Actress Eleanor Parker has died in Palm Springs, CA, on December 9, 2013, at age 91.
Ironically, she passed away on the birthday of her Detective Story co-star, Kirk Douglas -- who turned 97 on this day.
A happy birthday to Kirk, and R.I.P. the beautiful Eleanor.
Damn :\
And I saw the movie for the first time today without knowing it... what a coincidence.
Awesome movie, by the way.
RIP Eleanor and happy birthday Kirk!
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inevertoldyouwhatidoforaliving
I guess it was being shown in honor of Kirk's birthday. The movie is good, though it definitely shows its origins as a stage play.
Eleanor received her second Oscar nomination as Best Actress for her role here. Kirk expected to be nominated too but wasn't. He may have lost out because some Academy voters may have put his name up for his performance that year in Ace in the Hole from the same studio, and the split in votes cost him any nomination. This has often happened.
I'm watching the film now on DVD and I wondered how many of the cast might still be alive, 64 years later. I noticed the coincidence. The only other actor in the film i could find who is still with us is Lee Grant, who was born October 25, 1925 per IMDB, (i'd always heard she was born in 1927 but you know about actresses and their dates o birth), so Lee is 89 as I'm writing this. That's hard to imagine: I remember her as a glamorous woman in her 40's and 50's on TV a lot. The closest any other cast member made it to the present date is Craig Hill, who played the young man who stole form his boss. He died last April 14th at the age of 88.Happy birthday to Kirk who will be 98 tomorrow.
1951 didn't used to be along time ago but it is now.
The past is a series of presents. The present is living history we are privileged to witness
You're right there, schappe1. 1951 was once not so long ago, and I wasn't even alive then. Quite.
Samuel Goldwyn made a movie called I Want You in 1951, examining the impact of the outbreak of the Korean War on several families in a small California town. In the opening narration, over a nighttime shot of the town, star Dana Andrews, after describing the setting, says, "The time seems long ago -- the early summer of the year nineteen-fifty." When the movie was released, that comment was made with some irony -- reflecting how many things had happened in just one year. Now, of course, it is long ago, at least as human affairs are reckoned. Time passes, and suddenly here we are...almost 64 years later.
As I write this it's past midnight on December 9th in New York, so happy birthday Kirk Douglas, now 98. Kirk is also the last survivor of his other (in my view, superior) 1951 film, Ace in the Hole. He's even almost the last survivor of his own Spartacus (1960). I think only John Gavin and Joanna Barnes remain from that movie. On the other hand, he's one of three survivors of 1947's Out of the Past, along with Rhonda Fleming and Dickie Moore. You never know how these things work out.
Nice thread.
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