Saturday, November 8, 2014

Who Doesn't LOVE Classic Movie Character Actors!


Character actors from the classic movie age are some of the most beloved stars of the era. In my brand new book, The Name Below The Title: 20 Classic Movie Character Actors From Hollywood's Golden Age, I celebrate the lives and contributions of these fabulous personalities, some of my personal favorites, some whom are loved by a vast majority.  Below I've posted the chapter on the first famous face, and WHAT a face; Margaret Hamilton.  Enjoy and if you'd like to check out the rest of the book and the other 19 wonderful character actors, check out the book on Amazon.

Margaret Hamilton


“I was in a need of money at the time, I had done about six pictures for MGM at the time and my agent called.  I said, 'Yes?' and he said 'Maggie, they want you to play a part on the Wizard.'  I said to myself, 'Oh Boy, The Wizard of Oz! That has been my favorite book since I was four.'  And I asked him what part, and he said 'The Witch' and I said 'The Witch?!' and he said 'What else?'”  That is how actress Margaret Hamilton described being cast in the classic fantasy The Wizard of Oz (1939).  The hatchet faced actress made the role iconic and created a character that would be ranked No. 4 in the American Film Institute's list of the 50 Best Movie Villains of All Time, just behind Hannibal Lecter, Norman Bates and Darth Vader, making her the highest ranking female baddie.  But as memorable as she was in Oz, she added bristling, disapproving presence to dozens of films and television appearances from the 1930s through the 1980s.

The youngest of four children, Hamilton was born in Cleveland, Ohio, and had an early interest in acting and working in local theater.  Upon her parent’s wishes, she attended Wheelock College, or as it was founded in 1888, Miss Wheelock's Kindergarten Training School, where she served as president of the senior class as well as playing Jo in a school stage production of Little Women.  Upon graduation, Margaret did indeed become a kindergarten teacher.  Her true passion, however, remained in the theater and in April 1932, at the age of 29, she made her debut on Broadway in Another Language, then on to Hollywood for the movie version at Metro Goldwyn Mayer.  She reprised yet another of her stage roles for the screen inThe Farmer Takes a Wife (1935), which also marked the movie debut of Henry Fonda.  After steady film work in a string of supporting parts, with an exceptional turn in Samuel Goldwyn’sThese Three (1936), she was cast in the role of her lifetime.  She was, however, not the first choice for the sinister and infamous Wicked Witch of the West.

Oz producer Mervyn LeRoy envisioned a slinky, glamorous witch of the West, cavorting around the haunted castle in green eye shadow and black sequins.  His conception was influenced by the wicked queen in Disney’s outrageously popular Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which premiered in late 1937.  LeRoy wanted attractive actress Gale Sondergaard, whom he had directed in the 1936 hit, Anthony Adverse (for which Sondergaard won the very first Best Supporting Actress Academy Award), but when it was decided that the witch would be ugly and scarier than originally anticipated, Sondergaard was out and thirty-six year-old Hamilton was hired at $1,000 a week.  Seeking steady employment over the potential ups and downs of show business, Maggie Hamilton, as she was called by those who knew her best, followed a common sense approach for her personal career philosophy.  “At 1,200 or $1,500 a week, I knew I wouldn’t work much,” she stated.  “And I had my young son and I wanted to work all I could [Hamilton Meserve was born in 1936 and Margaret had just been divorced from his father before being hired for Oz].  So I never let them pay me more.  And I never went under contract.”

An incident on the Oz set in December 1938 put her out of commission for weeks and made her wary about scenes regarding fire.  During the filming of a scene in which Hamilton’s character exits Munchkinland in a burst of flame and smoke, the actress received burns on her face and hand when the fire used for the special effect rose prematurely from the trap door from which she was to disappear.  Making matters worse, the green makeup used on her skin contained potentially toxic copper-oxide and had to be removed before her burns could be treated, which was an extremely painful process.  When she returned to the set after a hospital stay, she claimed, "I won't sue, because I know how this business works, and I would never work again.  I will return to work on one condition - no more fire work!”

Although best-known as the scariest gal in Oz, outside that realm the actress played characters more in line with her Wicked Witch alter ego, Miss Almira Gulch; sour-faced spinsters and gossipy snoops who lived in the neighborhood.  She was at her crabby, disapproving best in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1938), My Little Chickadee (1940) and The Beautiful Blonde of Bashful Bend (1949) among others.  Ironically, as abrasive as her screen image was, she always carried an interest in nurturing children, even serving on the Beverly Hills Board of Education in the late forties.

Having graced the stage in New York and the large screen in Hollywood, the industrious Hamilton also found work on the radio with a regular role in the Ethel and Albert series, playing Aunt Eva.  Among her many television appearances, she garnered a steady gig on the 1960s soap opera, The Secret Storm.  In the 70s, she became the popular spokesperson for Maxwell House coffee, starring in numerous television commercials as Cora, the wise New England storekeeper who recommended the name-brand brew.  Hamilton died of a heart attack in 1985.


Hamilton is just one of 20 of these great unsung stars of the silver (and small) screen.
I hope you'll read about the rest at the link below.

5 comments:

  1. Hamilton was one of the most beloved actors in or out of MGM in 1930s. You'd exhaust yourself uselessly trying to find a mean word about her.

    Maggie understood instinctively the enormous pressure that was on Judy Garland, how much of Oz's success depended on Dorothy seeming 'every girl' and natural. She struck up an immediate and protective friendship with her younger co-star, the two often taking their meal breaks in Hamilton's trailer. Getting solid or liquid food safely into her mouth without disturbing Jack Dawn's painstaking makeup was a tricky maneuver for Maggie.

    After the accident, and despite extensive reassurance and coaxing, nobody was more fearful than Margaret in the final castle scene, when the witch is called upon to torch Scarecrow's arm. When 'cut' was called, Maggie fainted dead away.

    At the time of Hamilton's death in 1985, Lorna Luft told an interviewer, "Mama told the hardest part of making the movie was pretending to be afraid of Margaret. Margaret used to serve Mama tea, and the two of them would end up laughing so hard, Margaret's makeup would start dripping into her tea cup." Thus, on more than one occasion, the indifferent crew found themselves tapping their fingers before a take, waiting for Judy and Margaret to suppress an attack of the giggle fits.

    Margaret Hamilton may not have had the requisite looks to play the Good Witch, but she had more than the required heart.

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  2. Growing up I only saw The Wizard of Oz on TV, and I always thought the Wicked Witch was an old crone (AKA elderly lady). It wasn't until I finally had the chance to see the movie on the big screen did I see that Margaret Hamilton was just in her 30s and wasn't as ugly as she was made out to be. The character of Elphaba Thropp in Gregory Maguire's book Wicked is actually comparable to what Margaret Hamilton was in real life while filming the movie, a woman in her 30s.

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  3. In 1930s Hollywood, plainest jane Margaret Hamilton was one of the most well-liked actors, in or out of MGM. You'd exhaust yourself uselessly researching a hard about her from anyone.

    The veteran actress understood instinctively the enormous pressure that was on Garland, how much of Oz's hoped-for success depended on Dorothy seeming 'every girl' and natural.

    She struck up an immediate and protective friendship with her younger co-star, the two often taking their meal breaks in Maggie's trailer. Getting solid or liquid food safely into her mouth without disturbing Jack Dawn's painstaking green makeup was a tricky maneuver for Maggie.

    At the time of Hamilton's death in 1985, Lorna Luff told an interviewer, "Mama told us the hardest part of making the movie was pretending to be afraid of Margaret. Margaret used to serve Mama tea, and the two of them would end up laughing so hard, Margaret's green makeup would start dripping into her teacup."

    Thus, on more than one occasion, the indifferent crew found themselves twiddling their thumbs waiting for Judy and Maggie to suppress attacks of the giggle fits before a take, especially in scenes where the witch had to be mean to Dorothy.

    And Maggie would need the strength of friendship when tragedy struck.

    The scene in which Dorothy and the witch first encounter one another in Munchkinland - "Just try to stay out of my way. I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog too."- concludes with Maggie swirling in a circle, witch's broom in hand, but she's really centering herself on an elevator platform that lowered her below the floor, while we see the witch disappear in a cloud of smoke and burst of fire. During one take, the fire jet went off before Maggie was fully below the floor level.

    The result was a second-degree burn on one cheek, and third-degree burn on the back of one hand. Treating her injuries meant first washing them of the remaining toxic, copper-based green makeup, which for Maggie, meant pain she'd remember lifelong.

    She recovered, and she never held a grudge for the accident, but for director Mervyn LeRoy (who oversaw the sequence uncredited), the incident fostered a sense of guilt he'd never completely purge himself of the rest of his life. Subsequently in the film, and despite coaching and reassurance, when the witch is called up to burn Scarecrow, no one was more nervous than Maggie, who fainted dead away when "cut" was hollered.

    Margaret Hamilton may not have had the looks to play the good witch, but she had more than the requisite heart.

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  4. That is very interesting! Good job, Rupert! I always thought it was interesting that Margaret herself was a very nice lady and nothing like Miss Gulch.

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  5. Okay, now for the THIRD TIME I have tried to post....Great Job, Rupert! That was very interesting! I love that Margaret Hamilton was nothing like Miss Gulch...that she was actually a very nice lady!

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