Just ran across this neat article from back in February and had to share it, from http://nypost.com/2016/02/17/meet-the-92-year-old-actress-recluse-who-once-starred-with-bogart/
Interesting. She seemed to disappear off the face of the earth yet she was in an apartment in New York all the time.
"Chicken soup - with a *beep* straw."
Yeah, I thought so, too. I was a bit skeptical at first I must admit but the more I read hither and yon, the more sense it made - especially the part about "Thou Shalt Not Piss Off Jack Warner!"
I remember Mason Reese from television adverts way back in the Stone Age.
I notice she is not credited either for her role even though it is fairly significant, and more so than some of the credited roles. I wonder if she did not put out for Warner, Hawks, both or someone else and this was the reprisal? I don't know how important the "casting couch" was then, or is now.
"Chicken soup - with a *beep* straw."
According to her (and as I say, in a way this makes perfect sense) her agent at the time simply pissed off the wrong person - old J. L. himself:
“My agent had gotten into some kind of argument with [studio chief] Jack Warner, and Warner was so infuriated that he told the agent he was never to come on the lot again and he wouldn’t use any of his clients," she says. “Warner couldn’t cut me out of the movie, but he could get even with my agent. That was unheard of, to be featured in a movie and not even be listed."
Thanks for sharing the link (though I feel a bit soiled reading the NYP). This was quite interesting. I always thought Darrin was very good here and, as did others, wondered why she did not get screen credit for a very prominent part and seemed to have vanished soon after. Now we know.
shareI actually had the same reaction when I first read it (Oh please, not the Post!) but as you say, at least now we know. Funny thing is that I remember seeing her son on television ages ago in advertisements for stuff like Underwood Deviled Ham and so forth. Never put the two together though until I ran across that.
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