LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Mary Astor
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Mary Astor was born, Lucile Vasconcellos Langhanke, on May 3, 1906 in Quincy, Illinois to a German immigrant father, Otto Ludwig Langhanke, and an American mother from Illinois, Helen Marie Vasconcellos, of Portuguese and Irish ancestry. Her parents were very ambitious for her as they recognized Mary's beauty and knowing if they played their cards right, they could make her famous. They understood that they wanted something better for their daughter than they had, so they made it happen by pushing Mary into various beauty contests. Luck was with Mary and her parents because one contest came to the attention of Hollywood moguls who signed her at the age of 14. Her first movie was a bit part in The Scarecrow (1920). It wasn't much, but it was a start.
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Mary Astor is another of the film's great problems. Although she may have been a fine actress, she and Huston clearly didn't click. She is stiff and annoying. It's hard to believe a man like Bogart could fall in love with such a twit. Bogart, Sidney Greenstreet and Peter Lorre... are among the best of their generation, and the screen is electrified when they are together.
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Among the legendary names of Hollywood's Golden Age, Mary Astor's star shines brightly. Strictly speaking... Mary was never a star in the accepted sense of her time, but a featured player. This was of her own choosing. Offered starring contracts at various times, she preferred not to shoulder the responsibility of having her name appear above the title of a film. This decision was due largely to a lack of confidence generated by a childhood dominated by demanding parents who looked upon her as a meal ticket. The public with whom she was very popular nevertheless regarded her as a star.
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Mary Astor scans her career with the meticulous eye of a camera. She explains the mechanics of movie making, the strange shorthand speech on the sets, the special tricks of closeups, makeup, and wardrobe. She tells of her first screen kiss at age 14, of starring with John Barrymore at age 17, of the sound test which almost ended her career at 23.
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Mary Astor is best known for her performance as Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon. One of film's most versatile actresses, Astor played everything from ingenues to mothers in a career that lasted almost 45 years and included more than 100 films, including The Great Lie for which she won an Oscar for her portrayal of temperamental pianist, Sandra Kovak. One of Astor's best performances is as the easygoing heiress in The Palm Beach Story. Another, and the actress's personal favorite, is Dodsworth, which casts her as the widow who brings happiness into the life of a downtrodden businessman. It contains one of the more memorable introductory lines in American cinema: on board ship Dodsworth asks the steward to bring him a drink to steady his nerves; from the dark reaches of a deck chair comes the voice of Mary Astor, "Why don't you try stout, Mr. Dodsworth?" Astor made her screen debut at 15, a hauntingly innocent presence in The Beggar Maid. When John Barrymore cast her in Beau Brummel, Astor became established as a leading actress.
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There was a rare opportunity for mass keyhole-peeking into the private lives of public figures when, in 1936, the personal diary of popular screen actress Mary Astor was used against her in a legal battle concerning custody of her daughter. In a courtroom drama with a script worthy of Hollywood, Miss Astor and her ex-husband, Dr. Franklyn Thorpe, exchanged exposes in an attempt to prove each other unfit to raise a child. The doctor's major source of ammunition was a diary which had been kept by Miss Astor from 1929 to 1934, containing many intimate portraits of her friends and lovers and recording events and hearsay of the film colony.
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Mary Astor