Hope Summers

Acting

Hope Summers

Born 1896-06-07 · Mattoon, Illinois, USA

Hope Summers could portray a friendly neighbor or companion as she did for Frances Bavier's Aunt Bee character on many episodes of The Andy Griffith Show (1960) or a seemingly amiable Satanist in Rosemary's Baby (1968). Born in Mattoon, Illinois, she developed an early interest in the theater. Graduating from Northwestern School of Speech in Evanston, Illinois, she subsequently taught speech and diction there. This, in turn, led to her the head position in the Speech Department at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, teaching students privately on the side as well. In the 1930s Hope began to focus on acting. She found work in community and stock theaters in Illinois and earned some notice for putting on one-woman shows such as "Backstage of Broadway." She made use of her vocal eloquence by building up her resumé on radio, performing in scores of dramatic shows, including "Authors' Playhouse," "First Night," "Ma Perkins", and "Step-Mother". In 1950 Hope transferred her talents to the new medium of television and earned a regular role on the comedy series Hawkins Falls: A Television Novel (1950). By the age of 50 she was customarily called upon to play slightly older than she was, appearing in a number of minuscule matron roles in such films as Zero Hour! (1957), Hound-Dog Man (1959), Inherit the Wind (1960), Spencer's Mountain (1963), The Ghost and Mr. Chicken (1966), Charley Varrick (1973) and her last, Foul Play (1978). She never had any major stand-out roles in movies; TV would be a more prolific choice of medium. Her gently stern, old-fashioned looks allowed her to be a part of many small-town settings, including Dennis the Menace (1959) and Petticoat Junction (1963), and in various western locales such as Maverick (1957) and Wagon Train (1957). She played a rustic regular for many years on The Rifleman (1958). Usually assigned to play teachers, nurses and other helpful, nurturing types, her characters were also known to be inveterate gossips. Hope worked until close to the end of her life, passing away from heart failure in 1979.

Acting credits

Rosemary's Baby poster
7.8

A young couple, Rosemary and Guy, moves into an infamous New York apartment building, known by frightening legends and mysterious events, with the purpose of starting a family.

Rosemary's Baby

1968

The Children's Hour poster
7.7

An unruly student at a private all-girls boarding school scandalously accuses the two women who run it of having a romantic relationship.

The Children's Hour

1961

Foul Play poster
6.3

A shy San Francisco librarian and a bumbling cop fall in love as they solve a crime involving albinos, dwarves, and the Catholic Church.

Foul Play

1978

Inherit the Wind poster
7.7

Schoolteacher Bertram Cates is arrested for teaching his students Darwin's theory of evolution. The case receives national attention and one of the newspaper reporters, E.K. Hornbeck, arranges to bring in renowned defense attorney and atheist Henry Drummond to defend Cates. The prosecutor, Matthew Brady is a former presidential candidate, famous evangelist, and old adversary of Drummond.

Inherit the Wind

1960

Charley Varrick poster
7.4

Charley Varrick robs a bank in a small town with his friends, but instead of obtaining a small amount of money, they discover they stole a very large amount of money belonging to the mob. Charley must now come up with a plan to not only evade the police but the mob as well.

Charley Varrick

1973

Penelope poster
5.4

When Penelope gets married to banker James Elcott, she finds him too preoccupied with work to pay much attention to her, so she robs his bank in disguise. After she confesses to her psychiatrist, Greg Mannix, he offers to return the money for her, as he is secretly in love with her. However, he abandons the money when the police approach. Penelope becomes determined to admit to the crime, but neither James nor the police believe her story.

Penelope

1966

Spencer's Mountain poster
6.8

Clay Spencer and his wife, Olivia, live in a small town deep in the mountains. When Clay isn't busy drinking with his buddies or railing against the town minister, he's building the house he's always promised Olivia. He is overjoyed when he learns his eldest son will be the first Spencer to attend college, if he can resist the charms of a pretty local girl and rustle up the money for tuition.

Spencer's Mountain

1963

5 Card Stud poster
6.3

After a card shark is caught cheating, he is taken out and lynched by the drunkards he was playing against. Soon afterwards, the men who were in the lynch mob start being murdered, one after another; all by hanging.

5 Card Stud

1968

The Hallelujah Trail poster
6.1

A wagon train heads for Denver with a cargo of whisky for the miners. Chaos ensues as the Temperance League, the US cavalry, the miners and the local Indians all try to take control of the valuable cargo.

The Hallelujah Trail

1965

The Shakiest Gun in the West poster
6.2

Jesse W. Haywood (Don Knotts) graduates from dental school in Philadelphia in 1870 and goes west to become a frontier dentist. Penelope "Bad Penny" Cushing (Barbara Rhoades) is offered a pardon if she will track down a ring of gun smugglers. She tricks Haywood into a sham marriage as a disguise. Haywood inadvertently becomes the legendary "Doc the Haywood" after he guns down "Arnold the Kid".

The Shakiest Gun in the West

1968

Hound-Dog Man poster
4.7

A rustic drama set in the early 20th century, Hound Dog Man is the simple story of a young man, Spud Kinney constantly in hot water for disobeying his mother. The lad should be watching the family farm, but he falls in with his older brother, Clint, and his reckless buddy Blackie Scantling who take him hunting in hillbilly country. The boy falls in love with a beautiful mountain girl, while Blackie has his own fling with another attractive hillbilly maiden, Nita Stringer, and then becomes mixed up with an older, married woman, Sussie Bell.

Hound-Dog Man

1959

I Want to Live! poster
7.0

Brazen perpetual offender Barbara Graham tries to go straight but she finds herself implicated in a murder and sent to death row.

I Want to Live!

1958

Homicidal poster
6.4

A woman named Emily checks into a hotel and offers the bellboy $2000 to temporarily marry her. We soon find out Emily is the caretaker of a wheelchair-bound mute named Helga, who was the childhood guardian of a pair of siblings: Miriam Webster and her half-brother, Warren, who is about to inherit the estate of their late father. Who is the mysterious Emily and what are her intentions?

Homicidal

1961

The Ghost and Mr. Chicken poster
6.7

Luther Heggs, a typesetter for the town newspaper, pitches an idea for a story about a local haunted house where a famous murder/suicide occurred 20 years earlier. After the editor assigns Luther to spend one night alone in the mansion, Heggs has a number of supernatural encounters and writes a front page story that makes him a hometown hero...until the nephew of the deceased sues him for libel.

The Ghost and Mr. Chicken

1966

Angel Baby poster
6.1

A woman who believes she has been chosen by God to heal people is taken in by a greedy promoter and his shrewish wife to make the rounds of the rural South.

Angel Baby

1961

Zero Hour! poster
6.6

In 1950s Canada, during a commercial flight, the pilots and some passengers suffer food poisoning, thus forcing an ex-WW2 fighter pilot to try to land the airliner in heavy fog.

Zero Hour!

1957

Parrish poster
5.0

Parrish McLean lives with his mother Ellen on Sala Post's tobacco plantation in the Connecticut River Valley. His mother winds up marrying Sala's rival Judd Raike, ruthless planter who wants to drive Sala out of business. Judd insists that Parrish learn the business from the ground up.

Parrish

1961

Edge of Eternity poster
6.7

Helped by socialite Janice Kendon and barkeeper Scott O'Brien, Arizona deputy sheriff Les Martin works to solve three brutal murders in and around the Grand Canyon. His efforts leads to the killer fleeing with Janice as a hostage and a chase by car and helicopter lead to a climax on a miner's bucket on cables a mile above the canyon floor.

Edge of Eternity

1959

Get to Know Your Rabbit poster
5.0

A young businessman goes to a magic expert to learn hardness and skill with his cynical and greedy collaborators. He becomes a very good tap dancer, but will he be able to get free of his old boss?

Get to Know Your Rabbit

1972

The Learning Tree poster
6.8

The story, set in Kansas during the 1920's, covers less than a year in the life of a black teenager, and documents the veritable deluge of events which force him into sudden manhood. The family relationships and enmities, the fears, frustrations and ambitions of the black teenager in small-town America are explored with a strong statement about human values.

The Learning Tree

1969

Death Sentence poster
5.6

A juror on a murder trial begins to believe that the man charged with the crime is innocent — and that the real killer is her own husband.

Death Sentence

1974

Where Does It Hurt? poster
5.5

In this classic hospital farce, Peter Sellers plays Dr. Albert T. Hopfnagel, a greedy, crooked hospital administrator who has perfected the art of bill padding, unnecessary surgery and kickbacks. Mistrusted by patients, and resented by other staffers, his assistant Alice can no longer endure his scams and plots to have him sent to prison - but not for long enough. Sellers again steals the show with an absurd and hilarious character study.

Where Does It Hurt?

1972

Evil Town poster
3.8

A mad scientist seeks eternal youth by developing a drug derived from human pituitary glands, aided by the local townsfolk, who help abduct visitors to their town for his experiments.

Evil Town

1987

Ace Eli and Rodger of the Skies poster
5.1

The story of Ace Eli Walford, a 1920s stunt flyer who barnstorms around the country, taking his eleven-year-old son Rodger with him as he goes from town to town. The place is rural Kansas, and the time is midsummer in the early nineteen-twenties, not long after World War I. Eli (Cliff Robertson), a barn storming pilot who has the emotional make-up of an 11-year-old, and Rodger (Eric Shea), his 11-year-old son who possesses the wisdom of the ancients, set off to see the world, which means flying all the way to San Willow. To Eli, San Willow seems to be as fabled as Xanadu and quite as remote. In essence, "Ace Eli and Rodger of the Skies" is about the adventures of Rodger and Eli getting from nowhere to nowhere. Eli, a killer with the ladies at first, always leaves them unsatisfied. He seems to have a sex problem. Rodger spends a lot of his time getting his dad out of scrapes. He also drinks, smokes and goes to sleep at night crying for his deceased mom.

Ace Eli and Rodger of the Skies

1973