Jo Van Fleet

The other day someone called me a tough mother (he is delusional... I'm a pussycat) and as my movie-saturated brain works, I immediately thought of the character actress, Jo Van Fleet.  Not only is her career mainly a fifties thing (and aren't we highlighting the fifties as we type?) but in most of her films she was indeed a tough mother.  If she weren't a mother in some of them, she was still tough.   She was always tough... it's about all she knew how to be... on screen and off.

Good 50's Films: A Place in the Sun

1951 Romance Drama
From Paramount Pictures
Directed by George Stevens

Starring
Montgomery Clift
Elizabeth Taylor
Shelley Winters
Anne Revere
Keefe Brasselle
Herbert Heyes
Raymond Burr
Shepherd Strudwick
Kathryn Givney
Frieda Inescourt
Fred Clarke

Vittorio Gassman

Since we are saluting the 1950's these days, it's only proper that we include a piece on Vittorio Gassman, the world-famous Italian actor, director and writer who was equally at home on the stage as he was in movies.  He became famous in the U.S. in the early 50's when he impulsively married American actress Shelley Winters and made four films at MGM.  (Winters' bones would be rattling if she knew we're doing a piece on him before one on her.)