BLUE HAWAII – A postcard production and… the beginning of the Presley formula
Angela Lansbury (or rather Angela Brigid Lansbury, because that was her full name) was feeling completely different emotions. The London-born, distinguished film, stage and television actress who played Presley’s mother, Sarah Lee Gates * , in the new film by Presley . “I was terrified of being in his (Elvis’s, author’s note) company ,” she said in an interview. “But Elvis was a very young man at the time. He had just gotten out of the army and was a wonderfully nice, caring young man. He was slim, fit. He was in his prime and really, he couldn’t have been nicer to me. We had a great time. And we were working in a wonderful place. We were filming in Kauai, Hawaii. I’ll never forget how wonderful it was then.
On the set I would sit with his (Elvis’, author’s note) on-screen father, Roland Winters, and we would do some great scenes. My character was really funny. And then there was the funny way she reacted to her son, who she didn’t understand at all. Elvis loved that and thought it was really funny. He was really cute .”
Before taking on the role of the overprotective mother of the main character, Lansbury starred in nearly ten high-profile Hollywood productions, in which she not only appeared alongside the biggest stars of cinema at the time, such as Judy Garland, Gene Kelly and Paul Newman, but also earned her nominations for several prestigious awards.
The actress made her big-screen debut in 1944 as Nancy Oliver in the psychological drama “Gaslight” directed by George Cukor. Her role in the film earned her an Oscar nomination, the first of three she received during her long career.
She received another one just a year later, in 1945, for her performance in Albert Lewin’s drama based on Oscar Wilde’s novel, “The Picture Of Dorian Gray.”
In the following years, Lansbury successfully performed in musicals such as “The Harvey Girls” and “Till The Clouds Roll By”, costume productions “The Three Musketeers” and “Samson and Deliah” and in the film “The Long, Hot Summer”, directed by Martin Ritt.
Two years after the premiere of Blue Hawaii, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences again nominated her for an Oscar (once again in the category of Best Supporting Actress) for her role in the thriller The Manchurian Candidate, in which she starred with Frank Sinatra and Laurence Harvey. However, it was her role in the series Murder, She Wrote that brought her the greatest popularity, for which she received four Golden Globes and twelve Emmy nominations.
In 2013, nine years before her death, Angela Lansbury received an honorary Oscar for lifetime achievement.
Other women played roles that were just as important to the plot of Presley’s new film as the aforementioned Blackman and Lansbury. Here, we can mention the character of teacher Abigail Prentice and the four attractive teenagers under her care.
The former was perfectly played by Nancy Walters (or rather Nancy Driver, because that was her real name). Born in Mount Pleasant, Florida, a film and theatre actress and model who took her first steps in show business by posing for such popular women’s magazines as “Glamour”, “Vogue”, “Mademoiselle” and “Harper’s Bazaar”. Since the mid-fifties, Walters has successfully combined work in the theatre – she played, among others, a singer in the Broadway musical “Ankles Aweigh” with appearances on television. Viewers could see her, among others, in the game show “The Big Payoff” broadcast by NBC and the program “Strike It Rich” broadcast by CBS.
She appeared on the big screen in the late 1950s, and one of her first film roles was as Sylvia Lockwood in the science fiction film “Monster On The Campus” in 1958. Two years later, after signing a contract with Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) in 1960, she played a small part in the romantic comedy “Bells Are Ringing” alongside Dean Martin and Judy Holliday. A year before ending her career in 1967, Walters appeared in the cast of the musical “The Singing Nun”, the plot of which was partly based on the life of Jeannine Deckers – the popular Singing Nun. A Belgian Catholic singer and composer, a member of the Dominican Order, who had a hit single in the mid-1960s, “Dominique” (in early 1964 the song reached the top ten of the most important charts in over ten countries, including the US, and became the first Belgian single to appear on the Billboard chart).
In her private life, Walters was married to a U.S. Navy pilot, Lieutenant Paul Warren Payne, who died in Vietnam. After his death, the actress was ordained and became a pastor.
The roles of the teenagers to whom Presley’s Chad Gates discovers the charms of the Hawaiian Islands were played by Darlene Tomkins, Christian Kay (known from the TV series My Three Sons), Pamela Austin and Jenny Maxwell.
The first of them, Darlene Tomkins, began her film career in 1960 with a role in the science fiction film, “Beyond The Time Barrier” (she had previously starred in television commercials). That same year, she also received an offer to star alongside Elvis in the comedy “Blue Hawaii”. “I met him (Elvis, author’s note) in 1961 ,” recalled the actress playing Patsy Simon in a later interview. “He was just amazing. He would meet you and talk to you like he was a normal guy from the neighborhood. He was a big star, and that’s why I was so surprised by him. It felt like we had known each other forever. I think anyone who met him felt the same way. It was something special. Something that made you feel so close to him. It surprised me a lot .”
Two years after the release of Blue Hawaii, Tomkins once again appeared with Elvis Presley in front of the Hollywood camera, this time on the set of Fun In Acapulco.
For Pamela Austin, who played Sandy Emerson on screen, her performance in Presley’s film also marked the beginning of her short Hollywood adventure. The actress, previously known to viewers only for guest appearances in the ABC television series “Surfside 6”, appeared in only a few more productions in later years, such as “The Chapman Report”, “Rome Adventure” and “Hooteanny Hoot”, in which she played mostly small or even episodic roles. In 1963, she was once again hired for a film starring Presley. This time, for the comedy “Kissin’ Cousins”, in which she played Selena Tatum.
Without a doubt, the most stubborn, disobedient and insufferable of all the tourists that Chad Gates (played by Elvis) had to look after was Ellie Corbett, played perfectly by Jenny Maxwell (actually Jennifer Helene Maxwell). An American actress taking her first steps in Hollywood at the time, whom her manager strenuously promoted as… a native Norwegian and a distant cousin of Marilyn Monroe, although in reality her relationship to the legendary movie star was more of a clever, albeit effective PR move than a fact (the whole theory on this subject was based only on the fact that Jennifer Maxwell’s mother and Marilyn Monroe’s alleged father came from the same Norwegian town).
For Jenny, who had been interested in cinema since her early years (she was reportedly inspired to become an actress by the film “Roman Holiday” starring Audrey Hepburn), her ticket into the world of film was meeting Vincente Minnelli. A famous American film and theatre director whose artistic achievements included such films as “An American In Paris” starring Gene Kelly and “Gigi” (both of these productions were awarded an Oscar).
It was he who, in the second half of the 1950s, was the first to notice the talent of the then sixteen-year-old Maxwell and, after seeing her performance on Broadway, invited her to a casting for his new film, “Some Came Running”, starring such stars as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Shirley McClean.
Maxwell did not get any role in the above production, but as a young promising actress she was assigned a manager who quickly negotiated a role for her in the popular sitcom “Father Knows Best”. Shortly afterwards, in 1959, Jenny also starred in her first Hollywood film. The drama “Blue Denim” directed by Phillip Dunne (the same one who directed “Wild In The Country” starring Elvis Presley a year later).
Unfortunately, success and the first serious successes in her professional life did not mean that the young actress was doing well in her private life. Her marriage to assistant director Paul W. Rapp, whom she married in 1959, ended in a high-profile divorce and a long legal battle over custody of their only child, son Brian.
In fact, the couple’s life was already not going well when Maxwell received an offer to play in “Blue Hawaii”. After giving birth, the actress, pressured by her agent, tried to rebuild her career at all costs, while almost all the child-raising duties fell on her husband at that time. Trying to save his marriage and force the actress to take care of their son, Rapp even decided to fly her to Hawaii, where they were shooting a film starring Presley for several weeks. To no avail. In December 1961, the couple officially separated and announced their separation.
The actress’s next relationship also ended in a breakup. With Ervin M. Roeder, a lawyer over twenty years her senior. On June 10, 1981, the couple was shot dead in Jennifer’s apartment in Beverly Hills. Elvis’s film partner was only thirty-nine at the time.
Angela Lansbury was born on October 16, 1925. Taking on the role of Elvis’ mother in the film, in reality she was only ten years older than him, which the actress commented in one interview: “I admit, for a woman of thirty-five it was a shock to be asked to play his (Elvis, author’s note) mother. I thought then, do they really think I’m that old? But this role intrigued me. It was the kind of comedy I had never done before. “
Article written and provided by Mariusz Ogieglo. EP Promised Land (Poland) http://www.elvispromisedland.pl/
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