Lizabeth Scott
Lizabeth Virginia Scott was an American actress, singer, and model for the Walter Thornton Model Agency, known for her "smoky voice". She was called "the most beautiful face of film noir during the 1940s and 1950s". After understudying the role of Sabina in the original Broadway and Boston stage productions of The Skin of Our Teeth, she emerged in films including The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, Dead Reckoning, Desert Fury, and Too Late for Tears. Of her 22 films, she was the leading lady in all but three. In addition to stage and radio, she appeared on television from the late 1940s to early 1970s.
Early life
Emma Matzo was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania on September 29, 1922, the oldest of six children born to Mary Penyak and John Matzo. Several conflicting accounts have been given as to her parents' ethnic origins, with most mentioning English, Rusyn, Russian, and Ukrainian. The family lived in the Pine Brook section of Scranton, where her father owned Matzo Market. Scott characterized her father as a "lifelong Republican", which influenced her capitalistic views. The love of music influenced Scott's voice.Scott attended Marywood Seminary, a local Catholic girls' school. She transferred to Scranton's Central High School, where she performed in several plays. After graduating, she spent the summer working with the Mae Desmond Players at a stock theater in the nearby community of Newfoundland. She then worked at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia. That autumn, she attended Marywood College, but quit after six months.
In 1939, with her father's help, the graduate 18-year-old Scott moved to New York City, where she stayed at the Ferguson Residence for Women. In New York she was a model for the Walter Thornton agency. Scott read Maxwell Anderson's Mary of Scotland, a play about Mary, Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I, from which she derived the stage name "Elizabeth Scott". She later dropped the "E".
Career
Debut
In late 1940, 19-year-old Scott auditioned for the national tour of Hellzapoppin. From several hundred women, she was chosen by John "Ole" Olsen and Harold "Chic" Johnson, stars of the original Broadway production. She was assigned to one of three road companies, Scott's being led by Billy House and Eddie Garr. Landing her first professional job, she was billed as "Elizabeth Scott". The tour opened November 3, 1940, at the Shubert Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut. She did blackouts and other types of sketch comedy during her 18-month tour of 63 cities across the US.Scott then returned to New York City in 1942, where she starred as Sadie Thompson in John Colton's play Rain, which ran on the then-equivalent of off-Broadway. It was her first starring role, but no drama critic reviewed the play. But the producer of a Broadway play, Michael Myerberg, did see the show.
Myerberg had just moved an experimental production of Thornton Wilder's new play The Skin of Our Teeth starring Tallulah Bankhead from New Haven to the Plymouth Theatre. Impressed by Scott's Sadie Thompson, he hired her as the understudy for Bankhead, despite Bankhead's protests. Bankhead had signed a contract forbidding an understudy for the Sabina role. Previously, Bankhead had controlled the production by not showing up for rehearsal. Now, Myerberg could simply put Scott in Bankhead's place. Scott has acknowledged that Myerberg used her to keep Bankhead under control and that Bankhead was furious about the situation. Describing her own experience with Bankhead, Scott recalled, "She never spoke to me, except to bark out commands. Finally, one day, I'd had enough. I told her to say 'please', and after that she did." During her eight months as the understudy, Scott never had an opportunity to substitute for Bankhead, as Scott's presence guaranteed Bankhead's. During her time with the production, Scott played the role of "Girl/Drum Majorette". The play ran from November 18, 1942, to September 25, 1943.
The rivalry between the two actresses is cited as an alternative to the Martina Lawrence-Elisabeth Bergner origin of Mary Orr's short story, The Wisdom of Eve, the basis of the 1950 film All About Eve. Broadway legend had it that Bankhead was being victimized by Scott, who supposedly was the basis for the fictional Eve Harrington.
Rumors of an affair between the married Myerberg and the new understudy were rife. Scott has said that her fondest memory was of Myerberg telling her, "I love you," but the two eventually parted.
The continuing feud between Myerberg and Bankhead worsened Bankhead's ulcer, leading her to not renew her contract. Anticipating Bankhead's move, Myerberg suddenly signed 39-year-old Miriam Hopkins in March, catching Scott off-guard. Bankhead's final zinger to Scott was, "You be as good as she is." For a brief period, Scott understudied for Hopkins. While Scott liked Hopkins much more than Bankhead, she was still disappointed about being passed over for the Sabina role.
Scott eventually quit in disappointment. Before quitting, Scott replaced Hopkins for one night. When Scott finally went on stage as Sabina, she was surprised by both the approval and fascination of the audience. Her replacement as understudy was another future femme fatale, 19-year-old Gloria Hallward, soon to be known as Gloria Grahame. When Michael Myerberg pulled Grahame from the play for another experimental production in Philadelphia—Star Dust— no understudy was available when Gladys George took over for Hopkins.
On August 30, 1943, Scott once again played Sabina when George was ill. Joe Russell was in the Plymouth Theatre audience that night. Afterward, when a friend from California came to New York on one of his biannual visits to Broadway, Russell told him about Scott's performance. Russell's friend was an up-and-coming film producer for Warner Bros., Hal B. Wallis.
Rise to fame
Irving Hoffman, a New York press agent and columnist for The Hollywood Reporter, had befriended Scott and tried to introduce her to people who could help her. On September 29, 1943, Hoffman held a birthday party at the Stork Club—Scott had turned 21. By happenstance or design, Wallis was also at the club that night. Hoffman introduced Scott to Wallis, who arranged for an interview the following day. When Scott returned home, she found a telegram offering her the lead for the Boston run of The Skin of Our Teeth. Miriam Hopkins was ill. Scott sent Wallis her apologies, cancelling the interview. Scott recalled "On the train up to Boston, to replace Miss Hopkins, I decided I needed to make the name more of an attention-grabber. And that's when I decided to drop the 'E' from Elizabeth." In 1945, The New Republic claimed that Scott had dropped the "E" as a patriotic wartime gesture "to conserve newsprint."Scott appeared in a Harper's photographic spread, which was allegedly admired by film agent Charles Feldman of Famous Artists Corporation. In a telegram to Scott, he asked her to take a screen test. He invited her to come to Los Angeles and stay at the Beverly Hills Hotel. Her first screen test was at Universal, then at William Goetz's International Pictures. She was rejected by both studios. Then she tested at Warner Bros., but this time around, Wallis's sister Minna Wallis arranged for film director Fritz Lang to coach Scott.
Hal Wallis saw Scott's test and recognized her potential. At the age of 22, Scott's film debut was the comedy-drama You Came Along. During the shooting of You Came Along, Hal Wallis showed Scott's screen test to Hollywood columnist Bob Thomas. Wallis told Thomas, "Notice how her eyes are alive and sparkling... Once in a while she reads a line too fast, but direction will cure that. That voice makes her intriguing."
Paramount years
''The Strange Love of Martha Ivers''
Later in 1946, 38-year-old Barbara Stanwyck, in a letter, objected to Scott's top billing in The Strange Love of Martha Ivers : "I will not be co-starred with any other person other than a recognized male or female star." Lawyers for Wallis and Stanwyck got to work, and eventually, the final billing ran Stanwyck, Van Heflin, and Scott at the top, with newcomer Kirk Douglas in second place, but Wallis's interest in promoting Scott was obsessive. The AFI page on Martha Ivers comments:Director Lewis Milestone is quoted in an article in the Los Angeles Sun Mirror on 8 December 1946 as having said that he would never make another picture with producer Hal Wallis because Wallis wanted to reshoot scenes in this film for more close-ups of Lizabeth Scott; Milestone reportedly told Wallis to shoot them himself—which he did.
Wallis ended up adding extra footage of Scott at the expense of Stanwyck's screen time, which later led to a contretemps between Stanwyck and Wallis. Concerning her first film noir, Scott recalled how strange it was to be in a film with Stanwyck and have only one brief scene together. The screenplay by Robert Rossen depicts two separate story lines running in parallel—one dominated by Martha Ivers and the other by Antonia "Toni" Marachek. The Heflin character, Sam, is the connection between the story lines, which overlap only in the one scene where femme fatale Martha and girl next door Toni meet.
In June 1946, Scott gained the distinction of being the first Hollywood star to visit Britain since the end of World War II. She was there to attend the London premiere of Martha Ivers and do a promotional tour through the country. While Scott was still in Britain, shooting began on a new noir that Scott joined after she returned: Dead Reckoning.
''Dead Reckoning''
originally intended Rita Hayworth for the role, but she was busy with The Lady from Shanghai. As a result, Scott was borrowed from Hal B. Wallis.At the age of 24, Scott's billing and portrait were equal to Humphrey Bogart's on the film's lobby posters and in advertisements. Most often portrayed in publicity stills was the Jean Louis gown-and-glove outfit she wore in the nightclub scene. In September 1946, a Motion Picture Herald poll voted her the seventh-most promising "star of tomorrow." Production ran June 10–September 4, 1946. It premiered in New York the week of January 23, 1947. Despite the initial positive publicity, the long-term effect of Dead Reckoning was to typecast the former comedian for her entire career.