Actresses & Presence

A reader made a comment about Gene Tierney saying that he found her looks to be supernatural.  That comment sent me into reams of thoughts about her and then other Golden Age actresses who had a presence that seemed to guarantee their fame and popularity on the silver screen.  Presence can feel supernatural.  For some it might be a dignified manner, a bearing, comportment.  For others it might be an imposing personality.  Isn't it an ability to project ease, poise and self-assurance?  It is usually someone of a noteworthy appearance.  

Know this.  Most movie-loving gay boys love actresses.  I think it's fair to say the actresses mentioned here have had large gay followings.  I think the thing about actresses is that I have always considered acting to be more closely aligned with women.  I suppose my favorite kind of movie is some thoughtful piece about folks, real or fictional, trying to navigate through their lives and told with a nod to feelings and emotions.  I think an actor's main duty is to illuminate the human condition.  And really, now, setting biases aside, which sex tells stories on feelings and emotions better, women or men?  Confession:  the real answer is women and gay men.

Of course, as is true with any list, there will be those who will wonder why I haven't included others... maybe Judy, Bette or Joan, Joan or Olivia or anyone named Hepburn.  Even I approach most lists of 10 best or 10 most with a degree of skepticism.

Nonetheless, here are 10 actresses.  Many of you are aware of all of them.  You will hopefully agree with some of my choices whose acting and/or films have occasionally tripped the light fantastic for you.  All of my choices have remained very special to me and when I watch their films I still find joy.  I think we should start with Miss Tierney who set me on this little journey.  The rest of the list is alphabetical.

Gene Tierney
Born into a life of privilege, education and forbearance, Tierney got bored with society life and determined she would become an actress.  She was seriously beautiful with high cheekbones, luminous green eyes and even an overbite that didn't take away from her looks at all.  20th Century Fox knew there was a future for her in their stable of beautiful female stars.

Audiences took to her like ducks to water.  Her elegance, intelligence, poise. soft speaking voice, a certain exotic nature, a degree of mystery and a knack for beautiful clothes made her one of the most popular actresses of the 1940's.  She said she knew the camera was her best friend.  Indeed.

She gave beautifully measured performances in films but will be forever remembered for two, both film noirs.  For me, she will always be Laura (1944), the enigmatic society girl thought mistakenly to having been murdered.  The fact that she doesn't appear in live form until halfway through while during the first half we see her only in flashback and in a portrait above her fireplace adds to the character's allure and forever the actress's.  Playing against type as a murderess in the color noir, Leave Her to Heaven (1945), is unquestionably Tierney's finest cinematic moment and she got her only Oscar nomination for it.  Two other particularly memorable roles came in The Razor's Edge (1946) and The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947).

Ava Gardner
She never thought she was much of an actress (many of her male costars begged to differ, as do I).  There seems to be no doubt that she was a raving beauty, often playing a femme fatale.  While mainly a dramatic actress, she could sing, dance a little and do comedy.  I was ecstatic watching her as the temptress opposite Burt Lancaster in The Killers (1946).  Her famous picture, leaning seductively in that sexy black dress, still commands attention to this day.

Her most notable roles tended to showcase her as a lady of mystery and allure.  She excited Gregory Peck in The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952) and shimmers as the dead actress that no one can stop talking about in The Barefoot Contessa (1954).  Sandwiched in between was a sultry, comical turn in Mogambo (1953). 

Later in her career Gardner showed she still had what it takes to turn in a great performance as the slatternly resort owner in The Night of the Iguana (1964).  She was one of the best of those smart-assed actresses (on screen and off) I have always been so crazy about.





Gloria Grahame
Here is another seductive bombshell and one of the queens of film noir.  I loved her look although I refrain from calling her beautiful.  She was obsessed with altering her looks... one never knew whether she was going to be a blonde, a brunette or a redhead and her famously pouty lips were the products of many a messed-up surgery.  Grahame's screen allure was never dignified but her characters practically begged to be seduced.

If she were in love in real life, she could be a kitten on a film set but if not or if anything else weren't going well, she was a wounded lioness and not anyone's favorite coworker.  Her presence in a film kept me off guard... I was hyped up awaiting her next move.  Few played a seductress better than Grahame and her presence in a film could not be overlooked.

Her noirs--- Crossfire (1947), In a Lonely Place (1950), Sudden Fear (1952), The Big Heat (1953), Human Desire and Naked Alibi, both 1954-- show how sexy, dangerous and manipulative she could be.  She also mixed it up with some light stuff, The Greatest Show on Earth (1952) and Oklahoma (1955), where she still demanded that viewers keep their eyes on her. 

Susan Hayward
Here is one of the gutsiest, most watchable actresses of all-time.  I was crazy about the movies she made, particularly in the 50's, and I am sure I have seen all of her films but a few early ones.  Hayward kicked ass and took names later... both on and off the screen.  Audiences came to count on her strength but also detected a vulnerability.  Sadly, she was a most unpopular coworker.  She rarely talked to anyone off camera, preferring to retreat to her dressing room.  Some of her directors went public with their dislike of her.

Onscreen, she could be relied on to deliver the goods.  She may have made a few so-so films, but the lady never faltered in a performance.  She fought like a tiger for some of her best roles, particularly playing real-life singers, Jane Froman in With a Song in My Heart (1952) and Lillian Roth in I'll Cry Tomorrow (1955).  If one needs to be reminded of her larger-than-life, fiery presence, try out those sword and sandal epics, David and Bathsheba (1951) and Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954).

She was a star of the first magnitude who made some memorable weepies... My Foolish Heart (1949), Woman Obsessed (1959), Back Street (1961) and Stolen Hours (1963).  Few suffered more than Hayward or was more noble about it.  I even applauded Where Love Has Gone (1964)... a little cheesy, yes, but watching her play opposite Bette Davis was worth every minute.





Grace Kelly
Her time in Hollywood was brief but triumphant.  She came as a princess and left as one.  No matter what one thinks of her acting abilities (and I thought they were good, allowing that only once did she mine her richest vein), if she doesn't qualify to be part of these 10, I want you to go back and read the opening paragraph.  If this woman didn't have presence, then she had nothing except a  beautiful face.

Unlike Grahame and the next entree, there was nothing obvious in much of anything with Kelly.  Subtlety was her friend.  She knew what she had but she kept it in check.  If I were to compare her to any of these others in the appeal she projected, it would be Tierney.  I don't think it's coincidence that fashion designer Oleg Cassini was once Kelly's fiancé and earlier the husband of Tierney.  

Off the silver screen, her life was rather scandalous, so much so that when Prince Rainier had her checked out for possible residence in his pink palace, didn't he at least blush?  She was the best she would ever be in a dramatic Oscar-winning turn as The Country Girl (1954) and an absolute delight in romantic comedy, never better or more beautiful or more beautifully dressed than she is in Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief (1955).  Talk about presence.

Marilyn Monroe
She was by no means a great actress but she was far more capable at her craft than some are willing to give her credit for.  She perfected the dumb blonde with the occasional and accidental spark of smart.  She poured her ample body into tight dresses and the boys went stark-raving mad.  She cooed and oohed and aahed in that breathy, seemingly helpless voice and a star was born with a magnitude Hollywood rarely sees.  To this day, 57 years after her famous death, she is the greatest movie star ever.  

Marilyn's presence in a film promoted a schizophrenia for male viewers.  Simultaneously she brought out a man's voyeuristic tendencies as she performed her ever-expanding bits of physical business or made him want to pounce or to the feeling of a man or woman wanting to hug and comfort her as one would a wounded child. 

A few of her films stand as triumphs for her talents especially as a gifted comedienne.  Consider Monkey Business (1952), Niagara, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and Some Like It Hot (1959, the latter frequently considered the best comedy of all time.  She desperately wanted to do more dramas and while she had little opportunity, I thought she was all she needed to be in River of No Return (1954) and her final film, The Misfits (1961).

 

Kim Novak
I've always felt the need to defend her... from the public and critics and even a little from herself.  Like Monroe, she was a totally manufactured actress.  Sitting in on some of her films was like sitting in on an acting class.  Sometimes she labored, sometimes she succeeded quite well.  Her great struggle as an actress and a citizen of Hollywood was her insecurity.

Her substantial offering as a performer, aside from her sometimes blinding, blonde beauty, was her mysteriousness.  I feel certain she liked it that way because she felt safer.  She brought that mysteriousness to many of her characters starting with Lona in her debut film, the noir Pushover (1954), Madge in Picnic (1956), Madeline and Judy in 1958's Vertigo (her most famous film where she is perfectly cast), even the witch Gillian in the under-rated Bell, Book and Candle, also 1958, and certainly Lylah Clare 10 years later. 

I liked Novak better in dramas than comedies and I thought she was wonderful in the title role of the drug-addicted actress Jeanne Eagels in the 1957 film of the same title.  That film's costar, Jeff Chandler, and James Stewart were her two favorite leading men.  But there was also Frank Sinatra, William Holden, Tyrone Power, Jack Lemmon, James Garner, Laurence Harvey, Peter Finch, Rock Hudson, Dean Martin, Fred Astaire, Kirk Douglas... some of whom she famously feuded with.

Jean Simmons 
It seems I'm always trying to find a way to work her into some new posting.  I was originally transfixed by her demure, youthful beauty, my first English rose.  I found her as captivating when I saw her work when she was in her 70's.  She was small, her voice was small, she often lowered her head when she was being chastised.   

With all that said, she was also one of my favorite tough actresses and she never forsook her femininity.  Simmons's characters were often secretly telling others be careful, watch your step.   The self-assurance she projected on the screen was largely acting... off screen she was often unsettled.  She smoked and drank too much and her marriage to director Richard Brooks must have been difficult because he was.

Her best year in films is without question 1960.  Her defining role  is as the persevering Sister Sharon in Elmer Gantry.  She is equally compelling as Varinia, the steadfast and loving wife of Spartacus and she is wickedly funny as the would-be adulterer in The Grass Is Greener.  Let's not forget her singing as Sarah Brown in Guys and Dolls (1955),  the recently-released mental patient in Home Before Dark and the feisty westerner in The Big Country, both 1958, and the just-widowed mother in All the Way Home (1963).  Did I mention the tough stagecoach owner in Rough Night in Jericho?  How much time you got?

Barbara Stanwyck
She is the only one of the old-timers who made this list.  I loved Kate and Bette, so help me, but I've always been a Babs boy.  She, too,  could be a scrappy one on or off the screen and it may be because she never forgot the mean streets of Brooklyn... much the same as Susan Hayward, also from there.  They had terrible childhoods and felt they had to claw their way out of there and to the top.

The result was, acting-wise, there didn't seem to be a thing Stanwyck couldn't do or hadn't done or wouldn't try. Whether she was playing her bread and butter role, the hardened dame, or being softer and loving and thoughtful, Stanwyck was truly one of the great screen presences.  One may forget that through all the snarling and contorted faces she had great bearing, poise and self-confidence.

She made great comedies such as The Lady Eve and Ball of Fire, both 1941, film noirs Double Indemnity (1944), The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) and Clash by Night (1952), westerns The Furies (1950), Blowing Wild (1953), Cattle Queen of Montana and The Violent Men, both 1954, and romance-dramas including All I Desire (1953) and There's Always Tomorrow (1955).

Elizabeth Taylor
I could justify her inclusion here on beauty alone.  She employed a large entourage to keep her looking that way, too, when she was making a film or going to a gathering that would make the news.  Looking her best in the 1950's and early 60's, I don't think there was another actress who topped her incredible beauty... though some came close and several have been mentioned here.  Her beauty and global fame is why she is often referred to as The Last Movie Star.

But her acting also counts for a great deal.  It is, however, undeniable that no actress this famous has made so many bad films. Bad, bad, bad.  She should have used her money and influence to burn every copy.  But as I have said before, Taylor is an example of many a certain kind of actress (or actor) who, if she had a good, attentive and strong director, could do exemplary work.

She also made a few films that were perfectly fine entertainment pieces but her most wonderful performances come in a mere six films.  Two of them, these first two, are directed by George Stevens.  As the young and lusty Angela Vickers, she had her first truly adult role in his A Place in the Sun (1951).  Starring as Leslie Benedict, the easterner who learns to become a strong Texan in Giant (1956), however, put her on the map as an actress to watch for more than her face.  I consider her work as the crazy southern belle in Raintree County (1957) as the least notable of her good work.  Her turn as Maggie in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) for my money is the best work Taylor ever did.  Joe Mankiewicz got her to give a better performance than either Katharine Hepburn or Montgomery Clift in the harrowing Suddenly, Last Summer (1959).  Most people, I suspect, consider her very best work was in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf (1966), which I do include here as one of her six best roles, but I find it her most surprising work.




Here's a little extra that points out that if one actress has a strong presence, why not put two of them in the same movie and see what happens...

Ava Gardner and Susan Hayward were two of Gregory Peck's lovers in Gregory Peck in The Snows of Kilimanjaro.

Gardner and Grace Kelly were romantic rivals in another African opus, Mogambo.  In real life, they became close friends.

Gardner and Barbara Stanwyck co-starred in the elegant East Side, West Side.  In real life, Stanwyck loathed Gardner because the younger, more beautiful actress slept with Stanwyck's husband, Robert Taylor.

Gardner and Elizabeth Taylor were in the disaster known as The Bluebird.

Taylor and Kim Novak shared a famously bitchy scene in A Mirror Crack'd.

Gene Tierney and Jean Simmons decorated The Egyptian.

Stanwyck and Marilyn Monroe were friendly sisters-in-law in Clash by Night.

Stanwyck and Simmons were part of a large ensemble in the mega-popular television miniseries, The Thorn Birds.



Fini.


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