If TCM Remembered 1981
by TrekFan1 | created - 05 Feb 2021 | updated - 07 Feb 2021 | PublicWhat if Turner Classic Movies was around in 1981? Who would be included in their TCM Remembers tribute at the end of that year? Here are the people I think would make the cut, in alphabetical order.
NOTE: René Clair, Jean Eustache and Abel Gance unfortunately would probably be excluded, much like their fellow French filmmakers Louis Malle and Robert Bresson were in 1995 and 1999, respectively. At the time TCM was apparently more focused on American classic films and their tributes were less inclusive.
For Hoagy Carmichael and Allan Dwan, see If TCM Remembered 1982.
1. Jack Albertson
Actor | Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
A former song-and-dance man and veteran of vaudeville, burlesque and Broadway, Jack Albertson is best known to audiences as "The Man" in the TV series Chico and the Man (1974), for which he won an Emmy. In 1968 Albertson, the brother of actress Mabel Albertson, won the Oscar for Best Supporting ...
Actor
2. Beulah Bondi
Actress | It's a Wonderful Life
Character actress Beulah Bondi was a favorite of directors and audiences and is one of the reasons so many films from the 1930s and 1940s remain so enjoyable, as she was an integral part of many of the ensemble casts (a hallmark of the studio system) of major and/or great films, including The Trail...
Actress
3. Richard Boone
Actor | Have Gun - Will Travel
Richard Allen Boone was born in Los Angeles, California, to Cecile Lillian (Beckerman) and Kirk Etna Boone, a wealthy corporate lawyer. His maternal grandparents were Russian Jewish immigrants, while his father was descended from a brother of frontiersmen Daniel Boone and Squire Boone.
Richard was a...
Actor
4. Paddy Chayefsky
Writer | Marty
Author, producer, and composer who earned a Bachelor of Science degree from CCNY, then a Purple Heart during World War II while serving in the US Army. Joining ASCAP in 1955, his chief musical collaborators included George Bassman and Harry Warren. His popular-song compositions include "Marty" and ...
Screenwriter
5. Bosley Crowther
Self | Grierson
Bosley Crowther was born on July 13, 1905 in Lutherville, Maryland, USA. He was married to Florence Marks. He died on March 7, 1981 in Mount Kisco, New York, USA.
Film Critic
6. Melvyn Douglas
Actor | Being There
Two-time Oscar-winner Melvyn Douglas was one of America's finest actors, and would enjoy cinema immortality if for no other reason than his being the man who made Greta Garbo laugh in Ernst Lubitsch's classic comedy Ninotchka (1939), but he was much, much more.
Melvyn Douglas was born Melvyn Edouard...
Actor
7. Hugo Friedhofer
Composer | The Best Years of Our Lives
Hugo Friedhofer -- how many times have you seen that name in the credits of 1930s and '40s movies for "orchestration" or "musical arranger" and thought -- Gee, what a busy guy! He was, and, ironically, much of that work went uncredited. He is not usually mentioned with the great film composers of ...
Composer
8. Gloria Grahame
Actress | In a Lonely Place
Gloria Grahame Hallward, an acting pupil of her mother (stage actress and teacher Jean Grahame), acted professionally while still in high school. In 1944 Louis B. Mayer saw her on Broadway and gave her an MGM contract under the name Gloria Grahame. Her debut in the title role of Blonde Fever (1944)...
Actress
9. Bill Haley
Soundtrack | Rock Around the Clock
William John Clifton Haley - better known as Bill Haley, leader of the first-ever rock & roll band The Comets - is probably the greatest musical pioneer of the 20th century. He was the first white artist to record a rhythm & blues hit - the 1951 "Rocket 88" for Dave Miller's subsidiary label ...
Musician
10. Ann Harding
Actress | When Ladies Meet
Ann, born Dorothy Gatley, spent most of her childhood as an "army brat" constantly moving around before the family finally settled in New York. Ann first appeared on the stage while she spent a year attending Bryn Mawr College. She became a clerk and freelance script reader with a film company ...
Actress
11. Edith Head
Costume_department | Sabrina
Edith Head was born on October 28, 1897 in San Bernardino, California, USA. She was a costume designer and actress, known for Sabrina (1954), All About Eve (1950) and Roman Holiday (1953). She was married to Wiard Ihnen and Charles Head. She died on October 24, 1981 in Los Angeles, California, USA.
Costume Designer
12. William Holden
Actor | Stalag 17
Billy Wilder proclaimed William Holden to be "the ideal motion picture actor". For almost four decades, the handsome, affable 'Golden Holden' was among Hollywood's most durable and engaging stars. He was born William Franklin Beedle Jr., one of three sons to a high school English teacher, Mary ...
Actor
13. George Jessel
Actor | Lucky Boy
George Jessel gained fame in vaudeville, where it was not uncommon for him--and other performers, such as Al Jolson, Eddie Cantor--to perform in blackface, and in fact at age 11 Jessel was Cantor's vaudeville partner. Jessel acted in several movies in the '30s and became a respected film producer. ...
Comedian
14. Bernard Lee
Actor | Diamonds Are Forever
Best remembered as 'M' in the James Bond films, Bernard Lee was a popular character player in British films throughout the 1950s and 1960s. Born into a theatrical family, he made his stage debut at age six and later attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He first appeared on the West End stage...
Actor
15. Anita Loos
Writer | Gentlemen Prefer Blondes
While she is now best known for her book "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes," Anita Loos was one of Hollywood's foremost early screenwriters. She began writing screen scenarios for the 'Biograph Company' at an early age (though not 12, as she later claimed), and the first to be produced, The New York Hat (...
Writer
16. Frank McHugh
Actor | All Through the Night
The parents of Frank McHugh ran their own stock company and he was on the stage as a child. When he was 10 he was part of an act that include his brother Matt McHugh and sister Kitty McHugh. After vaudeville and other stock companies, Frank debuted on Broadway "The Fall Guy" (1925). In 1930 he was ...
Actor
17. Robert Montgomery
Actor | Night Must Fall
Robert Montgomery was born Henry Montgomery Jr., the elder son of New York businessman Henry Montgomery and his wife, Mary Weed (Barney), a native of Brooklyn, Kings County, New York. Montgomery had a younger brother, Donald. He was not related to Belinda Montgomery.
As a child, he enjoyed a ...
Actor / Director
18. Arthur O'Connell
Actor | Anatomy of a Murder
Though stage, screen and TV veteran Arthur O'Connell was born in New York City (on March 29, 1908), he looked as countrified as the American Gothic painting or Mom's home-made apple pie. Looking much more comfy in overalls than he ever could in a tuxedo, he would find an equally comfortable niche ...
Actor
19. Lotte Reiniger
Director | Silhouetten
Lotte Reiniger was born on June 2, 1899 in Berlin, Germany. She was a director and writer, known for Silhouetten (1936), Der Graf von Carabas (1935) and Lotte Reiniger - The Fairy Tale Films (1961). She was married to Carl Koch. She died on June 19, 1981 in Dettenhausen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.
Director / Animator
TCM has omitted some high-profile international filmmakers in their early years, but I think they would be hard-pressed to ignore a true pioneer like Lotte Reiniger.
20. Karl Struss
Cinematographer | Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
Oscar-winning cinematographer Karl Struss was born on November 30, 1886, in New York City. He became a professional photographer after studying photography with Clarence H. White and became part of the group associated with the great photographer Alfred Stieglitz. His photographs, which he ...
Cinematographer
21. Norman Taurog
Director | The Adventures of Tom Sawyer
A successful child actor (on stage from 1907) and rather less successful romantic lead, baby-faced Norman Taurog found being behind the camera a more rewarding experience. Before becoming a director, he paid his dues as a prop man and editor. By 1919, he was put in charge of two-reel comedies, ...
Director
22. Vera-Ellen
Actress | White Christmas
Vera-Ellen began dancing at the age of 10, and a few years later became one of the youngest Rockettes. She appeared in several Broadway musicals until she was spotted by film producer Samuel Goldwyn in 1945. She was only 24 years old when Goldwyn cast her opposite Danny Kaye in Wonder Man (1945). ...
Dancer / Actress
23. Raoul Walsh
Editor | The Birth of a Nation
Raoul Walsh's 52-year directorial career made him a Hollywood legend. Walsh was also an actor: He appeared in the first version of W. Somerset Maugham's "Rain" renamed Sadie Thompson (1928) opposite Gloria Swanson in the title role. He would have played the Cisco Kid in his own film In Old Arizona ...
Director
Mr. Walsh died too late in 1980 to be included in a hypothetical TCM Remembers for 1980, so he would have instead been featured in this year's tribute.
24. Harry Warren
Soundtrack | The Shape of Water
Harry Warren was born on December 24, 1893 in Brooklyn [now in New York City], New York, USA. He was a composer and actor, known for The Shape of Water (2017), An Affair to Remember (1957) and Sphere (1998). He was married to Josephine Wensler. He died on September 22, 1981 in Los Angeles, ...
Songwriter
25. Natalie Wood
Actress | Rebel Without a Cause
Natalie Wood was an American actress of Russian and Ukrainian descent. She started her career as a child actress and eventually transitioned into teenage roles, young adult roles, and middle-aged roles. She drowned off Catalina Island on November 29, 1981 at age 43.
Wood was born July 20, 1938 in ...
Actress
Wood would have gotten the final spot in the actual tribute, obviously.
26. William Wyler
Director | The Best Years of Our Lives
William Wyler was an American filmmaker who, at the time of his death in 1981, was considered by his peers as second only to John Ford as a master craftsman of cinema. The winner of three Best Director Academy Awards, second again only to Ford's four, Wyler's reputation has unfairly suffered as the...
Director
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