Saturday, March 21, 2009

BETSY BLAIR R.I.P.

I just found out Betsy Blair passed away, in her eighties.

She was the female lead in one of my all-time favorite films—MARTY.

She also wrote one of my all-time favorite autobiographies, THE MEMORY OF ALL THAT (the subtitle tells it all: LOVE AND POLITICS IN NEW YORK, HOLLYWOOD, AND PARIS).

It's the story of a Jersey girl who's discovered as a teenage dancer in a New York club by the then ascending Broadway star, Gene Kelly, who marries her and carries her off to Hollywood when the movie industry discovers him.

And her being blacklisted for her politics under McCarthyism, her breakthrough role in MARTY, and then her eventual break from Kelly and Hollywood to live an entirely different life in Europe working with Antonioni and Costa Gravas etc. and eventually marrying the director Karel Reisz.

An incredible woman, an incredible life. May she rest in peace.

2 comments:

Curtis Faville said...

Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

I may need to check out her autobio.

Interesting.

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