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Post by Mrs Vindecco on Aug 4, 2012 13:31:03 GMT
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Post by Monk's Moll on Aug 4, 2012 19:58:11 GMT
I love George Sanders, what an amazing actor. Great in whatever role he played  . |
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Post by Violet on Aug 4, 2012 21:26:01 GMT
These photos are lovely, Mrs V.
I really like the one of him with Bogie and Ronald Colman. The photo of him with Shere Khan is sweet, I adored that film as a child and he was fabulous in it.
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Post by woofy on Aug 6, 2012 16:16:58 GMT
Sanders' elder brother, Tom Conway, made a great Falcon. The only problem is that Sanders' and Conway's voices were virtually identical. I think that had a detrimental impact on Conway's career.
BTW, Sanders had a GREAT singing voice. Cf. Call Me Madam:
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Post by Mrs Vindecco on Aug 10, 2012 9:33:54 GMT
Thanks for posting this Woofy!!! Yes Sanders had an amazing voice. I'm surprised that despite musicals popularity, Sanders singing talent was rooted out and employed sooner. Someone on youtube has uploaded a few tracks from the album he released in 1958, I think. I know he was an accomplished pianist and was incredibly upset when could no longer play.
I also like when George puts on a slight accent. I've seen this in Call Me Madam, Lancer Spy and the Mr Moto film. I think both Sanders and Conways distinct voices were probably from living in Russia until they were 11 and 13 and then were suddenly sent to an elite, English public school, where I am sure they conversed with a proper yet beautiful, almost lyrical ambience.
On a side note, I am happy to say that BBC2, after broadcasting all the Saint films on the run upto the Olympics, will be broadcasting all the Falcon films after they are over ;D I wish Parliament could have longer holidays, because I really enjoy the seasons of old films the BBC put on at lunch time.
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Post by liz on Aug 10, 2012 15:50:44 GMT
Forget where I've seen him...
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Post by Mrs Vindecco on Aug 11, 2012 13:57:19 GMT
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Post by woofy on Aug 11, 2012 14:52:50 GMT
Great article and the letter from Sanders to Ahern is a masterpiece. I'm a fan of Benita Hume (Coleman Sanders) from her radio days on Halls of Ivy. It's interesting to hear things from her perspective regarding her marriage to Sanders. |
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Post by Mrs Vindecco on Aug 24, 2012 10:09:58 GMT
I just like to read there was more to the caddish image, which I knew there would be, but it's good to hear it at first hand. The tragedy of his suicide has always been played down because of his infamous note, but it was just as heartbreaking as any other suicide, especially after reading the note he left to his sister.
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Post by Mrs Vindecco on Aug 24, 2012 10:22:34 GMT
Due to unforeseen personal circumstances I have truly neglected the forum of late so apologies for that. I had plans to do more for George than I have done, so I'll try and make up for it as best as I can.
I watched this the other week. The film is called "Lured" and I saw it years ago at my Granny's. I actually wondered if I had imagined it and then I stumbled upon it on youtube. It's a slight oddity because it features Lucille Ball, alongside George (an interesting pairing) and is directed by Douglas Sirk (latterly famous for his lush melodramas). Here I think Sirk is trying to be as Hitchcockesque. There is also an interesting supporting cast, Charles Coburn, Sir Cedric Hardwicke (I don't think I like him very much) and a rather odd appearance by Boris Karloff.
It's an entertaining enough, a bit all over the place and more of a B film given A treatment, but not a bad way of spending an hour and a half.
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Post by Mrs Vindecco on Aug 26, 2012 16:28:32 GMT
George's page in 501 Movie Stars.  |
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Post by Monk's Moll on Aug 27, 2012 15:39:47 GMT
Sanders' elder brother, Tom Conway, made a great Falcon. The only problem is that Sanders' and Conway's voices were virtually identical. I think that had a detrimental impact on Conway's career. BTW, Sanders had a GREAT singing voice. Cf. Call Me Madam: www.youtube.com/watc.h?v=ft3OtmiTpvMHe really was quite talented . That's true, one couldn't tell them apart. Tom was also fantastic in The Cat People, and the Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode "The Glass Eye", with the also wonderful actors Jessica Tandy and Billy Barty  . |
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Post by nordenwald on Mar 30, 2013 23:29:17 GMT
What a cool thread Sanders' elder brother, Tom Conway, made a great Falcon. The only problem is that Sanders' and Conway's voices were virtually identical. I think that had a detrimental impact on Conway's career. BTW, Sanders had a GREAT singing voice. Very true. You can hear their voices together in Death of a Scoundrel, in which Tom Conway plays George's... brother (and Zsa Zsa is in there too). Their voices are extremely similar. As for his singing voice, I have this LP at home.  Musically it's... well, very dated, to put it nicely. But an interesting oddity. I always like watching him play the piano in various movies. My favorite is perhaps a scene in The Kremlin Letter. The film itself is an incomprehensible mess, but George's appearance in drag, playing the piano in a San Francisco gay bar (he was 64 at the time!) makes it worth watching  Great article and the letter from Sanders to Ahern is a masterpiece. I'm a fan of Benita Hume (Coleman Sanders) from her radio days on Halls of Ivy. It's interesting to hear things from her perspective regarding her marriage to Sanders. Brian Aherne's biography of Sanders, A Dreadful Man, is worth reading for exactly that. Aherne's biographical content I don't find very interesting, but the book is full of the correspondence the three of them had during the 1960's. Mostly Benita's letters, but also a few letters penned by George himself, one of them being the one cited in the article posted here by Mrs Vindecco. All those letters are witty and fun to read, but also very poignant when Benita starts talking about her fight with cancer. Yes there are a few racist remarks here and there in Benita's letters that are hard to swallow, but that's interesting in itself. Like a wake-up call to those of us who fantasize about the so-called Hollywood Golden Age, reminding us that it was not golden for everyone. Anyway, reprinting this book now would take some editing... The most amazing thing for me was to learn, while reading it, that they had lived in Lausanne (where I live). I had been a Sanders fan for some time but I had no idea. I remember being in my apartment, located not very far from where they lived between 1959 and 1965, turning all the pages avidly, and suddenly reading about that. Made me spit my coffee right through my nose The day after I went "in pilgrimage" to their address. I was very surprised to see that they just had a flat at the top floor of a house - no access to the garden at all. Hardly the kind of digs you would expect a Hollywood star to live in... still, nice neighborhood. Quiet and all. As for the other books, the best - and sadly the hardest to find - is the one Sanders wrote himself. Not strictly speaking an autobiography, as entire chapters of his life are not even mentioned, but an extremely witty collection of anecdotes. Some passages are laugh-out-loud funny (how he fought a duel while drunk in Argentina, getting sick on an airplane, missing an important lunch with L.B. Mayer, trying to eat a hot towel in Japan, and recollections of his uncle Sasha in St-Petersburg, there are many more), and all of it is so, SO well-written. This one really needs to be put back into print. Finally, my favorite article about Sanders. It was written a long time ago, by cyber-age standards, so all that's left of it now is the text itself. The portions of text in red in the article used to be links to interesting footnotes about a particular subject (one of them about George's ability to wear a monocle... quoting from memory: "the only actor since Erich von Stroheim who can wear a monocle without looking as if he's going to drop it in his soup"). Sadly those links are now broken, but the article is still very much worth reading. Link here. |
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Post by Mrs Vindecco on Apr 1, 2013 15:02:55 GMT
Wow, you've offered a lot of new George Sanders goodies. I really like the LP cover, dated but cute!
I think it's wonderful that you live so close to where he and Benita lived and were apparently happy. From what I have read of Lausanne it sounds quite lovely. I went to Switzerland (mainly Geneva) with my parents about 20 years ago and thought it was lovely, so I think all three of you are/ were privileged to live in such a lovely country.
I have wanted to read Aherne's book, but I have heard mixed reviews and some people say there's too much about Aherne himself in it to be a good biography. I am disappointed to hear about the racist comments though. I know it was a different world back them and it would be naive to pretend that everyone in the Golden Age of Hollywood were lovely, more polite and correct, there was more obvious ignorance and prejudice. Ignorance and prejudice still exists today obviously, but we tend to hope they are more of people about to say this is wrong. This is the one area where I think society has improved, it's not perfect, but on the surface it has improved.
I REALLY want to get my hands on Sanders autobiography, my mum has been after it for a while too. Sounds like a good read. Like David Niven and Peter Ustinov, it sounds as if Sanders could have made a good secondary career as a raconteur on chat shows in the 70's.
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Post by nordenwald-the2nd on Apr 6, 2013 1:11:37 GMT
 Wow, you've offered a lot of new George Sanders goodies. I really like the LP cover, dated but cute! I think it's wonderful that you live so close to where he and Benita lived and were apparently happy. From what I have read of Lausanne it sounds quite lovely. I went to Switzerland (mainly Geneva) with my parents about 20 years ago and thought it was lovely, so I think all three of you are/ were privileged to live in such a lovely country. Yeah well I think the "Alpine Set" (word play on "Jet Set" - Benita's own terminology for the handful of aging Hollywood stars who set up residence in Switzerland in the 50's and 60's) chose this place because of the scenery, and because it was quiet, dull, and nobody would ever dare bother them for an autograph or any such nonsense. The very concept of "celebrity" was just incomprehensible here back then. That's also one of the reasons why Chaplin chose this place. To give you an idea, Chaplin was in the phonebook. Charlie Chaplin. Occupation: Film Legend. But if you wanted to ring him, you could And so was Oona until her death in 1991 (I have kept that phonebook page as a souvenir). But now it has changed. Well, we're still dull, but we have caught up with the rest of the world and now we have crime and drug dealers, like everyone else. Yay! I REALLY want to get my hands on Sanders autobiography, my mum has been after it for a while too. I really want to scan the thing and put it online, because I hate the idea of this book being unavailable. But scanning it is one thing, I still don't know how to make it fit into one single pdf file.... I have to investigate about that. Sounds like a good read. Like David Niven and Peter Ustinov, it sounds as if Sanders could have made a good secondary career as a raconteur on chat shows in the 70's. Oh you're so right. I love all of Ustinov's TV appearances and his performances as raconteur, not to mention Niven's, and you're right, Sanders would have been awesome at it if only... he had committed suicide 10 years later lol... (I'm kidding.... but his timing really was bad). There's little or no "candid" footage of Sanders or Peter Lorre being themselves. There's the What's My Line clips for both of them that surfaced a few years ago on YouTube, but that's not much. Whenever I watch a present-day DVD and I see all the bonuses available, mainly consisting of the cast and crew complacently congratulating each other (basically a lot of useless and uninteresting footage meant to work as crowd-pleasing material), it only makes me think of all the precious gems that hit the cutting room floor in the studio era. Not just outtakes but entire films for that matter, considered worthless - whatever was not marketable was not worth preserving. At a time when cellulose film melted for silver nitrate was worth more than the footage it contained, there wasn't any room for preservation for the sake of film history (and no immediate gain). Irresponsible, money-grubbing behaviour on the part of studio heads. These people had no agenda other than to make money. Legacy.... they never thought there would be any, I guess you have to give them that. Hollywood to them was just a place to make a buck and make it big while it lasted. Renowned film historian Kevin Brownlow phrases it better than I do in this acceptance speech... And then, for the actors themselves, Hollywood was never more than a place to make good money while it lasted. In one of Benita's early letters to Aherne, she says something to the effect that he should clear out, "come over here", that "Hollywood is finished"... I don't have the exact quotation but basically she makes it clear that they were out there as long as it paid good money, and once that was gone, there was no reason whatsoever to stay. So funnily enough, they, the people who knew and participated in the "Golden Age" had no qualms, no nostalgia about it whatsoever. Decades later, many people have this nostalgia about a time and place they never knew, while the people who were actually a part of it considered it as just a place to make good money, and couldn't wait to clear out once it was gone.... Interesting  PS: Mrs Vindecco, have you banned me already? I have to post this as a guest, cause I can't log in for some reason. **sigh**
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Jun 25, 2013 23:15:10 GMT
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