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Robert Walker: Actor in MGM films of the '40s. Robert Walker: Actor who conveyed boy-next-door charms, psychoses At least on screen, I've always found the underrated actor Robert Walker to be everything his fellow – and more famous – MGM contract player James Stewart only pretended to be: shy, amiable, naive. The one thing that made Walker look less like an idealized “Average Joe” than Stewart was that the former did not have a vacuous look. Walker's intelligence shone clearly through his bright (in black and white) grey eyes. As part of its “Summer Under the Stars” programming, Turner Classic Movies is dedicating today, Aug. 9, '15, to Robert Walker, who was featured in 20 films between 1943 and his untimely death at age 32 in 1951. Time Warner (via Ted Turner) owns the pre-1986 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer library (and almost got to buy the studio outright in 2009), so most of Walker's movies have...

‘Gone with the Wind’ actress Mary Anderson dead at 96; also featured in Alfred Hitchcock thriller ‘Lifeboat’ Mary Anderson, an actress featured in both Gone with the Wind and Alfred Hitchcock’s adventure thriller Lifeboat, died following a series of small strokes on Sunday, April 6, 2014, while under hospice care in Toluca Lake/Burbank, northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Anderson, the widow of multiple Oscar-winning cinematographer Leon Shamroy, had turned 96 on April 3. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1918, Mary Anderson was reportedly discovered by director George Cukor, at the time looking for an actress to play Scarlett O’Hara in David O. Selznick’s film version of Margaret Mitchell’s bestseller Gone with the Wind. Instead of Scarlett, eventually played by Vivien Leigh, Anderson was cast in the small role of Maybelle Merriwether — most of which reportedly ended up on the cutting-room floor. Cukor was later fired from the project; his replacement, Victor Fleming,...

Guest in the House

Written by Hunt Stromberg

Directed by John Brahm

USA, 1944

The family unit is, or should be, the strongest in one’s life, the one from which a solid emotional backbone is based from, the unshakable bond that brings its members together through thick and thin. For that reason, a troubled familial relationship, any sort of considerable rift between two or more of the members, may be the worst variety of schism afflicting previously close loved ones. Said troubles may not necessarily originate from within the unit, but from outside, such as when a new member is admitted through marriage. John Brahm’s 1944 melodrama noir Guest in the House concerns itself with this very matter (minus marriage), demonstrating the terrible deconstruction of a previously tightly knit family tearing apart at the seams.

The Proctors await the return of one of their own, Dr. Dan Proctor (Scott McKay...

Chicago – Few character actresses have proven to be as effortlessly versatile as Piper Laurie. Her Oscar-nominated turns as Paul Newman’s alcoholic lover in Robert Rossen’s 1961 classic “The Hustler” and Marlee Matlin’s estranged but loving mother in Randa Haines’s 1986 drama “Children of a Lesser God” offer a mere sample of her remarkable range and magnetic screen presence.

Yet her role that remains immortalized in the minds of moviegoers is Margaret White, the psychotic mother of the titular telekinetic teen in Brian De Palma’s marvelously effective 1976 thriller “Carrie.” Chicagoans will have the opportunity to meet the legendary actress when she attends Camp Midnight’s presentation of “A Very Carrie Christmas” at 2 p.m. Friday, Dec. 4 at the Music Box Theatre.

The event includes pre-show entertainment from Hell in a Handbag Productions, as well as an interactive audience guide and running commentary from Dick O’Day and David...