Anecdotes
from various sources
Excerpt from "Lee Remick" by Michael Buckley - "Films In Review"
A phone call from Katharine Hepburn resulted in Lee meeting with her
idol to discuss a possible role in Kate's movie, "Desk Set".
"She was sitting with her feet up on a desk, her hair piled on top of
her head-a group of Fox executives sitting around her. She told
me about the movie that she was about to do with Spencer Tracy and
said, 'I think it would be a good idea if you came over to my house
tonight and meet Spence.'"
The meeting was "like a fabulous tennis match. These two glorious
people sat on opposite sides of the room and discussed my career.
She thought that I should be in 'Desk Set' and he didn't. He
said the part wasn't good enough. She insisted that didn't
matter, that what was important was to be seen in one film after
another. He said, 'Wrong. She should wait for a more significant
part.'
"I thanked them, said I'd think about it, and went home. It was
a very difficult decision, but the part was of no significance-so,
I declined. It was a very special meeting, though--and a wonderful
memory!"
(Dina Merrill, another East Coast actress got the part.)
Lee became an accomplished cook saying, "I love to cook. I read cookery
books from page one onwards as though they were novels." She had bound
volumes of the American Gourmet magazine on her bookshelves. However, as a
newlywed, her domestic skills were lacking. Taken from the 1960 article,
"Long Distance Love:"
Just before Christmas, 1957, Lee's first as Mrs. Colleran, Lee decided that
Christmas Eve should be made memorable. She hit upon the idea of serving
Bill an Old English holiday dinner, complete with roast goose stuffed with
chestnut dressing and served with creamed onions. For dessert there should
be a flaming plum pudding. And naturally, there should be iced champagne to
start the dinner.
The goose was delivered early on the morning of December 24th, a moment
before Lee had to leave the apartment to fulfill a TV commitment. It was
frozen.
Her cookbook noted that a goose of its weight would take three hours to
roast. With a fond pat Lee stowed the goose in the freezing compartment of
the refrigerator and tripped forth into the sunshine of a December day.
Three hours before serving time, Lee withdrew the fowl from the freezer,
singed him and tried to insert the chestnut dressing. However, the giblets
were frozen in the stuffing department and nothing, not ice pick, shears, or
expletive would set them free.
She preheated the oven and tucked the goose inside, closing the oven door
with more vigor than necessary. Next, she placed the stuffing, meatloaf
fashion, in a casserole dish and congratulated herself on having outwitted
the goose.
When Bill came home the table was snowy with wedding gift linen, and
glistened with wedding silver. The tall red candles were lighted, the
champagne was chilled, the radio was playing Christmas carols, and lee was
resplendent in a red hostess gown. The Collerans clinked glasses gaily.
Catastrophe arrived with the dinner hour. When the goose was removed from
the oven. Lee found that it had thawed on the surface only in three hours.
The stuffing was flat and unpalatable. So they ate creamed onions and plum
pudding, and hamburgers from the delicatessen.
"Find Lee Remick for me!" Otto Preminger demanded. He had seen Lee
Remick in the film, "A Face in the Crowd" and was considering her for
the part of Laura Manion in his new film "Anatomy of a Murder".
When Remick met with Preminger in his office, his previous impression
of her was confirmed. She was attractive with an expressive,
unconventional face. She was also, very pregnant – in her eight
month. By the time shooting started she would have had her baby, but
it was a risky thing. Still he gave her the script to read. She had
not finished reading the script when Preminger phoned her to
say, "I'm sorry but I've signed Lana Turner for the part. But there
is the second lead—would you like to play it?"
She was eight months pregnant and not the least interested in the
role and told him so. "I did a very brave thing," Remick said, "or,
perhaps, a very foolish thing. I told him, 'No, thank you, I really
would not!'" Preminger was stunned.
Remick had her baby on January 28 and a month later was beginning to
ponder the wisdom of her refusal. She was barely 23 years old and at
a very early stage in her career. Even a second lead in a Preminger
movie would have been a step forward. She was not left to ponder for
long.
"Gus Schirmer called and said that Preminger had fired Lana Turner
and that I was to go to the coast in the morning. Thinking it was a
joke, I said, 'Very funny,' and hung up.
"I had fired the nanny that morning and was frantically trying to
make formula for my daughter—without poisoning her. The stuff
was boiling over on the stove when Gus called back, pleading: 'Don't
hang up. It's true.' Apparently, Lana Turner had fought with
Otto about clothes—and God knows what else."
With her baby just four weeks old, "Almost straight from the clinic,"
Remick flew to California. As she stepped into Preminger's
office he said: "The part is yours."
"Emotionally, I was not up to making a picture. But once I get into
the play—and it's always that way—I forget everything else but the
character I'm playing."
"Anatomy of a Murder" went on to become one of the most popular
pictures of 1959. It was the American entry in the 1959 Venice film
festival and was voted the best picture of the year by the trade
paper, Film Daily.
Bosley Crowther of the New York Times called it "well nigh
flawless." Commenting on Remick's performance he said, "Lee
Remick treads beautifully a fine line between never-resolved
uncertainties."
Paul V. Beckley wrote in the New York Herald Tribune, "Miss
Remick's gauzy-brained and brassy wife is as precise as anyone could
ask...She plays it right to the point."
Remick was nominated for a Golden Globe Best Actress award and her
performance established her as an actress of considerable power and
versatility.
Looking back on the part years later, Remick said, "It was a big step
forward in my career. It established me."
Sources: "Behind the Scenes of Otto Preminger" by Willi Frischauer
"Lee Remick" by Michael Buckley
After taking a minute to look a little deeper, I realized that "Una
Secretaria Para Matar" is the spanish version of the British film called "The
Hunted," or "Touch Me Not."
When interviewed about this film, Lee said that it was "an absolute mistake.
We pretend it never happened."
Barry Rivadue said, "'Touch Me Not' was an obscure, independent British
production that left little in its wake other than becoming Remick's least
known film."
Now we know!
In 1963 Lee Remick starred in her first comedy, "The Wheeler
Dealers," with James Garner. Lee played a Wall Street analyst and
Garner played a Texas oil tycoon.
Garner, a man who loves to play practical jokes, conned Lee into
doing a six second television advertisement for the movie. "It'll
be good for laughs," Garner urged.
Lee was told that she and Garner would do a blurb about coming into
an oil well, without realizing that a half-gallon pail of thick,
gooey black oil had been rigged above them. At the signal, the
pure, black gold doused both of them and everyone had a good laugh.
However, when Garner was asked who got the last laugh, he said,
"She did. Next day I received a bill from her hairdresser for fifty
bucks."
Another Gem!
The movie reviewers of Lee's first four films
used the same
In Lee's first movie, "A Face In The
Crowd," she played a
predatory teenager bent on seducing a radio
star. In her second
film, "A Long Hot Summer," she
played a flirtatious and teasing
wife. Lee's least favorite role came in her
third film, "These
Thousand Hills," in which she played a
saloon girl. "Anatomy of a
Murder," Lee's fourth film, made her a
star and seemed to cement her
reputation as an actress who could play the
"sex-driven little
voluptuaries".
Donald W. La Badie summed up her persona with
this comment, "U.S. and
foreign critics have been gratified that a
girl who looks like a
kitten on the white keys should have been able
to play so many
variations on the sick cat who prowls the dark
ones.
Is it any wonder then that a few young college
boys watching Lee's
characterization of a backwoods Tennessee girl
in the film "Wild
River" became somewhat confused?
"When I was doing "Wild River",
Gadge (director Elia Kazan) had me
work without make-up, my hair hanging down to
my shoulders and
wearing sneakers. One day when we were just
outside of Cleveland,
Tennessee, I was in costume for the role,
wearing a bedspread made
into a dress. After we finished shooting I
passed some college kids
who had come to watch.
"Later that night my phone rang and it
was one of the college boys
saying he had a bet with the boys at school
that it really was me
they had seen that afternoon. I said it was
and asked why there was
any doubt. 'Last time we saw you in a picture
you were wearing
slacks and high heels and were very sexy,' he
said. 'Tell me, Miss
Remick, what's happened to you since that
picture?' They seem to
forget," Lee said with a quiet humor,
"that I'm an actress."
In 1959, the publicity boys of 20th Century
Fox were claiming that
Lee Remick was "America's answer to Brigitte Bardot." Veteran
publicist Perry Licher said, "Here's a chick with money and
breeding who's loaded with sex appeal."
But Lee Remick was unhappy with the
comparison and hired a press
agent to play down stories about her sex appeal. She was not just a
body with a pretty face, she was a serious actress. "Anyone who'd
want to build me up as a sex siren would have to be crazy," she
said.
Trying to make a good impression while interviewing Lee, Joe Hyams
"Miss Remick eyed me coolly. 'Tell
me, Mr. Hyams.' she said, 'why is
it most actresses must be bizarre, vulgar or temperamental to make
good copy? Everyone in Hollywood tells me I have
to develop an
interview personality if I want to keep the press happy. They want
me to be something I'm not.'"
"'What are you?' I asked trying for an opening."
"'You're not taking notes,' accused Miss Remick. 'As I said before
I'm an actress and a woman and I hope, a lady. But I found being a
lady is a hardship here. It's not encouraged. What I should be is a
glib person, quick on repartee, and full of colorful quotes I gleaned
from the 'Reader's Digest' just before the
interview!'"
"'All I need are one or two good
quotes, either controversial or
funny, and I've got a column,' I said."
"'No,' said Miss Remick firmly. 'I can't think of one!' Then she
brightened, 'I have it,' she said, 'you can compare me
with Greta Garbo. I have big feet too.'"
"Miss Remick won't like this and I
didn't mention it to
her, but Bardot also has big feet."
Source: 3/16/1959 - New York Herald
Tribune - "Lee Remick
Boasts Garbo Feet" by Joe Hyams
Another Gem
Lee Remick was always known as one who spoke her mind with refreshing
candor, no matter what the subject.
When performing nude in films became the popular trend in Hollywood,
Lee spoke out against it urging others actresses to refrain from the
practice. She and actress Carroll Baker even came to "verbal blows
over the issue, and the flare-ups reached white-heat intensity in
newspapers all across the country."
Despite the strength of the trend, Lee Remick constantly refused "to
emote in the altogether" stating, "Nudity is pretty boring. People
always seem to think that I've played very sexy scenes but honestly,
when you analyze them shot by shot, there really hasn't been much
exposure. There's so much nakedness in films today that the stories
get lost in a wave of salaciousness. The trouble is that breasts and
bottoms look boringly alike. Faces, though, can be quite different
and a damn sight more interesting!"
Sources: Film Review - "Britain's Glad Lee Remick's Here..."
by Mike Munn, Movie T.V. Secrets - "Lee Remick Is Fightin' Mad-The
Bare Facts"
During the early 1960's Lee Remick and her husband Bill Colleran were good
Extra item May 2002
When asked about Lee Remick, her co-workers on the set of "Haywire"
laughed and said one word, "chocolate." Lee loves chocolate!
Immediately after the camera stopped rolling, Lee would jump out of
character and onto a chocolate bar.
"I love to eat - all the wrong things," she confessed, with Lee's
favorite sinful sweet being chocolate nut fudge.
A co-worker on the set of "Wild River" said, "She went through box
after box of candy during the shooting --- even relished fudge at 10
a.m.! What's more, she's a generous doll and created terrible
temptations for the cast's wavering dieters."
The pretty young actress makes no effort to hide her guilty
secret. "I eat candy and suffer dreadful guilt feelings," she
said with a gentle smile. "My husband (Bill Colleran) knows candy is
bad for me and he tries manfully to limit my intake. But I must be
truthful and admit I fall off the non-caloric wagon with a bang. I
also admit that I hide candy around the apartment like lost week-
enders hide bottles! One night in Rome (while on her honeymoon) I
sneaked into the bathroom to gulp down some delectable Italian
chocolates while Bill slept. The rattle of a candy wrapper woke him
and resulted in my giving up sweets for a while."
With her penchant for sweets, one wonders how Lee keeps her size 8,
34-21-34 figure. "I have no weight problems," she says. "I think
mostly my figure is sheer luck and heredity." The rest of us
should be so lucky!
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Another Gem ! ( in June 2002)
Subject:
With Just A Look
Delbert Mann, famous for directing the films, "Desire Under the
Elms," "Touch of Mink" and "Marty," is one of Lee
Remick's favorite
directors.
"I love working with Del," she said. "Besides, Delbert Mann and I
are joined at the hip. We can communicate with just a look; he's
very special."
That "just a look" telepathy made the filming of "Torn Between
Two
Lovers," a film plagued with personality conflicts, a little less
trying for both director and actress.
Delbert Mann illustrated this unique connection between them with
this story: "One incident has always remained with me as a great
example of understanding and trust between actor and director. After
working all night in a large office complex, we came to the last set-
ups just as dawn was beginning to break. We were doing a final
confrontation scene between Lee and Joe (Bologna).
"We lined up the wide master shot over Joe's shoulder to Lee and shot
it. She was excellent. We marked it for a print and changed to a
longer lens for a medium shot. It was a scene of big emotion so,
being experienced and aware that the emotion can sometimes seem too
big when the camera is closer; she pulled down the playing level of
the scene, ever so slightly. It was very good, but I went to her and
said, 'Lee, I think you dropped your energy just a bit.'
'Oh,' she said. 'Let me do it again.'
"This time she brought it up just a little bit. It was perfect.
'Print it. Let's go for the close-up.'
"Remembering my last words, on this take the energy came up a tiny
bit more. I felt that it was just that much too high for the big
close-up we were doing. I said, 'Let's do just one more.'
"Standing behind the camera, I debated whether or not to say anything
to her. I didn't want to say, 'Now lower it a bit.' It is too easy
for an actor to begin to feel like a puppet on a string, everything
choreographed and rigidly controlled. It all becomes mechanical. I
said nothing, but after the camera rolled and we recorded the slate,
instead of the usual call for action, I waited a long beat and then
said, very quietly, 'All right, Lee.'
"It was almost as if she looked at me. She didn't, but there was an
immediate instinctive connection. Her playing of the scene was the
best of any of the takes. She had, so slightly that you couldn't
really tell it, dropped the level of playing one small notch. It was
perfect. It was brilliant.
'Cut. Print it. Wrap it and let's go home!'
"I walked over to her as she started off the set. I put my art
around her and said, 'You're something else.'
"She looked up at me and said simply, 'I knew what
you meant.'
"Lee saved my sanity on this otherwise unhappy picture. She was some
actress, and some lady!"
Resources: Delbert Mann Memoirs from "The Delbert Mann
Papers"
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