News

Betta St. John, who portrayed the lovely island girl Liat in the original Broadway production of South Pacific and starred as a princess alongside Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr in the MGM romantic comedy Dream Wife, has died. She was 93.

St. John died June 23 of natural causes at an assisted living facility in Brighton, England, her son, TV producer Roger Grant, told The Hollywood Reporter.

The California native played one of the survivors of an airline crash, who is chased by a crocodile in Tarzan and the Lost Safari (1957) — the first Tarzan film in 15 years and the first one in color — and then returned for Tarzan the Magnificent (1960). Both films starred Gordon Scott as the King of the Jungle.

St. John also starred with Stewart Granger, Ann Blyth and Robert Taylor in All the Brothers Were Valiant (1953); with Victor Mature, Piper Laurie and Vincent Price in the 3-D adventure Dangerous...

facebook

twitter

google+

You sign up for a movie. You drop out. Then the lawsuit follows...

It happens all the time. The casting of movies is such a perilous art, that actors and actresses sign up for roles, and then they're chopped and changed. Rarely does it end up anywhere near a courtroom.

Yet sometimes it does. Here are nine varied instances where someone leaving a project led to legalities ensuing...

1. Kim Basinger - Boxing Helena

I may as well start with one of the most infamous cases of an actress dropping out of a film to which they'd apparently agreed.

Director Jennifer Lynch originally had Madonna pegged to take the lead in her debut feature, Boxing Helena. The story of a woman who has her limbs removed and is kept in a box (it's as charming as it sounds), the role was then offered to Kim Basinger when Madonna passed.

Ann Blyth movies: TCM schedule on August 16, 2013 (photo: ‘Our Very Own’ stars Ann Blyth and Farley Granger) See previous post: "Ann Blyth Today: Light Singing and Heavy Drama on TCM." 3:00 Am One Minute To Zero (1952). Director: Tay Garnett. Cast: Robert Mitchum, Ann Blyth, William Talman. Bw-106 mins. 5:00 Am All The Brothers Were Valiant (1953). Director: Richard Thorpe. Cast: Robert Taylor, Stewart Granger, Ann Blyth. C-95 mins. 6:45 Am The King’S Thief (1955). Director: Robert Z. Leonard. Cast: Ann Blyth, Edmund Purdom, David Niven. C-79 mins. Letterbox Format. 8:15 Am Rose Marie (1954). Director: Mervyn LeRoy. Cast: Ann Blyth, Howard Keel, Fernando Lamas. C-104 mins. Letterbox Format. 10:00 Am The Great Caruso (1951). Director: Richard Thorpe. Cast: Mario Lanza, Ann Blyth, Dorothy Kirsten, Jarmila Novotna, Richard Hageman, Carl Benton Reid, Eduard Franz, Ludwig Donath, Alan Napier, Pál Jávor, Carl Milletaire, Shepard Menken, Vincent Renno, Nestor Paiva, Peter Price, Mario Siletti, Angela Clarke,...

Linda Christian, international actress and Tyrone Power's second wife, died Friday (July 22) in Palm Springs, California. Christian, who was 87, had been suffering from colon cancer. Linda Christian was born Blanca Rosa Henrietta Stella Welter Vorhauer on November 13, 1923, in Tampico, Mexico, to a Dutch oil executive and his German-Mexican wife. As a young girl, she traveled the world with her parents, according to reports eventually becoming fluent in seven languages. Discovered by Errol Flynn while in Acapulco, Christian moved to Los Angeles where she began her film career in bit parts in Hollywood movies of the mid-1940s. Labeled "The Anatomic Bomb" by Life magazine, Christian eventually progressed to supporting roles in a handful of productions, among them Robert Florey's Tarzan and the Mermaids (1948) and Richard Fleischer's The Happy Time (1952). Leading roles, however, eluded her, while a reported seven-year MGM contract led nowhere. Though the first Bond girl...

Ann Blyth, who received a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination for the film noir Mildred Pierce (1945), is pictured above during a discussion following a screening of the Joan Crawford classic at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater in Beverly Hills on Monday, June 14, 2010. Mildred Pierce was shown as part of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ "Oscar Noir" series. In the movie, Blyth plays Mildred Pierce’s conniving, selfish daughter. Crawford plays Mildred. A Universal contract player in the 1940s and an MGM contractee in the ’50s, Blyth appeared in about three dozen movies from 1944 to 1957. In addition to Mildred Pierce, Blyth’s other important movies include A Woman’s Vengeance (1947), Brute Force (1947), Another Part of the Forest (1948), The Great Caruso (1951), All the Brothers Were Valiant (1953), The Student Prince (1954), and The Helen Morgan Story [...]...

Variety reports that veteran actor Edmund Purdom, star of numerous Eurohorror features, passed away January 1 in Rome. He died of natural causes, at age 85.

Originally a stage actor who was part of Laurence Olivier’s company, Purdom traveled with Olivier to Hollywood in the ’50s, where he had leads and key supporting roles in the likes of The Student Prince, Julius Caesar and The Egyptian. Later in the decade, he moved to Italy and began a long career in European features, including numerous actioners, Westerns and horror films. Among the latter were Luigi Bazzoni’s 1971 giallo The Fifth Cord, Paolo Lombardo’s The Devil’S Lover (1972), Jess Franco’s The Sinister Eyes Of Dr. Orloff (1973), Dick Randall’s Frankenstein’S Castle Of Freaks (1974), Massimo Dallamano’s Night Child a.k.a. The Cursed Medallion (1975), Joe D’Amato’s The Monster Hunter a.k.a. Absurd and Anthropophagus 2 (1981), Neri Parenti’s 1985 horror/comedy Fracchia Vs.

British character actor famed for his roles in The Student Prince and The Egyptian

It was the sad fate of the actor Edmund Purdom, who has died aged 84, that the best known of his films, The Student Prince (1954), is remembered more for the star who wasn't in it. After the temperamental tenor Mario Lanza was fired from the film, the non-singing unknown Purdom replaced him. Luckily for MGM, Lanza had recorded the songs for the CinemaScope production before shooting began. Thus his voice is heard bellowing incongruously out of the slender frame of Purdom.

Purdom's reputation as a surrogate is underlined by the fact that he got his first chance of stardom when he replaced Marlon Brando in The Egyptian (1954) after Brando wisely cried off, preferring to play Napoleon in Desirée instead. In addition, Purdom was married to Linda Christian, better known as Tyrone Power's first wife.

Continue reading.