Hurtling Towards Senility

One of my less-bizarre pursuits is finding a vintage anything with my birthday on it, especially if it's from the 1930s. It's even more rare to find anyone of interest who shares my birthday. Author Ray Bradbury does, but that's about it. Later tonight, I hope to be able to gum down some cake and watch Sterling Hayden movies on Turner Classic. They're airing Manhandled, a 1949 Noir film I discussed way back when.

Gail Patrick, Deco Dame: Part IX

It's been too long, and since this is the tribute that would not die, I submit to you another chapter of this blog's unofficial icon, Gail Patrick.

Amazing Gail: One of the best pictures I've seen of her.

Early-30s Gail: She looks about 23 here. Nice!


"Love Crazy" Gail: Based on her dress, I'm guessing this is a promo from 1941.

Exotic Gail: I have a few in this series, where Gail looks "ethnic." Which role could this be?

The Tragedy of Gig Young

I’m afraid it’s time for another entry in the Miserable Sod series.

Gig Young (1913-1978) (born Byron Elsworth Barr) is best known in classic movie circles as the “other guy” in so many 1950s movies. Young often played the dapper, likable second banana to the major stars of the time. He took the name “Gig Young” from a character he played in the 1942 film The Gay Sisters, a Barbara Stanwyck film. I fondly recall his role in Desk Set alongside Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, as well as Young at Heart, Teacher’s Pet, and That Touch of Mink. But to me, he’ll always be Martin Sloan, the harried businessman who yearns for his lost childhood in the haunting Twilight Zone episode, “Walking Distance.” Young’s durability as a character actor ensured that he would continue working into the 1960s and 70s. He would win the Best Supporting Oscar in 1969’s They Shoot Horses…Don’t They? Young would also appear as the bored sadist in Sam Peckinpah’s Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, where Young’s character took the name Fred C. Dobbs, in a joking reference to John Huston’s Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

Gig Young was a great actor. His early roles showed that he had an effortless charm, a sort of everyday “suave guy next door”, if there even is such a thing. Young always played the other guy who graciously gave up the leading lady and seemed so damned affable doing it. Later, after he earned his well-deserved Oscar, his career turned towards darker, sinister roles. Young himself had a dim view of success, as he said in 1951: "So many people who have been nominated for an Oscar have had bad luck afterwards."

Young was married to Elizabeth Montgomery from 1956-63, a marriage that strained Elizabeth's relationship with her father, Robert Montgomery, who opposed the union. Young’s alcoholism continued to spiral out of control, and hastened the end of this already-abusive marriage. Young married five times and fathered a daughter in 1964, though he denied paternity until a five-year court case proved otherwise. Remember, no DNA testing then.

On October 19, 1978, Young shot and killed Kim Schmidt, his 31-year-old wife of three weeks. Young then turned the gun on himself. He was sixty four. In his will, he left his Oscar to his agent, but virtually nothing to his teenaged daughter.

What a jerk.

I’ve said before how I hate to discover that my favorite performers were miserable and Young is no exception. His performance in the Twilight Zone is one of my favorite TV roles ever and he brought such a tragic sadness to the Martin Sloan character. Young was an actor who got better as time went on, "getting gritty" with the changing times, reminding me all over again that stars of the 40s and 50s were merely projecting a convincing illusion which they no longer had to maintain with the death of the Hayes Office.

Sadly it would be Young's personal problems--not his self-fulfilling prophecy about Oscar nominees--that doomed him. His career was steady after his Oscar win, but it was Young’s drinking that did him in. He was fired from Blazing Saddles—he was to play The Waco Kid, later to become Gene Wilder’s role-- when he collapsed on set after an attack of the DTs (the story is here). Despite the horrors I’ve relayed here, I still choose to remember Gig Young as a quality character actor who only got better with age, though how he left this life is burned into my memory…how could it not be?

Watch Gig's performance in The Twilight Zone episode "Walking Distance" here.

A Broken Man: A dissipated Gig Young

"You play yourself -- in deference to the character."

Ah, good ol' Jimmy Stewart. Always the one with the sage wisdom. Actually, Stewart cribbed that line from another acting titan, Laurence Olivier, he of the infamous line to "Method" actor Dustin Hoffman: "Dear boy, it's called acting."

"You play yourself--in deference to the character."

That line sums up my view on the kind of acting I love best. To me, acting isn't always about the becoming of the character, but rather the characteristics of the performer that are revealed in that performance. Make sense? I hope so. Let me know if it doesn't, as I try my best to avoid pretentious talk. What follows is most likely obvious to everyone else, but I feel the need to tell myself this.

Movie stars like Stewart, Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy, and Burt Lancaster all act brilliantly within the parameters of who they are. Now don't get me wrong, I treasure the work of Jack Nicholson, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, and James Caan--always have; but I don't think they're any better or worse than their Golden Age predeccessors. James Stewart didn't need to gain sixty pounds or wear a digital "fat suit" to play Jefferson Smith, and John Wayne didn't have to hang around tormented war veterans to "get a handle" on Ethan Edwards, yet these performers managed to create two of the greatest characters in cinematic history. They tapped resources within themselves and the likes of Wayne and Stewart revealed more about the spectrum of their personalities--and without all of that Strasberg baggage. I love seeing the individual's personality come out in a performance, that's what makes a movie star an artist--their very individuality in a role. That's their personal charisma that comes out of the actor whether they want it to or not.

"I don't act; I react."--John Wayne

Atta boy, Duke. There's a lot more to Wayne's quote than his dismissing the criticism of his acting ability. I take that statement as being a personal one, as in how John Wayne himself would answer another actor's line. That's the acting within one's parameters that I've been going on about.

"Learn your lines and don't trip over the furniture."--Spencer Tracy

It's that simple. If you know what's being said, you'll know how to say it, and say it like it's supposed to be. Besides that, everyone watching a movie is a co-creator of the art, in that we all filter art through our own experiences and opinions, and that's what Golden Age giants like Grant, Wayne, and Stewart do, too.

Oh, to be a fly on the wall.