I don't know that it's "peculiar" that Elizabeth Threatt never made another movie; several performers have that distinction (Alicia Rhett in Gone With the Wind, Helen Gahagan in She, Tania Mallet in Goldfinger, Maria Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc, among others). I've read that she auditioned for the role of Alma, the prostitute eventually played by Donna Reed, in From Here to Eternity, but when she didn't get the role she quit Hollywood and went to North Carolina.
I knew a woman, a contemporary of Threatt's, who actually knew her in the late 40s and early 50s when they were both models in New York. This woman (who died 12 years ago, and curiously had the same birthday as Kirk Douglas, December 9) spoke occasionally of the woman she knew as "Betty" Threatt, and said she was breathtakingly beautiful in real life (more than the movie conveys, according to her) but a little "strange" and a loner. Unfortunately I only heard her talk about Threatt a couple of times over the years and never extensively, so I never found out much of substance about her, but it did sound as though Threatt led something of an offbeat lifestyle. So Kirk's claim may be real.
Years ago I read much, but not all, of The Ragman's Son -- and in another coincidence, it was this same woman who gave me her copy to keep -- but the part you speak of is something I missed. I kind of hopped around the book rather than reading it straight through, but I'll dig it out and see if I can find that part.
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angus052394
9 years ago
Did you find the passage I referenced?
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hobnob53
9 years ago
Sorry, no, I never did get to it. I have the book someplace but will have to look around for it.
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Attillio
8 years ago
I read "The Ragman's Son" and remember Kirk Douglas mentioning his romantic relationship with that beautiful actress during the filming of "The Big Sky."
Whenever I've seen the film since reading that autobiography, I think back to those two actors' "unique" relationship. (I wonder if Howard Hawks, Dewey Martin and the rest of the film's cast and crew were aware of what was going on between those two?)
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hobnob53
8 years ago
Probably. Hawks was always looking for a girl he could make a star, usually someone tall, thin and spunky. His one true success was Lauren Bacall.
But Hawks was always jealous of these women, wanted them for himself (for an affair only; he was married) and didn't like it if they got involved with one of the stars, as Bacall did with Bogart on the set of To Have and Have Not. John Ireland always claimed Hawks cut down his screen time in the two years between the filming of Red River in 1946 and its release in 1948, in retaliation for Ireland becoming involved with (and eventually marrying) leading lady Joanne Dru, whom Hawks had had his eye on.
Elizabeth Threatt was exactly the "type" of woman Hawks found most attractive and I have no idea whether he ever slept with her, but clearly Kirk's affair with her would have derailed his ambitions in that direction. That may be one reason why he never worked with Douglas again, even though Kirk was known to go after most of his leading ladies. While Hawks worked several times with actors he liked (especially John Wayne and Cary Grant, his favorite) he seldom cast the same actresses more than once. Whether that had to do with his having been frustrated in pursuing them romantically no one can say. Elizabeth Threatt never appeared in another movie (she tried unsuccessfully for the role of Alma in From Here to Eternity but lost out to Donna Reed, then quit Hollywood and went home to North Carolina), but Hawks doesn't seem to have done anything to thwart her career. He originally wanted Margaret Sheridan to star in Red River, but then she suddenly married and got pregnant and had to withdraw. Even so, Hawks, though disappointed, said he'd cast her in a lead some day -- and did, in The Thing From Another World in 1951. But she was never much interested in a movie career and did only a few movies; her last was an unbilled bit -- for Hawks -- in Man's Favorite Sport? in 1964. Hawks always thought she could have been a big star but he never held her reluctance to get into the business against her.
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Attillio
8 years ago
Hobnob53,
I did not know about that incident involving John Ireland and JoAnne Dru. Although, I read in a biography of Howard Hawks, that Lauren Bacall did not return Hawks' amorous advances (much to the great director's deep regret, no doubt).
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hobnob53
8 years ago
Quite true, Attillio. Hawks was a bit of a lech, and when he found a girl he liked and gave a break to, he seems to have expected "something" in return. Bogart was too big for him to do anything to after he got involved with Bacall, but John Ireland was a lesser star and an easier target.
Hawks seems to have had designs on Margaret Sheridan too, but she married an officer just returned from the war, so there was nothing Hawks could do there, which may also be why he was more gracious about her than some others.
Still, he's one of my two or three favorite directors.
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