Betsy Blair
Birth : 1923-12-11, Cliffside Park, New Jersey, USA
Death : 2009-03-13
History
Betsy Blair -December 11, 1923 – March 13, 2009) was an American actress of film and stage, long based in London. Blair pursued a career in entertainment from the age of eight, and as a child worked as an amateur dancer, performed on radio, and worked as a model, before joining the chorus of Billy Rose's Diamond Horseshoe in 1940. There she met Gene Kelly. They were married the following year, when she was seventeen years old. The couple divorced sixteen years later, in 1957. After work in the theatre, Blair began her film career playing supporting roles in films such as A Double Life (1947) and Another Part of the Forest (1948). Her interest in Marxism led to an investigation by the House Un-American Activities Committee and Blair was blacklisted for some time, but resumed her career with a critically acclaimed performance in Marty (1955), winning a BAFTA Award and a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. She continued her career with regular theatre, film and television work until the mid 1990s.
Herself
Broadway: The Golden Age is the most important, ambitious and comprehensive film ever made about America's most celebrated indigenous art form. Award-winning filmmaker Rick McKay filmed over 100 of the greatest stars ever to work on Broadway or in Hollywood. He soon learned that great films can be restored, fine literature can be kept in print - but historic Broadway performances of the past are the most endangered. They leave only memories that, while more vivid, are more difficult to preserve. In their own words — and not a moment too soon — Broadway: The Golden Age tells the stories of our theatrical legends, how they came to New York, and how they created this legendary century in American theatre. This is the largest cast of legends ever in one film.
Self
American Masters Series. Documentary on Gene Kelly that gives insight into his dancing, how he formed a style (first "blue collar dancer") and developed different cinematique techniques, such as brilliantly shot dancing sequences.
Grace Simpson
Robert Young brings his Marcus Welby alter ego to television for one last time. Having retired, the good doctor takes a trip to Europe alone and falls in love with an American divorcee who is caring for a blind dancer.
Gladys Simmons
An FBI agent posing as a combine driver becomes romantically involved with a Midwest farmer who lives a double life as a white supremacist.
Lady McLaidlaw
A powerfully tense remake of the Alfred Hitchcock classic, this British production of SUSPICION boasts a dynamic cast, making it a worthy descendent of the original.
Mrs. Burns
The marriage of the famous writer Alan and his young wife Lola is in a crisis. On a vacation in Haiti Lola wants to decide if their relationship still has a future...
Helen
Drama starring Karen Black, Betsy Blair and Dennis Christopher
Edna
In their nice Connecticut home, Agnes and Tobias have grown used to the imperfection and fragility of their marriage. Quietly nursing their grief over the death of their son, they get by well enough together. Agnes' boozy sister wanders in and out, and they allow anxiety-stricken friends to move into an upstairs room. But, when their daughter, Julia, shows up announcing her fourth divorce, long-repressed emotions come to the surface.
Vrouw van garagist
One day a garage owner finds an atomic bomb that has been lost by an airplane. He hides the bomb and shakes the country when he announces that he will not return the bomb until the production of such weapons of destruction is stopped.
Second English Teacher
Claude and Isabella met on a beach one summer and got easily involved. But while he has dreams of settling down with a family, she just wants to have fun. When Isabelle becomes pregnant, Claude is advised by both families to marry but things get more complicated when he meets an English woman.
Amalia Brentani
Emilio Brentani leads a peaceful and uneventful life with his older sister Amalia. Until he meets Angiolina Zarri, a beautiful but fickle, wayward and coquettish young woman. Unfortunately for him, Emilio falls madly in love with her.
Emily
Over the course of one eventful evening, the anniversary celebration of the musical and romantic partners Aurelius Rex and Delia Lane, a jealous, ambitious drummer, Johnny Cousin, attempts to tear the interracial couple apart.
Contessa Rita Cherè
An acid portrait of Italian youth at the time, I DELFINI follows a dreary season of discontent and viciousness in the lives of a thoroughly unpleasant group of mostly rich youngsters in a small Adriatic coast city.
Mother
In a working-class Jewish family in Dublin, a young boy becomes increasingly close to an old orthodox Jew and assimilates his views, much to the dismay of his family.
Elvia
A sugar-refinery worker flees his Northern Italy town after a woman refuses his marriage proposal.
Martha Halliday
Sheriff Halliday doesn't approve of his children dating or marrying half-breeds and his blind hate threatens to alienate his whole family.
Isabel
A small town in Spain, October 1955. Isabel, a 35-year-old dreamer who feels like a failure because she is not married yet, becomes the new target of a group of soulless pranksters.
Nancy Blanding
Clara Snyder
Marty, a butcher who lives in the Bronx with his mother is unmarried at 34. Good-natured but socially awkward he faces constant badgering from family and friends to get married but has reluctantly resigned himself to bachelorhood. Marty meets Clara, an unattractive school teacher, realising their emotional connection, he promises to call but family and friends try to convince him not to.
Ada Elcott
Mary Herries has a passion for art and fine furniture. Even though she is getting on in years, she enjoys being around these priceless articles. One day she meets a strange young painter named Elcott, who uses his painting skill to enter into her life. Little does she expect that his only interest in Mary is to covet everything she has.
Telephone Operator (uncredited)
Robbers Ray Biddle and his brother are shot and taken to the local hospital. There, the two are treated by Dr. Brooks, the hospital's only black doctor. The brothers assault Brooks with racist slurs. And, when his brother ends up dying on the operating table, Ray accuses the doctor of murdering him. Blind with rage, Ray works to turn the white community of the city against Brooks, who finds an unlikely ally in the dead man's widow, Edie.
Jackie Elcott
When a young woman's skeletal remains turn up on a Massachusetts beach, Barnstable cop Peter Moralas teams with Boston police and uses forensics, with the help of a Harvard professor, to determine the woman's identity, how she died, and who killed her.
Hester
Virginia Cunningham is confused upon finding herself in a mental hospital, with no memory of her arrival at the institution. Tormented by delusions and unable to even recognize her husband, Robert, she is treated by Dr. Mark Kik, who is determined to get to the root of her mental illness. As her treatment progresses, flashbacks depict events in Virginia's life that may have contributed to her instability.
Birdie Bagtry
This 'prequel' to The Little Foxes tells how the ruthless members of the old-South Hubbard family got that way.
Girl in Wig Shop
A Shakespearian actor starring as Othello opposite his wife finds the character's jealous rage taking over his mind off-stage.
Katie
A hard-drinking reporter tries to help the embittered widow of the soldier who had saved his life during the war.
