Originally Posted by
Hildaonpluto:
“You really don't rate Elizabeth Taylor do you??!!
I often found her to be mesmerising and enchanting in interviews perhaps when she turned on the "movie star magic" but not a super versatile actress.
Those are some good choices there-Ive never actually seen " My Reputation" so its definitely one to consider for the future.Im assuming everyone associated with that film is long gone? Do you happen to know out of curiosity which cast member outlived all the others or to be more crude died last?”
I liked Taylor when I was kid, in fact I collected photo's of her, and really loved her in Little Women and Father of the Bride. The problem was that she was another spoiled MGM brat, used to getting everything that she wanted, Judy and Lana, as much as I loved them both, were the same. Over indulged, lacking in self discipline, she practically bankrupted 20th Century Fox when she starred in that almighty bore, Cleopatra.
Maggie Smith and Margaret Rutherford acted her and the boring Burton off the screen in The VIP's, and that great old Dame won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar too.
As for Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, I should imagine all the shouting and screaming that went on in that tedious farrago between the pair of them was probably an accurate depiction of an average evening in the Burton household. But because she wore a grey wig and padded her body, that was confused with great acting, and she was given an Oscar. That was when I realised what a total farce the Acadamy Awards are.
She was a perfect example of that old saying, Money can't buy you Class. Decked out in all her diamonds she still looked like a walking Woolworths, while Audrey Hepburn could wear an unadorned little black dress and look like a Million Dollars.
Many of the cast members in My Reputation died before Barbara and Eve Arden, who both died in 1990, Barbara in January, and Eve in November.
Scotty Beckett who played her youngest son, had a particularly tragic end. He along with Dean Stockwell was one of my childhood heroes, and he really was a talented child and teenager. He had played Garbo's son in the 1930's, and Judy's little brother in Listen Darling. He went on to play Al Jolson as a youth in The Jolson Story, and also played opposite the young Liz Taylor, Jane Powell and Piper Laurie. Then suddenly he began to go off the rails, an early marriage failed, and by the mid fifties he was like a one man Hollywood Babylon. Drunken driving, drug addiction, hotel robbery, passing bad cheques, suicide attempts, pistol whipping, wife beating, a jail sentence, and parole violation. You name it, Scotty did it, a drug overdose killed him in 1969 at just 38, a washed up has been that had shown such promise.
Google him, and it is hard to look at that cute fresh faced kid and think of what he became. Incidentally, the fifth photo in the top row is not him, but character actor, Arthur Franz.
There is not much information about Bobby Cooper who played his brother in My Reputation, he appeared in his last film the same year, so he would be in his late 80's now. Ann E Todd, a child actress who added the E to her name so not to be confused with the popular British actress with the same name, seems to be the only other cast member still alive, but at 84, she hasn't acted since 1953.
Incidentally, you can get My Reputation from Amazon for £7.47, or you can watch the original trailer, and many clips on YouTube.
It was actually filmed at Warner's in 1943, before Barbara went to Paramount the following year to star in Double Indemnity. Warner's had such a backlog of films that it wasn't released until 1946, and it was in the top 20 of the biggest hits that year.
Along with Stella Dallas and The Great Man's Lady, it remained one of Barbara's personal favourites.
After Bette Davis saw it, she insisted that German director Curtis Berhardt direct her next film, Stolen Life, which turned out to be one of her best films of the 1940's.
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