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Katina Paxinou (1900-1973) |
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- Mady Christians, Tender Comrade, 1943. The RKO Archives Production Files at UCLA show that the Greek actress was first choice for Manya Lodge – later played by the Austrian Christians - in what became labeled a pinko film because it was scripted by Dalton Trumbo, named as a Communist by Ginger Rogers’ mother at a HUAC hearing in 1947. Ginger (but not red) starred but refused to say one line - “share and share alike… that’s democracy” - as she felt it Communistic. Trumbo and director Edward Dmytryk were then blacklisted.
- Joan Fontaine, Frenchman’s Creek, 1943. English lady. French pirate. Love at eight bells. Or then again, why not a Greek lady with a Mexican pirate - Paxinou and Arturo de Córdova. Also up for Dona St Columb were Irene Dunne, Vivien Leigh, Merle Oberon and Rosalind Russell.
- Irene Dunne, I Remember Mama, 1948. Failing to land Greta Garbo, producer Harriet Parsons considered making the Hanson family Greek under a matriarchal Paxinou, the first non-US actress to win a support Actress Oscar - for her film (and Hollywood debut), For Whom The Bell Tolls, 1942.
- Martha Scott, The Ten Commandments, 1954.
- Lotte Lenya, From Russia With Love, 1963.
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