The Lady with Red Hair (1940)
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Synopsis of The Lady with Red Hair
The notoriously temperamental Miriam Hopkins is ideally cast as equally contentious theatrical prima donna Mrs. Leslie Carter in The Lady With Red Hair. As rapidly paced as any Warner Bros. gangster picture, the film charts Caroline Carter's rise to fame on Broadway through the auspices of impresario David Belasco (Claude Rains). The screenwriters take great pains to cast Carter in a sympathetic light, suggesting that she turned to the lucrative world of the theater to regain custody of her son (Johnnie Russell), won by her husband in their acrimonious 1889 divorce settlement. Though at first she meets with nothing but failure, our heroine perseveres, and by 1904 she is the idol of millions throughout the world. Along the way, she marries visionary producer Lou Payne (Richard Ainley), but by film's end she is reunited with her mentor Belasco. A young Cornel Wilde makes his screen debut as an aspiring actor in a boarding-house sequence. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Complete Cast of The Lady with Red Hair
- Miriam Hopkins - Mrs. Leslie Carter
- Richard Ainley - Lou Payne
- Helen Westley - Mrs. Frazier
- Mona Barrie - Mrs. Brooks
- Cecil Kellaway - Mr. Chapman
- Johnny Russell - Dudley Carter
- John Hamilton - Mr. Graham
- Florence Shirley - Daisy Dawn
- Creighton Hale - Eddie the Reporter
- William B. Davidson - Stock Company Manager
- Virginia Brissac - Mrs. Humbert
- Cornel Wilde - Mr. Williams
- Frank Wilcox - Mr. Lynn
- Cyril Ring - Playwright
- Russell Hicks - Man
- Doris Lloyd - Teacher
- Claude Rains - David Belasco
- Laura Hope Crewes - Mrs. Dudley
- John Litel - Charles Bryant
- Victor Jory - George Clifton
- Fritz Leiber - Mr. Foster
- Selmar Jackson - Henry De Mille
- John Ridgely - Actor Playing Paul
- Paul Stanton - Mr. Winter
- Huntly Gordon - Actor Playing John
- Maurice Cass - Scenic artist
- Thomas E. Jackson - Mr. Harper
- Maris Wrixon - Miss Annie Ellis
- Alexis Smith - Girl at Wedding
- Helene Millard - Mrs. Ballard
- Halliwell Hobbes - Judge
- William Hopper - Theater Attendant
- Director(s):
- Curtis Bernhardt
- Writer(s):
- Milton Krims, Charles Kenyon
- Producer(s):
- Edmund Grainger, Jack L. Warner
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