R.I.P. Glenn Ford

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Reza
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Post by Reza »

NY Times

August 31, 2006

Glenn Ford, Leading Man, Is Dead at 90

By RICHARD SEVERO

Glenn Ford, a laconic, soft-spoken actor with an easy smile who played leading roles in many westerns, melodramas and romantic films from the early 1940’s through the 60’s, died yesterday at his Beverly Hills home. He was 90.

Paramedics called to the home shortly before 4 p.m. found him dead, the police said. He had a series of strokes in the 1990’s.

Mr. Ford, who had the ability to project a taut resoluteness and inner strength along with affability and gentleness, was never nominated for an Academy Award, although his acting consistently won high praise from critics and he was popular with moviegoers, especially in the 1950’s. He started his Hollywood career seemingly typecast as an actor who could do well in undistinguished films. He thus made a series of B movies for Columbia Pictures, playing featured roles in such forgettable productions as “Men Without Souls” and “My Son Is Guilty” (both in 1940) and “Texas,” “The Desperadoes” and “Destroyer” (all in 1941).

He usually attracted critical praise even when the script, production and direction were anything but praiseworthy.

In 1946, for example, Mr. Ford starred opposite Rita Hayworth in “Gilda,” a film remembered mostly as the vehicle for her provocative rendition of a song called “Put the Blame on Mame.” Writing in The New York Times, Bosley Crowther praised Mr. Ford’s “stamina and poise in a thankless role.”

But in the 1950’s, Mr. Ford began to make pictures that were more consistent with the ability he had repeatedly demonstrated. In 1955, he played an idealistic, beleaguered teacher in “Blackboard Jungle,” which was about daily life in what was then regarded as a tough New York City high school.

Gwyllyn Samuel Newton Ford was born on May 1, 1916, in Quebec, the only child of Newton and Hannah Ford.

The Fords were of Welsh descent, and the family was quite prominent in Canada. Newton Ford was a railroad executive and mill owner who was a nephew of Sir John MacDonald, a former prime minister of Canada. Another Ford ancestor was Martin Van Buren, the eighth president of the United States.

Gwyllyn, soon to be called Glenn, was initially reared in Portneuf, Quebec, an hour away from the city. When he was 7, his family moved to Santa Monica, Calif., where Mr. Ford was educated.

After high school, he began working with small theater groups. He later said his father had no objection to his son’s growing interest in acting but told him: “It’s all right for you to try to act, if you learn something else first. Be able to take a car apart and put it together. Be able to build a house, every bit of it. Then you’ll always have something.”

Mr. Ford listened to his father, and in the 1950’s, when he was one of the nation’s most popular actors, he regularly worked on plumbing, wiring and air-conditioning at home.

At various times, Mr. Ford worked as a roofer and installer of plate-glass windows. At one point, he worked in a Santa Monica bar, keeping it clean for $5 a week. Years later, as a successful actor, he would drive by that bar almost every day. “There are too many places here that won’t let me forget how I started,” he told an interviewer.

In the late 1930’s, he managed to get a screen test at 20th Century Fox but did not do well. A year later, he was given a second chance and won his first movie part in 1939 in “Heaven With a Barbed-Wire Fence.”

The B movies followed until 1943, when he joined the Marine Corps. While in the Marines, he met Eleanor Powell, the dancer, at a war-bond cavalcade. They were married in 1943. The marriage would end in divorce 16 years later. They had a son, Peter, who survives.

In 1966, Mr. Ford married Kathryn Hays, an actress, but the marriage ended quickly. In 1977, he wed Cynthia Hayward, a model 32 years his junior. They divorced in 1984. In 1993, he married his nurse, Jeanne Baus, but they soon divorced.

There were times when it seemed that Mr. Ford was averse to vacations. In 1960 and ’61, he worked on four overlapping projects: “The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,” “Cry for Happy,” “Cimarron” and “Pocketful of Miracles.” When someone noted in Mr. Ford’s heyday that in five years, he had taken off an average of only 21 days between films, Mr. Ford replied, “I like to work.”

By 1965, all that work enabled him to build a $400,000 home in Beverly Hills, featuring an atrium over which hung a 900-pound artificial sun that could be switched on whenever Mr. Ford wanted to feel drenched with light. The house also held a replica of an English pub, to which he retreated when he preferred the shadows.

Mr. Ford’s better known films included “Don’t Go Near the Water” (1957), “Imitation General” (1958), “The Teahouse of the August Moon” (1956), “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father” (1963), “The Rounders” (1965) and “Heaven With a Gun” (1969).

As Mr. Ford grew older, he was cast less frequently, but in “Superman” (1978) he appeared in a brief scene as Superman’s Earth father. He also did some television work, including the series “Cade’s County” (1971); “Punch and Jody” (1974); “The Disappearance of Flight 412” (1975); “Evening in Byzantium” (1978) and “The Sacketts”(1979). In 1978, he was the host of a television series, “When Havoc Struck.”
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Post by Penelope »

Damn. I knew it was coming, considering his age, but still. One of my favorites--I have cherished memories of Gilda, The Big Heat, 3:10 to Yuma, etc.
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Post by Damien »

Big Magilla wrote:Had he been in good health, foul play might have been suspected especially if it were known his heirs were anxious to get their hands on their inheritance. :cool:
And from most accounts, he was not a particularly nice man. Bette Davis hated him after Pocketful of Miracles, and Brando's autobiography has a hilarious anecdote about Ford's avaracious control over some cookies in his dressing room while filming Teahouse Of The August Moon. (Ford and Brando couldn't stand each other.)

Still, I think he was a much underrated actor, and is not as well remembered as he should be, considering he was one of the screen presences of the 1950s -- he was voted the number one star in America in the 1958 Exhibitors Poll.
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Post by Big Magilla »

Glenn Ford was in frail health for some time. Had he been in good health, foul play might have been suspected especially if it were known his heirs were anxious to get their hands on their inheritance. :cool:
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Post by Sonic Youth »

Anonymous, you read my mind. I restrained myself from making a snarky comment. ("Um... could it be he was 90?")

And Fox News has just assured that foul play is not suspected.
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Post by anonymous1980 »

He was 90.

The cause of his death was not immediately known.


I know this is a sad occasion. A great actor has died but I can't help but giggle at these sentences.
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Post by Sonic Youth »

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Actor Glenn Ford died on Wednesday in his Beverly Hills home, police said. He was 90.

Beverly Hills Police Department said in a statement that paramedics were called to Ford's home in the afternoon and found the actor dead.

The cause of his death was not immediately known.

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