Monday, November 26, 2012

Accept No Substitutes


So.  I hear people have been talking about her a little this weekend.  That certainly wouldn't surprise her, although the low-rent context might - that was one thing she never was.

And God knows, she was many things.  Star - no, for her it can be said: superstar.  Beauty, at moments nearly unparalled.  Actress, and at times a damn good one.  Bonne vivante, gourmande, and acolyte of excess in almost every conceivable form. Wife (also at times a good one), mother, grandmother, philanthropist, activist, author, entrepreneur (few in Hollywood died richer).  Child, girl, woman, old woman, all in the very middle of the public eye.

All I have to say about this latest assault on her legend is to echo what another Hollywood survivor, Mr. Bugs Bunny, might have said:  da noive.

This impertinent attempt does conjure up one question:  has there ever been a really satisfactory incarnation on film of a film legend?  The only one that springs to my feeble mind is Betty Comden in Garbo Talks, and she was given only the (daunting) task of impersonating the star's back.  I know that Blanchett won an Oscar for her Hepburn, but I found it vaguely embarrassing, a party trick at best (and not, in the end, all that precise an impression).  Downey's Chaplin is close, I suppose, but the movie was all over the place, and after that it's kind of a yawning void - Mr. Barbra Streisand and An Unmarried Woman were hardly a satisfactory Gable and Lombard, and Dunaway as Crawford strays perilously close to Lizanddickland.  In the sixties, there were two attempts at Harlow, both flops (deservedly), and more recently Kirsten Dunst as a pretty blonde called Marion Davies, but nothing like the original in manner or looks.

One thing the last twenty-four hours have taught us:  when it comes to a force of nature like Elizabeth Rosemond Taylor Hilton Wilding Todd Fisher Burton Burton Warner Fortensky, Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire and Chevalière de la Légion d'Honneur (among countless other gongs, two Oscars not the least of them) - the viewing public would have been a lot better off, last night, watching BUtterfield 8.

11 comments:

  1. How about Alice Faye as Mabel Normand? ;)

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    1. This was in "Hollywood Cavalcade" (with Don Ameche -- who else? -- as Mack Sennett).

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    2. Oh, you know me, Peter - I won't have a word said against Miss Faye. Mabel suited her just about as much as Harlow, whom she was forced to more or less impersonate in her first half-dozen pictures.

      Do you suppose there's ever been an Alice Faye impersonator? That could be a fun act, even if about six people in the world would get it...

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    3. That is my dream, actually -- no joke. She's one of my favorite vocalists.

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  2. i rewatched garbo talks earlier this year.
    you're right, betty was astounding.

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  3. and i'll say it here first.....

    no one has ever queried as to why normadesmond's accompanying photo/ avatar(?) is elizabeth. i simply couldn't choose between them, so i chose both.

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    1. OMG, I thought that was Jackie Stallone! I'm so sorry...

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  4. But wasn't Cary Grant a perfect Cole Porter in Night and Day? Practically twins.

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  5. No-one could do Bette (apart from Bette) better than Charles Pierce... Jx

    PS No-one - but NO-ONE - can do Dame Liz!

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  6. You're quite right, Jon - no one does the great ladies like the boys: Pierce as Davis (and Bankhead, and West, and...), Jim Bailey as Garland, Randy Roberts as Cher, Jimmy James as Marilyn (back in the day, a stunning performance).

    In the meantime, I have remembered one quite respectable portrayal of a star by a performer of the same gender: Judy Davis as Garland in Me and My Shadows - a fine impersonation in the context of extraordinarily good acting. That's a rare combo - just ask Miss Dunaway.

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