I was watching the movie No Way Out the other day, which she called the best movie she ever made (though A Letter to Three Wives is magnificent too).
Sad personal life, and died tragically in a fire.
God, she was beautiful.
| by Anonymous | reply 28 | October 17, 2023 2:20 AM |
I always get her confused with Linda Christian.
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | February 26, 2023 4:11 AM |
She played Tyrone Power’s character’s wife when she was 16 years old.
That is so wrong.
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | February 26, 2023 4:15 AM |
Today would have been her 100th birthday. All that beauty and she never married a handsome movie star, just three random men.
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | October 16, 2023 5:34 PM |
I like her in The 13th Letter, one of her lesser-known films
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | October 16, 2023 5:41 PM |
So stunning and a fine actress. Letter to Three Wives is my favorite.
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | October 16, 2023 5:44 PM |
She was flaming hot!
| by Anonymous | reply 6 | October 16, 2023 5:49 PM |
"What I got don't need beads."
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | October 16, 2023 6:04 PM |
Unfaithfully Yours is pretty wonderful as well. A Hollywood classic from the 40s.
And of course she plays The Blessed Mother in Song of Bernadette.
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | October 16, 2023 6:12 PM |
A very underrated actress who should have at least been Oscar nominated for A Letter to Three Wives. I think there was something complicated about her screen persona that confused and maybe overwhelmed Hollywood producers and they didn't know quite what to do with her once she turned 30.
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | October 16, 2023 6:16 PM |
She went to the High School near me (in Dallas). A new condo development nearby has painted one side of the building with the likeness of one of her old movie posters. I think that is nice.
| by Anonymous | reply 10 | October 16, 2023 6:26 PM |
R2 Why? It was just acting, not f*cking.
| by Anonymous | reply 11 | October 16, 2023 6:27 PM |
She was beautiful, but had a hardness to her features that keeps her from being one of the Great Beauties (just my opinion). I've never managed to see any of her films, but I'm familiar with her due to her sad, bizarre end. I once read that she would have lived had she not returned into the burning home to retrieve a stash of money/jewels/whathaveyou. Don't know if it's true or just gossip, but it certainly adds to the tragedy.
| by Anonymous | reply 12 | October 16, 2023 6:33 PM |
R12, I disagree. She was a stunning looking woman. She looks incredibly beautiful on this 1956 WML? mystery guest appearance.
| by Anonymous | reply 13 | October 16, 2023 6:52 PM |
She totally deserved an Academy Award for Letter to Three Wives.
| by Anonymous | reply 14 | October 16, 2023 6:53 PM |
She;s also just so warm and charming and effortlessly sexy in the WML clip. Thanks for posting.
| by Anonymous | reply 15 | October 16, 2023 8:21 PM |
R11 boy are you naive.
| by Anonymous | reply 16 | October 16, 2023 8:22 PM |
She deserved an Oscar just for more than holding her own and stealing a scene in A LETTER TO THREE WIVES out from under Thelma Ritter and Connie Gilchrist. I wonder if Mankiewicz ever considered her for Eve Harrington the following year? Probably not, as she never could have appeared mousey enough in the initial scenes.
| by Anonymous | reply 17 | October 16, 2023 8:24 PM |
I just watched her in a film recently and what struck me was how "modern" her looks were, very beautiful but strangely also very simple. Interesting that she played the Blessed Virgin as her looks are far from ethereal, though IIRC, she's shot from a distance and surrounded by "light" so that softens things.
| by Anonymous | reply 18 | October 16, 2023 8:41 PM |
I'm not sure iIsee this "hardness" that others are commenting upon, but I do wonder if it has to do with the heavy makeup and severe hairstyles of the 1940s and 50s, especially on brunettes, as seen in the WML clip. She's probably in her early-mid 30s in that clip but looks 10 years older. I would love to see a shot of her with no makeup from that time. She had gorgeous eyes and bone structure.
| by Anonymous | reply 19 | October 16, 2023 8:47 PM |
Was she the first famous Linda? Its popularity as a baby girl's name in the late 40s and 50s was surely due to her popularity. I went to school with hundreds of them.
Her real name was Monetta Eloyse Darnell. Love that they let her keep Darnell, a very sexy surname!
| by Anonymous | reply 20 | October 16, 2023 8:51 PM |
R17, Linda and Joe Mankiewicz began an affair during the filming of “A Letter to Three Wives” that continued for a while.
He was writing the screenplay for “The Barefoot Contessa” and she assumed he was writing it for her.
When Ava Gardner was cast, the Mankiewicz/Darnell affair ended.
| by Anonymous | reply 21 | October 16, 2023 10:00 PM |
Horrible death, poor Linda.
| by Anonymous | reply 22 | October 16, 2023 10:02 PM |
Linda actually makes Paul Douglas seem almost desirable in A LETTER TO 3 WIVES. Surely an Oscar nom just for that feat?
| by Anonymous | reply 23 | October 16, 2023 10:03 PM |
Linda played opposite Tab Hunter in his film debut, "Saturday Island," where he ran around shirtless in some makeshift short-shorts during most of the film.
Tab was probably thinking of Donald Gray's "six-feet of rugged manhood" in the romantic scenes.
| by Anonymous | reply 24 | October 16, 2023 10:55 PM |
She had charisma and was very attractive but not a great beauty. She had the lazy eye.
| by Anonymous | reply 25 | October 16, 2023 11:46 PM |
She was a natural beauty. Her end was so sad and tragic. She died in agony.
| by Anonymous | reply 26 | October 17, 2023 1:05 AM |
Looked rather bovine. And the booze made her heavier.
| by Anonymous | reply 27 | October 17, 2023 1:25 AM |
R24, Tab had very nice things to say about working with Linda. He said she was very patient (he was a newbie who was just starting out)
| by Anonymous | reply 28 | October 17, 2023 2:20 AM |
