- Mary Astor, The Great Lie, 1940. Or Women of the World when Bette Davis decided to play nice for once instead of her close to home bitches (and then, naturally, called it “one of the few times I played a character basically like myself.” Hah! The concert pianist Sandra Kovak (“cold and poisonous” said critic Bosley Crowther) was the harder to fill. Perfect for Miriam Hopkins but she and Davis had…. issues. Next in line were Sylvia Sidney, Anna Sten (Stench to some) and the unknown Muriel Angelus and the Belarus-bprn Katherine Locke (her Broadway shows were better than any of her Hollywood movies). But Mary Astor could play piano. And so the most sublime “character: was… Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1…perfectly fingered by Astor but actually recorded by Max Rabinovitch.
Birth year: 1910Death year: 1995Other name: Casting Calls: 1