Trivia 60

Joanne Woodward in "Rachel, Rachel" (1968). Courtesy IMDB.com

Joanne Gignilliat Trimmier Woodward was born on February 27, 1930, in Thomasville, Georgia, a typical small town in southern Georgia, around ten miles from the Florida border. Growing up in a modest home during the Great Depression, her mother frequently took her to the movies. In her teens, Woodward won many Georgia beauty contests, and enrolled in Louisiana State University, majoring in drama. After graduation and doing small plays, Joanne headed to New York and studied acting.

Soon, Joanne was starring in television productions and theater. One day, she was introduced to another young actor at her level by the then-unknown name of Paul Newman. Paul's first reaction was, "Jeez, what an extraordinarily pretty girl". Joanne, while admitting that he was very good-looking, didn't like him at first sight, but she couldn't resist him. Soon they were working closely together as understudies for the Broadway production of "Picnic." Paul married Joanne in Las Vegas on January 29, 1958, just months before Joanne won her Best Actress Oscar for The Three Faces of Eve (1957).

They both continued on with their careers, doing movies both together and apart, with Newman occasionally sliding into the director's chair, directing her in four films and one TV movie. Woodward, widowed since 2008, makes her home in Westport, Connecticut, where she and Newman raised their daughters and devotes her time to charities.

Paul Newman directing Christopher Plummer and Joanne Woodward in the TV movie "The Shadow Box." Courtesy IMDB.com

Newman & Woodward Filmography

• Rachel, Rachel (1968)
• The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds (1972)
• The Shadow Box (1980) TV Movie
• Harry and Son (1984) Woodward in smaller role as Lily
• The Glass Menagerie (1987)

Frances Louise McDormand was born on June 23, 1957, in Gibson City, Illinois. Where she was adopted by Canadian-born parents. She earned a BA in theater from Bethany College in 1979 and an MFA from Yale University in 1982. Her career after graduation began onstage, and she has retained her association with the theater throughout her career. She soon obtained prominent roles in movies as well, first starring in Blood Simple (1984), in which she worked with future husband and filmmaker Joel Coen, whom she married that year. She frequently collaborated with Joel and his brother, Ethan Coen as writer, later co-director.

McDormand's skilled and versatile acting has been recognized by both the critics and the Academy, and in addition to many critics' awards, she has been nominated for an Academy Award six times - Supporting in Mississippi Burning (1988), Almost Famous (2000), and North Country (2005), - and winning the Best Actress Oscar in the lead role in Fargo (1996), Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017), and Nomadland (2020). She also won a Best Picture Oscar as co-producer of Nomadland. Keenly intelligent and possessed of a sharp wit, McDormand is the antithesis of the Hollywood starlet - rather than making every role about Frances McDormand, she dissolves into the characters she plays.

Frances McDormand and Joel Coen. Courtesy IMDB.com

Frances McDormand and Joel Coen Filmography

• The Tragedy of Macbeth (2021)
• Hail, Caesar! (2016) Co-director Ethan Coen
• Burn After Reading (2008) Co-director Ethan Coen
• The Man Who Wasn't There (2001)
• Fargo (1996) Co-director Ethan Coen
• The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
• Raising Arizona (1987)
• Blood Simple (1984)
• 1991 Barton Fink, Stage Actress (voice, uncredited)
• 1990 Miller's Crossing, Mayor's Secretary (uncredited)

Gena Rowlands as Mabel Longhetti in John Cassavetes "A Woman Under the Influence." Courtesy IMDB.com

Virginia Cathryn "Gena" Rowlands is an American film, stage, and television actress, born June 19, 1930 in Cambria, Wisconsin. Her father was of Welsh descent, her mother with English ancestry. Her career in the entertainment industry has spanned over six decades. A four-time Emmy and two-time Golden Globe winner, she is known for her collaborations with director John Cassavetes in seven films. Earlier she had moved to New York City to study drama at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts where the do-eyed beauty met actor Cassavetes when they were both students. In 1962, Rowlands co-stared with Kirk Douglas as his former lover in her breakout performance in Lonely Are the Brave.

Rowlands and Cassavetes married on April 9, 1954, which lasted until his death on February 3, 1989. They had three children, all actor-directors: Nick, Alexandra, and Zoe. She's also acted beside her husband in the non-Cassavetes directed films: Machine Gun McCain (1969),Two-Minute Warning (1976) and Tempest) (1982), directed by Paul Mazursky. The T-Boy Society of Film and Music recently selected Rowlands for her role as a woman suffering from mental issue in Cassavetes' A Woman Under the Influence as the greatest lead performance in film history. In 2021, The New Yorker stated, The most important and original movie actor of the past half century-plus is Gena Rowlands.

Director John Cassavetes shooting Gena" Rowlands in "A Woman Under the Influence." Photo by Sam Shaw Inc./Le Figaro.

• Love Streams (1984)
• Gloria (1984)
• Opening Night (1984)
• A Woman Under the Influence 1984
• Minnie and Moskowitz 1984
• Faces 1984
• A Child Is Waiting (1963)
• (uncredited) role in Shadows as Woman in Nightclub Audience

Rita Hayworth was born Margarita Carmen Cansino on October 17, 1918, in Brooklyn, New York, into a family of dancers. Her father was from Spain, while her mother was of mostly Irish descent. Rita studied as a dancer in order to follow in her family's footsteps, joining then on stage when she was eight years old, followed by appearing with them in her first film, La Fiesta (1926). The famous red hair was not her natural color (which was brunette). When she was signed a studio contract at Columbia Pictures, studio head Harry Cohn changed her surname to Hayworth and raised her hairline by electrolysis, where she underwent years of painful electrolysis to make it higher. She cemented her image as the definite femme fatale in Gilda, a 1946 film noir directed by Charles Vidor and photographed by Rudolph Maté.

Hayworth married iconic film director Orson Welles in 1943 (divorced in 1948).

Welles cast Hayworth in his landmark film, The Lady from Shanghai. He decided to have her hair cut and bleached, which caused a storm of controversy with many believing it contributed to the film's poor box-office. Today, the film is regarded as a towering cinematic masterpiece. Its hall of mirrors scene among many of the film's highpoints. Welles once revealed that Hayworth detested her father because she suffered from merciless beatings and sexual abuse.

Monica Vitti. Courtesy IMDB.com

Monica Vitti was born on November 3, 1931 in Rome, Lazio, Italy as Maria Luisa Ceciarelli. She is an actress best known for her work with film director and husband, Michelangelo Antonioni in his early-to-mid 1960s films. In 1957 she joined Antonioni's Teatro Nuovo di Milano and dubbed the voice of Dorian Gray in the director'sIl Grido (1957). She played a leading role in Antonioni's internationally praised film L'Avventura (1960), and is also credited with helping Antonioni raise money for the production and sticking with him through daunting location shooting. L'Avventura made Vitti an international star, where her image later appeared on an Italian postage stamp commemorating the film. After working with Antonioni, Vitti changed focus and began making comedies, working with director Mario Monicelli on many films. She has appeared with Marcello Mastroianni, Alain Delon, Richard Harris, Terence Stamp, Michael Caine, and Dirk Bogarde.
Michelangelo Antonioni and Monica Vitti on the set of "Red Desert" (1964). Courtesy IMDB.com

Michelangelo Antonioni and Monica Vitti Filmography

• The Mystery of Oberwald (1980)
• Red Desert (1964)
• L'Eclisse (1962)
• La Notte (1961)
• L'Avventura (1960)