Guest Appearances
Posted: June 3rd, 2010, 11:03 am
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Any of us who occasionally check out channels like TV Land, or Encore's Western channel are used to seeing older actors appearing as guests on TV shows, but this one today really threw me. I missed the beginning 10 minutes where a guest appearance announcement may have appeared so when I turned on Gunsmoke and saw this lovely lady, I couldn't place her, but something about her voice made me take special notice. I watched and listened but it wasn't until about 15 minutes from the end that it came to me that the lady was Jean Arthur. Now most of you know Jean Arthur is low, low down on my list of actresses that I remotely like, and mainly because of her voice but as she appeared in that show in 1965, at 65 years of age, her voice had come down several octaves, it was now, although still high in pitch, it was now low in tone and actually very pleasant. Also, her hair, although done in an upsweep as in her movie years, rather than the tight topknot curls, now they were loose and framed her face with soft tendrils. I literally got out of bed and put my copy of Shane in the DVD player to compare while my memory was fresh, but the voice and look had not yet occurred. I'm used to seeing classic stars appear on Maverick, Gunsmoke, The Big Valley, etc. and usually just laugh because these were the same people who feared they would be put out of work by TV, and finally succumbed to its call. But once in a while a star appears that just shocks you because either they are playing their age, or they had been away for a few years and it was hard to place who they were.
.
Any of us who occasionally check out channels like TV Land, or Encore's Western channel are used to seeing older actors appearing as guests on TV shows, but this one today really threw me. I missed the beginning 10 minutes where a guest appearance announcement may have appeared so when I turned on Gunsmoke and saw this lovely lady, I couldn't place her, but something about her voice made me take special notice. I watched and listened but it wasn't until about 15 minutes from the end that it came to me that the lady was Jean Arthur. Now most of you know Jean Arthur is low, low down on my list of actresses that I remotely like, and mainly because of her voice but as she appeared in that show in 1965, at 65 years of age, her voice had come down several octaves, it was now, although still high in pitch, it was now low in tone and actually very pleasant. Also, her hair, although done in an upsweep as in her movie years, rather than the tight topknot curls, now they were loose and framed her face with soft tendrils. I literally got out of bed and put my copy of Shane in the DVD player to compare while my memory was fresh, but the voice and look had not yet occurred. I'm used to seeing classic stars appear on Maverick, Gunsmoke, The Big Valley, etc. and usually just laugh because these were the same people who feared they would be put out of work by TV, and finally succumbed to its call. But once in a while a star appears that just shocks you because either they are playing their age, or they had been away for a few years and it was hard to place who they were.
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