Actress Virginia Mayo dies ("White Heat," "The Best Years of Our Lives")

Los Angeles Times ^ | Jan. 17, 2005 | LA Times

[MHT]

My Foolish Heart was based on a short story by JD Salinger, the same guy who wrote Catcher in the Rye.

Another really interesting old movie is To Each His Own. I just got it free from the library, after not having seen it for forty years.

Margie was another cute movie. Unfortunately, the videos of those better (although not hugely popular) movies are very expensive if you can find them at all!

[Savage Beast]

Your insights are very good. They penetrate into nuances that I hadn't noticed, and make it all more interesting.

I have not had problems with alcohol--or tobacco; so I'm a bit detached from it all.

I know of the large consumption of alcohol before the 20th century and the anti-alcohol movement that culminated in Prohibition.

It seems to me that with the end of Prohibition, the general population suddenly began consuming alcohol with the reckless zeal of the convert, which, to those who are not converts and never needed to be, seems silly.

There's another Myrna Loy movie--The Thin Man, I think, 1934, in which everybody drinks constantly. Myrna and her husband wake in the night to try to figure out some problem, and the first thing she says is, "Fix me a drink." In the middle of the night?

Then there's an old Lizabeth Scott flick in which she and the man go into a bar for an inportant conversation, and each belts down a few shots of whiskey. Nobody's going to do that today unless you want to get seriously smashed. Certainly not if you want to do some serious problem solving.

And in the old Father of the Bride, with Elizabeth Taylor. The guests come in, and the hose says, "Do you drink?" This seems odd by today's standards. Most people, for a casual evening, would offer the guests whatever they'd like. If it's milk, give them milk; if it's wine, then wine; whatever.

The same was true of cigarettes. They were condemned by the general society until the 20th century, but, once accepted, people smoked with the zeal of converts. There's an old Alice Faye flick from the late '30's, in which, as Alice sings, a chorus of girls behind her sings, dances, and puffs. This is laughable today, and it suggests that at the time, cigarette smoking was shocking, iconoclastic, and sophisticated.

And interesting corollary to this rant is the observation that the oppressive, neo-puritannical Left is the 21st version of this kind of puritanism. It is determined to impose its control on the general population--whether it be banning tobacco use, banning "hate speech", forcing the use of seatbelts, regulating the amount of water toilets and washing machines can use, ridiculous "environmentalist" impositions, the whole concept of "hate crimes", etc., et al.

One can picture latter-day Prohibitionists busting up bars where patrons have been smoking cigarettes--or setting fire to SUV's which--according to their demented minds--"pollute the environment" or forcing someone to sit in a stockade because he uttered "hate speech", today's version of blasphemous utterance.

I suppose there's no escape. One deficiency of representative government is that it allows the stupid to impose their foolishness upon the intelligent.

[Savage Beast]

Wow, Mike! I hope you had presence of mind enough to give her a hug. What a sweetheart!

(I always knew she wasn't anything like that character in Best Years! That's why I was so crazy about her.)

[Savage Beast]

That's one interesting thing about old movies. They're time capsules.

The men fight too. A vestage of the old code duello persisted in American society until the 1940's.

When I was a child, I wondered if, when I grew up, I would be expected to take on drunks in bars, and I wondered if maybe I should be preparing for it somehow.

[sonofatpatcher2]

Re: "And who the hell is George Nader?"

Well, he was one of Rock Hudson's... eh... 'musical' friends, shall we say.

[SAMS]

Really? I did not know that...learn something new every day! Thanks!

[Mike Bates]

Wow, Mike! I hope you had presence of mind enough to give her a hug.

Actually, I think she hugged me goodbye. I always had that effect on older ladies. The problem is, nowadays there are darn few ladies older than I am.

[JellyJam]

Do you mean Rita Hayworth? If so, I wholeheartedly agree - totally beautiful.

[GraceCoolidge]

I agree that the scenes with Fred's father are great... and the actress who plays Hortense is outstanding. Remember when Fred first comes home and she welcomes him in and then grabs Pat's (the father's) liquor bottle and kind of tucks it away?

[GraceCoolidge]

You can tell I've seen this movie many, many times. When I got a DVD player, it was the first movie I bought. There are so many "little moments" in it, along with the big ones.

[Prospero]

Not to get too distracted from your points about the Zeal of the Convert, it's an interesting coincidence that you should mention Lizabeth Scott. I just caught a fee moments of a 1947 film featuring her, Van Heflin, Kirk Douglas and Barbara Stanwick on TCM. Apparently, they're showing a string of noir this afternoon, culminating in Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice.

And, wouldn't you know it, there was plenty of decanters and rolled tobacco being consumed.

Anyway, what is they say about Democracy being "two wolves and a chicken voting on what's for supper?"

As far as the Zeal of the Convert, I found Eric Hoffer's True Believer to be the definitive work on that subject, and mandatory reading for anyone trying to grasp the apparent relationship between the impulse for self-destruction and the Zeal of Converts, particularly with regard to Islam.

There is something altogether disturbing about this all-too-human tendency, which to destroy a perceived irredeemable self. Hoffer described the appeal of National Socialism in Germany better than anyone I've ever read, and he was entirely self-educated. His work was required reading in many American high schools in the 1960's, and is only now back in print after many, many years.

[Mike Bates]

My daughter recently gave me a couple of DVD of Jack Benny's 50s-60s TV show. The programs are still pretty funny, but what really struck me were the commercials, which they left in. One of Jack's sponsors was Lucky Strike, and the ads, which included sophisticated couples blowing smoke in each other's face with the announcer talking about the wonderful freshness and flavor, are so non-PC by today's standards that they're hilarious. To me, anyway.

[Savage Beast]

Another one that's comical by today's standards--I recall having seen in on TV a number of years ago--was Rudolf Valentino making love to a woman in his tent in Arabia as they blow smoke at each other. You can't relax because you're afraid somebody's going to get branded in a kiss attempt.

It must have seemed daring and avant guard to audiences in the 1920's, and it must have seemed to be the ultimate in sophistication. To us today, of course, it's comical.

The petty, trendy, groupthink pseudosophistications of the Left will be similarly silly to future generations and are to the truly sophisticated of today.

One of the most obnoxious things about Leftists is their self-congratulatory pseudosophistication which--to their horror if they but knew the truth--is very unsophisticated.

[rcocean]

I think he was sent to military school.

We only see him in maybe two homecoming scenes - and then poof - he disappears.

I don't think he's even in the wedding scene.

[M. Espinola]

The passing of Hollywood golden age actress Virginia Mayo

Virginia Mayo, the beautiful blonde who rose to movie stardom in the 1940s in comedies opposite Bob Hope, Danny Kaye, in the "The Kid From Brooklyn," "A Song Is Born" and, most notably, "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty."

Miss Mayo had memorable dramatic turns with James Cagney in "White Heat" "Jimmy was the master actor, the most dynamic star the screen ever had," Mayo told the Los Angeles Times in 1981. "His acting was so real that I was really scared half the time we were on the set."

In the 1940s and '50s, Virgina Mayo appeared in more than 40 films. Rising from chorus girl to feature film star almost overnight, Miss Mayo also stared opposite Gregory Peck, George Raft, Ronald Reagan, Rex Harrison, Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, to name a few of the Hollywood giants of the golden era of the big screen.

Her honey blonde hair and creamy, flawless face had made her ideal for Technicolor movies.

She was among many film greats in the multi-Oscar wining post-World War Two movie epic "The Best Years of Our Lives".

Miss Mayo passed away Monday (1-17-05).

She was 84.

-May Miss Mayo Rest In Peace-