I hope everybody's having a very happy Cinco de Virginia Mayo!
As blonde bombshells go, Mayo was decidedly un-temptestuous; perhaps it was her essential placidity - her quality of being both bodacious and quotidian, lacking the fragile vulnerability of a Monroe or the flatout crazy quality of a Mansfield - that kept her from become a topmost name. Whatever the reason, she had a fine career and a quiet later life, and that's got to be worth a quick shot of tequila in her memory.
As for us, we're not really the cantina-crawl type; the most I'm lashing out tonight is by roasting up a nice eye-of-the-round (a tough cut that when cooked right turns into butter). The apartment is filled with the scent of roasting garlic, and we've got some nice corn on the cob. Ain't life grand? One of Mayo's big pictures, you know, was The Best Years of Our Lives; sometimes it's good to be reminded that these might just be that.
I don't know if she wasn't choosy enough or the studio just refused to see her as a dramatic actress but she was certainly not given material worthy of her talent. The few times she was given something good, White Heat and The Best Years of Our Lives, she proved more than able.
ReplyDeleteI think Virginia Mayo did quite well for herself. Once Doris Day showed up at Warner's, I think Virginia's days were numbered as a #1 blonde. But at least she was never cast as Marilyn Monroe's mother, like poor Adele Jergens. Now SHE had something to complain about!
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