Molly and Lawless John (1972)

Film: Molly and Lawless John (1972)

Stars: Vera Miles, Sam Elliott, Clu Gulager, John Anderson, Cynthia Myers

Director: Gary Nelson

Oscar History: No nominations, but the film did get a Golden Globe nomination for Best Original Song, an impressive feat for an independent film in the early 1970's.

Snap Judgment Ranking: 3/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2023 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the Golden Age western, and the stars who made it one of the most enduring legacies of Classical Hollywood.  This month, our focus is on Sam Elliott: click here to learn more about Mr. Elliott (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Sam Elliott was never the leading man that Robert Redford or Clint Eastwood was, but at least in the 1970's he did have a period where he was trying to go that route.  Throughout the decade, he would make independent films, including some early work in westerns like today's picture Molly and Lawless John, which was a low-budget film made in the wake of Butch Cassidy.  But his big-screen investment from the studios came a few years later, with the film Lifeguard.  The film was made for Paramount, and was the first time (in 1976) that a studio film was willing to give Elliott a chance as a leading man.  The film wasn't successful, though.  It spent a year on the shelf (during which time Elliott didn't work as he was hoping this was his big break), but the film flopped with critics and while it made money, it didn't translate into a leading career for Elliott.  As we'll see in the next two weeks, while Elliott would get leading work in the decades to come (principally on television), his career was never that of what you'd consider a leading man, and our last two films will have him in the part we're most accustomed to seeing him play-that of a prominent character actor.

(Spoilers Ahead) I debated whether to do Lifeguard or Molly and Lawless John, as the former was more important to Elliott's career but the latter fits our theme, and my brother broke the tie so we're doing another western this week.  The movie puts Elliott firmly in the lead opposite screen legend (whom we just talked about) Vera Miles.  The film talks about Molly Parker (Miles), who is the wife of an abusive sheriff (Anderson), with whom she struggled for years to get pregnant, and now in her 40's, still wants to have a baby by.  She is charmed by an outlaw named Johnny Lawler (Elliott), who is imprisoned for murder but is scared of being hanged.  Molly decides to free Johnny and escape with him, but on the road she quickly realizes that what he said was a lie, and he was just using her to get free.  They stay on the road, though, and come across a pregnant Native American woman who dies during child birth, and Molly takes the baby.  They grow to somewhat like each other, becoming lovers, but Johnny is clearly still using Molly to be able to escape from Mexico.  After Molly baptizes the baby (naming him after Johnny), and the law starts chasing after him again, he threatens to kill the baby...but she kills him first.  She returns, a changed woman, to her husband with the baby in tow, lying about the baby's name (saying it's named after him), but seemingly stronger & demanding the reward money for returning Johnny to justice.

The movie is fascinating in a way I didn't expect a low-budget 1970's western to be.  It says a lot about feminism, and our attitudes toward it.  Miles was only 43 in 1972, but that was a lot older than we'd consider it today (and also a far more surprising time to be having children), so we're meant to feel as an audience that she's not a good match for the 28-year-old Elliott.  But they have good chemistry, his sexist bravado, and her burgeoning feminism, reflecting a lot of the growing attitudes of women at the time that they could be more than just the woman behind the man.  It's fascinating looking at the way they treat Miles' sexuality in the film.  She's never seen completely nude, but she's definitely seen in various sexual acts, and it's really interesting to see the striking actress juxtaposed as desirous to the attractive Elliott, particularly against the late-in-film appearance of Cynthia Myers, then just 22 and a recent Playboy Playmate, so from an audience perspective a more stereotypical romantic choice for Elliott (if Myers' name sounds familiar, she was one of the people who accused Bill Cosby of drugging women for sex at the Playboy Mansion).

The performances are also solid.  I liked Miles best of the two-I think she brings a sensitivity to this part that wasn't necessary, and gives us a sense of not just what it's like to be a woman on the range, but also one to give up her dreams for an abusive man.  There are feminist readings (from reviews I'm catching on IMDB & Letterboxd) of her returning to her husband at the end that make it look like she learned nothing from the experience, but I don't buy that.  She got to keep her baby and her money, and come back on her own terms, and I think she handles a tricky part well.  Elliott is also good.  He gives his Johnny some fascinating coloring, especially in scenes with Myers where she talks about how old Miles is, and it's obvious that Johnny (who loves Molly) is more concerned with his reputation with this woman he cares little for than for the potential actual romance that he could have if he chose to with Molly.  That he chooses his reputation over his feelings, and that it costs him his life, is a pretty bleak but really interesting take in the end.

The 31 Last Living Stars of the Golden Age of Hollywood

A little over a week ago, actress Piper Laurie passed away.  Laurie was best-known as an actress for two films, both of which got her Academy Award nominations: as Paul Newman's love interest in The Hustler and as Sissy Spacek's domineering mother in Carrie.  Laurie had worked in movies since the 1950's, and had starred opposite everyone from Ronald Reagan to Jimmy Durante to Rock Hudson.  She was one of the only living people that had been submitted for the 1999 TV special AFI 100 Years...100 Stars's ballot.

Laurie's death means that another figure from the Golden Age of Hollywood (roughly from the 1920's through 1959, though that date varies greatly depending on who you ask) had passed away.  In recent years stars such as Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming, Sidney Poitier, & earlier this year Gina Lollobrigida have died, giving us very few actors who are connected to this era, which is one of the primary points-of-conversation on this blog and is the frame-of-reference when you refer to something as "Old Hollywood."

So I decided to do some sleuthing, and understand exactly how many "stars" are left from Classical Hollywood.  The definition is hard to clarify, to be fair.  I've heard everyone from Elizabeth Taylor to Lauren Bacall to Olivia de Havilland being called the "last living star" of Classical Hollywood when they died, and still there are other figures from the era that seem like they would make the grade.  So I decided to make a definition, and see how many were left.

Our definition below, for the actors & actresses I have highlighted, is pretty simple.  We're using 1959 as the cutoff, and so each of these actors either A) got above-the-line billing in at least three Hollywood studio, feature-length, live-action films in 1959 (or earlier) or B) were listed on the AFI's 100 Years...100 Stars ballot (which now only consists of six living actresses).  By my count (and I could've missed someone-the comments are there for a reason), this includes just 31 actors.  I have listed them below.

Before we get into the list, I want to call out perhaps my biggest learning here.  This list runs the gamut from Oscar-winnings actors who are pretty much universally-known to anyone that talks about Old Hollywood to actresses that basically just played love interests in a couple of films and never took off in their careers.  What's remarkable though, is when I started to look at the lists of stars that they had played opposite.  I listed the names below, and I was drawn to two things.  One, for the next few years (and only for the next few years, as the youngest of these performers is 86), we still have a real connection to the Hollywood of lore.  These actors stood on soundstages with Bette Davis, with Fred Astaire, with Marilyn Monroe...icons that make up the foundation of Hollywood.  And not just as extras-they were their peers and love interests and costars.  And so for a brief time, we're still allowed at least a glimpse into that world.

The other thing that I noticed was that so many of the films they starred with with these actors are not well-known.  I list north of 100 movies below, many of them I'd never heard of starring the most famous actors of all-time.  It's a humbling moment to see so many movies, many forgotten to time, left to discover, knowing that I'll never get to all of them.  It's a good reminder that for all of these stars, including Piper Laurie, though they won't be with us forever, they will always be with us as long as there are movies to be seen.

Honorable Mention #1: If we use 1959 as the cutoff for the "Golden Age," we run into a lot of actors that are in a grey area.  First is getting hung up on the title of "Star." All 31 of the below actors were either proper headliners in at least three studio films on or before 1959 (or were in the AFI Stars ballot).  This means that there are a few living actors who were either character actors, supporting stars, or who weren't yet getting major roles in the 1950's (but were definitely a part of the era, sometimes in crucial or even Oscar-cited parts) that won't be on the list.  This is not a conclusive list, but some actors that meet that criteria include: Lee Grant, Earl Holliman, Patrick Wayne, Marion Ross, James Hong, Ann Robinson, Russ Tamblyn, Ursula Andress, Richard Beymer, Diane Baker, Connie Stevens, France Nuyen, Karen Sharpe, & Dolores Hart (Ann Robinson, for the record, comes really close getting leads in two films of the era (The War of the Worlds and Gun Brothers), but just misses the cutoff without a third one).

Honorable Mention #2: On the flip side, there are actors who are indisputably stars in movies or TV in the years that followed, some of the biggest stars of New Hollywood who were definitely working in movies during the 1950's...but weren't headlining films yet.  They have their connections to the era, but just miss the cut from this list, in some cases by a few years.  This would include Clint Eastwood, Tippi Hedren, Gena Rowlands, Barbara Eden, Julie Newmar, Fabian, Tina Louise, & George Hamilton.

Honorable Mention #3: This list only includes people who appeared in films in 1959 or earlier.  There are several actors (Jane Fonda, Warren Beatty, Robert Duvall, Paula Prentiss, & Nancy Kwan all come to mind) who made their screen debuts in the early 1960's, which is why they aren't listed at all here, but are generally associated with the Golden Age because they did star with a number of famous actors of that era in the period before New Hollywood started later that decade.

Honorable Mention #4: Finally, this list is focused on Golden Age stars in Hollywood.  We have a few actors like Glynis Johns, Brigitte Bardot, & Claudia Cardinale who would eventually become crucial names in movies, even starring in some Hollywood films...but not in the 1950's.  As a result, you're not going to see names of actors not largely associated with American cinema prior to this, since the whole "Old Hollywood Glamour" thing has a geographic definition.

Editor's Note from John: All of these actors were living as of October 26th, 2023.  However, I have noted the death date of some of these performers below if they have since passed and you are finding this article years after-the-fact, specifically the age they died.  I am not updating the other stars ages in real time (you know how to do math, and their birth dates are living).  All other parts of the write-up remain as is.

And with that, it's time to see stars!

Carroll Baker

Age: 92 (May 28th, 1931)

Screen Debut: Easy to Love (1953)

Best Known For: Her proto-Lolita work in Elia Kazan's Baby Doll

AFI Nominee?: No

Oscar Nominations: She was nominated for Best Actress for Baby Doll, losing to Ingrid Bergman's comeback role in Anastasia

Famous Costars: I thought it'd be fun to do a smattering of each of these living names connections to lost legends, proving how we still have not only stars of this era, but links to some of its biggest icons (I'm only listing deceased actors here-though of course many of these actors, including Baker, starred alongside each other during this time frame).  With Baker you have James Dean, Elizabeth Taylor, & Rock Hudson (Giant), Gregory Peck & Charlton Heston (The Big Country), Jimmy Stewart (Cheyenne Autumn), and Clark Gable (But Not for Me)

Are They Still Acting?: No.  We're going to focus primarily on film with final roles here, given this is a film article, but if they're still acting in TV I'll call that out.  Baker hasn't worked in decades-her last film was The Game with Michael Douglas & Sean Penn.

Claire Bloom

Age: 92 (February 15th, 1931)

Screen Debut: The Blind Goddess (1948)

Best Known For: The stage.  Bloom is probably a questionable inclusion here if I'm skipping Glynis Johns, to be honest.  She did work regularly in the 1950's & 60's, but in British cinema, not in American pictures as often (though she was in them).  In American film, her best known work was as Cliff Robertson's love interest in Charly.

AFI Nominee?: The reason I'm including her is that she is one of only six living stars from the AFI's "100 Years, 100 Stars" list, which automatically got you into this compendium.

Oscar Nominations: No Oscar nominations, though she was given a CBE in 2013 (why they didn't just trot out the "Dame" is anyone's guess, and should be rectified immediately.

Famous Costars: Charlie Chaplin & Buster Keaton (Limelight), James Mason (The Man Between), Richard Burton (Alexander the Great, Look Back in Anger, The Spy Who Came in from the Cold), Laurence Olivier (Richard III, Clash of the Titans), Paul Newman & Edward G. Robinson (The Outrage), and Charles Boyer & Charlton Heston (The Buccaneer)

Are They Still Acting?: Yes.  She had a small role in the 2019 miniseries Summer of Rockets with Toby Stephens & Timothy Spall.

Ann Blyth

Age: 95 (August 16th, 1928 - June 24, 2026)

Screen Debut: Chip off the Old Block (1944)

Best Known For: Playing Joan Crawford's spoiled daughter Veda in Mildred Pierce

AFI Nominee?: Yes, Blyth is one of the six living actresses still left from the AFI list

Oscar Nominations: Blyth was cited for one Oscar, for her work in Mildred Pierce, but lost to Anne Revere in National Velvet.

Famous Costars: Blyth is so famous for her supporting role in Mildred Pierce that it's frequently forgotten she had a career in the early-1950's as a proper leading lady.  She starred opposite not just Crawford but Mickey Rooney (Killer McCoy), Charles Boyer (A Woman's Vengeance), William Powell (Mr. Peabody and the Mermaid, Bing Crosby (Top o' the Morning), Claudette Colbert (Thunder on the Hill), Gregory Peck (The World in His Arms), & Paul Newman (The Helen Morgan Story)

Are They Still Acting?: No-Blyth's last film was The Helen Morgan Story, for some reason quitting pictures before she turned 30, and her last television appearance was opposite Angela Lansbury on Murder, She Wrote in 1985.

Pat Boone

Age: 89 (June 1st, 1934)

Screen Debut: Bernardine (1957)

Best Known For: Boone is far more famous today as a singer than as an actor.  In the late-1950's, he was a serious rival to Elvis Presley as the most popular singer of the era.  Some of his hits included "April Love," "Love Letters in the Sand," and "Ain't That a Shame,"...none of which have had the lasting pop culture impact of Presley, proving that every era gets their Jessica Simpson.

AFI Nominee?: No

Oscar Nominations: Never nominated for an Oscar or a Golden Globe, though Boone is currently 0-for-6 at the Grammys.

Famous Costars: Janet Gaynor (Bernardine), James Mason & Arlene Dahl (Journey to the Center of the Earth), Bobby Darin & Alice Faye (State Fair), Tony Curtis & Debbie Reynolds (Goodbye Charlie), 

Are They Still Acting?: If we're being honest, the thing that Boone is best-known for is not music or film, but for his religious & political beliefs.  The actor is a devout evangelical Christian, staging rallies for school prayer as far-back as the 1960's.  He is famously homophobic, and is actively involved in Republican politics, campaigning for figures like Donald Trump, Ernie Fletcher, & Mike Huckabee.

Leslie Caron

Age: 92 (July 1st, 1931)

Screen Debut: An American in Paris (1951)

Best Known For: Probably Gigi?  Honestly, Caron was a major star in movie musicals in the 1950's, so she might just be famous without needing a qualifier, but if there's a movie, it's Gigi.

AFI Nominee?: The cutoff needing your screen debut to be before 1950 means that Caron, who surely would've been a lock for inclusion otherwise, didn't get cited on the ballot.

Oscar Nominations: She received two-one for Lili which she lost to Audrey Hepburn in Roman Holiday (it's a movie I love, and I was shocked to find recently I'm by myself on that front) and then ten years later was a presumed frontrunner for The L-Shaped Room, but missed to Patricia Neal in Hud.

Famous Costars: The only living person to have danced with both Gene Kelly (An American in Paris) and Fred Astaire (Daddy Long Legs) onscreen.  In addition to those two, she also costarred with Maurice Chevalier (Gigi), Henry Fonda (The Man Who Understood Women), Charles Boyer (Fanny, A Very Special Favor), & Cary Grant (Father Goose)

Are They Still Acting?: Yes, though not steadily-her most recent film was a voiceover work in a British adaptation of A Christmas Carol.

Joan Collins

Age: 90 (May 23rd, 1933)

Screen Debut: Lady Godiva Rides Again (1951)

Best Known For: Her turn as Alexis Carrington in the 1980's soap opera Dynasty.  She also was a tabloid staple for decades along with her late sister, novelist Jackie Collins.

AFI Nominee?: No

Oscar Nominations: No, though she won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Emmy Award for her work on Dynasty.

Famous Costars: Bette Davis (The Virgin Queen), Richard Burton (Sea Wife), Jayne Mansfield (The Wayward Bus), Harry Belafonte, Dorothy Dandridge, & Joan Fontaine (Island in the Sun), Paul Newman (Rally Round the Flag, Boys!), Edward G. Robinson (Seven Thieves), and Bing Crosby & Bob Hope (The Road to Hong Kong)

Are They Still Acting?: Yes.  She made a guest spot in 2019 on Hawaii Five-O, and has done quite a bit of theater in recent years, including one-woman shows as herself.

Kathryn Crosby

Age: 90 (November 25th, 1933 - September 20th, 2024)

Screen Debut: So This is Love (1953)

Best Known For: Crosby's screen name wasn't actually Crosby (or at least it wasn't for the bulk of her acting career)-she was billed as Kathryn Grant for most of her acting career (if you're googling her, she's Crosby on Wikipedia & Grant on IMDB/Letterboxd...we're going with Crosby as her name because that's what she prefers).  As a result, she's best known as Bing Crosby's second wife; the couple remained married for twenty years, until the actor's death in 1977.

AFI Nominee?: No

Oscar Nominations: No

Famous Costars: Ginger Rogers & William Holden (Forever Female), Bob Hope & Joan Fontaine (Casanova's Big Night), Jimmy Stewart & Grace Kelly (Rear Window), Ginger Rogers (again) & Edward G. Robinson (Tight Spot), Anthony Quinn (The Wild Party), Jack Lemmon (Operation Mad Ball), Tab Hunter (Gunman's Walk), & Jimmy Stewart (Anatomy of a Murder)

Are They Still Acting?: Crosby largely retired from acting after her marriage, though she randomly appeared in the 2010 independent comedy Queen of the Lot.

Audrey Dalton

Age: 89 (January 21st, 1934)

Screen Debut: My Cousin Rachel (1952)

Best Known For: I don't know that Dalton is super well-known for anything today.  This happens sometimes, and will for stars today too-where someone gets regular work leading forgettable pictures, or getting prominent supporting work in movies, but as a star she doesn't click with pop culture at large.   But she definitely led 3+ films in the 1950's, so she qualified for this list (I'll happily take recommendations of how to familiarize myself with her in the comments, as she's the one star totally unknown to me before I wrote this).

AFI Nominee?: No

Oscar Nominations: No

Famous Costars: Richard Burton & Olivia de Havilland (My Cousin Rachel), Clifton Webb & Barbara Stanwyck (Titanic), Bob Hope & Joan Fontaine (Casanova's Big Night), Rita Hayworth & Burt Lancaster (Separate Tables), & Lana Turner (The Prodigal)

Are They Still Acting?: No-Dalton retired in 1978, appearing on Police Woman with oddly enough the next star on this list.

Angie Dickinson

Age: 92 (September 30th, 1931)

Screen Debut: Lucky Me (1954)

Best Known For: Dickinson was a sex symbol star of the 1960's, but a modern one in the mold of Jane Fonda & Faye Dunaway, rather than the more exaggerated looks of Marilyn Monroe or Jayne Mansfield, with her most famous film being in the original Ocean's 11.  In the 1970's, she was a huge star on television playing Pepper Anderson on NBC's Police Woman.  She also had a high-profile marriage at the peak of both of their fame with singer Burt Bacharach.

AFI Nominee?: No

Oscar Nominations: No Oscar nominations, but she won two Golden Globes and was nominated for three Emmy Awards, most of these for Police Woman.

Famous Costars: Doris Day (Lucky Me), Robert Mitchum (Man with the Gun), Randolph Scott (Shoot-Out at Medicine Bend), James Mason (Cry Terror!), John Wayne & Dean Martin (Rio Bravo), Richard Burton (The Bramble Bush), The Rat Pack-Frank Dean, & Sammy (Ocean's 11), Maurice Chevalier (Jessica), Troy Donahue (Captain Newman, MD), Marlon Brando (The Chase), & Kirk Douglas (Cast a Giant Shadow)

Are They Still Acting?: Dickinson quit acting in 2009, her last TV movie being Mending Fences, while her last theatrical film being Elvis Has Left the Building with Kim Basinger.

Peggy Dow

Age: 95 (March 18th, 1928)

Screen Debut: Undertow (1949)

Best Known For: She played the main nurse (who is in love with her doctor) in the Oscar-nominated Jimmy Stewart classic Harvey.

AFI Nominee?: No

Oscar Nominations: None

Famous Costars: In addition to Stewart, she also acted opposite Rock Hudson (Undertow), Ida Lupino (Woman in Hiding), Dick Powell (You Can Never Tell), Dana Andrews and Dorothy McGuire (I Want You)

Are They Still Acting?: No-of all of these actors I believe that Dow has had the longest period of inactivity, retiring in 1952 when she married her husband Walter Helmerich III (a wealthy oilman), and has devoted her life to philanthropy, specifically around funding libraries & literacy-related causes.

Felicia Farr

Age: 91 (October 4th, 1932)

Screen Debut: Big House, USA (1955)

Best Known For: I hate to say it this way, but similar to Kathryn Crosby, what Farr is best-known for today is her celebrity marriage.  Farr was married for almost fifty years to screen legend Jack Lemmon, with whom she occasionally worked.

AFI Nominee?: No

Oscar Nominations: No

Famous Costars: Glenn Ford & Ernest Borgnine (Jubal), Joel McCrea (The Last Texan), Andy Griffith (Onionhead), Dean Martin (Kiss Me, Stupid), & Walter Matthau (Kotch, Charley Varrick), 

Are They Still Acting?: After a decade away from film, she made a random independent film called Loser's Crown in 2014. The last studio film where she didn't play herself was 1986's That's Life! with her husband Jack Lemmon & Julie Andrews.

Mitzi Gaynor

Age: 93 (September 4th, 1931 - October 17th, 2024)

Screen Debut: My Blue Heaven (1950)

Best Known For: Her big claim-to-fame was as Nellie Forbush in the Rodgers & Hammerstein smash hit South Pacific.  If you follow this blog closely, you'll know that she was one of our Stars of the Month during its first season.

AFI Nominee?: Yes, Gaynor was one of the six actresses cited by the American Film Institute.

Oscar Nominations: Weirdly no, but she was nominated for Best Actress at the Golden Globes for South Pacific, and I have to assume she was pretty close.

Famous Costars: Betty Grable (My Blue Heaven), Marilyn Monroe & Ethel Merman (There's No Business Like Show Business), Bing Crosby (Anything Goes), Frank Sinatra (The Joker is Wild), Gene Kelly (Les Girls), and David Niven (Happy Anniversary)

Are They Still Acting?: Gaynor still does public appearances and interviews (and did decades of television specials-the Beatles took second billing to her when they performed on The Ed Sullivan Show), but her last studio film was 1963's For Love or Money with Kirk Douglas.

Claude Jarman, Jr.

Age: 89 (September 27th, 1934 - January 12th, 2025)

Screen Debut: The Yearling (1946)

Best Known For: Jarman is best-known for his work in the 1946 Best Picture nominee The Yearling, where he plays Gregory Peck's son Jody

AFI Nominee?: No

Oscar Nominations: He was not nominated for an Oscar, but he is one of just a handful of living winners of the Juvenile Oscar statue, which he won for The Yearling.

Famous Costars: Gregory Peck & Jane Wyman (The Yearling), Van Johnson & June Allyson (High Barbaree), Gloria Grahame (Roughshod), Pal (aka the original "Lassie") & Jeanette MacDonald (The Sun Comes Up), John Wayne & Maureen O'Hara (Rio Grande), Arlene Dahl (The Outriders), Randolph Scott (Hangman's Knot), & Fred MacMurray (Fair Wind to Java)

Are They Still Acting?: No-he gave up acting in the mid-1950's, only returning briefly for the TV miniseries Centennial, though he helped to run the San Francisco International Film Festival for a number of years & just published his memoirs a few years back (also, every person on this list should have a memoir if they don't already, pretty please!).

Shirley Jones

Age: 89 (March 31st 1934)

Screen Debut: Oklahoma! (1955)

Best Known For: Jones is probably known to most as Shirley Partridge, the lead of The Partridge Family, which ran for four seasons on ABC and was a pop culture phenomenon.

AFI Nominee?: No

Oscar Nominations: Not only is Jones an Oscar nominee for Elmer Gantry, but she won for her work.  Thanks to her song "I Think I Love You," on The Partridge Family, she is one of only four performers (along with Frank Sinatra, Cher, & Barbra Streisand) to win an acting Oscar and have a #1 Billboard hit.

Famous Costars: James Cagney (Never Steal Anything Small), Burt Lancaster & Jean Simmons (Elme Gantry), Jimmy Stewart (Two Rode Together), Glenn Ford (The Courtship of Eddie's Father), Marlon Brando & David Niven (Bedtime Story), and Jimmy Stewart (again) & Henry Fonda (The Cheyenne Social Club)

Are They Still Acting?: Not super regularly, but Jones still makes the odd film or television cameo, usually playing some version of her star persona.

June Lockhart

Age: 98 (June 25th, 1925 - October 23rd, 2025)

Screen Debut: A Christmas Carol (1938)

Best Known For: Lockhart has had literally almost a 90-year career, starting in film in the 1930's, but she's more famous for her work in television, where she played Ruth Martin on Lassie and Maureen Robinson in Lost in Space.

AFI Nominee?: No

Oscar Nominations: She never received an Academy Award nomination, but Lockhart did win a Tony Award for the play For Love or Money and was nominated for two Emmy Awards in the 1950's.

Famous Costars: Bette Davis & Charles Boyer (All This, and Heaven Too), Ingrid Bergman (Adam Has Four Sons), Gary Cooper (Sergeant York), Judy Garland (Meet Me in St. Louis), Lana Turner (Keep Your Powder Dry), Richard Widmark (Time Limit), and Orson Welles (Butterfly)

Are They Still Acting?: No, Lockhart appears to be retired now, revising her role from Lost in Space (as an alien) for the Netflix remake for her final role.

Sophia Loren

Age: 89 (September 20th, 1934)

Screen Debut: Hearts at Sea (1950)

Best Known For: There are a lot of actors on this list that were famous in their day, and there's a lot of debate over who would actually count as the "Last Living Golden Age Star," given that many of these people were only somewhat famous in their day (this is a literal definition of the name more than a subjective one), and others, like the next actress on this list, were more stars of the New Hollywood era.  All this is to say, as long as Sophia Loren is still alive, the question objectively has an answer-Loren is synonymous with Old Hollywood through her decades of fame in the same way all of the late famous costars I've listed throughout this article are.  "I worked with Sophia Loren" carries the same weight as "I worked with Clark Gable" or "I worked with Joan Crawford."

AFI Nominee?: Not only was she nominated, but she is the only living person to have actually been selected for the list, Ranked #21 between Lauren Bacall & Jean Harlow.  Loren has also been one of our Saturdays with the Stars in our second season.

Oscar Nominations: She won for Best Actress in 1961 for Two Women, but lost for Marriage Italian Style to Julie Andrews in Mary Poppins.  She also won an Honorary Academy Award in 1991 for lifetime achievement.

Famous Costars: A lot of her best work is in Italian, but in terms of Hollywood stars we've got Alan Ladd (Boy on a Dolphin), Frank Sinatra (The Pride and the Passion), Cary Grant (The Pride and the Passion, Houseboat), John Wayne (Legend of the Lost), William Holden (The Key), Tab Hunter (That Kind of Woman), Clark Gable (It Started in Naples), Peter Sellers (The Millionairess), Charlton Heston (El Cid) & Marlon Brando (A Countess from Hong Kong)

Are They Still Acting?: Yes-as recently as 2020 she was in the running for an Oscar nomination (in my opinion, she deserved one) for The Life Ahead.

Shirley MacLaine

Age: 89 (April 24th, 1934)

Screen Debut: The Trouble with Harry (1955)-it is such a Shirley MacLaine mic drop move to have your screen debut as the lead in an Alfred Hitchcock movie.

Best Known For: MacLaine, like Loren, is one of those stars you don't need a qualifier for-she's just a movie star, full-stop.  Depending on your age it could be anything from The Apartment to Terms of Endearment to Steel Magnolias to Downton Abbey, but you've heard of her if you know anything about cinema.  She's also my favorite actress of all time.

AFI Nominee?: No-her debut was too late, otherwise she would've undoubtedly been an option.  But she was also one of our Saturdays with the Stars during our third season (the third and final person on this list we've profiled to date).

Oscar Nominations: Definitely-MacLaine has been cited for six Oscars, winning for 1983's Terms of Endearment, and also was nominated for Some Came Running, The Apartment, Irma la Douce, The Turning Point, and for directing the documentary film The Other Half of the Sky

Famous Costars: Theres a LOT, but I'll give you a smattering with David Niven (Around the World in 80 Days, Ask Any Girl), Frank Sinatra & Dean Martin (many films, but probably best in Some Came Running), Anthony Quinn (Hot Spell), Jack Lemmon (The Apartment, Irma la Douce), Audrey Hepburn (The Children's Hour), Robert Mitchum (Two for the Seesaw), Ingrid Bergman & Rex Harrison (The Yellow Rolls-Royce), Gene Kelly & Paul Newman (amongst others, in What a Way to Go!), & Anne Bancroft (The Turning Point)

Are They Still Acting?: Yes, MacLaine still acts regularly, appearing in American Dreamer and Only Murders in the Building in 2022 alone.

Vera Miles

Age: 94 (August 23rd, 1929)

Screen Debut: When Millie Goes Marching Home (1950)

Best Known For: Miles is best-known for playing Lila Crane, Janet Leigh's sister in Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller Psycho.

AFI Nominee?: No

Oscar Nominations: No nominations, despite appearing in a number of well-known classics.

Famous Costars: Lloyd Bridges (Pride of the Blue Grass), Joel McCrea (Wichita), John Wayne (The Searchers, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Green Berets, Hellfighters), Joan Crawford (Autumn Leaves), Henry Fonda (The Wrong Man), Bob Hope (Beau James), Jimmy Stewart (The FBI Story, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance), & James Garner (One Little Indian)

Are They Still Acting?: No-Miles retired in 1995 after the flop psychosexual thriller Separate Lives.  The woman who worked alongside Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, Robert Wise, & Walt Disney appears to have ended her career in a movie starring Jim Belushi.

Colleen Miller

Age: 90 (November 10th, 1932)

Screen Debut: The Last Vegas Story (1952)

Best Known For: Miller was one of the many contract stars of the 1950's during the end of the studio system that the studio couldn't quite make work as a leading lady during the beginning of television, despite getting to play opposite some big stars & largely getting above-the-line parts.

AFI Nominee?: No

Oscar Nominations: No nominations

Famous Costars: Jane Russell (The Las Vegas Story), Rory Calhoun & Walter Brennan (Four Guns to the Border), Tony Curtis (The Purple Mask, The Rawhide Years), Orson Welles (Man in the Shadow), & Audie Murphy (Gunfight at the Comanche Creek)

Are They Still Acting?: No-Miler retired entirely from acting in 1972 with a brief cameo in the 1972 comedy Stand Up and Be Counted with Jacqueline Bisset & Steve Lawrence.

Terry Moore

Age: 94 (January 7th, 1929)

Screen Debut: Maryland (1940)

Best Known For: A former child actor, Moore was most-noted for her work in the Oscar-winning 1952 stage adaptation of Come Back, Little Sheba.  She also was involved romantically with Howard Hughes, and may have actually committed bigamy by being secretly married to him while also wedding three other men (where is THAT biopic?).

AFI Nominee?: No

Oscar Nominations: Moore was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Come Back, Little Sheba, but lost the statue to Gloria Grahame.

Famous Costars: Cary Grant (The Howards of Virginia), Rita Hayworth (My Gal Sal), Laurel & Hardy (A-Haunting We Will Go), Claudette Colbert & Jennifer Jones (Since You Went Away), Judy Garland (The Clock), Jimmy Durante (The Great Rupert), Mickey Rooney (He's a Cockeyed Wonder), Tyrone Power (King of the Khyber Rifles), Fred Astaire (Daddy Long Legs), Lana Turner (Peyton Place), and Linda Darnell & Lon Chaney, Jr. (Black Spurs)

Are They Still Acting?: She still takes bit parts in movies and television, including a 2014 guest spot on the Emmy-winning HBO series True Detective.

Rita Moreno

Age: 92 (December 11th, 1931)

Screen Debut: So Young, So Bad (1950)

Best Known For: Moreno is an icon of the stage & screen, winner of the Kennedy Center & Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Awards.  Her best-known screen work, though, is as the original Maria in the 1961 Best Picture winner West Side Story.

AFI Nominee?: Yes, she is one of the remaining six, and by-far the most active.

Oscar Nominations: Moreno was nominated for one Oscar in her career, for West Side Story, but at least the Academy had the good sense to give her the statue for it.

Famous Costars: Gene Kelly & Debbie Reynolds (Singin' in the Rain), Gary Cooper & Susan Hayward (Garden of Evil), Tyrone Power (Untamed), Deborah Kerr & Yul Brynner (The King & I), Geraldine Page (Summer and Smoke), and Marlon Brando (The Night of the Following Day)

Are They Still Acting?: Yep!  Moreno made 80 for Brady earlier this year with Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin, & Sally Field.

Don Murray

Age: 94 (July 31st, 1929 - February 2nd, 2024)

Screen Debut: Bus Stop (1956)

Best Known For: Murray is best-known today for his role in the film Bus Stop, which is generally considered to be the movie where Marilyn Monroe "proved she could act" (anyone paying attention beforehand would've already known that she could act).

AFI Nominee?: No

Oscar Nominations: Murray is that rare guy who got nominated on his first film, getting a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for Bus Stop but losing to Anthony Quinn.

Famous Costars: Marilyn Monroe (Bus Stop), James Cagney (Shake Hands with the Devil), Alan Ladd (One Foot in Hell), Charles Laughton & Gene Tierney (Advise & Consent), Steve McQueen & Lee Remick (Baby the Rain Must Fall), Janet Leigh & Broderick Crawford (Kid Rodelo), and Roddy McDowall & Ricardo Montalban (Conquest of the Planet of the Apes)

Are They Still Acting?: Yes, Murray still works, and had a principle role on the 2017 reboot of Twin Peaks.

Kim Novak

Age: 90 (February 13th, 1933)

Screen Debut: The French Line (1953)

Best Known For: Kim Novak started her career as a potential copycat to Marilyn Monroe, but she is best known as her antithesis, an icy blonde goddess in Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo, frequently name-checked as the greatest movie ever made.

AFI Nominee?: Similar to Shirley MacLaine & Leslie Caron, she definitely would have been an option here, but her film debut was too late.

Oscar Nominations: Novak received Golden Globe & BAFTA nominations in her career, but the closest she got to an Oscar nomination was as a frequent presenter.

Famous Costars: Fred MacMurray (Pushover), William Holden (Picnic), Frank Sinatra (The Man with the Golden Arm, Pal Joey), Tyrone Power (The Eddy Duchin Story), Rita Hayworth (Pal Joey), Jimmy Stewart (Bell, Book, and Candle, Vertigo), Fredric March (Middle of the Night), Kirk Douglas (Strangers When We Meet), Jack Lemmon & Fred Astaire (The Notorious Landlady), James Garner & Tony Randall (Boys' Night Out), Dean Martin (Kiss Me, Stupid), and Rock Hudson, Angela Lansbury, & Elizabeth Taylor (The Mirror Crack'd)

Are They Still Acting?: No.  Novak quit acting after the 1991 mystery-drama Liebestraum, but in recent years she has done a number of public appearances, including presenting at the Oscars & the Cannes Film Festival.

Margaret O'Brien

Age: 86 (January 15th, 1937)

Screen Debut: Babes on Broadway (1941)

Best Known For: O'Brien was a child star throughout the 1940's, but is best-known for her work in the seminal Christmas classic Meet Me in St. Louis (which given my neighbor's holiday decorations are already out, some of you have started to put up already).

AFI Nominee?: Yes, O'Brien is the youngest-living nominee on that list and our last of the AFI contenders.

Oscar Nominations: O'Brien never won a competitive Academy Award, but like Claude Jarman, she was given a Juvenile Academy Award statue for Meet Me in St. Louis.

Famous Costars: James Cagney & Ann Sothern (You, John James!), Greer Garson (Madame Curie), Orson Welles & Joan Fontaine (Jane Eyre), Charles Laughton (The Canterville Ghost), Judy Garland (Meet Me in St. Louis), June Allyson & Jimmy Durante (Music for Millions), Edward G. Robinson (Our Vines Have Tender Grapes), & Anthony Quinn (Heller in Pink Tights)

Are They Still Acting?: She is still making movies, including apparently a 2017 low-budget Saw ripoff.  Yes, Margaret O'Brien, Queen of TCM, Oscar winner, and onetime America's Sweetheart is one of the stars of a film called Halloween Pussy Trap Kill! Kill!.

Nancy Olson

Age: 95 (July 14th, 1928)

Screen Debut: Canadian Pacific (1949)

Best Known For: Olson had two big roles in Hollywood, the first being as the oblivious Betty Schaefer in Sunset Boulevard and the second as the love interest Betsy Carlisle in The Absent-Minded Professor & Son of Flubber.

AFI Nominee?: No

Oscar Nominations: Olson received an Academy Award nomination for Sunset Boulevard, only her second movie, but lost to Josephine Hull in Harvey.

Famous Costars: Randolph Scott (Canadian Pacific), Gloria Swanson & William Holden (Sunset Boulevard...she starred quite regularly after this with Holden), Bing Crosby (Mr. Music), John Wayne (Big Jim McLain), Jane Wyman (So Big, Pollyanna), Fred MacMurray (The Absent-Minded Professor, Son of Flubber), Glenn Ford (Smith!), and Charlton Heston & Myrna Loy (Airport 1975)

Are They Still Acting?: Olson made a rare film appearance for some reason in the 2014 sex comedy Dumbbells, her first role in 17 years after the more appropriate epitaph to her career revisiting her work in Flubber, in the remake with Robin Williams

Debra Paget

Age: 90 (August 19th, 1933)

Screen Debut: Cry of the City (1948)

Best Known For: You see her every Easter as Lilia in The Ten Commandments, her most successful film, a movie so well-known she managed to get higher-billing on Love Me Tender later that year than (checks notes) Elvis Presley.

AFI Nominee?: No

Oscar Nominations: No, but more glaring she also doesn't have a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, which feels like a miss given some of her bigger-known roles.

Famous Costars: Loretta Young & Van Johnson (Mother is a Freshman), Edward G. Robinson & Susan Hayward (House of Strangers), Jimmy Stewart (Broken Arrow), Jeanne Crain & Myrna Loy (Belles on Their Toes), James Mason & Janet Leigh (Prince Valiant), Victor Mature, Susan Hayward, & Anne Bancroft (Demetrius and the Gladiators), Robert Taylor (The Last Hunt), Charlton Heston & Yul Brynner (The Ten Commandments), Elvis Presley (Love Me Tender), Joseph Cotten & George Sanders (From the Earth to the Moon), and Vincent Price & Lon Chaney, Jr. (The Haunted Palace)

Are They Still Acting?: Paget retired from film in the early 1960's, doing her final film (Roger Corman's The Haunted Palace) in 1963 and doing her final television appearance soon after.  Instead, she became a born-again Christian and became involved with the Trinity Broadcasting Network.

Janis Paige

Age: 101 (September 16th, 1922 - June 2nd, 2024)

Screen Debut: Bathing Beauty (1944)

Best Known For: Paige was in the original run of The Pajama Game (which also launched Shirley MacLaine's career), which made her a household name (even getting the cover of Esquire), though she lost out on the film role.  Instead, for film you recognize her from a number of different musicals, playing the similar "prominent supporting role" that actresses like Betty Garrett & Ann Miller also did during the Golden Age.

AFI Nominee?: No

Oscar Nominations: She definitely should've been for her scene-stealing role in Silk Stockings (rent it-she's incredible), but alas, Oscar didn't knock.

Famous Costars: Esther Williams (Bathing Beauty), Paul Henreid (Of Human Bondage), Jane Wyman (Cheyenne), Bette Davis (Winter Meeting), Fred Astaire & Cyd Charisse (Silk Stockings), Doris Day & David Niven (Please Don't Eat the Daisies), Bob Hope & Lana Turner (Bachelor in Paradise),  Joan Crawford (The Caretakers), & Henry Fonda (Welcome to Hard Times)

Are They Still Acting?: Paige's last film was the direct-to-video thrillers Natural Causes, but in 2001 her voice had been so damaged from decades of singing that she basically had to retire.

Eva Marie Saint

Age: 99 (July 4th, 1924)

Screen Debut: On the Waterfront (1954)

Best Known For: Saint is the star of two of the biggest classics of the 1950's, the Best Picture-winning On the Waterfront and Alfred Hitchcock's seminal thriller North by Northwest

AFI Nominee?: No

Oscar Nominations: Yes, Saint was nominated for her screen debut in On the Waterfront, and won the Best Supporting Actress statue for it.

Famous Costars: Marlon Brando (On the Waterfront), Bob Hope (That Certain Feeling, Cancel My Reservation), Montgomery Clift & Elizabeth Taylor (Raintree County), Cary Grant & James Mason (North by Northwest), Paul Newman (Exodus), James Garner (36 Hours, Grand Prix), Elizabeth Taylor (again) & Richard Burton (The Sandpiper), and Gregory Peck (The Stalking Moon)

Are They Still Acting?: No-while Saint has made some public appearances in the past few years (including presenting Best Costume Design to Phantom Thread in 2018 at the Oscars), her final film was Winter's Tale in 2014 with Colin Farrell.

Mamie van Doren

Age: 92 (February 6th, 1931)

Screen Debut: Footlight Varieties (1951)

Best Known For: Being the last surviving member of the Three M's.  During the 1950's, as a reaction to the success of Marilyn Monroe, studios hired about a dozen other buxom blonde actresses that tried to duplicate her success (the only one who got there was Kim Novak, who as we mentioned above, was the opposite of Monroe in terms of eventual star persona).  Van Doren's position (along with Jayne Mansfield) as one of the better known Monroe copycats was used as a punchline in Pulp Fiction.

AFI Nominee?: No

Oscar Nominations: No

Famous Costars: Liberace (Footlight Varieties), Tony Curtis (The All American), Rhonda Fleming (Yankee Pasha), Piper Laurie (Ain't Misbehavin'), Anne Bancroft (The Girl in Black Stockings), Clark Gable & Doris Day (Teacher's Pet), Mickey Rooney (The Big Operator, The Private Lives of Adam and Eve), and Jayne Mansfield (The Las Vegas Hillbillys)

Are They Still Acting?: Van Doren transitioned largely to cabaret acts & stage shows talking about her time as a headliner in Hollywood, with her last theatrically-released film being 2002's college sex comedy Slackers with Jason Schwartzman & Devon Sawa.

Robert Wagner

Age: 93 (February 10th, 1930)

Screen Debut: The Frogmen (1951)

Best Known For: Onscreen, Wagner is probably best-remembered by modern audiences as Number Two from the Austin Powers franchise, while offscreen, he is most famous for his romantic relationship with the late Natalie Wood, with many accusing him of knowing more about her drowning than he has let on.

AFI Nominee?: No-Wagner missed the ballot by one year.  Otherwise given his longtime career as a leading man, he surely would've been the last-living male actor on the list.

Oscar Nominations: Wagner was never cited for an Oscar, but he did have an Emmy nomination & six Golden Globe citations.

Famous Costars: Dana Andrews (The Frogmen), Claudette Colbert (Let's Make It Legal), Susan Hayward (With a Song in My Heart), James Cagney (What Price Glory?), Clifton Webb & Barbara Stanwyck (Titanic), James Mason & Janet Leigh (Prince Valiant), Robert Mitchum (The Hunters), Bing Crosby & Debbie Reynolds (Say One for Me), Natalie Wood (All the Fine Young Cannibals), Steve McQueen (The War Lover), Peter Sellers (The Pink Panther), and Paul Newman (Harper)

Are They Still Acting?: Wagner still acts, though not as frequently as he once did.  His most recent role was What Happened to Monday with Glenn Close & Willem Dafoe (I'd never heard of it either).

Joanne Woodward

Age: 93 (February 27th, 1930)

Screen Debut: Count Three and Pray (1955)

Best Known For: Woodward is an accomplished actress as we'll get into in a second, but in terms of the public consciousness, she is best-known as one-half of Classical Hollywood's most enduring romance (give or take Bogie & Bacall) due to her 50-year marriage to actor Paul Newman.

AFI Nominee?: No, again a surefire option if it weren't for the 1950 cutoff.

Oscar Nominations: Woodward is one of the more decorated actresses on this list when it comes to the Academy.  She won a Best Actress statue for 1957's The Three Faces of Eve (almost thirty years before her husband would win for The Color of Money), and she would be nominated for 1968's Rachel, Rachel, 1971's Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams, and 1990's Mr. and Mrs. Bridge, losing to Katharine Hepburn (The Lion in Winter) & Barbra Streisand (Funny Girl), Jane Fonda (Klute), and Kathy Bates (Misery), respectively.

Famous Costars: She costarred with Paul Newman in 16 movies, but in addition to him there are Tony Randall (No Down Payment), Orson Welles (The Long, Hot Summer), Marlon Brando & Anna Magnani (The Fugitive Kind), Sidney Poitier & Diahann Carroll (Paris Blues), Henry Fonda (A Big Hand for the Little Lady), Sean Connery (A Fine Madness), Anthony Perkins (WUSA), & Sylvia Sidney (Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams)

Are They Still Acting?: Woodward was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease in 2007, and has largely retreated from public life since.

Second Editor's Note: I initially thought this was 31, but there's actually 33 (if there's more call them out in the comments).  The two actresses listed below appear to qualify (just barely though-each it looks like only has the minimum of three films), and so I've added them to the list.  I have kept the original article as is above for preservation, but wanted to add these two for posterity.

Jill St. John

Age: 85 (August 9, 1940)

Screen Debut: Thunder in the East (1951)

Best Known For: St. John is one of those celebrities that was very famous in the 1970's, but is very rarely mentioned now, partially because her film work is spotty.  Her best-known movie is Diamonds are Forever (where she played Bond Girl Tiffany Case), and she's also known for her decades-long romance with Robert Wagner which has made her a frequent mention in the tabloids.  She also was a constant figure on USO Tours during the Vietnam War (similar to Joey Heatherton, she was the "hot babe" that was there to counter Bob Hope's increasingly dated routine), and had a regular cooking segment on Good Morning America.

AFI Nominee?: No

Oscar Nominations: No

Famous Costars: Vincent Price (A Christmas Carol), Alan Ladd, Charles Boyer, & Deborah Kerr (Thunder in the East), Clifton Webb (The Remarkable Mr. Pennypacker), Vivien Leigh (The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone), Claude Rains (The Lost World), Frank Sinatra (Come Blow Your Horn, Tony Rome), Jerry Lewis (Who's Minding the Story?), Dean Martin (Who's Been Sleeping in My Bed), Bob Hope (Eight on the Lam), & Sean Connery (Diamonds are Forever)

Are They Still Acting?: No-St. John retired from acting in 2014 after playing Mrs. Claus to Robert Wagner's Santa in a Hallmark Christmas movie, though she unsuccessfully ran for a Fire Department Board a few years ago in Aspen.

Jacqueline White

Age: 103 (November 27, 1922)

Screen Debut: Dr. Gillespie's New Assistant (1942)

Best Known For: I would guess that White, if she's known at all today, would be best known for her work in Crossfire as the "proper wife" of George Cooper's Mitch, who desperately hopes that Gloria Grahame will confess to an affair with her husband to provide him cover for a murder (Crossfire, if you haven't seen it, is really good and White is good in it).

AFI Nominee?: No

Oscar Nominations: No

Famous Costars: Joan Crawford & John Wayne (Reunion in France), Ann Sothern (Three Hearts for Julia), Spencer Tracy & Irene Dunne (A Guy Named Joe), Robert Taylor (Song of Russia...an interesting movie if you haven't heard about it as it's very important in the history of the Blacklist), Judy Garland (The Harvey Girls), Dana Andrews, Merle Oberon, & Ethel Barrymore (Night Song), & Randolph Scott (Return of the Bad Men)

Are They Still Acting?: There's two reasons I missed White when we first did this article.  First, she made very few films as a leading woman (by my count she would just barely qualify with three, all from RKO, only one of which-The Narrow Margin-being particularly well-known, and even in that she's upstaged by Marie Windsor).  And second, she retired in 1952, going out with the successful Narrow Margin (it was nominated for a writing Oscar), moving to Wyoming, though she would occasionally in the years that followed show up at film conventions.

The Searchers (1956)

Film: The Searchers (1956)
Stars: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Ward Bond, Natalie Wood
Director: John Ford
Oscar History: I don't know how, but somehow in the year Around the World in 80 Days was deemed the best movie of the year, The Searchers wasn't good enough to be nominated in one single category (though weirdly Patrick Wayne's pipsqueak of a cavalryman managed to win the Best Newcomer Golden Globe)
(Not So) Snap Judgment Ranking: 5/5 stars

As some of you who follow this blog are aware, 2018 was the year I got into "retro screenings" of classic films, pictures that play as retrospectives at actual movie theaters.  In 2018, I caught On the Waterfront, one of my all-time favorite movies, at a "secret movie night" (where you don't know what movie you're buying the ticket for until it starts), and I didn't think I'd luck out by having a movie I somehow loved even more come up in 2019, but first screening out the gate, I saw the title cards to The Searchers scroll across the screen and I think I might have squealed to my friend sitting next to me "this is one of my favorite movies!"  The Searchers, the finest hour of both John Ford and his longtime muse John Wayne, is a spellbinding western, frequently playing with the cinematic trope that these two men invented, inserting realism and pessimism into the western story, making way for a new series of films in the genre (it's impossible to imagine movies like Once Upon a Time in the West or Unforgiven existing were it not for The Searchers).

(Spoilers Ahead...but, come on, you've never seen The Searchers?!?  Get on it!) The movie takes place in Texas (but is clearly filmed in Arizona & Utah), starting in 1868, and follows Ethan Edwards (Wayne), a confederate soldier who is returning home from the war to his brother and sister-in-law's house.  It's obvious he has at least some criminal background, and from the opening scenes is hostile to the adopted son of the couple, Martin Pawley (Hunter), who is part Cherokee Indian.  Chasing after Native Americans who have taken some of the cattle from a neighboring farm, Ethan & Martin trek off after the cows, not realizing that this is a trap, and soon we learn that the Native Americans have killed Ethan's brother and sister-in-law, and kidnapped their two daughters.

The film follows Ethan and Martin as they track these girls seemingly for years, first one of them dying (and the film, as heavily as can be indicated in 1956, saying she was raped by her captors) but the other, younger daughter Debbie (played as a teenager by Wood), still being in the Native American camp.  As the years go by, we come to realize that Ethan has less interest in saving Debbie and is more intent on killing her as retribution for the Native Americans kidnapping her, his blind racism no longer seeing his niece but instead just another Indian woman.

It's this observation that gives The Searchers almost all of its power, even when it strays into more traditional western territory for the 1950's.  The film is littered with the occasional comic set pieces that so frequently adorned Wayne's movies.  We see Hunter having a comedic fistfight with someone who is pursuing his on-again-off-again girlfriend Laurie (Miles), as well as a recurring gag about how Martin accidentally marries an Indian woman who follows he and Wayne around for a while, but Ford has something to say here that would be absent from a lot of his pictures with the Duke, and somehow picks one of the most by-the-book stars in film history to do so.

Wayne has never been better (and Hunter more beautiful) than in The Searchers.  Passionately lit by Winton C. Hoch (who would win Oscars for the Wayne pictures She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and The Quiet Man), Ethan Edwards is the best thing that Wayne ever did, bringing a humanity to a largely inhuman person.  His Ethan is a cruel, racist, but all-too-real man whose bigotry overshadows any humanity that might lie underneath, a fact we see as he abandons his quest for rescue for one of revenge.  Westerns at their very best show men who are so towering, but incomplete that they can rough it through even the harshest of existences, detached from life due to the impossible hardness that life in a perilous country requires; they are not heroes, but simply people put in impossible times.  Ethan Edwards is arguably the quintessential example of a fearless man who was needed to venture into the west, but then must disappear in order for civilization to have a chance.  The final scenes of the picture encapsulate this ethos, with Laurie, Martin, and Debbie all going back into the house, but in a scene shot through a doorway, we see John Wayne saunter back into the wild, likely never to be seen by any of these people again.  It's a bittersweet ending that would be echoed six years later in Ford's The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance-the hero who must live on past his purpose, forever a ghost of what he used to be.

Ride away, ride away...

The 8 Living Women (and 2 Men) Who Have Starred in an Alfred Hitchcock Movie

In the past month, while prepping for NaNoWriMo, I was thinking a lot about my relationship with classic film, and in particular how few links we still have to the Golden Age of Hollywood.  It feels like at this point it's more of a scrounge to find living actors from this era rather than the multitudes that were still alive even only twenty years ago, and in the process, I began to wonder how many of Alfred Hitchcock's leading ladies were still alive.

Focusing on Hitchcock in the wake of the Harvey Weinstein allegations feels a bit seedy, considering that he had famously complicated relationships with his leading ladies, including allegedly sexually assaulting Tippi Hedren and exerting enormous control over women like Grace Kelly.  However, this isn't celebrating Hitch, but the women who made his films special, and specifically the eight leading ladies in his movies that are still with us.  Without further adieu (I'm imagining you're trying to guess in your head who they are anyway), here are the eight living women who have headlined an Alfred Hitchcock picture (listed chronologically by film):

Editor's Note: Since the publication of this Barbara Harris passed away on August 21, 2018.  I've maintained Ms. Harris's profile below, however.

Shirley MacLaine

Film: The Trouble with Harry (1955)

Age: 83 (Born April 24, 1934)

Career: This was actually MacLaine's screen debut, though she's not really known for her work with Hitchcock.  She'd get a Golden Globe nomination for Best Newcomer in the film, and would be an Oscar nominee three years later for Some Came Running (and soon a screen legend).

Doris Day

Film: The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)

Age: 95 (Born April 3, 1922)

Career: Day was enjoying the "dramatic" period of her film career when she partnered with Hitchcock (an odd pairing in hindsight, though her iconic "Que Sera, Sera" would become a signature tune).  She'd be getting her sole Oscar nomination a few years later when she made Pillow Talk and kicked off the most successful period of her career.

Vera Miles

Film: The Wrong Man (1956)

Age: 88 (Born August 23, 1929)

Career: Miles is a strange case of an actress that made a lot of classic films in a brief period of time (she also starred in the John Ford classic The Searchers and The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance), who is best remembered by modern audiences for her supporting work in Psycho.  She was originally intended to be Hitch's leading lady in Vertigo, but due to a pregnancy he had to replace her with...

Kim Novak

Film: Vertigo (1958)

Age: 84 (Born February 13, 1933)

Career: Novak's eternally known as Madeline in Vertigo, her most iconic role, but the reality is that the film was a turning point in her career, and not in the right direction.  Though considered today to be one of the greatest films ever made, Vertigo was a box office disappointment at the time, and Novak (coming off of hits like Picnic, Pal Joey, and Bell, Book, and Candle) watched her career dissipate after this, with her brief period as a leading woman soon over.

Eva Marie Saint

Film: North by Northwest (1959)

Age: 93 (Born July 4, 1924)

Career: Saint had made a name for herself at this point in her career playing downtrodden women in black-and-white dramas (winning an Oscar for On the Waterfront), so this was a very atypical movie for the actress, and one that sort of would signal the end of her short career as a leading woman.  Saint made surprisingly few pictures in her very long career, and would soon be playing third fiddle to Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor in The Sandpiper.

Tippi Hedren

Film: The Birds (1963) and Marnie (1964)

Age: 87 (Born January 19, 1930)

Career: Hedren has the distinction on this list of being the only woman to headline two Hitchcock films (while Miles starred in multiple Hitch projects, she only got top billing in one).  Hedren's career  was, well, bizarre after Hitchcock with her most notable film being the troubled production Roar, and she famously hated her filming experiences on Hitch's pictures, but it cannot be denied that these aren't an iconic legacy for her as an actress.

Julie Andrews

Film: Torn Curtain (1966)

Age: 82 (Born October 1, 1935)

Career: Andrews had just two years earlier made her screen debut, but at this point was a major leading lady in Hollywood, and was enjoying what would be the biggest period of success in her career with back-to-back mammoth hits that scored her Oscar nominations (and her one win).  Still, she's hardly what you'd consider an obvious choice to headline a Hitchcock picture considering her well-noted warm and kind characters.

Barbara Harris

Film: Family Plot (1976)

Age: 82 (Born July 25, 1935)

Career: Despite being a decade after Andrews, she's slightly older than the Torn Curtain star, and appeared in the lead of Hitch's last picture.  She was enjoying a peak moment in her career at this point, having just been a part of the classic Nahsville and would receive TWO Golden Globe nominations this year, for her work here as well as in Freaky Friday (she'd lose to Barbra Streisand in A Star is Born).

Initially I thought that I'd do a sequel with the leading men of Hitchcock's career, but unfortunately only two of Hitch's leading men are still with us, so let's also list them right now...

Sean Connery

Film: Marnie (1964)

Age: 87 (August 25, 1930)

Career: Connery at this point had found his most iconic role at this point in his career, James Bond, and would later this same year give his best 007 performance in Goldfinger.  Still, Connery's debonair charm and sex appeal seem like a natural fit for a Hitchcockian film, and I'm surprised he didn't end up starring with him again later in his career.

Bruce Dern

Film: Family Plot (1976)

Age: 81 (June 4, 1936)

Career: Dern is the youngest-living person to have headlined an Alfred Hitchcock movie.  At this point in his career he'd been a character actor for over a decade, and had actually appeared in a small part in Marnie, but was most well-known for his villainous work in The Cowboys opposite John Wayne.  Two years after this he'd win his first of two Academy Award nominations for Coming Home.

There you have it-the eight women (and two men) who are still with us who have headlined a Hitchcock picture.  Share your favorite memories of these women and which of these nine performances are your favorites?