Hitchcock movie actors on television series

Hitchcock film actors on television series
Their Movie Roles, Their Television Series
These are just one or two of the actors' TV appearances

Barbara Bel Geddes
Jimmy Stewart
Vertigo
from moive trailer

MacDonald Carey as Detective Jack Graham Shadow of a Doubt 1943. 

Detective Graham poses as a surveyor and takes young Charlie (Teresa Wright) on a date. He confesses that he's really a police detective and suspects that her Uncle Charley, who's living with them is the serial murderer known in the papers as the Merry Widow Murderer. Joseph Cotten is the creepy Uncle Charley.

Carey played Tom Horton on Days of our Lives, from 1965 until his death 1994.
  
William Bendix as Gus Smith in Lifeboat 1944. This film has one of if not the most clever Hitchcock cameo. Bendix is holding a newspaper containing weight-reducing ad featuring before and after shots of the director. You'll recall scenes where boatmates must amputate one of Smith's legs due to gangrene. 

"Look for Hitchcock to make three appearances in the film -- as a dead body floating face down in the water at the beginning of the movie and as the two models for a weight-reducing ad in a newspaper held by the injured crewman (Bendix)."
Orlando Sentinel, May 1988
William Bendix played Chester A. Riley in The Life of Riley.  

Norman Lloyd as Frank Fry in Saboteur 1942 and Mr. Garmes, a patient in Green Manors in Spellbound 1945. 
In Saboteur, Barry Kane (Robert Cummings), is a fugitive accused of starting a fire that he believes was started by Frank Fry. There is much exciting cat and mouse throughout the film but the most iconic scene is at the end where Lloyd's character, hangs from the torch of the Statue of Liberty. Kane, his adversary tries to save him. The stitching of Fry's jacket sleeve gives way, causing Fry to fall to his death. 

This may have been the first time Hitchcock had someone hanging off of a national monuments by his fingertips. Like the name Marion Crane in Psycho, Mr. Fry is aptly named in this film as a character suspected of starting fires.
Lloyd played Dr. Daniel Auschlander in St. Elsewhere (1982–1988)

Lloyd Nolan
hanging onto the
Statue of Liberty

Karl Malden was Inspector Larrue in I Confess 1953.
After hearing that a priest was seen leaving the murder house, Larrue suspects Father Logan (Montgomery Clift). This is a fascinating exploration of present and past lives, looking for more than one explanation and much more.
Malden was Lt. Mike Stone in The Streets of San Francisco.

Reel Justice: The Courtroom Goes to the Movies is just one of the books about law, crime and film. Reel Justice has an interesting write-up about I Confess. See what people in the business of dealing with law, crime and the judicial system have to say about how the film industry has handled this subject matter through the years.

Hitchcock Film Quote inspiration Tshirt
"Are you frightened? Is that what makes you cruel?"
Change font style and/or color

Carolyn Jones was Cindy Fontaine in Alfred Hitchcock's remake of The Man Who Knew Too Much 1956. According to the AFI web site the character was also known as Elsa McDuff. Her role is small but the scene(s) are a break from tension. Jones was Morticia Addams in The Addams Family.

Barbara Bel Geddes was Midge Wood Vertigo (1958)
Midge was engaged to Scottie (James Stewart) back in college. She's something of an undergarment engineer, designing a bra that operates in the fashion of a cantilever bridge. What would the Victoria's Secret angels think of that? She's one of the few Hitchcock women to wear glasses and yet remain sane, pleasant, employed and presentable. Stewart is attracted to the more exotic Kim Novak (Judy Barton/Madeleine Elster) who will bring a lot of drama into his life and leave him hanging.

Bel Geddes had the role of the family matriarch, Miss Ellie in Dallas. She was the first performer contracted to star in the show.

William Bendix 8x10 Original Photo

Martin Balsam as Det. Milton Arbogast (private detective) Psycho 1960.

Detective Arbogast, called in by Marion Crane's concerned sister, finds out that Ms. Crane has stolen $40,000 from her employer. He tracks her down at the Bates Motel. That is both clever and very unfortunate for him. Det. Arbogast's earthly remains end in the infamous swamp on the Bates Motel property.

Balsam played Murray Klein on the All in the Family spin-off Archie Bunker's Place.

Lurene Tuttle the sheriff's wife in Psycho.
She played Lloyd Nolan's senior nurse, Hannah Yarby in the Diahann Carroll NBC series Julia (1968–1971). 

She also appeared in a memorable episode of The Andy Griffith Show, Opie's Charity as Annabelle Silby who tells the everyone that her husband, Tom Silby was killed by a taxi cab, instead of telling the truth which is that he up and left. They have a big funeral and of course he comes home years later to the shock of all who see him.
Tuttle also appeared six times on Trapper John, M.D. 1981-1984, playing different roles.

Martin Balsam
Psycho 1960

Veronica Cartwright as Cathy Brenner in The Birds 1963.
Cathy Brenner is the teen daughter of Lydia Brenner (Jessica Tandy) and sister of Mitch (Rod Taylor). Her birthday party is invaded by aggressive birds who clearly have no regard for games, cake or human life. The scene at her school is one of the most famous in the film. 

Although throughout the film the townspeople and the family are terrorized by birds, when they flee, Cathy is intent on bringing her pets along with them -- a pair of turtledoves who've remained in their cage throughout the film. The old Potter Schoolhouse in Bodega Bay still looks much like it did in the film though I hear it's a private residence now.

On Daniel Boone, Cartwright played Jemima Boone. She played both Violet Rutherford and Peggy MacIntosh Leave it to Beaver. 

Suzanne Pleshette as Annie Hayworth in The Birds 1963.
Annie, the local school teacher is one of Mitch's ex-girlfriends. When Melanie (Tippi Hedren) spends a night at her home, Annie gives some backstory on the Brenner family, particularly fleshing out the character of Lydia. "She’s afraid of being abandoned." 

The scene where Mitch calls Annie's house to invite Melanie to Cathy's party is uncomfortable to watch. Annie evacuates the children from the schoolhouse in a dramatic scene. 

According to the Hitchcock wiki, Annie Hayworth's house was actually a facade built on vacant land. So don't bother looking for it on your trip to Bodega Bay. Pleshette went on to play Emily Hartley on The Bob Newhart Show (1972–1978).

Richard Deacon as Mitch's City Neighbor The Birds 1963
He was Mel Cooley on The Dick Van Dyke Show.

Suzanne Pleshette from The Birds
from film trailer

Alan Napier as Mr. Rutland, Mark's father in Marnie 1964.
Mark (Sean Connery) tells Marnie (Tippi Hedren) before meeting his father: "You're all right. Dad goes by scent. If you smell anything like a horse, you're in."  

And then when they meet...
Mark: It's all right, Dad, she's not really a girl, she's a horse fancier.

Mr. Rutland asks Marnie: "Certainly can't find old Mark very interesting. Doesn't hunt, doesn't even ride."

Alan Napier played Bruce Wayne's butler, Alfred in the Batman TV series from 1966-1968. Napier had been first to be cast in the series.

Arthur Gould-Porter as Freddy, the Bookseller Torn Curtain 1966. He had a reoccurring role as Ravenswood the butler in The Beverley Hillbillies. 

John Forsythe as Michael Nordstrom Topaz (1969)
Forsythe is CIA agent Mike Nordstrom who enlists the help of agent André Devereaux (Frederick Stafford). Nordstrom is not a major character in the film.

John Forsythe in Topaz

Forsythe went on to a few successful TV series such as: Bachelor Father, Charlie's Angels and Dynasty.

William Devane as Arthur Adamson / Edward Shoebridge Family Plot 1976.
Shoebridge/Adamson murdered his adoptive parents, faked his own death and recreates himself as a successful jeweler in San Francisco called Arthur Adamson. 

There are apparently some behind-the-scene tales of casting many of the roles, including the part Devane plays. Al Pacino may have worked with Pacino. What a pairing that would have been.
 
Family Plot was the final film directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

Devane was Greg Sumner on Knots Landing 1983-1993 and appeared on the television version of From Here to Eternity


* Small screen captures used to discuss significant scenes in and promote a specific a program or film.

Marcia meets Desi Arnaz Jr The Brady Bunch

A Lost Diary, Innermost Thoughts and Desi Arnaz Jr.
Marcia will never wash her cheek again

 
The Possible Dream, The Brady Bunch
Aired February 27, 1970

Arnaz, Desi Jr
B&W 8x10 Photo
autographed

Back in the seventies, many 14-year-old girls like Marcia Brady kept diaries in blank books. They hid them from the prying eyes of family members.

If you had a sneaky sibling it might be found and read. If you were on a TV show like The Brady Bunch, the diary was apt to be found and donated to a used book sale. Could this get any worse?

Of course it can if you've written all about your secret crush on the hunky dunky Desi Arnaz Jr. Housekeeper Alice ends up saving the day.

This was long before the Internet and Marcia didn't want anyone to know about this, especially not Davy Jones! (His appearance in the Brady Bunch Movie is below, too.) Wonder she also wrote about the wonderful dentist who she liked so much?

This is the first Brady Bunch episode to feature a big name guest star with an appearance by Desi Arnaz Jr. 

He was a co-star on his mother Lucille Ball's show, Here's Lucy in the late 1960s and early 1970s. He and other young actors like Warren Beatty were popular in the tabloids.

Gordon Jump (WKRP in Cincinnati) and Kitty Carry-All also make a special appearances in this episode.    
Do you think the Brady kids would be keeping diaries online if they were teens or tweens today? 

Would she have a blog or facebook page? Would Cindy and Bobby Brady tweet? Who would their crushes be today? The modern-day Davy Jones and Desi Arnaz Jr.

What's the most unusual thing you ever found at a flea market or yard sale? Something personal like a diary? 



I'll never wash this cheek again! is almost as famous a Marcia quote as Oh! My nose!

Brady Bunch Cool 1970s Needlepoint 8x10 Photo
Maureen McCormick Robert Reed Florence Henderson

Desi Arnaz Jr, 1983 Interview

Diary (1969) excerpt
by Bread (from the CD/album The Best of Bread)

I found her diary underneath a tree
And started reading about me
The words she'd written took me by surprise
You'd never read them in her eyes
They said that she had found the love she'd waited for
Wouldn't you know it
She wouldn't show it

When she confronted with the writing there
Simply pretended not to care I passed it off as just in keeping with
Her total disconcerting air
And though she tried to hide the love that she denied
Wouldn't you know it
She wouldn't show it .... 


In 1977  Desi Arnaz Jr., Robert Carradine, Anne Lockhart and Melanie Griffith were in a film called Joy Ride. 

This reminds me of Eddie Murphy on Saturday Night Live in the late 1980s. He did a series of sketches called James Brown Celebrity Hot Tub Party. Remembering the 1970s.

Melanie Griffith Desi Arnaz Jr Original 8x10" Photo

Excerpt from his Celebrity Hot Tub Theme Song....

Hot tub! Ha! Da!
Ah-full of water!
I say hot tub! Ha!... 

Hot tub! Ah!
Get in!
Gonna get in the water!
Gonna make me sweat! Ah!
Here I go in the hot tub!

HHHHIIIGGGHH!!

Too hot in the hot tub! Ma!
Burn myself!
Make it cooler!
Good God!" .....

Davy Jones appeared on Season three of The Brady Bunch. The episode is called Getting Davy Jones. Marcia tells people that she can get him to perform at a school dance, but she really can't. Then she has to deliver on what she's said. Jones sings Girl at the dance. 

The appearance by Davy Jones in the 1995 Brady Bunch Movie is a riot and really special for those baby boomers out here who lived through the original episode.


 


The Great Earring Caper : The Brady Bunch

Jan Brady and the Year of the Horse, Props that appear on different shows

Lucille Ball meets Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton and the 69.42 carat engagement ring on Here's Lucy

Jan Brady's Dark Wig The Brady Bunch

Oscar winning Best Live Action Short Film Color 1937

Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film:
Best Short Subject, Color

In 1936 and 1937 there were three separate awards in this category

Meatless Meals 1936
Jean Prescott Adams

Best Short Subject, One-reel 1936 - 1956
Best Short Subject, Two-reel 1936 - 1956
Best Short Subject, Color was used only 1936 - 1937   

This discontinued Academy Award category only existed those two years.
Another similar category at that time: Short Subject, Cartoon

The category was eliminated because short color films were becoming the standard.

Winner of Best Live Action Short Film, Color 1937

David Miller's Penny Wisdom, an MGM Pete Smith Specialty film. A comedic instructional film with household and cooking tips. Pete Smith is the narrator.

A short situational comedy with the Smudge family. The Smudge family cook quits just before the husband calls to say he's bringing the boss and a client home for dinner. As it would happen, the wife's culinary skills are minimal. This is a fun early film for foodies.



Prudence Penny, as Herself, appeared through the courtesy of the Los Angeles Examiner two films. Gertrude Short and Harold Minjir are Mr. and Mrs. Smudge. William Worthington is the boss, their dinner guest. A fast and inexpensive dinner is prepared. Saving time and money is always a good thing.

Tips given in the film include:

• Add peanut butter will remove burned taste from creamed soup 
• Salt will help to remove onion odor from your hands
• Parboil carrots and potatoes before baking cuts baking time by 20 minutes
• Hold a tomato over a burner (heat source) to help the skin come off easier
• Lemon juice will revive an old head of lettuce
• Boiling a citrus fruit such (such as an orange) will get you twice the juice

They create a form of Baked Alaska for dessert. You often see this made with some kind of cake included: ice cream, sponge cake and meringue.  

When the dessert is flambéed, usually called Bombe Alaska, it is splashed with dark rum then set alight. 

In 1954, at the 26th Academy Awards Pete Smith received an Honorary Oscar for his witty and pungent observations on the American scene in his series of Pete Smith Specialties.

At that same ceremony another honorary award went "To Joseph I. Breen for his conscientious, open-minded and dignified management of the Motion Picture Production Code."
 

Menu was another Pete Smith Specialty film for foodies

Retro, Vintage,
Rockabilly Aprons

  "Marian Manners and Prudence Penny were pseudonyms for the cooking instructors and writers, and later the food editors, of the Los Angeles Times and Hearst newspapers, respectively. ....

"While there was only one Marian Manners at a time, there were many Prudence Pennys. Because wiring a recipe via telegraph was costly, each Hearst newspaper employed a local writer and culinary instructor to play the role. 

"Though the identity of the first Los Angeles Prudence Penny is unclear, the former editor of a California poultry industry newsletter, Mabelle Burbridge, took on the role at the New York Daily Mirror. 

"The Chicago Herald-Examiner's first Prudence was Leona Malek, formerly the domestic science director at a Chicago slaughterhouse (information politely left out of her bio once she became Prudence)."
-- Marian Manners and Prudence Penny, The first celebrity cooks; Los Angeles Times April 2009


Prudence Penny, the actress in the short films, is usually called "Herself." Occasionally she's identified as Leona A. Malek. We can find books on cooking and the art of housekeeping by this author and by Leona Alford Malek. But it turns out that even this is a pseudonym for Jean Prescott Adams.

So look to Prudence Penny, Herself, Leona A. Malek or Jean Prescott Adams, and Miss Marian Manners for help if you need it. I've got a friend who collects vintage cookbooks. Another friend has pages from old cookbooks on the wall of her kitchen. There's a stunning colorful architectural Jell-O mold ready to thrill the whole family.

The 1936 winner in this category was Give Me Liberty by Warner Brothers.

All awards shows go through changes to keep up with the times and with technology. The 51st Annual Grammy Awards held in 2009 were the last that saw the Best Polka Album category. The following year, an album that contained polka was, included in the Best Traditional Folk Album category. The Best Polka Album category had only been in existence since 1986.

The 10th Annual Awards ceremony, March 10, 1938 had been delayed for one week due to major rains and flooding in Los Angeles. They were originally scheduled for March third but that date was a washout.



Check out other books by Leona Malek / Prudence Penny 

Foods featured in favorite films, classic & contemporary. Plan a menu to complement your Movie Night.

Winning Oscars buying selling auctioning Academy Awards

Auctioning Academy Awards, Buying and Selling

Those who collect them
Those who buy them just to return them to
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

In December 2002, Steven Spielberg paid $180,000, not including fees and

Steven Spielberg
Autographed Oscar
8x10 Color Photo

taxes, for Bette Davis' Best Actress Oscar for the 1935 movie Dangerous. It was auctioned by Sotheby's in New York. 

In 2001, Spielberg had paid $578,000 for the Oscar Davis won for the 1938 movie Jezebel. The director/producer is one of a handful of people who are buying up Oscars and giving them to the academy.

In 1996 Clark Gable's Best Actor Oscar for 1934's It Happened One Night sold for $607,500.

Clark Gable's son and only heir, John Clark Gable put the Oscar up for auction at Christie’s in Los Angeles. 

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences had sued to keep Gable's Oscar off the auction block. Both Christie's and Gable's son were defendants in the case.

Apparently the academy claimed that, two years before his death in 1960, Gable signed a standard contract giving it first right to buy the statuette if it was ever sold. Christie's claimed the signature on the agreement was a fake.

In 1955 a magazine claimed that Gable had given the Oscar to the son of director, Walter Lang. Lang was married to former actress, Madalynne Field. Also known as Fieldsie, she was private secretary and good friend to Carole Lombard. Lang and Field met when he directed Lombard in the 1936 film, Love Before Breakfast.

1955 Clipping claiming Clark Gable had given his Oscar
to the son of director Walter Lang

  Turns out that this was, to my knowledge at least, the first Oscar purchased by Mr. Spielberg and returned to the academy.

"I could think of no better sanctuary for Gable's only Oscar than the Motion Picture Academy," Spielberg said in a statement. "The Oscar statuette is the most personal recognition of good work our industry can ever bestow, and it strikes me as a sad sign of our times that this icon could be confused with a commercial treasure."





September 2001, George Stoll's Best Score Oscar (received for the 1945 film Anchors Aweigh) was offered in an estate sale at the Butterfields auction house. The award brought seven times more than expected at $156,875.  The actor Kevin Spacey was revealed as the anonymous buyer. He subsequently returned it to the Academy. 

In 1992 Harold Russell sold his Best Supporting Actor statuette from The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) for $50,000. Not a professional actor, he was able to portray a version of his own story in the film, a World War II veteran who comes home a double amputee. After making the film, he got a business degree from Boston University and became an ardent advocate for the disabled.

Mr. Russell said he needed the money to pay his wife's medical bills and other expenses. He's quoted as saying, "I don't know why anybody would be critical. My wife's health is much more important than sentimental reasons. The movie will be here, even if Oscar isn't." 

Russell received an honorary Oscar as well for being an inspiration for disabled war veterans throughout the U.S. "To Harold Russell for bringing hope and courage to his fellow veterans through his appearance in "he Best Years of Our Lives." This made him the first (and only) actor to receive two Oscars for the same role.

It's reported that agent Lew Wasserman bought Russell's statuette and donated it back to the academy.

Take the case of the Joseph Schildkraut Best Supporting Actor Academy Award for The Life of Emile Zola, 1937. His Oscar was in the early days when supporting actor awards were still plaques. In a 2007 auction it failed to reach its minimum bid and didn't sell. But in 2013 the Oscar sold for $92,866.

This is the only instance I found where a performer or craftsperson sold his or her own award. There are instances where people have donated or said to have gifted them.




In December 1993, the Oscar won by actress Vivien Leigh for her performance as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind was sold at auction for $510,000. The award was sold by her family. Ms. Leigh also won a Best Actress Oscar at the 24th Annual Academy Awards in 1952 for her portrayal of Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire.

In 1970 Let It Be won the Oscar for Best Original Score presented to The Beatles (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr). It's from their documentary film of the same name. 

In 1976, John Lennon donated his Oscar statuette to the Southbury Training School in Southbuy, CT for "a celebrity auction for retarded people," and it brought $600. It was sold again at a 1992 auction bringing $110,000 from an anonymous Beatles fan.

The best actress Oscar won by Joan Crawford for her role in classic film Mildred Pierce sold at auction on two occasions. Ms. Crawford's daughter Cathy sold it in 1993 at a Christie's auction for $68,500 to an anonymous bidder. In September 2012 it was sold at auction again for $426,732.

8 Academy Award Winners Signed 8x10 Photo (PSA/DNA) LOA- Audrey Hepburn, Denzel Washington, James Stewart, Gene Kelly, Sally Field +

Magician David Copperfield spent close to a quarter of a million dollars for Michael Curtiz's Best Director Oscar for Casablanca (1943). Copperfield was unsuccessful in securing Welles' Oscar as co-writer for Citizen Kane.

Michael Jackson paid $1.54m at auction in 1999 for the Best Film (then called Outstanding Production) Oscar awarded to producer David O Selznick for Gone With The Wind.

In February 2012 a record 15 Oscars were auctioned off just days after the Academy Awards took place. The statuettes were all awarded prior to 1950.

"The academy, its members and the many film artists and craftspeople who've won Academy Awards believe strongly that Oscars should be won, not purchased," said academy spokeswoman Janet Hill in a statement. "Unfortunately, because our winners agreement wasn't instituted until 1950, we don't have any legal means of stopping the commoditization of these particular statuettes."





Of the 15 auctioned together, the Oscar bringing in the most money was $588,000 for Citizen Kane Best Original Screenplay Oscar received by Herman J. Mankiewicz which he shared with Orson Welles as co-writer.  

"Also up for grabs were How Green Was My Valley's best picture Oscar from 1941, which went for $274,520 and Cavalcade's 1933 gong for the same prize, which brought in $332,165. 

"The oldest of the Oscars on sale, Skippy's best picture statuette from 1931, fetched $301,973. 

"Two acting statuettes, Ronald Colman's 1947 best actor prize for A Double Life and Charles Coburn's historic supporting award for 1943's The More The Merrier – the first year that supporting actors were honored with their own prize – took $206,250 and $170,459 respectively."
-- The Guardian February 2012




Jaws was nominated for Best Picture. Watching the nomination, Spielberg is disappointed that he's not nominated for Best Directing. "The shark was an actress," he jokes, as if the shark might be eligible for that category. 

They note that Jaws is one of the few films to be nominated for Best Picture but not in other major categories of directing, acting, or writing. The 48th Academy Awards were presented March 29, 1976.

That year the winner was One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Michael Douglas, Saul Zaentz. Other fantastic films in the category of Best Picture were Dog Day Afternoon, Jaws, Nashville and Barry Lyndon.

Some may remember the old Jack Benny radio show, It's still available in MP3 podcast form. Ronald Colman was one of Jack Benny's neighbors. A series of shows dealt with Benny's borrowing Colman's Oscar.

In 2002 Ronald Colman's Academy Award sold for $174,500. Also auctioned was a special brass Oscar box. It was inscribed, "To Ronald Colman/With The Affection and Esteem/Of His Fellow Actors/The Masquers/First Annual Dinner to the Winner/April 28, 1948," per Christie's Auction description of a Colman estate sale in 2002.

FYI: In the early years of the academy winners in the supporting acting categories were awarded plaques. After 1943, winners in the supporting acting categories were awarded Oscar statuettes similar to those awarded to winners in all other categories, including the leading acting categories. Have any of these fifteen Oscars been donated back to the academy? I haven't heard yet.

Mr. Copperfield is among a large group of fans who believe that the statuettes are to be respected as important pieces of movie memorabilia by collectors. This controversy is unlikely to end as the heirs of those who won the awards before 1950 are still legally allowed to do what they will with the statuettes. 

How do you feel about owning an Oscar or an Emmy Award as a piece of movie memorabilia like one of James Bond's cars or Dorothy's ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz?

"Since the Academy Awards were first presented in 1929, there have been famous instances of lost or stolen Oscars. Margaret O'Brien's 1945 award for outstanding child acting disappeared from her home, only to be found 50 years later at a Pasadena flea market and returned to her."

The academy is in the process of building a museum. Some winners have their awards on display where fans can see them. I read that you can view movie memorabilia at the Francis Ford Coppola Winery Geyserville, CA, and that includes Mr. Coppola's Academy Awards. Similarly if you visit the Raymond Burr Vineyards in Healdsburg, CA you may be able to see his Emmy Awards.





In 1950, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences passed a rule prohibiting Academy Award winners or their heirs from selling a statue without first offering it back to the Academy for a price of $1.

"Award winners shall not sell or otherwise dispose of the Oscar statuette, nor permit it to be sold or disposed of by operation of law, without first offering to sell it to the Academy for the sum of $1.00. This provision shall apply also to the heirs and assigns of Academy Award winners who may acquire a statuette by gift or bequest."
-- excerpted from the Academy Rules and Regulations

Related Pages of Interest

The Travels of Orson Welles' Academy Award for Citizen Kane

Entertainment Memorabilia Auctioning, Collecting: Recent; Updates

Film characters with prosthetic hands: Character and Disability in film
Clark Gable marries Kay Williams July 1955

Carole Lombard and William Powell; mentions Lombard's secretary Fieldsie, Madalynne Field

Sources:

Los Angeles Times
New York Times
New York Daily News
The Victoria Advocate
NateSanders.com
Michael Jackson: The Magic, The Madness, The Whole Story, 1958-2009

All information is researched and deemed accurate. Please send corrections and updates if you have them with sources.

Eat Drink Movie Meals Eat along with your favorite film characters

Dinner and a Movie at Home
Making movie night special

What to eat, drink, serve and snack on while watching favorite films. No more craving what they're eating on screen, dine along with them. 

Christmas In Connecticut
Barbara Stanwyck

Think about presentation, will you present the food in a way that mimics how it's done in the movie? Limit to Oscar winners, Academy Award nominated movies.

Take a tip from The Shop Around the Corner and You've Got Mail. Incorporate something like a flower as a tease, a prop for guests to get to know one another. What foods would you pair with your favorite films?

Make a dish with the following ingredients or the same dish you see in the movie. 

Food movies may be all about the food or there may be a small part that catches the eye of foodies in the audience. After recent movies Chef and The Hundred Foot Journey whet our appetites, we're always looking for others.

You can serve something that's your own concoction but resembles what they have on screen. Make a healthy version, a kid-friendly version, etc.

Please make suggestions for additions. There are a lot that I'm forgetting and a lot of films I've yet to see. Are you planning a home or living room film festival?

The Other Sister: Olive juice means "I love you." Sounds similar and read someone's lips as it's said, looks the same as "I love you." 


Drinks (don't forget many of these have non-alcoholic versions)

Champagne, or fizzy substitute, is always nice especially while watching The Great Gatsby and to sing along with Gigi.

Gigi won Best Picture Oscar in 1959, the 31st Academy Awards. It remains one of the few films to win all the awards for which it had been nominated (in four or more categories). It received nine Oscars. It's also  one of only 11 Best Picture winners in the Academy's first 82 years not to receive a single acting nomination.
-- info thanks to the Academy Awards web site

Wine is served a lot. Be ready to pour when Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman sneak into the wine cellar in Notorious. 
If you dare, have some on hand when you watch Arsenic and Old Lace. Present it in a sweet cut glass cruet or decanter. Elderberry wine is preferred for such parties. Do you have recommendations for film and wine pairings? Are there more movie and beer pairings?

Riedel Vinum
Cognac/Brandy Glasses

Brandy. Alfred Hitchcock films often include snifters of brandy. It's Suntory time for Bill Murray's character in Lost in Translation. He's making a commercial to sell Suntory's Hibiki 17.

Whether you're drinking brandy, iced tea, apple cider or something else, it's fun to drink along with Hitch and cool to have the glasses they're using on screen. You can often find them close to home.

While the City Sleeps, is a 1956 film noir with an impressive cast including Dana Andrews, Rhonda Fleming, George Sanders, Howard Duff, Vincent Price, John Drew Barrymore and Ida Lupino. 

George Sanders and Rhonda Fleming are seen enjoying drinks that contain what looks like an entire peach. There is a bowl of peaches on the table in front of them.

Sanders assembles the drinks beginning with what looks like glasses that contain only a whole peach. He pokes each peach several times with a fork then pours champagne over them. If they were strawberries no one would notice but a whole peach? Wow, that's a movie star for you. 

*While the City Sleeps

If you'd like an alternate drink along the same lines, the best I can come up with is the peach bellini with champagne.




I found a vast assortment of recipes for fruit coulis. If you want something to top a cake or other dessert, you may make it warm in a saucepan, leave it thicker, chunkier.

The basis of one recipe for a Peach Coulis. Want to make your own peach bellini? Look up a recipe of your own for details and preferences.

Choose frozen or fresh peaches (pitted, peeled, coarsely chopped)
A couple tablespoons of water
In a blender purée peaches with water
Put through a fine sieve into a bowl, pressing on solids
Discard remaining solids. 
Transfer to pitcher and chill until ready to serve.
You may want to add some sugar to sweeten just before serving

If you add a peach and pour the whole drink on top of that, please send us a photograph and we'll post it.

In the 1935 film Dangerous, with Franchot Tone and Bette Davis in an Oscar winning role, the gentlemen get together and have some drinks which include fruit. We can't decide if we're seeing pineapple or slices of citrus. Enjoy yourself with this one. Men so secure in themselves they drank whatever they wanted.

In Topper, Cary Grant, Constance Bennett and Roland Young enjoy a tray of Pink Ladies

Grand Hotel Joan Crawford behind the scenes

In Grand Hotel, the patrons enjoy what's called a Louisiana Flip: egg, cointreau, grenadine, orange juice and rum.

Don't forget your martinis with The Thin Man movies, William Powell and Myrna Loy. 

Time for some Pinky Lemonade while you're watching Duck Soup. Don't mind

The Crusaders' new slogan
Elizabeth Thompson
Repeal the 18th Amendment
Prohibition

Harpo's tootsies. That's only on screen. Your lemonade will be completely safe, we're sure.

There's an exciting moment involving orange juice in the beginning of Notting Hill with Hugh Grant and Julia Roberts.

In her honor, why not serve Shirley Temple cocktails. Mix ginger ale (or lemon/lime soda) and a splash of grenadine, garnish with a maraschino cherry.  If you have a paper umbrella, it's greatly appreciated. For the guys you can call the drink the Roy Rogers.

Serve strawberry sodas to watch The Music Man and you can all pick a little, talk a little and maybe someone will "Shush" a little? Sheesh. Mastermind your own $5 milkshake like the one in Pulp Fiction.

Finally, some drinks you can prepare from your imagination. 
If you're watching 1971's Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, serve your own version of a Fizzy lifting drink. 
Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, offer  a pan-galactic gargle blaster.

Breakfasts in Movies
Breakfast is such an amorphous term, you can have just about anything for breakfast, eat breakfast any time of day. Here's a list.

Perhaps the most often seen breakfast in 1940s-1950s movies is ham and eggs

Pancakes, hotcakes, flapjacks may be served if you're watching:
Imitation of Life 1934
Christmas in Connecticut not only serve them but prepare for a pancake flipping contest. Be ready to both offer a prize for the best flip and someone to clean up with flips go flop.
Libeled Lady: William Powell and Walter Connolly enjoy watching Myrna Loy's flapjack flipping prowess as the trio has a supper of pancakes and fresh brook trout. Yum.
In Uncle Buck, John Candy made a very large pancake

In July 1958 the first International House of Pancakes (IHOP) opened in Toluca Lake, California. I was once waiting for a bus across the street from one of these restaurants. A person dressed up like a giant pancake tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I'd had breakfast yet. Suddenly seeing a gigantic living flapjack at six-something in the morning startled me out of my wits.
 
It Happened One Night: Coffee and Doughnuts. A dunking lesson. Everybody dunk with Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert.

Coffee on its own Notorious with Claude Rains, Ingrid Bergman and Leopoldine Konstantin (Mama Sebastian). Do you dare drink out of Hitchcock's big coffee cup?

In The Big Heat, a pot of hot coffee is used as a weapon between Lee Marvin (as Vince Stone) and Gloria Grahame (as Debby Marsh).

Coffee and brandy: Barbara Stanwyck's breakfast in Clash by Night
Henry Fonda gets coffee spilled on him in The Lady Eve

Bread, humble good bread. Thinking of food incorporated in movies, bread is probably the most prolific?
Tyrone Power and Susan Hayward in Rawhide make the best of a loaf of bread, and the big carving knife.
Enjoy some toast while watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show Honorable Mention: The annoying talking toaster on Red Dwarf




The Gold Rush, Charlie Chaplin's dance with rolls on the ends of his forks

Frankenstein, a little bread and wine between friends. That's Good. Maybe a little cheese.
Garlic bread prepared with the utmost cool in GoodFellas 1990.

Harold Lockwood Mary Pickford 1917 Cards by Jakestuff
Create your custom menu with date and theme

From It's a Wonderful Life
George and Mary Bailey welcome the Martinis to their new home
Mary Bailey: Bread... that this house may never know hunger. Salt... that life may always have flavor.
George Bailey: And wine... that joy and prosperity may reign forever. Enter the Martini Castle.
 


By the way, Roger Thornhill/Cary Grant orders a Gibson. It's made with gin and vermouth, and often garnished with a pickled onion. 


Fish 
Brook trout is talked about and fished for in Libeled Lady (William Powell, Myrna Loy and Walter Connolly do fish. Spencer Tracy and Jean Harlow don't fish.)

Brook trout is ordered on the train in a memorable scene in North by Northwest (Cary Grant and Eva Marie Saint)
 
In Deception Claude Rains orders up some brook trout, after he sniffs and sorts out the birds they'll have (with Bette Davis and Paul Henreid)
"My dear what are you going to have?"
"Same as usual, a lecture on eating and then whatever you decide."



Sherman Billngsley of The Stork Club shows some the hand signals used to communicate with his staff. A round of drinks, champagne for this table....
Even More Fish:
In Splash, Daryl Hannah shows Tom Hanks a whole new way to eat lobster 
Rear Window, Grace Kelly brings lobster (and French fried potatoes) to James Stewart.
Big, a young again Tom Hanks isn't crazy about caviar
Peter Sellers gets a handful of caviar in The Party
Forrest Gump, Mykelti Williamson as Benjamin "Bubba" Buford teaches us different ways to prepare shrimp

Catherine O'Hara, Jeffrey Jones are pulled away from their Shrimp Cocktails in Beetlejuice for a rendition of Day-O (The Banana Boat Song) ... and there's a surprise at the end




Leave Her to Heaven codfish and salmon:
Good for sushi and cod can make a good seafood taco
Mr. Robie (Ray Collins): "I was born and raised in Boston and I yield to no one in my passion for codfish!"
Dick Harland (Cornel Wilde): "...I’m what you’d call a salmon man."

Meat
Leg of Lamb Lamb to the Slaughter Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Ham "If you ain't eatin' Wham you ain't eatin' ham!" Mr Blandings Builds His Dream House
"I'm simply wild about you. I couldn’t do without you. Corned beef and cabbage, I love you." Lines from a song in the 1934 romantic comedy Kiss and Make-Up starring Cary Grant, Helen Mack and Genevieve Tobin
In the Beatles' film A Hard Day's Night Ringo Starr is in the police station. Paul McCartney's fictional grandfather John McCartney (Wilfrid Brambell) talks to him about some of the tough guys that Ringo might encounter, They have "fists like matured hams - and if they get you on the floor watch out for your brisket."
Spam chant from Monty Python's Flying Circus
Chili or is it stew? Edward G. Robinson and Charlton Heston early in Soylent Green

The Apartment Jack Lemmon Poster Print

Spaghetti
Lady and the Tramp 
The Apartment (with tennis racket)
My Sister Eileen 
A Night at the Opera
The Godfather
I Love You To Death  1990 (spiked spaghetti)
 
Good example of food that crosses the line between breakfast, dinner and dessert: 
In Elf, Buddy prepares a breakfast consisting of spaghetti noodles topped with marshmallows, M&Ms, maple syrup and pop tarts




Eggs
Talk of the Town a fried egg obscures Cary Grant's photo from Ronald Colman
Cool Hand Luke (1967) Paul Newman eats 50 eggs.
In 1976, Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) drank down a glass of raw eggs
Edie (Divine's mother) is the Egg Lady in Pink Flamingos
A Night at the Opera 2 hard boiled eggs, make that 3 hard boiled eggs

Alfred Hitchcock once told an interviewer that he was frightened of eggs. Eggs are among the least pleasant food images in his films. In To Catch a Thief a raw egg is tossed against a window (obscuring our view of Cary Grant) and Jessie Stevens (Jessie Royce Landis) snuffs out a cigarette in a fried egg.

Sandwiches
Mr. Skeffington Claude Rains, Bette Davis George serving turkey sandwiches to jilted suitors  
Five Easy Pieces Chicken sandwich hold the chicken  Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda
Libeled Lady: There is something very cute about the way Myrna Loy feeds William Powell a sandwich. Can't remember why he can't hold the sandwich himself...
Topaz: Alfred Hitchcock chicken and ham sandwiches on a picnic. Good enough to get kidnapped for and more
Psycho: Sandwiches are served. Norman Bates tells Marion that she eats like a bird.
Popeye 1980 Hamburgers. Everything is food Robin Williams, Shelly Duvall, Paul Dooley.
Pulp Fiction, 1994. The Big Kahuna Burger, the Royale with cheese.  

"Keene faces charges today! Wilma Laxter's fiance must undergo grilling by Burger." Newspaper headline seen in the movie, The Case of the Black Cat. It's a 1936 Perry Mason film. Ricardo Cortez is Mason, Jane Bryan is Wilma Laxter. Guy Usher is District Attorney Hamilton Burger.

Edward Scissorhands has a memorable dinner scene: bread and butter, peas and carrots, potatoes, green beans. What else?



It Happened One Night trailer; Raw carrots and hitchhiking lessons


Vegetables (Veggie platter, Crudités):
The Tomb of Ligeia: A potentially lethal cabbage, (cole slaw will do), brussels sprouts

Carrots: It Happened One Night
More Carrots: Ned "Scotty" Scott: "An intellectual carrot. The mind boggles ... Please doctor, I've got to ask this. It sounds like, well, just as though you're describing some form of super carrot." The Thing From Another World 
My Favorite Wife: Randolph Scott/Stephen Burkett is a vegetarian who likes raw carrots and carrot juice
 
State Fair pickles & mincemeat
Lettuce Celery, Apple Soylent Green
Ketchup, Tomatoes (fruit) The Thrill of it All Doris Day, James Garner, making your own food
Frankie and Johnny Al Pacino styles a flower out of a turnip for Michelle Pfeiffer.

Dr. Dolittle 1967 Rex Harrison championed vegetarianism and even included a song, The Vegetarian






Chicken
Talk of the Town Cary Grant is given chicken to eat on his way to jail
Capon? Chicken as headwear The Party

Elizabeth Taylor consumes a chicken leg in the kitchen in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966)
Sliced turkey with blue candle wax shows up in The Tomb of Ligeia (may not have the right film)
Eraserhead's unpleasant wriggling chicken
Inherit the Wind 1960 Awaiting the verdict, Brady a.k.a. The Colonel (Fredric March) goes over his prepared speech while munching on a fried chicken leg




Spaghetti and Coffee for two, Little Caesar

The Soup most likely to...
Borscht with an egg in it Talk of the Town Jean Arthur, Ronald Colman, Cary Grant
Soup with a jeweled brooch in it The Killers  

Fruit
"A snozzberry?! Who ever heard of a snozzberry?!" Willy Wonka & the

James Cagney & Mae Clarke
The Public Enemy

Chocolate Factory 1971
 
The Time Machine 1960 offers bowls of what looks like a combo pear and squash.
 
Have your own grapefruit scene when James Cagney and Mae Clarke have theirs in Public Enemy.



Fruit Cup: In High Anxiety Nurse Diesel makes it clear that "Those who are late do not get fruit cup." The necessity and desirability of fruit cup has never been greater.

The Godfather's scaring his grandson using an orange peel over his teeth

Snacks 
[Here's a tip: When we went to a friend's house to watch movies and she brought out the pop corn, she also brought out little shot glasses with toothpicks.] 

Popcorn Strangers on a Train. Robert Walker as Bruno Anthony eats as he rides in the tunnel of love off to commit a murder.
Popcorn, Soda, etc Drive In Movie Scene Grease 1978
Butter (to go with that popcorn) Butter the 2011 movie w/Jennifer Garner, Ty Burrell, Olivia Wilde, Hugh Jackman
"Aw, Pretzels!," said by Kay   Mildred Pierce
Saltines/crackers eaten in Lifeboat 

Mildred Pierce
High Quality Joan Crawford Butterfly McQueen,Jack Carson

Pie
Mildred Pierce bakes some good looking pies in her restaurant
State Fair Mincemeat w/brandy (my experience with mincemeat is in a pie)
Apple pie watching American Pie 1999
Labor Day with Kate Winslet, Josh Brolin and Gattlin Griffith. Winslet plays an expert pie maker.
More than one person has suggested serving pie while watching The Life of Pi. That's your call.
In Waitress (2007)  Keri Russell/Jenna Hunterson enters a pie baking contest. This film was so serious about pie that they show a Pie Mistress in the credits.    

Cake, wedding or birthday
A girl's birthday party is interrupted by The Birds
Debbie Reynolds come out of a big cake and surprises Gene Kelly in Singin' in the Rain
There's a huge living, singing wedding cake in The Great Ziegfeld 1936


Dessert
Floating Island Desk Set
Ice Cream cones, Audrey Hepburn's ice cream kerplunks right onto Cary Grant, messing up his suit and causing him to need a shower. Charade 
The Godfather: "Leave the gun, take the cannoli." A cannoli consists of a tube-shaped shell of fried pastry dough, filled with a sweet, creamy filling. 
The Other Sister: "I love you more than bands... and cookie-making!" 1999 film with Juliette Lewis, Giovanni Ribisi, Diane Keaton, Tom Skerritt and Hector Elizondo.

Notting Hill has a debate over who should have the last brownie
 

Ninja-bread Men Cookie Cutters make cookies for Ninja movies, boxing films or maybe even Soylent Green? It's all up to you

Candies and Gum
Don't necessarily go with the same brand name, but something similar
Caddyshack, Baby Ruth candy bar 
Forrest Gump: "My momma always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get."
Wizard of Oz: lollypops
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang  Toot Sweets (1968)
ET Reese's Pieces lined up
Miracle on 34th Street bubble gum
Dr. Strangelove General "Buck" Turgidson loved his Gum. Was he giving up smoking?


Non-Traditional Meals (Inspiration for new recipes):
Eating a shoe Charlie Chaplin Gold Rush 1925
Crumpled paper Arsenic and Old Lace
A Day at the Races Harpo eats a thermometer. He drinks poison and he blows balloons out of his mouth! Chico  "He's got in-grown balloons." 
Groucho/Dr. Hackenbush - "Don't drink that poison. That's four dollars an ounce." 

Joan Crawford - 8x10 Photograph High Quality

Time to celebrate: October 30 is Haunted Refrigerator Day!
November 15 is Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day -- Have a party and a dinner. Remember the 1939 movie The Women. When asked,
"Can I find anything in that ice box of yours?"
I think it was Joan Crawford's character Crystal who replied, "Yeah, cobwebs and a bottle of gin."


Dr. Strangelove's Survival Kit includes chewing gum.
Major T. J. "King" Kong (Slim Pickens): Survival kit contents: In them you'll find: one forty-five caliber automatic; two boxes of ammunition; four days' concentrated emergency rations; one drug issue containing antibiotics, morphine, vitamin pills, pep pills, sleeping pills, tranquilizer pills; one miniature combination Russian phrase book and Bible; one hundred dollars in rubles; one hundred dollars in gold; nine packs of chewing gum; one issue of prophylactics; three lipsticks; three pair of nylon stockings. 
Shoot, a fella' could have a pretty good weekend in Vegas with all that stuff. 

I've left out real foodie films, films full of food such as Like Water for Chocolate, Eat Drink Man Woman and for the most part the Willy Wonka films. 

On-screen foodies in The Odd Couple, Jack Lemmon and Tony Randall cooked up fun living with roommates Walter Matthau and Jack Klugman. 

Any Hitchcock movie is apt to have an eating scene that's significant. Hitchcock enjoyed playing with food scenes in his movies and apparently in real life.



Alfred Hitchcock's Blue Food Dinner Parties

Milking a Scene: 20 Famous Movie Milk Scenes

Ducks & Geese in Movies, Fowl in Film Vincent Price the actor/chef in His Kind of Woman

While The City Sleeps [Remaster]

Barbara's Terror - Night of The Living Dead Cover
For The iPad Mini by TheFilmCurator

Greta Garbo Swedish Meat Balls Recipe Card
more old Hollywood recipe cards to customize by Jakestuff

Unconventional Ingredients: Cooking Show
Iron Chef Challenges T-shirt  
Put your favorite photo on t-shirt designs at zazzle.com

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