All about Eve
1950 USA Black and white 138 Minutes
Release date: October 13, 1950
The film was shot in: New York City, San Francisco, New Haven and Connecticut (all in the USA)
Oscars:
Best Actor in a Supporting Role ->George Sanders
Best Costume Design
Best Director -> Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Best Picture
Best Sound
Best Writing, Screenplay ->Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Oscar nominations:
Best Actress in a Leading Role -> Anne Baxter
Best Actress in a Leading Role -> Bette Davis
Best Actress in a Supporting Role -> Celeste Holm
Best Actress in a Supporting Role ->Thelma Ritter
Best Art Direction
Best Cinematography
Best Film Editing
Best Music
Marilyn Monroe kept her distance from fellow actors. “She never understood or accepted our unspoken assumption that she was one of us” director Mankiewicz said in 1972.
The film holds the record for the film with the most female acting nominees (four).
The picture was inspired by Mary Orr’s short story The wisdom of Eve which appeared in Cosmopolitan magazine in 1946 (which is different from the current magazine with the same name).
Bette Davis and Gary Merrill began an affair on the set, much to the embarrassment of the cast and crew.
Celeste Holm detested Davis; they never spoke when the cameras weren’t rolling. Holm considered movies far beneath her more dignified theater career. She once said: “Hollywood is a good place to learn to eat a salad without smearing your lipstick”
The movie ranks first in the Most Academy Award Nominated Films with 14 nominations which has been tied only by Titanic (1997).
In 1970, the story was adapted into a Broadway musical called Applause.
Bette Davis admitted that the movie saved her career from oblivion after a series of unsuccessful movies. She said in a 1983 interview “He (director Joseph L. Mankiewicz) resurrected me from the dead”.
The first dramatization of the story was Mary Orr’s own adaptation for radio in 1949.
This week 58 years ago Monkey Business premiered (September 5, 1952)
June 1, 1926
Norma Jean Mortensen
August 5, 1962
Norma Jeans mother, widowed and insane, abandoned her. According to My Story, Norma's autobiography, she was almost smothered to death at two, nearly raped at six and reared by 12 successive sets of foster parents. However, there is no evidence that this really happened; some people think Marilyn exaggerated the sadness of her youth.
In the 1940s she was asked to model to illustrate an article in Yank magazine and in 1946, she went to Hollywood to try to become an actress. Marilyn was barely visible in Scudda Hoo! Scudda Hay! (1948) but with two supporting roles (as mistresses) in All about Eve (1950) and The Asphalt Jungle (1950) she reaped a mountain of fan mail.
Niagara (1953) and Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) launched her as a love goddess. In 1954 she began to grow discontented with her career, so she began to study at Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio. A new contract offered her more creative control which gave her roles in The Seven-Year Itch (1955), Bus Stop (1956) and Some like it hot (1959).
In 1962 beset by depression and illness, Monroe died in her Los Angeles home, having taken an overdose of sleeping pills.
Anthony Summers -> Goddess: The Secret Lives of Marilyn Monroe (1985)
Gloria Steinem and George Barris -> Marilyn (1986)
Berniece Baker Miracle and Mona Rae Miracle -> My Sister Marilyn (1994)
S. Paige Baty -> American Monroe (1995)