Mustafa Torphy: Jane Fonda- Barbara Walters Specials

 

Source:Mustafa Torphy– Jane Fonda was a big part of the Barbara Walters specials.

Source:The Daily Review 

“Jane Fonda 1978+1983 Barbara Walters-Interviews Of A Lifetime #191.”

From Mustafa Torphy

Jane Fonda, I believe giving Barbara Walters an interesting interview in 1978. Whatever you think about her politics she’s very honest and open about them and her life as well. Like losing her mother at the age of 12, her somewhat distant relationship with her father Henry Fonda. Her political activism in and outside of the Democratic Party and I could go on.

I believe that is what people like her whether they like her or not they at least respect her realness. And that there really isn’t anything fake about her. And as a result the characters that she plays in her movies come off as so real as well. California Suite, where she plays a somewhat cold and distant mother, is a perfect example of that.

Whatever you think of Jane’s politics I think even her strongest opponents will give her that she’s a great actress. Perhaps would prefer her to stick with acting and leave political activism to people who know more about the issues that she campaigns on. But she’s a great actress and I at least believe if there wasn’t an actress named Elizabeth Taylor, I believe we’re talking about the greatest actress at least of the Silent Generation. And that includes women like Sophia Loren, Angie Dickinson, Kim Novak, Karen Black, to use as examples.

When it coms to acting she’s in the same class as Liz Taylor, Lauren Bacall, Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth, Susan Hayward and many other great actress’s. And that should never be misunderstood and forgotten about Jane Fonda. Regardless of what you think about her politics.

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Lifetime: Intimate Portrait- Ava Gardner (2000)

Source:Lifetime Network– Hollywood Goddess Ava Gardner’s Intimate Portrait.

Source:The Daily Review 

“This special on Ava Gardner [1922-1990] aired in 2000. Im sorry this copy is so bad. Its the only one I have.”

From Lavelle Luthy

I don’t know of another actress other than maybe Lana Turner, (speaking of drama queens) who lived her real-life as close to many characters she played on the big screen than Ava Gardner.

Ava was a real-life drama queen and I don’t mean that in a negative sense. But nothing was ever boring with her. Starting with her gorgeous, baby-faced looks. Very similar to Elizabeth Taylor and her great voice as well. Also similar to Liz Taylor. Her beautiful black hair, again Liz Taylor. And that she was this incredible real-life character with a great sense of humor and the ability to play almost anyone on the big screen. With the best and most interesting character that she ever played being the one and only Ava Gardner. Perhaps the prettiest and most interesting drama queen of all-time.

You put Ava in soap operas in the 1950s when they came out on TV and she would’ve been the queen of soap. Susan Luci, would’ve had nothing on Ava. Because Ava was almost not acting when she was playing very dramatic roles especially women with quick-witted sense of humors. She was just playing herself, this beautiful, adorable, sexy, intelligent brunette, who was also one hell of a great actress.

Ava lived her personal life the way the played many roles in the movies as a woman who always did things her way (to paraphrase Frank Sinatra) who wasn’t alive, but always living life and enjoying every moment of it that she possibly could. Perhaps why she and Frank didn’t work out, because he might have been too much and too much fun for him.

And the other thing that she had in common with Liz Taylor, is that they both lived life to be alive. Not simply to try to get through it like you’re in prison, or serving in combat and simply trying to survive. She was free as a squirrel who lived her whole life the only way she knew how to, which was to have as much fun as she possibly could. And she paid a heavy price for that with the alcoholism and having several different male relationships that never worked out.

Ava’s life to live, to enjoy and make mistakes with. Not someone else’s to live for her, or for her to live in someone’s else’s image of what kind of life she should have. Which takes a lot of guts to literally be that free in life and that I have a lot of respect for her.

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Lifetime: Intimate Portrait- Angie Dickinson (2003)

Source: Lifetime– Hollywood Goddess Angie Dickinson

Source:The Daily Review

“Angie Dickinson 2002 Intimate Portrait”

From Lifetime

“Angie Dickinson is an American actress. She is best known for her roles in the films Rio Bravo and Dressed to Kill, and for starring on television as Sergeant Suzanne “Pepper” Anderson on the 1970s crime series Police Woman.”

Source:Movie Legends– Angie Dickinson

From Movie Legends

When I think of Angie Dickinson I’m staring at those eyes and locked into that voice. She reminds me a of smaller Gena Rowlands, another woman who just looks and sounds incredible, but who is also a hell of an actress. A true goddess who is both hot and baby-faced adorable where they don’t seem to age and always look like very young woman even if they’re in their forties and fifties. Gena is a bigger and taller Angie, but she might be just as adorable. When you look this great and you also can act and make people laugh and sing, you’ll never have to worry about finding a job in Hollywood. Just as long as you don’t piss off the wrong people. And an actress will always be able to be either on TV, or doing movies, or both.

There two movies and perhaps a certain TV show that you’re familiar with when I think of Angie Dickinson. Ocean’s Eleven from 1960, where she plays the wife of compulsive gambler Danny Ocean (played by Frank Sinatra) and The Chase from 1966 where she plays the girlfriend of the sheriff. (played by Marlin Brando) She has a small part in Ocean’s, but a key one and has a great scene where she tells of Danny’s mistress on the phone. When the mistress is confessing to her that she’s seeing her husband. And Angie tells the mistress that, “what you’re saying just makes me want him more.” She has a much bigger role in The Chase where she’s the girlfriend of the sheriff and is very close to Marlin in that movie.

But I believe Angie’s Dickinson’s most important accomplishment to Hollywood is Police Woman. Where she plays a police detective sergeant in that movie. That show comes out in 1974 three years before Charlie’s Angels and she plays this gorgeous sexy smart detective sergeant on that show. Who leads police investigation’s and kicks ass at the same time. Police detective shows with female leads now are common and have been since the 1990s. But a big reason for that was Police Woman and Angie Dickinson. She showed that you could look like a goddess and also be smart and professional and do important jobs in society and be in charge. And because of Angie NBC, CBS and ABC, (and perhaps even FOX) are always looking for that new hit female detective show.

Angie is simply one of the cutest, hottest, sexiest actress’s with the great voice to match of all-time. I could listen to her read from a phone book, or a tennis rule book and I would end up being fascinated with that bland material that would be great reading material for insomniacs if it was read by just about everyone else. But she makes everything look and sound interesting simply because of who she is. She was great on the Alfred Hitchcock Hour in the early 1960s, playing a woman who simply marries men for money and tries to get her latest boyfriend to murder her husband. She’s a true Hollywood Goddess in the sense that she’s an incredibly attractive woman, but also a great actress. And she’s one of the top actress’s of her generation and in the business today.

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Lifetime: Intimate Portrait- Dame Elizabeth Taylor, The Actress of All-Time

Dame Elizabeth

Source: Lifetime: Intimate Portrait- Dame Elizabeth Taylor, The Actress of All-Time

Liz Taylor is the Jim Brown, John Unitas, Babe Ruth, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Frank Sinatra, the person in her profession that everyone who comes after her his judged by. The greatest at what she does. Are you as good as Elizabeth Taylor as an actress? If you are, well now you’re the best, but if you’re anything close to her even light years from her you know you’ve made it. If you’re in her class, or just a few classes back from Liz Taylor you’ve made it. You’re not just a successful actress, but you’re a great actress. I’ve gone back and forth between Liz and Lauren Bacall when I try to decide who’s the best actress of all-time, because you could make a great case for either and I’m blogging now about Liz, so I’m going to make her case.

But I’ve just don’t know of another actress whose funnier, one of the funniest people who has ever come out of Hollywood. As she said she’s an instinctive and if you’re a great instinctive actress you are also a great improv actress, because you go off of feel about who you’re playing and where the role and the movie, or show is going. That is Liz Taylor and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Which isn’t a question, but a movie) Is a perfect example of that where she’s playing a women whose losing her mind and going crazy if not already there. Its is a very serious role and movie and yet she and Richard Burton are very funny in that. And maybe that’s just because they were working with each other and the chemistry they had. But they made that movie a great movie by themselves.

When it comes to dramatic actress’s I don’t know of a better actress. Again Virginia Woolf, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Butterfield 8, The V.I.P.’s again with Burton and The Sandpiper again with Burton. She’s great at making very serious roles in serious movies seem very entertaining and even funny. Virginia Woolf, is a very serious graphic even movie with this couple that looks like they’re getting ready to divorce, because of how they argue and the clean shots that they throw and land at each other. And of course with Liz’s character going insane as the movie moves along and yet they were both hysterically funny together in this movie. She might be the best improvisational actress of all-time as well and Lauren Bacall does very well in this area as well.

Liz Taylor very similar to Ava Gardner took charge of her life and lived her life exactly the way she wanted. And essentially said the hell with the future and the consequences and lived her life her way. I think that’s how a women is married 6-7 times, or whatever it was and drinks and eats too much. She lived a roller coaster life including all the tragedies that she suffered around her husband Mike Todd dying and other loved one around her dying. But with all the ups and downs that she had in her life she lived a great 79 years that has millions of people who love her and will always love her. And we’re also talking about one of the two best actress’s ever. And when you live a life-like that and enjoy so much and have so much success with so many people who love you, what do you have to complain about. She lived a great life and had a great roller coaster ride.

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Michelle Mily-Lifetime: Intimate Portrait Grace Kelly- The Amazing Grace

 

The Amazing Grace

Source: This piece was originally posted at The New Democrat

The Amazing Grace Kelly, whom I call Grace Kelly, not just because of her first name, but because she was amazing in so many ways was a woman who didn’t just look like royalty but was royalty, even though she grew up in Philadelphia. She not only looked like a princess but was the Princess of Monaco until she died in the early 1980s. But before that, she was a hell of an actress who made her mark mostly in the 1950s.

What most impresses me about Grace is her versatility as an actress. She could play both dead serious and pretty funny in the same movie and was perfect for movies that weren’t pure comedies or dramas. I believe that is one of the things that the great director Alfred Hitchcock saw in her when he hired her for films like Rear Window, playing the girlfriend of photographer Jimmy Stewart, who was confined to an apartment with a broken leg. She solved a murder case by spying from his apartment. This is not believable but the movie is very well done.

Another one of my favorite movies starring Grace would be another Hitchcock movie, To Catch a Thief with Cary Grant, which takes place on the French Mediterranean, in which she plays the daughter of a very wealthy woman. Vacationing in France with a lot of expensive jewelry at the high point of a cat burglar’s activities, she suspects that Cary Grant, the retired cat burglar, stole her mother’s and others’ jewelry, but in the end falls in love with him nonetheless.

With Grace Kelly, you are talking about a sexy actress who always looked like she never completely grew up, like Marilyn Monroe or Barbara Eden. But she was a real lady and a great actress who again had the versatility and timing that few actresses ever acquired. She was similar to Elizabeth Taylor or Lauren Bacall, which is what made her unique. She is still missed today.

Michelle Milly-Lifetime: Grace Kelly Intimate Portrait

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