Barbecue At Burt's

Aged prime beef for everyone.

Good Guy Gone Bad

Hard to believe, but this fresh-faced, clean-cut, angelic-looking choir boy would eventually become one of Hollywood's go-to villains: handsome tough Dan Duryea. In his earliest films, though, Duryea often played the wishy-washy, unsympathetic weakling (including the 1941 film adaptation of The Little Foxes, in a role he originated on Broadway). It wasn't long, however, before producers began capitalizing on his sexy-yet-sinister presence, casting him as the charismatic bad guy in such noir classics as The Woman in the Window (1944), Scarlet Street (1946), and Criss Cross (1949); in the latter, the formidable Duryea manages to off Burt Lancaster and Yvonne De Carlo!


Other handsome villains followed in Duryea's footsteps, including Richard Widmark, David Brian and, later, Aldo Ray; but arguably, no one played the part better. With the decline of film noir in the 1950's, Duryea transitioned easily into Westerns, along with the occasional romantic potboiler, his hulking presence well-matched by some positively Amazonian co-stars: most memorably, the turgid This is My Love (1954) with Linda Darnell and Faith Domergue, and the equally hot-blooded Foxfire (1955) with Jane Russell and Mara Corday.


In contrast to his menacing screen persona, Duryea was the quintessential family man: a PTA parent who was married to the same woman for 35 years until her death. If he never became a superstar, Dan Duryea did carve out a niche for himself as one of the classic villains of the film noir era, and remained a solidly reliable performer up until his untimely death from cancer at age 61.

DAN DURYEA
January 23, 1907 - June 7, 1968

Snowed In?

Curl up with a good book!

The Lady in Question

And we do mean "lady": our latest Mystery Guest, who fooled everyone, was one of our favorite character actresses, the always-elegant Cathleen Nesbitt, whose 121st birthday it would have been on the day we posted her photo. A highly respected stage actress on both the London and New York stages, Nesbitt is perhaps best known for her supporting roles roles in a series splashy, frothy American film productions.


Besides inflicting its irritating, ubiquitous, yet ultimately irresistible title song upon an unsuspecting public, Three Coins in the Fountain (1954) also marked Nesbitt's American screen debut. The role of "La Principessa" set the tone for Nesbitt's persona for the rest of her career: aristocratic, vaguely Continental, often imposing. The 1950's also found Nesbitt performing before her largest Broadway audiences, again in haughty character roles, in such hits as Gigi (1951), Sabrina Fair (1953), Anastasia (1954) and My Fair Lady (1956).

L-R: SCOTT MCKAY, CATHLEEN NESBITT, ROBERT DUKE, JOSEPH COTTEN AND MARGARET SULLAVAN IN SABRINA FAIR

Drawing upon her French education at Sorbonne, Nesbitt also displayed a rare and touching tenderness in what may be her most widely-seen performance, as Cary Grant's grand-mère Janou in An Affair to Remember (1957).

Strangely, the hugely successful Affair marked the end of Nesbitt's association with 20th Century Fox after four critically- and popularly-acclaimed appearances. At the very least, she gained a wider reputation from her time there, and managed to go to a few swell parties.

CATHLEEN NESBITT AT A 20TH CENTURY FOX EVENT WITH GEORGE CUKOR, DARYL ZANUCK, JR. AND DARYL ZANUCK, SR.

Nesbitt's next major film was Separate Tables (1958), which bore the distinction of not only Oscar-winning turns by David Niven and Wendy Hiller, but also the meeting of two of Britain's greatest actresses: Cathleen Nesbitt and Gladys Cooper.

There were a few more film roles (including a memorable turn as Hayley Mills's staunchy Bostonian grandmother in The Parent Trap, 1961); an Emmy for the television film The Mask of Love (1974); and a reprisal of her role as Henry Higgins' mother in the 1981 Broadway revival of My Fair Lady, once again opposite Rex Harrison, and performed when Nesbitt was into her nineties! Indeed, Cathleen Nesbitt had one of the longest careers of any actress, spanning eight decades. She passed away at age 93 in 1982.

The Heat is On

Beautiful Burt

BURT & AVA GARDNER IN THE KILLERS (1946)

BURT & DEBORAH KERR IN FROM HERE TO ETERNITY (1953)

BEAUTIFUL PENCIL SKETCH BY MATTHEW LEADER