| I recently read Darry F. Zanuck 20th Century Fox musicals book | |
| Last Edit: PlayWiz 12:58 pm EST 11/04/24 | |
| Posted by: PlayWiz 12:43 pm EST 11/04/24 | |
| In reply to: loved her in guys and Dolls - sc2 11:59 am EST 11/04/24 | |
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| "The Golden Age Musicals of Darryl F. Zanuck: The Gentleman Preferred Blondes" By Bernard F. Dick The author devotes a chapter to Vivian Blaine, who was called the "Cherry Blonde". Basically, the studio focused on one big female musical star at a time reigning supreme: first Shirley Temple, then supporting and overlapping was Alice Faye who was then the top star, then overlapping with Betty Grable, and finally Marilyn Monroe by the time of the end of the studio system. There were other potential ladies in reserve, in case the top stars weren't available or asserted themselves to the dislike of Mr. Zanuck. These ladies sometimes starred or co-starred in films and included over the years, Vivian Blaine, June Haver, Mitzi Gaynor and Sheree North. Of course, Carmen Miranda was a special star in her own right by way of being so singular and distinctive. The men include Don Ameche, Tyrone Power, John Payne, and Caesar Romero, among others. The book says besides making films, his chief interests were sex and horses (as individual interests that is). It otherwise doesn't go into detail about his habit of, in essence, shutting down the studio for an hour every day to basically shtupp willing female contract players, but it does portray him as a very active and creative script shaper who turned out very entertaining films. It's an interesting read which goes into detail about his life and many of the musicals he produced. Most old films (including musicals) that used to be shown on tv years ago (before TCM) tended to be from the MGM library. So it's a real treat to discover the 20th Century Fox films had fabulous Technicolor, a great orchestra, enjoyable talented stars and were, to some extent, more enjoyable, down to earth and less preachy than typical ones from MGM. Of course, I'm not talking about the first-rate MGM ones, but Fox films had many charms of their own. Vivian Blaine, as above pointed out, was one of the first people in the entertainment community to speak out about the ravages of AIDS and appear in a telethon. There's a tv interview with her on youtube with Meredith MacCrae regarding this. Blaine did tons of stage work, and if you look at her wikipedia page and elsewhere, the listing of her stage roles is very impressive. Good to hear from folks who saw her that she really delivered in such a big range of roles. Her Adelaide on the OCR still sets the standard for the role. |
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