It is hard to account for my infatuation with certain movie stars over
the years. Whenever I try to recall Janet Blair, well, I can't. I
can only remember something of the way I felt about seeing her when I
was an eight or nine year old. More available to recall is Lizabeth
Scott. She was the first of the tough women I fell for. I liked her
voice and wished only that she had more of a nose. I mention her nose
only because in the old days my friends and I in comparing actresses
would rate their features. The other tough or seemingly tough "broads" were Ida Lupino and Ann Sheridan. Sheridan's voice did it for me back
then. And I liked what I perceived to be Lupino's scrappiness. The
actresses in whom I had no interest, but whose looks found favor with
my friends were Olivia de Havilland, Maureen O'Hara, Loretta Young, and
Paulette Goddard. All of us favored the way Veronica Lake's hair fell,
covering one side of her face. I don't know why except that it was
such an obvious declaration of style, and in those days obviousness was
our ally. We had no way of dealing with subtlety or even recognizing
it. I liked Ingrid Bergman and I still do, never tiring of watching
reruns of Casablanca, Notorious and Spellbound. As I recall, she had
a boyish quality in "For Whom the Bell Tolls," which appealed to me in
those days. My father liked Greer Garson i suppose because she struck
him as classy, just as my mother found Walter Pidgeon dashing. I never
really cared for either. I never cared for Irene Dunn either,
especially after hearing her sing in Roberta, one of the weaker
Ginger Rogers/Fred Astaire films, even though there was something about
her smile and her high cheekbones that reminded me of my mother. I
never thought much about Greta Garbo, probably because she couldn't
act, although the same could be said for some of the actresses I did
like. I still don't know what it was about Garbo that left me cold and
still does. Along with Ingrid Bergman, the actress I had the deepest
crush on was Vivian Leigh.
Pictured above, Ida Lupino; below Ruth Roman on the cover of Life, May, 1 , 1950.