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Thursday, November 08, 2012

Jake Gyllenhaal talks on Election Day


Jake Gyllenhaal takes time on Election Day to talk liberally with Stephanie Miller. Gyllenhaal and Stephanie discuss the latest trend of actors speaking out politically. He says that he thinks "it's a strange time when actors act like politicians" and vice versa. Gyllenhaal speaks about the importance of taking the time to say how you feel as an American. He adds that he believes, "deeply in democracy."

Scan of Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña in Total Film UK, November 2012

Jake Gyllenhaal in Esquire (Singapore) magazine, November 2012

Poster of "An Enemy" (2013) directed by Denis Villeneuve


Emmy winner Jake Hamilton travels to the Toronto International Film Festival to talk with Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena about their new film, END OF WATCH


Jake Gyllenhaal talks about End of Watch and Brokeback Mountain

Scan of Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Peña in "End of Watch", Total Film UK, December 2012

Though the film was shot in just 22 days, Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena, who plays the other cop, elected to first spend five months training, learning, and riding around with real LAPD cops in order to get a real sense of what their lives, work, and relationships are like. (This came with some real drama: on their first ride-along they witnessed a murder, and Gyllenhaal says it wasn't the only one.) Gyllenhaal says that they didn't receive special treatment because they work in the movies; in fact, he jokes, "the cops that we worked with didn't give a shit about us [being famous]." He also chuckles that "there was a lot of joking about movies I've made [a reference to Brokeback] -- endless humor in a cop car." The main thing that attracted Gyllenhaal to End of Watch, he says, was "the dialogue between these guys in the car." For the film to work, Gyllenhaal and Pena's interpretations of those words -- and occasion improvisations -- had to be completely believable, and they are. "I haven't really ever talked about this," Gyllenhaal says, before revealing that their "massive fight" took place after a miscommunication during a tactical training exercise that involved live ammunition nearly caused an accident. Gyllenhaal confronted Pena, who insisted that, because he was wearing ear protection, he hadn't heard Gyllenhaal say to him that he was moving positions. Source: www.hollywoodreporter.com
"The real driving forces of End of Watch are the characters. Taylor and Zavala are fully fleshed out creations, with Gyllenhaal and Peña inhabiting them with an almost uncanny naturalism that makes you feel almost as though the viewer is cruising with them in the patrol car, each back-and-forth between them feeling organic and genuinely funny. The charm of the film is that the two actors take characters that in the wrong hands could have been reduced to two-dimensional Bad Boys clones, and make us truly believe that these two are firm friends, whether that entails larking about in the precinct, getting ranted at by an angry superior or dashing into a burning building to play the hero. There is a possible criticism here, in that the repeated action heroics of the first two thirds feel a touch unwelcome compared to the sequences that just let the two actors go into full flow with their characters. These are not mere one-liner dispensers either, with a number of smaller, more soulful moments proving as touching as the macho banter is amusing – there is ample support here from their partners, played by Natalie Martinez and Anna Kendrick, who despite being given little screen time, both put in very engaging turns, providing a little context to the men’s day jobs. The two leads really do shine here, working off each other so perfectly that it is no exaggeration to say that we see not one, but two awards-worthy performances in End of Watch." Source: www.screengeek.co.uk

Wednesday, November 07, 2012

"Sunset Boulevard" in Blu-Ray, "The Song Is You" Book Review

Gloria Swanson And William Holden In 'Sunset Boulevard' (1950)

On November 9th, 2012, Paramount will be releasing a film on Blu-ray that showcases the studio in a variety of ways that no other film really did. While Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950) is widely recognized to be one of the most cynical looks at Hollywood ever committed to celluloid, it also managed to document the studio and film personalities in a way that no one had ever done before and no one has really done since.

Sunset Boulevard tells the story of Joe Gillis (William Holden), a down-and-out screenwriter in Hollywood who, through a series of mishaps, lands in the domicile of a famous silent film starlet, Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), who has since faded into obscurity. Monetary temptations being too strong for the young Gillis, he is convinced to assist Desmond in rewriting the screenplay that will help her return to the silver screen and to the fans that she “deserted” all those years ago… to disastrous results for all parties involved. Wilder’s study of Hollywood in the ‘50s, acting and the industry all come together to show a powerful and complex story of how technology and personality intermix and sometimes end up like oil and water.

Gloria Swanson and director Billy Wilder between scenes of "Sunset Blvd." (1950)

The extras that are on the disc are as follows: Commentary by Ed Sikov, author of On Sunset Blvd: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder, Sunset Boulevard: The Beginning, Sunset Boulevard: A Look Back, The Noir Side of Sunset Boulevard, Sunset Boulevard Becomes a Classic,Two Sides of Ms. Swanson, Stories of Sunset Boulevard,Mad About the Boy: A Portrait of William Holden, Recording Sunset Boulevard, The City of Sunset Boulevard, Franz Waxman and the Music of Sunset Boulevard, Morgue Prologue Script Pages, Deleted Scene—“The Paramount-Don’t-Want-Me Blues” (HD) Hollywood Location Map, Behind the Gates: The Lot, Edith Head: The Paramount Years, Paramount in the ‘50s Galleries: Production, The Movie, Publicity, Theatrical Trailer (HD). Out of all of these features, the stand out pieces are the Edith Head documentary, the Sunset Boulevard Becomes a Classic, the Galleries, and the Morgue Prologue Script pages. Source: www.craveonline.com

-Theresa Schwegel: You wrote a male lead in "The Song Is You" and he isn't so likeable. I mean, most women would probably like him, but not for long. Would you ever sit down with a guy like that over a few gimlets? What do you find compelling about Gil Hopkins?

-Megan Abbott: Thinking about Gil Hopkins, I had two pictures in my head: William Holden in "Sunset Boulevard" and Tony Curtis in "Sweet Smell of Success". I kept photos of both of them by the computer. These charming, smooth-talking pretty boys hustling every angle and hating themselves for it. Men doing bad things who are too smart not to have self-contempt but not smart enough to figure out a way to rise above it. I just find it fascinating and I wanted to write a character like that. And you can bet I would sit down for gimlets with him, but I'd definitely stop at one. Source: www.mysteryreaders.org

"And he went to premieres with the glimmering girls of the moment, lunch at the Derby, to the track with John Huston and his rough-living crowd. When someone needed to pick up the big-shot buccaneer at the drunk tank and slip some green to the blue, he sent Mike or Freddy or reliable old Bix. They kicked needles down sewer grates, slipped suicide notes into pockets, gave screen tests to hustlers quid pro quo. Hop had it taken care of. He had it fixed. Mr. Blue Sky. All from his chrome and mahogany office, cool and magisterial and pumped full of his own surging blood." -"The Song Is You" (2007) by Megan Abbott

Edgar-winner Megan Abbott became a sort of soul mate in the neo-noir literature. Her tortuous and vibrant novels equal in ambience to James Ellroy's gritty and eerie "L.A. Confidential" and "The Black Dahlia" stories. Emulating the hardboiled lingo to a T, Abbott recounts in her second mystery novel the strange circumstances surrounding the former "Florentine Gardens" dancer, model, actress and B-girl Jean Spangler, who disappeared from Los Angeles in 1949 after having completed a bit part in the film "Young Man with a Horn" with Kirk Douglas. In the alternate scenario created by Abbott, Gil "Hop" Hopkins (the publicist who helps to obscure the details of the investigation, favoring the movie studios' pretense) has seen Jean and her best friend Iolene the last night in the Red Lily club in the company of creepy song-and-dance duo Marv Sutton and Gene Merrel, who have a terrible reputation around dames.

Contrasting to the more classicist approach of the 'Czar of Noir' Eddie Muller (author of "The Distance", one of my favorite crime novels, where his indefatigable San Francisco's sportswriter Billy Nichols tries to protect the Heavyweight boxer Hack Escalante), Abbott's style, although nailing the atmosphere and a feeling of true chronicle, is more on the emotional (not sentimental) side. She has written two more crime novels set in the past: "Queenpin" (the central character, gambling queen Gloria Denton is loosely inspired by Bugsy Siegel's lover Virginia Hill) and "Bury Me Deep" (set in 1930's, inspired by the true story of Winnie Ruth Judd, known as The Trunk Murderess). Both Muller and Abbott's have a potent poetic flair in their narratives, which frames the plot and historical addendums.

Frannie Adair (whose restrained attitude reminded me of Lora King in "Die A Little"), an Examiner's reporter who is interested in the Jean Spangler case, maintains a tense relationship with Hop based on professional rivalry that culminates in a romantic attraction, despite of her character seeming almost undersexed compared to the other women in Hop's life - as Midge, his ex-wife who had a platonic crush on Jean. Hopkings is a very accomplished finagler, turned into a successful PR in the lucrative Hollywood machine of 1950's. Whereas the detectives and dupes in the vintage noir films projected a stern aura of morality and machismo de rigueur, in "The Song Is You" and "Die A Little" (Abbott's previous novel), we find a sharp trastocation of the genre conventions, mainly throwing away the apparently solid male façades and showing us their filthy edges. Abbott's detailed representation of complex femme-fatales and their self-destructive pulsions, doesn't betray a subjacent analysis of the whole feminine idiosyncrasia and multiple weaknesses associated to the sex-symbols and starlets in that particular era. More than a confrontation between sexes, Abbott proves both fall prey of a feverish machinery prepared to dislocate their dreams and bury deep their souls.

While "Die A Little" constitutes a more orthodox effort to recreate the golden suburbia in the middle of the 20th century, "The Song Is You" is a more wide-ranging experience, outlining the glamour of old Hollywood and revealing the subterrestrial world of the drifters, hopefuls, wannabes and losers: the industry's underclass that threatens to get the lid off the Dream Factory's lieges. Combining echoes of Chandler's Little Sister, Abbott entwines real-life personalities such as the bombshell Barbara Payton (and her failed romances with Franchot Tone and Tom Neal), and aspiring actress Elizabeth Short (turned into the sad celebrity 'The Black Dahlia' due to her macabre murder): "Jean grinned broadly at her, a grin that split her face in two, eerie like a ventriloquist’s dummy, dark on a stage. She grinned broadly and in that grin she told Iolene, All the stories in the world and I wouldn’t pass this up — I’ve seen bad things enough to shake the word “bad” loose from its roots. I can go to the far end of nothing with the best of them. I can pull the pin and roll."

Hop embarks on a dark journey in the demimonde of Tinseltown, reluctantly fighting off his last vestiges of dignity when the demons being to pile up precipitately inside his dormant conscience. There are melancholic winks to Raymond Chandler, especially in the last chapters "Reno, 1946" and "Merry Lake" (which contains the most disturbing twist in the novel).

In the manner of epilogue, in "Four Years Later" Hopkins has established himself as one of the big shots in the film industry: "He spoke to the contract stars and the beauties who floated over from the other studios for a picture or two. They all came to him. Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, too, even Humphrey Bogart. And the women, Jeanne Crain, Doris Day, Jennifer Jones, Jane Wyman, Anne Baxter. They all came. And finer, less flinty fare in the up-and-comers: Janice Rule, Dorothy Malone, Jan Sterling, Carroll Baker. Every day. And, of course, the columnists — the rumor monkeys he worked like a carnival organ grinder. Walter still kicking around, Hedda, Louella, Sheilah, and all their lesser models — all dancing for him."

Chandler's femme fatale glowered at her destiny, she was more romantically evil and her sexuality more abstract; his hero Philip Marlowe was naïvely incorruptible and distant toward women. Abbott's femme fatales (if we can call them so) are imperfect, suffer deep fears and painful resentments. And there are not smooth knights or tough guys who can heal their despair, just abusive bosses, sometimes subspecies of a man, or grifters who stroll through desolate spots, only to find their own scams in the end looking them back in the mirror.

"There was something lost. He could look in the mirror a thousand times and he would never see it again. He’d snuffed it out. Had he known he’d never get it back… Had he known it would be gone forever… He opened the drawer to his bedside table and dug under the handkerchiefs, phone book, cigarettes, matchbooks. He pulled it out. It was thin as a cobweb now, this postcard. It had become delicate with time. Postcards, after all, aren’t meant to last. They’re less than a letter. They’re a fleeting thing. A whisper in the ear reminding you, “Merry Lake’s Waiting for You.”

Article first published as Book Review: The Song is You by Megan Abbott on Blogcritics.

Saturday, November 03, 2012

James M. Cain and Raymond Chandler evoked in Megan Abbott's noir novels


Luchino Visconti’ first directorial effort “Ossessione” was made in 1942 and released in 1943. That we still have Visconti’s first feature film to watch today is an amazing story in itself. Filmed during World War II while Italy was still under the control of Mussolini’s deteriorating fascist government, Visconti read a copy of James M. Cain’s pulp classic novel, “The Postman Always Rings Twice” given to him by Jean Renoir.

"The Cocktail Waitress was found among his papers after a decade-long search and has never been published… until now. Following her husband's death in a suspicious car accident, beautiful young widow Joan Medford is forced to take a job serving drinks in a cocktail lounge to make ends meet and to have a chance of regaining custody of her young son. At the job she encounters two men who take an interest in her, a handsome young schemer who makes her blood race and a wealthy but unwell older man who rewards her for her attentions with a $50,000 tip and an unconventional offer of marriage... Can you have any doubt that things will end badly for one or both of them? No, that’s not a spoiler – it’s a simple statement of fact when you’re talking about a Cain femme fatale, the deadliest species there is." –Huffington Post

"The Cocktail Waitress is a not-to-be missed crime thriller for all Cain fans ... A rare, hardboiled blast from the past." –Shelf Awareness

"It’s easy to fall for a previously unpublished work by Cain, whose oeuvre includes The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934) and Double Indemnity (1943). Fortunately, The Cocktail Waitress—which the author sought to complete before perishing in 1977—serves up ample delights. We witness the unfolding drama through Joan’s eyes, while wondering what she’s withholding." –Kirkus Reviews

Excerpt from The Cocktail Waitress, by James M. Cain: "I guess it was 11:30 that night, when Tom came in with his friends, three other guys and two girls, the men all young and rugged and both the women beauties, and all of them half crocked when they got there. Liz had overflow business, and Bianca gave them to me, putting them in a booth, which made a pretty tight fit. It was so tight that Tom had to push one girl in just a little bit tighter before wedging in himself, on the left side of the booth as I faced it, which of course put him next to me, one leg jutting out into the aisle, when I stood in to serve. He grinned naughtily at me, in a way clearly meant to make my heart race, and it annoyed me that, being a rather handsome grin, it did, just a little. Then they all began ordering doubles-bourbon and ginger ale, I suppose the worst combination ever, not only to make them all drunker, but also to make them sicker." Source: boingboing.net

"Abbott has fashioned a noir thriller that may remind readers of James M. Cain's brooding melodramas. She need not fear the comparison. Her story, rendered in a captivatingly off-beat style, crackles with suspense, and her portrait of L.A. in the 1950s, a seductive mixture of sleaze and sophistication, rings all-too-sadly true." —Robert Wade, San Diego Union-Tribune

"For months, it seemed all she did was bake. She was learning by doing, with Betty Crocker perched on the counter, with Joy of Cooking, with our mother’s dog-eared collection of country cookbooks. She made a raspberry-coconut jelly roll for a brunch with the Leders and Conlans. A rum-and-cherry-cola marble cake for a cocktail party. Caramel-apple chiffon cupcakes soaked through with Dry Sack cream sherry for the Halloween party. On Bill’s birthday, she spent hours making cream-puff swans shaped from what she carefully pronounced as a “pâté à chou.” For a block party, almond icebox cake and cornflake macaroons. Chow mein-noodle haystacks and fried spaghetti cookies for a neighborhood association bake sale. For a dinner party, white chocolate grasshopper pie still foaming with melted marshmallows and doused with Hiram Walker. More dinner parties and still racier items, ambrosia brimming with Grand Marnier, a fruit-cocktail gelatin ring nearly a foot high and glistening. As the parties grew more elaborate, more frenetic, bourbon balls studded with pecans and Nesselrode pie with sweet Marsala and chestnuts. Strawberries Biltmore covered with vanilla custard sauce. Baked Alaska drizzled through with white rum. Peach Melba suffused with framboise." -"Die A Little" (2005) by Megan E. Abbott

Megan Abbott made an impressive debut last year with "Die a Little," a dreamy exploration of 1950s Americana that was nominated for every best first novel award in the field. Her follow-up, "The Song Is You" (2007), is even better. Abbott manages to camouflage her brainy academic credentials within a spellbinding retro-milieu. She was a good prose stylist out of the gate, but this book has a more enticing plot and stronger characters than her first. It nicely jumbles up true-life elements -- forgotten '40s murder victim Jean Spangler, slutty starlet Barbara Payton, a Martin-and-Lewis-style comedy act-- into a compelling murder mystery spearheaded by a well-soiled studio publicist named Gil "Hop" Hopkins. Abbott has a real flair for the era's lingo and style, which she renders with a breathless sensual elegance. -Eddie Muller Source: sfgate.com

With abundant style and a tight convincing story, Abbott provides a retro thrill-ride. Cain and Chandler are evoked in the rough-and-tumble period language... but Abbott has her own voice, avoiding the genre's macho conventions, to evoke the young women who live 'in a gasp of tension'. -Kirkus Reviews

"Breaking Dawn" part 2 - Access Hollywood interviews

Access Hollywood interviewed the cast of Twilight’s “Breaking Dawn: Part 2”: Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner and director Bill Condon

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Linda Darnell: Star Dust


Star Dust (1940) starring Linda Darnell, John Payne, Roland Young, directed by Walter Lang

A very young Linda Darnell is unearthly in her loveliness; always a true beauty, she looks stunning and also gets to play a more innocent type than she would later become known for. John Payne is also strong, surprisingly so; he comes across very well in it. Mary Healy scores with her beautiful voice, and Charlotte Greenwood is a delight as the motherly drama coach. William Gargan also deserves credit for his amusing Zanuck imitation. ~ Craig Butler, Rovi

A somewhat realistic--though not without the usual Hollywood gloss--treatment of a young girls attempt to make it as a star in the motion picture industry. Darnell, in a portrayal not too dissimilar from her own experiences, is given a chance at a contract by talent scout Young. She gets to Hollywood only to be turned down by studio boss Gargan (in an obvious impersonation of Darryl Zanuck), under the pretense of being too young.

Instead of heading back home, she meets and falls in love with Payne who pushes her along until she eventually lands a spot. Darnell injected her assignment with the needed charm to pull it off. Source: scootermoviesshop.com

At sixteen Linda was already starring in an autobiographical film, her name alone above the title. Her studio contract had been revised so that she was making $200 a week, with bigger increments on the way. Much of her fame still seemed unreal.

"When I wake up in the morning," she told a columnist, "I keep my eyes closed as long as possible. I'm afraid it will all fly away when I properly awake." They quickly devised a treatment, based not only on Linda's story, but on Dorris Bowdon's and Mary Healy's as well. In the initial draft of Star Dust the girls' first names were even used. Eventually Darryl Zanuck suggested the writers drop Dorris and combine her character with Mary's. Originally everybody in the story wound up happy, but Zanuck felt that didn't ring true.

Mary Healy as Mary Andrews, John Payne as Bud Borden and Linda Darnell as Carolyn Sayres in "Star Dust" (1940) by Walter Lang

"One of the characters, Mary probably, should be a flop in pictures," Zanuck urged, "yet find happiness elsewhere. Only Linda emerges as a hit." Eventually Linda's name was changed in the script to Carolyn, while Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star, the working title, was shortened to Star Dust. Shooting on the picture began early in 1940, with Mary Healy playing her own part and John Payne as Linda's love interest.

Lang decided to duplicate Linda's actual screen test in the film. She even wore the same clothes. "I had a little less accent and a little more poise," Linda said. "I think I was dazed when I played the [original] park bench test, but I was almost as scared in the Star Dust one, because by then I knew how much depended on it." Variety found Star Dust entertaining and reported, "Miss Darnell displays a wealth of youthful charm and personality that confirms studio efforts to build her to a draw personality." Ultimately the film received a top B rating, playing not the major houses in most cities, but first-run theaters a notch below.

On March 18, 1940, Linda preserved her hand and footprints in cement in the forecourt of Grauman's Chinese Theater, just as she had at the end of her autobiographical film. Eventually her inscription would be surrounded by those of Jack Benny, Bing Crosby, George Burns, and Al Jolson. Later that month she received the first annual "Seein' Stars" award as the most promising actress of the year, a presentation the studio celebrated in grand style.

It's a remarkable indicator of how big a spell Linda Darnell had already cast on the American movie-going consciousness that her third film, Star Dust (1940), was semibiographical. 'Star Dust' is actually based on the early careers of Darnell, Dorris Bowdon, and Mary Healy. Bowdon acted in a handful of films in the late 1930s and early 1940s before retiring to have a family with husband Nunnally Johnson, while Healy acted in more movies and television and also has a part in Star Dust as Mary Andrews, a composite character based on herself and Bowdon.

Darnell, Bowdon and Healy all went to Hollywood after being discovered by talent scouts, but Darnell, who was only thirteen at the time of that initial trip, was told to return when she was older -- which is exactly what happens to her character in this movie. At one point in Star Dust we see a screen test for Darnell's character -- an exact recreation of Darnell's actual, original screen test on a park bench a few years earlier.

The New York Times called Star Dust "unlikely to stem the westward migration of youngsters with hallucinations of swimming pools and a six-figure apotheosis to stardom.... Miss Darnell, in the leading role, is not only well behaved, but one of the more comely starlets. Mr. Payne is refreshing and breezy." Variety called the picture "a top B that will deliver as an A attraction in the majority of spots." After the release of Star Dust, her salary rose to $500 a week.

Late in January 1945, Linda learned her next studio assignment would be Fallen Angel, with the Viennese tyrant Otto Preminger directing. Linda would play Stella, a mercenary waitress eventually killed by a blow on the head. Dana Andrews was cast as the male lead, and Darryl Zanuck coaxed Alice Faye out of retirement to play a dramatic role with no singing. Fallen Angel was the first of four pictures Linda would make with Otto Preminger, whom she learned to dislike intensely. The director had scored a huge success with Laura the year before, but Linda found him stubborn, humorless, terrifying on the set.

She played the tramp with gusto, and almost everyone agreed it was her finest acting yet. "Linda Darnell was the best thing in the picture," said costar Dana Andrews. "The scene I had with her was at least showy." There was even talk of her receiving an Academy Award nomination. David Raksin, who wrote the score, vividly recalled seeing Linda on the set: "My impression was that she was learning her profession as she went along. She had a sexy beauty. There was something lusty about her without any overt attempt to seduce."

Linda's role in A Letter to Three Wives was easily the best of the trio of leads. She had risen in Darryl Zanuck's estimation after Forever Amber, and perhaps for the first time he felt she was a solid gamble in an earthy part.

A Letter to Three Wives was shaping up into a script of quality, which Zanuck was confident would also be good box office. Although Zanuck privately found Joseph Mankiewicz an "arrogant bastard," he had faith in Mankiewicz's genius, both as a writer and as a director. Even in the first draft Lora May, the part Linda played, was viewed as a masterful portrait of a hard-boiled, cynical gold digger with a tender heart.


Linda Darnell, Kirk Douglas and Paul Douglas in "A Letter to Three Wives" (1949) directed by Joseph L. Mankiewick

Paired with Linda was veteran radio actor Paul Douglas, making his screen debut after a huge success in Broadway in Born Yesterday. They matched each other scene for scene, with Linda revealing a remarkable sense of comedy. Lora Mays classic line came in response to an older friend's suggestion, "If I was you, I'd show more of what I got. Maybe wear somethin' with beads." Linda replied, "What I got don't need beads." The part quickly became Linda's tour de force.

When A Letter to Three Wives was completed in August, Linda was back at the Amalfi Drive house, although her relationship with Joe Mankiewicz would continue for another six years. She assured Jeanne Curtis and others close to her that he was, and always would be, the great love of her life, referring to him later as her "back street affair." Old enough to be a father figure, dashing enough to be a lover, cultured and intellectual enough to serve as mentor, Mankiewicz represented the perfect combination Linda sought in a man, and she was willing to risk everything. Joseph Mankiewicz never talked about Linda, except to say that he "adored" her and that "she was a marvelous girl with very terrifying personal problems." He had a record of persuading women who fell in love with him that they were in serious need of psychiatric treatment.

"After she got involved with Mankiewicz," director Henry Hathaway recalled, "she became a little exotic. I think he was the one who turned a simple girl into what came damn close to being a neurotic." When 'A Letter to Three Wives' was released early in 1949, it brought Linda the most unanimous acclaim she ever received, providing her with the undisputed triumph 'Forever Amber' failed to deliver.

'Two Flags West' was shot near the San Ildefonso reservation, some fifteen miles northwest of Santa Fe. Linda hated making westerns, particularly since she was allergic to horses. Gradually the crew came to refer to the picture as "Two Fags West," as tempers began to flare. "Cornel is seemingly trying to be halfway decent," Linda wrote, "but I still avoid him as much as possible. Joe Cotten is an awfully stuffed shirt, and a lush to boot, but Jeff Chandler is a dreamboat, good actor, and a real down-to-earth guy."

"She was an excellent cook," said Lola (her adopted daughter). "I think it was something she could do privately that was productive. And Mother hoarded food! I think it came from the days when she was poor growing up." Although Linda would buy her daughter several dresses at a time, she always bought them a size or two too large. "I never had anything that fit," said Lola. "I had to grow into everything. It was just another of Mother's quirks." At an early age Lola was made aware that she was the daughter of an exceptionally beautiful woman whom everyone treated as somebody special.

When 'Second Chance' was released in July, it received favorable notices, with Linda, Robert Mitchum, and Jack Palance all awarded their share of acclaim. Critics agreed that the screenplay was tense and exciting, building to an effective climax. The suspense was brilliantly photographed, and director Rudolph Maté used the cumbersome 3-D process more skillfully than most. There was a spine-tingling fight between Mitchum and Palance on top of the cable car, culminating in Palance's being knocked overboard.

Linda met an American Airlines pilot named Merle Roy Robertson, whom she began dating. A likeable, soft-spoken man, Robby was strikingly different from any of Linda's other offscreen romances. He was handsome, debonair, a giant of a man. "Robby had the body of a Greek Adonis," Dick Curtis assured, "with a very dry way about him. He was the epitome of what a man in the movies should be. He had the women drooling over him." Linda soon became a major conquest. Although she never forgot Joe Mankiewicz, she clearly fell in love with Robby Robertson. "I mean he was a big, grand passion," said Yvonne Wood. "He was a handsome guy and dashing, and she fell for him." Before meeting her he had had an affair with Jayne Mansfield. Suddenly Linda found herself in a romantic involvement like none she had ever experienced. Robby was affectionate, sexually experienced, suavely aggressive.

Before long he asked her to marry him. He had never been married and made Linda feel like a desirable woman. He seemed to love her rather than her image. They had great times together, and Linda even promised him she'd stop drinking, although she never did. "At first theirs was a fun, happy, good marriage," Richard Curtis observed, "but what happened was that Robby was flying all over the country and Linda was doing her stage work, so that they wound up only seeing each other between performances. Then Linda started to go into a deep depressive shell."

''She adored Tyrone," Maria Flores said. "He had been so nice to her. When he died, she was absolutely devastated.'' Around the time of Power's death Linda began sinking into a depression, a mood that deepened over the next seven years. She reached the point where she even disliked Christmas, since the holiday reminded her of her estrangement from her family. Robertson convinced Linda to give up her business manager and let him handle her career. "Honey, you don't have to worry about the bills anymore," he said. "I'm going to take care of everything." They hoped for a television series, but when that fell through, a nightclub act seemed the only solution. Linda knew she couldn't sing anymore, couldn't dance, and was terrified of appearing before an intimate crowd without a play for protection. In February 1961 they were playing a month's engagement at the Drake Hotel in Chicago.

Linda was really hitting the bottle, and she and Robby were fighting viciously. She jumped up, ran to the window, and threw it open. She started to leap, but Tom Hayward grabbed her and pulled her back. By then Linda was hysterical. The two men put her in the shower, with Linda crying, "I want to get away from everybody." They checked her into a hospital for treatment of alcoholism. Linda and Robby legally separated on Valentine's Day 1962. Shortly before moving from Bel Air, Linda met and began dating Philip Kalavros, a Greek doctor. Kalavros did his best to keep Linda from drinking and tried to build her stamina.

"He picked her up when she was in her mentally depressed low end," Richard Curtis claimed. "She couldn't seem to face the position she was in. He was a means of escape for her. I don't think she had the ability to face the reality that she was no longer a power." Linda very likely suffered from cirrhosis, and Kalavros began giving her doses of vitamin B to reverse her liver damage. Linda opened in Houghton Lake, Michigan, to a standing ovation in August 1964. "Mother lit up in front of an audience," said Lola. "It was like turning on a light bulb. She was so beautiful, and her smile was incredible.

Black Spurs was Linda's first picture in seven years, and it would be her last. The actress reported to Paramount Studios for a wardrobe session on September 2, taking Lola and Jeanne and Patty Curtis with her. She would play a New Orleans madam in the picture, a role almost any veteran could have walked through with ease. Linda received third billing after Rory Calhoun and Terry Moore. She loved working before a camera again and all the fun and gags that went with it. Linda finished her part in less than two weeks, and had no delusions about the quality of the film, aware it fell into the "oater" category.

"You know, I never felt accepted in the movie world," the star confessed. "I think that's why I resent my family so. I would never have been an actress if it hadn't been for Mother's insisting. To think I paid a psychiatrist $25,000 trying to work through all that before he finally gave up on me!"

The cause of the fire was never determined. An ash or a lighted cigarette dropped into the living room sofa may have been the culprit, although Linda was always careful with cigarettes, and Jeanne Curtis recalled carrying ashtrays out to the kitchen after the movie and setting them in the sink. Jeanne also denied that Linda had been drinking heavily that evening. They had sipped coffee while they watched Star Dust, something Linda rarely did. Relatives and friends denied categorically that Linda's going into the fire was a subconscious suicide attempt. Jeanne and Dick both claimed their friend was simply afraid to jump from the second-story window and felt she could make it out the front door. -"Hollywood Beauty: Linda Darnell and the American Dream" (2001) by Ronald L. Davis

"Darnell died in 1965 after a fire broke out in a Chicago area house where she had just been watching Star Dust on television in the middle of the night. The cause of the fire was never determined, though it may have been a stray cigarette. Darnell suffered extreme burns and smoke inhalation and died a few hours later. She was 41. Source: www.tcm.com

Known as the "girl with the perfect face," irony followed her. She played the TV character of Dora Gray (female for Dorian Gray) in two episodes of Wagon Train in 1958, and, also ironically, appeared in a 1957 episode of Climax entitled "Trial By Fire." Her last movie was Black Spurs, in 1965. On April 10 of that same year she visited a friend in Chicago who had once been her secretary, and fell asleep while smoking in bed, causing a fire that killed her. For yet more irony, at the time she had been watching a TV rerun of her own film, Star Dust. But although Linda may be gone, cruel fate will not be permitted to have the last laugh. Thanks to DVDs and the internet, her memory will now electronically live forever. Source: www.lindadarnell.com

“At first, everything was a fairy tale come true. I stepped into a fabulous land where, overnight, I was a movie star. In the pictures your built up by everyone. On the set, in the publicity office, wherever you go, everyone says your wonderful. It gives you a false sense of security. You waltz through a role, and everywhere you hear that you are beautiful and lovely, a natural-born actress. You believe what people around you say.” -Linda Darnell