Wednesday, June 07, 2017

Everything You Ever Need To Know About Life...

... you can learn from:

Rosemary's Baby (1968) 

Mrs. Gilmore: We're your friends, Rosemary. 
There's nothing to be scared about. 
Honest and truly there isn't! 

The actress Hope Summers was born on this day in the year 1896. Before playing one of those nosy neighbors of the Woodhouses (here "nosy" translates to "Satan worshiping rapists") Summers was probably best known for playing... a nosy neighbor of Sheriff Andy Taylor of Mayberry and good friend slash rival to one Aunt Bea.

If I had to hazard a guess I'd guess that a rather high percentage of Summers' 100 plus credits on IMDb were of the "nosy neighbor" sort - she just had that look, right? That long neck was just built for peering through windows. Anyway putting a resident of Mayberry down in the Bramford alongside Minnie & Roman was just another stroke of Roman Polanski's deranged genius in the making of my favorite movie.
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1 comment:

Unknown said...

That's amusing because as a kid watching a lot of TV in the 50s and 60s, I decided to memorize the names of a couple of character actresses who seemed to be in everything, movies ncluded. She was one and Kathleen Freeman the other.

If anyone knows of a book which covers the offstage lives of character actors in Hollywood, I would love to read it. Did they live well? Did they hang out with the stars. Did they gossip? I know that Mary Astor fought to improve the lot of "small" actors and crew.