Betsy Blair

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.4 • 13.7K Ratings

🗓️ 12 June 2005

⏱️ 36 minutes

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Summary

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is Betsy Blair. She was an actress in Hollywood during its heyday and is best known for her role in Marty, the Oscar-winning tale of a shy butcher and lonely teacher who, against the advice of friends and family, fall in love. She was barely 16 when she began her career as a dancer and it was while she was on her way to an early audition that she met Gene Kelly. She was still a teenager and he was 12 years her senior, but they were married and the couple set up home in one of Hollywood's most glamorous addresses - Rodeo Drive. They were known for throwing open their doors on Saturday night for star-studded parties; their guests included Tyrone Power, Judy Garland and Greta Garbo.

After 16 years, the marriage broke up and Betsy moved first to France then England where she met and married Karel Reisz, director of The French Lieutenant's Woman. She embraced a career in European films, working with celebrated directors including Juan Antonio Bardem and Michelangelo Antonioni. Her 1955 film Marty was shown again as one of the classic films at this year's Cannes Film Festival.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: There's a Boat dat's Leaving Soon for New York by George Gershwin Book: Reading Lyrics - American Songs 1900-1975 Luxury: An ice cream maker

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm Krestey Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive.
0:05.0	For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.
0:08.0	The program was originally broadcast in 2005, and the presenter was Sue Lawley. My castaway this week is an actress born in New Jersey 82 years ago. Her life changed dramatically
0:36.3	when at the age of 17 she married a New York nightclub choreographer. His name was Gene Kelly.
0:42.4	Throughout the 1940s and early
0:44.6	50s they led a merry dance in Hollywood. In 1956 she landed her most famous role
0:49.8	playing opposite Ernest Bogne in the Oscar winning film Marty. Her marriage
0:54.7	to Kelly broke up and always something of a free spirit she took herself off to
0:58.8	Paris where she appeared in rather different sorts of films being made by
1:02.1	directors such as Antonioni.
1:04.7	She married again, this time to the British film director Carol Rice and together they moved
1:09.2	to North London where she's lived ever since.
1:12.0	Outspoken, left wing, and very much the American Europhile,
1:16.4	hers is a story of a strong, independent character content to live in the shadow, perhaps,
1:22.0	of men she loved and respected. I just know the rest of my life was worth it, she says. She is Betsy Blair.
1:29.7	It's very rare Betsy in the 21st century to be able to talk to somebody who was in Hollywood, in its heyday,
1:36.3	you know, the sort of patriarchal Hollywood where the studio was king and Rodeo Drive was a kind of village street. Was it as glamorous as we tend to think it was?
1:46.6	I think probably it was as glamorous. I just didn't see it that way because I had nothing to compare it with.
1:53.0	But having all those people, I mean you had regular Saturday night, you lived on Rodeo Drive, did
1:57.7	yes? Yes, yes.
1:59.1	And you had Saturday night parties?
2:01.1	Yes, and we had lots of famous, famous people, but they were all,
	...

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