TCM Schedule for Thursday, April 11, 2024: Sidney Blackmer / Ruth Gordon / 30 Years of TCM
A solid Prime Time line-up follows a daytime tribute to two wonderful and highly productive supporting actors. All times Eastern.
Edward G. Robinson and Sidney Blackmer, Little Ceasar.
Sidney Alderman Blackmer (July 13, 1895 – October 6, 1973) was an American Broadway, film and television actor active between 1914 and 1971. He appeared in more than 120 films, usually in major supporting roles, notably Little Caesar (1930), High Society (1956), and Rosemary's Baby (1968).
Blackmer was born and raised in Salisbury, North Carolina. He had planned as a young man to study law at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. However, playing football and engaging in amateur theatricals proved more important to him than his aspirations to be an attorney, and while in his teens, he went to New York City to pursue a career in acting.
He appeared uncredited in movies turned out by various film studios in Fort Lee, New Jersey, which in the first half of the decade of the 1910s, was the Hollywood of America. He reportedly appeared in a bit part in the popular movie serial The Perils of Pauline (1914).
Blackmer served as the national vice president of the Muscular Dystrophy Association. He was honored with a motion picture star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1625 Vine Street, and was the recipient of the North Carolina Award, the state of North Carolina's highest civilian award, in 1972.
Bio: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0085782/bio/?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm
Ruth Gordon Jones (October 30, 1896 – August 28, 1985) was an American actress, screenwriter, and playwright. Her career began on Broadway at age 19 and continued in film and television until her death at age 88.
Known for her distinctive voice and personality, Gordon's international recognition and critical acclaim peaked in her 70s and 80s with performances in the films Rosemary's Baby (1968), What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice? (1969), Where's Poppa? (1970), Harold and Maude (1971), Every Which Way But Loose (1978), Any Which Way You Can (1980), and My Bodyguard (1980).
While in high school she would write to her favorite actresses requesting autographed pictures. A personal reply from Hazel Dawn (whom she had seen in a stage production of The Pink Lady) inspired her to go into acting. Her father, though skeptical of her chances of success, took her to New York in 1914 where Ruth enrolled in the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. In 1915 she appeared in her first film as an extra, and made her Broadway debut soon after in a revival of Peter Pan, playing one of the Lost Boys.
In 1966, Gordon was nominated for an Academy Award and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress for Inside Daisy Clover (1965), airing tonight. Gordon won another Golden Globe for Rosemary's Baby, and she was nominated again in 1971 for her role as Maude in Harold and Maude.
She and husband/writing partner Garson Kanin received Academy Award nominations for the screenplays Adam's Rib (1949), Pat and Mike (1952) and A Double Life (1947).
Full bio: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Gordon
--------- SIDNEY BLACKMER ---------
6:00 AM | Love Crazy (1941)
A businessman concocts a series of harebrained schemes to keep his wife from divorcing him.
Dir: Jack Conway | Cast: William Powell, Myrna Loy, Gail Patrick, Sidney Blackmer
7:45 AM | Down to Their Last Yacht (1934)
A society family gone bust uses their yacht for charter tours.
Dir: Paul Sloane | Cast: Mary Boland, Polly Moran, Ned Sparks, Sidney Blackmer
9:00 AM | The Last Gangster (1937)
When a notorious gangster gets out of prison, he vows revenge on the wife who left him.
Dir: Edward Ludwig | Cast: Edward G. Robinson, James Stewart, Rose Stradner, Sidney Blackmer
10:30 AM | Little Caesar (1930)
A small-time hood shoots his way to the top. How long can he stay there?
Dir: Mervyn Leroy | Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Douglas Fairbanks, Glenda Farrell, Sidney Blackmer
--------- RUTH GORDON --------
12:00 PM | Abe Lincoln in Illinois (1940)
Bio of the domestic and political life of President Abraham Lincoln.
Dir: John Cromwell | Cast: Raymond Massey, Gene Lockhart, Ruth Gordon
2:00 PM | Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet (1940)
True story of the German scientist who devoted his life to curing syphilis.
Dir: William Dieterle | Cast: Edward G. Robinson, Ruth Gordon, Otto Kruger
3:45 PM | Edge of Darkness (1943)
Resistance fighters battle the Nazis in occupied Norway.
Dir: Lewis Milestone | Cast: Errol Flynn, Ann Sheridan, Walter Huston, Ruth Gordon
5:45 PM | Inside Daisy Clover (1965)
A tomboy turned movie star deals with the cruelty of Hollywood.
Dir: Robert Mulligan | Cast: Natalie Wood, Christopher Plummer, Robert Redford, Ruth Gordon
--------- 30 YEARS OF TCM ---------
8:00 PM | My Favorite Year (1982)
A young writer is tasked with keeping a dissolute matinee idol ready and sober for a live broadcast.
Dir: Richard Benjamin | Cast: Peter O'Toole, Mark Linn-Baker, Jessica Harper
10:00 PM | That's Entertainment! (1974)
An all-star cast introduces clips from MGM's greatest musicals.
Dir: Jack Haley Jr. | Cast: Fred Astaire, Gene Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra, Micky Rooney
12:30 AM | To Be or Not to Be (1942)
A troupe of squabbling actors joins the Polish underground to thwart Nazis.
Dir: Ernst Lubitsch | Cast: Carole Lombard, Jack Benny, Robert Stack
2:15 AM | The Producers (1967)
A Broadway producer plots to get rich by creating the biggest flop of his career.
Dir: Mel Brooks | Cast: Zero Mostel, Gene Wilder, Dick Shawn
3:45 AM | The Great Dictator (1940)
A Jewish barber takes the place of a war-hungry dictator.
Dir: Charles Chaplin | Cast: Charles Chaplin, Paulette Goddard, Jack Oakie