Myrna Loy: Gutsy Dame, On Screen and Off

 

Beautiful scan compliments of Doctor Macro

Following quotes compliment of IMDb:

[Challenging MGM bosses in the 1930s] "Why does every black person in the movies have to play a servant? How about a black person walking up the steps of a courthouse carrying a briefcase?"

[Speaking in the late 1960s] "I admire some of the people on the screen today, but most of them look like everybody else. In our day we had individuality. Pictures were more sophisticated. All this nudity is too excessive and it is getting very boring. It will be a shame if it upsets people so much that it brings on the need for censorship. I hate censorship. In the cinema there's no mystery. No privacy. And no sex, either. Most of the sex I've seen on the screen looks like an expression of hostility towards sex."

[Referring to her "perfect wife" typecasting] "Some perfect wife I am. I've been married four times, divorced four times, have no children, and can't boil an egg."

And reminder that today would have been Loy's 106th birthday is compliments of Self-Styled Siren's far more thorough tribute here.

It's wonderful when you can admire actors for their talent alone. Frankly, a lot of the time that's all you can admire them for. Usually that should be enough: you watch them for their ability to play people not themselves, after all. But when you can also admire their intellect, compassion, courage, and wit? Well, why not savor that a little?

Myrna Loy is the actress I most admire for both talent and personality. Have a happy, Myrna! Don't let anyone make you boil eggs in whatever heavenly, sophisticated dimension you're inhabiting!