Fernand Gravey was born in Brussels, Belgium in 1905. He made his first film (a silent) in 1913. He began his career in French and British films and then went to Hollywood in 1937. His most famous movie was “The Great Waltz” with Luise Rainer. He returned to France before the Nazi occupation. His later films included “La Ronde” with Simone Simon in 1950. He died in France in 1970.
One of director Alfred Machin’s favorite actresses was Fernande Dépernay of the Théâtre des Galeries. Dépernay was married to Georges Mertens, another of Machin’s regular actors. Their son, Fernand Mertens, born in 1904. He made his acting debut in ‘Saïda Makes Off with Manneken Pis’ and in 1914 played the role of little Kef in ‘A Tragedy in the Clouds’ alongside his parents. Much later, under the pseudonym Fernand Garvey, he went to become one of France’s most renowned actors.
Peter Cookson was born in 1913 in Oregon. He was most prolific on stage and in film in the 1940’s and 50’s. His films include “Fear” and “G.I. Honeymoon” in 1945. Starred in “Can Can” on Broadway in 1955. His wife was the actress Beatrice Straight. Peter Cookson died in 1990.
Janet Margolin was a wonderful sensitive actress whose career was sadly cut short due to her early death . She was born in New York City in 1943. She played opposite Kier Dullea in “David and Lisa” in 1962. Other films included “Take the Money and Run” opposite Woody Allen, “Annie Hall” with Allen and Diane Keaton and “Last Embrace” with Roy Scheider. She died in 1993. Her husband was actor Ted Wass.
Her obituary by David Shipman in “The Independent”: Janet Margolin, actress, born New York City 25 July 1943; married Ted Wass (one son, one daughter); died Los Angeles 17 December 1993. David & Lisa (1962) was one of the first American ‘art’ movies, financed independently and shown in cinemas which usually programmed foreign films. Its subject was not the sort the studios favoured: the faltering steps towards love of a teenage couple in a mental home. The boy, Keir Dullea, was neurotic about any physical contact; the girl behaved like a wild thing except when speaking, which she tended to do in verse. She was played by Janet Margolin, who was chosen by Frank and Eleanor Perry after seeing her in a similar role in Daughter of Silence on Broadway.
Margolin won the Best Actress award at the San Francisco festival, drawing Hollywood’s attention. Indeed, the American reception for the film – if not equalled abroad – presaged major careers for all concerned. Margolin, however, hesitated, and went to Argentina to play the childhood friend of a young Fascist terrorist.
This was El Ojo de la Cerradura (The Eavesdropper, 1964), made by another husband-and-wife director-writer team, Leopoldo Torte Nilsson and Beatriz Guido. It too is forgotten, but in this case unjustly: Torre Nilsson was an uneven director who at his best could combine artifice, corruption, obsession and claustrophobia in a way that was uniquely his – when compared, even, to Bunuel.
Arriving at last in Hollywood, Margolin was one of the many names in George Stevens’s The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965), Mary to the Martha of Ina Balin and the Jesus of Max Von Sydow. The film’s reception was not what had been hoped for, and as much may be said of Morituri or The Saboteur: Code Name Morituri, as it was renamed after flopping initially.
The star was Marlon Brando, proving to be fallible as a member of the Gestapo on a German cargo-ship bound for Tokyo in 1942. Margolin, as a Jewish prisoner, had her finest screen chance but was not controlled by the director, Bernhard Wicki.
Had she been – to judge her from her sensitive performances in her first two films – she might have become a star. The failure of these two didn’t help, and she was to make only just under a dozen in all – for the cinema, that is, since she was active in television.
She may be remembered for Nevada Smith (1966), as an Indian girl nursing Steve McQueen back to health; Buona Sera, Mrs Campbell (1968), as the Neapolitan daughter of Gina Lollobrigida and any one of the three ex-GIs from whom she is claiming maintenance; and, notably, as the anthropology student who is a delight and then a danger to Roy Scheider in Jonathan Demme’s clever thriller Last Embrace (1979), surprising both us and him by her whore’s make-up and suspender-belt in reel seven.
She was also Woody Allen’s wife in Take the Money and Run (1969), but when he sent for her again she was a woman who had only briefly featured in his life.
This was Annie Hall (1977), the semi-autobiographical account of his affair with Diane Keaton, who starred.
“The Independent” obituary can also be accessed online here.
The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
“The Independent” obituary can also be accessed online here.
Favourite Movie: David and Lisa Favourite Performance: Last Embrace
In 1967, Katharine Houghton had the lead role opposite Sidney Poitier in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner”, where she played the daughter of Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn (her real life aunt). Surprisingly it did not lead to a major cinema career. Her last film appearance was in “The Last Airbender” in 2010. She was born in Hartford, Connecticut in 1945 and attended Sarah Lawerence College. She has has had an extensive stage career.
IMDB entry:
Katharine Houghton was born on March 10, 1945, in Hartford, Connecticut, the daughter of Marion Hepburn Grant (Katharine Hepburn‘s younger sister) and Ellsworth Grant. Before going into the movies, she went to Sarah Lawrence College and majored in philosophy. Her debut in the movies was in 1967’s Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967) as “Joanna Drayton”. This movie also starred her aunt, Katharine Hepburn (with whom which she has had a close relationship), Spencer Tracy and Sidney Poitier. Since this time, she has starred in over fifty on and off Broadway and New England regional theater productions. She is also a playwright and amongst her credits are such productions as: “Best Kept Secret”, “Merlin”, “The Marry Month Of May”, “Mortal Friends”, “On The Shady Side”, “The Right Number”, “Phone Play” and her translation of Anouilh’s “Antigone”. She also presents lectures: “Katharine X Three”, “My Grandmother’s House Near The River” and “The Secret Life of Louisa May Alcott”.
– IMDb Mini Biography By: Marcia <Ssspiceey@yahoo.com>
The above IMDB entry can also be accessed online here.
Celia Kaye was born in 1942 in Jasper County, Missouri. She came to national fame in the U.S. for her part in the television series “The New Loretta Young Show” in 1961. Her movies include “Island of the Blue Dolphins” in 1964, “Wild Seed” with Michael Parks and “Fluffy” with Shirley Jones. She was featured in the iconic “Big Wednesday in 1978 which was directed by her then husband John Milius.”
“Wikipedia” entry:
Celia Kaye (born Celia Kay Burkholder on February 24, 1942) is an American former actress who appeared in a recurring role as Marnie Massey, daughter of the character Christine Massey played by Loretta Young, on the comedy-drama series, The New Loretta Young Show. The program aired for twenty-six weeks on CBS from 1962 to 1963. Most of Kaye’s work was on television between 1962 and 1974, with final credited film appearances ten years apart – in 1978 and 1988.[1]
Of German and Cherokee ancestry, Kaye was born in Carthage, near Joplin, Missouri to chemical engineer John W. Burkholder and his wife, Kathryn, who ran a private pre-school. When she was one year old, her family moved to Wilmington, Delaware, where her brother, Johnny, was born. She is a graduate of the now-defunct Henry C. Conrad High School near Wilmington as well as the Philadelphia Modeling and Charm School.[3] In high school, she was already interested in acting as a member of the National Thespian Society and performed in such school plays as Time Out for Ginger and Brigadoon. She listed her ambition at the time as “to be happy and successful.”
After high school, Kaye moved to California, where she won a scholarship to the Pasadena Playhouse, from which she graduated in 1961. In 1962, a few months before The New Loretta Young Show premiered, Kaye made her television debut as the character “Julie Trenton” in the segment “The Traveler”, one of the last episodes filmed of the ABCwesternseries Tales of Wells Fargo, starring Dale Robertson. While working on The New Loretta Young Show, she continued her education, attending Los Angeles City College at night and studying modern jazz at Eugene Loring’s American School of Dance.
Kaye considers her association with Loretta Young “a very lucky first experience in show business … She was absolutely amazing. … She was just so warm and so inclusive of everyone that my ‘awestruck’ situation went away immediately….This woman walked in and it was her set. And it was her game, and her show, and it’s like she had it all together and everybody just seemed to fall into place. She was in charge of everything without being harsh about it or bossy.”
When The New Loretta Young Show ended, Kaye appeared twice, once as a character with her own name of “Celia”, in the long-running ABC sitcom The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.[1] On December 6, 1964, six months after the premiere of Island of the Blue Dolphins, Kaye was cast as “Ann Shelby” opposite Dwayne Hickman in his title guest-starring role of the episode “The Clay Shelby Story” of ABC’s Wagon Train. Other guest stars in the segment were Richard Carlson and Mort Mills, who were cast as military officers.
In 1965, Kaye played Daphne in the film Wild Seed, opposite Michael Parks. That same year she was “Sally Brighton” in the film Fluffy, starring Shirley Jones. In 1967, she played “Melissa Neal” on ABC’s The Green Hornet in a two-part episode entitled “Corpse of the Year.” That same year, she portrayed a character “Emily” in the episode “Decision at Sundown” of the second Dale Robertson series, The Iron Horse, a fictional account of a railroad moving into the American West. Other television appearances were in 1970 in the ABC series, The Young Lawyers, starring Lee J. Cobb, and in 1973 in Adam’s Rib, starring Ken Howard and Blythe Danner. Kaye’s last television role was in 1974 as Willa Sweeney in “Hundred Mile Walk” of NBC‘s Little House on the Prairie.
Kaye’s last film roles were in the coming of age picture Big Wednesday (1978) opposite Sam Melville, and the horror story, Vampire at Midnight, also known as Murder at Midnight(1988) as “Sandra.”
Kaye has a child, Amanda Milius, from her 1978 marriage to director and screenwriter John Milius, who directed Big Wednesday.
The above “Wikipedia” entry can also be accessed online here.
Although Christopher Reeve will forever be remembered for his Superman movies, he did make some other very fine movies. He was born in 1952 in New York City. He made his film debut in “Gray Lady Down” which starred Charleton Heston in 1978. Later on that year, “Superman;The Movie” was released. His other movies of note ionclude the period drama “Somewhere in Time” with Jane Seymour, “The Bostonians” with Vanessa Redgrave and “Remains of the Day” with Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson. Sadly his horseriding accident in 1995 curtailed his career. Afterwards he did make an occasional film. He died in 2004.
Ronald Bergan’s “Guardian” obituary:
It is a tragic irony that, in his life and death, Christopher Reeve, who has died of heart failure aged 52, has been renowned for two roles: Superman, the supreme physical specimen, and a man paralysed from the neck down. Unfortunately, the second role was all too real.
In 1995 Reeve, a keen rider, broke his neck when he was thrown from his horse during an equestrian competition in Virginia. But, after some years of therapy, despite pessimistic prognoses, he was determined to walk again, and became a symbol of hope for quadriplegics. “I refuse to allow a disability to determine how I live my life. I don’t mean to be reckless, but setting a goal that seems a bit daunting actually is very helpful toward recovery,” Reeve said.
In 2000, Reeve was able to move his index finger and breathe for longer and longer periods without a respirator. He also regained sensation in other parts of his body. Reeve dedicated much of his time and almost all of his energy lobbying US Congress for better insurance protection against catastrophic injury and giving support to stem cell research. Coincidentally, Senator John Kerry, in Friday’s debate with George Bush, said that he believed embryonic stem cell research should be expanded, saying it would be the best way to give Reeve (an active Democrat) and others like him the chance to walk again.
However, it would be a pity if this heroic and heartrending situation should obscure some of his many achievements in his acting career, cut short in such a cruel manner. After all, Reeve appeared in a total of 17 feature films, a dozen TV movies, and about 150 plays.
Christopher Reeve was born in New York into an intellectual family; his father FD Reeve is a noted novelist, poet, and scholar of Russian literature; his mother, the journalist Barbara Johnson. During his childhood, Christopher was exposed to a stimulating intellectual environment that included Sunday dinners with the poets Robert Frost and Robert Penn Warren, and politician and academic Daniel Patrick Moynihan. The atmosphere was such that his father was disappointed to learn that the role of Superman that his son had been offered was not one in George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman as he had thought.
Christopher attended the exclusive Princeton Day School, where he started acting in plays. “While I was growing up,” Reeve recalled, “I never once asked myself: ‘Who am I?’ or ‘What am I doing?’ Right from the beginning, the theatre was like home to me. It seemed to be what I did best. I never doubted that I belonged in it.” After graduating from high school, Reeve toured the country as Celeste Holm’s leading man in The Irregular Verb To Love.
While at Cornell University, he majored in music theory and English, and spent time studying theatre in Britain and France. In London, he worked at the Old Vic. “I was a glorified errand boy, but it was a very exciting time there. I helped by teaching the British actors to speak with an American accent. Then I went to Paris to work with the Comedie Francaise.”
In lieu of his final year at Cornell, Reeve was one of two students (Robin Williams was the other) who were accepted at New York’s Juilliard School of Performing Arts. There he studied under the celebrated John Houseman. At the same time, he supported himself with a role in the long-running television soap, Love Of Life. Reeve’s almost unreal handsome looks and athletic, six-foot-four frame made him perfect material for a soap-opera hero, as later for a comic-book one. In the meantime, he won a coveted role of Katharine Hepburn’s grandson in Enid Bagnold’s A Matter Of Gravity on Broadway in 1976, of which Reeve commented: “I had the privilege of spending nine months working with one of the masters of the craft.” In the same year, Reeve got a small part in Gray Lady Down, a submarine adventure film.
While appearing in an off-Broadway production, Reeve successfully screen-tested for the 1978 movie Superman. It was the most inspired casting of an unknown in a series since Sean Connery’s James Bond. Reeve portrayed Superman as “somebody that, you know, you can invite home for dinner … What makes Superman a hero is not that he has power, but that he has the wisdom and the maturity to use the power wisely. From an acting point of view, that’s how I approached the part.” Of playing Clark Kent, Reeve reckoned that “there must be some difference stylistically between Clark and Superman. Otherwise you just have a pair of glasses standing in for a character.” Reeve, though he played the two roles straight without any sign of camp, revealed a deft Cary Grant-inspired comic timing.
Unfortunately, the three sequels were a matter of diminishing returns and, after Superman IV: The Quest For Peace (1987), Reeve, determined to ‘escape the cape’, explained: “Look, I’ve flown, I’ve become evil, loved, stopped and turned the world backward, I’ve faced my peers, I’ve befriended children and small animals and I’ve rescued cats from trees. What else is there left for Superman to do that hasn’t been done?”
Away from the man of steel, Reeve portrayed a wide range of roles. His films included the love fantasy, Somewhere In Time (1980); the thriller Deathtrap (1982); Monsignor (1982), in which he again wore a cape in the title role; and two archetypal Merchant-Ivory period pieces, The Bostonians (1984) and The Remains Of The Day (1993). He also showed his ability at farce in Switching Channels (1988) and Noises Off (1992). Further proof of his versatility came on stage in The Aspern Papers in London with Vanessa Redgrave and Dame Wendy Hiller; Beaumarchais’ The Marriage Of Figaro in New York, and Tennessee Williams’s Summer And Smoke in Los Angeles, as well as touring in Love Letters.
Before the near-fatal accident, Reeve seemed to have everything. He was an accomplished pianist and a superb athlete. He earned his pilot’s licence in his early 20s and twice flew solo across the Atlantic in a small plane. He also flew gliders and was an expert sailor, scuba diver and skier. But horses were his great passion.
In 1998, Reeve returned to acting in a remarkable TV movie update of the Hitchcock thriller Rear Window, in which a man confined to a wheelchair spies on people in a neighbouring apartment.
Reeve is survived by three children, a son and daughter from his long relationship with modelling executive Gae Exton, and a son with Dana Morosini, whom he married in 1992. Reeve’s parents are still alive.
Ë Christopher Reeve, actor, born September 25 1952; died October 10 2004
The above “Guardian” obituary can also be accessed online here.
Carlton Carpenter was born in 1926 in Vermont. His Broadway appearances include “Bright Boy” in 1944 and “Hotel Paradiso” in 1957 with Bert Lahr and Angela Lansbury. His movies include “Father of the Bride” in 1950, “Two Weeks With Love” where he sang “Aba Daba Honeymoon” with Debbie Reynolds and “Sky Full of Moon” with Jan Sterling.
Carlton Carpenter
TCM Overview:
A gangling song-and-dance man with extensive TV and stage credits, Carpenter also made his brief mark in a handful of MGM musicals which embodied the small-town vision of the USA so prevalent in the 1950s. Thin as a rail and standing 6’3″, Carpenter possessed a handsomely boyish face and loads of eager-beaver energy to match, all honed during a childhood spent as a performer. He was singing and dancing at age four and, by the time he was nine, was performing as a child magician in traveling carnivals. Carpenter served briefly with the Navy Seabees in WWII and made it to Broadway in his late teens in “Bright Boy” (1944). After making his feature debut in the sincere, low-budget, independently made film about a light-skinned African-American family passing for white, “Lost Boundaries” (1949), he was signed by MGM.
Carleton Carpenter
Carpenter quickly made a fun impression in the Metro musical when Debbie Reynolds, portraying Jazz Age “boop oop a doop” singer Helen Kane in “Three Little Words” (1950), cooed (in Kane’s voice) “I Wanna Be Loved by You” to an amusingly deadpanned Carpenter. Reynolds and Carpenter reteamed for one of his most famous career moments, dueting on the smash comic hit “Aba Daba Honeymoon” in “Two Weeks with Love” (1950), which went on to sell over five million copies. He continued in comedies, dramas and musicals at MGM for the next few years, generally more at home in lighter fare, but his leading roles in “Fearless Fagan” and “Sky Full of Moon” (both 1952) did not establish him as a new star.
Carleton Carpenter
Carpenter kept working onstage, though, and also began his incredibly prolific career on TV. He gave an amusing turn as the flaming photographer Russell in a TV version of the musical “Lady in the Dark” (1954) and, over the years, played a recurring role on the CBS sitcom “Pete and Gladys” (1961-62), acted on “Perry Mason” and did guest stints on game shows. A starring role in the two-part special “Luke and the Tenderfoot” (1965) suggested that his perennial youthfulness limited him in middle age, but Carpenter went on to rack up over 6,000 TV appearances, toured widely in “Hello, Dolly!” with various star divas in the title role, and began publishing mystery novels. A handful of feature film returns included a teaming with old 1950s pal Farley Granger for the derivative horror film “The Prowler” (1981). He also made welcome returns to the stage, such as his assuming the role of the heroine’s father on Broadway in the longrunning, nostalgic “Crazy for You” in the 90s.
The above TCM overview can also be accessed online here.
Joan Hackett was born in 1934 in New York City of Irish and Italian extraction. She made her television debut in 1959 in “Young Doctor Malone”. She made her film debut in 1966 in “The Group” with other aspiring young actresses including Shirley Knoght, Joanna Pettet, Jessica Walter and Candice Bergen. She won critical acclaim for her lead performance opposite Charlton Heston in the Western, “Will Penny” in 1967. Other cinema highlights were “Support Your Local Sheriff” opposite James Garner and “Only When I Laugh” in 1981. She had a very distinctive voice and was a brilliant young character actress. She died in 1983 at the age of 49.
Will Penny
The Possessed
How Awful About Allan
The Group
The Terminal Man
Assignment to Kill
The Long Summer of George Adams
The Last of Sheila
Rivals
Reflections of Murder
Mourning Becomes Electra
Class of 63
Rebecca
Treasure Of Matecumbe
TCM Biography: Slender, gentle-featured lead and supporting actress of the 1960s and 70s, most typically in nonglamorous roles. After experience as a model and acting training under Lee Strasberg and others, Hackett gained notice off-Broadway with her award-winning work in “Call Me by My Rightful Name” (1961). She became prominent in TV work soon thereafter, copping an Emmy nomination for an episode of “Ben Casey” and playing Robert Reed’s girlfriend on the first season of the popular father-and-son lawyer drama, “The Defenders”. Hackett’s quiet intensity suited her well for a TV adaptation of “Rebecca” (1962) in which she played the mousy second Mrs. DeWinter. By 1964 she was playing leads in two feature-length installments of “The Bob Hope Chrysler Theatre”, “Echo of Evil” and “The Highest Fall of All”.
Hackett moved to feature work soon thereafter with an excellent debut in Sidney Lumet’s ensemble study of female college classmates, “The Group” (1966), in which her wide emotional range as an actress was given full scope. Her subsequent screen work was intermittent but occasionally interesting (e.g. “Will Penny” 1968) but, beginning with the intriguing “The Last of Sheila” (1973), Hackett began alternating supporting roles with leads. TV-movies, often melodramas or thrillers, kept her busy, and included “Lights Out” (1972), “The Possessed” (1977) and “Paper Dolls” (1982). “Pleasure Cove” (1979) and a failed sitcom, “Another Day” (1978), did not properly exploit her potential for comedy, but, in one of her last feature roles, she brought a grim, rueful humor to her Oscar-nominated role as Marsha Mason’s vain, edgy girlfriend in “Only When I Laugh” (1981). Divorced from actor Richard Mulligan, Hackett succumbed to cancer in 1983.
Article on Joan Hackett in “Tina Aumont’s Eyes” website:
A perfectionist capable of playing anything from snooty socialites to nervy housewives, Joan Hackett had an interesting and varied screen career before her untimely death at just 49. A fine, one-of-a-kind dramatic actress, Joan appeared in some award-winning pictures, memorable TV thrillers, and the occasional comedy.
Born in New York on March 1st 1934, Joan began on Broadway before making her movie debut in Sidney Lumet’s engaging soap opera ‘The Group’ (’66). Playing the nervous and insecure Dottie alongside such burgeoning talents; Joanna Pettet, Shirley Knight and Elizabeth Hartman, Joan more than held her own, giving one of the films best performances. Hackett was then impressive in the realistic western ‘Will Penny’ (’68), as a single mother struggling in the frontier, who is ultimately deserted by Charlton Heston’s aging cowboy. Another western followed, this time a comedy; ‘Support Your Local Sheriff!’ (’69), and it was good one. Starring James Garner as an ultra-calm newcomer to a lawless gold-laden town, Joan was great fun as the fiery daughter of the mayor who is battling with greedy bandits who have taken over the place. After playing Anthony Perkin’s fiancé in the 1970 TV thriller ‘How Awful About Allan’, Joan was a widow whose insane, jealous son (Scott Jacoby) doesn’t take too warmly to his mother’s new beau, in the obscure oddity ‘Rivals’ (’72).
The following year, Hackett was the alcoholic wife of Richard Benjamin’s aspiring screenwriter, in one of her best movies, the superb ensemble thriller ‘The Last of Sheila’ (’73), a puzzle of a movie that must be seen more than once to (if ever!) fully understand it. Another television movie came next; ‘Reflections of Murder’ (’74) with Tuesday Weld and Sam Waterston. It was a decent remake of the twisty French horror ‘Les Diaboliques’ (’55), and Joan played her nervous, abused wife character to the hilt, in this atmospheric ‘missing body’ thriller. A Disney movie followed with the rather forgotten adventure ‘Treasure of Matecumbe’ (’76), a buried booty tale co-starring Peter Ustinov and Robert Foxworth.
Hackett would spend the next few years mainly in television, during which time she appeared in the genuinely scary ‘Bobby’ segment of Dan Curtis’s TV anthology ‘Dead of Night’ (’77). In it, she stars as a grieving mother who wishes her dead son back to life, much to her regret. The last few seconds of this segment are terrifying and once seen, never forgotten. After playing Paul Simon’s bored wife in the dreary drama ‘One-Trick Pony’ (’80), Joan was back on form as Marsha Mason’s flawed socialite best friend, in Neil Simon’s ‘Only When I Laugh’ (’81), earning a Golden Globe and Academy Award nomination. Already suffering from cancer, the movie proved to be Hackett’s last great performance, and we are only left to imagine how her career could have soared, had she lived. Her final movie was a small role in the 1982 drama ‘The Escape Artist’, noted for its beautiful score by Georges Delerue.
Married from 1965 to 1973, to her one-time co-star; Richard Mulligan, Joan died of ovarian cancer in California, on October 8th 1983, aged 49. An always interesting actress, with a wide smile and sometimes nervous demeanour, Joan Hackett succeeded on stage, screen and television, bringing to life some memorable and often complex characters. A true one-off who radiated on screen.
Favourite Movie: The Last of Sheila Favourite Performance: Support Your Local Sheriff!
The above article can also be accessed online here.
Born at the tail end of the Second World War in 1944, Bronwyn took her mother’s original maiden name “Fitzsimons” and spent the early years of her life in Los Angeles.
In 1953 her mother divorced her father William Houston Price, the American film director. Reportedly the marriage had been on the rocks for years but O’Hara was mindful of the church’s teachings on divorce.
Bronwyn Fitzsimons
She followed her parents into the tough and glamorous world of Hollywood but found that she was never able to escape from her mother’s shadow. She was cast in films “Spencer’s Mountain” and “The Ravagers”. She also starred in a number of TV roles.
In 1968 she married and two years later she gave birth to a son, Conor, who would also follow her into the film industry.
In her 40s she was involved in a car accident that plagued her with pain for many years to come.
Her mother purchased a home in Glengarriff, Cork in 1970 and as the years wore on the pair began to spend increasingly lengthy amounts of time there. The five bedroom property had 35 acres of grounds attached to it and Bronwyn made a number of friends in the local area – even running a small cafe in the town for a while.
In October 2014 her mother announced she was saying goodbye to Ireland and moving to Idaho where her Conor and his two children had made a life for themselves. It was the beginning of the end for the O’Hara/Fitzsimons clan’s association with West Cork and Maureen passed away the following October.
In May 2016 – barely seven months since her mother’s death – Bronwyn was found dead at the Glengarriff house at the age of 71.
