Rhonda Fleming in a screencap from Inferno (1953)
The death has been announced of actress Rhonda Fleming, a flaming redhead whose hair and beauty made her a perfect match for Technicolor in a series of movies in the 1940s and 1950s. Fleming was 97.
Fleming's career started in the mid-1940s, with one of the earliest movies being a small appearance in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound. Fleming did a "Word of Mouth" piece that's showed up on TCM from time to time in conjunction with an airing of Spellbound, in which she talks about being cast in it as one of Ingrid Bergman's patients, being a nymphomanic. The punchline is that she lived with her mother, who was relatively religiously conservative, and neither Rhonda nor her mother knew what a nymphomanic was. So imagine their shock when they found out what Rhonda was being asked to play! She does a more than adequate job with the role however.
Probably my favorite of Fleming's movies, at least those in which she has a prominent role, is Inferno, pictured above. Fleming plays the wife of Robert Ryan, although she's cheating on him with William Lundigan. So she tries to get rid of Ryan by getting him injured in the desert on a business trip and leaving Ryan to die. Of course, Ryan has no plans on dying so he tries to hobble to escape, and thanks to the production code, you know Fleming and Lundigan are going to get what's coming to them in the end. Another lovely to look at role for Fleming is in Gunfight At the O.K. Corral (pictured immediately above), in which Fleming plays the gambler who becomes the girlfriend of Wyatt Earp (Burt Lancaster).
I don't know if TCM is planning any sort of tribute to Fleming; their redesigned website is frankly terrible at giving us any news like that.
1 comment:
I always liked her and thought she was so beautiful. Is it just me or has this year been huge in deaths of some great artists whether they be actors, musicians or other film/music areas.
Post a Comment