MARY ASTOR
Name: Mary Astor
Birth name: Lucile Vasconcellos Langhanke
Born: 3 May 1906 Quincy, Illinois, U.S.
Died: 25 September 1987 Woodland Hills, California, U.S.
Mary Astor (May 3, 1906 – September 25, 1987) was an Academy Award-winning
American actress. Most famous for her role as Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The
Maltese Falcon (1941) opposite Humphrey Bogart, Astor began her long motion
picture career as a teenager in the silent movies of the early 1920s.
She eventually made a successful transition to talkies, but almost saw her
career destroyed due to public scandal in the mid-1930s. She was sued for
support by her parents and was later branded an adulterous wife by her ex-husband
during a custody fight over her daughter. Overcoming these stumbling blocks in
her private life, Astor went on to even greater success on the screen,
eventually winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her
portrayal of Sandra Kovak in The Great Lie (1941). Director Lindsay Anderson
said of her: "...that when two or three who love the cinema are gathered
together, the name of Mary Astor always comes up, and everybody agrees that she
was an actress of special attraction, whose qualities of depth and reality
always seemed to illuminate the parts she played." She continued to act in
movies, on television and on stage into the 1960s. She retired from the screen
in 1964.
Astor was also the author of five novels. Her autobiography became a bestseller,
as did her later book, A Life on Film, which was specifically about her career.
Name: Mary Astor
Birth name: Lucile Vasconcellos Langhanke
Born: 3 May 1906 Quincy, Illinois, U.S.
Died: 25 September 1987 Woodland Hills, California, U.S.
Mary Astor (May 3, 1906 – September 25, 1987) was an Academy Award-winning
American actress. Most famous for her role as Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The
Maltese Falcon (1941) opposite Humphrey Bogart, Astor began her long motion
picture career as a teenager in the silent movies of the early 1920s.
She eventually made a successful transition to talkies, but almost saw her
career destroyed due to public scandal in the mid-1930s. She was sued for
support by her parents and was later branded an adulterous wife by her ex-husband
during a custody fight over her daughter. Overcoming these stumbling blocks in
her private life, Astor went on to even greater success on the screen,
eventually winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her
portrayal of Sandra Kovak in The Great Lie (1941). Director Lindsay Anderson
said of her: "...that when two or three who love the cinema are gathered
together, the name of Mary Astor always comes up, and everybody agrees that she
was an actress of special attraction, whose qualities of depth and reality
always seemed to illuminate the parts she played." She continued to act in
movies, on television and on stage into the 1960s. She retired from the screen
in 1964.
Astor was also the author of five novels. Her autobiography became a bestseller,
as did her later book, A Life on Film, which was specifically about her career.