1946 - Theater, Film

Theater, Film

Theater: Those Ghosts! (Questi fantasmi!) by Italian playwright Edouardo De Filippo, 46, 1/12 at Rome's Teatro Eliseo; Born Yesterday by Rochester, N.Y.-born playwright-screenwriter-director Garson Kanin, 34, 2/4 at New York's Lyceum Theater, with New York-born actress Judy Holliday (originally Judith Tuvim), 22, Paul Douglas, Gary Merrill, 1,642 perfs.; Santa Cruz by Swiss playwright Max Frisch, 34, 3/7 at Zürich's Schauspielhaus; Beaumarchais, or the Birth of Figaro by Friedrich Wolf 3/8 at Berlin's Deutsches Theater; Whitman Avenue by Wisconsin-born playwright Maxine Wood (Maxine Flora Finsterwald), 36, 6/5 at New York's Cort Theater, with Canada Lee, Vivian Baber in a play about discriminatory housing practices (Margo Jones is the director), 148 perfs.; The Winslow Boy by Terence Rattigan 9/6 at London's Lyric Theatre, with Emlyn Williams, Angela Baddeley, Hugh Beaumont in a story based on the 1908 Archer-Shee case, 215 perfs.; The Iceman Cometh by Eugene O'Neill 10/9 at New York's Martin Beck Theater, with James Barton, Carl Benton Reid, Dudley Digges, 136 perfs.; The Chinese Wall (Die chinesische Mauer) by Max Frisch 10/10 at Zürich's Schauspielhaus; Filomenca Marchurano by Edouardo De Filippo 11/7 at Naples; The Respectful Prostitute (La putain respecteuse) by Jean-Paul Sartre 11/8 at the Théâtre Antoine, Paris; Joan of Lorraine by Maxwell Anderson 11/18 at New York's Alvin Theater, with Ingrid Bergman, Sam Wanamaker as the director of a star playing the role of Joan of Arc (Margo Jones is the real play's director), 201 perfs.; Another Part of the Forest by Lillian Hellman 11/20 at New York's Fulton Theater, with Kentucky-born actress Patricia Neal, 20, Baltimore-born actress Mildred Dunnock, 40, 182 perfs; A Phoenix Too Frequent by English playwright Christopher Fry, 38, 11/20 at London's Arts Theatre, with Paul Scofield, Joan White, 39 perfs.

The American Repertory Theater is founded by actress-director-producer Margaret Webster, now 41, director-producer Cheryl Crawford, now 44, and English actress Eva LeGallienne, but will not survive for long.

Actor Charles Waldron dies at Hollywood, Calif., March 4 at age 71; Philip Merivale at Los Angeles March 12 at age 59; playwright Edward B. Sheldon of a coronary thrombosis at his New York home April 1 at age 60 (almost entirely paralyzed since 1925 and totally blind since 1931, he has remained cheerful to the end); playwright Frederic Hatton dies at Rutland, Ill., April 13 at age 66; actor Lionel Atwill at Pacific Palisades, Calif., April 22 at age 61; Gerhart Hauptmann at Agnetendorf, Silesia, Germany, June 8 at age 83; actress Antoinette Perry of a heart attack at her 510 Park Avenue New York apartment June 28 at age 68 (see Tony Award, 1947); Channing Pollock dies of a cerebral hemorrhage at Shoreham, Long Island, August 17 at age 66; playwright-producer-critic Harley Granville-Barker at Paris August 31 at age 68; actress Laurette Taylor of a coronary thrombosis at her New York home December 7 at age 62; Broadway columnist Damon Runyon of throat cancer at New York December 10 at age 62; melodramatist Lillian Mortimer at Peterburg, Mich., December 18; playwright John Colton at Gainesville, Texas, December 26 at age 60.

Radio: The Bob and Ray Show on Boston's WHDH (daytime) with comedians Robert Brackett "Bob" Elliott, 23, and Raymond Walter "Ray" Goulding, 24, who lampoon popular radio fare with variations such as One Feller's Family; Mr. Trace, Keener than Most Persons; Jack Headstrong, The All-American American; Kindly Mother McGee, The Best Cook in the Neighborhood; and—most notably—Mary Backstayge, Noble Wife, whose characters include Fielding Backstayge ("Harry's long-lost blacksheep brother"), Greg Marlowe ("a young playwright secretly in love with Mary"), Pop Beloved (stage door manager), and neighbor Calvin L. Hoogevin. Bob and Ray will sign off each show with the lines, "Write if you get work," and "And hang by your thumbs."

Talent-show emcee Major Edward L. Bowes dies June 13 at Rumson, N.J., on the eve of his 72nd birthday. He gave up his show in 1943 when earnings dwindled.

Films: Jean Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast with Jean Marais; William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives with Fredric March, Myrna Loy, Teresa Wright, Dana Andrews; Howard Hawks's The Big Sleep with Humphrey Bogart, New York-born actress Lauren Bacall (originally Betty Joan Perske), 21, Ann Arbor, Mich.-born actress Martha Vickers (originally Martha MacVicar), 21; David Lean's Brief Encounter with Trevor Howard, Celia Johnson; David Lean's Great Expectations with John Mills, Valerie Hobson, 29; Sidney Gilliat's Green for Danger with Alastair Sim, 46; Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life with James Stewart, Lionel Barrymore, Thomas Mitchell, Donna Reed; Robert Siodmak's The Killers with New York-born actor Burt (Burton Stephen) Lancaster, 32, North Carolina-born actress Ava Gardner (Lucy Johnson), 23; John Ford's My Darling Clementine with Henry Fonda, Victor Mature, Linda Darnell; Carol Reed's Odd Man Out with James Mason; Roberto Rosselini's Open City with Anna Magnani, 38, Aldo Fabrizi; Tay Garnett's The Postman Always Rings Twice with Lana Turner, John Garfield; Vittorio De Sica's Shoeshine with Rinaldo Smerdoni, Franco Interlenghi; Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's Stairway to Heaven with David Niven, Detroit-born actress Kim Hunter (originally Janet Cole), 23. Also: John Cromwell's Anna and the King of Siam with Irene Dunne, Rex Harrison; Basil Dearden's The Captive Heart with Michael Redgrave; Ernst Lubitsch's Cluny Brown with Charles Boyer, Jennifer Jones; Irving Rapper's Deception with Bette Davis, Claude Rains, Paul Henreid; Claude Autant-Lara's Devil in the Flesh (Le Diable au Corps) with Gérard Philipe, 24, Micheline Presle (originally Micheline Chassagne), 24; Jean Negulesco's Humoresque with Joan Crawford, John Garfield; Zoltan Korda's The Macomber Affair with Gregory Peck, Joan Bennett; Akira Kurosawa's No Regrets for Our Youth; Alfred Hitchcock's Notorious with Cary Grant, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Rains; Edmund Goulding's The Razor's Edge with Tyrone Power, Gene Tierney; Dudley Nichols's Sister Kenny with Rosalind Russell; Wilfred Jackson's and Harve Foster's (animated) Song of the South with Bobby Driscoll, James Baskett, Ruth Warrick; Robert Siodmak's The Spiral Staircase with Omaha-born actress Dorothy (Hackett) McGuire, 28, George Brent, Ethel Barrymore, now 67; Jean Delannoy's La Symphonie Pastorale with Pierre Blanchar, Michele Morgan; Jean Negulesco's Three Strangers with Sydney Greenstreet, Geraldine Fitzgerald, Peter Lorre; Kenji Mizoguchi's Utamaro and His Five Women; Clarence Brown's The Yearling with Gregory Peck, Jane Wyman, Claude Jarman Jr.

Some 90 million Americans go to the movies each week, but right-wing groups condemn films such as The Best Years of Our Lives and It's a Wonderful Life (to say nothing of the 1941 films Citizen Kane, The Devil and Miss Jones, and Meet John Doe) for casting bankers and plutocrats in an unfavorable light (see politics [Hollywood "Black List"], 1947).

The J. Arthur Rank Organisation is incorporated with Rank as chairman (see 1934). Now 57, he will be raised to the peerage in 1957, become president of the company in 1962, and be one of the world's leading film producers and distributors.

Actor George Arliss dies of a bronchial ailment at his native London February 5 at age 77; silent-screen star Mae Busch in a San Fernando Valley, Calif., hospital April 19 at age 74; actor Charles Butterworth crashes his car into a lamp post on Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, June 14, is thrown from the car, and dies at age 46 of a fractured skull; William S. Hart dies at Los Angeles June 23 at age 75 following a stroke; film pioneer Léon Gaumont at Sainte Maxime-sur-mer, France, August 11 at age 82; former Vitagraph girl of silent movie fame Florence Turner at Los Angeles August 20 at age 59; actor Raimu (Jules Muraire) of a heart attack at Paris September 20 at age 63; Donald Meek of leukemia at Hollywood November 18 at age 68; comedian W. C. Fields of heart failure, dropsy, and a liver ailment at Pasadena, Calif., December 25 at age 66.