Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Monty Woolley's birthday was yesterday

I meant to write a post about Monty Woolley yesterday, but never got around to it. Not only that, but Woolley was in one of Jennifer Jones' movies yesterday, Since You Went Away. However, that's a movie that really ought to be mentioned at Christmastime instead of August because the key scenes near the end are set at Christmas. Woolley is also wonderful in another Christmas movie, The Bishop's Wife.

An interesting bit of casting occurs in the movie Night and Day. It's a biopic about songwriter Cole Porter, who studied at Yale with Woolley in the early part of the 20th century (Woolley was born in 1888). The character of Woolley does appear in the movie, and is in fact played by Woolley himself. However, as Woolley was pushing 60 by the time Night and Day was made, his character in the movie is portrayed as one of Cole Porter's professors. Not only that, but with the age difference, you'd think that the much older Woolley character in Night and Day would die of old age well before the end of the movie. Ah, the joys of Hollywood.

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