Seven Things to Know About Eva Gabor

Embed from Getty Images 1. Contrary to their uncanny resemblance, Eva and Zsa Zsa Gabor are not twins. Eva was two years younger than Zsa Zsa and four years younger than sister Magda. In a 1990 Los Angeles Times article, Eva said that Zsa Zsa was considered the "beauty" in the family and Magda was the "smart sister." As for herself, she sighed: "And while I was the ugly duckling, they used to say I had personality."

2. She was chairperson of the board of Eva Gabor International, one of the largest wig-makers in the world. She started the company in 1972. According to her publicist, her appearances on the Home Shopping Network broke sales records. And, yes, one of the wigs looked like her own blonde curls.

Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor.

3. Eva Gabor called playing the role of Lisa Douglas "the best six years of my life...I adored every minute of it." Of course, there was a good deal of Eva in her TV character. When Eva met President Lyndon B. Johnson in real life, she replied: "Hello, Mr. President, darling."

4. Eva was married five times, although she once said she was married "4 1/2 times, because one was on the rebound." Her longest marriage was 13 years to fourth husband, textile millionaire Richard Brown. Although they had known each other for nine months, they decided to get married two hours after Richard proposed. It was such short notice that neither of Eva's sisters could attend. Red Buttons gave away the 33-year-old bride and the wedding took place at the Hotel Flamingo in Las Vegas. After her last marriage ended in divorce in 1983, Eva became the frequent companion of Merv Griffin. She once said of him: "We’ve never been lovers, but we are great, great friends."

5. In a 1990 interview in the Chicago Tribune, she said of her role as a mother: "The other day I was having dinner with Merv and a couple of people, and we were talking about children, and I said, 'Well, my stepchildren love me more than my own.' And Merv said, 'But you don`t have any children of your own,' and I said, 'I don't?'" (Indeed, Eva Gabor never had any children.)

6. Following the cancellation of Green Acres, Eva Gabor only made sporadic appearances in the entertainment field. She was a panelist on The Match Game for a year. She played a matchmaker in a pilot for a TV series in 1990 called Close Encounters, but the show wasn't picked up. She teamed up with Eddie Albert again in the made-for-TV movie Return to Green Acres (1990). Eva and Eddie Albert had previously reunited on Broadway in 1983 in a revival of You Can't Take It With You.

7. In 1995, Eva Gabor broke her hip while traveling in Mexico. When she was admitted to a hospital in Los Angeles, she was found to also be suffering from pneumonia. She died from respiratory failure on July 4th. Both her sisters survived her.

The Longest Yard: "It's just a game."

I'm sure many critics would opt for Deliverance, but I'd rate Burt Reynolds' performance in The Longest Yard as his best. That opinion was just confirmed when I watched that 1974 football-in-prison film for probably the fifth time. It still holds up remarkably well despite running just over two hours and with a climatic game that takes up an amazing 42 minutes of the running time.

Burt plays Paul "Wrecking" Crewe, a washed-up pro football quarterback wasting away his life and living off a wealthy lady who has no interest in his mind. When he suddenly decides to rebel, she tries to stop him--only to be slapped and thrown to the floor (a scene that still shocks in its unexpected violence). He steals an expensive sports car, eludes the cops in a high-speed chase, and dumps the car in a river. When confronted by two police officers, he makes jokes at their expense and ends up in a fight. It's no surprise that he winds up in the Citrus State Prison for 2-5 years (18 months with good behavior).

A mean Eddie Albert.

Warden Rudolph Hazen (Eddie Albert) wants Crewe to help coach his semi-pro football team, consisting of prison guards, to a national title. For his own safety. Crewe declines. However, he makes a deal with Hazen later by agreeing to assemble a team comprised of prisoners as a "warm up" for the prison guards. Along the way, the self-centered, cocky Crewe learns a lot about his fellow inmates and, of course, even more about himself.

As some of you may know, I'm a sucker for a "let's form a team" plot and The Longest Yard doesn't disappoint on that front as Crewe and newfound friend Caretaker (James Hampton) try to form a ragtag football team. Most of their recruits just want to inflict some reciprocal pain on the cruel prison guards. But for others, it's an opportunity to regain self-respect or even recapture some sports glory from the past. Initially, Crewe considers it "just a game," but it becomes much more--especially after an inmate is viciously murdered.

Burt Reynolds displays plenty of his megawatt bad boy charm in The Longest Yard, but there's an edge here, a toughness, that's missing from later performances. He seems fully committed to his role, which is best captured in the prison scene where his trademark 1970s mustache is shaved off by a sneering guard.

It's hard to imagine a better supporting cast for a film like this. Eddie Albert puts aside his good guy image to play the unpleasant warden. Bernadette Peters has two brief, but delightful scenes, as an amorous secretary with Bride of Frankenstein hair. James Hampton, known for playing bugler Dobbs on F Troop, gives a career-best performance as Caretaker, a crafty sort who can smuggle anything into the prison. And 7' 2" Richard Kiel (Jaws in two Bond films) is hilarious as a surprisingly sensitive thug and gets one of the film's best remembered lines (though we won't reprint the colorful language here).

Bernadette Peters and hair.

There are plenty of former real-life pro football stars, too, to include: Mike Henry, Joe Kapp, Ray Nitschke, Pervis Atkins, Ernie Wheelwright, and Sonny Sixkiller. Henry, who played Tarzan in three 1960s pictures, would co-star with Reynolds again in the first two Smokey and the Bandit movies (and in the third one without Burt).

Sometimes crude and violent, The Longest Yard may not appeal to all viewers, but it's a well-crafted gritty sports film peppered with humor. It reminded me how good Burt Reynolds could be when he made the effort. It also made me realize that Robert Aldrich must have been one of the underappreciated directors of the 1950s through 1970s. His filmography includes such classics as Kiss Me Deadly, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?, The Dirty Dozen, and The Flight of the Phoenix.

Let's Go to Witch Mountain!

Ike Eisenmann and Kim Richards.

Newcomers Tony and his sister Tia don't blend in with the other children at the Pine Woods orphanage. That will happen when you have telepathic, telekinetic, and clairvoyant powers. The two siblings try to hide their extrasensory abilities, although Tony obviously has trouble doing so.

When he and Tia save the mysterious Mr. Deranian from a car accident, the man appears at the orphanage claiming the children are his long-lost niece and nephew. Tony and Tia can't dispute Deranian's story, because they can't remember their early childhood (although Tia has occasional visions of almost drowning).

After providing forged legal documents, Deranian adopts the siblings and moves them into the mansion of his employer, Aristotle Bolt. It quickly becomes evident that Bolt intends to use the children's powers for his own benefit. Meanwhile, Tia discovers a map that may provide the answer to her and Tony's origins.

The paranormal kids and normal Eddie Albert.

Escape to Witch Mountain (1975) is one of the best Disney live action films of the 1970s, For the most part, the decade was not kind to the family-friendly film company. It struggled with big-budgeted flops like Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) as well as more reasonably priced pictures (e.g., 1973's One Little Indian) that failed to find an audience. Heck, even Fred MacMurray--once one of Disney's most bankable stars--couldn't make a hit out of Charley and the Angel (1973).

Escape to Witch Mountain benefits from a well-plotted story and a good cast. The former can be attributed to Alexander H. Keys' 1968 science fiction novel. The film's screenplay simplifies Key's book and makes some substantial changes. For example, in the novel, Tia is mute and communicates with Tony only through telepathy. However, the film still retains the central mystery of the children's origin and the mysterious map leading to Witch Mountain.

An adult Kim Richards.

A persuasive cast carries the film nicely, particularly the always reliable Donald Pleasance as Deranian and Eddie Albert as a cynical widower that ends up helping Tia and Tony. Unfortunately, Ray Milland is wasted as the one-note villain. As for the kids, Kim Richards (Tia) comes across as a more natural performer than Ike Eisenmann (Tony). Richards was a busy child actor, having co-starred as Prudence in the 1970-71 TV series Nanny and the Professor. And--before you can ask--yes, she grew up to be the same Kim Richards that gained notoriety on the reality TV series The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

Lee and Davis as the baddies.

Despite a solid showing at the box office, Disney waited three years to mount the sequel Return from Witch Mountain (1978). It reunited Richards and Eisenmann as the paranormal youths, but unwisely omitted Eddie Albert. Christopher Lee and Bette Davis (in one of her worst later roles) star as the villains. There's practically no plot with the emphasis being on an increased number of cheap-looking special effects.

In 1982, Disney produced a busted TV pilot called Beyond Witch Mountain, which starred Eddie Albert and featured Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. as Bolt. In 1995, Disney remade the original as a made-for-TV film with Robert Vaughn as Bolt. This time, the kids were named Danny and Anna and were helped by a young waitress.

Finally, in 2009, Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson headlined Race to Witch Mountain, playing a Las Vegas cabbie that befriends two unusual siblings named Sara and Seth. Kim Richards and Ike Eisenmann had cameos as, respectively, a waitress and a sheriff.

Go West, Eddie Albert!

Eddie Albert as Daniel Bone.

I fully expected The Dude Goes West (1948) to be a knock-off of Bob Hope's Paleface movies. To my surprise, it turned to be a bright, original Western comedy that opts for clever humor instead of broad gags.

Eddie Albert stars as a Daniel Bone, a Brooklyn gunsmith who decides to relocate out West so he can grow his business. His destination is the dubiously-titled Arsenic City, which we later learn is overrun by notorious badmen like the Pecos Kid and Texas Jack Barton. Daniel may be a tenderfoot, but he is also a "great reader" and his book knowledge will come in handy during his frontier adventures.

Gale Storm as Liza Crockett.

During his almost Ozian journey to Arsenic City, Daniel befriends several people who will play a significant role in his exploits: A grizzled cowboy (James Gleason) with a fondness for playing poker; Texas (Barton MacLane), a distrusting cowpoke with a mysterious bullet in his leg; and a whole tribe of Paiute Indians. He also falls for a young woman (Gale Storm), a fellow Easterner trying to locate her dead father's gold mine. Of course, the Pecos Kid (Gilbert Roland) and tough, cigar-smoking saloon owner Kiki Kelly (Binnie Barnes) also aim to stake a claim to that goldmine.

Veteran character actor James Gleason.

Veterans like Gleason and MacLane excel in their well-written parts, but it's Eddie Albert that claims the spotlight. Despite a long acting career dating back to the 1939 comedy Brother Rat, Albert never achieved stardom as a lead actor. Still, he earned Best Supporting Actor nominations for Roman Holiday (1953) and The Heartbreak Kid (1972) and became a legitimate TV star in Green Acres (1965-71) and later Switch (1975-78). He's at his best as the resourceful, determined gunsmith in The Dude Goes West.

Jock Mahoney as Yancy.

Naturally, it helps when you have a fine script courtesy of the husband-and-wife team of Richard Sale and Mary Loos (niece of Anita Loos). Instead of one-liners, they opt for situational humor. The film's funniest scene may be the one in which Texas learns that Daniel is a sharpshooter. When the outlaw marvels how a greenhorn can be such a good shot, Daniel replies casually that it's a handy skill to have when your profession is repairing firearms. (Note that Daniel's pipe turns into a derringer; ten years later, Sale and Loos would create the cult TV series Yancy Derringer about a Southern gentleman who also carried a derringer...or two.)

Speaking of television, it's a shame that Albert and the writers didn't revive The Dude Goes West as a TV series. I could easily imagine weekly episodes revolving around Daniel Bone's exploits in and around Arsenic City. I certainly would have watched.

Here's a clip from The Dude Goes West. You can view it full-screen on the Classic Film & TV Cafe's YouTube Channel. You can also stream the entire movie at warnerarchive.com.

A Tribute to Errol Flynn As His Own Sun Was Setting - His Performance in The Sun also Rises



Errol Flynn as Mike Campbell in The Sun Also Rises.

 Errol Flynn died at the age of 50, a little over two years after appearing in 1957's The Sun Also Rises.  Ernest Hemingway's novel is a story of people whose lives had been changed forever, some ruined, by the horrors of World War I.  Hemingway's characters were damaged human beings who had lost their personal centers of identity with their war experiences, and they wandered in disillusionment and disenchantment.  Flynn's character, Mike Campbell, is the most heartbreaking, and his performance was superb.  The Sun Also Rises was not his last film, but it was his last significant performance, one which should have put to rest once and for all the ridiculous question of whether or not Errol Flynn was a real actor.

Errol Flynn, Eddie Albert and Tyrone Power

My piece about this movie is not intended as a review, but as a spotlight for a wonderful actor who was never given his due by the industry to which he gave his talent, and for whose success he played a significant part.  In discussing Flynn's work in The Sun Also Rises, it should be noted that the film was criticized for the choices of actors to play the leading roles.  All were older than called for.  Tyrone Power as Jake Barnes, Flynn as Mike Campbell, and Eddie Albert as Bill Gorton were all in their late 40's.  As per the usual Hollywood double standard, beautiful 34-year old Ava Gardner, who always looked younger than she was anyway, was cast as Brett Ashley, much too young and fresh to be believable as a contemporary of the men.  Gardner did a fine job, but casting her only further pointed up the age factor.  Power and Flynn, both of whom battled alcoholism, difficult personal lives and the ravages of time, had lost the beauty of their youth, and viewers were shocked.  Inexplicably, movie audiences were apparently unaware that youth and beauty do not last forever, even for movie stars, and perhaps they could not forgive their heroes for being real men.  Hemingway's book was very challenging to transfer to screen, requiring filming on location in Paris and Spain, with the difficult filming of actual bullfights, but this was achieved beautifully.  Perhaps not a perfect movie, I believe that The Sun Also Rises is a great film.  This is due in large part to the performances of Power, Albert and especially Errol Flynn.

It has been said that the character of Mike Campbell was so much like Flynn himself that it did not require much acting on his part.  To my mind, that criticism shows incredible ignorance of acting as a craft as well as a gift.  Mike Campbell was an aging playboy, a man of great charm whose looks and money were gone, a man forced to question all of the decisions of his life.  Flynn was at this time toward the end of his life and  learning what we all learn -- the mistakes of our youth catch up with us.


Even in his older years -- always a dash of color in a drab world
(From Crossed Swords)

When he was very young with all of life before him, Flynn said "I intend to live the first half of my life.  I don't care about the rest." What young person ever truly believes he will get old and ill, or addicted to dangerous habits, or find tragedy in life?  That belief in immortality is the charm of youth, and Flynn had more charm than anyone around him.  When he matured and found that life as a movie star was not the picture of glamour most of us think, he once said  "It isn't what they say about you. It's what they whisper."  There were many whispers surrounding Flynn's life, as well as headline shouts.  When he began to age, and cruel remarks were made about him playing caricatures of himself,  he said "I allow myself to be understood as a colorful fragment in a drab world." Flynn was an enigma, charismatic and determined to live fully to the end of his life, but also a man with demons to battle.  Olivia deHavilland, who knew him well in his peak career days, said of Flynn, "He was a charming and magnetic man, but so tormented."  Most surprising to me, even Jack Warner, known to be a harshly insensitive man who didn't like actors, Flynn included, once said, "Errol Flynn was one of the most charming and tragic men I have ever known."


Errol Flynn and Ava Gardner

The complex role of Mike Campbell required the ability to play charm, frighteningly-quick anger, self-deprecating humor, passion, jealousy, disappointment and deep sadness.  This was not an easy part, and despite his personal problems, Flynn was magnificent.  The character of Mike carried much of the movie's pathos on his shoulders, and Flynn's many scenes are some of the best.  He received critical praise for his performance.  So he was obviously nominated for an Oscar for best supporting actor, right?  No.  According to daughter Rory Flynn's website devoted to her Dad:  A recent Australian documentary on his life and career, narrated by Christopher Lee, included a film clip of Errol Flynn being interviewed on his being nominated for the Academy Award for his critically acclaimed performance in The Sun Also Rises. We are then told that the nomination "disappeared".  (http://www.inlikeflynn.com/.)  That is all I could find out.  You know, I'm sure that the incredibly handsome, don't-give-a-damn-what-you-think type of man like Flynn grated a lot of people the wrong way.  I'm quite sure he could be very difficult to deal with, as are many people.  I'm certain men felt a jealous hate because their women wanted him -- women felt similar emotions because they couldn't have him exclusively.  And I would bet the farm that many of these were the very people in the movie industry who had the ability to deny him a well-deserved chance at an award. 

He might have not have won because he would have faced stiff competition that year -- Red Buttons, who won for Sayonara, and Sessue Hayakawa, nominated for The Bridge On The River Kwai, both gave fantastic performances.  Vittorio de Sica was wonderful in A Farewell To Arms.  But do you know who the the other nominees were?  Russ Tamblyn and Arthur Kennedy for Peyton Place!  No disrespect intended to those actors, but for that movie and those performances, it was an absolute joke. Somebody wanted to be sure Flynn was left out, and did so in such a manner that they may as well have knocked on his door and slapped his face.  Shameful.

Even today, when our culture is supposedly more tolerant and open, and when Flynn is more loved than ever before by classic film fans, his loving daughter Rory has been trying to get a tribute to her Father from the Oscar people, and recently had to post on her aforementioned website:  Dear supporters, We have all struggled to have the Academy of Motion Pictures award a posthumous Oscar to Errol Flynn.  I am sad to share with you that the academy will not be able to do so.  The president of the Academy, Mr. Sid Janis has informed me that the academy will not and has not given the award posthumously.  It is a  sad moment for me personally and I know to the many who share with me the joy and happiness that Errol Flynn brought to the screen and to our hearts.  Thank you for your support.  Rory.   What the hell?  But then, Flynn himself probably would have said, "What the hell - I lived a man's life and loved it all.  They know what they can do with their award."  (I made that up, but it sounds plausible!)

I am providing a link to Youtube so that any interested readers who have not done so, can see first-hand the quality of  Flynn's performance in The Sun  Also Rises.  Actually, the link is to the entire movie, which surprised me to find.  I am providing here 3 particular scenes in which Flynn just shines, with the exact places for you to forward to to find them.  If you choose to watch these, I hope you enjoy them.  It is worth every second.

http://youtu.be/d3la1ueMgxw

(Opening credits with composer Hugo Friedhofer's magnificent score:)
   From the very beginning to the director's credit.

Cafe scene after bullfight:
   1:16:20 - 1:19:16

Outdoor cafe after the fiesta:
   1:34:20 - 1:37:10

Flynn's best small scene, very short, shows Mike as he is in private
   1:51:20 - 1:53:22