*CANDIDS*

rudyfan · Post by **rudyfan** » January 14th, 2009, 2:40 pm

mongoII wrote:
Errol Flynn & Olivia de Havilland after a go at fencing

All I can say is hubba hubba on Errol in this one. Thanks for so many great photos, as always.

I need to go look up Robert Francis, I neither recall the name nor the face. Sad, so very young.

Edited to add, aha,The Caine Mutiny and The Long Gray Line, I know I've seen him then,it's just been too long since I've watched either film.

charliechaplinfan · January 14th, 2009, 2:48 pm

Yes, lovely picture of Errol.

I can't remember that outfit in Gone With The Wind. Olivia looks so tiny in both pictures.

rudyfan · Post by **rudyfan** » January 14th, 2009, 2:53 pm

charliechaplinfan wrote:Yes, lovely picture of Errol.

I can't remember that outfit in Gone With The Wind. Olivia looks so tiny in both pictures.

Well from the slate it looks like this is from the sequence when Paul Hurst bites the dust. Change of costume I guess since the final film poor Melanie is in a nightgown.

mrsl · Post by **mrsl** » January 14th, 2009, 9:13 pm

Rudyfan must be correct in his assumption of a costume change because Melanie would never wear pants in GWTW.

Robert Francis was the son of Marty's friend and Betsy Palmer in The Long Grey Line. Also, he was just in The Caine Mutiny the other day. Two big movies, both with speaking parts - someone was being groomed for great things. A shame he died so young.

Anne

Moraldo Rubini · Post by **Moraldo Rubini** » January 15th, 2009, 1:05 am

Does anyone recollect Ona Munson in any role other than Belle Watling? This image shows that she photographs well; nice cheekbones and all... I'm wondering if I see her in other movies and it just doesn't click that she's the same gal, or if I've never seen her in anything else. Belle Watling is such a signature for her...

rudyfan · Post by **rudyfan** » January 15th, 2009, 2:00 am

Moraldo Rubini wrote:Does anyone recollect Ona Munson in any role other than Belle Watling? This image shows that she photographs well; nice cheekbones and all... I'm wondering if I see her in other movies and it just doesn't click that she's the same gal, or if I've never seen her in anything else. Belle Watling is such a signature for her...

The bizzare Shanghai Gesture immediately comes to mind.

Garbomaniac · Post by **Garbomaniac** » January 15th, 2009, 2:06 am

Now, THAT is Ona Muson to me! Mother Gin SLing!

Vecchiolarry · Post by **Vecchiolarry** » January 15th, 2009, 9:15 am

Hi Marco,

You must see "The Shanghai Gesture" for her Mother Gin-Sling role!!
A true Dragon Lady performance - even the Dowager Empress Tsu-Hsi would be proud!!!
I always thought she should have been nominated for a Supporting Oscar for Belle and Mother - she stole the scenes she was in.

Ona Munson didn't really make many movies. I believe she was ill most of her life and I remember when she died in the early 50's. She was a good friend of Igor Stravinsky, as was my grandmother, and there had been a sort of revival of "GWTW" at a theater in LA in 1953, so I kenew her from that.

I've always said that powdering her busoms in GWTW alone should have gotten her an Oscar. Man was that sexy!!

Larry

Post by **moira finnie** » January 15th, 2009, 10:05 am

Does anyone recollect Ona Munson in any role other than Belle Watling?

TCM recently broadcast The Cheaters (1945) in which Ona Munson played a plucky actress who, unbeknownst to her, is an heiress. Her role gave her a chance to play a likable, less colorful but engaging character who taught a spoiled rich family how to be generous in spirit. Just the other day, she popped up again on TCM looking very pretty as one of a crowd of students in Dramatic School (1938), which starred Luise Rainer.

She can also be seen in the excellent Five Star Final (1931) as Kitty Carmody, girl reporter, who will do almost anything for a scoop, even if it contributes to destroying a family. This movie is scheduled for broadcast on TCM on Mar. 2nd at 12:30PM ET.

The last film I recall seeing her in was in the interesting Delmer Daves' movie starring Edward G. Robinson, Judith Anderson & Lon McCallister, The Red House (1947). I may be confusing her with another actress in this movie, but I believe that Munson played a small part as someone's neurotic mother, (though all the adults in this movie were neurotic as heck!). This movie is easy to find on video, since I believe it is still in the public domain.

If you go here, you can see Ona singing a couple of songs from a 1931 movie with Ben Lyon called The Hot Heiress with music provided by Rodgers and Hart. Below is a particularly lovely photo of her:

Moraldo Rubini · Post by **Moraldo Rubini** » January 15th, 2009, 10:17 am

Thanks everyone. No wonder I so strongly identify her as Belle Watling: I've seen none of these movies! Much to discover, and I look forward to it. You guys are swell!

feaito · Post by **feaito** » January 15th, 2009, 12:16 pm

Vecchiolarry wrote:Hi Marco,

You must see "The Shanghai Gesture" for her Mother Gin-Sling role!!
A true Dragon Lady performance - even the Dowager Empress Tsu-Hsi would be proud!!!
I always thought she should have been nominated for a Supporting Oscar for Belle and Mother - she stole the scenes she was in.

Ona Munson didn't really make many movies. I believe she was ill most of her life and I remember when she died in the early 50's. She was a good friend of Igor Stravinsky, as was my grandmother, and there had been a sort of revival of "GWTW" at a theater in LA in 1953, so I kenew her from that.

I've always said that powdering her busoms in GWTW alone should have gotten her an Oscar. Man was that sexy!!

Larry

I loved "The Shanghai Gesture" (1941), what a bizarre, decadent, wonderful film. I love the universes and imagery Von Sternberg created for his movies.

And now that you mention Tsu-Hzi Larry, I have always wondered why hasn't anyone tried to bring to the screen Pearl Buck's fantastic Novel about the life of the Dowager Empress: "Imperial Woman". It'd make a grand film!

mongoII · Post by **mongoII** » January 15th, 2009, 2:03 pm

It's such a pleasure to see that the lovely Ona Munson is finally getting some well deserved attention.
I once had her scheduled to appear in the "In the Spotlight" thread but I couldn't locate enough info or images to support the bio.

Sadly,she was plagued by ill-health for the final years of her life, and committed suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills aged 52.
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William Holden & wife Brenda Marshall stand up for Ronald Reagan & Nancy Davis on their wedding day

Hitchcock's first 'Ice Cool Blonde' the beautiful Madeleine Carroll

Unsung character actor Richard Erdman (he is now 82)
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In memory of Ricardo Montalban (1920 - 2009)
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Claudette Colbert getting started in 1926

Ingrid Bergman dines with director Billy Wilder in Rome (1951)

Barbara O'Neil & Luise Rainer with pets during a break on "The Toy Wife" (1938)

Audrey Hepburn with her son Sean in 1969

Mr. Hedison at 81 has aged like a fine wine. He played the original 'Fly' (1958)

Wallace Beery took pride in his private plane which he flew to the studio

Vecchiolarry · Post by **Vecchiolarry** » January 15th, 2009, 2:46 pm

Hi Fernando,

Yes, I agree, the Dowager Empress Tsu-Hsi and her life and her Court would make a wonderful epic. After seeing "55 Days at Peking", I wrote to Samuel Bronston and suggested that he expand her part into another epic.
Today, a Chinese actress named Gong Li could play her wonderfully.....

Pearl Buck's book and Sherman Seagrave's book, "The Dragon Lady" could make a good and balanced sreenplay for a film.

Some Off Topic trivia:
In 1903, the Chinese DE commissioned from Faberge, an egg to be presented to the Russian DE.
It was a yellow enamelled egg laying on its side and a lagre ruby on top. The stand was a prostrate green dragon on its back, holding the egg in its claws, with an orangy-reddish tongue hanging out. When you pressed the ruby, the egg opened to reveal a surprise - a baby dragon emerging from another smaller white egg...
My grandmother saw this egg many times in the Dowager Empresses Audience Chamber in the Anichkov Palace in St. Petersburg, when she was in service to Maria Feodorovna..
This egg is now missing.

My favourite line of Flora Robson as Tsu-Hsi in "55 Days at Peking":
"China is a prosrate cow. You foreigners are not merely content to milk her dry, but now must butcher her!"......

Larry

charliechaplinfan · January 15th, 2009, 3:00 pm

I've just been reading about Maria Feodrovna and other members of the Russian imperial family. Did your grandmother escape with the Dowager Empress?

Wow Larry, I can't believe you know so much about the film world and my other area of interest European royalty especially during that particular period.

I'd love to know a bit more about your grandmother, if you don't feel you'd be repeating yourself.

Vecchiolarry · Post by **Vecchiolarry** » January 15th, 2009, 5:32 pm

Hi Alison,

Most people here know about Nell from the TCM message board.
She doesn't really belong on a movie board but I will start a new thread with the bare bones and expand it if people aren't too bored with more.

Larry

The Silver Screen Oasis

The Silver Screen Oasis

CANDIDS

Ona Munson