Top Ten Contributors - Leave Her to Heaven (1945)
by milam_ogden | created - 31 May 2014 | updated - 31 May 2014 | PublicOne of my favorite film noirs, Gene Tierney is the ultimate femme fatale in this movie. You have to watch it to see what she does to keep her man. This film has been listed in 8 of my top ten lists: top 100 film noir, top 10 film noir released in 1945 and six different actors. Here are the major collaborators behind this classic.
1. Ben Ames Williams
Writer | Leave Her to Heaven
American short-story writer and novelist Ben Ames Williams was born in Macon, Mississippi, in 1889. Shortly afterwards his father, a newspaperman, bought the "Jackson Standard Journal" in Jackson, Ohio, and the family moved there. Williams grew up in the newspaper business, and while in high school...
2. John M. Stahl
Director | Leave Her to Heaven
John Stahl was the final executive in charge of Tiffany Pictures (located on the Talisman lot, later owned by Monogram Pictures), once a big fish in the pond of "Poverty Row", which in those days also included Columbia Pictures. With a B-movie history dating back to the silent era and after making ...
hired by 20th Century Fox to direct
3. Jo Swerling
Writer | The Pride of the Yankees
Oscar-nominated Hollywood screenwriter Jo Swerling, who also was a Tony Award-winning Broadway writer and lyricist, was born in Berdichev, Ukraine in what was then the Russian Empire. His family emigrated from Czarist Russia and he grew up on the Lower East Side in New York City.
From a youthful job...
wrote the screenplay
4. Alfred Newman
Music_department | The King and I
Alfred Newman is an American composer, arranger, and conductor of film music.
From his start as a music prodigy, he came to be regarded as a respected figure in the history of film music. He won nine Academy Awards and was nominated 45 times, contributing to the Newmans being the most nominated ...
behind the musical score
5. Leon Shamroy
Cinematographer | Cleopatra
Leon Shamroy, born Leon Shamroyevsky, was an American film cinematographer. He is best known for The Black Swan (1942),Wilson (1944), Leave Her to Heaven (1945), David and Bathsheba (1951), The Robe (1953), Cleopatra (1963), The Agony and the Ecstasy (1965) and Planet of the Apes (1968).
He and ...
director of photography
6. Gene Tierney
Actress | Laura
With prominent cheekbones, luminous skin and the most crystalline green eyes of her day, Gene Tierney's striking good looks helped propel her to stardom. Her best known role is the enigmatic murder victim in Laura (1944). She was also Oscar-nominated for Leave Her to Heaven (1945). Her acting ...
played Ellen Berent Harland
7. Cornel Wilde
Actor | The Greatest Show on Earth
Cornel Wilde was born Kornel Lajos Weisz on October 13, 1912 in Prievidza, Hungary (now part of Slovakia) to a Jewish family. In 1920, he immigrated to New York City with his parents, Rayna (Vid) and Vojtech Béla Weisz, and elder sister, Edith. His family Anglicized their names. Kornel took the ...
played writer Richard Harland
8. Jeanne Crain
Actress | Pinky
Jeanne Crain was born in Barstow, California, on May 25, 1925. The daughter of a high school English teacher and his wife, Jeanne was moved to Los Angeles not long after her birth after her father got another teaching position in that city. While in junior high school, Jeanne played the lead in a ...
played sister Ruth Berent
9. Vincent Price
Actor | The Abominable Dr. Phibes
Actor, raconteur, art collector and connoisseur of haute cuisine are just some of the attributes associated with Vincent Price. He was born Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. in St. Louis, Missouri, to Marguerite Cobb "Daisy" (Wilcox) and Vincent Leonard Price, who was President of the National Candy ...
played jilted lover Russell Quinton
10. Ray Collins
Actor | Citizen Kane
Ray Bidwell Collins was an American actor in film, stage, radio and television. One of his best remembered roles was that of Lt. Arthur Tragg in the long-running series Perry Mason (1957). Collins was born in Sacramento, California, to Lillie Bidwell and William C. Collins, a newspaper drama editor...
played family friend Glen Robie
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