I just looked through the surviving names that I mentioned when you created this thread 2.1/2 years ago.
EIGHTEEN of them have since died, so yes, you are right it probably will get worse next year as most of them are close to 90 or older.

Goodness Walter I hadn't realised it was as high as 18.

How many roughly does that leave from your original list?

In terms of celebrity deaths I'm a bit worried that we are sadly going to lose national treasure Dame Vera Lynn next year as she turns 100 and is apparently very frail

I've got a special place in my heart for Vera as she wrote my late Nan a beautiful letter commending her on her work in the women's land army in world war two. Nan was in very poor health then but really was cheered up by the personal letter and kind words.

She's a very lovely lady in my opinion.

I thoroughly enjoyed the tribute especially as I watched the show from the start in 1960 although it's not as compulsive viewing as it used to be. Cotton and Fizz were certainly surplus to requirements but I did not let them spoil it for me.

There are still 61 left Hilda, but considering that most of them are in their late 80's or older, we are bound to lose many of them in the next few years.

I was fortunate enough to see Dame Vera at the Adelphi theatre in the Strand in 1953 when I was 15 years old. A young Tony Hancock was on the supporting bill. Although the war had been over for 8 years she was still the Forces Sweetheart, and the servicemen in the audience gave her a standing ovation when she made her entrance on stage.

I adore 2001, though I think Kubrick's best films are Paths of Glory and Barry Lyndon.

I've even sat through 2001 with French subtitles, as the NFT could only source a 70mm print from Paris.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/201...organ-obituary

Good Guardian obituary of Michele Morgan.

I hadn't realised she'd starred in a film with Frank Sinatra!

Michele got top billing, Frank third, after Jack Haley, the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz.

RKO films were the first to be shown on the BBC, when we only had two channels, and Higher and Higher has been shown regularly over the past 60 years.

Thank you. Top billing. Impressive.
Where there many other French actresses who had success in Hollywood? Jeanne Moreau? How successful was Danielle I who was on your original list?

I believe Catherine Deneuvues mother was also an actress and is still alive.

This is one area of Classic Movies that I don't know much about. I have never been a big follower of Continental actresses, I only really liked Marlene and Lilli Palmer, and they were probably the only two who made it big in Hollywood, especially Marlene, but she had her Svengali, Joseph Von Sternerg, to help her in the beginning.

Danielle and Jeanne were never as successful as they were in their own country.

Leslie Caron comes to mind and she appeared with Barbara and Joseph Cotton in the 1951 film, The Man With A Cloak. She was discovered by Gene Kelly who cast her in An American In Paris to replace Cyd Charisse who was pregnant at the time.

The Man With A Cloak is not a film I know anything about, I'm sure Walter will have seen it.

Yes, I have seen all of her films except Broadway Nights (1927), her only silent, which I don't think that anyone has ever seen. I have all 87 of her other films, and almost all of her TV shows too.

I saw The Man With a Cloak around Christmas 1951, and it didn't make a great impression on me, but the more you watch it, the better it gets. It is quite a slight story, and with a good director could have been a lot better

Barbara is quite wonderful in her role of a sinister housekeeper, a mixture of a beautiful Mrs Danvers, and Lady Macbeth. Leslie Caron plays a young orphan who comes to the house for help. This is what she had to say about Barbara in her autobiography:

"Stanwyck was a great pro of the old school. She told me that she got up at around 5.30 to get to the studio by 6.30 to go through the vigorous routine of make up and hair, and probably also brushing up on her lines, and getting mentally ready for the business of being a star. She was the first on the set, ready to start work, she never faltered in anything, and never fluffed her lines. She didn't kid around, but stayed concentrated, and in order to stay focused, she knitted, never stopped between scenes. You could see that she's done that throughout her career, because if the set was a little cold, she's wear a hand knitted sweater, each of a different colour.
Her maid came with her on the set, and brought coffee, and anything else that she needed. Stanwyck however was not a bit stuck up, or capricious, just the opposite. She was simple, almost rustic in her manner, straightforward and generous. The crew loved her, and called her "Missy." One day we were playing a scene together, and suddenly she stopped, something actors must never do. It's against the rules for an actor to stop short in the middle of a scene, only the director can say 'cut'. The director Fletcher Markle asked, "What's the trouble?" She answered, "A shadow on the kid's face, I stepped in front of her light."

I have just added some publicity photo's on my Facebook page for Barbara which you can see if you go to this link.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1109278632493201/

Claudette Colbert was French born but her family emigrated to the USA when she was just 3 so I don't think she counts.

I don't know much about Lilli Palmer but I know you adore Marlene! She really was a one off but was she as popular with her acting peers as she was with filmgoers? What would you say was her best film? Would you say her tongue was as sharp a tool as Bette Davis's?


Arr yes How could I forget Leslie Caron! She wrote an autobiography in recent years that received huge plaudits. I wonder what her juiciest tidbits were?!

Marlene was certainly admired for turning her back on Nazi Germany, and doing so much to entertain the allied troops during the war. Bette Davis said that no one worked harder than Marlene at the Hollywood Canteen, she would dance with the soldiers, serve behind the counter, and then go in the kitchen and do the washing up.

She could be quite outspoken, and when she was in a bad mood Noel Coward would refer to her as Madam Hitler. He would also sometimes describe Marlene and Lilli Palmer as "Those two German C###s"

For me, her best performance was in Billy Wilder's Witness For the Prosecution. I am sure the TV version with Kim Cattrall that is being shown over Christmas will be just a pale imitation. Diana Rigg did it in 1982, but even she wasn't as good as Marlene.

I also love her in Hitchcock's Stage Fright, in which Jane Wyman assumes a very convincing cockney accent. it's my favourite Hitchcock film, although no one else seems to know of it.

I haven't read all of Leslie's autobiography, just the bit on Barbara.

Goodness Marlene Dietrich sounds like a real force of nature!

Do you have any particularly good and favourite TV interviews etc of her on Youtube that
you could link me to please?
I can imagine her being mesmerising in interviews.

Marlene was a closed book when it came to interviews, she always had to maintain her carefully constructed image. You will find all about the real Marlene if you look at her daughter's interviews on YouTube.

At 92, Maria Riva is now two years older than her Mother was when she died. She wrote one of the best books that I have ever read about Marlene, in which she describes her childhood and adolescence in fascinating detail. She always refers to her Mother as Dietrich, and as she says, "Dietrich was the queen and we were her courtiers."

So if you want to know about the real Marlene, just take a look at any of Maria's interviews, they really are mesmerising.

Thanks Walter. ☺

Was she estranged from her mother as an adult then Joan Crawford style or was their relationship good and her mother's eccentricity wasn't destructive of the mother daughter relationship?

http://www.newnownext.com/vincent-pr...e-dad/10/2015/

Just came across this on my travels, can't recall reading it before. Unless I'm having a brain fog?!

Daughter of golden era Hollywood star Vincent Price confirms that he was bisexual.

It was a love/hate relationship, but they were always in contact, although Marlene became a virtual recluse in her Paris flat in her last years, and became an alcoholic.

When she realised that she could no longer present that long preserved glamour image to her public, she shut herself away, and was bedridden for her last eleven years.

Joan Crawford was another who became a recluse after she overheard two women talking, "Do you see her? she used to be Joan Crawford."

Sounds like her book will be a brilliant read. Am I right in thinking that Lana Turner did the same thing like this and became a recluse in her later years in order to preserve her glamorous image and the memory of her as that? Think I've rembered that right?

Sadly, Lana suffered from throat cancer in the last few years of her life, but she got out and about. In fact in 1994, just a year before she died she went to San Sebastian to be presented with an award. She was quite wonderful, very dignified, and incredibly brave. You can see it here, but I warn you, you had better have the tissues ready.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5om-dbir0A

That was a very poignant emotional interview especially with the knowledge it was her last interview. Can't be long after that that her health deteriorated and she was unable to appear in public in the way she would want to.
For some reason I imagine her as quite grand and aloof but it's clear from this video that's not the case and that she's very grounded.
Also in a pre botox pre facial filler era she looks very beautiful but without the excessive artifice on the face.

I knew that you would love her Hilda, there are more interviews with Lana on YouTube, including a great one with Joan Rivers.

Lana Turner's wondrous entrance in one of my favourite movies, The Postman Always Rings Twice with the ill fated John Garfield.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGFer3-Aguw

The actor Maximillian Schell made a documentary about Dietrich entitled "Marlene" in 1984. Although constructed from extensive interviews she refused to appear on camera - her voice plays over old film clips.