Shirley Booth Movies
Born Thelma Ford, Shirley Booth began appearing in amateur plays at age 12, then made her professional stage debut four years later; her Broadway debut, in 1925, was opposite Humphrey Bogart in Hells' Bells. Booth toiled on Broadway for a decade before being cast in her first significant role. Ultimately, her work on stage and radio led to a lead role in Come Back, Little Sheba (1950), for which she won the Tony Award and the New York Drama Critics Award; she made her screen debut in the film version of that play (1952) and won the Best Actress Oscar for her efforts. Booth did a number of other films, but in her later years she was best-known as the maid Hazel in the TV series Hazel (1961-66). She retired after appearing in the TV series A Touch of Grace (1973). ~ All Movie Guide
In Jules Bass' puppet-animated A Year Without A Santa Claus, an elf and a young boy have to rescue Santa from the evil Heat Meiser and Snow Meiser. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mickey Rooney, Shirley Booth, (more)
- 1968
Filmed on location in Austria and Italy, the made-for-TV The Smugglers stars Shirley Booth as an American tourist and Carol Lynley as her stepdaughter/travelling companion. Attempting to sneak a few souvenirs past customs, the ladies inadvertently become the couriers for an international smuggling ring. Booth and Lynley unknowingly face death at every turn as the desperate smugglers chase them up and down the Tyrol. With gratuitous violence and murders galore, The Smugglers was a curiously chosen offering for NBC's Christmas Eve 1968 premiere slot. Perhaps the network was embarrassed by the project and sincerely hoped it would be pre-empted by coverage of the Apollo 8 space mission. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Thornton Wilder's 1938 stage play The Merchant of Yonkers was based on an old British stage farce by John Oxenford (which in turn served as the basis of an Austrian farce by Johann Nestroy). Merchant of Yonkers was a bomb, but Wilder was quite fond of the piece, so he revised it as the considerably more successful The Matchmaker in 1955. The 1958 film version stars Shirley Booth as 19th-century matchmaker Dolly Gallagher Levi (a character not found in the Oxenford or Nestroy versions; Wilder "borrowed" Dolly from Moliere's The Miser). Dolly is currently trying to arrange a marriage between Yonkers dry-goods merchant Horace Vandergelder (Paul Ford) and hatmaker Irene Molloy (Shirley MacLaine)-though she secretly harbors a desire to march Horace to the altar herself. Meanwhile, Vandergelder's chief clerk Cornelius (Anthony Perkins), celebrating a recent promotion, decides to head to New York for a "good time". Though he's supposed to be minding the store, Cornelius abandons the shop, with fellow-clerk Barnaby (Robert Morse, repeating his stage role) in tow. Inevitably, Cornelius and Barnaby wind up escorting Irene Molloy and her co-worker Minnie Fay (Perry Wilson) to a fancy restaurant, where Horace and Dolly are also dining. As the many plot twists wend their way through the proceedings, the camera occasionally pauses to allow the character to speak directly to the audience, expressing their innermost desires and philosophies; this purely theatrical device works quite well on screen, especially the monologue about honesty delivered by handyman Malachi Stack (played with alcoholic whimsy by Wallace Ford). While the name "Malachi Stack"may not be familiar to you, the other characters-and the basic plot-will be instantly recognizable to fans of Hello Dolly, the 1964 musical comedy version of The Matchmaker. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shirley Booth, Anthony Perkins, (more)
- 1958
Anthony Quinn and Shirley Booth play a married couple who cling and claw like cats in a bathtub in this sudsy melodrama set in steamy New Orleans. Booth does most of the clinging as a neglected wife struggling to reassemble her battered marriage to Quinn who plays a faithless husband in love with tender young Valerie Allen, something Booth tries her best to ignore. Unfortunately, despite her efforts, her children are not spared the spousal turmoil. Matters are not helped when Earl Holliman, the eldest son, decides to leave his father's employment business and start his own. The youngest son Clint Kimbrough finds it all terribly upsetting. Meanwhile his sister Shirley MacLaine becomes deeply depressed after her father threatens her boyfriend in an effort to get him to marry her. Now MacLaine is left with no one. The fur really begins to fly when Quinn, tired of the tumult, decides to chuck the whole family and move to Florida with Allen. Tragedy ensues for the wicked duo. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shirley Booth, Anthony Quinn, (more)
- 1957
This live Playhouse 90 episode dramatizes the life of celebrated Washington party-giver Perle Mesta, who had earlier served as the inspiration for the 1950 Irving Berlin Broadway musical Call Me Madam. The wife of prominent steel manufacturer and political adviser George Mesta (Robert Lowery, Perle (played as an adult by Shirley Booth) rises to prominence in the WW2 years by throwing lavish parties in which people who otherwise wouldn't have given one another the time of day were gently forced to commisserate like ladies and gentlemen. In recognition of her social achievements, Perle is ultimately appointed Minister to Luxembourg by President Harry Truman. Prominent in the supporting cast is gossip columnist Hedda Hopper, in rare dramatic role as Maizie Weldon. The real Perle Mesta makes an appearance in the closing segment. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shirley Booth, Evelyn Rudie, (more)
- 1954
Shirley Booth followed up her Oscar-winning performance in Come Back Little Sheba with the high-gloss soap opera About Mrs. Leslie. Based on a novel by Vina Delmar, the film casts Booth as a philosophical boarding house keeper who recalls her life and loves in a long, long flashback. Born on the wrong side of the tracks, Vivien (Booth) escapes her surroundings by becoming a cabaret singer. She meets and falls in love with handsome, secretive George Leslie (Robert Ryan), then becomes his mistress, assuming his last name in the interests of propriety. Upon Leslie's death, Vivien discovers that her lover was actually a fabulously wealthy industrialist. Her experiences are placed in context with the present-day travails of her boarders, notably young sweethearts Nadine (Marjie Millar) and Ian (Alex Nicol). ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Shirley Booth, Robert Ryan, (more)
- 1953
A genuine novelty, MGM's Main Street to Broadway offers the modern viewer a rare behind-the-scenes glimpse of the 1953 theatrical scene. The main plot concerns aspiring playwright Tony Monaco (Tom Burton), who pins his future on the possibility that Tallulah Bankhead will star in his first Broadway production. Along the way, Tony imagines that Tallulah has fallen in love with him, but faithful girlfriend Mary Craig (Mary Murphy) hangs around to pick up the pieces. Except for an amusing sequence in which Bankhead imagines herself as the sweet ingenue in a domestic comedy, the storyline can be dispensed with. The principal attraction of Main Street to Broadway is its glittering array of Manhattanite guest stars, including Ethel and Lionel Barrymore, Gertrude Berg, Shirley Booth, Helen Hayes, Leo Durocher, Fay Emerson, Joshua Logan, Mary Martin, Lilli Palmer and John Van Druten. In the film's best scene, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein Jr. come up with an "instant song"--the now-forgotten "There's Music in You"--then perform it for the amusement of their friends, with Rodgers on the piano and Hammerstein rendering the vocals! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mary Murphy, Agnes Moorehead, (more)
In the original Broadway production of this William Inge play, Shirley Booth played Lola Delaney, the vulgar, dumpy, less-than-bright "shotgun bride" of recovering alcoholic Doc Delaney, played on stage by Sidney Blackmer, who won a Tony award for his efforts. When time came to film the play, Shirley Booth was retained as Lola, but Burt Lancaster replaced Blackmer as Doc. Although Lancaster seems far too youthful for the role, the film is a fascinating and sometimes funny study of an unhappy marriage made unhappier by the arrival of a sexy stranger. Young Marie (Terry Moore) rents a room from Lola, a tiresome creature who never stops talking, especially about the "imminent" return of her runaway dog Sheba. Doc is having enough trouble staying away from the bottle and resigning himself to his marriage without the curvaceous Marie arousing his baser instincts. The characters interact with gloomy consequences, in the typical kitchen-sink-realism style of Inge's Fifties plays, although a tacked-on happy ending, common to Fifties movie melodramas, pretends otherwise. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Burt Lancaster, Shirley Booth, (more)
