Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
2 appearances
A star of Hollywood movies and of the New York and London stage.
On the island
Eight records
I love the whole Gershwin songbook that uh that Ella recorded and that has always been one of my most favorite Gershwin songs. I love the way she does it.
Piano Concerto No. 2 in C minor, Op. 18
Because I'll it's just beautiful.
Ages of ManFavourite
Because I have seen the production of Ages of Man, I saw it several times, because I love John Gielgud on the stage and personally. And because it's it is a record of such variety that on that island. I could go from youth to middle age to old age and I could let my imagination run wild.
Violin Concerto in D major, Op. 77
Played by Isaac Stern, a friend of mine.
Noël Coward and Gertrude Lawrence
I think it's such fun. I mean, I love the whole record, but I just think that is uh just terrific fun. And I I knew Noel very well. He was a good friend of mine. And I uh I just love to hear him do it.
La bohème: O soave fanciulla (The Love Duet)
Plácido Domingo and Montserrat Caballé
And you can hardly do better than that.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:43How important is music to you?
Oh, well music is very important.
Presenter asks
1:55Can you track [your desire to act] back to any particular event?
No. I I don't consider myself a Brooklyn girl, funnily enough. I lived there for five years, but I was brought up in New York, uh, in Manhattan. And I cannot track it back to anything except that it seems to me that as long as I can remember. I guess I wanted to be something that I wasn't.
Presenter asks
3:33When you left [the American Academy of Dramatic Art], were there any jobs going?
Um, well, no. I mean, I was hoping they'd give me a scholarship, but they needed they needed young men more than they needed girls, so they, uh they gave the scholarships to the males, I'm afraid. Um no, I just started to to look for work and then I went went into modeling because I had modelling on Seventh Avenue because I had to make some kind of money.
Presenter asks
The keepsakes
The book
John Cheever
I think as of this moment I would probably choose the stories of John Cheever [because] it's a wonderful, I mean, great cross-section of twenty years or thirty years of his writing.
The luxury
I thought some suntan lotion. Of course. I mean, overexposure, we know, is bad. It'd have to be a very large bottle, though.
What was the first time you walked a stage professionally?
Uh in a play called Johnny Two by Four. In which I had what I called an outstanding walk-on. I mean, to anyone else, a walk-on is a walk-on, but to me, if you walked on the stage in three acts, which I did, each of the three acts, To me that was outstanding'cause I was given extra stuff to do.
Presenter asks
8:53Was there a long process of grooming and teeth straightening and all the rest of the shenanigans [at Warner Brothers]?
No, when I went for my test for my contract, of course, I was taken to Perce Westmore at Warner Brothers, and Perce Westmore sat me down in front of a mirror and looked at me and said, Well, now if we tweeze your eyebrows, make a thin line like Dietrich's, then we straighten your teeth, then we do something with your hairline. I thought, Oh, I was panic stricken, rushed to the phone to call Hawkes, said, Oh, they're going to change everything. Please, please come down, help, help. And he came down and he said, No, Perce, leave her just as she is. I want the crooked eyebrows, I want the crooked teeth, the crooked hair, the crooked everything.
Presenter asks
13:22Did you find the great Jack Warner... a very difficult man?
I found him very difficult and not great.
“I guess I wanted to be something that I wasn't.”
“I was just determined that I was going to be noticed as I was going in and out of those producers' offices, pounding pavements, looking for work.”
“I stayed on for Oh, I guess just under two years, and then I really couldn't hack it any more. I mean, I just didn't feel that I belonged there any more.”