Geraldine Brooks (actor)
Encyclopedia
Geraldine Brooks was an American actress whose three-decade career on stage as well as in films and on television was noted with nominations for an Emmy in 1962 and a Tony
in 1970.
She was married to author Budd Schulberg
.
She is not to be confused with the Pulitzer Prize
-winning author Geraldine Brooks.
, Geraldine Stroock was born to a family descended from Dutch
immigrants. Her parents had entertainment industry connections, with her father, James, as owner-manager of the Brooks theatrical costume concern and her mother, Bianca, with a career as stylist and designer of costumes. Two of her aunts had also been in show business, one as a singer at the Metropolitan Opera
and another as a showgirl with the Ziegfeld Follies
. Her elder sister, Gloria, was an actress. Geraldine, who was named after Metropolitan Opera's most famous diva
of the era, Geraldine Farrar
, took dancing classes from the age of two and attended all-girls' Hunter Modeling School and graduated in 1942 from Julia Richman High School, where she was president of the drama club.
The World War II
years of 1942–45 found Geraldine Stroock refining her craft at such traditional venues as the American Academy of Dramatic Arts
, the Neighborhood Playhouse
and summer stock. Her first Broadway show
, Follow the Girls
, a musical comedy, opened at the New Century Theatre
on April 8, 1944 and ran for 888 performances, closing over two years later, on May 18, 1946. The young actress, who was 18 when she was cast in this tuneful spoof of life in the theatre, played a character tellingly named "Catherine Pepburn". She did not stay with the production for its entire run, but was subsequently cast in another Broadway show, The Winter's Tale
. This Theatre Guild
production of the Shakespeare romance opened at the Cort Theatre
on January 15, 1946 and closed after 39 performances on February 16. Playing the female lead, Perdita
, the now-20-year-old actress was noticed by a Warner Bros.
representative and signed to a contract.
, who had a long career as an actress in mostly small film and television roles, keeping her real name, young Geraldine decided, at this point, to take the surname of "Brooks" professionally. That name was also the name of her father's costume company. Her debut under the new stage name
was also her first time in front of the cameras, as the studio's suspense drama, Cry Wolf, went into national release on August 19, 1947, although it was seen and reviewed in New York one month earlier. Billed third after top-tier stars Errol Flynn
and Barbara Stanwyck
she received mostly good notices, while the film itself encountered critical resistance, with The New York Times
critic Bosley Crowther
complaining that "[T]he final explanation of the mystery is ridiculous and banal". Her second film at the studio, Possessed
, was released three weeks before Cry Wolf, on July 26, and was, again, reviewed in New York earlier, on May 30. This time, she was in fourth place, behind top-tier stars Joan Crawford
and Van Heflin
and third-billed Raymond Massey
. A much more vulnerable persona than the poised, imperturbable one she played in Cry Wolf, she had a number of heavy dramatic confrontations with the overwrought character played by Joan Crawford
(who received an Oscar
nomination for the role) and became a lifelong friend of the eighteen-years-older star, speaking at her memorial service in May 1977, five weeks before her own death. Seeing the young actress for the first time in the latter film, Bosley Crowther
described her as "a newcomer who burns brightly ... as Miss Crawford's sensitive step-daughter".
In her third film, Warners allowed its new contract player to rise to the level of a co-star. Embraceable You
, released in July 1948, had her second-billed to Dane Clark
, who played a goodhearted, although criminally inclined, tough guy who falls in love with the victim of the hit-and-run car accident for which he was responsible. There was no happy ending for the two doomed protagonists, and the film, structured as a second feature
, was little-noticed and went unreviewed in The New York Times. After one more film, The Younger Brothers, a color Western
not released until May 1949, in which she was, again, in fourth place, following Wayne Morris, Janis Paige
and Bruce Bennett
, Brooks asked for, and received, a release from her studio contract in July 1948, after two years and four films. Now a freelancer, she had a strong fourth-billed (following Fredric March
, Edmond O'Brien
and Florence Eldridge
) dramatic role in Universal Pictures
'
An Act of Murder
, playing the daughter of March and Eldridge, who were married in real life, and the anguish that the husband, a judge, endures when he contemplates ending the life of his terminally-ill wife. It was released in December 1948, but the downbeat film, although receiving positive notices, was not a financial success.
The next film, directed by the iconic filmmaker Max Ophüls
, billed in Hollywood as Max Opuls, gave her one of her best opportunities. In The Reckless Moment
, third-billed following James Mason
and 1930s star Joan Bennett
, Brooks, aged 24, was cast as Bennett's 17-year-old daughter, whose reckless affair with a seedy, older art dealer puts her mother on a collision course with a blackmailer with worse to come. The Columbia
film was released in December 1949, a year after her previous screen appearance in An Act of Murder. Her final American film of the 1940s, Challenge to Lassie
was made in Technicolor
at MGM. Released two months earlier, in October, but not seen in New York until April 1950, the production gave her third billing, behind Edmund Gwenn
and Donald Crisp
who, in this version of the classic story, Greyfriars Bobby
, were once again typecast as elderly Scotsmen
. Playing the cemetery caretaker's daughter, she had the only female role of any importance, and was also given a couple of good dramatic scenes, but the focus was still firmly on the canine star.
production and distribution companies, Itala Film and Artisti Associati, for roles in two projects to be filmed on location, co-starring top native-born romantic leading men, Rossano Brazzi
and Vittorio Gassman
. Similar in tone, both are doom-laden melodramas depicting the tragic price women paid for descending into prostitution in the midst of the hunger, deprivation and moral corruption prevailing in postwar Italy. The first (released in the United States three years later as Streets of Sorrow) gave her, for the only time, top billing, as a prostitute making her living in the streets, who desperately and tragically attempts to prevent the handsome magistrate, played by Vittorio Gassman, who falls in love with her, from learning of her profession. Three years later, with the film finally receiving a shortened and censored U.S. release, A. H. Weiler, in his November 1952 New York Times review, noted that "Geraldine Brooks, an expatriate American who has emoted in more than one Italian film, gallantly tries to make a wistful and convincing heroine of Maria, the prostitute grasping desperately for a chance at decency". He described the film, however, as "a sad and limp romance, which is trite, slightly lachrymose and largely unedifying".
The second title, Vulcano (later released in the U.S. as Volcano), had an Oscar-nominated (for 1937's The Life of Emile Zola
) director, William Dieterle
, and two top Italian stars, Anna Magnani
and Rossano Brazzi
, who were billed above her. The adventurous shoot was primarily confined to the land and sea area around the eponymous volcanic isle of Vulcano
as well as Lipari
, off the coast of Mediterranean's largest island, Sicily
. Upon returning to Hollywood in October 1949, Dieterle told The New York Times that "[C]onditions for shooting a picture could hardly have been more primitive. Except for the mechanical equipment we took with us, we had to construct everything we needed with our own hands." The film restores Brooks to her familiar role of an innocent ingenue taken advantage of by an unscrupulous exploiter of women, played by Brazzi, while her older sister, played by Anna Magnani
, returns to the island of their birth, burned out after having spent 18 years as a prostitute in Naples
. As in the case of Streets of Sorrow, this production was also censored and released in the United States years after filming. In its June 1953 review, Time
magazine noted that although it is "[R]eminiscent in story and treatment of Stromboli
, Volcano is a far better film. Against the island's rough backdrop, the yarn's primitive passions do not seem particularly excessive or out of place".
in 1952, and in 1970 she was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play
for Brightower, which closed after its opening night performance. Brooks appeared mostly on television from 1950 on. She appeared in many of the anthology series popular early in the decade, such as Orient Express
, Armstrong Circle Theatre
, Appointment with Adventure
(two episodes), Lux Video Theatre
, and Studio One
, and guested on The Fugitive
, Johnny Staccato
, Have Gun - Will Travel, Adventures in Paradise
, Perry Mason
, The Defenders, Dr. Kildare
, Mr. Novak
, Ben Casey
, Gunsmoke
, The Outer Limits
, Bonanza
, It Takes A Thief, and Daniel Boone
, among many others. She essayed the role of Arden Dellacorte on the daytime soap opera
Love of Life
and starred as the overweight owner of a delicatessen
opposite James Coco
in the short-lived sitcom
The Dumplings, her final role.
She was nominated for the 1962 Emmy Award
for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role for her appearance in the episode, "Call Back Yesterday", with fellow guest costar David Hedison
in ABC
's drama
series, Bus Stop
(based on the William Inge
drama), starring Marilyn Maxwell
as the operator of a bus station/diner in the fictitious town of Sunrise, Colorado.
at Central Suffolk Hospital in Riverhead, New York
. She was either 51 years old, or, per her New York Times obituary, 52. Her interment was in Mount Sinai, New York
's cemetery, Washington Memorial Park.
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
in 1970.
She was married to author Budd Schulberg
Budd Schulberg
Budd Schulberg was an American screenwriter, television producer, novelist and sports writer. He was known for his 1941 novel, What Makes Sammy Run?, his 1947 novel The Harder They Fall, his 1954 Academy-award-winning screenplay for On the Waterfront, and his 1957 screenplay for A Face in the...
.
She is not to be confused with the Pulitzer Prize
Pulitzer Prize
The Pulitzer Prize is a U.S. award for achievements in newspaper and online journalism, literature and musical composition. It was established by American publisher Joseph Pulitzer and is administered by Columbia University in New York City...
-winning author Geraldine Brooks.
Early life and career
A native of New York CityNew York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Geraldine Stroock was born to a family descended from Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
immigrants. Her parents had entertainment industry connections, with her father, James, as owner-manager of the Brooks theatrical costume concern and her mother, Bianca, with a career as stylist and designer of costumes. Two of her aunts had also been in show business, one as a singer at the Metropolitan Opera
Metropolitan Opera
The Metropolitan Opera is an opera company, located in New York City. Originally founded in 1880, the company gave its first performance on October 22, 1883. The company is operated by the non-profit Metropolitan Opera Association, with Peter Gelb as general manager...
and another as a showgirl with the Ziegfeld Follies
Ziegfeld Follies
The Ziegfeld Follies were a series of elaborate theatrical productions on Broadway in New York City from 1907 through 1931. They became a radio program in 1932 and 1936 as The Ziegfeld Follies of the Air....
. Her elder sister, Gloria, was an actress. Geraldine, who was named after Metropolitan Opera's most famous diva
Diva
A diva is a celebrated female singer. The term is used to describe a woman of outstanding talent in the world of opera, and, by extension, in theatre, cinema and popular music. The meaning of diva is closely related to that of "prima donna"....
of the era, Geraldine Farrar
Geraldine Farrar
Geraldine Farrar was an American soprano opera singer and film actress, noted for her beauty, acting ability, and "the intimate timbre of her voice." She had a large following among young women, who were nicknamed "Gerry-flappers".- Early life and opera career :Farrar was born in Melrose,...
, took dancing classes from the age of two and attended all-girls' Hunter Modeling School and graduated in 1942 from Julia Richman High School, where she was president of the drama club.
The World War II
World 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...
years of 1942–45 found Geraldine Stroock refining her craft at such traditional venues as the American Academy of Dramatic Arts
American Academy of Dramatic Arts
The American Academy of Dramatic Arts is a fully accredited two-year conservatory with facilities located in Manhattan, New York City – at 120 Madison Avenue, in a landmark building designed by noted architect Stanford White as the original Colony Club – and in Hollywood, California...
, the Neighborhood Playhouse
Neighborhood Playhouse
The Neighborhood Playhouse School of the Theatre is an actor training school at 340 East 54th Street in New York City, generally associated with the Meisner technique of Sanford Meisner.-History:...
and summer stock. Her first Broadway show
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
, Follow the Girls
Follow the Girls
Follow the Girls is a musical with a book by Guy Bolton, Eddie Davis and Fred Thompson and music and lyrics by Dan Shapiro, Milton Pascal, and Phil Charig....
, a musical comedy, opened at the New Century Theatre
New Century Theatre
The New Century Theatre was a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 932 Seventh Avenue at West 58th Street in midtown Manhattan.The house, which seated 1700, was designed by architect Herbert J. Krapp for the Shuberts, who originally named it Jolson's 59th Street Theatre after Al Jolson, who...
on April 8, 1944 and ran for 888 performances, closing over two years later, on May 18, 1946. The young actress, who was 18 when she was cast in this tuneful spoof of life in the theatre, played a character tellingly named "Catherine Pepburn". She did not stay with the production for its entire run, but was subsequently cast in another Broadway show, The Winter's Tale
The Winter's Tale
The Winter's Tale is a play by William Shakespeare, originally published in the First Folio of 1623. Although it was grouped among the comedies, some modern editors have relabelled the play as one of Shakespeare's late romances. Some critics, among them W. W...
. This Theatre Guild
Theatre Guild
The Theatre Guild is a theatrical society founded in New York City in 1918 by Lawrence Langner, Philip Moeller, Helen Westley and Theresa Helburn. Langner's wife, Armina Marshall, then served as a co-director. It evolved out of the work of the Washington Square Players.Its original purpose was to...
production of the Shakespeare romance opened at the Cort Theatre
Cort Theatre
The Cort Theatre is a legitimate Broadway theatre located at 138 West 48th Street in the Theatre District of midtown Manhattan in New York City...
on January 15, 1946 and closed after 39 performances on February 16. Playing the female lead, Perdita
Perdita (The Winter's Tale)
Perdita is one of the heroines of William Shakespeare's play, The Winter's Tale. She is the daughter of Leontes, King of Sicilia, and his wife Hermione....
, the now-20-year-old actress was noticed by a Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
representative and signed to a contract.
Warner Bros. contract player
Unlike her two years elder sister, Gloria StroockGloria Stroock
Gloria Stroock was an American film and television actress who was born in New York City. The older sister of actress Geraldine Brooks, Stroock was best known for her supporting role in the television series McMillan & Wife as Maggie, the secretary of lead character Stewart McMillan...
, who had a long career as an actress in mostly small film and television roles, keeping her real name, young Geraldine decided, at this point, to take the surname of "Brooks" professionally. That name was also the name of her father's costume company. Her debut under the new stage name
Stage name
A stage name, also called a showbiz name or screen name, is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers such as actors, wrestlers, comedians, and musicians.-Motivation to use a stage name:...
was also her first time in front of the cameras, as the studio's suspense drama, Cry Wolf, went into national release on August 19, 1947, although it was seen and reviewed in New York one month earlier. Billed third after top-tier stars Errol Flynn
Errol Flynn
Errol Leslie Flynn was an Australian-born actor. He was known for his romantic swashbuckler roles in Hollywood films, being a legend and his flamboyant lifestyle.-Early life:...
and Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck was an American actress. She was a film and television star, known during her 60-year career as a consummate and versatile professional with a strong screen presence, and a favorite of directors including Cecil B. DeMille, Fritz Lang and Frank Capra...
she received mostly good notices, while the film itself encountered critical resistance, with The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
critic Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...
complaining that "[T]he final explanation of the mystery is ridiculous and banal". Her second film at the studio, Possessed
Possessed (1947 film)
Possessed is a 1947 Warner Bros. film starring Joan Crawford, Van Heflin, and Raymond Massey in a tale about an unstable woman's obsession with her ex-lover. The screenplay by Ranald MacDougall and Silvia Richards was based upon a story by Rita Weiman. The film was directed by Curtis Bernhardt and...
, was released three weeks before Cry Wolf, on July 26, and was, again, reviewed in New York earlier, on May 30. This time, she was in fourth place, behind top-tier stars Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre....
and Van Heflin
Van Heflin
Emmett Evan "Van" Heflin, Jr. was an American film and theatre actor. He played mostly character parts over the course of his film career, but during the 1940s had a string of roles as a leading man...
and third-billed Raymond Massey
Raymond Massey
Raymond Hart Massey was a Canadian/American actor.-Early life:Massey was born in Toronto, Ontario, the son of Anna , who was born in Illinois, and Chester Daniel Massey, the wealthy owner of the Massey-Ferguson Tractor Company. Massey's family could trace their ancestry back to the American...
. A much more vulnerable persona than the poised, imperturbable one she played in Cry Wolf, she had a number of heavy dramatic confrontations with the overwrought character played by Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford , born Lucille Fay LeSueur, was an American actress in film, television and theatre....
(who received an Oscar
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
nomination for the role) and became a lifelong friend of the eighteen-years-older star, speaking at her memorial service in May 1977, five weeks before her own death. Seeing the young actress for the first time in the latter film, Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...
described her as "a newcomer who burns brightly ... as Miss Crawford's sensitive step-daughter".
In her third film, Warners allowed its new contract player to rise to the level of a co-star. Embraceable You
Embraceable You (film)
Embraceable You is a 1948 romantic drama film starring Dane Clark and Geraldine Brooks, and directed by Felix Jacoves. A getaway car, leaving the scene of a murder, strikes and injures a woman. Afterward, the driver visits her in the hospital.-Cast:...
, released in July 1948, had her second-billed to Dane Clark
Dane Clark
Dane Clark was an American film actor who was known for playing, as he labeled himself, "Joe Average".-Early life:...
, who played a goodhearted, although criminally inclined, tough guy who falls in love with the victim of the hit-and-run car accident for which he was responsible. There was no happy ending for the two doomed protagonists, and the film, structured as a second feature
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....
, was little-noticed and went unreviewed in The New York Times. After one more film, The Younger Brothers, a color Western
Western fiction
Western fiction is a genre of literature set in the American Old West frontier and typically set from the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth century. Well-known writers of Western fiction include Zane Grey from the early 1900s and Louis L'Amour from the mid 20th century...
not released until May 1949, in which she was, again, in fourth place, following Wayne Morris, Janis Paige
Janis Paige
Janis Paige is an American film, musical theatre and television actress. Born Donna Mae Tjaden in Tacoma, Washington, she began singing in public from the age of five in local amateur shows...
and Bruce Bennett
Bruce Bennett
Bruce Bennett was an American actor and Olympic silver medalist shot putter. During the 1930s, he went by his real name, Herman Brix .-Early life and Olympics:...
, Brooks asked for, and received, a release from her studio contract in July 1948, after two years and four films. Now a freelancer, she had a strong fourth-billed (following Fredric March
Fredric March
Fredric March was an American stage and film actor. He won the Academy Award for Best Actor in 1932 for Dr. Jekyll and Mr...
, Edmond O'Brien
Edmond O'Brien
Edmond O'Brien was an American actor who is perhaps best remembered for his role in D.O.A. and his Oscar winning role in The Barefoot Contessa...
and Florence Eldridge
Florence Eldridge
Florence Eldridge was an American actress.-Personal life:...
) dramatic role in Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
'
An Act of Murder
An Act of Murder
An Act of Murder is a 1948 crime film directed by Michael Gordon...
, playing the daughter of March and Eldridge, who were married in real life, and the anguish that the husband, a judge, endures when he contemplates ending the life of his terminally-ill wife. It was released in December 1948, but the downbeat film, although receiving positive notices, was not a financial success.
The next film, directed by the iconic filmmaker Max Ophüls
Max Ophüls
Maximillian Oppenheimer — known as Max Ophüls — was an influential German-born film director who worked in Germany , France , the United States , and France again...
, billed in Hollywood as Max Opuls, gave her one of her best opportunities. In The Reckless Moment
The Reckless Moment
The Reckless Moment is a film noir melodrama directed by Max Ophüls, produced by Walter Wanger, and released by Columbia Pictures with Burnett Guffey as cinematographer. Starring Joan Bennett and James Mason, the film is based on The Blank Wall , a novel written by Elisabeth Sanxay Holding...
, third-billed following James Mason
James Mason
James Neville Mason was an English actor who attained stardom in both British and American films. Mason remained a powerful figure in the industry throughout his career and was nominated for three Academy Awards as well as three Golden Globes .- Early life :Mason was born in Huddersfield, in the...
and 1930s star Joan Bennett
Joan Bennett
Joan Geraldine Bennett was an American stage, film and television actress. Besides acting on the stage, Bennett appeared in more than 70 motion pictures from the era of silent movies well into the sound era...
, Brooks, aged 24, was cast as Bennett's 17-year-old daughter, whose reckless affair with a seedy, older art dealer puts her mother on a collision course with a blackmailer with worse to come. The Columbia
Columbia 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...
film was released in December 1949, a year after her previous screen appearance in An Act of Murder. Her final American film of the 1940s, Challenge to Lassie
Challenge to Lassie
Challenge to Lassie is an American drama directed by Richard Thorpe and released October 31, 1949 by MGM Studios. It was the fifth feature film starring the original Lassie, a collie named Pal and the fourth, and final, Lassie film that Donald Crisp would star in.The movie is based on Eleanor...
was made in Technicolor
Technicolor
Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...
at MGM. Released two months earlier, in October, but not seen in New York until April 1950, the production gave her third billing, behind Edmund Gwenn
Edmund Gwenn
Edmund Gwenn was an English theatre and film actor.-Background:Born Edmund John Kellaway in Wandsworth, London , and educated at St. Olave's School and later at King's College London, Gwenn began his acting career in the theatre in 1895...
and Donald Crisp
Donald Crisp
Donald Crisp was an English film actor. He was also an early motion picture producer, director and screenwriter...
who, in this version of the classic story, Greyfriars Bobby
Greyfriars Bobby
Greyfriars Bobby was a Skye Terrier who became known in 19th-century Edinburgh for spending 14 years guarding the grave of his owner, John Gray , until he died himself on 14 January 1872...
, were once again typecast as elderly Scotsmen
Scottish people
The Scottish people , or Scots, are a nation and ethnic group native to Scotland. Historically they emerged from an amalgamation of the Picts and Gaels, incorporating neighbouring Britons to the south as well as invading Germanic peoples such as the Anglo-Saxons and the Norse.In modern use,...
. Playing the cemetery caretaker's daughter, she had the only female role of any importance, and was also given a couple of good dramatic scenes, but the focus was still firmly on the canine star.
Two Italian films
In mid-1949, with no immediate movie or stage prospects, Geraldine Brooks accepted an offer from ItalianItaly
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
production and distribution companies, Itala Film and Artisti Associati, for roles in two projects to be filmed on location, co-starring top native-born romantic leading men, Rossano Brazzi
Rossano Brazzi
-Biography:Brazzi was born in Bologna to Adelmo and Maria Brazzi. He attended San Marco University in Florence, Italy, where he was raised from the age of four...
and Vittorio Gassman
Vittorio Gassman
Vittorio Gassman Knight Grand Cross OMRI , popularly known as Il Mattatore, was an Italian theatre and film actor and director...
. Similar in tone, both are doom-laden melodramas depicting the tragic price women paid for descending into prostitution in the midst of the hunger, deprivation and moral corruption prevailing in postwar Italy. The first (released in the United States three years later as Streets of Sorrow) gave her, for the only time, top billing, as a prostitute making her living in the streets, who desperately and tragically attempts to prevent the handsome magistrate, played by Vittorio Gassman, who falls in love with her, from learning of her profession. Three years later, with the film finally receiving a shortened and censored U.S. release, A. H. Weiler, in his November 1952 New York Times review, noted that "Geraldine Brooks, an expatriate American who has emoted in more than one Italian film, gallantly tries to make a wistful and convincing heroine of Maria, the prostitute grasping desperately for a chance at decency". He described the film, however, as "a sad and limp romance, which is trite, slightly lachrymose and largely unedifying".
The second title, Vulcano (later released in the U.S. as Volcano), had an Oscar-nominated (for 1937's The Life of Emile Zola
The Life of Emile Zola
The Life of Emile Zola is a 1937 American biographical film about French author Émile Zola. Set in the mid through late 19th century, it depicts his friendship with noted painter Paul Cézanne, and his rise to fame through his prolific writing, with particular focus on his involvement in the Dreyfus...
) director, William Dieterle
William Dieterle
William Dieterle was a German actor and film director, who worked in Hollywood for much of his career. His best known films include The Devil and Daniel Webster, The Story of Louis Pasteur and The Hunchback of Notre Dame...
, and two top Italian stars, Anna Magnani
Anna Magnani
Anna Magnani was an Italian stage and film actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress, along with four other international awards, for her portrayal of a Sicilian widow in The Rose Tattoo....
and Rossano Brazzi
Rossano Brazzi
-Biography:Brazzi was born in Bologna to Adelmo and Maria Brazzi. He attended San Marco University in Florence, Italy, where he was raised from the age of four...
, who were billed above her. The adventurous shoot was primarily confined to the land and sea area around the eponymous volcanic isle of Vulcano
Vulcano
thumb| The Gran Cratere. A sense of scale is provided by the tourist visible near the centre of the crater.thumb|right|250px|View of Vulcano from the island of Lipari. The green islet centre left is Vulcanello, which is connected to Vulcano by an isthmus...
as well as Lipari
Lipari
Lipari is the largest of the Aeolian Islands in the Tyrrhenian Sea off the north coast of Sicily, and the name of the island's main town. It has a permanent population of 11,231; during the May–September tourist season, its population may reach up to 20,000....
, off the coast of Mediterranean's largest island, Sicily
Sicily
Sicily is a region of Italy, and is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. Along with the surrounding minor islands, it constitutes an autonomous region of Italy, the Regione Autonoma Siciliana Sicily has a rich and unique culture, especially with regard to the arts, music, literature,...
. Upon returning to Hollywood in October 1949, Dieterle told The New York Times that "[C]onditions for shooting a picture could hardly have been more primitive. Except for the mechanical equipment we took with us, we had to construct everything we needed with our own hands." The film restores Brooks to her familiar role of an innocent ingenue taken advantage of by an unscrupulous exploiter of women, played by Brazzi, while her older sister, played by Anna Magnani
Anna Magnani
Anna Magnani was an Italian stage and film actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress, along with four other international awards, for her portrayal of a Sicilian widow in The Rose Tattoo....
, returns to the island of their birth, burned out after having spent 18 years as a prostitute in Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
. As in the case of Streets of Sorrow, this production was also censored and released in the United States years after filming. In its June 1953 review, 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 noted that although it is "[R]eminiscent in story and treatment of Stromboli
Stromboli (film)
Stromboli is a 1950 Italian-American film directed by Roberto Rossellini and featuring Ingrid Bergman...
, Volcano is a far better film. Against the island's rough backdrop, the yarn's primitive passions do not seem particularly excessive or out of place".
1950s and 1960s television
She was again on Broadway in The Time of the CuckooThe Time of the Cuckoo
The Time of the Cuckoo is a play by Arthur Laurents. It focuses on the bittersweet romance between Leona Samish, a single American executive secretary vacationing in Europe, and Renato Di Rossi, a shopkeeper she meets in Venice...
in 1952, and in 1970 she was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play
Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play
This is a list of the winners and nominations of Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. The award has been presented since 1947, and is for performance in new productions or revivals.-1940s:...
for Brightower, which closed after its opening night performance. Brooks appeared mostly on television from 1950 on. She appeared in many of the anthology series popular early in the decade, such as Orient Express
Orient Express (anthology)
Orient Express is a 1953 anthology drama television series filmed in Europe and syndicated in the United States. Each episode ties-in with a story connected to the famed railroad from which the series takes its name...
, Armstrong Circle Theatre
Armstrong Circle Theatre
Armstrong Circle Theatre is an American anthology drama television series which ran from 1950 to 1957 on NBC, and then until 1963 on CBS. It alternated weekly with The U.S. Steel Hour.-Synopsis:...
, Appointment with Adventure
Appointment with Adventure
Appointment with Adventure is a half-hour adventure/dramatic anthology television series broadcast live on CBS from 1955-1956. The program has no host. It aired at 10 p.m...
(two episodes), Lux Video Theatre
Lux Video Theatre
Lux Video Theatre, is a weekly television anthology series that was produced from 1950 until 1959. The series presented both comedy and drama in original teleplays, as well as abridged adaptations of films and plays....
, and Studio One
Studio One (TV series)
Studio One is a long-running American radio–television anthology series, created in 1947 by the 26-year-old Canadian director Fletcher Markle, who came to CBS from the CBC.-Radio:...
, and guested on The Fugitive
The Fugitive (TV series)
The Fugitive is an American drama series produced by QM Productions and United Artists Television that aired on ABC from 1963 to 1967. David Janssen stars as Richard Kimble, a doctor from the fictional town of Stafford, Indiana, who is falsely convicted of his wife's murder and given the death...
, Johnny Staccato
Johnny Staccato
Johnny Staccato is an American private detective series which ran for 27 episodes on NBC from September 10, 1959 through March 24, 1960.-Synopsis:...
, Have Gun - Will Travel, Adventures in Paradise
Adventures in Paradise
Adventures in Paradise is an American television series which ran on ABC from 1959 until 1962. It starred Gardner McKay as Adam Troy, the captain of the schooner Tiki III which sailed the South Pacific looking for passengers and adventure. The show was created by James Michener...
, Perry Mason
Perry Mason (TV series)
Perry Mason is an American legal drama produced by Paisano Productions that ran from September 1957 to May 1966 on CBS. The title character, portrayed by Raymond Burr, is a fictional Los Angeles defense attorney who originally appeared in detective fiction by Erle Stanley Gardner...
, The Defenders, Dr. Kildare
Dr. Kildare
Dr. James Kildare is a fictional character, the primary character in a series of American theatrical films in the late 1930s and early 1940s, an early 1950s radio series, a 1960s television series of the same name and a comic book based on the TV show, and a short-lived 1970s television series...
, Mr. Novak
Mr. Novak
Mr. Novak is an American dramatic series starring James Franciscus in the title role, which aired on NBC for two seasons, from 1963 to 1965.-Overview:...
, Ben Casey
Ben Casey
Ben Casey is an American medical drama series which ran on ABC from 1961 to 1966. The show was known for its opening titles, which consisted of a hand drawing the symbols "♂, ♀, *, †, ∞" on a chalkboard, as cast member Sam Jaffe intoned, "Man, woman, birth, death, infinity." Neurosurgeon Joseph...
, Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....
, The Outer Limits
The Outer Limits (1963 TV series)
The Outer Limits is an American television series that aired on ABC from 1963 to 1965. The series is similar in style to the earlier The Twilight Zone, but with a greater emphasis on science fiction, rather than fantasy stories...
, Bonanza
Bonanza
Bonanza is an American western television series that both ran on and was a production of NBC from September 12, 1959 to January 16, 1973. Lasting 14 seasons and 430 episodes, it ranks as the second longest running western series and still continues to air in syndication. It centers on the...
, It Takes A Thief, and Daniel Boone
Daniel Boone (TV series)
Daniel Boone is an American action/adventure television series starring Fess Parker as Daniel Boone that aired from September 24, 1964 to September 10, 1970 on NBC for 165 episodes, and was made by 20th Century Fox Television. Ed Ames co-starred as Mingo, Boone's Native American friend, for the...
, among many others. She essayed the role of Arden Dellacorte on the daytime soap opera
Soap opera
A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...
Love of Life
Love of Life
Love of Life is an American soap opera which aired on CBS Daytime from September 24, 1951 to February 1, 1980. It was created by Roy Winsor, whose previous creation Search for Tomorrow had premiered three weeks before Love of Life, and who would go on to create The Secret Storm two and a half years...
and starred as the overweight owner of a delicatessen
Delicatessen
Delicatessen is a term meaning "delicacies" or "fine foods". The word entered English via German,with the old German spelling , plural of Delikatesse "delicacy", ultimately from Latin delicatus....
opposite James Coco
James Coco
James Coco was an American character actor.- Early life and career :Born James Emil Coco in New York City, son of Feliche Coco, a shoemaker and Ida Detestes Coco, James began acting straight out of high school. As an overweight and prematurely balding adult, he found himself relegated to character...
in the short-lived sitcom
Situation comedy
A situation comedy, often shortened to sitcom, is a genre of comedy that features characters sharing the same common environment, such as a home or workplace, accompanied with jokes as part of the dialogue...
The Dumplings, her final role.
She was nominated for the 1962 Emmy Award
Emmy Award
An Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role for her appearance in the episode, "Call Back Yesterday", with fellow guest costar David Hedison
David Hedison
Albert David Hedison, Jr. is an Armenian-American film, television, and stage actor. He was billed as Al Hedison in his early film work. In 1959, when he was cast in the role of Victor Sebastian in the short-lived espionage television series Five Fingers, NBC insisted that he change his name...
in ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
's drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
series, Bus Stop
Bus Stop (TV series)
Bus Stop is a 26-episode drama which aired on ABC from October 1, 1961, until March 25, 1962, starring Marilyn Maxwell as Grace Sherwood, the owner of a bus station and diner in the fictitious town of Sunrise in the Colorado Rockies...
(based on the William Inge
William Inge
William Motter Inge was an American playwright and novelist, whose works typically feature solitary protagonists encumbered with strained sexual relations. In the early 1950s, he had a string of memorable Broadway productions, and one of these, Picnic, earned him a Pulitzer Prize...
drama), starring Marilyn Maxwell
Marilyn Maxwell
Marilyn Maxwell , born Marvel Marilyn Maxwell, was an American actress and entertainer.Noted for her blonde hair and sexually alluring persona, she appeared in several films and radio programs, and entertained the troops during World War II and the Korean War on USO tours with Bob Hope.-Career:She...
as the operator of a bus station/diner in the fictitious town of Sunrise, Colorado.
Death
Geraldine Brooks died of a heart attack while battling cancerCancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
at Central Suffolk Hospital in Riverhead, New York
Riverhead (town), New York
The town of Riverhead is in Suffolk County, New York, on the north shore of Long Island. The population was 33,506 at the 2010 census. The name signifies that the mouth of the Peconic River is in this town...
. She was either 51 years old, or, per her New York Times obituary, 52. Her interment was in Mount Sinai, New York
Mount Sinai, New York
Mount Sinai is a hamlet and census-designated place in Suffolk County, New York, USA. The population was 8,734 at the 2000 census.-Geography:...
's cemetery, Washington Memorial Park.
Awards and nominations
- 1962 Emmy AwardEmmy AwardAn Emmy Award, often referred to simply as the Emmy, is a television production award, similar in nature to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment, and is considered the television equivalent to the Academy Awards and the Grammy Awards .A majority of Emmys are presented in various...
nomination: Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role – Geraldine Brooks, Bus StopBus Stop (TV series)Bus Stop is a 26-episode drama which aired on ABC from October 1, 1961, until March 25, 1962, starring Marilyn Maxwell as Grace Sherwood, the owner of a bus station and diner in the fictitious town of Sunrise in the Colorado Rockies...
, ABCAmerican Broadcasting CompanyThe American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948... - 1970 Tony AwardTony AwardThe Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Theatre, more commonly known as a Tony Award, recognizes achievement in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual ceremony in New York City. The awards are given for Broadway...
nomination: Actress (Play) – Geraldine Brooks, Brightower