Eleanor Parker
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
|
Related e |
|
Wikipedia
Featured:  |
Eleanor Jean Parker (born June 26, 1922) is an American film and television actress.
Contents |
Biography
Early life
Parker was born in Cedarville, Ohio, and was signed by Warner Brothers in 1941, at the age of 19. She would have debuted that year in the film They Died with Their Boots On, but her scenes were cut.
Career
By 1946, she had starred in Between Two Worlds, Hollywood Canteen, Pride of the Marines and Of Human Bondage. In 1950, she received the first of three nominations for Academy Award for Best Actress, for Caged, in which she played a prison inmate. She was also nominated in 1951 for her performance as Kirk Douglas's wife in Detective Story and again in 1955 for her portrayal of opera singer Marjorie Lawrence in the biopic Interrupted Melody. Parker then performed opposite Charlton Heston as a circa 1900 mail-order bride in George Pal's The Naked Jungle.
That same year, Parker appeared in Otto Preminger's film adaptation of the National Book Award-winner The Man With The Golden Arm, in which she plays Zosh, the invalid wife of a morphine addict (Frank Sinatra). In 1956, she was billed above the title alongside Clark Gable for the Raoul Walsh-directed western comedy The King and Four Queens. A year later, she starred in another W. Somerset Maugham novel, a remake of a The Painted Veil in the role originated by Greta Garbo, released as The Seventh Sin. She also appeared in Home from the Hill and Return to Peyton Place. Possibly her most famous screen role was Baroness Elsa Schraeder in 1965's The Sound Of Music.
She broke the champagne bottle on the nose of the inaugural train-set for the California Zephyr in San Francisco, California on March 19, 1949. She played an alcoholic widow in Warning Shot in 1966. She played a sultry spy in How to Steal the World in 1968 -- this film was originally shown as a two-part episode on The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. In 1969-70 she starred in the television series Bracken's World and several made-for-television movies.
Parker has also starred in a number of theatrical productions, including the musical Applause. She wrote the preface to the book "How Your Mind Can Keep You Well", a meditation technique developed by Roy Masters.
She has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6340 Hollywood Blvd.
Personal life
Parker has been married four times. She first wed Fred Losee in 1943, but the union was brief, ending in 1944. She then married Bert E. Friedlob in 1946, divorcing him in 1953. She had a son, Paul, with her third husband, Paul Clemens; she and Clemens in 1965. The following year, she married her current husband, Raymond Hirsch, with whom she has three children.
Academy Award nominations
- 1955 - Interrupted Melody
- 1951 - Detective Story
- 1950 - Caged
