Women Directors from A New Leaf
Those mentioned in the commentary track by film scholar Maya Montanez Smukler of the 2017 Olive Films blu-ray release of A New Leaf (1971), starting at about 36 min.
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Elaine May (born under the name Elaine Iva Berlin) is an American actress, comedian, film director, playwright, and screenwriter from Philadelphia. Her professional career started in the 1950s and is still ongoing. She has twice been nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. She is best remembered for directing the Cold War-themed action comedy "Ishtar" (1987). She won the Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Director, but the film has had a vocal minority of critics who defend its quality.
In 1932, May was born to a Jewish-American family. Both her parents were theatrical actors. Her father Jack Berlin was also a theater director and led his own traveling Yiddish theater company. Her mother was actress Ida Aaron. May made her stage debut c. 1935, at the age of 3. Her father had decided to include her in his performances. As a a child actress, she was reportedly cast in the roles of boys.
The theater company toured extensively, and May was part of their tours. She kept changing schools, enrolling for a few weeks and then moving to another city. May reputedly hated school, but loved reading books on her own. Her favorite topics were fairy tales and mythology.
Jack Berlin died c. 1942, and May's career as a child actress consequently ended. She was left in the custody of her mother. The duo settled in Los Angeles, and May eventually enrolled in Hollywood High School. In 1946, May dropped out of school. In 1948, she married her her first husband, the toy inventor Marvin May. She was only 16-years-old at the time of her marriage. She would later keep her husband's surname as her professional name.
In 1949, May had her only child, Jeannie Brette May. Jeannie would later become a professional actress in her own right, under the name Jeannie Berlin. May and her husband separated c. 1950, and she received a divorce in 1960. She started supporting herself through a series of odd jobs.
In 1950, May was interested in attending college, but most colleges in California required applicants to have high school diplomas. As a high school dropout, she did not have the necessary diploma. Learning that the University of Chicago did not use this requirement, she hitch-hiked her way to Chicago, At the time her personal fortune consisted of 7 dollars.
Once she arrived in Chicago, May started informally taking classes at the university by auditing, sitting in without enrolling. She habitually engaged in discussions with her instructors. She once had a fight with a philosophy instructor because of their different interpretations of the motives behind Socrates' apology. May was introduced to aspiring actor Mike Nichols (1931-2014),who was also attending the University. They bonded over their shared passion for the theater.
In 1955, May became one of the charter members of the Compass Players, a Chicago-based improvisational theater group. Nichols joined the group shortly after. The two of them formed a working partnership, jointly developing improvised comedy sketches. May helped the Compass Players to become a highly popular comedy troupe, due to her talent for satire. She helped in the training of novice members of the group.
In 1957, Nichols was asked to leave the Compass Players. His popularity had outshone most members of the group, and had caused internal conflicts. May left the group with him. They then decided to form their own stand-up comedy team, "Nichols and May". Their improvisational skills, and ability to come up with fresh material allowed them to impress their audience.
In 1960, the comedy duo made their Broadway debut, with the show "An Evening with Mike Nichols and Elaine May". A recording of the show won the 1962 "Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album". "Nichols and May" became very popular in New York City, performing in sold-out shows. They also started making appearances in radio and television, and even recorded commercials.
May was reportedly surprised with her own success. She had spend much of her adult life in near-poverty, but she was now earning a regular income from show business. She joked in an interview that she was practically barefoot when she arrived in New York, and now had to get used to wearing high heels.
In 1961, the duo was at the height of their fame. But they decided to dissolve their partnership in order to pursue solo careers. Nichols started working as a Broadway stage director, while May started her new career as a playwright. Her most successful play was "Adaptation" (1969), which she also directed. For her work as a theatrical director, she won the 1969 "Outer Critics Circle Award, Best Director".
May made her debut as a film director with the black comedy "A New Leaf" (1971). It was an adaptation of a short story by Jack Ritchie (1922-1983), depicting the story of an impoverished patrician who marries a wealthy heiress for her money. The main character initially considers murdering his wife to inherit her wealth, but first he has to protect her from other predators who were after her money.
Her first film found little success at the box office, but was praised by critics and was nominated for the "Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy". It later earned a reputation as a cult classic, and in 2019 it was selected for preservation by the National Film Registry.
Her second film was the romantic comedy "The Heartbreak Kid" (1972). It concerns a newlywed man who falls madly in love with a younger woman while on his honeymoon. He pursues his romantic interest obsessively despite all signs that his love is unrequited, and despite the disapproval of the woman's protective father. The film was critically acclaimed, and has at times been listed in retrospectives concerning the funniest American films.
In an unusual career move, her third film was not a comedy. It was the rather bleak gangster film "Mikey and Nicky" (1976). It depicts a small-time mobster whose life is in danger, resorting to asking for help from his childhood friend. While creating this film, May got involved in a legal dispute with the film studio Paramount Pictures. The studio eventually decided to only allow a limited release for the film. The film found a niche audience in the home video market, but May's career as a director suffered from this dispute. She was effectively blacklisted.
May decided to focus on her screenwriting career. She found success with the script to the fantasy-comedy "Heaven Can Wait" (1978), about the afterlife of a man who died prematurely. The film was based on a 1938 play by Harry Segall (1892-1975), and also served as a remake to the classic film "Here Comes Mr. Jordan" (1941) which was based on the same play. The film earned about 99 million dollars at the worldwide box office, and was a critical hit. May was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, but the award was instead won by rival screenwriter Oliver Stone (1946-).
During the early 1980s, May mainly worked as an uncredited script doctor. She "polished" scripts by other screenwriters. Her greatest success in this role was the romantic comedy "Tootsie" (1982), for which she wrote several additional scenes. She attempted her comeback as a director with the action comedy "Ishtar" (1987), which became a box office flop for the film studio Columbia Pictures. The film's failure reportedly convinced Columbia's parent company Coca-Cola to sell the under-performing studio to Sony.
"Ishtar" was derided at the time as the worst film of its era by many critics, but was also defended by a vocal minority of critics. It has since attracted a cult audience, who consider this to be a great film. However the film's failure ended May's career as a film director and damaged her reputation. She also ceased working as a screenwriter for several years, reduced to working as an actress again.
May made her comeback as a screenwriter with the comedy film "The Birdcage" (1996), a remake of the European comedy "La Cage aux Folles" (The Cage of Madwomen, 1978). In the film, the openly gay parents to a young man have to pretend to be straight in an attempt to impress their son's prospective in-laws. The film earned about 185 million dollars at the worldwide box office, the greatest hit in May's career up to that point. She was nominated for the "Writers Guild of America Award for Best Adapted Screenplay", but the award was instead won by rival screenwriter Billy Bob Thornton (1955-).
May found more critical success with her next screenplay, for the political film "Primary Colors" (1998). It was an adaptation of the roman à clef novel "Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics" (1996) by Joe Klein (1946-). The novel itself was a fictionalized version of Bill Clinton's 1992 presidential campaign, and depicts an idealistic campaign worker's disillusionment with the politician. The film's cast were nominated for several awards. May herself received her second nomination for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, but the award was instead won by rival screenwriter Bill Condon (1955-).
May largely retired from screenwriting since the end of the 1990s. As an actress, she had a supporting role in the crime-comedy "Small Time Crooks" (2000). The film concerned nouveau riche criminals, who attempt to socialize with the American upper class. For this role, she won the "Best Supporting Actress Award" at the National Society of Film Critics Awards.
May lived in retirement until joining the cast of the television mini-series "Crisis in Six Scenes" (2016), her first television role in several decades. The series was created by Woody Allen (1935-), who happened to be an old friend of May.
In 2018, May made a theatrical comeback in Broadway. She played the elderly gallery owner Gladys Green in a revival of the play "The Waverly Gallery" (2000) by Kenneth Lonergan (1962-). In the play, Gladys shows early signs of Alzheimer's disease, and her family has to deal with her mental decline. May received critical acclaim for this role. For this role, she won the 2019 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. At age 87, she was the second-oldest winner of a Tony Award for acting.
As of 2021, May is 89-years-old. She is no longer very active, but she reportedly has plans to direct another film. She remains a popular actress.- Director
- Producer
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The world's first female filmmaker, French-born Alice Guy entered the film business in 1896 as a secretary at Gaumont, a manufacturer of movie cameras and projectors who had purchased a "cinématographer" from its inventors, the Lumiere brothers. The next year Gaumont became the world's first motion picture production company when they switched to creating movies, and Guy became its first film director. She impressed the company so much with the output (she averaged two two-reelers a week) and quality of her productions that by 1905 she was made the company's production director, supervising its other directors. In 1907 she married Herbert Blaché, an Englishman who ran Gaumont's British and German offices. The pair went to the U.S. to set up the company's operations there. In 1910 Mme. Guy set up her own production company, Solax, in New York and with her husband built a studio in Fort Lee, New Jersey. After a period of critical and financial success, the couple's fortunes declined when Thomas Alva Edison's trust hindered film production in the East coast, and they eventually shut down the studio in 1919. Although her husband secured work directing films for several major Hollywood studios, Guy was never able to secure any directorial jobs there, never made a film again, most of her films were lost, some were credited to other film directors, and she did no receive recognition for her pioneering work in France and the United States. She returned to France in 1922 after her divorce from Blaché, and in 1964 returned to the U.S. and lived in Mahwah, New Jersey - not far from where her original studios were - with her daughter, where she died in 1968.- Director
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Lois Weber, who had been a street-corner evangelist before entering motion pictures in 1905, became the first American woman movie director of note, and a major one at that. Herbert Blaché, the husband of Frenchwoman Alice Guy, the first woman to direct a motion picture (and arguably, the first director of either gender to helm a fictional narrative film), cast her in the lead of "Hypocrites" (1908). Weber first got behind the camera on A Heroine of '76 (1911), a silent that was co-directed by pioneering American director Edwin S. Porter and actor Phillips Smalley, who played George Washington. She also starred in the picture.
In 1914, a year in which she helmed 27 movies, Weber co-directed William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice (1914) with Smalley, who also played Shylock, making her the first woman to direct a feature-length film in the US. (Jeanie Macpherson, who would play a major role in cinema as Cecil B. DeMille's favorite screenwriter, also acted in the film).
In the spirit of her evangelism, she began directing, writing and then producing films of social import, dealing with such themes as abortion, alcoholism, birth control, drug addiction and prostitution. By 1916 she had established herself as the top director at Universal Film Manufacturing (now Universal Studios), the top studio in America at the time, making her the highest-paid director in the world. The following year she formed Lois Weber Productions.
She directed over 100 films, but her production company went bankrupt in the 1920s as her career faltered. She did not make the transition to sound, although she did make one talkie, White Heat (1934), in 1934.- Writer
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The most renowned female screenwriter of the 20th century, and one of the most respected scripters of any gender, Frances Marion was born in San Francisco. She modeled and acted and had some success as a commercial artist. She entered into journalism and served in Europe as a combat correspondent during World War I. She moved to Los Angeles and was employed by director Lois Weber as an assistant, in which position she received a thorough apprenticeship in the film industry. She began writing scripts and attracted the attention of Mary Pickford. The pair began a long relationship as both friends and artists, with Marion serving as Pickford's official screenwriter. She wrote many of Pickford's most famous and memorable silent films as well as many other of the great successful pictures of the 1920s and 1930s. She won Oscars for her writing on The Big House (1930) and The Champ (1931). Her influence resurrected the career of Marie Dressler and resulted in her greatest glory, and her scripts for Marion Davies are among the most memorable of that actress' oeuvre. At MGM, where she was long under contract, she enjoyed enormous creative freedom for a writer. With the death of Irving Thalberg, MGM's creative head, in 1936, Marion's power and influence waned. In 1946 she left Hollywood and thereafter concentrated on plays and novels. She was at one time married to 1920s cowboy star Fred Thomson and subsequently to director George W. Hill. She died in 1973, one of the most respected names in Hollywood history.- Actress
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Mabel Normand was one of the comedy greats of early film. In an era when women are deemed 'not funny enough' it seems film history has forgotten her contributions. Her films debuted the Keystone Cops, Charlie Chaplin's tramp and the pie in the face gag. She co-starred with both Chaplin and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle in a series of shorts. She was a star in the first Keystone Comedy as well as the first feature film comedy. She was the only comedian to work with Charles Chaplin , Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle, Mack Sennett, D.W. Griffith, Harold Lloyd, Mary Pickford, Hal Roach, Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy, Fred Mace, Fred Sterling and John Bunny (she and Buster Keaton never had a chance to work together but they were friends.)
Born in Staten Island, New York to Claude and Mary Normand. Normand started out as an artist model for Charles Dana Gibson (creator of the Gibson girl). Friends suggested she try out for the new medium of film and she did, working as an extra in Kalem and Biograph shorts. With Biograph's move to California she went to work for Vitagraph where she made a series of comedic shorts as 'Betty', one co-starring the first comedy film star John Bunny.
Eventually Normand returned to Biograph where she began working with Mack Sennett on comedic shorts that would eventually turn into Keystone Comedies. Normand and Sennett were lovers, close friends and close co-workers. All of Sennett's early ideas seemed to revolve around Normand. His creation of Keystone was contingent on Normand joining him; and though he would underpay her as he underpaid everyone he worked with, he insisted Normand have credit and say in the company. When Normand eventually left Keystone for Goldwyn, Sennett left soon after.
By 1912 Normand was writing her own films and by 1914 she was directing her films. By this point she was a major star, continually topping fan polls by new movie magazines. While the discovery of Charlie Chaplin varies from telling to telling, everyone involved agreed Sennett would not have hired (or kept him on) had it not been for Normand. Chaplin's second short for the company was Normand's "Mabel's Strange Predicament" which she starred and directed in. This was the first film Chaplin created his iconic tramp character for.
Chaplin and Normand had a comedic chemistry and would go on to team in a series of shorts until Chaplin left Keystone in 1915. As Chaplin's star rose many fan magazines began to call Normand a 'female Chaplin'. Normand and Chaplin had similar subtle mannerisms and the influence Normand had on Chaplin can not be understated. Before Chaplin left Keystone, they starred, alongside Marie Dressler, in "Tillie's Punctured Romance" the first full length comedy film.
With the loss of Chaplin, Normand and Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle began to team together in a series of shorts (though they had acted together before). This series was also popular and the pair continued acting together until they both left Keystone for better pay.
Sennett and Normand became engaged around this time, though the engagement ended when Sennett was caught cheating on Normand. Friends report she suffered a severe head injury when Sennett's fling threw a vase at Normand's head. Those who knew Normand all believed Sennett was the love of her life; and she his. However they would never reconcile romantically. Sennett did convince Normand to create her own production company "Mabel Normand Film Company" to make her own features. The first project was "Mickey" and Sennett's handling of her business affairs resulted in the film not being released until 1918 (or having a definite version).
Normand dissolved the company and signed with Goldwyn where she went on to make comedy features. These movies would be more akin to sitcoms: they were shorter than a lot of features, but still features. Many are lost though several have turned up in the past 10 years.
Normand once again signed with Sennett to make features and this would result in her final feature films. However this would be a rocky venture. Normand's health was hit or miss (she had been diagnosed with tuberculosis when she was 10) and seemed to be worse than better. She also was drinking heavily. In 1922 her friend William Desmond Taylor was murdered. This case would become 'the case of the century' and became a media circus, it is still unsolved. Though Normand was cleared (she had been seen leaving his house with him waving goodbye to her; she was likely the last person to see him alive), the association left an unwelcome tarnish on her soon after the scandalous death of her friend Olive Thomas, and the unfair trial of Roscoe Arbuckle.
Normand continued working, making The Extra Girl. Soon after its release in 1923 she was again near another crime (a butler was shot at a party she attended; though he survived.) Soon after Normand took a break from film.
By 1926 Normand was ready for a comeback. She signed with Hal Roach to make comedy shorts. These were well received and by 1928 she had signed with the William Morris Agency to make talkies. However she did not realize how sick she was and her health soon interrupted these plans.
Over the years Normand's tuberculosis has turned into rumors of a drug addiction. This started during the Taylor scandal when it was claimed that maybe he had been killed for interrupting a drug ring, and maybe Normand was part of it. While not prominent during her life it has become more commonly believed as time has passed despite no evidence. Normand's family, estate and personal nurse were all adamant she had never used any drugs. Sadly this rumor has become common place in Hollywood lore.
Normand's drinking increased as did her partying. During one party she decided to marry longtime friend Lew Cody at 2am. She instantly regretted the marriage and they continued living separately. As Normand's health decreased and she was committed to a sanitarium (akin to a hospital/hospice in modern terms) by 1929. She died in 1930 from tuberculosis.- Actress
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A stage actress from her early teens, Grace Cunard made her Hollywood debut in 1910. She soon partnered with actor/director Francis Ford at Univeral, where they began turning out serials. The films' success led to Cunard's nickname of "The Serial Queen," and by 1916 she and Ford were ranked among the most popular stars in Hollywood. Their careers began to falter by 1918, however, and while Ford went on to become a respected director and character actor well into the '40s, Cunard didn't have such luck. She began appearing in mostly B pictures, many made by lower-budget independent companies, and her career was mired there until she retired in the early '40s."only to mention a few" in pre-sound era.- Director
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Dorothy Arzner, the only woman director during the "Golden Age" of Hollywood's studio system--from the 1920s to the early 1940s and the woman director with the largest oeuvre in Hollywood to this day--was born January 3, 1897 (some sources put the year as 1900), in San Francisco, California, to a German-American father and a Scottish mother. Raised in Los Angeles, her parents ran a café which featured German cuisine and which was frequented by silent film stars including: Charles Chaplin and William S. Hart, and director Erich von Stroheim. She worked as a waitress at the restaurant, and no one could have foreseen at the time that Arzner would be one of the few women to break the glass ceiling of directing and would be the only woman to work during the early sound era.
In her 15-year career as a director (1928-43), Arzner made three silent movies and 14 "talkies". Her path to the director's chair was different than that of women directors in the future (indeed, different than most male directors too). Directors nowadays are typically graduates of film schools or were working actors prior to directing. Like most of the directors of her generation, Arzner gained wide training in most aspects of filmmaking by working her way up from the bottom. It was the best way to become a filmmaker, she later said.
After graduating from high school in 1915, she entered the University of Southern California, where she was in the pre-med program for two years. When the US entered World War I in 1917, Arzner was unable to realize her ambition of serving her country in a military capacity, as there were no women's units in the armed forces at the time, so she served as an ambulance driver during the war.
After the cessation of hostilities, Azner got a job on a newspaper. The director of her ambulance unit introduced her to film director William C. de Mille (the brother of Cecil B. DeMille, one of the co-founders of Famous Players-Lasky, which eventually became known by the title of its distribution unit--Paramount Pictures). She decided to pursue a film career after visiting a movie set and being intrigued by the editing facilities. Arzner decided that she would like to become a director (there was no strict delineation between directors and editors in the immediate postwar period as the movie studios matured into a "factory" industrial production paradigm).
Though she was the sole member of her gender to direct Hollywood pictures during the first generation of sound film, in the silent era a woman behind the camera was not unknown. The first movie in history was directed by a Frenchwoman, and many women were employed in Hollywood during the silent era, most frequently as scenario writers (some research indicates that as many as three-quarters of the scenario writers during the silent era--when there was no requirement for a screenplay as such as there was no dialogue--were women). Indeed, there were women directors in the silent era, such as Frances Marion (though she was more famous as a screenwriter) and Lois Weber, but Arzner was fated to be the only female director to have made a successful transition to "talkies". It wasn't until the 1930s and the verticalization of the industry, as it matured and consolidated, that women were squeezed out of production jobs in Hollywood.
The introduction to William deMille paid off when he hired her for the sum of $20 a week to be a stenographer. Her first job for DeMille was typing up scripts at Famous Players-Lasky. She was reportedly a poor typist. Ambitious and possessed of a strong will, Arzner offered to write synopses of various literary properties, and eventually was hired as a writer. Impressing DeMille and other Paramount powers-that-be, Arzner was assigned to Paramount's subsidiary Realart Films, as a film cutter. She was promoted to script girl after one year, which required her presence on the set to ensure the continuity of the script as shot by the director. She then was given a job editing films. She excelled at cutting: as an editor (she was the first Hollywood editor professionally credited as such on-screen), she labored on 52 films, working her way up from cutting Bebe Daniels comedies to assignments on "A" pictures within a couple of years. She came into her own as a filmmaker editing the Rudolph Valentino headliner Blood and Sand (1922), about a toreador. Her editing of the bullfighting scenes was highly praised, and she later said that she actually helmed the second-unit crew shooting some of the bullfight sequences. Director James Cruze was so impressed by her work on the Valentino picture that he brought her on to his team to edit The Covered Wagon (1923). Arzner eventually edited three other Cruze films: Ruggles of Red Gap (1923), Merton of the Movies (1924) and Old Ironsides (1926). Her work was of such quality that she received official screen credit as an editor, a first for a cutter of either gender.
While collaborating with Cruze she also wrote scenarios, scripting her ideas both solo and in collaboration. She was credited as a screenwriter (as well as an editor) on "Old Ironsides", one of the more spectacular films of the late silent era, being partially shot in Magnascope, one of the earliest widescreen processes. She would always credit Cruze as her mentor and role model. "Old Ironsides" proved to be the last film on which she was credited as an editor, as her ambitions to become a director would finally come to fruition. To indulge her, Paramount gave her a job as an assistant director, for which she was happy--until she realized it was not a stepping stone to the director's chair, and she was determined to sit in that chair.
Arzner pressured Paramount to let her direct, threatening to leave the studio to work for Columbia Pictures on Poverty Row, which had offered her a job as a director. Unwilling to lose such a talented filmmaker, the Paramount brass relented, and she made her debut with Fashions for Women (1927). It was a hit. In the process of directing Paramount's first talkie, Manhattan Cocktail (1928), she made history by becoming the first woman to direct a sound picture. The success of her next sound picture, The Wild Party (1929), starring Paramount's top star, Clara Bow, helped establish Fredric March as a movie star.
Arzner proved adept at handling actresses. As Budd Schulberg related in his autobiography "Moving Pictures", Clara Bow--a favorite of his father, studio boss B.P. Schulberg--had a thick Brooklyn accent that the silence of the pre-talkie era hid nicely from the audience. She was terrified of the transition to sound, and developed a fear of the microphone. Working with her sound crew, Arzner devised and used the first boom mike, attaching the microphone to a fish pole to follow Bow as she moved around the set. Arzner even used Bow's less-than-dulcet speaking tones to underscore the vivaciousness of her character.
Though Arzner made several successful films for Paramount, the studio teetered on the edge of bankruptcy due to the Depression, eventually going into receivership (before being saved by the advent of another iconic woman, Mae West). When the studio mandated a pay cut for all employees, Arzner decided to go freelance. RKO Radio Pictures hired her to direct its new star, headstrong young Katharine Hepburn, in her second starring film, Christopher Strong (1933). It was not a happy collaboration, as both women were strong and unyielding, but Arzner eventually prevailed. She was, after all, the boss on the set: The director. The fiercely independent Hepburn complained to RKO, but the studio backed its director against its star. Eventually the two settled into a working relationship, respecting each other but remaining cold and distant from one another. Ironically, Arzner would display her directorial flair in elucidating the kind of competitive rivalries between women she experienced with Hepburn.
The Directors Guild of America was established in 1933, and Arzner became the first woman member. Indeed, she was the only female member of the DGA for many years.
Arzner's films featured well-developed female characters, and she was known at the time of her work, quite naturally, as a director of "women's pictures". Not only did her movies portray the lives of strong, interesting women, but her pictures are noted for showcasing the ambiguities of life. Since the rise of feminist scholarship in the 1960s, Arzner's movies have been seen as challenging the dominant, phallocentric mores of the times.
Arzner was a lesbian, who cultivated a masculine look in her clothes and appearance (some feel as camouflage to hide the boy's club that was Hollywood). Many gay critics discern a hidden gay subtext in her films, such as "Christopher Strong". Whereas feminist critics see a critique of gender inequality in "Christopher Strong", lesbian critics see a critique of heterosexuality itself as the source of a woman's troubles. The very private Azner, the woman who broke the glass ceiling and had to survive, and indeed thrived, in the all-male world of studio filmmaking, refused to be categorized as a woman or gay director, insisting she was simply a "director." She was right.
Arzner did have less troubled and more productive collaborations with other actresses after her experience with Hepburn. She developed a close friendship with one of her female stars, Joan Crawford, whom she directed in two 1937 MGM vehicles, The Last of Mrs. Cheyney (1937) and The Bride Wore Red (1937). Arzner later directed Pepsi commercials as a favor to Crawford's husband, Pepsi-Cola Company's Chairman of the Board Alfred Steele.
In 1943 Arzner joined other top Hollywood directors such as John Ford and George Stevens in going to work for the war effort during World War Two. She made training films for the US Army's Women's Army Corps (WACs). That same year her health was compromised after she contracted pneumonia. After the war she did not return to feature film directing, but made documentaries and commercials for the new television industry. She also became a filmmaking teacher, first at the Pasadena Playhouse during the 1950s and 1960s and then at the University of California-Los Angeles campus during the 1960s and 1970s. At UCLA she taught directing and screenwriting, and one of her students was Francis Ford Coppola, the first film school grad to achieve major success as a director. She taught at UCLA until her death in 1979.
She was honored in her own lifetime, becoming a symbol and role model for women filmmakers who desired entry into mainstream cinema. The feminist movement in the 1960s championed her. In 1972 the First International Festival of Women's Films honored her by screening "The Wild Party", and her oeuvre was given a full retrospective at the Second Festival in 1976. In 1975 the DGA honored her with "A Tribute to Dorothy Arzner." During the tribute, a telegram from Katharine Hepburn was read: "Isn't it wonderful that you've had such a great career, when you had no right to have a career at all?""late '20s to 1943"- Actress
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Ida was born in London to a show business family. In 1932, her mother took Ida with her to an audition and Ida got the part her mother wanted. The picture was Her First Affaire (1932). Ida, a bleached blonde, went to Hollywood in 1934 playing small, insignificant parts. Peter Ibbetson (1935) was one of her few noteworthy movies and it was not until The Light That Failed (1939) that she got a chance to get better parts. In most of her movies, she was cast as the hard, but sympathetic woman from the wrong side of the tracks. In The Sea Wolf (1941) and High Sierra (1940), she played the part magnificently. It has been said that no one could do hard-luck dames the way Lupino could do them. She played tough, knowing characters who held their own against some of the biggest leading men of the day - Humphrey Bogart, Ronald Colman, John Garfield and Edward G. Robinson. She made a handful of films during the forties playing different characters ranging from Pillow to Post (1945), where she played a traveling saleswoman to the tough nightclub singer in The Man I Love (1946). But good roles for women were hard to get and there were many young actresses and established stars competing for those roles. She left Warner Brothers in 1947 and became a freelance actress. When better roles did not materialize, Ida stepped behind the camera as a director, writer and producer. Her first directing job came when director Elmer Clifton fell ill on a script that she co-wrote Not Wanted (1949). Ida had joked that as an actress, she was the poor man's Bette Davis. Now, she said that as a director, she became the poor man's Don Siegel. The films that she wrote, or directed, or appeared in during the fifties were mostly inexpensive melodramas. She later turned to television where she directed episodes in shows such as The Untouchables (1959) and The Fugitive (1963). In the seventies, she made guest appearances on various television show and appeared in small parts in a few movies."late '40s to 1966"- Director
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Shirley Clarke is an important figure in the history of mid-20th century independent cinema. Born Shirley Marion Brimberg to Samuel Nathan and Florence (Rosenberg) Brimberg, she was the eldest of their three daughters. She grew up in a wealthy family. Her father, who was born in present-day Belarus, made his fortune in manufacturing. Her mother was the daughter of a wealthy manufacturer. Her sisters were Elaine Rita (better known as actress and writer Elaine Dundy) and Betty Rose Brimberg.
As a young child, Shirley developed a passion for dance. Shirley's father was a violent bully, who didn't support her artistic ambitions. She married Bertram Clarke in 1942, partially to escape her father's control and to study dance with the masters of modern dance.
In the early 1950s, she became a filmmaker. Her love of dance informed her early work. Her first film, Dance in the Sun (1953), a six-minute short featuring dancer Daniel Nagrin was well-received. She would go on to direct several short films throughout the decade, some by herself and others in collaboration with others.
By the 1960s, when women directors were still somewhat of a novelty, she embarked on her first feature film. Rather than play it safe and do a romance or a comedy, she decided to do a film adaptation of "The Connection," a play by Jack Gelber. The Connection (1961) tells the story of a group of junkies who await the arrival of Cowboy (Carl Lee), their drug connection. Lee's portrayal, much like Bernie Hamilton as Traver in The Young One (1960) marked the arrival of a new type of Black character that hadn't been seen on the screen before -- brash, defiant, and bold. It would foreshadow the protagonists that dominated the blaxploitation films a decade later. However, in 1962, the film was initially banned in New York City because of it's use of the "S-word." However, after several legal challenges, "The Connection" was eventually able to screen in cinemas. Despite, it's limited commercial success, "The Connection," was the most widely seen of Clarke's three feature length films at the time of its release. The others were the narrative feature The Cool World (1963) and the landmark LGBTQ documentary, Portrait of Jason (1967).
Clarke received an Oscar nomination for the short Skyscraper (1959), which she also co-directed. She also directed Robert Frost: A Lover's Quarrel with the World (1963), an Oscar-winning short.
She would continue to make a series of short films and video works into the 1980s. One of her last completed works was Ornette: Made in America (1985), a documentary on jazz musician and composer Ornette Coleman.
From 1975 until 1983, she was an instructor at UCLA, where she taught a highly popular design class.
After her marriage to Bertram Clarke ended, she was in a relationship with Lee until his death in 1986.
Shirley Clarke died of a stroke in Boston in 1997 after suffering from Alzheimer's disease.
In 2014, Milestone Films, began releasing restored versions of her projects both theatrically and on home video.- Writer
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Juleen Compton is known for Stranded (1965), The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean (1966) and Buckeye and Blue (1987).- Writer
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Writer/director Stephanie Rothman was one of the few female filmmakers who specialized in low-budget drive-in exploitation fare in the '60s and '70s. Her movies are distinguished by gutsy, strong-willed and sympathetic women main characters and a radical libertarian feminist point of view. Stephanie was born on November 9, 1936 in Paterson, New Jersey (made famous by Lou Costello, who mentioned it in every one of his movies). She was the first lady to be awarded the Directors Guild of America fellowship. Rothman served as an associate producer on Queen of Blood (1966), Beach Ball (1965) and Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965). She co-wrote and co-directed the fright flick Blood Bath (1966) and made her solo directorial debut with the frothy "Beach Party"-type romp It's a Bikini World (1967). Stephanie made two features for Roger Corman's New World Pictures: the excellent The Student Nurses (1970) -- which was the first and best of the popular nurse comedy cycle -- and the offbeat and inspired horror bloodsucker outing The Velvet Vampire (1971). Rothman then went to work for Dimension Pictures, in which she and her writer/producer husband Charles S. Swartz had a minority share, where she made the charming Group Marriage (1972), the delightful The Working Girls (1974) and the gritty Terminal Island (1973) (an early vehicle for Tom Selleck. Moreover, she wrote the story for the enjoyable fantasy adventure Beyond Atlantis (1973) and penned the screenplay for the amusingly inane Starhops (1978). In 2007 Stephanie was honored with a retrospective on her work at the Vienna International Film Festival.Corman- Director
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Writer/director Barbara Peters was one of the few female filmmakers who specialized in entertainingly trashy low budget drive-in exploitation fare in the 70s and early 80s. Peters often worked for Roger Corman's B-flick studio New World Pictures. She made her feature debut as co-writer and co-director of the soft-core lesbian outing "The Dark Side of Tomorrow." Barbara followed this movie with the gritty distaff biker item "Bury Me an Angel," the amusingly silly comedy "Summer School Teachers," and the enjoyably inane "Starhops." Peters achieved her greatest notoriety with the wonderfully nasty horror creature feature winner "Humanoids from the Deep." Moreover, Barbara handled second unit director chores on the car chase pictures "Moving Violation" and "Eat My Dust," designed the costumes for "The Fabulous Bastard from Chicago," and was the art director on "The Young Nurses." She acted in "Gun Runner" and "Caged Desires" (Peters also wrote the script for this one). Barbara Peters ended her career directing episodes of such TV shows as "Misfits of Science," "Shadow Chasers," "Falcon Crest," "Remington Steele," "Cagney & Lacey," and "Matt Houston."Corman- Actress
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Joan Darling began her career with the New York improvisational theater troupe "Premise Players", and soon graduated to off-Broadwy and Broadway productions. She made her film debut in 1964 and, in the early '70s, landed a regular role on the Owen Marshall, Counselor at Law (1971) TV series. In addition to acting in TV series, she began to write for them. Her first directorial job was for the pilot of the hit '70s TV series Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976) and she directed several of the series' episodes. She became one of the first female TV directors to be steadily employed on various series, and directed many episodes of M*A*S*H (1972), the The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970) show and The Bob Newhart Show (1972). She made her film debut in 1977 with the critically acclaimed but financially unsuccessful First Love (1977), and has made several theatrical and made-for-TV movies since then.Paramount- Writer
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Jane Wagner was born on 26 February 1935 in Morristown, Tennessee, USA. She is a writer and producer, known for The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (1991), Moment by Moment (1978) and The Lily Tomlin Special (1975). She has been married to Lily Tomlin since 31 December 2013.Universal- Director
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Karen Arthur was born on 24 August 1941 in Omaha, Nebraska, USA. She is a director and actress, known for Legacy (1975), Get Smart (1965) and Cagney & Lacey (1981).indie art house- Director
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Penny Allen is a writer and film director who began her film career in Portland, Oregon. She moved to Paris, France, in 1991, where she worked on environmental issues until 2001. She also did translations from French to English during that period and is known for her translation of "The living Unknown Soldier" (2004, Metropolitan Books, New York). She resumed her movie career in Paris in 2004.indie art house- Actress
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A one-time pin-up beauty and magazine story model, Barbara Loden studied acting in New York in the early 50s and was on the Broadway boards within the decade. She was discovered for films by legendary producer/director Elia Kazan who was impressed with what she did in a small role as Montgomery Clift's secretary in Wild River (1960). He moved her up to feature status with her next role as Warren Beatty's wanton sister in his classic Splendor in the Grass (1961). As Kazan's protégé, she appeared as part of Kazan's stage company in the Lincoln Center Repertory Theater's production of After the Fall, winning the Tony and Outer Critic's Circle awards for that dazzling performance. An oddly entrancing, delicate blonde beauty possessed with a Marilyn Monroe-like vulnerability, she impressed in two of his other stage productions as well - But For Whom Charlie and The Changeling . After appearing in the failed movie Fade In (1973) with Burt Reynolds, she married Kazan and went into semi-retirement. Barbara wrote, directed and starred, however, in a bold independent film entitled Wanda (1970) and became an unexpected art house darling, distinguishing herself as one of the few woman directors whose work was theatrically-released during the period. She won praise in all three departments, nabbing the Venice Film Festival's International Critics Prize. Supposedly discouraged by a doubting, perhaps even resentful Kazan, Barbara never followed up on this success. She expressed interest and was in the midst of putting together another film, based on the novella The Awakening by Kate Chopin, when she learned in 1978 she had breast cancer. Barbara died two and a half years later, at age 48, after the cancer spread to her liver - before the project ever came to fruition. The Hollywood industry lost a burgeoning talent who just might have opened doors for other women directors had she been given the time.indie art house- Writer
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Joan Rivers is an American talk show host, comedian, writer and actress from Brooklyn, New York. She voiced Dot Matrix from Mel Brooks' Spaceballs. She has portrayed in several films and shows such as Shrek 2, Look Who's Talking, The Smurfs and Iron Man 3. She passed away in September 2014 at Manhattan, New York.indie art house- Producer
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Joan Tewkesbury began her career at age ten as a dancer in The Unfinished Dance. A few years later she appeared as an Ostrich, an Indian and Mary Martin's flying understudy in Jerome Robbin's Peter Pan. She attended University of Southern California, became a choreographer, a theatre director, a script supervisor for Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller then a writer of feature films, "Thieves Like Us" and "Nashville" and the director of "Old Boyfriends" which was presented at "Director's Fortnight" at the Cannes Film Festival.
She has also written, directed numerous projects for Cable and Network television: "The Tenth Month," "Acorn People", "Cold Sassy Tree", "Sudie and Simpson", "Wild Texas Wind", the HBO's series "The Stranger", "On Promised Land", "Elysian Fields" and was a consulting producer for the CBS series, "The Guardian".
For the stage she wrote, directed and choreographed "Dance Card" for the Oregon Ballet theatre, wrote and directed "Jammed" presented at the Edinburgh Festival and wrote, directed and produced "Retrospective" at the Manhattan Theatre Source in New York.
Ten years ago she developed a class, "Designed Obstacles, Spontaneous Response" which she has presented at Art Center, American Film Institute, Bard College, Chapel Hill, U.C.L.A., N.A.L.I.P. and various film maker labs and emersions though out the United States, Israel, Europe and Japan.
She participates as a creative advisor for the Sundance Institute Native Lab, the Sundance Institute Directors and Screenwriters Lab and has created a Writers Forum at Los Luceros in Alcalde, New Mexico.
Her work has been honored by the Writers Guild, Humanitas, Golden Globes, the British Academy Awards, Cable Ace, Academy Awards best picture nomination for "Nashville" and the Los Angeles Critics award for best original screenplay.indie art house- Actress
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Academy Award-winner Lee Grant was born Lyova Haskell Rosenthal on October 31, 1925 in Manhattan, New York City, to Witia (Haskell), a teacher and model, and Abraham Rosenthal, an educator and realtor. Her father was of Romanian Jewish descent, and her mother was a Russian Jewish immigrant. Lee made her stage debut at age 4 at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, playing the abducted princess in "L'Orocolo". After graduating from high school, she won a scholarship to the Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre, where she studied acting with Sanford Meisner. When she was a teenager Grant established herself as a formidable Broadway talent when she won The Critics' Circle Award for her portrayal of the shoplifter in "Detective Story". She reprised the role in the film version (Detective Story (1951), a performance that garnered her the Cannes Film Festival Citation for Best Actress as well as her first Academy Award Nomination. Immediately following her screen debut, however, Lee became a victim of the McCarthy-era blacklists in which actors, writers, directors, etc., were persecuted for supposedly "Communist" or "progressive" political beliefs, whether they had them or not. Except for an occasional role, she did not work in film or television for 12 years. In 1965 Lee re-started her acting career in the TV series Peyton Place (1964), for which she won an Emmy Award as Stella Chernak, and she later garnered her first Academy Award for Shampoo (1975), also receiving Academy Award nominations for The Landlord (1970) and Voyage of the Damned (1976). Since 1980 Lee has been concentrating on her directorial career, which began as part of the Women's Project at The Americal Film Institute (AFI); her adaptation of August Strindberg's, "Stronger, The" was consequently selected as one of the 10 best films ever produced for AFI. In 1987 she received an Academy Award for the HBO documentary, Down and Out in America (1985) and directed Nobody's Child (1986) for CBS, for which she received the Directors Guild Award. In 1983 she received the Congressional Arts Caucus Award for Outstanding Achievement in Acting and Independent Filmmaking. Subsequently, Women in Film paid tribute to her in 1989, with its first-ever Lifetime Achievement Award. Both the New York City Council and the County of Los Angeles Board of Supervisors have recognized Ms. Grant for the contribution her films have made to the fight against domestic violence.indie art house- Producer
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Joanna Lee was born on 7 April 1931 in Newark, New Jersey, USA. She was a producer and writer, known for Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957), ABC Afterschool Specials (1972) and CBS Schoolbreak Special (1984). She was married to Meyer Gerard Kaplan. She died on 24 October 2003 in Santa Monica, California, USA.Is this the right one? indie art house- Director
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As a successful director working both inside and outside the Hollywood studio system, Joan Micklin Silver was a true lamplighter. Garnering a steady stream of awards and box office successes, she proved herself time and again as one of the most important woman directors to come out of the United States, and demonstrated that films about Jewish topics can succeed with both Jews and non-Jews alike.
Based in New York, where she lived for many decades, Joan Micklin was born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1935. She was the daughter of Maurice David and Doris (Shoshone) Micklin, Russian Jewish immigrants who came separately to the United States before the upheavals of the Russian Revolution. Her father later founded the Micklin Lumber Company. Her deep love for the movies was first nurtured during her earliest days in pre-television Omaha, where she attended the local cinema religiously. She attended Temple Israel Synagogue and graduated from Central High School in 1952 and often wrote sketches for school plays.
Fresh after graduating Sarah Lawrence College in 1956, she married Raphael D. Silver, son of the famous Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver of Cleveland. The Silvers lived in Cleveland from 1956 to 1967 and raised three daughters there: Dina (born 1958), Marisa (born 1960), and Claudia (born 1963). While in Cleveland, Silver taught music and wrote plays, two of which were performed at local Cleveland theaters. In 1967, the Silvers moved to New York, where she worked briefly for the Village Voice and was then hired to adapt Lois Gould's 1970 novel Such Good Friends for legendary director Otto Preminger (she was replaced by a long line of others that included Joan Didion and Elaine May). Her first original screenplay, Limbo, about the wives of prisoners of war in Vietnam, was purchased by Universal Pictures and made into a film directed by Mark Robson. When Silver clashed with the director over her vision for the film, she was fired and replaced by James Bridges, though she received story and co-scripting credit in the final film.
The Learning Corporation of America then commissioned her to write and direct a series of short films, among them The Immigrant Experience: The Long Long Journey (1972), which went on to win several awards. When her success as a screenwriter and director of short films failed to score her a break in directing feature films, and when a studio executive actually told her that "women directors were another problem the studios didn't need," Silver's husband agreed to raise the money for her debut feature and serve as its producer. The film became Hester Street (1975), adapted by Silver from the 1890s novella Yekl by Abraham Cahan, the founder of the Jewish Daily Forward. Turned down by every major studio as an "ethnic oddity" with a limited audience appeal, Hester Street was independently distributed by the Silvers, with the guidance of John Cassavetes. Joan and Ray formed the production and distribution company Midwest Films, through which the film was seen worldwide and admired by Jewish and non-Jewish audiences. Hester Street became one of the earliest independent films to be nominated for Academy Awards, securing a Best Actress nod for lead Carol Kane. The following year, she adapted F. Scott Fitzgerald's Bernice Bobs Her Hair (starring Shelley Duvall, Bud Cort and Veronica Cartwright) as part of a series of median-length features taken from classic American short stories.
Despite the critical and surprise commercial success of Hester Street, major studios still would not back Silver's next film. Her second feature, Between the Lines (1977), about a group of people who work for an alternative newspaper in Boston, was once again produced by her husband. That comedy feature an ensemble cast of now-famous faces, including Jeff Goldblum, John Heard and Stephen Collins. Her third feature, Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979), based on the novel by Ann Beattie, marked Silver's first experience working with a major Hollywood studio, namely United Artists. Turner Classic Movies's Robert Osborne selected the film for inclusion in a special festival recognizing pictures that were "woefully overlooked and under-appreciated," then later programmed the film for his "night of favorites" on TCM in 2007. In November 2014, Chilly Scenes of Winter played to a sold-out crowd at New York City's IFC Center.
After years of directing stage productions, including the well-received A...My Name is Alice (1983), she returned to features in 1985 with the comedy-drama Finnegan Begin Again, starring Robert Preston, Mary Tyler Moore and Sam Waterston. The first effort produced by the fledgling HBO Premiere Films, the film won the Silver Leopard's Eye at the Locarno Film Festival. Her next film with a Jewish subject, the beloved Crossing Delancey, a hit romantic comedy about an assimilated Jewish Manhattanite (played by Amy Irving) and her Lower East Side pickle-salesman suitor (played by Peter Riegert), was produced for Warner Brothers and released in 1988. Her other theatrical releases include Loverboy (1989) for Tri-Star and Stepkids (a.k.a. Big Girls Don't Cry...They Get Even) (1992) for New Line.
Silver's other theater works include A...My Name Is Still Alice (1992), Album (1980), and Maybe I'm Doing It Wrong (1982). She has directed several films for television, among them Parole Board (1990), A Private Matter (1992), Invisible Child (1999) and Hunger Point (2003). In 2002, she directed independent film acting legend Gena Rowlands in Charms for the Easy Life (2002) for Showtime.
In 1995, Silver proved her versatility when she directed a series for National Public Radio called Great Jewish Stories from Eastern Europe and Beyond, which was co-produced by the National Yiddish Book Center. In 1983, she also directed Wallace Shawn and Hermione Gingold in How to Be a Perfect Person in Just 3 Days.
Joan Micklin Silver died at her Manhattan home on December 31, 2020. She was 85.indie art house then UA- Director
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Claudia Weill was born on 20 December 1946 in New York City, New York, USA. She is a director and actress, known for Girlfriends (1978), ABC Afterschool Specials (1972) and Girls (2012). She has been married to Walter Simon Teller since 14 July 1985. They have two children.indie art house then Warner, Columbia- Actress
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Anne Bancroft was born on September 17, 1931 in The Bronx, NY, the middle daughter of Michael Italiano (1905-2001), a dress pattern maker, and Mildred DiNapoli (1907-2010), a telephone operator. She made her cinema debut in Don't Bother to Knock (1952) in 1952, and over the next five years appeared in a lot of undistinguished movies such as Gorilla at Large (1954), Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954), New York Confidential (1955), Nightfall (1956) and The Girl in Black Stockings (1957). By 1957 she grew dissatisfied with the scripts she was getting, left the film business and spent the next five years doing plays on Broadway. She returned to screens in 1962 with her portrayal of Annie Sullivan in The Miracle Worker (1962), for which she won an Oscar. Bancroft went on to give acclaimed performances in The Pumpkin Eater (1964), The Slender Thread (1965), Young Winston (1972), The Prisoner of Second Avenue (1975), The Elephant Man (1980), To Be or Not to Be (1983), 84 Charing Cross Road (1987) and other movies, but her most famous role would be as Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate (1967). Her status as the "older woman" in the film is iconic, although in real life she was only eight years older than Katharine Ross and just six years older than Dustin Hoffman. Bancroft would later express her frustration over the fact that the film overshadowed her other work. Selective for much of her intermittent career, she appeared onscreen more frequently in the '90s and early '00s, playing a range of characters in such films as Love Potion No. 9 (1992), Point of No Return (1993), Home for the Holidays (1995), G.I. Jane (1997), Great Expectations (1998), Keeping the Faith (2000) and Up at the Villa (2000). She also started to make some TV films, including Deep in My Heart (1999) for which she won an Emmy. Sadly, on June 6, 2005, Bancroft passed away at the age of 73 from uterine cancer. Her death surprised many, as she had not disclosed her illness to the public. Among her survivors was her husband of 41 years, Mel Brooks, and their son Max Brooks, who was born in 1972. Her final film, the animated feature Delgo (2008), was released posthumously in 2008 and dedicated to her memory.1 film- Actress
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They say big things often come in small packages, and never was that saying more true than when sizing up the talents of that diminutive dynamo Nancy Walker. Born Anna Myrtle Swoyer in Philadelphia on May 10, 1922, she lived a born-in-a-trunk existence as the daughter of vaudevillian Dewey Barto (né Stewart Steven Swoyer). At the time of his run of Broadway's "Hellzapoppin", Barto was part of the comedy team of Barto & Mann (George Mann). Her younger sister, Betty Lou Barto (born 1930), had a less impressive and briefer performing career. Although she had designs on becoming a legit singer, it was hard for others to take Nancy seriously with her naturally aggressive manner backed up by this tiny frame. Comedy became her forte.
Broadway legend George Abbott picked up on her innate comic abilities immediately and set her up as his blind date in the Broadway musical smash "Best Foot Forward" in 1941. The show, starring June Allyson, was a certifiable hit, and when MGM turned Best Foot Forward (1943) into a musical film, Nancy, as well as June, went right along with it. Nancy continued giving top support for MGM in the Judy Garland/Mickey Rooney starrer Girl Crazy (1943) and in Broadway Rhythm (1944). Back on Broadway, Nancy all but stole the proceedings as the hoydenish cabbie Hildy Esterhazy, who pursues a sailor on leave, in "On the Town" (1944). After a brief first marriage, she met vocal coach David Craig during the 1948 run of "Look, Ma, I'm Dancing", when she was plagued by vocal problems. They married a few years later and had a daughter, Miranda. When Nancy left the show, she was replaced by her sister, Betty Lou Barto. Other musical plaudit came her way, including Tony nominations for the revue "Phoenix '55" and for her lead role in "Do Re Mi" with Phil Silvers.
Nancy experienced some tough, lean years in the late 1950s and 1960s until she found TV an accepting medium. She became popular all over again, and a household name to boot, as Rosie the waitress in a series of Bounty paper-towel commercials. At around the same time, she won a regular role as Mildred, the sardonic maid on McMillan & Wife (1971). Her prototypical wisecracking role, however, came as the outlandish Jewish mom Ida Morgenstern, mother of Valerie Harper's "Rhoda" character on The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970).
When Harper spun off into her own series--Rhoda (1974)--interfering Ida was right alongside her still-unmarried daughter, wreaking havoc. Alas, nominated for eight Emmys and four Golden Globe Awards for her collective work on series TV, she never won. Her renewed popularity, however, led to a couple of TV star vehicles that plainly didn't suit her second-banana talents. Neither lasted very long. She eventually moved into stage and film directing. Nancy made her final regular TV-series appearance on the sitcom True Colors (1990), playing another of her long line of delightfully brash buttinskys. During the run of the show, she was diagnosed with lung cancer and died about six weeks before her 70th birthday in 1992. She was survived by her husband, daughter, and sister.1 film