Marilyn Hassett

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Marilyn Hassett (born December 17, 1947 in Los Angeles , California ) is an American actress .

Life

Beginnings and breakthrough

Marilyn Hassett started her career with television commercials and appearances in local theater. The California State University drama student made her feature film debut in 1969 with an extra role in Sydney Pollack's award-winning drama Only Horses Are Given the Gunshot . After that, Hassett appeared on television in various small or supporting roles and made a living doing odd jobs as a bank clerk, taxi driver or photographer for music albums.

The breakthrough as an actress came in the mid-1970s, when Hassett was able to secure the female lead against hundreds of other candidates in the auditions for Larry Peerce's cinema production The Flipside of the Medal (1975). The film biography is based on the 1966 book A Long Way Up by EG Valens and traces the life of ski racer Jill Kinmont . The 18-year-old Californian was considered a safe candidate for the American Olympic ski team in 1955 before she suffered paraplegia in a serious racing accident . Among other things, Hassett was able to benefit from his own experience in a wheelchair during the filming. In 1969, the 1.70 m tall actress was seriously injured by an elephant while filming a commercial and had spent five months in a wheelchair and confined to bed.

The other side of the coin , with Beau Bridges as a male counterpart, was favored by critics, who rated Larry Peerce's film as a "soulful plea for optimistic coping with life". The portrayal of the still unknown Marilyn Hasset, who was praised by film critic Vincent Canby in the New York Times as an "extraordinarily beautiful, capable actress" , was particularly highlighted . Hassett was then given the rare honor of a double nomination at the 1976 Golden Globe Awards . Nominated alongside well-known professional colleagues such as Faye Dunaway ( The Three Days of Condor ) or Glenda Jackson ( Hedda Gabler ) , she lost out in the category of Best Lead Actress - Drama compared to the later Oscar- winner Louise Fletcher ( One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest ) . In the award of the award for the best young actress , Hassett finally prevailed against, among others, Stockard Channing ( dowry hunter ) and Ronee Blakley and Lily Tomlin, who were also later nominated for the Oscar (each nominated for Robert Altman's film Nashville ) .

End of the film career

Despite the success of The Flipside of the Medal , Hassett's portrait of Jill Kinmont was considered too “special” to be followed by other role offers from directors and producers. After the female lead in George McCowan's adventure film Shadow of the Hawk (1976) alongside Jan-Michael Vincent , Larry Peerce staged his protégé in his three following film projects. In the disaster film Two Minutes Warning (1976) Charlton Heston , John Cassavetes , Martin Balsam and again Beau Bridges were their film partners, while Hassett again played Jill Kinmont in The Other Side of the Mountain Part II (1978). Split critics expressed their opinions also Peerces film adaptation of Sylvia Plath's single, semi-autobiographical novel The Glass Bell , The Bell Jar (1979), a. Here Hassett played the lead role of Esther Greenwood, a college student who is doing an internship with a women's magazine in Manhattan and gets into a psychological crisis that is exacerbated by her environment. While the American weekly magazine Newsweek compared the "finely drawn, puritanical beauty" of the leading actress with the novelist and assisted a "flawless, strong game" in an otherwise stiflingly conventional film, film critic Janet Maslin ( New York Times ) rated Hassett as misplaced, "Not convincing" and "unsympathetic".

By The Bell Jar collaboration with director Larry Peerce, with Hassett also a time was married long ended. The actress could then no longer build on the previous success. From the early 1980s she was only sporadically represented with supporting roles in film and television productions, including Thomas A. Cohen's action film The Day Before (1984), J. Lee Thompson's crime film The Law is Death (1988) or several guest appearances in the famous television series Murder is her hobby . Hassett's film career ended in the early 1990s, directed by Paul Leder , who used it in Body Count (1987), Exiled in America (1990) and Twenty Dollar Star (1991).

Filmography (selection)

  • 1970: Quarantined
  • 1975: The downside (The Other Side of the Mountain)
  • 1976: Shadow of the Hawk
  • 1976: Two-Minute Warning (two-minute warning)
  • 1978: The Other Side of the Mountain Part II
  • 1979: The Bell Jar
  • 1984: The Day Before (Massive Retaliation)
  • 1987: Body Count
  • 1984–1988: Murder is Her Hobby ( Murder, She Wrote , TV series; episode: Deadly Lady , 1984; Witness for the Defense , 1987; Deadpan , 1988)
  • 1988: The Law Is Death (Messenger of Death)
  • 1989: Rock-A-Die Baby
  • 1990: Exiled in America
  • 1991: Twenty Dollar Star
  • 1992: Inside Out III
  • 2008: Bad High (short film)

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. Witmer, Eli: You Asked Us Column . In: The Toronto Sun, September 13, 1998, TV Magazine
  2. ↑ a b c d e cf. Biography in the Internet Movie Database (accessed April 7, 2008)
  3. ↑ cf. Lexicon of International Films 2000/2001 (CD-ROM)
  4. ↑ cf. Vincent Canby film review in the New York Times, November 15, 1975
  5. ↑ cf. Marilyn Hassett's biography in the All Movie Guide (accessed April 7, 2008)
  6. ↑ cf. Kroll, Jack: The Plath Story: A Poet's Crack-Up . In: Newsweek, March 26, 1979, p. 77
  7. ↑ cf. Film review by Janet Maslin in the New York Times, March 21, 1979
personal data
SURNAME Hassett, Marilyn
BRIEF DESCRIPTION US-american actress
DATE OF BIRTH December 17, 1947
PLACE OF BIRTH Los Angeles , California, United States