Olivia de Havilland was not, despite what you might read on news releases and tributes to her, the last major star of Hollywood's Golden Age (or Classical Hollywood, as it also known). The Classical Hollywood era's beginning is up for debate (some say as early as the 1910's, others say it began in the early 1930's, still others state it began in 1939). Either way, there is a solid amount of agreement that the era ended in the early 1960's, so not only are there still actors alive from this era who were headlining films in the 1950's & 60's, there are some (like Harry Belafonte & Shirley MacLaine) who are still working today.
But de Havilland is probably the last
major star of the 1940's and certainly of the 1930's to have still been alive, and with her passing, I wanted to discuss something we haven't done an update on in about two years on the blog (not since the death of Tab Hunter). In 1999, the American Film Institute created a list of 50 (25 male, 25 female) of the greatest stars of Classical Hollywood, capping requirement at people who made their film debuts in or before 1950 (so people like Belafonte & MacLaine wouldn't have been eligible). They did so from a list of 500 performers, most of whom at that point were already dead. Though she didn't make the Top 25, one of the actors that was among those 500 was Olivia de Havilland. We have in the years since checked in on those 500 stars, arbitrarily thrown together but significant enough to make the ballot, and since de Havilland has passed away, I wanted to see how many were left still from the list. This is not an all-encompassing list of all of the actors who made their debut before 1950 and had a significant role in Hollywood (off the top of my head Arlene Dahl & Glynis Johns come to mind as actresses who would've qualified for this list but aren't on it), but it is a reminder of the few actors from Classical Hollywood (enough so that the AFI took note), who are still alive.
(For the curious, in addition to de Havilland, Kirk Douglas, Max von Sydow, and Doris Day have also passed since we last looked at this list. Also, quite a few of these people still don't have Oscars of any kind, so hopefully the Academy takes note!)
The Living Actors...
Sidney Poitier (1927-Present)
Screen Debut: His first credited screen appearance came in 1950's
No Way Out, which launched his landmark film career in a big way.
Oscar Nominations: Poitier received two Oscar nominations in his career, winning Best Actor for
Lilies of the Field (becoming the first black man to win Best Actor). Poitier also won an Honorary Award in 2002.
Probably Best Known Today For: Being an iconic and celebrated figure in the Civil Rights movement in the United States, and along with Dorothy Dandridge, Lena Horne, and Harry Belafonte, being one of the very first black movie stars (he was also Ambassador from the Bahamas to Japan, as he actually has dual citizenship with both the Bahamas and the United States-random fact!). Poitier is one of the most widely-respected actors in the industry, and one of its most enduring stars.
Is He Still Working?: Poitier quit acting in 2001, with the television movie
The Last Brickmaker in America-his final theatrically-released film was 1997's
The Jackal with Richard Gere & Bruce Willis.
My Favorite Performance: I know that some like to quibble about how Poitier never received an Oscar nomination for
In the Heat of the Night, but part of me thinks it was more to do with vote-splitting (he also had
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner and
To Sir, with Love out that year) than racism. Still, he certainly
deserved an Oscar nomination for his iconic Virgil Tibbs.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I've never actually seen the movie that landed Poitier his Academy Award. For whatever reason
Lilies of the Field has never made it to the top of my queue, though I've seen a lot of Poitier films through the years.
Dean Stockwell (1936-Present)
Screen Debut: 1945's
The Valley of Decision with Greer Garson & Gregory Peck
Oscar Nominations: Stockwell has received one Oscar nomination, for 1988's
Married to the Mob (he lost to Kevin Kline).
Most Famous For: The career of Dean Stockwell is a fascinating one, as he is one of those rare child actors who went on to have a very strong career as an adult, though in this case in character actor parts. Starting acting as a cherubic-faced youth in movies like
Gentleman's Agreement and
Anchors Aweigh, he eventually became a hit actor as an adult, dropped out of acting to get involved in the hippie subculture, reappeared in the 1980's in the art house cinema of David Lynch and Wim Wenders, and is most well-known today for playing Al Calavicci in
Quantum Leap and Brother Cavil in the revival of
Battlestar Galactica.
Is He Still Working?: Stockwell suffered a stroke in 2015, and has since retired.
Glaring Miss in His Filmography: I've actually seen a few Stockwell pictures, and thought he was terrific if terrifying singing Roy Orbison's "In Dreams" in the exceptional
Blue Velvet. I'll go with his Oscar-nominated work as my missing piece, though I have always meant to watch the revived
Battlestar Galactica.
The Living Actresses...
Claire Bloom (1931-Present)
Screen Debut: 1948's
The Blind Goddess
Oscar Nominations: Never nominated
Most Famous For: For her long and illustrious career on the British stage, as well as her many tabloid romances. Ms. Bloom made her stage debut at sixteen opposite John Gielgud and a young Richard Burton, whom she had a passionate love affair with (Burton claimed he loved two women before Liz Taylor-his wife Sybil and Claire Bloom). She would perform on in the West End for decades, and continue having tabloid-worthy relationships, including marriages to Rod Steiger and Philip Roth, as well as affairs with Laurence Olivier and Yul Brynner.
Is She Still Working?: Yes! Her most recent work was in the BBC Miniseries
Summer of Rockets as Aunt Mary opposite Toby Stephens & Timothy Spall.
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: With Bloom it's hard not to pick her first international starring role in
Limelight, where she plays a suicidal ballerina in the only film that features both Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton.
Ann Blyth (1928-Present)
Screen Debut: Chip off the Old Block (1944) with Donald O'Connor & Peggy Ryan
Oscar Nominations: 1 nomination (for
Mildred Pierce)
Most Famous For: Portraying the selfish daughter from hell in
Mildred Pierce. Her work opposite Joan Crawford won her an Oscar nomination early in her career, and she eventually went on to become a major star of musicals, at one point being a rival for Kathryn Grayson at MGM. She eventually moved completely away from the cinema, instead starring in a series of television guest spots, including a memorable turn as a potential murderer opposite longtime friend Angela Lansbury in
Murder, She Wrote and as an actress with a secret on
The Twilight Zone in "Queen of the Nile."
Is She Still Working?: Blyth quit working in film after her role in
The Helen Morgan Story with Paul Newman. She quit television in the 1980's, though she does occasional do interviews still.
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: I've actually seen
Mildred Pierce and
The Great Caruso, the two most important pictures in her filmography, so maybe
Brute Force with Burt Lancaster, where she plays a woman dying of cancer whose husband is in prison.
Rhonda Fleming (1923-Present)
Screen Debut: While she did work before then, her first onscreen credit was in
Spellbound, making her the (only?) person to play a significant role in one of Hitchcock's films of the 1940's.
Oscar Nominations: Never nominated
Most Famous For: Being the "Queen of Technicolor." Along with Maureen O'Hara and Arlene Dahl, Fleming's red hair made her a major motion picture star, and one that photographed particularly well in Technicolor, which was very in fashion during the height of her fame. Her best known films are probably from the 1940's, when she had supporting roles in Alfred Hitchcock's
Spellbound and the brilliant
Out of the Past, but she was a bigger headliner in the 1950's when she appeared opposite Dana Andrews, Ronald Reagan, Burt Lancaster, and Kirk Douglas. Like a number of women on this list, she was an ardent Republican in her personal life, particularly as an advocate for school prayer.
Is She Still Working?: No-her most recent film would be 1990's
Waiting for the Wind with Robert Mitchum, her
Out of the Past costar. She still frequently makes appearances, though, and has participated in the Turner Classic Film Festival.
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: In case you missed it,
Rhonda Fleming was one of our Saturdays with the Stars actresses last year, so I'm actually very familiar with her work. As a result, I'll pick the curiosity of Fleming playing Cleopatra in
Serpent of the Nile as the next of her movies I want to investigate.
Mitzi Gaynor (1931-Present)
Screen Debut: 1950's
My Blue Heaven (which we talked about earlier this year when were discussing Betty Grable in February)
Oscar Nominations: Never nominated
Most Famous For: Being Krusty the Clown's go-to name drop? Just kidding (
Simpsons reference!). Gaynor was in fact one of 20th Century FOX's biggest stars in the 1940's and 1950's, starring in a number of hit musicals. While she could boast costarring roles with Bing Crosby and Gene Kelly, it was with Rossano Brazzi, a little-known Italian actor, that she enjoyed her biggest and most enduring cinematic success. The movie?
Rodgers and Hammerstein's
South Pacific, with Gaynor as the main character of Nellie Forbush, forever washing that man right out of her hair before a very enchanted evening. She also had one of the most famous numbers in Oscar history (though she wasn't nominated for or even in the film) when she got the longest-standing ovation in the history of the ceremony for her performance of "Georgy Girl" in 1967.
Is She Still Working?: While she no longer acts, she frequently is featured in documentaries chronicling the Golden Age of the musical, and actually won an Emmy for her 2010 documentary "Mitzi Gaynor: Razzle Dazzle!"
Also, she's on Twitter!
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: Gaynor was
also one of our stars last year, and so I've seen most of her major movies, though I have not caught the big-screen adaptation of
Anything Goes.
Marsha Hunt (1917-Present)
Screen Debut: The Virginia Judge (1935)
Oscar Nominations: Never nominated
Most Famous For: Her politics. A star for both Paramount and MGM in the 1930's and 1940's who watched her career unravel during the 1950's as part of the blacklist, Hunt was a vocal advocate for free speech and freedom to petition, and refused to denounce her activities protesting Congress on behalf of the blacklist...and therefore didn't work for most of the 1950's, extinguishing her career.
Is She Still Working?: It doesn't appear so-Hunt quit acting in 2008, but does make some public appearances and grant interviews despite her advanced age.
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: I'm going to go with
Born to the West, starring an extremely handsome John Wayne in his twenties, which gives Hunt an unusually robust screenplay to work with for a love interest role in the 1930's.
Angela Lansbury (1925-Present)
Screen Debut: Gaslight (1944) with Charles Boyer & Ingrid Bergman
Oscar Nominations: 3 (for
Gaslight, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and
The Manchurian Candidate, as well as an Honorary Oscar in 2013).
Most Famous For: Lansbury has enjoyed an incredible amount of succcess throughout her career, principally on Broadway (she has won five Tony Awards) and on television (as J.B. Fletcher on the long-running CBS show
Murder, She Wrote). Of course, Lansbury has had a plethora of film roles as well that have become part of her own personal lore. Her work in John Frankenheimer's
The Manchurian Candidate and Disney's
Beauty and the Beast would be toward the top of the public consciousness.
Is She Still Working?: Yes-one of her most recent rolls was as the Balloon Lady in
Mary Poppins Returns just two years ago.
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: Here I've seen enough of her work (I've even seen her on-stage) to have a favorite performance (
The Manchurian Candidate, though honestly I've loved almost everything-she's a personal favorite) and have all three of those Oscar-nominated roles done, so I'll go with the comic classic
The Court Jester, which I have for some reason never gotten around to and in which she plays Princess Gwendolyn opposite Danny Kaye & Glynis Johns.
Piper Laurie (1932-Present)
Screen Debut: Louisa (1950) with Ronald Reagan & Ruth Hussey
Oscar Nominations: 3 (for
The Hustler, Carrie, and
Children of a Lesser God)
Most Famous For: Laurie is most known to film audiences as the mother from hell in
Carrie (oddly enough, Angela Lansbury arguably plays the cinema's
other most famous mother from hell on-screen in
The Manchurian Candidate). Laurie also was Paul Newman's love interest in
The Hustler, and got a Best Actress nomination for it and was Catherine Martell on
Twin Peaks.
Is She Still Working?: After an eight year absence, Laurie was on movie screens opposite Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Jason Leigh in
White Boy Rick in 2018.
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: I cannot believe I am admitting this, but I have somehow never seen
The Hustler, one of those great films from the 1960's and one of the most important roles of Paul Newman's (and of course Piper Laurie's) careers. I should get on this quickly.
Gina Lollobrigida (1927-Present)
Screen Debut: Return of the Black Eagle (1946)
Oscar Nominations: Never nominated
Most Famous For: Look at the picture to the left and I'll give you one (err...two) guesses. Lollobrigida was the Italian sex symbol, a counterweight to the American Marilyn and the French Bardot. She did make a handful of films with the leading men of the era (Burt Lancaster, Anthony Quinn, Frank Sinatra), but quite frankly it was her incredible beauty and her bizarre change in careers late in life (she became a journalist, and eventually managed to land an interview with Fidel Castro of all people in the 1970's) that made her a household name.
Is She Still Working?: She is not acting, but she does still stay in the tabloids for her charitable giving and bizarre love life (as well as the occasional public snipe at her longtime rival Sophia Loren).
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: I don't know if I've ever actually seen a Lollobrigida film, so I would probably make it a bit of a marathon to catch up. I'd start with her Golden Globe-winning work in
Come September with Rock Hudson, follow it with her Esmerelda opposite Anthony Quinn in
The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and finish things with her
Solomon and Sheba with Yul Brynner, which has the distinction of being King Vidor's final film.
Sophia Loren (1934-Present)
Screen Debut: Bluebeard's Six Wives (1950)
Oscar Nominations: Loren received two Oscar nominations in her career, winning for
Two Women in 1961 (the first person to win for a foreign-language film). She would go on to win an Honorary Oscar in 1991 for her body of work.
Probably Best Known Today For: For starters, thankfully being alive and still working (the only woman on the Top 25 still with us, and along with Poitier the only person who charted on either list). Loren's most recent film is Rob Marshall's
Nine, but is probably best known for her enduring beauty. Consistently considered one of the most striking and attractive women in the history of cinema, she was a major star at the height of America's fascination with foreign language cinema. (Completely Random Aside-I once had a car that I named after Loren because the car was so pretty...my brother still drives it).
Is She Still Working?: After an 11 year absence, Loren is returning to the movies with
The Life Ahead, which has a significant part for her (could this be a third Oscar nomination if it's done well?).
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: Let's go with
The Fall of the Roman Empire, which was a huge film for Loren, and made her the second (after Elizabeth Taylor) actress to receive $1 million for a film.
Rita Moreno (1931-Present)
1950: The Toast of New Orleans (1950) with Mario Lanza & Kathryn Grayson
Oscar Nominations: One nomination (which she won for-Best Supporting Actress for 1961's
West Side Story)
Most Famous For: For thoroughly enjoying life in Ame-RIC
-a. Moreno starred in one of the great American musicals in 1961, taking over the role made famous by Chita Rivera on Broadway and becoming a household name as a result (as well as an Oscar-winner). Though at that time she had been featured in three of the best-loved musicals of all-time (she was also in
Singin in the Rain and
The King and I), she didn't star in a lot of high-profile films again (a Latina actress in the 1960's frequently had to rely on stereotypical roles, which Moreno refused to partake of). Instead she forged a bold multi-platform career, winning an Emmy, Grammy, and Tony in the 1970's to complete her EGOT. She is best known from this period for her work on
The Muppets and
The Electric Company (with Morgan Freeman). Moreno also had a pretty spectacular personal life, being romantically involved with both Marlon Brando and Elvis Presley during her career.
Is She Still Working?: Absolutely-she was one of the key players in
One Day at a Time and supposedly has a role in Steven Spielberg's upcoming
West Side Story.
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: I've seen her three iconic musicals, so I'm going to go with
The Ritz, which earned Moreno a Tony Award on Broadway and a Golden Globe nomination on film.
Margaret O'Brien (1937-Present)
Screen Debut: Journey for Margaret (1942)
Oscar Nominations: None, though she won the Juvenile Academy Award in 1944.
Most Famous For: Being one of the biggest child stars on the planet. Margaret O'Brien was to the 1940's what Shirley Temple & Judy Garland were to the 1930's. She even appeared opposite Garland in the most famous of O'Brien's movies:
Meet Me in St. Louis, where she played Tootie. O'Brien was a major star, but couldn't jump to adult roles like Garland, whom she is oftentimes compared to, and instead only made the occasional television or film appearance. If you ever want a fun story, read about O'Brien's Oscar and how she lost it for some fifty years before it finally returned to her.
Is She Still Working?: I think so-it looks like she has a relatively long recent IMDB cast page but it's not entirely clear if these are just clips of her in her youth or her actually playing a role. If the 2017 movie where she stars opposite Mickey Rooney in a retelling of
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde actually exists, I need to see it immediately. Her last roles you'd have heard of would have been guest spots on
The New Lassie and
Murder, She Wrote in the early 1990's.
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: I'd probably go with the film that made her a star,
Journey for Margaret with Robert Young and Fay Bainter, as I've seen (and loved)
Meet Me in St. Louis before.
Jane Withers (1926-Present)
Screen Debut: Bright Eyes (1934)
Oscar Nominations: Never nominated
Most Famous For: Being insufferable. Or rather, playing insufferable, in the Shirley Temple classic
Bright Eyes, where Withers plays her bratty nemesis. Withers became one of the biggest stars of the late 1930's, joining Shirley Temple as a major box office draw despite being a child star, and then eventually going into supporting roles, like her work in
Giant (she and James Dean were good friends) and eventually commercials, taking on what would become her most famous role for the Baby Boomer generation: Josephine the Plumber in the Comet commercials (for comparison's sake, think of Flo from the Progressive commercials and her ubiquity). And continuing our streak, she was in several episodes of
Murder, She Wrote.
Is She Still Working?: From what I can tell her most recent work would be voiceover contributions to
The Hunchback of Notre Dame and its direct-to-video sequel, which happened almost 18 years ago, so she does appear to be retired.
Glaring Miss in Her Filmography: I think
Bright Eyes, Withers' most noted work, would probably have to be at the top of the list.
