Eleanor Parker
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Eleanor Parker | |
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| File:Eleanor-parker-1953 opt.jpg Parker in 1953 | |
| Born | Eleanor Jean Parker June 26, 1922 Cedarville, Ohio, U.S. |
| Died | December 9, 2013 (aged 91) Palm Springs, California, U.S. |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1941–1991 |
| Spouse(s) | Fred Losee (1943–1944; divorced) Bert E. Friedlob (1946–1953; divorced; 3 children) Paul Clemens (1954–1965; divorced; 1 child) Raymond N. Hirsch (1966–2001; his death) |
| Children | Susan Eleanor Friedlob Sharon Anne Friedlob Richard Parker Friedlob Paul Day Clemens |
Eleanor Jean Parker (June 26, 1922 – December 9, 2013) was an American actress who appeared in some 80 movies and television series.[1] An actress of notable versatility, she was called Woman of a Thousand Faces, the title of her biography by Doug McClelland. Her most famous role was playing Baroness Elsa Schrader in The Sound of Music.
Early life
Eleanor Jean Parker was born in Cedarville, Ohio. While she was still a child, she moved with her family to East Cleveland, Ohio, and attended public schools. She was a graduate of Shaw High School. After high school, at the age of 18, she was signed by Warner Brothers in 1941. She was cast that year in the film They Died with Their Boots On,[2] but her scenes were cut.[3] Her actual film debut was as Nurse Ryan in Soldiers in White in 1942.
Career
By 1946, Parker had starred in Between Two Worlds, Hollywood Canteen, Pride of the Marines, Never Say Goodbye, and played the key role of Mildred Rogers in the remake of Of Human Bondage. She broke the champagne bottle on the nose of the California Zephyr train, to mark its inaugural journey from San Francisco on March 19, 1949.[4]
Parker was nominated three times as Best Actress for the Academy Award. In 1950, she was nominated for Caged,[5] in which she played a prison inmate. For this role, she won the 1950 Volpi Cup for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival. She was then nominated for the Oscar in 1951 for her performance as Mary McLeod, the woman who doesn't understand the position of her unstable detective husband (played by Kirk Douglas) in Detective Story and again in 1955 for her portrayal of opera singer Marjorie Lawrence in the Oscar-winning biopic Interrupted Melody. She followed Detective Story with her portrayal of an actress in love with a swashbuckling nobleman (played by Stewart Granger) in Scaramouche. Parker then starred with Charlton Heston as a 1900s mail-order bride in The Naked Jungle, directed by George Pal.
Also in 1952, Parker appeared in the film adaptation of the National Book Award-winner The Man with the Golden Arm, directed by Otto Preminger. She played Zosch, the supposedly wheelchair-bound wife of heroin-addicted, would-be jazz drummer Frankie Machine (Frank Sinatra). In 1956, she was billed above the title with Clark Gable for the Raoul Walsh-directed Western comedy The King and Four Queens. A year later, she starred in another W. Somerset Maugham novel, a remake of The Painted Veil in the role originated by Greta Garbo, released as The Seventh Sin. She also appeared in Home from the Hill, A Hole in the Head with Frank Sinatra, and Return to Peyton Place.
She was an adept comedienne. In the 1951 Millionaire for Christy, she played a secretary sent to notify a man of his inheritance, co-starring with Fred MacMurray.
Parker's best-known screen role came when she co-starred with Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer as Baroness Elsa Schraeder in the 1965 Oscar-winning musical The Sound Of Music.
In 1966, she played an alcoholic in Warning Shot, a talent scout in The Oscar, and a rich alcoholic in An American Dream. From the late 1960s, television would occupy more of her energies.
In 1963, Parker appeared in the NBC medical drama about psychiatry The Eleventh Hour in the episode "Why Am I Grown So Cold?", for which she was nominated for an Emmy Award as Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role. In 1964, she appeared in the episode "A Land More Cruel" on the ABC drama about psychiatry, Breaking Point. In 1968, she portrayed a spy in How to Steal the World, a film originally shown as a two-part episode on NBC's The Man from U.N.C.L.E..
In 1969-70, Parker starred in the television series Bracken's World, for which she was nominated for a 1970 Golden Globe Award as Best TV Actress - Drama. She also appeared in the Ghost Story episode "Half a Death" (1973), a suspense-thriller about a wealthy woman reconciling the lives of her two daughters.
Parker starred in a number of theatrical productions, including the role of Margo Channing in the Broadway musical version of the film All About Eve, Applause. The role was originally played in the musical by Lauren Bacall and in All About Eve by Bette Davis. In 1976, she played Maxine in the Ahmanson Theater revival of The Night of the Iguana. She quit the Circle in the Square Theatre revival of Pal Joey during previews. She wrote the preface to the book How Your Mind Can Keep You Well, a meditation technique developed by Roy Masters. She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6340 Hollywood Boulevard.
Personal life
Parker was married four times:
- Lord Fred Losee — married in 1943, divorced in 1944.
- Bert E. Friedlob — married in 1946, divorced in 1953. Three children.
- Paul Clemens, American portrait painter — married in 1954, divorced in 1965. One son, actor Paul Clemens.
- Raymond N. Hirsch — married in 1966, widowed on September 14, 2001 when Hirsch died of esophageal cancer.[6]
Parker died on December 9, 2013 in Palm Springs, California of complications of pneumonia. She was 91.[7]
She was the grandmother of one-time child actor Chase Parker.
Religion
Parker was raised a Protestant and later converted to Judaism, telling New York Daily News columnist Kay Gardella in August 1969, "I think we're all Jews at heart... I wanted to convert for a long time."[8]
Academy Award nominations
- 1950 – Caged
- 1951 – Detective Story
- 1955 – Interrupted Melody[9]
Filmography
| Year | Title | Character | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1941 | They Died with Their Boots On | Bit Part | (scenes deleted) |
| 1942 | The Big Shot | Telephone Operator | |
| Busses Roar (1942) | Norma | ||
| Soldiers in White | Nurse Ryan | short subject | |
| Men of the Sky (1942) | Mrs. Frank Bickley | short subject | |
| Vaudeville Days (1942) | Colleen | uncredited short subject | |
| 1943 | The Mysterious Doctor | Letty Carstairs | |
| Mission to Moscow | Emlen Davies | ||
| Destination Tokyo | Mike's Wife on Record (voice) | uncredited | |
| 1944 | Between Two Worlds | Ann Bergner | |
| Atlantic City | Bathing Beauty | uncredited | |
| Crime by Night | Irene Carr | ||
| The Last Ride (1944) | Kitty Kelly | ||
| The Very Thought of You | Janet Wheeler | ||
| Hollywood Canteen | Herself | cameo | |
| 1945 | Pride of the Marines | Ruth Hartley | |
| 1946 | Of Human Bondage | Mildred Rogers | |
| Never Say Goodbye | Ellen Gayley | ||
| 1947 | Escape Me Never | Fenella MacLean | |
| Always Together | Herself | cameo | |
| The Voice of the Turtle | Sally Middleton | ||
| 1948 | The Woman in White | Laurie Fairlie Ann Catherick |
|
| 1949 | It's a Great Feeling (1949) | Herself | cameo |
| 1950 | Chain Lightning | Joan "Jo" Holloway | |
| Caged | Marie Allen | Volpi Cup Nominated-Academy Award for Best Actress | |
| Three Secrets | Susan Adele Connors Chase | ||
| 1951 | Valentino | Joan Carlisle Sarah Gray |
|
| A Millionaire for Christy | Christabel "Christy" Sloane | ||
| Detective Story | Mary McLeod | Nominated-Academy Award for Best Actress | |
| 1952 | Scaramouche | Lenore | |
| Above and Beyond | Lucey Tibbets | ||
| 1953 | Escape from Fort Bravo | Carla Forester | |
| 1954 | The Naked Jungle | Joanna Leiningen | |
| Valley of the Kings | Ann Barclay Mercedes | ||
| 1955 | Many Rivers to Cross | Mary Stuart Cherne | |
| Interrupted Melody | Marjorie Lawrence | Nominated-Academy Award for Best Actress | |
| The Man with the Golden Arm | Zosch Machine | ||
| 1956 | The King and Four Queens | Sabina McDade | |
| 1957 | Lizzie | Elizabeth Lizzie Beth Richmond |
|
| The Seventh Sin | Carol Carwin | ||
| 1959 | A Hole in the Head | Eloise Rogers | |
| 1960 | Home from the Hill | Hannah Hunnicutt | |
| The Gambler, the Nun, and the Radio | Sister Cecelia | ||
| 1961 | Return to Peyton Place | Connie Rossi | |
| 1962 | Madison Avenue | Anne Tremaine | |
| Checkmate (TV series) | Marion Bannion Gussie Hill |
episode: The Renaissance of Gussie Hill | |
| 1963 | The Eleventh Hour (1962 TV series) | Connie Folsom | episode: Why Am I Grown So Cold? Nominated- Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role |
| Bob Hope Presents the Chrysler Theatre | Fern Selman | episode: Seven Miles of Bad Road | |
| 1964 | Panic Button | Louise Harris | |
| Kraft Suspense Theatre | Dorian Smith | episode: Knight's Gambit | |
| 1965 | The Sound of Music | Baroness Elsa Schrader | |
| Convoy (TV series) | Kate Fowler | episode: Lady on the Rock | |
| 1966 | The Oscar | Sophie Cantaro | |
| An American Dream | Deborah Kelly Rojack | ||
| 1967 | Warning Shot | Mrs. Doris Ruston | |
| The Tiger and the Pussycat | Esperia Vincenzini | ||
| 1968 | The Man from U.N.C.L.E. | Margitta Kingsley | episode: The Seven Wonders of the World Affair |
| 1969 | Eye of the Cat | Aunt Danny | |
| Hans Brinker | Dame Brinker | ||
| Bracken's World | Sylvia Caldwell | episodes 1-16 Nominated-Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Television Series Drama | |
| 1971 | Maybe I'll Come Home in the Spring | Claire Miller | |
| Vanished (TV movie) | Sue Greer | ||
| 1972 | Circle of Fear | Paula Burgess | episode: Half a Death |
| Home for the Holidays (TV movie) | Alex Morgan | ||
| 1973 | The Great American Beauty Contest (TV movie) | Peggy Lowery | |
| 1975 | Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (TV movie) | Christine Drayton | |
| 1978 | Hawaii Five-O | Mrs. Kincaid | episode: The Big Aloha |
| The Bastard (TV movie) | Lady Amberly | ||
| 1979 | Sunburn | Mrs. Thoren | |
| She's Dressed to Kill (TV movie) | Regine Danton | ||
| 1980 | Once Upon a Spy (TV movie) | The Lady | |
| Vega$ | Laurie Bishop | episode: A Deadly Victim | |
| 1981 | Madame X (1981 film) | Katherine Richardson | |
| 1979–1982 | The Love Boat | Alicia Bradbury Rosie Strickland |
episode: A Dress to Remember episode: Buddy and Portia's Story/Julie's Story/Carol and Doug's Story/Peter and Alicia's Story |
| 1977–1983 | Fantasy Island | Peggy Atwood Eunice Hollander Baines |
episode: Nurses Night Out episode: Yesterday's Love/Fountain of Youth episode: Pilot |
| 1983 | Hotel (TV series) | Leslie | episode: The Offer |
| 1984 | Finder of Lost Loves | Nora Spencer | episode: The Gift |
| 1986 | Murder, She Wrote | Maggie Tarrow | episode: Stage Struck |
| 1991 | Dead on the Money (TV movie) | Catherine Blake |
Source: "Eleanor Parker". IMDb. Retrieved 25 September 2013.
References
- ^ IMDB page
- ^ Hollywood.com biography
- ^ Rotten Tomatoes biography
- ^ IMDB biography
- ^ All Movie biography
- ^ Obituaries
- ^ http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/eleanor-parker-oscar-nominated-actress-and-baroness-in-sound-of-music-dies-at-91/2013/12/09/e4a3fc34-c5db-11df-94e1-c5afa35a9e59_story.html
- ^ Doug McClelland, Eleanor Parker: woman of a thousand faces : a bio-bibliography and filmography, Scarecrow Press 1989, p. 20
- ^ IMDB awards
External links
- Eleanor Parker at IMDb
- Eleanor Parker at the TCM Movie Database
- Eleanor Parker photographs and literature
- Eleanor Parker at GlamourGirlsoftheSilverScreen.com
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