by Nathaniel R
Today marks the centennial of another Old Hollywood star that seems to be forgotten these days but perhaps there are fans among you? Born in Missouri on this day in 1920, Virginia Clara Jones hit the Vaudeville circuit as a professional entertainer when she was 17 and adopted the stage name of "Virginia Mayo" even before Hollywood came calling in the early 1940s. Her first credited film role was in the biopic Jack London (1943) starring Michael O'Shea (who she would marry four years later). Though she was a leading lady with many box office hits to her name, enduring classics (mostly) eluded her. Naturally then she's best remembered today in a supporting role as the unfaithful wife in the superb Best Picture winner The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), one of those utterly magic films where every single actor is killing it...
Today marks the centennial of another Old Hollywood star that seems to be forgotten these days but perhaps there are fans among you? Born in Missouri on this day in 1920, Virginia Clara Jones hit the Vaudeville circuit as a professional entertainer when she was 17 and adopted the stage name of "Virginia Mayo" even before Hollywood came calling in the early 1940s. Her first credited film role was in the biopic Jack London (1943) starring Michael O'Shea (who she would marry four years later). Though she was a leading lady with many box office hits to her name, enduring classics (mostly) eluded her. Naturally then she's best remembered today in a supporting role as the unfaithful wife in the superb Best Picture winner The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), one of those utterly magic films where every single actor is killing it...
- 11/30/2020
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
On this day in history as it relates to showbiz...
Stephen Boyd, Sophia Loren, and Alec Guinness in The Fall Of The Roman Empire (1964)
190 BC Marucs Arelius, the Emperor of Rome, dies. Was he assassinated? That's the suspicion in most Hollywood accounts. He's been played by Alec Guiness (The Fall of the Roman Empire) and Richard Harris (Gladiator)
1906 Character actor of big and small screen Michael O'Shea, who later married Virginia Mayo, is born...
Stephen Boyd, Sophia Loren, and Alec Guinness in The Fall Of The Roman Empire (1964)
190 BC Marucs Arelius, the Emperor of Rome, dies. Was he assassinated? That's the suspicion in most Hollywood accounts. He's been played by Alec Guiness (The Fall of the Roman Empire) and Richard Harris (Gladiator)
1906 Character actor of big and small screen Michael O'Shea, who later married Virginia Mayo, is born...
- 3/17/2017
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
Billy Wilder directed Sunset Blvd. with Gloria Swanson and William Holden. Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett movies Below is a list of movies on which Charles Brackett and Billy Wilder worked together as screenwriters, including efforts for which they did not receive screen credit. The Wilder-Brackett screenwriting partnership lasted from 1938 to 1949. During that time, they shared two Academy Awards for their work on The Lost Weekend (1945) and, with D.M. Marshman Jr., Sunset Blvd. (1950). More detailed information further below. Post-split years Billy Wilder would later join forces with screenwriter I.A.L. Diamond in movies such as the classic comedy Some Like It Hot (1959), the Best Picture Oscar winner The Apartment (1960), and One Two Three (1961), notable as James Cagney's last film (until a brief comeback in Milos Forman's Ragtime two decades later). Although some of these movies were quite well received, Wilder's later efforts – which also included The Seven Year Itch...
- 9/16/2015
- by Andre Soares
- Alt Film Guide
DVD Playhouse—May 2009
Paramount Centennial Collection Paramount Studios releases two more classic titles from its library on special edition DVD: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is John Ford’s last masterpiece (although he would go on to direct two more very good films) from 1962: about an Eastern lawyer (James Stewart) who travels west only to find primal brutality in the form of sadistic bandit Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin, great as always) and pragmatic brutality in local rancher Tom Doniphon (John Wayne), each two sides of a coin that represent a way of life slowly dying out as Stewart’s modern brand of civilization tames the West. A perfect film, period. Howard Hawks’ El Dorado is essentially a remake of his earlier classic Rio Bravo, with John Wayne, Robert Mitchum and a young James Caan as lawmen joining forces against corrupt cattle barons. Great fun. Two disc sets.
Paramount Centennial Collection Paramount Studios releases two more classic titles from its library on special edition DVD: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is John Ford’s last masterpiece (although he would go on to direct two more very good films) from 1962: about an Eastern lawyer (James Stewart) who travels west only to find primal brutality in the form of sadistic bandit Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin, great as always) and pragmatic brutality in local rancher Tom Doniphon (John Wayne), each two sides of a coin that represent a way of life slowly dying out as Stewart’s modern brand of civilization tames the West. A perfect film, period. Howard Hawks’ El Dorado is essentially a remake of his earlier classic Rio Bravo, with John Wayne, Robert Mitchum and a young James Caan as lawmen joining forces against corrupt cattle barons. Great fun. Two disc sets.
- 5/12/2009
- by Allen Gardner
- The Hollywood Interview
Actress Virginia Mayo, a former chorus girl who made good as a movie star in the 40s and 50s in such movies as The Best Years of Our Lives and White Heat, died Monday at a nursing home in Thousand Oaks, CA of pneumonia and heart failure; she was 84. The former vaudevillian actress, often described as having the quintessential "peaches and cream" complexion, started her career under the watchful eye of Samuel Goldwyn, who cast her in a small part in the 1943 film Jack London, which starred her soon-to-be-husband Michael O'Shea, whom she married four years later. The "Goldwyn Girl" soon found herself to be a leading lady, opposite Bob Hope no less, in the 1944 film The Princess and the Pirate. Roles in numerous other light comedies followed, primarily opposite comedian Danny Kaye, with whom she appeared in four films, including The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Though known mainly for her comedic talents, Mayo was also adept at drama, and turned in an acclaimed dramatic performance in 1946's The Best Years of Our Lives as the unfaithful wife of Dana Andrews. Moving from MGM to Warner Bros. in the late 40s, Mayo scored another dramatic hit as the wife of James Cagney in the crime drama White Heat. She continued in a wide range of roles throughout the 40s and 50s in movies such as The Flame and the Arrow, Captain Horatio Hornblower, She's Working Her Way Through College, and The Silver Chalice, opposite Paul Newman in his film debut. She retired as the 60s approached, appearing only in a handful of films and rarely, if ever, doing television work. Mayo was married to O'Shea until his death in 1973, and she is survived by their daughter and three grandsons. --Prepared by IMDb staff...
- 1/18/2005
- WENN
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