Rule 5-A-Rama

I first saw Pier Angeli in the 1953 movie, The Story of Three Loves, a trilogy of stories, each individual tale featuring different actors and actresses. Angeli was paired with Kirk Douglas in the final story, “Equilibrium”, which deals with a suicidal young woman, broken-hearted over the death of her husband, who is plucked out of a river by trapeze-artist Douglas. Her heart-rending sadness is hauntingly portrayed, and I fell in love with her (in a platonic, spiritual, movie-fan sort of way, Mrs. Paco!) She possessed a very delicate beauty and a soft, musical voice that were incomparably beguiling. Angeli also shone as the wife of boxer Rocky Graziano (Paul Newman) in Somebody Up There Likes Me. Unfortunately, the scenario that played out in The Three Loves had its dark parallel in real life. James Dean was reportedly the one, genuine love of her life, but their relationship was broken up by her mother. She was twice married and divorced, and she died from an overdose of barbituates at the age of 39 in 1971.



She had an incredibly long career, turned in many great performances, and played opposite such actors as William Powell, Ray Milland, Robert Mitchum and Randolph Scott, but I will always remember Maureen O’Sullivan as the bright-eyed, diminutive, loving mate of Johnny Weissmuller’s Tarzan, in the six films they made together between 1932 and 1942. This photo, of course, is not from the Tarzan series.



Blond bombshell, Marilyn Maxwell, was a talented singer and actress who appeared in a number of films in the 1940's and 1950's, primarily musicals and comedies. She had a lively personality and, boy, talk about eye candy!