End Credits #76: Cinema's 2018 Lost Treasures Dorothy Malone, Bradford Dillman

These are some of Cinema's sad departures of 2018 taken from my personal notes soon after the events took place: 

For Golden Age cinema lovers, the loss of actress Dorothy Malone is especially painful.

Someone recently told me that I should not be devastated over the loss of anyone in the cinematic arts who lived to be 92. Maybe that's true, besides, I wasn't a family member or close friend. So perhaps it's ironic that the very fact Dorothy Malone did live so long and make such a visible and long lasting contribution to cinema is why, for me, her sudden departure is so hard to take. There are only a few left of Ms. Malone's stature. She provided a special spirit to some of cinema's most treasured characters and films. Want proof? She was the bookseller that Humphrey Bogart's Philip Marlowe flirts with in The Big Sleep, attorney Zachary Scott's confidant in Flaxy Martin, bandit Joel McCrea's motive for going straight in Colorado Territory, convict Glenn Ford's love interest in Convicted, bank teller Barry Sullivan's supportive wife in Loophole, Kim Novak's law assisting neighbour in Pushover, and crooked cop Howard Duff's kept-in-the-dark wife in Private Hell 36. She enhanced Mrs. Elaine Yarborough in Battle Cry, Lorna Miller in Tension at Table Rock, Marylee Hadley in Written on the Wind (an Academy Award winning performance), Cleva Chaney in Man of a Thousand Faces, LaVerne Shumann in The Tarnished Angels, Lily Dollar in Warlock, Belle Breckenridge in The Last Sunset, and Emma Kegan in Winter Kills. All of the films mentioned were outstanding and she made many more. Her performances were always stellar even in films of lesser quality such as her last in 1992's Basic Instinct. She was a true cinematic treasure who will be sorely missed. Sincerest condolences to family and friends. Dorothy Malone (January 30, 1925 - January 19, 2018) R.I.P.         

A prominent actor of both highly accomplished stage and screen productions has sadly passed away at age 87, the immensely talented Bradford Dillman. He studied at the Actors Studio and apprenticed at the Sharon Playhouse in Sharon, Connecticut before making his professional acting debut in author Percy MacKaye's play The Scarecrow in 1953. His Broadway debut occurred in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night in 1956, for which he won a Theatre World Award. After some prestigious television appearances (e.g. Kraft Theatre, Omnibus, and Climax!) 20th Century-Fox took notice and placed Dillman under contract. His first motion picture performance in the melodrama A Certain Smile (1958) earned Dillman a Golden Globe for "Most Promising Newcomer". More successful performances followed with In Love and War (1958) and especially next year's Compulsion (1959) for which he shared a "Best Actor" award at the Cannes Film Festival with co-stars Dean Stockwell and Orson Welles. Of his many subsequent film (Crack in the Mirror 1960, Francis of Assisi 1961, The Mephisto Waltz 1971, The Way We Were 1972, et al) and television appearances (such as Kraft Suspense Theatre 1963, The Alfred Hitchcock Hour 1963 - 1964, Dr. Kildare 1964 - 1966, and Court Martial 1965 - 1966), perhaps his most impressive was as Willie Oban in director John Frankenheimer's film of Eugene O'Neill's play The Iceman Cometh (1973). Other films Dillman brought more than just some respectability to included The Enforcer (1976), The Lincoln Conspiracy (1977), The Amsterdam Kill (1977), Piranha (1978), and Sudden Impact (1983). Bradford Dillman (April 14, 1930 - January 16, 2018) R.I.P.