It's a shame they don't try to record commentaries or at least separate interviews with directors, actors, and so on for films as yet unreleased on DVD, but in anticipation of their eventual release, before such people pass away. TCM's brief interviews, such as the one you mention with Nina Foch, at least go some way toward that end. But they act as if these people will last forever. The more time that passes, the quicker such film greats pass, as the dual losses of Shelley & June in 2006 (and Lehman and Wise in 2005) showed.
But besides Nina, Tim Considine is, as you might guess, still with us, even working, with a film appearance this year. Same with William Phipps, now 85 but also working at least up to a few years ago. But pretty much everyone else seems gone. The IMDb board has no birth/death info on Lucille Knoch, who played Caswell's girlfriend and was in some other 50s films; no credits past the late 50s; still, she might still be alive. Also a woman named Faith Geer, who played the hat check girl at the Stork Club; for some reason I clicked her on and while there are again no birth/death dates, her credit list shows her bit in ES, then nothing until the late 80s, when she began turning up in several films and TV shows, into the early 2000s. According to this list, her second film upon her return after a 34-year absence was none other than "Wall Street". I'll have to check that out. A connection with O. Stone, perchance? Doubt it, but an odd coincidence, especially given the paucity of her film career.
By the way, I'd forgotten but the newsstand guy whom Caswell grabs the papers from before getting into his cab is Gus Schilling, who you may remember played the headwaiter at Dorothy Comingore's night club in "Citizen Kane". His career apparently spiraled down into bits and small parts, but I guess both Orson Welles and John Houseman remembered their old Mercury Theatre player and gave him some work, Houseman in ES and Welles in 1958's "Touch of Evil", which Schilling worked on before his death of a heart attack in 1957, just four days before his 49th birthday.
See you later, and thanks for your great posts, as always.
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18 years ago
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hobnob53
16 years ago
Yes. I posted a thread on this site marking that sad event, as Miss Foch was also Executive Suite's only Oscar nominee.
Harry Shannon was not the only Citizen Kane alumnus in ES. Gus Schilling, who played the headwaiter at Susan Alexander Kane's night club, was the newsstand vendor from whom George Caswell grabs the papers outside his office building before taking the cab to the Stork Club. ("Journal, Post and Telegram" are the papers he got -- from the good old days of multiple newspapers in NYC and the country. Only the Post, such as it is, remains.)
And, of course, director Robert Wise was the film editor on Kane, and producer John Houseman, while not directly involved with CK, was with Orson Welles for a number of years in the Mercury Theatre. Good movie genes.
But Tim Considine is still around, as is William Phipps, who played Bill, William Holden's assistant in the development shop at Tredway.
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