Myrna Loy was the epitome of class.During her long, amazing career she starred in everything from melodramas (The Rains Came) to screwball comedies (Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House) to social commentaries (The Best Years of Our Lives) to extravagant musicals (The Great Ziegfeld) to all-star blockbusters (Airport 1975) to a long-running series of romantic who-done-its (The Thin Man, et al).
Yet, in all that time and with all those performances, Loy was never once nominated for an Oscar (the Academy made up for it with an honorary award in 1991), nor has she ever been as canonized as such peers as Davis, Crawford and Hepburn.
However, all one has to do is watch one of her pictures on TCM or on DVD (such as the upcoming box set collecting her non-Nick and Nora movies with frequent co-star William Powell, available August 7) to see how graceful, how witty, how classy she truly is; if you do, I guarantee she will be elevated to your own list of favorite screen actresses.
Click here to pre-order Myrna Loy and William Powell Collection
on DVD from Amazon.com. Link via Imdb.com.
3 comments:
When Screenplay magazines readers voted for the top royalty of Hollywood in the 1930s we all know they elected Clark Gable "King of Hollywood". Few remember that Myrna Loy was their choice as "Queen of Hollywood". This accounts for why two twin building opposite each other, on what is now the Sony lot, are the Clark Gable and Myrna Loy Buildings. To add to the significance of old Hollywood, both buildings once housed star dressing rooms. One of those dressing rooms in the Myrna Loy building had a nursery added to it for Judy Garland to bring Liza Minnelli to work. I wonder if the nursery had a trunk for a bassinet.
What is now the the Joan Crawford building is all that remains of the Marion Davies Home built for the the studio within a studio run by William Randolph Hearst. None of those stars had their own dressing rooms in those named buildings. After Marion Davies left MGM most of the 24 rooms were dismantled. Though it remained the largest dressing room for many years it was taken over by Greta Garbo and then was refigured as production offices for the likes of Steve McQueen and later Motown Films president Suzanne DePasse.
Thanks for the info, as always appreciate your insights!
I agree - Myrna Loy was the epitome of class. And the information from Robert is fascinating. Thanks to both of you!
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