Lizabeth Scott
Lizabeth Virginia Scott (born Emma Matzo; September 29, 1922 – January 31, 2015)[1][2] was an American actress, singer and model for the Walter Thornton Model Agency,[3] known for her "smoky voice"[4] and being "the most beautiful face of film noir during the 1940s and 1950s".[5] After understudying the role of Sabina in the original Broadway and Boston stage productions of The Skin of Our Teeth, she emerged in such films as The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), Dead Reckoning (1947), Desert Fury (1947), and Too Late for Tears (1949). Of her 22 films, she was the leading lady in all but three. In addition to stage and radio, she appeared on television from the late 1940s to early 1970s.
Lizabeth Scott
January 31, 2015 (aged 92)
Elizabeth Scott
- Actress
- singer
- model
1942–1972
Early life[edit]
Emma Matzo (Ema Macová in Slovak) was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania,[6][7] the oldest of six children born to Mary Penyak[8] and John Matzo (Ján Maco in Slovak).[9] Several conflicting accounts have been given as to her parents' ethnic origins,[10][11][12][13][14] with most mentioning English, Rusyn,[15][16][17][18] Russian, and Ukrainian.[19][20][21][22][23] The family lived in the Pine Brook section of Scranton, where her father owned Matzo Market.[24] Scott characterized her father as a "lifelong Republican", which influenced her capitalistic views. The love of music influenced Scott's voice.[25]
Scott attended Marywood Seminary, a local Catholic girls' school.[26] She transferred to Scranton's Central High School, where she performed in several plays.[8] After graduating, she spent the summer working with the Mae Desmond Players[27] at a stock theater in the nearby community of Newfoundland.[28] She then worked at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia.[29] That autumn, she attended Marywood College, but quit after six months.[30]
In 1939, with her father's help, the 17-year-old Scott moved to New York City, where she stayed at the Ferguson Residence for Women.[31] In New York she was a model for the Walter Thornton agency.[32] Scott read Maxwell Anderson's Mary of Scotland, a play about Mary, Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I, from which she derived the stage name "Elizabeth Scott." She later dropped the "E".[33]
Debut[edit]
In late 1940, an 18-year-old Scott auditioned for the national tour of Hellzapoppin. From several hundred women, she was chosen by John "Ole" Olsen and Harold "Chic" Johnson, stars of the original Broadway production. She was assigned to one of three road companies, Scott's being led by Billy House and Eddie Garr.[34] Landing her first professional job, she was billed as "Elizabeth Scott".[35] The tour opened November 3, 1940, at the Shubert Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut. She did blackouts and other types of sketch comedy[36][37] during her 18-month tour of 63 cities across the US.[6]
Scott then returned to New York in 1942, where she starred as Sadie Thompson in John Colton's play Rain, which ran on the then equivalent of off-Broadway. It was her first starring role, but no drama critic reviewed the play.[38] But the producer of a Broadway play, Michael Myerberg, did see the show.[39]
Myerberg had just moved an experimental production of Thornton Wilder's new play The Skin of Our Teeth starring Tallulah Bankhead from New Haven to the Plymouth Theatre. Impressed by Scott's Sadie Thompson, he hired her as the understudy for Bankhead, despite Bankhead's protests. Bankhead had signed a contract forbidding an understudy for the Sabina role, which Myerberg breached by hiring Scott. Previously, Bankhead had controlled the production by not showing up for rehearsal. Now, Myerberg could simply put Scott in Bankhead's place.[40] Scott has acknowledged that Myerberg used her to keep Bankhead under control and that Bankhead was furious about the situation.[6] Describing her own experience with Bankhead, Scott recalled, "She never spoke to me, except to bark out commands. Finally, one day, I'd had enough. I told her to say 'please,' and after that she did."[31] During her eight months[41] as the understudy, Scott never had an opportunity to substitute for Bankhead, as Scott's presence guaranteed Bankhead's. During her time with the production, Scott played the role of "Girl/Drum Majorette."[42][43] The play ran from November 18, 1942, to September 25, 1943.
The rivalry between the two actresses is cited as an alternative to the Martina Lawrence-Elisabeth Bergner origin[44] of Mary Orr's short story, The Wisdom of Eve (1946),[45] the basis of the 1950 film All About Eve. Broadway legend had it that Bankhead was being victimized by Scott, who supposedly was the basis for the fictional Eve Harrington.[46]
Rumors of an affair between the married Myerberg and the new understudy were rife.[40] Scott has said that her fondest memory was of Myerberg telling her, "I love you," but the two eventually parted.[47]
The continuing feud between Myerberg and Bankhead worsened Bankhead's ulcer, leading her to not renew her contract.[48] Anticipating Bankhead's move, Myerberg suddenly signed 39-year-old Miriam Hopkins in March,[49] catching Scott off-guard. Bankhead's final zinger to Scott was "You be as good as she (Hopkins) is."[50] For a brief period, Scott understudied for Hopkins. While Scott liked Hopkins much more than Bankhead, she was still disappointed about being passed over for the Sabina role.[6]
Scott eventually quit in disappointment. Before quitting, Scott replaced Hopkins for one night.[51] When Scott finally went on stage as Sabina, she was surprised by both the approval and fascination of the audience.[6] Her replacement as understudy was another future femme fatale, 19-year-old Gloria Hallward, soon to be known as Gloria Grahame. When Michael Myerberg pulled Grahame from the play for another experimental production in Philadelphia[52]—Star Dust[53]— no understudy was available when Gladys George took over for Hopkins.[54]
On August 30, 1943, Scott once again played Sabina when George was ill.[55] Joe Russell was in the Plymouth Theatre audience that night. Afterward, when a friend from California came to New York on one of his biannual visits to Broadway, Russell told him about Scott's performance. Russell's friend was an up-and-coming film producer for Warner Bros., Hal B. Wallis.[56]
Rise to fame[edit]
Hal B. Wallis[edit]
Irving Hoffman,[57] a New York press agent and columnist for The Hollywood Reporter, had befriended Scott and tried to introduce her to people who could help her. On September 29, 1943, Hoffman held a birthday party at the Stork Club—Scott had turned 21. By happenstance or design, Wallis was also at the club that night.[58] Hoffman introduced Scott to Wallis, who arranged for an interview the following day. When Scott returned home, she found a telegram offering her the lead for the Boston run of The Skin of Our Teeth. Miriam Hopkins was ill. Scott sent Wallis her apologies, cancelling the interview.[59] Scott recalled "On the train up to Boston, to replace Miss Hopkins, I decided I needed to make the name more of an attention-grabber. And that's when I decided to drop the 'E' from Elizabeth."[31] In 1945, The New Republic claimed that Scott had dropped the "E" as a patriotic wartime gesture "to conserve newsprint."[60]
Critical reception[edit]
Though the public response to Scott was generally favorable during the Paramount years, the film critics were less so, repeatedly making unfavorable comparisons to Lauren Bacall and Tallulah Bankhead,[136][137][138] beginning with Bob Thomas' March 1945 comment about her screen test: "Her throaty voice may well make Lauren Bacall sound like a mezzo soprano."[139] When the most prominent critic of the era, Bosley Crowther of The New York Times, gave a bad review of You Came Along (1945),[140] Scott's film debut, she recalled: "Being very young and naïve at the time, I didn't know you weren't supposed to do such things, so I called him up and complained. I told him how hard everyone worked to make such a beautiful movie, and I couldn't understand how he could be so cruel. I must say he took it awfully well, and was very kind to me."[25] Nonetheless, in his review of I Walk Alone (1948), he stated: "As the torch singer ... Lizabeth Scott has no more personality than a model in the window of a department store."[141] He also wrote of "a frighteningly grotesque Lizabeth Scott, who is supposed to represent a cabaret singer" in Dark City (1950).[142]
Scott's style of acting, characteristic of other film actors of the 1940s—a cool, naturalistic underplay derived from multiple sources[143]—was often deprecated by critics who preferred the more emphatic stage styles of the pre-film era or the later method styles. Typical of the 1940s was Dick McCrone: "Miss Scott, who is an excellent clothes horse, rounds out the principals as Lancaster's moll. Otherwise, she's still the same frozen-face actress she was in Desert Fury and a couple of pictures before that."[144] Current film historians critical of Scott either repeat Bob Thomas' image of an ersatz Bacall,[145][146] Bosley Crowther in describing Scott's acting as wooden,[147][148] or a pastiche of actresses of the period, as did Pauline Kael.[149][150]
Others, though, see Scott's acting in a different light.[93][151] With the revival of interest in film noir and its corresponding acting style, beginning in the 1980s, Scott's reputation has risen among critics and film historians.[152][153][154] In Movieland, his personal history of Hollywood, Jerome Charyn described this style as "dreamwalking":[155] "And then, among the Dolly Sisters and Errol Flynn, Bing Crosby and Dotty Lamour, the Brazilian Bombshell, Scheherazade, Ali Baba, and the elephant boy—all the fluff and exotic pastry that Hollywood could produce—appeared a very odd animal, the dreamwalker, like Turhan Bey, Sonny Tufts, Paul Henreid, Alan Ladd, Veronica Lake, Lizabeth Scott, and Dana Andrews, whose face had a frozen quality and always looked half-asleep ... The dreamwalker seemed to mirror all our own fears. His (and her) numbness was the crazed underside of that cinematic energy in the wake of the (Second World) war."[156]
Radio[edit]
During the Golden Age of Radio, Scott reprised her film roles in abridged radio versions. Typical were her appearances on Lux Radio Theatre: You Came Along with Van Johnson in the Robert Cummings role and I Walk Alone.[157] Scott was also a guest host/narrator on Family Theater.[158]
Music[edit]
Erskine Johnson reported in January 1954 that Scott was being trained by Hollywood voice teacher Harriet Lee,[189] and later by Lillian Rosedale Goodman—the final result was that Scott "has a vocal range of two octaves, A below C to High C,"[190] making Scott a mezzo-soprano. In July 1956, Johnson reported that Scott was under the management of Earl Mills, who also managed the singing career of Dorothy Dandridge. Scott was planning to debut as a torch singer on the nightclub circuit.[191]
Scott re-emerged from retirement in Loving You (1957), Elvis Presley's second musical. During the shooting of Loving You, Scott was reported to have been infatuated with Presley. During a kissing scene, she playfully bit him on the cheek, leaving a red mark, which she called "just a little love nibble." The scene had to be reshot with the other side of his face to the camera.[192] Scott's musical debut came to naught, however. Though Hal Wallis tried to get Scott's singing voice undubbed for the production, he was overruled by the studio heads, despite all of Scott's previous voice training. Production ran from late January 1957 to mid-March 1957.[193]
Undaunted by Paramount's refusal to let her singing be heard, Scott signed a recording contract with Vik Records (a subsidiary of RCA Victor). Scott recorded her album with Henri René and his orchestra in Hollywood on October 28, 29, and 30, 1957. Simply titled Lizabeth, the 12 tracks are a mixture of torch songs and playful romantic ballads.[194] Finally on April 23, 1958, Scott made her public singing debut on CBS' The Big Record.[190]