in Malibu, though their marriage remained dysfunctional.[116] Ray stated that he had discovered Grahame in bed with his son, Tony, who was 13 years old at the time*.[49][117][118] Although they were irreparably estranged, Ray and Grahame were nominally connected again, when he was called on to help rescue Macao (1952), a project Josef von Sternberg was directing for RKO. Ray directed additional scenes, but evidently none in which she was featured.[119] Grahame filed for divorce, and she testified in court that Ray had struck her twice, once at a party and once in private, at home, before the divorce was granted, on August 15, 1952.[120] Gloria Grahame and Tony Ray married in 1960 and divorced in 1974. Tony Ray died June 29, 2018, age 80.[121]

The HUAC investigations of Hollywood and the entertainment industry, which largely coincided with Ray's marriage to and divorce from Gloria Grahame, further weighed on him...Although he had been wary of therapy, by court order in the divorce, he started seeing psychoanalyst Carel Van der Heide. Even so, he continued womanizing (columnist Dorothy Kilgallen called him "a well-known movie colony heartbreaker"[124]) and drinking, both prodigiously. He had romances with both Shelley Winters and Marilyn Monroe, who were roommates at the time, as well as Joan Crawford—with whom he was planning a suspense film, Lisbon, in 1952, and who later starred in Johnny Guitar—and Zsa Zsa Gabor.
...Johnny Guitar was preposterous to Ray, and a trial for him to work with Joan Crawford, but it also placed reasonably well on Variety's list of "1954 Boxoffice Champs," increasing his professional capital.[127] By now, he had moved into Bungalow 2 at the Chateau Marmont, his headquarters while shooting Rebel Without A Cause, a project of particular importance to him, about troubled young people. That was where he pitched his need to make such a film to Lew Wasserman, prompting his agent to send him to Warner Bros. The hotel residence also became Ray's headquarters and rehearsal space, and it was where James Dean arrived, aiming to meet the director. Dean started to attend Ray's "Sunday afternoons," his regular gatherings of friends at the bungalow, where scenes of the film to come were starting to take shape.[128] Natalie Wood remembered Ray's relationship with Dean as "fatherly," and attributed the same quality to Sal Mineo's and her own connection to their director, even though the sixteen year-old also was sexually attracted to him, and his bungalow became the site of their assignations, while she was also involved with supporting player Dennis Hopper. Ray himself was also busy with roommates Monroe and Winters, Geneviève Aumont (then the professional name of Michèle Montau), and even Lew Wasserman's wife, Edie, while also interested in Jayne Mansfield, whom he tested for the role Wood won in Rebel.[129]

Ray and Wood continued their affair for several months after production wrapped, and while he was shooting his next project, Hot Blood (1956), a pregnancy scare, which turned out to be false, prompted her to break off the romance.

Returning to Europe, in London, Ray met Gavin Lambert, with whom he had corresponded since Lambert's pioneering positive review of They Live By Night.[133] Talking about In A Lonely Place, Lambert remembered Ray's comments about Dix Steele, Bogart's character, at the film's end: "Will he become a hopeless drunk, or kill himself, or seek psychiatric help? Those have always been my personal options, by the way."[134] After a night of vodka and conversation, after 3:30 am, Ray and Lambert, who was gay, had sex, and Ray cautioned "that he wasn't really homosexual, not really even bisexual," advising that he had slept with many women, "but only two or three men."[135] The next day, Ray urged Lambert to accompany him to Hollywood to work on what became Bigger Than Life, and Lambert remained a sometimes-sexual partner, while Ray continued to pursue women. According to Lambert, Ray "behaved like a possessive lover, expecting me to be always here on call...," while Ray continued to dwell on the loss of James Dean.[136]

igger Than Life tells the story of a man who grows reliant on his abuse of medication, and consequently more and more broken. The connections to Ray, who had grown increasingly dependent on both alcohol and drugs, were not lost, even on Ray. In 1976, Ray confessed to himself, in a private journal entry, that he had lived in a "continuous blackout between 1957 or earlier until now,"[137] and his wife Susan, on seeing the film, commented to her husband, "This is your story before you lived it."[138] Ray's drug use was abetted, while he was shooting Bitter Victory, by his new girlfriend, a heroin addict named Manon, and his gambling losses led him to a pitiable state that broke his friendship with Gavin Lambert.[139]

Seventeen year-old Betty Utey first crossed paths with Nick Ray in 1951, at RKO, when he was assigned to direct some additional scenes for Androcles and the Lion (1952), including one with a troupe of bikini-clad dancers. He described it as the "steam room of the vestal virgins."[140] Some weeks after shooting the scene, in which he featured her, he asked her out to the ballet and dinner, and then took her to the house he was renting, having split with Gloria Grahame. At the end of their evening, like In A Lonely Place, he called a cab and sent her home. She subsequently did not hear from him for almost three years, when he called her to come to his Chateau Marmont bungalow for an assignation. He then disappeared again, until 1956, when he called again.[141] In 1958, she won a place as one of the chorines in Party Girl, and after shooting ended they eloped to Maine, where Ray hoped to start his third marriage by drying out. En route, he collapsed at Boston's Logan Airport, suffering from the DTs. He recovered sufficiently to travel on to Kennebunkport, where the couple spent several weeks, before marrying on October 13, 1958.[142] They had two daughters, both born in Rome: Julie Christina, on January 10, 1960, and Nicca, October 1, 1961.[143][144] Ray's mother Lena had died in March 1959.[145]
That's enough, gotta go take nap---read so much more here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_Ray
See also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloria_Grahame
*Grahame's lover Peter Turner, who wrote Film Stars Don't Die In Liverpool about her, disputes the claim that Tony Ray was only 13 when they first hooked up.

dow, Saturday, 15 January 2022 03:52 (two years ago) link

It's remarkable how many high profile men Pam Grier almost married. To this day she's never been married at all.

Josefa, Saturday, 15 January 2022 14:49 (two years ago) link

Dickey Betts married Cher's assistant, Paulette (can't find her last name, but think it was Coelho?

No relation to Paulo Coelho, one presumes

OP Taylor (Ye Mad Puffin), Saturday, 15 January 2022 15:22 (two years ago) link

Claude Chabrol and Stéphane Audran, who he directed in Les Biches (which is great)(& many other films) where she had sex scenes with her ex, Jean-Louis Trintingant.

bulb after bulb, Saturday, 15 January 2022 15:28 (two years ago) link

*whom

bulb after bulb, Saturday, 15 January 2022 15:29 (two years ago) link

It's remarkable how many high profile men Pam Grier almost married. To this day she's never been married at all.

OTM. The story she tells about her and Kareem Abdul Jabbar is kind of ..something. Intense, maybe.

Didn't know she and Rosey Grier were cousins until a minute ago.

Oh wait, that is not true, I don't think. More internet amping of RONG.

Her story about her and Richard Pryor is something too (see Wikipedia).

After I read her autobiography, Foxy, I very much wanted to start a "10 Most WTF Moments in Pam Grier's Foxy" poll, but chickened out. I mean, with some of her stories, I'm not sure how factually I'm supposed to take them. They sound so fanciful, often relying on strange coincidences and serendipities and odd assumptions.

Josefa, Tuesday, 18 January 2022 22:32 (two years ago) link

Yeah, I left the Richard Pryor story for you to mention. Plus it's Richard Pryor so somewhat expected, I think. I had my eye on Foxy recently. Do you recommend?

Sure, Foxy is fun to read whether or not there is an unreliable narrator issue clouding the narrative

Josefa, Tuesday, 18 January 2022 22:43 (two years ago) link

So you are saying maybe the KAJ story is not quite true?

Yes. I'd like to hear his version of the story, which I have a hunch would be different.

Josefa, Tuesday, 18 January 2022 23:09 (two years ago) link

For years, I thought Debbie Harry and Chris Stein were married.

Polly Platt and Peter Bogdanovich were a fantastic creative team. I'm sure he regretted dumping her for Cybill Shepherd.

jimbeaux, Tuesday, 18 January 2022 23:17 (two years ago) link

The Pryor-Grier story being referred to popped up once as one of Ilana's WTF deep pop culture references on Broad City.

Precious, Grace, Hill & Beard LTD. (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 18 January 2022 23:25 (two years ago) link

KAJ story here.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/09/15/magazine/pam-grier-interview.html
It seems to get more embellished every time I see another version. I can believe the gist of it is true but not sure about all the details.

Also, Stanley Donen and Yvette Mimieux from 1972 to 1985.

― Hideous Lump, Monday, February 25, 2019 9:58 PM (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

Noticed that in her obit, had heard it before...ON HERE!

Precious, Grace, Hill & Beard LTD. (C. Grisso/McCain), Wednesday, 19 January 2022 00:53 (two years ago) link

Hmm well the dates almost check out, since KAJ married the other woman two days after Grier’s birthday and the supposed ultimatum

Josefa, Wednesday, 19 January 2022 00:54 (two years ago) link

Ernest Borgnine & Ethel Merman were married for almost five hot months in 1964.

Precious, Grace, Hill & Beard LTD. (C. Grisso/McCain), Sunday, 23 January 2022 23:53 (two years ago) link

Thrice-wed Merman married twice-wed Ernest Borgnine in 1964. The couple separated just 11 days after the wedding and Borgnine filed for divorce on October 21, charging extreme mental cruelty. They had announced their impending nuptials at the legendary New York night spot P.J. Clarke's, but Borgnine, who was riding high as the star of McHale's Navy (1962) at the time, said the marriage began unraveling on their honeymoon, when he received more fan attention than she did. The competitive Merman was left seething. "By the time we got home, it was hell on earth," Borgnine recalled in a 2001 interview. "And after 32 days I said to her, 'Madam, bye'." Merman filed a cross-complaint shortly thereafter charging Borgnine with extreme cruelty. She was granted a divorce on November 18, 1964, after 22 minutes of testimony. Borgnine went on to marry a fourth time, but Merman remained single after her divorce. In her 1978 biography, she devoted a chapter of her autobiography to the marriage: It consisted of one blank page.

Precious, Grace, Hill & Beard LTD. (C. Grisso/McCain), Sunday, 23 January 2022 23:56 (two years ago) link

We never mentioned that one before? Borgnine was also married to Katy Jurado at one point.

Tapioca Tumbril (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 24 January 2022 00:08 (two years ago) link

Guess not. We’ve been saving it up I guess. Morbs mentioned it on the TCM alert thread.

Tapioca Tumbril (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 24 January 2022 00:13 (two years ago) link

María Guadalupe Villalobos Vélez (July 18, 1908 – December 14, 1944), known professionally as Lupe Vélez, was a Mexican actress, dancer, and singer during the Golden Age of Hollywood cinema.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/17/Lupe_V%C3%A9lez_in_1941.jpg/330px-Lupe_V%C3%A9lez_in_1941.jpg

Relationships and marriage
Vélez was involved in several highly publicized and often stormy relationships. Upon arriving in Los Angeles, she was linked to actors Tom Mix, Charlie Chaplin and Clark Gable.[53] Her first long-term, high-profile relationship was with Gary Cooper. Vélez and Cooper met while filming 1929s Wolf Song and began a two-year relationship that was passionate and often stormy.[60] When angered, Vélez was reported to have physically assaulted Cooper. Cooper eventually ended the relationship in mid-1931, at the behest of his mother Alice who after meeting her, strongly disapproved of Vélez.[51] With plans to marry him gone, she spoke to the press in 1931: "I turned Cooper down because his parents didn't want me to marry him and because the studio thought it would injure his career. Now its over, I'm glad I feel so free ... I must be free. I know men too well they are all the same, no? If you love them they want to be boss. I will never have a boss."[51] The rocky relationship had taken its toll on Cooper, who had lost 45 pounds and was suffering from nervous exhaustion. Paramount Pictures ordered him to take a vacation to recuperate and while he was boarding the train, Vélez showed up at the station and fired a pistol at him.[52]

After her breakup with Cooper, Vélez began a short-lived relationship with actor John Gilbert. They began dating in late 1931, while Gilbert was separated from his third wife Ina Claire.[61] Rumors of an engagement were fueled by the couple,[62] but Gilbert ended the relationship in early 1932, and attempted to reconcile with Claire.[53][61]

Vélez and Johnny Weissmuller photographed shortly after their wedding in October 1933
Shortly thereafter, Vélez met Tarzan actor Johnny Weissmuller while the two were in New York. They dated off and on when they returned to Los Angeles, while Vélez also dated actor Errol Flynn.[63] On October 8, 1933, Vélez and Weissmuller were married in Las Vegas.[64] There were reports of domestic violence and public fights.[49] In July 1934, after ten months of marriage, Vélez filed for divorce citing "cruelty". She withdrew the petition a week later after reconciling with Weissmuller.[65] On January 3, 1935, she filed for divorce a second time and was granted an interlocutory decree.[66] That decree was dismissed when the couple reconciled a month later. In August 1938, Vélez filed for divorce for a third time, again charging Weissmuller with cruelty. Their divorce was finalized in August 1939.[67]

After the divorce became final, Vélez began dating polo player Guinn "Big Boy" Williams in late 1940. The couple were engaged,[68] but never married.[69][70] In late 1941, she became involved with author Erich Maria Remarque. Actress Luise Rainer recalled that Remarque told her "with the greatest of glee" that he found Vélez's volatility wonderful when he recounted to her an occasion where Vélez became so angry with him that she took her shoe off and hit him with it.[71] After dating Remarque, Vélez was linked to boxers Jack Johnson and Jack Dempsey.[53]

In 1943, Vélez began an affair with her La Zandunga co-star Arturo de Córdova. De Córdova had recently moved to Los Angeles after signing with Paramount. Despite the fact that de Córdova was married to Mexican actress Enna Arana with whom he had four children, Vélez granted an interview to gossip columnist Louella Parsons in September 1943 and announced that the two were engaged. She told Parsons that she planned to retire after marrying de Córdova to "cook ... and keep house".[72] Vélez ended the engagement in early 1944, after de Córdova's wife refused to give him a divorce.

Vélez then met and began dating a struggling young Austrian actor named Harald Maresch, whose stage name was Harald Ramond. In September 1944, she discovered she was pregnant with Ramond's child. She announced their engagement in late November 1944.[36] On December 10, four days before her death, Vélez announced she had ended the engagement and kicked Ramond out of her home.[73]
Committed suicide, left a note saying why, but also much ridic and some fugly in section Alternative Theories and Urban Legend, incl. ridic x fugly passage in Hollywood Babylon, later a runny joek,
that kind of treatment sure didn't start with Britney
---but also Velez had quite a career in Mexico and Hollywood:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupe_V%C3%A9lez

dow, Monday, 24 January 2022 02:13 (two years ago) link

Although the Alternative Theories don't always read as contrived: she was known for wild behavior, and
In the book From Bananas to Buttocks: The Latina Body in Popular Film and Culture, Rosa-Linda Fregoso wrote that Vélez was known for her defiance of contemporary moral convention, and that it seems unlikely that she could not have reconciled having a child out of wedlock. Fregoso believes that in the final year of her life, Vélez exhibited signs of extreme mania and depression. Fregoso goes on to speculate that Vélez's death may have been the result of an untreated mental illness such as bipolar disorder.[41]

dow, Monday, 24 January 2022 02:19 (two years ago) link

I’ll get around to reading that post over the next 6 months or so, but I just wanted to say, “From Bananas to Buttocks” is a great title

Josefa, Monday, 24 January 2022 02:54 (two years ago) link

Indeed---back to thread relevance:

Barbara Ann Loden (July 8, 1932 – September 5, 1980) was an American actress and director of film and theater.[1][2] Richard Brody of The New Yorker described Loden as the "female counterpart to John Cassavetes".[3]

Born and raised in North Carolina, Loden began her career at an early age in New York City as a commercial model and chorus-line dancer. Loden became a regular sidekick on the irreverent Ernie Kovacs Television Show in the mid-1950s and was a lifetime member of the famed Actors Studio. She appeared in several projects directed by her second husband, Elia Kazan, including Splendor in the Grass (1961). Her subsequent performance in a 1964 Broadway production of After the Fall earned her a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress.
...In 1960, Loden appeared in Elia Kazan's film Wild River as Montgomery Clift's secretary. She was perhaps better known for her role in Splendor in the Grass (1961), in which she played Warren Beatty's sister.[14]

She famously portrayed Maggie, a fictionalized version of Marilyn Monroe, in Kazan's Lincoln Center Repertory Company stage production of After the Fall (1964), which was written by Monroe's former husband, playwright Arthur Miller.[15] Loden received a Tony award for best actress for her performance in After the Fall as well as an annual award of the Outer Circle, an organization of writers who covered Broadway for national magazines.[1] After the Fall reviews called Loden the "new Jean Harlow" and a "blonde bombshell." Loden recalled in 1980 that she was drawn to the part because the script reflected her own life experiences.

Loden married her first husband, film and television producer and film distributor Larry Joachim, in the 1950s, and they had a son, Marco.[16] After an affair while they were both married to other people, Loden married film director Elia Kazan, who was 23 years her senior, in 1966.[17] She had another son, Leo, with Kazan, and though estranged and considering divorce, they were still married at the time of her death from breast cancer at the age of 48.[10]

Kazan could be contemptuous when describing his relationship with Loden. In his autobiography, Elia Kazan: A Life, he revealed his desire and inability to control her. Kazan wrote about Loden "with a mix of affection and patronization, emphasizing her sexuality and her backcountry feistiness."[10] In a "condescending" way, Kazan bemoaned that Loden had depended on her "sexual appeal" to get ahead and that he was afraid of "losing her."[18] But Kazan was also, in his words, "protective" of Loden.[10] In turn, Loden felt inferior to Kazan.

Her acting career on film had a troubled history. Her first major film role was to be in the Frank Perry-directed The Swimmer starring Burt Lancaster, but during post-production there was a dispute about the scene between producer Sam Spiegel and the film's writer-director team, the Perrys. According to notes by screenwriter Eleanor Perry, Spiegel began showing the troubled rough cut of the film around Hollywood, polling several of his famous film director friends about what he should do with it.[19] Kazan was a major film director who had great influence. He had also secretly been shown a private screening of the film by his friend and producer Spiegel (producer of Kazan's On the Waterfront) and had reportedly interfered with the final cut.[19] Perry was ultimately fired from the film. Several of the film's scenes were recast and reshot by Sydney Pollack, who was hired to replace Perry, with Lancaster reportedly paying for some of the reshoots himself.[19][20] Among the scenes that were entirely recast and reshot was the notorious Loden scene, with Broadway stage actress Janice Rule replacing Loden. Neither Loden nor Pollack was credited on the film. All that remains of the lost scene are still photos taken on set, which appear in Chris Innis's 2014 documentary The Story of The Swimmer.[20]

1967–1980: Film and theater directing
At some point during her acting career, Loden came across a newspaper article about a woman who, when on trial for accomplice to bank robbery, thanked the judge for her own sentencing.[21] Intrigued by this story, she eventually wrote the screenplay for Wanda, an existential[dubious – discuss] rumination on a poverty-stricken woman adrift in Pennsylvania coal country who becomes embroiled in a similar plot. After sending the script to a number of potential directors, Loden felt that they "didn't seem to understand what this woman was about."[22] Fortuitously, her friend Harry Schuster had offered Loden financing for the film, so she directed it herself in collaboration with cinematographer and editor Nicholas T. Proferes on a meager budget of $115,000.[10]

Wanda is a semi-autobiographical portrait of a "passive, disconnected coal miner's wife who attaches herself to a petty crook."[10] Innovative in its cinéma vérité and improvisational style, it was one of the few American films directed by a woman to be theatrically released at that time. Film critic David Thomson wrote, "Wanda is full of unexpected moments and raw atmosphere, never settling for cliché in situation or character." The film was the only American film accepted by the Venice Film Festival in 1970, where it won the International Critics' Prize, and the only American film presented at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival.[10][23] In 2010, with support from Gucci, the film was restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive and screened at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan.[10]

Although Wanda never received proper distribution, screening briefly in New York and at universities but never nationally on the theater circuit,[24] it was noted for its groundbreaking anti-Hollywood view of a woman adrift in the American underworld. Loden said of her title character, "She's trying to get out of this very ugly type of existence, but she doesn't have the equipment"—an independent-minded idea for a cinematic heroine at the time, making Wanda an anti-heroine.[25] In 2017, Wanda was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[26]

While Loden never made another feature film, she directed two educational short films for the Learning Corporation of America.[27] The first one, The Frontier Experience, was released in 1975. It depicts a widowed pioneer woman, played by Loden, in Kansas attempting to survive the harsh winter with her children. Described as a "political prequel"[28] to Wanda, the short explores similar themes. The second, The Boy Who Liked Deer, was released in 1978.[29] It is a cautionary tale about vandalism, in which two boys accidentally poison a deer.

Four months before her death, Loden was interviewed in Katja Raganelli's 1980 documentary I Am Wanda.[30] The film documents Loden's final months, when she taught acting classes.

Death
In 1978, Loden was diagnosed with breast cancer.[31] At the time, she had completed several other screenplays with Proferes that Kazan described as "devoted to the neglected side of American life." She and Kazan were estranged at the time of her cancer diagnosis and planning to divorce, but her illness precluded their separation.[31] In June 1980, Loden was working with her acting teacher Paul Mann on a one-act play to be shown on Off-Off-Broadway. She had planned to work as director, producer, and leading actress, but lost the energy to complete the project. In a retrospective, she said "my life was hard too much of the time", but also that she had made her peace with life.[32]

At the time of her diagnosis, Loden was prepared to direct a feature about Kate Chopin's The Awakening, but her cancer treatments prevented her from starting it.[13] She died at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City from the disease on September 5, 1980.[1][10]

Style and themes
Wanda has a cinéma vérité style. Loden rejected Hollywood style, wanting to only present the world "as it actually is".[33] She worked mainly with non-professional actors, which resulted in the film's original script being loosely referenced. The film was made with a skeleton crew of only four people. These two factors led to the film's improvisational style. The visuals in the film were inspired by several Andy Warhol films.[34]

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbara_Loden

dow, Monday, 24 January 2022 02:59 (two years ago) link

Sorry for the Velez post, which isn't thread-relevant and hella long, but what a life.

dow, Monday, 24 January 2022 03:02 (two years ago) link

Lesley-Anne Warren & Jon Peters

Precious, Grace, Hill & Beard LTD. (C. Grisso/McCain), Monday, 31 January 2022 03:14 (two years ago) link

Griffin Dunne & Carey Lowell

Precious, Grace, Hill & Beard LTD. (C. Grisso/McCain), Tuesday, 1 February 2022 04:42 (two years ago) link

two weeks pass...

Not married, not that surprising and maybe even TMI but, just for the record I present:
https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2017/04/rita-moreno-marlon-brando-lust-of-my-life

Solaris Ocean Blue (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 18 February 2022 02:37 (two years ago) link

Two actors: Kurt Russell and Season Hubley. The latter is not well-known to me except as a vaguely remembered name but maybe they belong here because they met whilst playing Elvis and Priscilla.

Solaris Ocean Blue (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 18 February 2022 02:46 (two years ago) link

Melina Mercouri and Jules Dassin:

https://images.wisconsinhistory.org/700007080017/0708000295-l.jpg

Fascinated with her after watching Phaedra the other day, despite the very miscast Anthony Perkins. Love that Dassin set a scene in the British Museum's Elgin Marbles room, given her campaign to have them returned to Greece.

bulb after bulb, Friday, 18 February 2022 02:57 (two years ago) link

Young Margaret Sullivan got rave reviews in a string of what were adjudged to be fuck-terrible plays, and some better ones (so good in also pre-Hollywood Preston Sturges'Strictly Dishonorable that even her parents shuddup about being on the road to etc). Dunno how The Devil In The Cheese was, but she did that one w Henry Fonda and married him, for two months (they still worked together, like in the movie The Moon's Our Home: Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell were brought in to punch up the dialogue, reportedly at Sullavan's insistence. Sullavan and Fonda play a newly-married couple, and the movie is a cavalcade of insults and quips.
Later took up with big time Broadway director Jed Harris, ladykiller and legendary asshole:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jed_Harris
Then married William Wyler, whom she met when he cast her (and she agreed, known to be a picky dame) in The Good Fairy:
The Good Fairy is a 1935 romantic comedy film written by Preston Sturges, based on the 1930 play A jó tündér by Ferenc Molnár as translated and adapted by Jane Hinton, which was produced on Broadway in 1931. The film was directed by William Wyler and stars Margaret Sullavan, Herbert Marshall, Frank Morgan and Reginald Owen.

Sturges' screenplay diverges significantly from the Molnár play, and later became the basis for the book of the 1951 Broadway musical Make a Wish.[1] Sturges wrote a scene for a movie-within-the-movie, in which the leading man responds to the leading lady's impassioned pleading with the single word "Go", delivered in varying tones.
Guess you have to see it, and I hope to, kinda, considering the talent involved (I want to believe).

More to my interest is one she battled for,
Cry 'Havoc' (1943) is a World War II drama and a rare all-female film. Sullavan played the strong mother figure who keeps a crew of nurses in line in a dugout in Bataan, while they are awaiting the advance of Japanese soldiers who are about to take over. It was the last film Sullavan made with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. After its completion, she was free of all film commitments. She had often referred to MGM and Universal as "jails". When her husband, Leland Hayward, tried to read her the good reviews of Cry 'Havoc', she responded with usual bluntness: "You read them, use them for toilet paper. I had enough hell with that damned picture while making it – I don't want to read about it now!"[16)

Yes, agent Leland Hayward was her husband after Wyler. She got sick of the movie biz and went back to the stage, also said it was so she could spend more time with their kids(?) Didn't work that well: eventually, the kids demanded to live full-time with their father (in Hollywood, not NYC, apparently): a crushed and crushing scene in daughter Brooke Hayward's memoir,Haywire(Brooke's suicidal sister and brother may have inherited depression of their mother, whose death by barbiturates was ruled suicide).
If that weren't bad enough, Brooke, also a sucessful actress, married---Dennis Hopper.

dow, Friday, 18 February 2022 04:38 (two years ago) link

Hopper was married five times:

Brooke Hayward, married 1961 – divorced 1969, 1 child, daughter Marin Hopper (b. 1962)Met him when they were in a stage production of Mandingo, of all things; look it up. Also studied with Strasberg, and She delivered a memorable performance in the Twilight Zone episode "The Masks" in March 1964 And here she is with Groucho on GE Theater, both looking cool (bring back anthology TV!)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/Groucho_Marx_Brooke_Hayward_General_Electric_Theater_1961.jpg
Hayward and Groucho Marx in the General Electric Theater presentation of "The Hold Out", 1961
Her last screen appearance was in a small role in John Guare's 1993 film adaptation of Six Degrees of Separation, with Stockard Channing, Donald Sutherland, and Will Smith. Also cool, and she's still with us.

dow, Friday, 18 February 2022 04:47 (two years ago) link

His next: Michelle Phillips; married October 31, 1970 – divorced November 8, 1970 When my friend's marriage ended, he quoted Phillips' father, to the effect, "That was their Halloween." Didn't know she did so much acting, but she did. Was The Last Movie, for instance. Also a solo album I'd kinda like to hear

Then:
Daria Halprin; married 1972 – divorced 1976, 1 child, daughter Ruthanna Hopper (b. 1972) Knew her from Zabriskie Point of course, but before that, In 1968, she appeared in Revolution, a documentary by Jack O'Connell. Shot mainly in San Francisco, the film depicted the counterculture movement and featured a series of interviews with that city’s hippie residents.
After Zabriskie Point, she and co-star Mark Frechette alprin briefly joined self-styled guru Mel Lyman, a former member of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, and his 100-member commune.[3]

In 1972, Halprin appeared in John Flynn's thriller The Jerusalem File.

Not too distracted by Hopper, n the 1970s, Halprin developed an interest in creative arts therapy. In 1978, she and her mother Anna founded the Tamalpa Institute[4] and developed the Halprin Process. She has written The Expressive Body in Life, Art and Therapy and Coming Alive: The Creative Expression Method, and she was a contributing author to Foundations of Expressive Arts Therapy.

dow, Friday, 18 February 2022 04:59 (two years ago) link

Was *in* The Last Movie, I meant to say.
Come in now, Number Three:
Katherine LaNasa; married June 17, 1989 – divorced April 1992, 1 child, son Henry Lee Hopper (b. 1990)
Ballet dancer, choreographer, and actress, who for instance did a whole helluva lotta TV, including:
LaNasa guest starred on number of television series, including Seinfeld, 3rd Rock from the Sun, Touched by an Angel, and The Practice, and in 2001 landed the lead role of Bess Bernstein-Flynn Keats in the NBC comedy series Three Sisters (2001–2002) opposite Dyan Cannon, A. J. Langer, and Vicki Lewis.[4] The series was cancelled after two seasons in 2002.[5] She later had recurring roles in Judging Amy as Yvonne Dunbar, as Kim McPherson on The Guardian, and as Michelle Colohan on NYPD Blue
... In 2011, after a decade of making various television appearances, she had roles opposite Will Ferrell and Zack Galifianakis in the 2012 political comedy The Campaign, and 2013 thriller The Frozen Ground.[8] Before this, she had a role in Billy Bob Thornton's drama film Jayne Mansfield's Car, originally created for Robin Wright.[8] Among other movies. Later a reg in reboot of Dynasty, scheduled for 2019 Apple TV w Octavia Spencer, but oh yeah about the matrimony:
LaNasa, at the age of 22, married 53-year-old actor Dennis Hopper in June 1989;[2] the couple divorced in April 1992. Hopper and LaNasa had a son, Henry Lee Hopper (born 1990).[16]

On May 19, 1998, she married actor French Stewart.[17] They met when she made a guest appearance on a 1996 episode ("Green-Eyed Dick") of 3rd Rock from the Sun.[18] The two later divorced.[17] In July 2012, LaNasa became engaged to actor Grant Show, marrying him a few weeks later, on August 18.[19][20] She gave birth to the couple's first child, daughter Eloise McCue, on March 21, 2014.[21][22]

dow, Friday, 18 February 2022 05:09 (two years ago) link

No wiki article on the last wife, but---don't read this without an airsick bag, I meant it:
Divorce from Victoria Duffy
On January 14, 2010, Hopper filed for divorce from his fifth wife Victoria Duffy.[57] After citing her "outrageous conduct" and stating she was "insane", "inhuman" and "volatile", Hopper was granted a restraining order against her on February 11, 2010, and as a result, she was forbidden to come within 10 feet (3 m) of him or contact him.[58] On March 9, 2010, Duffy refused to move out of the Hopper home, despite the court's order that she do so by March 15.[59]

On March 23, 2010, he filed papers in court alleging Duffy had absconded with US$1.5 million of his art, refused his requests to return it, and then had "left town".[60]

On April 5, 2010, a court ruled that Duffy could continue living on Hopper's property, and that he must pay US$12,000 per month spousal and child support for their daughter Galen. Hopper did not attend the hearing.[61] On May 12, 2010, a hearing was held before Judge Amy Pellman in downtown Los Angeles Superior Court. Though Hopper died two weeks later, Duffy insisted at the hearing that he was well enough to be deposed.[62] The hearing also dealt with whom to designate on Hopper's life insurance policy, which listed his wife as a beneficiary.[63] A very ill Hopper did not appear in court though his estranged wife did. Despite Duffy's bid to be named the sole beneficiary of Hopper's million-dollar policy, the judge ruled against her and limited her claim to one-quarter of the policy. The remaining US$750,000 was to go to his estate.[64]

On November 14, 2010, it was revealed that, despite Duffy's earlier assertion in her court papers of February 2010 that Hopper was mentally incompetent and that his children had rewritten his estate plan in order to leave Duffy and her daughter, Hopper's youngest child Galen, destitute, Galen would in fact receive the proceeds of 40% of his estate.[65]

Illness and death

Hopper at a ceremony to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on March 26, 2010, two months before his death
On September 28, 2009, Hopper, then 73, was reportedly taken by ambulance to an unidentified Manhattan hospital wearing an oxygen mask and "with numerous tubes visible".[66] On October 2, he was discharged, after receiving treatment for dehydration.[67]

On October 29, 2009, Hopper's manager Sam Maydew reported that he had been diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer.[68] In January 2010, it was reported that Hopper's cancer had metastasized to his bones.[69]

On March 18, 2010, he was honored with the 2,403rd star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in front of Grauman's Egyptian Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard.[70] Surrounded by friends including Jack Nicholson, Viggo Mortensen, David Lynch, Michael Madsen, family and fans, he attended its addition to the sidewalk six days later.[71]

By March 2010, Hopper reportedly weighed only 100 pounds (45 kg) and was unable to carry on long conversations.[72] According to papers filed in his divorce court case, Hopper was terminally ill and was unable to undergo chemotherapy to treat his prostate cancer.[73][74]

Hopper died at his home in the coastal Venice district of Los Angeles, aged 74, on the morning of May 29, 2010.[75] His funeral took place on June 3, 2010, at San Francisco de Asis Mission Church in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico. His body was buried at the Jesus Nazareno Cemetery in Ranchos de Taos.

The film Alpha and Omega, which was among his last film roles, was dedicated to him, as was the 2011 film Restless, which starred his son Henry Hopper.

dow, Friday, 18 February 2022 05:11 (two years ago) link

Doesn't really work since the guy is a producer and not well-known but the list of bridesmaids gives an extra connection to this thread:

After the release of MASH, on December 17, 1970, Kellerman married Starsky & Hutch producer Rick Edelstein. Anjanette Comer, Morgan Ames, Lisabeth Hush, Joanne Linville, and Luana Anders were among her bridesmaids.  On March 6, 1972, Kellerman divorced Edelstein, citing irreconcilable differences.

Solaris Ocean Blue (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 25 February 2022 16:39 (two years ago) link

Actually there is some more interesting stuff right after that in the Wikipedia article.

Solaris Ocean Blue (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 25 February 2022 16:41 (two years ago) link


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