
Acting
Mary Astor
Born 1906-05-03 · Quincy, Illinois, USA
Mary Astor (May 3, 1906 - September 25, 1987) was an American actress. Most remembered for her role as Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon (1941) with Humphrey Bogart, Astor began her long motion picture career as a teenager in the silent movies of the early 1920s. She eventually made a successful transition to talkies, but almost saw her career destroyed due to public scandal in the mid-1930s. She was sued for support by her parents and was later branded an adulterous wife by her ex-husband during a custody fight over her daughter. Overcoming these stumbling blocks in her private life, Astor went on to even greater success on the screen, eventually winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of Sandra Kovak in The Great Lie (1941). She was an MGM contract player through most of the 1940s and continued to act in movies, on television and on stage until her retirement from the screen in 1964. Astor was the author of five novels. Her autobiography became a bestseller, as did her later book, A Life on Film, which was specifically about her career. Director Lindsay Anderson wrote of her in 1990: "...(W)hen two or three who love the cinema are gathered together, the name of Mary Astor always comes up, and everybody agrees that she was an actress of special attraction, whose qualities of depth and reality always seemed to illuminate the parts she played." Description above from the Wikipedia article Mary Astor, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Acting credits
7.5A kingdom's ascending heir, marked for assassination, switches identities with a lookalike, who takes his place at the coronation. When the real king is kidnapped, his followers try to find him, while the stand-in falls in love with the king's intended bride, the beautiful Princess Flavia.
The Prisoner of Zenda
1937
7.7A private detective takes on a case that involves him with three eccentric criminals, a beautiful liar, and their quest for a priceless statuette.
The Maltese Falcon
1941
7.4Four sisters come of age in America in the aftermath of the Civil War.
Little Women
1949
7.3An aging, reclusive Southern belle plagued by a horrifying family secret descends into madness after the arrival of a lost relative.
Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte
1964
6.9Dennis, owner of a rubber plantation in Cochinchina, is involved with Vantine, who left Saigon to evade the police. When his new surveyor arrives along with his refined wife Dennis is quickly infatuated by her.
Red Dust
1932
7.0Charles Abbott is implicated in the death of his friend Escobar, brother to the woman he loves.
The Bright Shawl
1923
7.0A year in the life of a turn-of-the-century middle class family, leading up to the opening of the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.
Meet Me in St. Louis
1944
6.6Now hear this. The studio that gave the cinema its voice offered 1929 audiences a chance to see and hear multiple silent-screen favorites for the first time in a gaudy, grandiose music-comedy-novelty revue that also included Talkie stars, Broadway luminaries and of course, Rin-Tin-Tin. Frank Fay hosts a jamboree that, among its 70+ stars, features bicyclers, boxing champ Georges Carpentier, chorines in terpsichore kickery, sister acts, Myrna Loy in two-strip Technicolor as an exotic Far East beauty, John Barrymore in a Shakespearean soliloquy (adding an on-screen voice to his legendary profile for the first time) and Winnie Lightner famously warbling the joys of Singing in the Bathtub. Watch, rinse, repeat!
The Show of Shows
1929
6.9A former prisoner of war, Frank Enley is hailed as a hero in his California town. However, Frank has a shameful secret that comes back to haunt him when fellow survivor Joe Parkson emerges, intent on making Frank pay for his past deeds.
Act of Violence
1949
7.4An unemployed American showgirl poses as Hungarian royalty to infiltrate Parisian high society.
Midnight
1939
6.8On the wager that he will propose marriage to any girl selected by his fraternity brothers, Bill finds himself making love to Mary, an old-fashioned girl who is secretly in love with him…
The Fighting American
1924
4.6Based on the story of the famous Mormon leader, it follows Brigham Young and his challenge to transport his people across the Rocky mountains to settle in Salt Lake City. The plot focuses on two fictitious characters, Jonathan Kent and Zina Webb and the hardships they have to face along the way.
Brigham Young
1940
6.0Cocky car racer Nick Jargin has retired since he nearly caused the death of his brother at a hairpin bend on a circuit. He now holds a trendy café who keeps him busy full time until one day, Tony Boari, a new champion racer, challenges him.
The Devil's Hairpin
1957
7.3The painter Burne-Jones and his famed painting "The Beggar Maid" are depicted in this speculative drama about the creation of the painting. Burne-Jones plays matchmaker for a young British nobleman who has fallen in love with a servant girl on his estate. The artist shows that love can thrive between members of different classes by depicting on canvas a picture from Tennyson's poem about the love of King Cophetua for a beggar maid. As he relates the story of the poem in words and through his painting, the young earl sees the application to his own situation.
The Beggar Maid
1921
7.0Grizel is the daughter of the Painted Lady, who believes that her lover will one day return. Grizel is ostracized by the other children of the town. Tommy and his sister come to the town. Tommy is friendly, but Elspeth keeps her distance. When the Painted Lady dies, Dr. Gemmell makes Grizel his housekeeper. Time passes and after the doctor dies, Grizel, who is now twenty-one years old, loves Tommy, who is an author in London. Tommy visits the town but cannot decide whether he loves Grizel. Grizel knows that Tommy does not love her, and after he returns to London her unhappiness leads to insanity. Tommy returns and marries Grizel, although he believes that she will hate him when she gets better. After two years under Tommy's care, she regains her sanity. After Tommy lets her know that he cared for her out of his love for her; not for pity, Grizel is happy.
Sentimental Tommy
1921
6.2When a matador leaves town to focus on his music, his twin sister takes on his identity in the bullfighting ring.
Fiesta
1947
6.0Bickering husband and wife Tim and Sally Willows mutter a few angry words to a statue who grants their wish and they wind up living each other's life.
Turnabout
1940
6.0Judge Cass Timberlane marries a girl from the wrong side of the tracks, Virginia Marshland. A baby is stillborn and she turns more and more to attorney friend of of Cass' Brad Criley. While quarreling the Judge tells Virginia to stay with Brad, but when she becomes sick he brings her home.
Cass Timberlane
1947
7.0Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire present more golden moments from the MGM film library, this time including comedy and drama as well as classic musical numbers.
That's Entertainment, Part II
1976
7.0A New York inventor, Tom Jeffers, needs cash to develop his big idea, so his adoring wife, Gerry, decides to raise it by divorcing him and marrying an eccentric Florida millionaire, J. D. Hackensacker III.
The Palm Beach Story
1942
4.2Extra-marital fun and games at a convention of the Honeywell Rubber Company in Atlantic City. President J.B. Honeywell is to choose a new company sales manager. T.R. Kent and George Ellerbe are two salesmen who both want the job. However, they both get into trouble: T.R. is discredited when jealous saleswoman, Arlene Dale, interferes with his attempted seduction of Honeywell's daughter, Claire, and George attempts to seduce Nancy Lorraine. The position of sales manager is bestowed upon a drunken employee as a bribe after he catches J.B. about to visit "Daisy La Rue, Exterminator." Considered a lost film.
Convention City
1933
7.0Robert Fisher Clarke is a promoter who comes to a small Canadian town. He harnesses the power of the rapids and builds a pulp mill. One of his employees, Jim Belding, has a fiancée, Elsie Worden, with whom Clarke falls in love.
The Rapids
1922
6.7A Polynesian sailor is separated from his wife when he's unjustly imprisoned for defending himself against a colonial bully. Members of the community petition the governor for clemency but all pretense of law and order are soon shattered by an incoming tropical storm.
The Hurricane
1937
6.3A college student tries to get rich quick by wooing two wealthy sisters.
A Kiss Before Dying
1956