So as I waded my way through another 200 comments, I noticed another theme popping up which was whether the award was a BAFTA. It wasn't. So you can remove from your consideration that Cornell woman. Second, remember the A-lister was an A lister at that time.
There is some confusion about whether cancer was the reason why I didn't reveal the MV blind item back in July. Letting you know about the cancer was just to give you an update. The only way the MV blind item will be revealed is if one of the contract signatories decides to talk or if all three were to die. Of course if I ever hit the lottery and don't need to work anymore, then I will reveal every BI I have ever posted, plus the fifty or so that I'm dying to tell everyone but can't because the people who know every detail is usually limited to two or three people which is not enough to cover one's ass. Too bad I didn't win Mega Millions last weekend.
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ReplyDeleteThank you very much!
ReplyDeleteAhh Cornell, we hardly knew ye.
ReplyDeleteRIP
THANK YOU ENT - that one had me extra bonkers lol!
You just like to torture us, Ent.
ReplyDeleteYou know you do.
Still think it's Mary Pickford.
Cyn
Matching scars?
ReplyDeleteUnder the first Timmy hint update, I posted this, so tell me what you think now:
Maggie McNamara and Grant Williams both have scars above their left eyebrow. However, after close scrutiny, Maggie's scar is longer and more to the right, whereas Grant's scar is rounder and over the left eyebrow a little more.
http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=Maggie+McNamara+&um=1&sa=N&tab=wi
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.briansdriveintheater.com/horror/grantwilliams/grantwilliams10.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.briansdriveintheater.com/grantwilliams.html&h=432&w=330&sz=16&hl=en&start=1&tbnid=6o0pdyFTKAnLoM:&tbnh=126&tbnw=96&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dgrant%2Bwilliams%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG
Oh - and every time I see the name "Timmy" I am reminded of
ReplyDelete"Timm-may" - from South Park
Cyn
So, I guess that's about the most useful "and it ain't..." we're gonna get... :P
ReplyDeleteSo, Ent you can be bought? ;) Heeheee
ReplyDeleteThanks for the hints!
me too Cyn. I actually toyed with a handicapped theory, but decided Timmy's skin affliction was enough to qualify.
ReplyDeleteDoes the scar have to be on Timmy's face? What if it is on a hand or something.
I can't see the name Timmy without thinking about Timmy... and Lassie.
ReplyDeleteI thought it was fairly well settled that MV is Jennifer Lopez. Listen to Waiting for Tonight, and you can tell it's not her voice (whereas the more recent suckie voice on her newer album(s) is actually her).
ReplyDeleteok, i am not sure how to word this, so bear with me.
ReplyDeletethe "a-lister at the time" remark.
it makes me think that is has to be someone who did NOT have cult status throughout life.
For instance: As an argument, James Dean. Arguably, he is still considered an a-lister. a dead a-lister, but one nonetheless because of his popularity even in death. So, I would rule him out based on the criteria
A lot of other names that have been mentioned still hold weight today, dead or alive.
So...
I am thinking this A-lister is someone who was "fleeting". Who had their moment in the sun, and then faded and became D-list.
Sal Mineo for instance. (And I am not offering this as a guess, but merely as an example)
And this person could very well still be alive today. Really old, mind you, just not a household name.
Did this help at all or am I running in circles?
I'm fascinated by Carole Lombard. The scar, the dildo incident and the plane crash. In the previous post someone said they wondered if 'The Life and Times of Timmy' imdicated he/she was on the cover of either magazine.
ReplyDeleteFor giggles:
Here's Carole on the cover of Life:
http://www.life.com/Life/covers/1938/cv101738.html
Here's Kay and Rex on the cover of Life:
http://cgi.ebay.com/Life-Magazine-September-30-1957-Happy-Birthday-50_W0QQitemZ120157238017QQihZ002QQcategoryZ280QQcmdZViewItem#ebayphotohosting
Judy on the cover of LIFE magazine:
http://cgi.ebay.com/NOVEMBER-22-1954-LIFE-MAGAZINE-JUDY-HOLLIDAY_W0QQitemZ7042037741QQcmdZViewItem
ent, in your own way you sound as frustrated about not being able to reveal BI's as most are solving them. Kind of funny considering you started this to 'unload' your burden.
ReplyDeleteLOL And no, unload does not mean that. Gutter minds.
Sure, it could be an A lister who faded into obscurity, but he had to be big enough at the time to play the male lead opposite the female Timmy in her first leading role.
ReplyDeleteTimmy worked steadily as a woman and kept getting better and better roles. He was very rarely the lead, but in memorable role he was cast as the lead opposite a very closeted A list at the time actor who also remained single for his entire life.
The other clue is that he was supposed to have remained single all his life, but if he was that closeted there may not be much out there about him being gay.
Hell, even Van Johnson (who allegedly left his wife for a chorus boy - and had a scar - was married once).
http://www.windycitymediagroup.com/gay/lesbian/news/ARTICLE.php?AID=12268
Well I'm glad someone thought it was worth a shot(my idea of the mag covers). I suppose it's probably way of base...who knows.
ReplyDeleteYeah, EL I know You do!!
Has anyone considered that the "scar" could be code for the "nose job?" Kay Kendall's nose job is pretty obvious, after all.
ReplyDeleteI took "Les Girls" back to the store today and rented "Harvey". Again, didn't spot any obvious scar--though with the wrinkles, it's hard to tell if you don't know what you're looking for. One thing I did notice--Josephine Hull is tiny. Even in heels, she's a full head shorter than any of the other women in the cast, and Jimmy Stewart has about a foot and a half on her. If she's our man, we're looking for a Timmy who's not just "slight" but bordering on little person. Maybe the "condition" that kept him from growing hair is some kind of pituitary dwarfism?
ReplyDeleteOr maybe it was leprosy?
ReplyDeleteI actually took the 'Alister' comment to mean that the A-Lister was, at the time of the BI, at the height of his career in terms of popularity, and not a rising star or up and comer. I didnt take it to mean that he faded off into obscurity.
ReplyDeleteI actually took the 'Alister' comment to mean that the A-Lister was, at the time of the BI, at the height of his career in terms of popularity, and not a rising star or up and comer. I didnt take it to mean that he faded off into obscurity.
ReplyDeleteHaha, Ent! I'm coming to LA soon, you can keep me company at the merch table and spill all your B.I. secrets.
ReplyDeleteI'll be sending lottery tickets! Thanks for the entertainment!!
ReplyDeleteEL, sorry I misquoted you on the MV deal. I don't think you told us all of this before, though, so I'm not blaming my Alzheimers on this one.
ReplyDeleteHi there. Here's a thought and a suggested protocol for getting to the bottom of this at long last:
ReplyDeleteEnt has now told us that, relatively early on in the process, both other boards and at least one person on this board guessed correctly, yet we still cannot come up with someone who fits all the clues perfectly. To me, that means (i) we are overthinking this! if it's someone lots of people managed to guess, then it's someone relatively obvious upon examination of candidates, and (ii) we should stop taking the clue so literally and work with the few assumptions/clues that we can be pretty sure are trustworthy.
What premises/assumptions should we work with? Below are my suggestions:
1. Shimmy WON an AA/GG for something (even if not the role Ent alludes to). Most of the original candidates bandied around on the board fit this criterion, although some of our later ones seem to be drifting away from it. Ent seems pretty insistent that it's an award WINNER (but not a Bafta).
2. Shimmy is one of the names on the list someone here kindly compiled of our early contenders/early guesses from other boards.
3. Shimmy is probably a contemporary of JJ, who is approximately 90 (whether JJ is AC or not). That probably rules out actresses whose heyday was the 30s or earlier. For example, if JJ is AC, he arrived in Hollywood (as a gopher/mailroom type) as a teenager in 1937. He probably wasn't really in the thick of the Hollywood scene for a few more years. That leaves us with a timeframe of roughly mid 1940s to maybe early 1960s. A lot of our early guesses fit this time frame, as does the supposed death of Timmy in the 1980s.
4. The then A-list never married actor (regardless of whether people knew at the time he was gay) is probably Montgomery Clift, maybe Farley Granger (was he considered A list then?). None of our other candidates were both A-list at the time and never married. I suppose we could throw Dean in for good measure because he was only in a few films anyway, but his star really ascended after death. Also, Granger is still alive, so I have a feeling it isn't him (because Ent seems willing to review who that actor is eventually, meaning the actor is probably dead). I think Clift is a really good choice. Ent probably knows off the top of his head (i.e., without needing to look it up) that Clift was a big star who was gay and never married. Heck, even I knew that, and I'm far from Hollywood and the entertainment world!
5. Cross-reference the award winners from the short list of early guesses and see which ones ever worked with Clift (or Granger and Dean of you want) and see what we are left with. Don't worry if the film they co-starred in was before Shimmy's win or after, or other points of chronology. That's probably where we are getting hung up.
6. Forget whether Shimmy was married/had a child/died or disappeared within a couple of years of the award, live past 1985, etc. Again, these types of details seem to be getting us hung up and may be misleading.
7. Whatever list we are left with, let's try to determine what kind of theater background each candidate had before getting good Hollywood roles. If it's extensive and long (e.g., Josephine Hull), then the candidate is probably not Shimmy.
8. Yes, I realize I am ignoring KK and Bogarde. I just have a very hard time believing that Timmy, who according to Ent was in Hollywood, U.S.A, would move all the way to England (not as easy to do back then as it would be now), fake an accent ALL THE TIME while over there, and re-establish his career. Plus, KK was in British films, not Hollywood films. I have a feeling JJ has a lot more scoop on Hollywood fixtures than he does on the British cinema!
Just a suggestion for your consideration!
>>I can't see the name Timmy without thinking about Timmy... and Lassie.
ReplyDeleteWell, Lassie WAS a boy actor pretending to be a girl actor. And Roddy McDowell was his/her other lead in Lassie Come Home, but makeup would not have been an issue.
sleuth-
ReplyDeleteThat seems like a very limited list of A-list actors ... I compiled a list at one point, and it was much longer (and I believe none of them were ever married).
Also, ENT repeated the hint of it being an A=list-er AT THAT TIME, implying that he is not well known now. I would venture to say that Montgomery Clift doesn't fit into that category (his name recognition is pretty high even now).
Here's my list of potential Closeted A-listers:
Dirk Bogarde
Montgomery Clift
James Dean
Farley Granger
Rock Hudson
Tab Hunter
Roddy McDowall
Sal Mineo
George Nader
Cesar Romero
Clifton Webb
Here's my list after excising the well-known ones:
Dirk Bogarde
Farley Granger
Sal Mineo
George Nader
Clifton Webb
It couldn't be someone like Alice Brady or Kay Kendall because they had too many contacts. Why would Kendall's extended family go along with this sham? Why would her family cooperate with a biographer, all these years later, especially if they could get more money by revealing the truth? Why wouldn't all of the friends and business associates of Alice Brady's father say "Wait a minute...Brady never had a daughter named Alice. He had a son..." As for the theory that Timmy took over the identity of the real Alice Brady, it would be like Kate Hudson dying or disappearing, and ten years later, someone who looks like Kate calling herself Kate comes on the scene. It just wouldn't work because people would talk.
ReplyDeleteBack then, it was easier to hide things from the press, but people gossiped, and the gossip eventually found its way into print into biographies and memoirs.
Most decent biographers will research; they are not going to just print any standard studio bio junk without verifying it. It makes a better story and makes for better sales if they find some discrepancy in the official stories. They will look up birth certificates and high school yearbooks; they go to the star's hometown and try to unearth the early affairs and annulled marriages and unknown illegitimate children. They try to interview old high school classmates and find letters and all that good stuff.
If this item is for real, it's going to be one the more obscure winners of the awards, it's not going to be anyone who has famous relatives, and it's not going to be anyone who was the subject of a major biography.
regarding MV..
ReplyDeleteShould we look at singers recently diagnosed with some form of cancer? I don't recall Ent ever mentioning cancer. Must be a new clue.
Perhaps the interview that didn't happen late last year had something to do with cancer?
sugaree...do you have any suggestions as to who it could be, then?
ReplyDeleteCalla:
ReplyDeleteYou're right, my list of actors is not exhaustive. I think we definitely should include Webb and McDowell. Hudson was married (albeit to a beard), so I'm not so sure about keeping him in. I mentioned why I didn't think it was Bogarde (was acting in England, not Hollywood). Tab Hunter is still alive. I doubt Ent would be willing to reveal the names involved if one of the parties was still alive. Were Nader and Romero really A-list at the time???
I didn't take what Ent said about "A-list at the time" the way you did. I think all we can conclude from that remark is that the actor was indeed an A-list actor at the time involved in the clue, regardless of whether anyone really remembers him now. That excludes actors who really didn't become very famous until after the role in question (which to me suggests Dean, maybe Mineo (was he ever considered A-list, even after death?) and Romero (I know a lot of us know him now as The Joker in the Batman series, but was he really a TOP actor back in the day?)
sleuth-
ReplyDeleteGood points, all. Okay, here's a new list, then, based upon your input:
Montgomery Clift
Farley Granger
Roddy McDowall
George Nader
Clifton Webb
We might be missing some, though...
Sleuth wrote:
ReplyDelete"Yes, I realize I am ignoring KK and Bogarde. I just have a very hard time believing that Timmy, who according to Ent was in Hollywood, U.S.A, would move all the way to England (not as easy to do back then as it would be now), fake an accent ALL THE TIME while over there, and re-establish his career. Plus, KK was in British films, not Hollywood films. I have a feeling JJ has a lot more scoop on Hollywood fixtures than he does on the British cinema!
Just a suggestion for your consideration!"
You always get more people to buy into a suggestion when you don't eliminate anyone based on what your own personal beliefs. Better to be all-inclusive - that way you're not isolating anyone right off the bat.
Calla, I think we are on to something. I looked at Webb and Clift (now I have to go back to work). Below are the lists of AA/GG winners (I'm operating from memory at this point) that filmed with Clift or Webb, as well as a recap of which of those names were in our earlier mix of guesses/guesses from other sites.
ReplyDeleteClift:
Liz Taylor
Katherine Hepburn
Jo Van Fleet
Mercedes McCambridge
Anne Revere
Deborah Kerr
Olivia de Haviland
Eva Marie Saint
Susan Kohner
Agnes Moorehead
Jennifer Jones
Anne Baxter
Recap: I think Van Fleet, Revere, and McCambridge (maybe Kohner?) were the names circulated here and on other boards early on.
Webb:
Anne Baxter
Elsa Lancaster
Gloria Grahame
Sophia Loren
Recap: I think Grahame was the only name mentioned here and on other boards early on. By the way, one of her sons is named "Timmy." (see imdb comment section) I personally don't think it's her but thought others might find it interesting.
Twisted Sister:
If you want to cross reference Bogarde and post what you find, I'm sure we'd all consider it.
My guesses
ReplyDeleteShimmy = Kay Kendall
A-List actor = Cesar Romero (famous, single, closeted because in the 50s "gay men were treated miserably, not only in Hollywood but in the rest of the country as well" not so much in the 30s & 40s)
Both played lead in Street of Shadows (1953)
JJ = Mickey Rooney (AC Lyles too rich)
JJ's wife = Elaine Devry or Carolyn Mitchell
Timmy = ?
My guess is not famous otherwise there will be no need for Shimmy. Timmy's resume would probably be mostly bit parts and small roles.
Still not feeling the KK for this....
ReplyDeleteWorking at this from anoth angle, has anyone found out why there's a 12 year gap in Clifton Webb's IMDB...?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteOooh, i just saw someone's mentioned Webb too! I'm finding this all too exciting..
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeletemy vote is still for alice brady and sure she had famous father in the theatre but maybe he liked himself some timmy and helped him with this.. a lot of family have their secrets maybe this is one... btw ent i remember you saying that you cant reveal the mv because of a contract that signed or something
ReplyDeleteacetomato777 said...
ReplyDeleteAhh Cornell, we hardly knew ye.
LOL when I read this.
Re KK
Her bio, "The Brief Madcap Life of KK" by Eve Golden is excepted on Amazon.com. You can read several pages of first chapter and learn aaaallll about her parents, grandparents, brother, sister, cousins, aunts, uncles, And the fact that as a kid she used to go swimming starkers in the North Sea.
do you think mv could be toni braxton .. did something just come out about her having cancer and then she denied it .. weird ...
ReplyDeleteback to timmy ... i am totally out of guesses and i have researched my little fingers to death ..
please dear ent .. give us a clue as to who it is not ...
thanks!
Here's a weird theory.
ReplyDeleteLooking at the pictures of Kay Kendall at the Getty site, 1945 Kay is simply not the same person as 1953 and later Kay.
Perhaps Kay was actually killed in the auto accident, and at that point, Timmy assumed Kay's identity, and became the Kay we know best.
KK fits in so many ways but the biography by Eve Golden and the Kay Kendall Leukemia Program Fund really throw me off that trail.
ReplyDeleteWhy? My theory suggests that Kay was a real person, and perhaps the gravy train of her family at that time.
ReplyDeleteIf Timmy assumed her identity, he simply extended her actual life for a few years.
Kay may actually be buried in her grave, and the Leukemia fund may be in her honor too.
I crossed out Alice Brady because women's clothes (gowns) in the 30s are revealing. Timmy couldn't get away with it. 50s was a very conservative decade.
ReplyDeleteShimmy has to be beautiful otherwise Timmy (who may have feminine features but not necessarily handsome as a male) wouldn't be able to get away with it. So I crossed out Anne Revere and Josephine Hull. Besides they don't fit the clues of winding up a career 3 or 4 years after an award.
Timmy died between 1980 and 1985 from AIDS (not likely from drugs or blood transfusion) meant that Timmy must still be sexually active about 1975 to 1985 . So Timmy couldn't be too old like late 70s or 80s. Because at that age people are more settled with their partners and lives rather than be sexually adventurous.
KK birth year was 1926 so it's safe to assume that Timmy's would be thereabout, give or take 5 years. Using KK bith year 1926 and death at 1985 would be 59 years. That is almost the same as Rock Hudson's.
Anyone could establish a charity organization. How "legitimate" it is depends on how much activities it has. A biography is even worst. There are a lot of biographies out there with very little facts.
I looked quickly at the resumes of Grnger, Nader (who seems like he was pretty B-list; all of his co-stars certainly were!), and McDowell. The only award winners I found (though this is not exhaustive as my research was quick) were Lancaster and Jane Darwell, neither of whom were early guesses on the board/other boards. So, to re-cap, the actresses who appeared with one of our potential A-list never-married actors, who fit the approximate timeframe in question, and who were earlier guesses here and elsewhere are
ReplyDeleteJo Van Fleet
Gloria Grahame
Mercedes McCambridge
Anne Revere
maybe Susan Kohner
Kay Kendall if you include Romero/Bogarde
Not to sound like a broken record, but I think we have to keep our focus not on the details of the story (which have not helped us solve this yet), but on the most basic assumptions we can make based on Ent's clue. Neither we, nor Ent, nor JJ know that this blind item is true. None of us was an eye witness who saw Shimmy naked or heard him/her confess to being both genders. What we do know is
Ent walked away from his conversation with JJ with 3 names: Shimmy the award winning actress; Timmy, whom he had probably never heard of but who appears to be a bit film actor of long ago who may have died in the 1980s; and a never-married actor who appeared with Shimmy in a film and was A-list at the time that film was made. Ent says he compared images of Shimmy and Timmy and though they had a similar scar. We also know that Shimmy was named on this board and others relatively early on and that JJ is about 90 years old and was probably telling a story involving someone who was roughly his contemporary. That's all we really know (assuming Ent is totally pulling our legs!), but it leaves us with the relatively short list I included above.
We can also make a couple of (in my opinion) reasonable assumptions:
1. Shimmy, Timmy, and the A-list actor are now dead. Ent alludes to having to be really careful in whom he names on this site in blind items. Namely someone who is still alive (for any of the 3 characters involved) would be too risky.
2. Shimmy must not have much of a family left. Naming someone whose children/close relatives are still alive could also get Ent in hot water. For example, Judy Holliday's son is still alive and works in film. If Ent named her I'm sure it would not go over well. Keep in mind, Ent has no proof this story is true. If Ent really is a lawyer, I'm sure he would be hesistant to repeat what JJ told him if he thought there was any chance that a close relative of Shimmy would find out that Ent was posting on the internet that Shimmy was a man (again, even if the blind item is true and Shimmy really was a man, Ent can't prove it, so he could still get into a lot of hassle)!
Every time I read these headlines I can't help but think of Timmy from South Park. TIMMY!
ReplyDeleteRegarding the MV cancer post. It was the person who was doing the actual singing that has breast cancer - not MV herself.
ReplyDeleteShe's doing well per EL. :)
I still would like to know who L was though. :)
ReplyDeletere: gloria grahame, check out this from her wikipedia entry:
ReplyDeleteIn 1960, even Hollywood was scandalized after her marriage to Tony Ray, Grahame's former stepson and son of her ex-husband Nicholas Ray whom she had divorced eight years previously. Gloria ended up having children by both father and son. Finding film roles difficult to obtain in Hollywood, she returned to the theater and continued to work as a stage actress.
wouldn't this rule her out? plus it's pretty dang juicy =)
Building on my earlier posts, I'm guessing that Timmy is Walter Burke, that Shimmy is McCambridge, and the closeted A-lister is Montgomery Clift. Does this fit the clue as written? NO. Burke and McCambridge were in the same film, actually (All the King's Men). However, after much research, I don't trust the clues and don't think Shimmy really was a man. I just think some people thought she was.
ReplyDeleteConsider Walter Burke:
Acted starting in childhood
"small in stature" (McCambridge was only 5'3")
Irish American
born in Brooklyn
never married
died in 1984
has what appears to be a deep vertical impression down the left side of his cheek
Consider that McCambridge was also short and Irish American and appears to have a bit of a vertical impression on her left cheek in some photos. She also had a deep voice and was a bit manly.
Are they the same person? No, obviously they were in the same movie and acted in Hollywood at the same time. I can see where a rumor could get started, though, and Burke fits some of the descriptions or assumptions about Timmy (at least the ones that seem trustworthy, namely having a scar, being of small stature, having an early stage career before films, never married, and dying in the 1980s).
sleuth,
ReplyDeleteThat's actually an extremely interesting theory, but the problem is that the info that Shimmy was indeed a man came from JJ's wife, who had lived with Shimmy and was therefore able to "verify" Shimmy's gender (exactly how she did is probably best left to the imagination). But I am *seriously* impressed by your researching skills.
Does anyone think that David O. Selznick's name just keeps popping up when looking for these women?? I keep wondering if there is a connection. He is connected to Martha Vickers and pretty much EVERYONE else.
ReplyDeleteMy head is spinning...I don't think I can wait 5 weeks! I wish everyday we would get an "and it ain't"
ReplyDeleteThe trouble with McCambridge is that she has credits on imdb going through the '80s. Remember EL's first hint (way back on August 31) said: "Timmy the actress gave up acting very soon after winning the award, so when you look at IMDB and see an actress worked for many years after her win, the guess doesn't make any sense despite the fact that everything else fits.".
ReplyDeleteEven if the details of JJ's story are mixed up--or the story is false entirely--I'm sure EL has somebody in mind, and has verified that part by checking IMDB. So we can discount everyone but the very short list of actresses who never did a "Love Boat" episode, etc.
did everyone give up? i wasnt on since yesterday morning and it seems like not much has been discussed....maybe walking away from it will clear our heads and the answer will jump at us...wishful thinking :)
ReplyDeleteJanele, I think we could look at any number of places and find many of these same names mentioned, but it would have no bearing on anything.
ReplyDeleteAs an example, when we were discussing the never married closeted actors, I looked up Richard Chamberlain to see if he ever did any movies. Well check out all the award winning A-listers that we were discussing thatare listed in the cast of Dr. Kildare:
http://imdb.com/title/tt0054535/
The same names just keep popping up!
I still say we're not going to guess correctly by looking at histories on IMDb and IBDb.
ReplyDeleteThe scar... is the single most tantalizing clue, and the one that's going to lead us to Timmy.
EL can see the scar in the famous movie with the famous award-winning role. One role, one film, one actress, one visible scar.
Ent didn't actually say on August 31 that HE'd looked up Shimmy on IMDB; he just told us that we shouldn't be focusing on actresses with long post-award IMDB credits. Ent could have just taken what JJ told him (that Shimmy dropped out of acting soon after her win) at face value.
ReplyDeleteRe JJ's wife, I think that is a fake detail added by Ent or JJ and therefore can't be trusted. Let's face it, for this blind item to be believable and lead us to spending hours trying to figure it out Ent had to give us some sort of eyewitness component. Otherwise, many of us would have read the item and said "yeah right, says who?"
Reading the clue literally has not led us to a clear answer. The actresses with short post-award IMDB bios are very few, and all of them have things about them that don't fit. That's why I think we have to focus on the most basic of premises and logical assumptions. I agree that the scar may be one such premise. Others are that the actress is dead, was mentioned early on on this site and others (the short list), doesn't have close family who will give Ent a lot of grief if he reveals her name, won an AA/GG, worked in Hollywood, and roughly was a contemporary of JJ. A role in a film with an unmarried then-A-list actor is also worth checking. The other stuff just seems to send us chasing our tails!
Sugaree wrote:
ReplyDeleteIf this item is for real, it's going to be one the more obscure winners of the awards, it's not going to be anyone who has famous relatives, and it's not going to be anyone who was the subject of a major biography.
I agree absolutely with everything Sugaree said. And yes, the same names keep popping up, and people are recycling the same old theories. Also, I thought I had totally burned out on this BI this weekend--but I just can't get it out of my head.
Ent seems really pissed and frustrated today, probably from reading all our weekend ravings that this BI must be BS. I actually feel bad about some of the snarky things I wrote this weekend (forgive me, Enty? kiss and make up?) But WHY doesn't anyone fit all the clues?
Sleuth's points are interesting, and I agree that we need to get back to basics. I'd boil it down to just four points:
1. The answer must be fairly obvious, since it was guessed early on by several sites. (This tends to convince me that her award was the AA.)
2. Shimmy must be someone relatively obscure whose life hasn't been thoroughly documented or researched and who wasn't a longtime stage star before coming to Hollywood.
3. Shimmy couldn't have any living relatives that are publicly known, and that includes adopted children.
4. Shimmy has to disappear from films "over the course of three or four years" after the win. Ent surely must have at least checked Shimmy's credits on imdb or wikipedia. (If not, yeesh.)
The problem is that all this leads to a dead end. I can't find an award-winning actress with no family and a short after-win career who didn't have an eminently verifiable career/death:
Obscure:
-- Jo Van Fleet and Anne Revere both worked too long.
Short careers after win:
-- Josephine Hull, Alice Brady, and Marie Dressler were all famous VIPs (Broadway/vaudeville) for DECADES before their win.
-- Carole Lombard had probably the most well-publicized and hard-to-fake death in Hollywood history.
-- Kay Kendall didn't live long enough AFTER her win to fit the BI.
Plus, the lives of both Lombard and Kendall have been thoroughly researched and documented with photos, public documents, etc.
(Mercedes McCambridge is also interesting, but it seems as if everyone's nana thinks its her, in which case a lot more than 10 people must have known about it. Also, if it's her, why would Ent insist Shimmy had such a short career?)
Those are the main suspects that I can remember from this weekend; I may be missing someone here. But the bottom line is that no one fits all the clues.
On the Timmy front, Kenny Baker had a flourishing Hollywood career starring in B movies and wouldn't have the motivation that Ent gave Timmy for switching genders. Also, Baker was high-profile enough that Shimmy would certainly have been recognized. That's why you can find so many videos of him on the Web, 70 YEARS after his heyday.
Based on Ent's description, I'm guessing there are NO videos of Timmy on the Web, and also probably NO (or precious few) solo portraits at all. Just the "cast photos" that Ent mentions.
ok, great summation, harpo068. I'm going to throw out an idea that occured to me last night that was too preposterous to post. For some reason, now I'm posting it. I looked up actors that were 5'9" on IMDB that died in 1985 and found a name I have never heard of, John Wexley. Actor, screenwriter, blacklisted. I think there is one overlap with the year before KK died. After I showed a young co-worker a picture of KK, she exclaimed, "That's a man, baby!" and I got back on the KK bus. I know there's too much "autobiography" but it was an interesting excursion to consider John Wexley. And he was born in NYC, NY.And he's not credited after 1959. Another problem.
ReplyDeleteAnd I can't find a SINGLE picture of John Wexley. So no nose comparisons.
ReplyDeleteInside Scoop:
ReplyDeleteA.C. Lyles was directly contacted today (after several people spent days trying to figure this out and enlisted the help of some personally known Hollywood heavy-weights) - he is not the source of the Timmy blind item. I know that this is a bit frustrating, that was my first reaction, but I had to let you good detectives in on it. My friends and I will be going back to the drawing board regarding the possible source ourselves. With all the highs and lows I must say this has been really fun.
Keep researching!
is this timmy and shimmy?......
ReplyDeletehttp://img473.imageshack.us/img473/3964/timmyshimmyup9.th.jpg
kept thinking (like everyone else) that the two cast photos that ent published (miss liberty and the golden horseshoe review) must have timmy somewhere in them. thanks to some earlier posts found the two photos online, both in larger versions.
when i looked at the larger version of the late 1950's cast photo of the golden horseshoe review
http://davelandweb.com/goldenhorseshoe/
i kept being drawn to the cowboy who is in the center rear wearing a black hat. both he and miss kay kendall share a remarkably similar face including browline, nose shape,cheekbone structure,jaw line, chin shape and neck length. check out the comparison photos i put online. is this timmy and shimmy?
Wow, CM - that's a very stunning likeness! And JJ could be just about anyone. There are quite a few of those old players around.
ReplyDeleteYou guys really are astounding. Sleuth, Harpo, Sugaree, CM, all of you - really really outstanding work. I'm giving you a standing ovation!!
Someone upthread mentioned Susan Kohner as a slim possibility. Definitely not Susan. Though nominated for "Imitation of Life", she didn't win. Her upbringing was covered in the press extensively at the time; her father was super-agent Paul Kohner, her mother Mexican actress Lupita Tovar. Plus, she married menswear designer John Weitz and they are the parents of the Weitz brothers who produced and directed the "American Pie" movies, among others.
ReplyDeleteHoly crap, CM!!! Now that I'm buying. Same shaped heads, same nose, same chin. Really weird if they're NOT the same person!!!
ReplyDelete"I looked up actors that were 5'9" on IMDB that died in 1985 and found a name I have never heard of, John Wexley. "
ReplyDeleteRebecca - that was a great idea...only I'd suggest looking for 5'10" or 5'11" ...because height-challenged men sometimes "fudge" about their height. ;)
The picture comparison posted by CM is uncanny.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking... We have all noticed that the Kay Kendall photos from 1945 and 1946 look NOTHING like the photos taken after 1951 (it is not just the nose). What if the real Kay Kendall (who was only in one British film that flopped) stepped out of acting for some reason and was replaced by someone else (maybe her brother?). She apparently did nothing between 1946 - 1950, and the nose job could have been simply a diversion to explain why "she" looked so different when she came back. Maybe the real Kay Kendall really DID die of leukemia, but sometime prior to 1950.
Okay, I took the other photo and enlarged it to see if I could see anything and the only thing I notice is that the person (man?) on the upper right of the photo looks like a woman. I don't think any of the other faces match the photo of Kay Kendall or the one blown up by CM, but the one I'm pointing to may.
ReplyDeleteGo here to see the photo. And no, my name is not Emmie, my first initial is M and some people call me Emmie as a nickname.
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j110/EmmieR1/JJ1resized.jpg?t=1189044462
Y'all know I"m not on the Kay Kendall train. Also, so far I haven't found any of the "X looks JUST LIKE Y!" postings to be remotely plausible. However, these two faces do appear to have a striking similarity in bone structure that you rarely see between a man and a woman, especially at first glance.
ReplyDeleteSo I had to zoom in and look really carefully to see if they could be the same person...and then I could see the differences:
-- His chin is more prominent and shaped differently than hers (his is longer and rounder).
-- There is a difference in the jawline on the left side of their faces. His jaw is squarer than hers. (Look at the highlight just below his sideburns.)
-- The facial similarity is partly a trick of lighting, magnified by the highlight on the left side of his photo.
So I don't think they're the same person (regardless of what Ent eventually reveals). But just out of curiosity, do we know the year of the man's photo? Was it before or after Kay's career?
Still--kudos to you, CM! You have incredible sleuthing skills and a great eye. I'm really impressed.
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ReplyDeleteHarpo, I really think that the lighting could make a difference and I know that you could take six photo's of a person and they could look different in every shot. The similarities are far greater than the differences in both photo's. It's very possible this is the same person.
ReplyDeletekr90275 -- Thanks SO much for sharing the inside scoop with us. Please keep us posted if you find out more!
ReplyDeleteHowever -- and I'm not at all challenging your scoop here, or trying to feed anyone's fevered imagination -- but I just have to wonder... if someone DID contact the real JJ, would he admit it? Seems to me he might have real good reasons to keep his name WAY out of this.
(I guess I had this on the wrong board)
ReplyDeleteThis is not my find but Barbara K. E. on another board posted a very suspect name for Timmy. Walter Merrill. He made tons of movies most of them uncredited roles and he had a gap between 1951 and 1957. He died in 1985. Can't find a picture of him either. Very limited info that I could find. If this has already posted or been researched debunked then please forgive me. I tried to search it but couldn't make it work. I have a mac and don't think the commands are the same. If it hasn't please look him up on IMDB and see what you think. I am giddy at the moment because I had given up but thank you Barbara for keepin my dream alive!!
I forgot to add he is also 5'10
ReplyDeleteTwisted--
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't dispute that, it COULD be the same person, especially if they had surgery on their jawline and/or chin. That's why I was wondering when the man's photo was taken.
Also, I admitted that I'm biased against believing that Kay is Timmy, so I'm more likely to believe the differences than someone who is more open-minded about it.
The current theory seems to be that 1940s Kay and 1950s Kay are two different people. So I'm taking a look at that now. I just think it would be a lot harder to pull that off than to simply create a new identity.
Kay also doesn't match the info in the BI, as far as I can tell, although I'm going to double-check with this new theory in mind.
Still, the way things are going, it wouldn't surprise me at all if Ent reveals Kay. But he would have to do a whole lot of 'splainin before I would believe it.
Look--we have a new HINT from ENT and he ruled out Shirley Booth and Sandy Dennis!
I am stuck on the Kay Kendall thing for the moment. Maybe the 'Miss Liberty' photo be a clue that Shimmy isn't from the US?
ReplyDeleteBeing a relative newbie, I'm not sure how this works now--do we all just move over to the thread for the new hint and continue our discussion there?
ReplyDeleteAlso, nobody seems to be using the message board, as far as I can tell. Am I missing something?
Here is something on KK that has a few things in it about suspended from her contract for turning down parts, the differences between how she looked in the 40's, and comments she made about looking like a female impersonator.
ReplyDeletehttp://eprints.gla.ac.uk/3370/01/geraghtykendallfinal.pdf
Harpo I am new too since the weekend so I only hope I am doing it right. I moved over from the big thread because no one was posting there any more and this seemed to be where it was moved. If I am doing something wrong please correct me:)
ReplyDeleteI just stumbled across this quote on Peter Finch's bio page:
ReplyDelete"Despite being married three times, Finch also had highly-publicised affairs with actresses Kay Kendall and Mai Zetterling."
He looks pretty hetero in his bio. Is that a strike against Kay Kendall being Timmy?
jusshopin, we seem to be the only ones left here -- let's go over to the newest thread, the hint that Ent just posted. There seems to be more activity over there.
ReplyDeleteCalla I think we are on the newest one now with the latest timmy hint.
ReplyDeleteThe two highly pub relationships may have been the infamous bearding that the studios did then.
Here is something... Right before ENT posted that no one had mentioned Timmy, someone posted on the other thread about Walter Merrill.
ReplyDeleteThe IMDB for him is interesting... tons of bid (uncredited) parts with a break between 1950-1957 and the bio fits (from PA and died in 1985). If you look at the bottom of the page for Publicity, there are two articles listed in 'Motion Picture World'. The first, titled "Walter Merrill Signed by Warner" is dated 8/7/1926. Interestingly, at that time (and until 1929), Warner Bros was located on Sunset Blvd. The second article is titled "Merrill Goes West" (dated 6/12/1926). Although it is probably conisidence that two of the photos on the original BI are of SUNSET BLVD and Disney's Horseshoe Review (a WESTERN), I think it is interesting.
"When his studio contract ended he basically reversed his original trek to LA and began performing in small town theatres again, but this time as a woman. Timmy traveled and did the theatre route for almost two years while building up a resume and a background for his new persona."
ReplyDeleteI am intrigued by the use of the word "traveled." Could that mean traveled...to England? (and established an identity as KK?) It would be helpful if someone could figure out if there's evidence to support the existence of KK's performing parent and grandparent mentioned in her bios.