TCM Schedule for Saturday, August 25, 2018 -- Summer Under The Stars -- Carroll Baker

[Staph]

Day Twenty-five of SUTS, with Carroll Baker, born May 28, 1931 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Here's TCM's mini-biography:

A talented former dancer and magician's assistant, voluptuous, blonde bombshell Carroll Baker came under the private tutelage of Lee Strasberg once in NYC, eventually becoming a member of the famed Actors Studio. She had appeared in a bit role in "Easy to Love" (1953), but it was her performance on Broadway in Robert Anderson's "All Summer Long" (1955) that led director Elia Kazan and playwright-screenwriter Tennessee Williams to chose her (over Marilyn Monroe) for their classic "Baby Doll" (1956). Although George Steven's "Giant," which opened two months earlier that same year, introduced Baker as a terrific screen presence, it did not prepare anyone for her sizzling portrayal as the underage and overly ripe wife of Karl Malden, whose erotic thumb-sucking and torrid "love scene" (without a single kiss) played with Eli Wallach on a swing outside the house somehow slipped past the Hays' censors, earning her a much-deserved Oscar nomination for Best Actress. Condemned by the Catholic Church's Legion of Decency because of its "carnal suggestiveness," "Baby Doll" established Baker solidly as an A-list actor.

"Baby Doll" also typed her in Hollywood's eyes as a sexpot, and no matter how hard she tried to transcend that image with serious, unglamorous performances in quality offerings ("The Big Country" 1958, "Something Wild" 1961 and "Cheyenne Autumn" 1964), producers continued grooming her to replace Monroe as the screen's preeminent sex goddess. She got her man (Jimmy Stewart) in the heroic "How the West Was Won" (1962) and reunited with Stevens for his Biblical epic, "The Greatest Story Ever Told" (1965), and although "The Carpetbaggers" (1964), "Sylvia" and "Harlow" (both 1965) captured her flamboyant earnestness, none of these movies did anything to dispel her reputation as a sex kitten. Blackballed by producer Joseph Levine for failing to promote "Harlow," Baker finally slipped from the A-list for the first time in a decade. Hopelessly in debt with two young children to support after her second marriage (to director Jack Garfein) fizzled, she fled to Italy, churning out sexploitation flicks for the next ten years, feeling lucky to get roles in movies with titles like "Orgasmo" (1969) and "Baba Yaga, Devil Witch" (1973).

Baker returned to the stage, making her London debut as Sadie Thompson in a revival of Somerset Maugham's "Rain" (1977), reprising a role she had played on British TV (BBC) in 1972. She then performed in American regional theater in places like Atlanta, GA ("Bell, Book, and Candle" 1978) and Dallas, TX ("Forty Carats" 1979), the United Kingdom, where she acted in such plays as "Lucy Crown" (1979) and "Motive" (1980), and Canada ("Little Hut" 1981). As for film, her luck began to change when she landed a part opposite Bette Davis in "The Watcher in the Woods" (1980), which led to higher-profile character work in more promising material ("Star '80" 1983 and "Native Son" 1986). Baker turned in a fine performance as Annie Phelan, Jack Nicholson's wife in "Ironweed" (1987), but it wasn't until playing a villainess to Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Kindergarten Cop" (1990) that she felt confident enough to move back to Los Angeles. Since then she has acted in the features "Blonde Fist" (1991), David Fincher's "The Game" (1997), in which she played the crucial role of Michael Douglas' housekeeper, and "Nowhere to Go" (lensed 1997). Baker has appeared frequently on TV in the 90s, appearing in a three-week stint on "L A Law" in 1993 and acting in movies like "Skeletons" (HBO, 1996), "North Shore Fish" (Showtime, 1997) and "Heart Full of Rain" (CBS, 1997).

Enjoy!



6:00 AM -- EASY TO LOVE (1953)
Two men vie for the heart of a Cypress Gardens swimming star.
Dir: Charles Walters
Cast: Esther Williams, Van Johnson, Tony Martin
C-96 mins, CC,

Film debut of Carroll Baker.


8:00 AM -- THE MIRACLE (1959)
When a 19th century nun elopes, the Virgin Mary takes her place at the convent.
Dir: Irving Rapper
Cast: Carroll Baker, Roger Moore, Walter Slezak
C-121 mins, CC,

Carroll Baker was concerned about being typecast after her provocative role in the controversial Baby Doll (1956), and began refusing parts. The studio offered her a choice of roles, and she chose this one because it was as different as possible.


10:30 AM -- GIANT (1956)
A Texas ranching family fights to survive changing times.
Dir: George Stevens
Cast: Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean
BW-201 mins, CC,

Winner of an Oscar for Best Director -- George Stevens

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actor in a Leading Role -- James Dean (This was James Dean's second consecutive posthumous nomination.), Best Actor in a Leading Role -- Rock Hudson, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Mercedes McCambridge, Best Writing, Best Screenplay - Adapted -- Fred Guiol and Ivan Moffat, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color -- Boris Leven and Ralph S. Hurst, Best Costume Design, Color -- Moss Mabry and Marjorie Best, Best Film Editing -- William Hornbeck, Philip W. Anderson and Fred Bohanan, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Dimitri Tiomkin, and Best Picture

Carroll Baker, who plays Elizabeth Taylor's daughter, was actually older than Taylor.


2:15 PM -- CHEYENNE AUTUMN (1964)
A reluctant Calvary Captain must track a defiant tribe of migrating Cheyennes.
Dir: John Ford
Cast: Richard Widmark, Carroll Baker, Karl Malden
C-155 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Nominee of an Oscar for Best Cinematography, Color -- William H. Clothier

The usually puritanical John Ford contemplated filming a nude scene with Carroll Baker bathing in a river, but ultimately it wasn't shot.


5:15 PM -- THE CARPETBAGGERS (1964)
A young tycoon takes Hollywood by storm to quench his thirst for power.
Dir: Edward Dmytryk
Cast: George Peppard, Carroll Baker, Alan Ladd
C-150 mins, CC, Letterbox Format

Carroll Baker's character was believed to be inspired by Jean Harlow in Harold Robbins' original novel. Ironically, Baker would play Harlow herself in a biopic of the ill-fated actress the following year.



TCM PRIMETIME - WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: SUMMER UNDER THE STARS: CARROLL BAKER



8:00 PM -- BABY DOLL (1956)
A child bride holds her husband at bay while flirting with a sexy Italian farmer.
Dir: Elia Kazan
Cast: Karl Malden, Carroll Baker, Eli Wallach
BW-115 mins, CC,

Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Carroll Baker, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Mildred Dunnock, Best Writing, Best Screenplay - Adapted -- Tennessee Williams, and Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Boris Kaufman

According to Carroll Baker, she and everyone else who had worked on the film had "no idea" that the material would be perceived as controversial. It was believed that the main reasons behind the backlash regarded the seduction scene between Baker and Eli Wallach, in which his character successfully attempts to seduce and arouse her outside the farmhouse. There was also speculation that, during their scene together on a swinging chair, Wallach's character is reaching under Baby Doll's dress, since his hands are not visible in the close up. According to both Baker and Wallach, the scene was intentionally filmed that way because the weather was cold, and Kazan had put heaters all around them.


10:00 PM -- BRIDGE TO THE SUN (1961)
An American woman marries a Japanese diplomat on the eve of World War II.
Dir: Etienne Périer
Cast: Carroll Baker, James Shigeta, James Yagi
BW-112 mins, CC,

Based on the autobiography of Gwen Terasaki.


12:00 AM -- SYLVIA (1965)
A millionaire decides to check out the background of his fiancee, and finds that she is not who seems.
Dir: Gordon Douglas
Cast: Carroll Baker, George Maharis, Joanne Dru
BW-115 mins, CC,

According to her autobiography, lead actress Carroll Baker was concerned about the film's script early in production and requested that a new writer be hired. The front office suggested she involve herself with only "girly" concerns, such as choosing the correct handbag for each scene, then stocked her studio dressing room with dozens the next day. Baker responded by slinging them out the door one by one, and later wrote, "Sylvia turned out to be one woman who never carried a handbag."


2:15 AM -- SOMETHING WILD (1961)
A rape victim runs away from her family and takes shelter with a romantic auto mechanic.
Dir: Jack Garfein
Cast: Carroll Baker, Ralph Meeker, Mildred Dunnock
BW-109 mins, CC,

Carroll Baker said, "The production company wouldn't pay Aaron Copland's fee to do the score, so Jack (Garfein) and I paid him ourselves. I had to appear in two or three westerns after that just to make up the difference."


4:15 AM -- STAR 80 (1983)
A successful young model finds trouble when her obsessive manager-turned-husband becomes dangerously jealous.
Dir: Bob Fosse
Cast: Mariel Hemingway, Cliff Robertson, Carroll Baker
BW-103 mins, CC,

Prior to this cinema movie being made and released, a telemovie Death of a Centerfold: The Dorothy Stratten Story (1981), had already covered the same story and subject matter, effectively making Star 80 (1983) a form of remake. In that telefilm, first broadcast around a couple of years earlier, Mitchell Ryan played Hugh Hefner, Bruce Weitz portrayed Paul Snider, and Jamie Lee Curtis starred as Dorothy Stratten. This television movie shared a similar title to the Pulitzer Prize-winning Feature Writing Award article "Death of a Playmate" by Teresa Carpenter which had been first published in 'The Village Voice' newspaper in the same 1981 year.