Late Career Portrait
Year of Ann Dvorak: Day 146
This is a portrait of Ann during the time she was making A Life of Her Own at M-G-M in 1950. In all my years of collecting on Ann, I had never seen any publicity shots from the film, other than the standard scene stills, so I was thrilled when this popped up on eBay earlier in the year. She was 38 or 39 when this was taken, and her career would be done within two years. In A Life of Her Own, her character is a washed-up fashion model and it seems as if she were made-up to look a bit run down and past her prime, but this photo shows how gorgeous she still was.
This is one of my personal favorites, and I had submitted it to be included in the book. However, this ended up being one of the images that was cut in order to make room for the honeymoon scrapbook photos, so it’s now here to enjoy instead.
Lana Turner may have been the nominal star of this movie, but we know better. Director George Cukor called it a horrible film, and after Ann’s too soon demise, there’s no reason to continue watching. I’m sure the reason(s) for Ann’s premature retirement, a matter of interest to fans, will be illuminated in the bio.
I sat through this entire movie once – in 1997. Can’t imagine I ever will again, and I agree that Ann’s performance is the only redeeming thing about it. I do hit on Ann retiring, though as with many aspects of her life, there are a lot of question marks.