You can't help but wonder if an actress without classic beauty got offered very different parts.
Tuesday, March 05, 2013
Forgotten Villainesses: Judith Anderson
You can't help but wonder if an actress without classic beauty got offered very different parts.
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11 comments:
Oh, I'd forgotten about Ann Treadwell! And yes, I remember how great she was as Mrs. Danvers - thanks for this.
Her role must have been very well known as it was referenced in the Abbott & Costello (atypical) classic THE TIME OF THEIR LIVES when someone asks the very Mres. Danvers-like housekeeper (played by Gale Sondergaard), "Didn't I see you in REBECCA?"
And yes I remember her in LAURA.
Jeff M.
And she was an excellent Big Mama in CAT ON A HOT TIN ROF too
An archetypal character, for sure.
Glenda Jackson seemed to have chameleon powers to take on any role.
Agnes Moorehead was another talented actress "without classic beauty" who was typecast as villains, spinsters and harridans. She could've done anything in my opinon. Hollywood in the old days was all about faces first, talent second, I think. Character actors always get the better parts anyway. So much more they can do with them without relying on a pretty face that sighs, pouts or smiles.
Good one, John. Although she was able to summon up a certain allure that Anderson didn't have. Anderson had to just rely on pure talent.
Moorehead appeared in the movie The Conqueror (1956), which was shot near St. George, Utah – downwind from the Yucca Flat, Nevada nuclear test site. She was one of over 90 (of 220) cast and crew members — including co-stars Susan Hayward, John Wayne, and Pedro Armendariz, as well as director-producer Dick Powell – who, over their lifetimes, all developed cancer(s); at least 46 from the cast and crew have since died from cancer(s), including all of those named above.
Jeff M.
Gale Sondegaard was another actress built along the same lines. :)
I remember Judith Anderson in a movie with Vincent Price that wasn't LAURA, but can't think of it at the moment...
I don't think Anderson is forgoten exactly, just maybe misplaced a little bit. :)
If you've seen REBECCA, you can never forget Anderson.
Dare we ask what happened to Mr. Danvers?
Deb
/For some reason, I can't comment under my name today!
Fans may be interested in my biography, Judith Anderson: Australian Star, First Lady of the American Stage (2019).
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