Gloria Grahame

I'm watching "Film Stars Don't Die In Liverpool." Why was Gloria Grahame not more well known? She won an Oscar and she turned in a decent character in Oklahoma which was quite different from her femme fatale roles. It seems like in the 60s or 70s, she would have found a comfortable longstanding role on a soap opera.

[quote]She fucked her stepson.

I'm not really seeing a problem here.

Oklahoma actually was not seen by some as Gloria Grahame's best role; people considered her miscast and it sort of soured things going forward. Then there was talk that Ms. Grahame had been "difficult" on set of Oklahoma which may have warned others off hiring her afterwards.

GG became obsessed with her looks and had a bit too much plastic surgery. One operation affected her upper lip which in turn affected her speech and appearance. In efforts to give herself a more pouted lips look GG took to stuffing cotton in her mouth. Various male co-stars complained that kissing GG wasn't pleasant so there was that as well.

After Oklahoma GG went back to the theatre and also did some television work.

Tidbits:

Gloria Grahame had an apartment at Manhattan Plaza on Ninth Avenue in NYC. Her picture still hangs in the community room.

Ms. Grahame died within hours after being admitted to Saint Vincent's hospital in Greenwich Village, NYC. Diagonsed with cancer while living and working in Europe Ms. Grahame didn't want her family to know how badly she was ill. But they were informed and rushed over to bring her back to USA for treatment....

Didn't she actually marry her stepson? And their affair started when he was like 15?

In her later career, Grahame starred in two minor favorite horror flicks of mine: "Blood and Lace" (1971), in which she played a murderous woman who runs a foster home, and "The Nesting" (1981), where she appeared as the ghostly madame of a brothel. Her part in "Blood and Lace" is much larger, and it's wonderfully campy; Melody Patterson plays a teenage girl who is sent to live in the home, while a beefy Vic Tayback plays the detective investigating Grahame.

That scandal with her step-son did Gloria Grahame no favors. Even among the rather often louche set that is Hollywood society there are certain standards and rules.

They do say however that the scandal was made up and GG didn't sleep with Tony Ray when he was a teenager, in fact they didn't reconnect until late 1950's.

Well her husband/father-in-law was supposedly fucking Natalie Wood when she was 15 so he couldn't really be pissed that she was fucking his son, could he?

R8, there are standards. Double, I grant you, but still standards.

Her last lover, the guy who wrote "Film Stars... " said that she didn't have sex with the stepson when he was underage. But that may have been what Gloria said to cover her tracks.

Grahame played John Heard's mother in 1979's Chilly Scenes of Winter (also recut and released as Heads Over Heels). She's a funny/sad alcoholic who likes to drink gin while taking a bath. Grahame nails both the comedy and the pathos. A lovely little movie that has aged well (although I prefer the original ending).

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