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 SIR DONALD SINDEN ...still active at 85 in the BBC's "Judge John Deed" |
Some actors keep going, defying Father Time
of TheColumnists.com:
This veteran couch potato
jumped the other night around 2 a.m. when watching that excellent
BBC series "Judge John Deed" on BBC Canada. What roused
me was the wonderful sight and sounds of Sir Donald Sinden roaring
all around a scene with the same energy he demonstrated in that
decades old TV Britcom "The Two Of Us" opposite Elaine
Stritch.
Here I go again. I figured the great Sinden must be long dead.
But he’s not. At 85 he can strut and scene-steal with the
best of them.
Then I was watching one of those entertainment news TV shows
and it must have been the Canadian one because I jumped again.
It was a clip from the new movie "My Winnipeg" and
there was film noir goddess Ann Savage, the siren of the
classic "Detour," a mere 19 years after her last movie
appearance and 70 years since she made her debut in "The
Last Waltz." At 87, she may have a whole new career in front
of her. She certainly seems frisky enough to try.
Age—I know it’s a state of mind but try telling my
body that. As a refuge I try seeking out the old and famous in
movie and TV parts. It makes me feel better to think I’m
still younger and better able to walk up a flight of stairs than
they are.
Scientists are telling us people are living longer than ever.
That certainly applies to actors and directors. I supposed I
was seeing Luise Rainer for the last time when she popped up
on an episode of "The Love Boat" in 1984. Then she
surfaced again in the 1988 TV series "A Dancer." TV
audiences glimpsed her at the 1993 Oscars as she complained the
Academy was giving her bed but no breakfast during her L.A. stay.
Then she startled everybody by playing a grandmother in the 1997
movie "The Gambler," receiving critical acclaim.
 LUISE RAINER ...oldest living Oscar-winning actress in "The Gambler" (1997). She's now 98. |
 JOAN FONTAINE ...strikes a pose at 90; she's now retired. |
I have a casting brainstorm: Why not cast Rainer, who's just two years short of being a centagenarian. with the oldest living male Oscar winner, Ernest Borgnine, a mere 91 years young, who wants to make two more films so he’ll have an even 200 in his resume?
And by the way Ernie also has a biography coming out originally titled "I Don’t Want To Set The World On Fire, I Only Want To Keep My Nuts Warm." I wonder why the publishers changed the title to merely "Ernie."
Age can wither some people but others seem to rise above it. I must have visited with Anna Lee a half dozen times at her Tudor style cottage above LA’s Sunset Strip. (Lee was the female lead in the 1937 "King Solomon's Mines" with Paul Robson.) Her third husband was there with her the first time I visited. He was novelist Robert Nathan ("Portrait of Jennie"). He was then 93. Lee lived on after his death, energized by that once weekly appearance she made as the old lady Lila Quartermaine on ABC's daytime serial "General Hospital." Promised a job for life by Executive Producer Wendy Riche, she finally was sacked by new management.
She phoned me to protest but it was no good. She died in May, 2004, aged 91. I think she died of sheer boredom, she had nothing to do anymore.
Other nonagenarians still out there, some of them still seeking work: double Oscar winner Olivia de Havilland, ("To Each His Own," 1946; "The Heiress," 1949), 92, and her Oscar-winning sister Joan Fontaine ("Suspicion," 1941), 90; Harry Morgan, best remembered for TV's "MASH," who's 93; Van Johnson, who turns 92 in August; June Havoc, turning 95 in November; Lena Horne, 91 (and I bet she still looks fabulous); Herbert Lom, 92 in September, and director Ronald Neame, who did the original 1972 "The Poseidon Adventure," 92.
Nor should I overlook Danielle Darrieux,
who's now 91. I met her in 1994 when she was making a French
version of "Jalna." They had cast her as the 101-year-old
granny! And I can't forget Esther Williams. I talked to her on
the phone last year while she was selling her swimming pools
in Canada. She'd been in a wheelchair recently, but seems still
a kid at...87!
Among the child stars I can think of, the hangers-on include
Mickey Rooney, 87; Deanna Durbin, who turns 87 in December; Jackie
Cooper, 85; Shirley Temple, a mere 80, and Liz Taylor, the kid
of the bunch at a youthful 76.
What does it mean acting with someone old enough to be your granny?
I put the question to Jeremy Brett, TV’s Sherlock Holmes,
when he acted opposite Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies in 1992 in an episode
titled "The Master Blackmailer."
“She was 101,” sputtered Brett. “So we had to
take very good care of her. She was so understated in our big
scene together that I wondered if she still had it. Then I watched
the rushes. She under acted, that’s what she was doing and
stole the scene.” (Brett himself
died in 1995 at age 62.)
Eli Wallach, 92, is generally listed as the oldest living U.S.
actor who's still working. He has three movies out this year
alone ("Tickling Leo," "The Toe Tactic,"
"Vote And Die") and for 2009 already has something
called "New York, I Love You" in post production.
Ronald Neame I caught up with a decade or so ago at his Hollywood
home and he was busy plotting another movie which still hasn’t
happened. He remarried at 82 and at 90 celebrated life with a
huge party that included Anna Lee, who acted for him in 1940’s
"Young Man’s Fancy."
“He shot me out of a cannon for one scene," she once complained to me.
When one of the greats or near greats departs,
I get ticked off if I haven’t met them yet.
I exchanged letters and photos with two-time Oscar-winning director
Fred Zinnemann ("From Here To Eternity," 1953; "A
Man For All Seasons," 1966) and then he died in 1997, before
my next London trip. But I had Eddie Albert covered (he died
in 2005, aged 89). His last TV acting job was in one of those
syndicated things shot in Toronto; here it was after midnight
and he was chattering away with me and co-star Frances Hyland.
I’ve got Harry Morgan covered, too, and also Van Johnson
who was in Toronto circa 1988 for a syndicated "Alfred Hitchcock"
show with co-star Rory Calhoun. Johnson was then a sprightly
73-years young and even put on some blusher and pancake for the
photographer.
But my definition of a grand old star may not be yours.
Showing off my collection of autographed photos to a next-door
neighbor, aged 16, drew only blanks. Remember this is a teen
who considers "The Hills" TV’s greatest ever bag
of dramatic revelations and quotes TMZ endlessly with her peers.
So I asked who were her favorite old movie stars and she instantly
barked back “Travolta…Cruise…Pfeiffer”.
Like I’m saying, go figure.
©2008 by Jim Bawden. This column first posted July 7, 2008.
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