Ann Savage
Encyclopedia
Ann Savage was an American film and television actress. She is best-remembered as the cigarette-puffing
femme fatale
in the critically acclaimed film noir
Detour
(1945
), and starred in more than twenty B movie
s between 1943 and 1946.
Effectively leaving the film business in the mid-1950s, Savage made occasional appearances on television and worked for industrial and inspirational film producers during the 1950s–1970s. She made a number of live appearances at film festivals, especially for screenings of Detour, and in 1986
, she returned to film with an appearance in Fire with Fire (AKA Captive Hearts) and as a guest on the television series Saved by the Bell
.
In 2007, she was cast by director Guy Maddin
as his mother in My Winnipeg
, "a part that had been tipped to bring her an Academy Award and which introduced her to a legion of new fans".
. During her early years, her family was "on the move constantly" as her United States Army
officer father "moved from base to base". After he died when Bernice was four years old, her mother moved the two of them to Los Angeles
. Growing up "around the corner from the Jewelry District," the "Broadway
movie palaces of downtown Los Angeles... served as her babysitter" while her mother worked selling jewelry.
She attended 64th Street Grammar School, and Mount Vernon Junior High
, and "first stepped on a soundstage at the age of 17" at MGM
Studios, screentested by Edgar Selwyn
, "Ann spent time among the more famous Hollywood kids of the day like Lana Turner
, Judy Garland
, Freddie Bartholomew
and Deanna Durbin
." Her MGM-test did not work out, prompting her to "get her teeth capped" and "[a]cquir[e] theatre training at the Max Reinhardt
workshop" on Sunset Boulevard
. Reinhardt oversaw her namechange, and Bernice became Ann Savage. The Reinhardt school's manager—Bert D'Armand—would also become Savage's agent, and the two would later marry. Savage was offered a screentest by Fox
, but she "decided not to turn up as she knew the studio already had a bevy of pretty blondes".
—after playing "Lorna in a Reinhardt acting showcase of Odets' Golden Boy"—and was offered a contract with them. Recalling Columbia mogul Harry Cohn
as "a friendly Uncle type", Savage also remarked that he was intimidated by the acid-tongued actress Rosalind Russell
. Savage featured alongside Russell and Jean Arthur
in The More the Merrier
and What a Woman! (both in 1943) as part of a dozen films featuring Savage to be released in 1943.
Although Columbia typically "groomed" its girls to look like Rita Hayworth
, Savage's look echoed Ann Sheridan
, although her perpetually-blonde locks were reddened for Footlight Glamour (1943) "so that the star, Penny Singleton
, would be the only blonde on screen". She "joined Joan Davis
and Jinx Falkenberg in Two Senoritas from Chicago" (1943), and starred (as a brunette) in the first of several outings with Tom Neal
in Klondike Kate (1943/44).
Although Savage and Neal did not see eye-to-eye—she thought him "childlike"—the duo would star together in Two Man Submarine and The Unwritten Code (both 1944), before their most famous film, the 1945 surreal
film noir
Detour
. Reminiscing in the 1980s about her career as a stalwart B movie
actress, Savage would dismiss "most of her roles as 'mindless'," saying:
Detour, she felt, was different. The two leads underwent role reversal
, with Savage's Vera blackmailing Neal's Al, in a part described by her manager Kent Adamson as "vicious and predatory... [and] very sexually aggressive".
Although the B-feature was shot quickly in 28 days, its status has been cemented over the years. Director Wim Wenders
called her work "at least 15 years ahead of its time", while the The Guardian
termed Ann "a Garbo
for our times". More recently, critics including Derek Malcolm
and Barry Norman
have particularly praised the film, with Norman calling Savage "sultry and sexy... a feline film noir star at its finest".
After Detour, although Savage starred in a half-dozen more films during the later 1940s—including Scared Stiff (1945), The Spider (1945), The Dark Horse (1946) and Satan's Cradle (1949) (a rare Western
)—her most prolific years were behind her.
When the film entered the public domain
, it was frequently shown on syndicated television
stations, and released in numerous VHS
home video incarnations. Gaining "cult status
" and garnering critical acclaim as "arguably film noir's greatest low-budget feature", this exposure earned Savage a new, younger, following. From the 1980s, Savage also attended a number of film festival
s, helping to bolster her personal status, and leading her to emerge once more as "a glamorous figure about Hollywood at film festivals and galas".
In 1983, she attended a screening of Detour held as a tribute to director Edgar Ulmer. and met up with Ulmer's widow Shirley.
, Schlitz Playhouse of the Stars and The Ford Television Theatre between 1950 and 1955. She also guest-starred in episodes of Front Page Detective
, Gang Busters
, City Detective and Death Valley Days
(AKA The Pioneers), but ultimately found herself being offered fewer and fewer roles. She continued to act on the big screen, including in Allan Dwan
's Women They Almost Lynched (1953) with Audrey Totter
, Joan Leslie
and John Lund
.
Savage eventually started "appearing in commercials" and "industry films" before essentially withdrawing from acting almost entirely in the mid-1950s.
pin-up model
, an Esquire
centerfold
shot by Hurrell
[and] a tireless barnstorming seller of War Bond
s on two tours". She was briefly married to Clark Tennesen between 1939 and 1941, before marrying her agent (and the Max Reinhardt school manager) Burt (or Bert) D'Armand c. 1942–45. The two lived in New York
throughout the latter part of the 1950s and the 1960s until his sudden death in 1969.
After her husband's death, Savage returned to LA to be near her mother, and "took odd jobs to finance flying lessons", becoming a licensed pilot in 1979. Her manager quoted her as saying that she "loved flying because it put her 'closer to God and Bert'." She also became "part-owner of a small tool company", and later "took a secretarial course" and became "a docket clerk receptionist and then a secretary at a law firm in Los Angeles".
Having grown up and worked through the latter part of Hollywood's 'Golden Age'
, Savage was very keen on the "preservation and celebration of all things Hollywood", becoming a volunteer and advisory board member of Hollywood Heritage.
. In 2007, she "enjoyed a comeback", and rave reviews when Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin
cast her as his mother in his "personal portrait of his hometown", My Winnipeg
(2008). Maddin, according to Savage's manager, is a fan of Detour, while Savage's role in his film—"a part that had been tipped to bring her an Academy Award"—also "introduced her to a legion of new fans, including Steven Spielberg
, John Travolta
and Martin Scorsese
". Maddin has stated that he cast Savage because she "would have scared the pants off Bette Davis
". My Winnipeg was critically acclaimed and won prizes from both the Toronto Film Critics Association
and the San Francisco Film Critics Circle
, as well as the Best Canadian Feature Film at the Toronto International Film Festival
and a Genie Award
nomination.
Her renewed following also "prompted her to create her own MySpace
web page and a Facebook
account", according to the UK newspaper The Daily Telegraph
.
in California. She died in her sleep on December 25, 2008, aged 87. She is buried next to D'Armand at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery
(in Los Angeles, California
). Her "personal and career memorabilia" will become part of the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin, alongside the archives of Robert De Niro
, David Mamet
, David O. Selznick
and Gloria Swanson
(among others).
. In 2007, TIME
magazine named Savage's role as Vera in Detour one of the "Top 10 Movie Villains", and Detour itself as one of the hundred best movies. In 2010, McFarland and Co. published Savage Detours: The Life and Work of Ann Savage, by Kent Adamson and Lisa Morton
.
Tobacco smoking
Tobacco smoking is the practice where tobacco is burned and the resulting smoke is inhaled. The practice may have begun as early as 5000–3000 BCE. Tobacco was introduced to Eurasia in the late 16th century where it followed common trade routes...
femme fatale
Femme fatale
A femme fatale is a mysterious and seductive woman whose charms ensnare her lovers in bonds of irresistible desire, often leading them into compromising, dangerous, and deadly situations. She is an archetype of literature and art...
in the critically acclaimed film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
Detour
Detour (1945 film)
Detour is a film noir thriller that stars Tom Neal, Ann Savage, Claudia Drake and Edmund MacDonald. The movie was adapted by Martin Goldsmith and Martin Mooney from Goldsmith's novel of the same name and was directed by Edgar G. Ulmer...
(1945
1945 in film
The year 1945 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* Paramount Studios releases theatrical short cartoon titled The Friendly Ghost, featuring a ghost named Casper.* With Rossellini's Roma Città aperta, Italian neorealist cinema begins....
), and starred in more than twenty B movie
B movie
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....
s between 1943 and 1946.
Effectively leaving the film business in the mid-1950s, Savage made occasional appearances on television and worked for industrial and inspirational film producers during the 1950s–1970s. She made a number of live appearances at film festivals, especially for screenings of Detour, and in 1986
1986 in film
-Events:*April 12 - Actor Morgan Mason marries The Go-Go's Belinda Carlisle.*April 26 - Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger marries television journalist Maria Shriver.*May - Actress Heather Locklear marries Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee....
, she returned to film with an appearance in Fire with Fire (AKA Captive Hearts) and as a guest on the television series Saved by the Bell
Saved by the Bell
Saved by the Bell is an American television sitcom that aired between 1989 and 1993. The series is a retooled version of the 1988 series Good Morning, Miss Bliss, which was itself later folded into the history of Saved by the Bell...
.
In 2007, she was cast by director Guy Maddin
Guy Maddin
Guy Maddin, OM is a Canadian screenwriter, director, cinematographer and film editor of both features and short films from Winnipeg, Manitoba...
as his mother in My Winnipeg
My Winnipeg
My Winnipeg is a feature film directed by Guy Maddin. Starring Ann Savage, the film is a surrealist-inflected pseudo-documentary about Winnipeg, Maddin's home town...
, "a part that had been tipped to bring her an Academy Award and which introduced her to a legion of new fans".
Early life
Ann Savage was born Bernice Maxine Lyon in Columbia, South CarolinaColumbia, South Carolina
Columbia is the state capital and largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. The population was 129,272 according to the 2010 census. Columbia is the county seat of Richland County, but a portion of the city extends into neighboring Lexington County. The city is the center of a metropolitan...
. During her early years, her family was "on the move constantly" as her United States Army
United States Army
The United States Army is the main branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for land-based military operations. It is the largest and oldest established branch of the U.S. military, and is one of seven U.S. uniformed services...
officer father "moved from base to base". After he died when Bernice was four years old, her mother moved the two of them to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. Growing up "around the corner from the Jewelry District," the "Broadway
Broadway (Los Angeles)
Broadway is a major thoroughfare in Los Angeles, California, that runs from Lincoln Heights on the Eastside, through Chinatown, passing through Central Plaza and the Dragon Gate, the Los Angeles Civic Center, passing the Los Angeles Times building at First Street, and Broadway's historic commercial...
movie palaces of downtown Los Angeles... served as her babysitter" while her mother worked selling jewelry.
She attended 64th Street Grammar School, and Mount Vernon Junior High
Mount Vernon Independent School District
Mount Vernon Independent School District is a public school district based in Mount Vernon, Texas .Located in Franklin County, a very small portion of the district extends into Hopkins County....
, and "first stepped on a soundstage at the age of 17" at MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
Studios, screentested by Edgar Selwyn
Edgar Selwyn
Edgar Selwyn was a prominent figure in American theater and film in the first half of the 20th Century.Born in Cincinnati, Ohio, Selwyn flourished in the Broadway theater as an actor, playwright, director, and producer from 1899 to 1942...
, "Ann spent time among the more famous Hollywood kids of the day like Lana Turner
Lana Turner
Lana Turner was an American actress.Discovered and signed to a film contract by MGM at the age of sixteen, Turner first attracted attention in They Won't Forget . She played featured roles, often as the ingenue, in such films as Love Finds Andy Hardy...
, Judy Garland
Judy Garland
Judy Garland was an American actress and singer. Through a career that spanned 45 of her 47 years and for her renowned contralto voice, she attained international stardom as an actress in musical and dramatic roles, as a recording artist and on the concert stage...
, Freddie Bartholomew
Freddie Bartholomew
Frederick Cecil Bartholomew , known for his acting work as Freddie Bartholomew, was an English-American child actor. One of the most famous child actors of all time, he became very popular in 1930s Hollywood films...
and Deanna Durbin
Deanna Durbin
Deanna Durbin is a Canadian-born, Southern California-raised retired singer and actress, who appeared in a number of musical films in the 1930s and 1940s singing standards as well as operatic arias....
." Her MGM-test did not work out, prompting her to "get her teeth capped" and "[a]cquir[e] theatre training at the Max Reinhardt
Max Reinhardt
----Max Reinhardt was an Austrian theater and film director and actor.-Biography:...
workshop" on Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard
Sunset Boulevard is a street in the western part of Los Angeles County, California, that stretches from Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles to the Pacific Coast Highway at the Pacific Ocean in the Pacific Palisades...
. Reinhardt oversaw her namechange, and Bernice became Ann Savage. The Reinhardt school's manager—Bert D'Armand—would also become Savage's agent, and the two would later marry. Savage was offered a screentest by Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
, but she "decided not to turn up as she knew the studio already had a bevy of pretty blondes".
1940s
Savage instead took a screen test with Columbia PicturesColumbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
—after playing "Lorna in a Reinhardt acting showcase of Odets' Golden Boy"—and was offered a contract with them. Recalling Columbia mogul Harry Cohn
Harry Cohn
Harry Cohn was the American president and production director of Columbia Pictures.-Career:Cohn was born to a working-class German-Jewish family in New York City. In later years, he appears to have disparaged his heritage...
as "a friendly Uncle type", Savage also remarked that he was intimidated by the acid-tongued actress Rosalind Russell
Rosalind Russell
Rosalind Russell was an American actress of stage and screen, perhaps best known for her role as a fast-talking newspaper reporter in the Howard Hawks screwball comedy His Girl Friday, as well as the role of Mame Dennis in the film Auntie Mame...
. Savage featured alongside Russell and Jean Arthur
Jean Arthur
Jean Arthur was an American actress and a major film star of the 1930s and 1940s. She remains arguably the epitome of the female screwball comedy actress. As James Harvey wrote in his recounting of the era, "No one was more closely identified with the screwball comedy than Jean Arthur...
in The More the Merrier
The More the Merrier
The More the Merrier is a 1943 American comedy film made by Columbia Pictures which makes fun of the housing shortage during World War II, especially in Washington, D.C.. The picture stars Jean Arthur, Joel McCrea, Charles Coburn, Stanley Clements and Richard Gaines. The movie was directed by...
and What a Woman! (both in 1943) as part of a dozen films featuring Savage to be released in 1943.
Although Columbia typically "groomed" its girls to look like Rita Hayworth
Rita Hayworth
Rita Hayworth was an American film actress and dancer who attained fame during the 1940s as one of the era's top stars...
, Savage's look echoed Ann Sheridan
Ann Sheridan
-Life and career:Born Clara Lou Sheridan in Denton, Texas on February 21, 1915, she was a student at the University of North Texas when her sister sent a photograph of her to Paramount Pictures. She subsequently entered and won a beauty contest, with part of her prize being a bit part in a...
, although her perpetually-blonde locks were reddened for Footlight Glamour (1943) "so that the star, Penny Singleton
Penny Singleton
Penny Singleton was an American film actress. Born Marianna Dorothy Agnes Letitia McNulty in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania she was the daughter of an Irish-American newspaperman Benny McNulty — from whom she received the nickname "Penny" because she was "as bright as a penny".During her sixty...
, would be the only blonde on screen". She "joined Joan Davis
Joan Davis
Joan Davis was an American comedic actress whose career spanned vaudeville, film, radio and television. Remembered best for the 1950s television comedy, I Married Joan, Davis had a successful earlier career as a B-movie actress and a leading star of 1940s radio comedy.Born as Madonna Josephine...
and Jinx Falkenberg in Two Senoritas from Chicago" (1943), and starred (as a brunette) in the first of several outings with Tom Neal
Tom Neal
Thomas Neal was an American actor best known for appearing in the critically lauded film Detour, a tryst with Barbara Payton and later committing manslaughter.-Career:...
in Klondike Kate (1943/44).
Detour (1945)
Although Savage and Neal did not see eye-to-eye—she thought him "childlike"—the duo would star together in Two Man Submarine and The Unwritten Code (both 1944), before their most famous film, the 1945 surreal
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
film noir
Film noir
Film noir is a cinematic term used primarily to describe stylish Hollywood crime dramas, particularly those that emphasize cynical attitudes and sexual motivations. Hollywood's classic film noir period is generally regarded as extending from the early 1940s to the late 1950s...
Detour
Detour (1945 film)
Detour is a film noir thriller that stars Tom Neal, Ann Savage, Claudia Drake and Edmund MacDonald. The movie was adapted by Martin Goldsmith and Martin Mooney from Goldsmith's novel of the same name and was directed by Edgar G. Ulmer...
. Reminiscing in the 1980s about her career as a stalwart B movie
B movie
A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....
actress, Savage would dismiss "most of her roles as 'mindless'," saying:
- "The actresses were just scenery. The stories all revolved around the male actors; they really had the choice roles. All the actresses had to do was to look lovely, since the dialogue was ridiculous."
Detour, she felt, was different. The two leads underwent role reversal
Role reversal
In psychodrama, role reversal is a technique where the protagonist is asked, by the psychodrama director, to exchange roles with another person on the psychodrama stage. The former assumes as many of the roles of the other as possible and vice versa...
, with Savage's Vera blackmailing Neal's Al, in a part described by her manager Kent Adamson as "vicious and predatory... [and] very sexually aggressive".
Although the B-feature was shot quickly in 28 days, its status has been cemented over the years. Director Wim Wenders
Wim Wenders
Ernst Wilhelm "Wim" Wenders is a German film director, playwright, author, photographer and producer.-Early life:Wenders was born in Düsseldorf. He graduated from high school in Oberhausen in the Ruhr area. He then studied medicine and philosophy in Freiburg and Düsseldorf...
called her work "at least 15 years ahead of its time", while the The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
termed Ann "a Garbo
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo , born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, was a Swedish film actress. Garbo was an international star and icon during Hollywood's silent and classic periods. Many of Garbo's films were sensational hits, and all but three were profitable...
for our times". More recently, critics including Derek Malcolm
Derek Malcolm
Derek Malcolm is a British film critic and historian.Malcolm was educated at Eton College and Oxford University. He worked for several decades as a film critic for The Guardian, having previously been an amateur jockey and the paper's first horse racing correspondent. In 1977, he was a member of...
and Barry Norman
Barry Norman
Barry Leslie Norman, CBE is a British novelist, impresario, film critic and media personality. He was the BBC film critic on television from 1972 to 1998.-Early life:...
have particularly praised the film, with Norman calling Savage "sultry and sexy... a feline film noir star at its finest".
After Detour, although Savage starred in a half-dozen more films during the later 1940s—including Scared Stiff (1945), The Spider (1945), The Dark Horse (1946) and Satan's Cradle (1949) (a rare Western
Western (genre)
The Western is a genre of various visual arts, such as film, television, radio, literature, painting and others. Westerns are devoted to telling stories set primarily in the latter half of the 19th century in the American Old West, hence the name. Some Westerns are set as early as the Battle of...
)—her most prolific years were behind her.
When the film entered the public domain
Public domain
Works are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
, it was frequently shown on syndicated television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
stations, and released in numerous VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
home video incarnations. Gaining "cult status
Cult film
A cult film, also commonly referred to as a cult classic, is a film that has acquired a highly devoted but specific group of fans. Often, cult movies have failed to achieve fame outside the small fanbases; however, there have been exceptions that have managed to gain fame among mainstream audiences...
" and garnering critical acclaim as "arguably film noir's greatest low-budget feature", this exposure earned Savage a new, younger, following. From the 1980s, Savage also attended a number of film festival
Film festival
A film festival is an organised, extended presentation of films in one or more movie theaters or screening venues, usually in a single locality. More and more often film festivals show part of their films to the public by adding outdoor movie screenings...
s, helping to bolster her personal status, and leading her to emerge once more as "a glamorous figure about Hollywood at film festivals and galas".
In 1983, she attended a screening of Detour held as a tribute to director Edgar Ulmer. and met up with Ulmer's widow Shirley.
1950s
Savage drifted towards television, and "found she liked the pace", featuring in showcase programs Fireside TheaterFireside Theater
Fireside Theater is an American anthology drama series that ran from on NBC from 1949 to 1958, and was the first successful filmed series on American television. Stories were low budget and often based on public domain stories or written by freelance writers such as Rod Serling. While it was panned...
, Schlitz Playhouse of the Stars and The Ford Television Theatre between 1950 and 1955. She also guest-starred in episodes of Front Page Detective
Front Page Detective
Front Page Detective was a TV series which aired on the now-defunct DuMont Television Network from July 6, 1951 to September 19, 1952, with a few more episodes broadcast during 1953...
, Gang Busters
Gang Busters
Gang Busters was an American dramatic radio program heralded as "the only national program that brings you authentic police case histories." It premiered as G-Men, sponsored by Chevrolet, on July 20, 1935.-History:...
, City Detective and Death Valley Days
Death Valley Days
Death Valley Days is an American radio and television anthology series featuring true stories of the old American West, particularly the Death Valley area. Created in 1930 by Ruth Woodman, the program was broadcast on radio until 1945. It continued from 1952 to 1975 as a syndicated television series...
(AKA The Pioneers), but ultimately found herself being offered fewer and fewer roles. She continued to act on the big screen, including in Allan Dwan
Allan Dwan
Allan Dwan was a pioneering Canadian-born American motion picture director, producer and screenwriter.-Early life:...
's Women They Almost Lynched (1953) with Audrey Totter
Audrey Totter
Audrey Mary Totter is an American actress and former Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract star of Austrian-Slovene and Swedish descent...
, Joan Leslie
Joan Leslie
Joan Leslie is a retired American film and television actress.-Early life:Leslie was born Joan Agnes Theresa Sadie Brodel in Detroit, Michigan, and raised Roman Catholic. She began performing as a singer at the age of nine as part of a vaudeville act with her two sisters; Betty and Mae Brodel...
and John Lund
John Lund
John Lund was an American film actor who is probably best remembered for his role in the film A Foreign Affair , directed by Billy Wilder.-Background:...
.
Savage eventually started "appearing in commercials" and "industry films" before essentially withdrawing from acting almost entirely in the mid-1950s.
Personal life
Savage was "a popular WWIIWorld War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
pin-up model
Pin-up girl
A pin-up girl, also known as a pin-up model, is a model whose mass-produced pictures see wide appeal as popular culture. Pin-ups are intended for informal display, e.g. meant to be "pinned-up" on a wall...
, an Esquire
Esquire (magazine)
Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...
centerfold
Centerfold
The centerfold of a magazine refers to a gatefolded spread, usually a portrait such as a pin-up or a nude, inserted in the middle of the publication, or to the model featured in the portrait...
shot by Hurrell
George Hurrell
George Hurrell was a photographer who made a significant contribution to the image of glamour presented by Hollywood during the 1930s and 1940s.-Early life:...
[and] a tireless barnstorming seller of War Bond
War bond
War bonds are debt securities issued by a government for the purpose of financing military operations during times of war. War bonds generate capital for the government and make civilians feel involved in their national militaries...
s on two tours". She was briefly married to Clark Tennesen between 1939 and 1941, before marrying her agent (and the Max Reinhardt school manager) Burt (or Bert) D'Armand c. 1942–45. The two lived in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
throughout the latter part of the 1950s and the 1960s until his sudden death in 1969.
After her husband's death, Savage returned to LA to be near her mother, and "took odd jobs to finance flying lessons", becoming a licensed pilot in 1979. Her manager quoted her as saying that she "loved flying because it put her 'closer to God and Bert'." She also became "part-owner of a small tool company", and later "took a secretarial course" and became "a docket clerk receptionist and then a secretary at a law firm in Los Angeles".
Having grown up and worked through the latter part of Hollywood's 'Golden Age'
Classical Hollywood cinema
Classical Hollywood cinema or the classical Hollywood narrative, are terms used in film history which designates both a visual and sound style for making motion pictures and a mode of production used in the American film industry between roughly the 1910s and the early 1960s.Classical style is...
, Savage was very keen on the "preservation and celebration of all things Hollywood", becoming a volunteer and advisory board member of Hollywood Heritage.
Later years
Savage's exposure, and the praise heaped on Detour led to her appearing in the 1986 film Fire with Fire and in a guest role on the television show Saved by the BellSaved by the Bell
Saved by the Bell is an American television sitcom that aired between 1989 and 1993. The series is a retooled version of the 1988 series Good Morning, Miss Bliss, which was itself later folded into the history of Saved by the Bell...
. In 2007, she "enjoyed a comeback", and rave reviews when Canadian filmmaker Guy Maddin
Guy Maddin
Guy Maddin, OM is a Canadian screenwriter, director, cinematographer and film editor of both features and short films from Winnipeg, Manitoba...
cast her as his mother in his "personal portrait of his hometown", My Winnipeg
My Winnipeg
My Winnipeg is a feature film directed by Guy Maddin. Starring Ann Savage, the film is a surrealist-inflected pseudo-documentary about Winnipeg, Maddin's home town...
(2008). Maddin, according to Savage's manager, is a fan of Detour, while Savage's role in his film—"a part that had been tipped to bring her an Academy Award"—also "introduced her to a legion of new fans, including Steven Spielberg
Steven Spielberg
Steven Allan Spielberg KBE is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur. In a career of more than four decades, Spielberg's films have covered many themes and genres. Spielberg's early science-fiction and adventure films were seen as an...
, John Travolta
John Travolta
John Joseph Travolta is an American actor, dancer and singer. Travolta first became known in the 1970s, after appearing on the television series Welcome Back, Kotter and starring in the box office successes Saturday Night Fever and Grease...
and Martin Scorsese
Martin Scorsese
Martin Charles Scorsese is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and film historian. In 1990 he founded The Film Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to film preservation, and in 2007 he founded the World Cinema Foundation...
". Maddin has stated that he cast Savage because she "would have scared the pants off Bette Davis
Bette Davis
Ruth Elizabeth "Bette" Davis was an American actress of film, television and theater. Noted for her willingness to play unsympathetic characters, she was highly regarded for her performances in a range of film genres, from contemporary crime melodramas to historical and period films and occasional...
". My Winnipeg was critically acclaimed and won prizes from both the Toronto Film Critics Association
Toronto Film Critics Association
The Toronto Film Critics Association is an organization of film reviewers from Toronto-based publications. As of 1999, the TFCA is member of FIPRESCI.-History:...
and the San Francisco Film Critics Circle
San Francisco Film Critics Circle
The San Francisco Film Critics Circle was founded in 2002 as an organization of film journalists and critics from San Francisco, California based publications....
, as well as the Best Canadian Feature Film at the Toronto International Film Festival
Toronto International Film Festival
The Toronto International Film Festival is a publicly-attended film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2010, 339 films from 59 countries were screened at 32 screens in downtown Toronto venues...
and a Genie Award
Genie Award
Genie Awards are given out to recognize the best of Canadian cinema by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television. From 1949-1979, the awards were named the Canadian Film Awards...
nomination.
Her renewed following also "prompted her to create her own MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
web page and a Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
account", according to the UK newspaper The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
.
Death
Remaining blonde "throughout her eighties", and continuing to attend "film festivals and galas", Savage had a series of strokes and became a resident of the Motion Picture & Television Country House and HospitalMotion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital
The Motion Picture & Television Country House and Hospital is a retirement community, with individual cottages, and a fully licensed, acute-care hospital, located at 23388 Mulholland Drive in Woodland Hills, California...
in California. She died in her sleep on December 25, 2008, aged 87. She is buried next to D'Armand at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Hollywood Forever Cemetery, originally called Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery, is one of the oldest cemeteries in Los Angeles, California. It is located at 6000 Santa Monica Boulevard in the Hollywood...
(in Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
). Her "personal and career memorabilia" will become part of the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin, alongside the archives of Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro, Jr. is an American actor, director and producer. His first major film roles were in Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, both in 1973...
, David Mamet
David Mamet
David Alan Mamet is an American playwright, essayist, screenwriter and film director.Best known as a playwright, Mamet won a Pulitzer Prize and received a Tony nomination for Glengarry Glen Ross . He also received a Tony nomination for Speed-the-Plow . As a screenwriter, he received Oscar...
, David O. Selznick
David O. Selznick
David O. Selznick was an American film producer. He is best known for having produced Gone with the Wind and Rebecca , both of which earned him an Oscar for Best Picture.-Early years:...
and Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson
Gloria Swanson was an American actress, singer and producer. She was one of the most prominent stars during the silent film era as both an actress and a fashion icon, especially under the direction of Cecil B. DeMille, made dozens of silents and was nominated for the first Academy Award in the...
(among others).
Legacy
In 2005, Savage was elevated to the status of "icon and legend" by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and SciencesAcademy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is a professional honorary organization dedicated to the advancement of the arts and sciences of motion pictures...
. In 2007, TIME
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
magazine named Savage's role as Vera in Detour one of the "Top 10 Movie Villains", and Detour itself as one of the hundred best movies. In 2010, McFarland and Co. published Savage Detours: The Life and Work of Ann Savage, by Kent Adamson and Lisa Morton
Lisa Morton
Lisa Morton is an American horror author and screenwriter.Morton was born in Pasadena, California, and entered the film industry in 1979 as a modelmaker on Star Trek: The Motion Picture...
.