Passages

[antnield]

Multimedia artist Mark Nugent

[Mr Sausage]

Rohmer thread here, guys.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Juliet "Aunt Peg" Anderson

(link may be NSFW)

[Rufus T. Firefly]

And continuing the culling of veteran porn actresses, Erica Boyer.

[tavernier]

I'm glad someone scans AVN for this forum!

[domino harvey]

Jay Reatard

[flyonthewall2983]

Teddy Pendergrass.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

I'm glad someone scans AVN for this forum!

At the risk of disappointing you, that someone scans AVN for alt.obituaries and I steal their work. Honestly.

[fiddlesticks]

George Jellinek

[Matt]

Kate McGarrigle, songwriter/singer/musician

Erich Segal, academic and screenwriter

[Antares]

Robert Parker

[fiddlesticks]

Jean Simmons

[domino harvey]

I know it isn't a popular opinion around here, but I loved her in Guys and Dolls and it's still a mystery why she wasn't nommed for Elmer Gantry. But her best performance is surely in Preminger's Angel Face. The last remaining greats are leaving us...

[Props55]

Very sorry to hear of her passing but not surprised at the cause. I had the great pleasure of working with Simmons when she guest starred on IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT back in '94 and she was a charmer still but smoked like the proverbial chimney. Director Vince McEveety (no slouch in the charm dept. either) chided and coaxed her about the necessity of quitting or at least cutting back, but to no avail. And the adage about golden age screen beauties being petite is no myth. I know we all shrink a bit with age but this woman was tiny, though still energetic and attractive despite the tobacco haze. Outgoing and chatty too. Upon hearing that my boss (Russ Goble) had worked the set dressing swing gang on SPARTACUS back in his Universal youth, she insisted on trading war stories to the delight of the crew.

As per Domino I'm perplexed as to why she was shut out of the ELMER GANTRY nominations. It's a major career highlight. Possibly she cancelled herself out with SPARTACUS the same year. And, after finally seeing GUYS AND DOLLS projected large and wide, feel she was the major factor in finally winning me over on this Broadway to Hollywood adaptation. ANGEL FACE (and Simmons) are an axiom of Noir! I've yet to see her in THE BLUE LAGOON or that Le Fanu adaptation (UNCLE SILAS?) but maybe they'll show up on DVD eventually.

And yes, the greats are indeed falling as fast as the autumn leaves. Glad I got to work with as many as I did. Jean Simmons is among those I'll especially miss.

[Sloper]

I fell for her in a big way when I was thirteen and saw Elmer Gantry - then all over again when I saw The Big Country. Very classy actress. (Have always thought of her as Audrey Hepburn for grown-ups but that may only make sense in my own head.)

[Peacock]

Sloper, I totally agree, The Big Country is Simmons at her most beautiful

[Dylan]

God, I loved Jean Simmons. One of my favorite actresses. In my opinion, she gave (by and far) her greatest performance in husband Richard Brooks' 1969 film The Happy Ending (which I also think is the greatest film of 1969... there's no DVD release but it has been recently shown on an HD TV channel, and it's a must in 2.35:1).

[Polybius]

Glad I'm not the only fan of The Big Country around here.

[fdm]

Not sure if I'd ever seen it before, but I'll throw in The Robe for good measure. Watched it about a month ago and thought she was quite good/mesmerizing in it, made me finally realize just who she was. And Hamlet was a recent first time watch also, maybe a few days earlier. I've only seen a couple of other films with her in them, but that will be changing shortly. Thanks for your pointers on where to look next.

[colinr0380]

After Dylan's comment and David Ehrenstein linking to this clip from the film on David Cairn's Shadowplay blog, I think I'm going to have to track this film down!

I still think of her Estella in Great Expectations as being one of her great roles but certainly would also agree on Angel Face (with Footsteps In The Fog as an interesting noir double bill) and Elmer Gantry. I even quite like her in The Grass Is Greener, just to compare her with Audrey Hepburn in the later Cary Grant starring/Stanley Donen directed Charade (I think both possessed the same sort of qualities of refinement rarely seen in actors in Hollywood films, and which many films don't know what to properly do with or even like their actors to possess. I was never really able to truly 'believe' in either of their performances when they played 'lower class' characters such as Eliza Doolittle or the slave girl Varinia for example because I don't really feel that the films were able to overcome those qualities of their lead actresses, despite them bringing a lot of other things to their roles. Though I think perhaps Hepburn managed to mix that refinement with a slightly lost and needy quality that made her seem a bit more accessible and likeable to general audiences).

(EDIT: Sorry I just noted that Sloper put this point much better, and more concisely, above!)

[Dylan]

After Dylan's comment and David Ehrenstein linking to this clip from the film on David Cairn's Shadowplay blog, I think I'm going to have to track this film down!

Modcinema's copy is blessedly sourced from an MGM HD broadcast, so it looks like a studio DVD, preserving some of Conrad Hall's very best color cinematography (it's 2.35:1, which I feel he worked best in). Jean Simmons is breathtaking, and while I've always loved the Michel Legrand score on its own, seeing it scored to the picture brings it to another level altogether (the main title music is a collage of about fifteen different melodies in varying styles). I'll go further and say that I think this is a masterpiece and Richard Brooks' greatest film. Anybody interested in seeing Jean Simmons at her apex should check it out - this is a dream role for actresses. Hopefully MGM will come through with this eventually.

[Antares]

Anybody here own any of these Modcinema discs?

I see a lot of titles there that I would be interested in. What's the quality like?

[Polybius]

I don't think Spartacus (or Crassus, for that matter), thought of Varinia as anything but regal.

[ellipsis7]

Pretty regal, pretty anyway... "Put me down, Spartcacus, I'm having a baby!"



David Thomson Jean Simmons obit in The Guardian...

[colinr0380]

James Mitchell