Most Over-rated Actress of the Golden Era?

[Ed Bass]

OK, Someone has to ask it. We'll get to "Most Over-rated Actors" next. But who, really, has not stood the test of time? I mean not for their looks alone but for sheer inability to perform as an actress?
For me, there is no one lower or more inept than Howard Hughes' "need to squeeze, wanna make you a star baby!" Jane Russell!
Good God! Watch any over-hyped performance she did in the 40's or 50's and try not to laugh at her complete lack of acting skills....a beauty? no doubt! Stunningly good looking but a complete void in acting skills. Thanks to the Biggest Sugar Daddy of them all.
OK dig in, and bring them on. You know you secretly harbor a distaste for some actress that everybody else says is "The Bomb".
Best,
Toots

 

[BinkieBaumont]

"Oh how uncalled for, REALLY!!! BAD FORM OLD SPORT!!! FL folks are people of charm, and good taste, Should you not post this dribble on some other common site, there must be dozens of "Skanky" sites that would welcome your post with open arms" ( they may even pay, which could be a bonus for you, but thanks ,Now I know where to park my bicycle without it falling over")

 

[MisterCairo]

I'll wade in - if not a career spent entirely in the golden era - here it goes - MARILYN MONROE.

A beauty - of course.

An actress? Suzanne Sommers has equal talent.

Sorry folks, needed to be said....

 

[dhermann1]

I think Jane Russell would laughingly agree with you. She's got a great attitude and no illusions.
To take another favorite, opinions on Lana Turner cover the whole gamut. She had a lot of truly nauseating roles, so it's kind of hard to tell. I remember Liz Smith saying she was very underrated, but I've always thought she was pretty lame.
There are some would call Bette Davis overrated, but I wouldn't be one of them.

 

[Amy Jeanne]

I still say Kate Hepburn. She's the only Golden Era actress I really despise. I think her acting is forced, overly-theatrical, loud, and obnoxious. I really don't see what most others see and don't try to convince me otherwise because I've already tryed myself (I've seen a LOT of her films and still came out feeling the same way.)

I don't mind actresses who "can't act." It's OVER acting that gets my goat.

 

[Atomic Age]

I think that Jane Russell tended to rise to the level of her co-stars. She was quite good when paired with Robert Mitchum.

I must say that I've never liked Lizabeth Scott. Stunningly beautiful, but she always seemed like the was doing her best Lauren Bacall impersonation, and it just wasn't making it.

Doug

 

[Atomic Age]

I'll wade in - if not a career spent entirely in the golden era - here it goes - MARILYN MONROE.

A beauty - of course.

An actress? Suzanne Sommers has equal talent.

Sorry folks, needed to be said....

Check out Monroe in a little film called Don't Bother to Knock, You might change your mind. Also she really did have quite good comic timing.

I would say over hyped rather than over rated, and that wasn't really her fault.

Doug

 

[Miss Golightly]

Check out Monroe in a little film called Don't Bother to Knock, You might change your mind. Also she really did have quite good comic timing.

I would say over hyped rather than over rated, and that wasn't really her fault.

Doug

Regarding her serious roles I have to agree about Don't Bother to Knock - she's really good in it. I also think she was brilliant in Clash By Night - she's was so natural....great roles - the kind the studios should have kept giving her.

Her comic timing was superb though - Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, The Seven Year Itch, How to Marry a Millionaire, Some Like it Hot....

 

[Dated Guy]

Well, despite the feminine attributes, young Jean Harlow, wasn't exactly a superb actress at the best of times, yet another Howard Hughes 'finds' as well, I wonder why, and how.....[huh]

 

[dhermann1]

re: Harlow

Check her out in "Dinner at Eight" and "Bombshell". Hilarious.
I'd have to almost sort of agree about Kate Hepburn. But I still like her.

 

[Ed Bass]

Amy Jeanne you are spot on! Although thousands would call you a blaspheemer for choosing Kate, I find her (over)acting would be more at home in a silent era B-movie. She's probably the only actress who's movies I can not sit through when watching TCM. The moment I hear her forced "mid-atlantic" accent, I just have to change the channel.
Best,
Toots

 

[skyvue]

I find her (over)acting would be more at home in a silent era B-movie. She's probably the only actress who's movies I can not sit through when watching TCM. The moment I hear her forced "mid-atlantic" accent, I just have to change the channel.

Ms. Hepburn doesn't need me to defend her, but it's a New England accent and she came by it honestly -- she was born and raised in Connecticut.

And strictly speaking, B movies didn't really exist in the Silent Era. There were, of course, inexpensive movies made then, but the term "B movie" refers specifically to a less expensive movie, usually of a shorter running time and starring lesser-known actors, that was meant to be paired, as part of a double bill, with a bigger-budget A picture, a practice that became widespread in the era of the talkies.

 

[Gingerella72]

I still say Kate Hepburn. She's the only Golden Era actress I really despise. I think her acting is forced, overly-theatrical, loud, and obnoxious. I really don't see what most others see and don't try to convince me otherwise because I've already tryed myself (I've seen a LOT of her films and still came out feeling the same way.)

I don't mind actresses who "can't act." It's OVER acting that gets my goat.

Whew....now that someone else has said it, I can say that I agree 100%! I've always found her acting and voice extremely annoying but felt I wasn't allowed to say such blasphemy against her iconic status.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Hepburn is one of those actresses who got best results when basically playing herself -- that sort of upper-middle-class clenched-teeth personality. But try and picture her playing, oh, a housemaid or a factory hand or a shopgirl, and her acting abilities lose a bit of their lustre. I don't especially dislike her, but she doesn't strike me as having the range of someone like Barbara Stanwyck or -- yes -- Bette Davis. And I say this even though I do a dead-on impression of her.

Marilyn I can take or leave too -- I wonder how she'd be regarded as an actress if she'd not died early and become an Icon.

The one who I never got the appeal of is another Icon -- Louise Brooks. She had a Look, but she never did much for me beyond that. I've always felt she was the sort of actress that over-serious college Film Scholars liked because liking her made them feel worldly.

 

[Fletch]

I run hot and cold on Carole Landis.
Sometimes she was a real eyeful (see below).
Other times she just looked drawn and brittle and acted it too.

Maybe it's her name. Another Miss Landis really hung me out to dry years ago.
Interestingly, she looked kinda like Anne Baxter, whom I have no problems with.

 

[Tomasso]

Yes, Hepburn tops my list of most overrated. Here are rest, in order.....


1. Katharine Hepburn

2. Bette Davis
3. Audrey Hepburn
4. Ingrid Bergman
5. Greta Garbo
6. Marilyn Monroe
7. Elizabeth Taylor
8. Judy Garland
9. Marlene Dietrich
10. Joan Crawford
11. Barbara Stanwyck
12. Claudette Colbert
13. Grace Kelly
14. Ginger Rogers
15. Mae West
16. Vivien Leigh
17. Lillian Gish
18. Shirley Temple
19. Rita Hayworth
20. Lauren Bacall
21. Sophia Loren
22. Jean Harlow
23. Carole Lombard
24. Mary Pickford
25. Ava Gardner

 

[LocktownDog]

Did you just happen to have that list lying around waiting to be used?

 

[Tomasso]

Did you just happen to have that list lying around waiting to be used?

Yep!

 

[Rick Blaine]

I dunno-maybe Donna Reed? Or Grace Kelly? Two cold fish.

fftopic: But I've always liked Victor Mature's quote "I'm no actor, and I've got 64 pictures to prove it!"

 

[Ed Bass]

Marilyn I can take or leave too -- I wonder how she'd be regarded as an actress if she'd not died early and become an Icon.

Excellent point LizzieMaine and an excellent question as well. Most are afraid to say"The emporer has no clothes" when it comes to MM and James Dean, etc. They've been icons so long, mostly because of their age at death, that no one questions their abilities as actors. Marylin mostly played bimbos. She was great in Some Like It Hot and several others, but had a limited range. Had she lived to become an old hag like Bette davis did, Oh brother! I can just imagine....
James Dean? Played a neurotic teen no better or worse than a million others. Really just another stock actor. Dead young= Superstardom.
Best,
Toots