Reconsidering Richard Crenna

RICHARD CRENNA
November 30, 1926 - January 17, 2003

It was easy to overlook Richard Crenna - or, at the very least, take him for granted. His rugged, reassuringly solid presence in every other TV movie of the 1980's (and, somewhat less nobly, the Rambo series) made him a familiar, if not terribly exciting, face and name. But digging deeper into his career and filmography is an eye-opening experience. For one thing, his list of leading ladies is nothing if not impressive. There was Gloria "I Married a Monster from Outer Space" Talbott in an episode of the western series Frontier (1956)...

...the Destitute Man's Gloria Grahame, Cleo Moore, in the pulpy neo-noir Over-Exposed (1956)...


...an even-wackier-than-usual Shirley MacLaine in the subversive spoof John Goldfarb, Please Come Home! (1965)...


...the luscious Ann-Margret, and even more luscious Louis Jourdan and Chad Everett, in Made in Paris (1966)...


...a terrorized Audrey Hepburn in her Hollywood swan song, Wait Until Dark (1967)...


...Dame Julie Andrews in the campy, cult-ish Star! (1968), in which they locked lips and clashed plaids...


...and the intense, drag queeny Janice Rule in the sub-Jackie Susann howler, Doctors' Wives (1971).


Clearly, a re-evaluation of Mr. Crenna's ouevre is in order. Oh, and as the deal clincher, we realized that, as the unfortunate husband of Kathleen Turner in Body Heat (1981), Crenna displayed an admirably lean physique at age 51; we would have kept him and dumped William Hurt who, frankly, always sort of freaked us out. Creepy dude.

Exception to the Rule

As illustrated above, Janice Rule had enough oomph and character to propel her career to further heights than she ultimately scaled. Perhaps a clue to her ultimately disappointing career lies in such anecdotes as Miss Joan Crawford, exasperated by Rule's unprofessional behavior, upbraiding her novice co-star in 1951's Goodbye, My Fancy with the withering sally, "I hope you enjoy making films while you can, Miss Rule. I doubt that you'll be with us for very long!"


Rule also lost the lead female role in On the Waterfront (1954), which eventually won an Oscar for Eva Marie Saint, due to her clashes with the studio; and one of the reasons her contract with Warners was eventually terminated, was because of her "sloppy" off-screen appearance. Rule bounced back with a flashy supporting turn as James Stewart's unfortunate girlfriend in Bell, Book and Candle (1958); she then turned to television for the better part of the 1960's.

Ironically, for someone who buckled at the studio-inflicted "glamour girl"/"sex symbol" paces she was put through as a young starlet in the 1950's, Janice Rule really came into her own as a sensual, mature, and yes, sexy beauty in the late 1960's, giving a series of acclaimed performances in such varied films as the Western drama The Chase (1966); the Matt Helm spy spoof The Ambushers (1967); and the drama The Swimmer (1968).


Ultimately, Miss Rule found her true calling as a highly successful psychotherapist in Manhattan. (We're sure her years on Broadway and in Hollywood stood her in good stead with her chosen profession.) Janice Rule passed away in 2003, of a cerebral hemorrhage.