RIP Jennifer Jones

[Magentarose67]

Actress Jennifer Jones passed away today at age 90. I do not know if she ever worked with (or ever met) Orson Welles, but one of her most frequent costars was Joseph Cotten. "The Song of Bernadette" was one of my favorites as a kid - made me sob every time. She was very talented and one of the most competent actresses of the 1940s. May she rest in peace :

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/art ... QD9CL8J480

[Glenn Anders]

Well remembered, magentarose67: Jennifer Jones indeed had a connection, if possibly a tertiary one with Orson Welles. First of all, to one side, she was the obsession of David Selznick, who was part of that interesting Society of Independent Motion Picture Producers, which included Charlie Chaplin, Sam Goldwyn, Alexander Korda, Orson Welles, etc, (later business inspiration for Hitchcock, the Cagneys and Burt Lancaster). In that circle, she would have known Orson Welles, at least socially.

Jennifer Jones was to be Selznick's American Vivien Leigh, and Selznick groomed her publicly and artistically, at the expense of her marriage to Robert Walker, as the heroine of DUEL IN THE SUN, his next ground-breaker after GONE WITH THE WIND. Always short of money, he worked on the picture for over five years, drawing in many of the under the table pros of Hollywood -- people like Ben Hecht and William Dieterle. Orson Welles did the uncredited narration for DUEL IN THE SUN.

As he tells Peter Bogdanovich, Welles asked $35,000 for the job, gradually was negotiated downward to $18,000, and had to settle for a pair of hand-delivered dueling pistols at Christmas after the film opened in 1946.

And of course, Jennifer Jones co-starred with Joseph Cotten in the first of a series of professional relationships on screen.

In his excellent autobiography, Director Michael Powell, who had contentious dealings with Selznick similar to those Welles suffered, has high regard for Jennifer Jones. She starred in his Selznick/Korda-financed GONE TO EARTH (THE WILD HEART). Powell devotes a moving, sad chapter to his early associations with her on the movie, and later, a joyous one to the generous Hollywood welcome she gave him, following Selznick's death and her marriage to Norton Simon.

Glenn

[mido505]

Let us not forget that John Houseman was Vice President of Production for David O. Selznick Productions for a brief period in 1941.

Also, one of the fingers stuck in the pie that was DUEL IN THE SUN belonged to Josef Von Sternberg. Does anyone know what his contribution consisted of? I presume it had to do with photographing Jones.

I watched Jones recently in PORTRAIT OF JENNIE and CARRIE, and thought she was delightful. She's also terrific in, of all things, THE TOWERING INFERNO. DUEL IN THE SUN is ludicrous, but I always feel compelled to watch at least some of LUST IN THE DUST when it plays on TCM.

Quite frankly, I was surprised to learn that she was still with us for so long. She seems to have lived a very quiet life in retirement. If she was never quite the star and actress that Selznick imagined, she was damned close enough.

[The Night Man]

Also, one of the fingers stuck in the pie that was DUEL IN THE SUN belonged to Josef Von Sternberg. Does anyone know what his contribution consisted of? I presume it had to do with photographing Jones.

Edward Dmytryk said that Von Sternberg was shooting second unit material on Duel until he threw a massive Teutonic fit. After that he was let go. I don't know how true that may be (Dmytryk was somewhat dismissive of Von Sternberg in general), but the man was pretty much unemployable at the time and not likely to be given either much responsibility or much slack.

[mido505]

Three fascinating posts on Jennifer Jones over at the marvelous GREENBRIAR PICTURE SHOW site:

http://greenbriarpictureshows.blogspot.com/

http://greenbriarpictureshows.blogspot. ... jones.html

http://greenbriarpictureshows.blogspot. ... nifer.html

[tonyw]

May I take this opportunity to wish all wellesnet members a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and welcome our new moderator in the near future.

[mido505]

Thank you, tonyw, Merry Christmas to you, and to the rest of the Wellesnet membership!

[Glenn Anders]

Nearly my oldest, one of my few truest friends, "Bambo-Bambo" Christianson, always says that "they come in three's" when people in show biz die. We had Jennifer Jones, Brittany Murphy, and now . . . Arnold Stang. He died in his home state of Massachusetts, at the age of 91. One of the finest second bananas, he had begun in Radio's early days, been in the cast of LET'S PRETEND with Arthur Anderson, in Movies, TV and Voice Over, and had taken his last featured role seven years ago. This notation may seem to be going from the sublime to someone to be ridiculed, but Stang was one of the great entertainment stars, a man who in his own way was as recognized for his voice and face as Orson Welles. Indeed, besides being Top Cat -- his best known character today -- he had played opposite Frank Sinatra in THE MAN WITH A GOLDEN ARM and Milton Berle in TV's Texaco Show of Shows, and he had worked, according to obituaries, with Jackie Gleason, Dame Judith Anderson, and . . . Orson Welles.

I've heard him with Welles (on Radio), I've seen him with Welles (on TV), but I can't tell you exactly where. Can anyone tell us?

Truly, it is time to send in the clowns. RIP, too, Arnold Stang.

Merry Christmas, Magentarose67, The Night Man, mido505, tonyw, and everyone else here at Wellesnet.

Glenn

[Magentarose67]

Nearly my oldest, one of my few truest friends, "Bambo-Bambo" Christianson, always says that "they come in three's" when people in show biz die. We had Jennifer Jones, Brittany Murphy, and now . . . Arnold Stang. He died in his home state of Massachusetts, at the age of 91. One of the finest second bananas, he had begun in Radio's early days, been in the cast of LET'S PRETEND with Arthur Anderson, in Movies, TV and Voice Over, and had taken his last featured role seven years ago. This notation may seem to be going from the sublime to someone to be ridiculed, but Stang was one of the great entertainment stars, a man who in his own way was as recognized for his voice and face as Orson Welles. Indeed, besides being Top Cat -- his best known character today -- he had played opposite Frank Sinatra in THE MAN WITH A GOLDEN ARM and Milton Berle in TV's Texaco Show of Shows, and he had worked, according to obituaries, with Jackie Gleason, Dame Judith Anderson, and . . . Orson Welles.

I've heard him with Welles (on Radio), I've seen him with Welles (on TV), but I can't tell you exactly where. Can anyone tell us?

Truly, it is time to send in the clowns. RIP, too, Arnold Stang.

Merry Christmas, Magentarose67, The Night Man, mido505, tonyw, and everyone else here at Wellesnet.

Glenn

Brittany Murphy's death was so tragic...and so close to the Holidays...she was a very charismatic actress and had a bright future ahead of her...these past two years have been very eerie in terms of celebrity deaths.

I've heard of them working on the radio, but I can't remember either, although I do know that Jackie Gleason claimed to have gotten his "Great One" name from Orson! Wish I could remember where Orson worked with Mr. Stang, though.

Merry Christmas to Glenn and all my fellow Wellesians here !

[The Night Man]

Merry Xmas, Happy Festivus, etc. & etc. to one and all!

[Alan Brody]

I thought I read in one Welles book (I forget which) that Selznick wanted Jennifer Jones and Orson Welles to co-star in a film of The Apple Tree, but nothing ever came of it. She did play a somewhat similar "wild girl" role in both Duel in the Sun and Gone to Earth, but only the Powell film is worthwhile, IMO. I hear Selznick's recut (The Wild Heart) is a mess, though.

[nextren]

She was so marvelous in John Huston's Beat the Devil. That film and Mr. Arkadin, made around the same time, have a similar surface approach: lots of location work, eccentric characters, and unconventional structures. Huston and Welles, of course, were good friends and probably shared a good number of important outlooks. Only Huston or Welles would have attempted Moby Dick. Ah, Jones prattling on in BTD...a lovely talent.

[mido505]

Stop the presses! It's official. David Thomson is a sh*t. Here is his remarkably vile, mean-spirited Jennifer Jones obit printed in the GUARDIAN: http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/dec ... any-murphy. Notice that Thomson's animus stems from Jone's refusal to be interviewed by the master. How dare she! I've defended Thomson in the past, but this is nasty, uncalled for, and unacceptable. I thought Gore Vidal was going to win the Aging Ungracefully Award for 2010, but Thomson may just edge him out. Pathetic.

[Glenn Anders]

Mido505: Even I, loyal defender to my detriment here of fellow San Franciscan David Thomson, must say you have something on him. I would suggest, however, that Thomson is not so "vile" or "mean-spirited" in his obit as suffering from that carelessness in writing attributed to him elsewhere at Wellesnet. A careful reading of his text will reveal that his real beef is with Irene Selznick, David Selznick's wife, who was revealed in Thomson's biography of Selznick, Showman," -- quoted in almost all the other obituaries of Miss Jones -- as an iron hand that both enabled and thwarted the ebullient producer Selznick's ambitions and vices.

Though he might have adopted Michael Powell's more charitable attitude toward her, Thomson's facts are correct (and largely undisputed) and his observations shrewd about Jennifer Jones. She was a person who had both great and terrible luck. And his point is that she was not so different than many people in Hollywood, then and now. News-hound that he is about Movies and Movie personalities, his great regret is that he did not capture the actress's personal story for his biography of David Selznick, and he is not so much cruel toward Jennifer Jones as he is pitying, and that may be David Thomson's great failing as a writer. Listening to him, or meeting him in person, he strikes one as very sincere, but a bit diffident, his words trailing away sometimes, as if he were depressed or tired. At his best Thomson is brilliant with his insights, but he has a common enough problem with antecedents.

I think the above failing is what you are rightly criticizing in your post, mido505.

He has for some years indicated that he is weary of the game.

Glenn

[ToddBaesen]

David Thomson hits a new low with the vile piece he wrote on Jennifer Jones.

His "tribute" to a great Hollywood actress consists mostly of complaining that she (quite wisely) refused to talk with him for the book Mr. Thomson was writing about her husband, David O. Selznick. Thomson then goes on to bring up the fact that she tried to kill herself several times, and says rather snidely, 'Well, she's dead now, at 90."

Rubbing salt into the wounds of the recently deceased actress, Thomson notes she was not at all close with her daughter Mary Jennifer, a statement that he implies may be one of the reasons why Mary "killed herself (in 1976) - it was a Mother's Day gift."

Thomson then goes on to reveal one of the burning questions he wanted to ask Jennifer Jones: "When (did) David first seduce her, and what (did) he promise her."

Just imagine somebody asking you that about your spouse! I'm sure Mr. Thomson would have quickly been shown to the door after that tactless question left his quivering lips.

To Mr. Thomson's twisted way of re-interpreting events, it apparently never even crossed his mind that Jennifer Jones actually may have truly loved David O. Selznick. I spoke with the noted film historian Ronald Haver about Selznick's relationship with Jennifer Jones when his fabulous book, David O. Zelnick's HOLLYWOOD came out in 1981. Ron Haver actually DID interview Jennifer Jones, and when I talked to him he told me Ms. Jones remained devoted to Selznick throughout whatever trials and tribulations they endured during their long marriage.

But that certainly doesn't stop someone like Mr. Thomson from reporting what he thinks is the truth, even if it is merely based on his wild hunches, with little in the way of research to back them up.

Come to think of it, isn't it interesting how Mr. Thomson has mostly done books on people who have already been rather well-researched before he has his go at them with his revisionist views? By the time he wrote his "fictional" biography of Orson Welles, there had already been dozens of books on Welles, most of which were far better than his own volume, which Jonathan Rosenbaum went so far as to call "disgraceful."

Likewise, Ron Haver produced a magnificent and well-researched book on David O. Selznick, before Mr. Thomson came along with his own Selznick biography.

Now, to give Mr. Thomson a taste of his own medicine, I'd like to speculate on why he may be so very angry with Jennifer Jones. By his own admission, she totally ignored his book on Selznick. Thomson says, "her lawyer warned me that she would be waiting for my book when it came out, ready to sue. She never did sue, and never said a word about the book. I doubt she read it..."

To a narcissistic writer like Mr. Thomson, that must have been a slight that hurt his ego far more than if she had sued him! At least then his book would have garnered some free publicity! As Thomson writes like a petulant child, "Ms. Jones (preferred) not to talk to the biographer of (the) husband who named her Jennifer Jones..." As if talking to him would have been some kind of splendid opportunity for her to set the record straight!

In fact, as we now know, Mr. Thomson lied to Nicole Kidman to trick her into a interview that she otherwise would never have granted. Jennifer Jones was smart enough to realize that Thomson merely wanted to drag up unpleasant memories from her past. Then, when his book on Selznick did appear, she couldn't have cared in the least about whatever fanciful fictions it may have contained.