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Post by spiderwort on Sept 8, 2021 0:19:17 GMT
Film actors on stage (& vice versa)
Here's my contribution, and the inspiration for the thread: in the 1940 Broadway revival of Ferenc Molnar's play, Liliom, the principle female role of Julie was played by none other than Ingrid Bergman!! And Elia Kazan, actor later turned director, played a smaller role in the same production. Personally, I found this amazing. It will probably more interesting to select actors/actresses not reprising roles they played in the opposite medium, but that shouldn't be an absolute requisite. Hope this makes sense. I won't be able to participate right now, but I'll check in when I can. And if someone needs to take over this thread to guide it more carefully, be my guest. Thanks in advance for your responses.
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Post by Isapop on Sept 8, 2021 0:28:09 GMT
In the late 1960s Henry Fonda and Robert Ryan appeared together in a touring company performing Thornton Wilder's Our Town.
I saw it on a class field trip.
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Post by mikef6 on Sept 8, 2021 0:41:01 GMT
My college English professor told our class that she had seen Kate Hepburn as Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing at the Stratford (Connecticut) Shakespeare Festival. This would have been in 1957. Probably at the time no one even considered filming the performance. I can hardly imagine anyone more suited to the role than Kate. I learn from her Wikipedia page that she also performed the Shakespeare roles of Rosalind (As You Like It), Portia (The Merchant of Venice), Katherina (The Taming Of The Shrew), Viola (Twelfth Night), Isabella (Measure For Measure), and Cleopatra (Antony And Cleopatra).
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Post by phantomparticle on Sept 8, 2021 0:43:40 GMT
Boris Karloff worked extensively in theatre between 1910 and the late 1920's, but didn't make his Broadway debut until Arsenic and Old Lace (1941), after which, he easily segued between film and stage.
Bela Lugosi also amassed a large stage catalogue and continued to work the boards after becoming a film icon. In the late 1940's he toured with Arsenic and Old Lace. According to Gregory Mank's excellent book, Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, producers refused to change "he looks like Boris Karloff" to "he looks like Bela Lugosi." The humiliated actor was in no condition to protest; he badly needed the work.
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Post by mikef6 on Sept 8, 2021 1:16:21 GMT
Boris Karloff worked extensively in theatre between 1910 and the late 1920's, but didn't make his Broadway debut until Arsenic and Old Lace (1941), after which, he easily segued between film and stage. Bela Lugosi also amassed a large stage catalogue and continued to work the boards after becoming a film icon. In the late 1940's he toured with Arsenic and Old Lace. According to Gregory Mank's excellent book, Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, producers refused to change "he looks like Boris Karloff" to "he looks like Bela Lugosi." The humiliated actor was in no condition to protest; he badly needed the work. In Christopher Plummer’s autobiography “In Spite Of Myself,” he describes working with Boris Karloff in Shaw’s “Saint Joan” with Karloff as the High Judge. Karloff, Plummer writes, was the favorite of the cast. Karloff always arrived at the theater hours before curtain to get ready. One night he did not show. He could not be reached by phone. Time was getting close to the point where he would not have time for costume and makeup. The entire cast and crew was either watching at the stage door or watching out of windows. At almost the last minute, he arrived, safe and sound, having been held up by some mundane errand. But the emphasis by Plummer was the outpouring of love and concern for the elderly actor.
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Post by marshamae on Sept 8, 2021 1:23:11 GMT
My college English professor told our class that she had seen Kate Hepburn as Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing at the Stratford (Connecticut) Shakespeare Festival. This would have been in 1957. Probably at the time no one even considered filming the performance. I can hardly imagine anyone more suited to the role than Kate. I learn from her Wikipedia page that she also performed the Shakespeare roles of Rosalind (As You Like It), Portia (The Merchant of Venice), Katherina (The Taming Of The Shrew), Viola (Twelfth Night), Isabella (Measure For Measure), and Cleopatra (Antony And Cleopatra). Would t you have loved to see her as Lady Macbeth? Rosalind and Portia seem like excellent parts for the great Kate.
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Post by marshamae on Sept 8, 2021 1:29:46 GMT
Fredric March was very busy on Broadway , and was the original lead in SKIN OF OUR TEETH, BELL FOR ADANO, LONG DAYS JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, and AUTUMN GARDEN.
Al Pacino famously goes back to Broadway regularly .
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Post by timshelboy on Sept 8, 2021 17:42:31 GMT
Myrna Loy enjoyed late career success on the stage in the 1960s with BAREFOOT IN THE PARK I saw Daniel Day Lewis in HAMLET - the production he left and (correct me if I am wrong) caused him to not act on stage again. His voice, more than anything, worked against him, although maybesharing the stage with Judi as the queen was a factor in him not presenting the magnetic presence he displays on screen. My mum spent a 90 year lifetime as an avid theatregoer , taking in everyone from Edith Evans and Peggy Ashcroft, through Olivier, Bogarde, Ralph Richardson, Gielgud, Judi,Maggie,Vanessa, Ty Power ,liz Taylor and Kristin Scott Thomas... to Dorothy Tutin and Arthur Askey......  and always said the greatest performance she ever saw was Joseph Calleia in ALL MY SONS. Vanessa was completely magnetic in a dual role but mediocre vehicle A MADHOUSE IN GOA. Malkovich was hypnotic in SLIP OF THE TONGUE But then both of them were stage stars before they became screen stars. A relative newbie I'd like to see on stage is Domhnall Gleeson, so wonderful as the buttoned up low born doctor with aspirations above his station in THE LITTLE STRANGER. Currently wowing them on the boards in MEDICINE staged in Galway. Please bring it to London! one important difference between the two forms - on stage 50 year old KST could plausibly play a 30 year old in the final sequence of BETRAYAL. Gorgeous as she is she could never pull that off on a big screen. |
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Post by teleadm on Sept 8, 2021 17:51:02 GMT
Let's see if this one counts.  Forrest Tucker 1958 brought a turning point in his career, when he won the role of Beauregard Burnside, Mame's first husband in Auntie Mame 1958, the highest grossing U.S. film of the year. Tucker showed a flair for light comedy under the direction of Morton DaCosta that had largely been unexplored in his many roles in Westerns and science fiction films. In both the Broadway and movie version Robert Preston starred in The Music Man 1962, but Tucker thanks to his role in Auntie Mame, was cast as Professor Harold Hill in the national touring production of The Music Man in 1958 and played the role 2,008 times over the next five years, including a 56-week run at the Shubert Theatre in Chicago. |
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Post by phantomparticle on Sept 10, 2021 12:18:19 GMT
Brent Spiner received a Drama Desk Award nomination for his performance as John Adams in a Broadway revival of 1776.  Pat Hingle, with 200 film and tv credits between 1954-2008, played Benjamin Franklin in that same production and was a veteran of over 20 Broadway plays, according to the program.  |
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Post by mattgarth on Sept 10, 2021 13:32:02 GMT
In the early 1960s, Warners finally acquired the film rights to 'My Fair Lady.'
Following the success of CHARADE, Jack Warner figured on reuniting its two stars by casting Cary Grant as 'Higgins' and Audrey Hepburn as 'Eliza.'
He reasoned that Rex Harrison was not really a box office draw, and whoever heard of Julie Andrews anyway.
Well, he did get Audrey -- but as for the other part ...
Cary told him: "Not only won't I play that role, but if you don't cast Rex Harrison I won't even come see it!"
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Post by marshamae on Sept 10, 2021 13:42:51 GMT
Let's see if this one counts. Forrest Tucker 1958 brought a turning point in his career, when he won the role of Beauregard Burnside, Mame's first husband in Auntie Mame 1958, the highest grossing U.S. film of the year. Tucker showed a flair for light comedy under the direction of Morton DaCosta that had largely been unexplored in his many roles in Westerns and science fiction films. In both the Broadway and movie version Robert Preston starred in The Music Man 1962, but Tucker thanks to his role in Auntie Mame, was cast as Professor Harold Hill in the national touring production of The Music Man in 1958 and played the role 2,008 times over the next five years, including a 56-week run at the Shubert Theatre in Chicago. I saw this. He was tremendous, full of energy and very funny.
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Post by spiderwort on Sept 14, 2021 13:25:23 GMT
Thanks for all the great contributions, guys. I have a feeling the supply is more or less endless. I'll add two. The first I saw on Broadway, and the second I saw on tour in Los Angeles. Lauren Bacall in "Applause," the musical version of "All About Eve":  And Jean Simmons in "A Little Night Music":  |
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Post by marshamae on Sept 14, 2021 14:07:25 GMT
OT holding Miss bacall is dancer singer, Broadway star Lee Roy Reams ,with whom I attended the university of Cincinnati. There were two show business jobs in Cincinnati in the 1960’s that paid really well and Lee Roy had one of them, square dancing on WLWT’s Midwestern Hayride, a show broadcast throughout the Midwest. Lee Roy had been in a square dancing troop since childhood.
The other well paid job was the band at the playboy club.
Lee Roy went on to feature and the direct Hello Dolly, feature in Sweet Charity and join the film cast with Ben Vereen as a support dancer for Sammy Davis in Rhythm of Life, and Tony Nominee for 42nd Street .Here he is with Liza MINELLI on the Ed Sullivan Show. He became very well known as a support dancer , whose job was to make the star look great. You can see he was awfully good at it.
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Post by spiderwort on Sept 14, 2021 18:12:26 GMT
Pat Hingle, with 200 film and tv credits between 1954-2008, played Benjamin Franklin in that same production and was a veteran of over 20 Broadway plays, according to the program.
Phantom, Pat Hingle starred on Broadway in one of my favorite William Inge plays, The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, along with Teresa Wright and Eileen Heckart. (Robert Preston, Dorothy McGuire & Eve Arden played the film roles.)
Would love to have seen that production. It was directed by Elia Kazan, who, a couple years later, also directed Inge's original screenplay, Splendor in the Grass.
(Oh, I wish I had time to respond to all the wonderful posts! There's so much I'd like to add. Thanks again to all; I'll do what I can when I can.)
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and always said the greatest performance she ever saw was Joseph Calleia in ALL MY SONS.
