MovieChat Forums > Sweet Smell of Success (1957) Discussion > Julie Andrews uncredited cameo?

Julie Andrews uncredited cameo?


I've seen this movie @ 3 times, but only recently on DVD. I swear to you I'm 90% certain Julie Andrews walks in front of the camera during one scene at a night spot. It is the scene where Tony Curtis is talking to Otis Elwell, trying to plant the smear about Dallas. A beautiful brunette walks in front of the table, distracting Elwell. I've been able to halt the scene and am very certain it is Julie Andrews. Can anyone confirm this?

It seems likely. A bulk of the film was shot on location in New York City, very rare for the time. Andrews would have been on Broadway doing "My Fair Lady" at the time (it opened in March 1956). She was certainly still in NYC in early 1957 to do "Cinderella" live on CBS. She would have been @ 21-22 at the time.

If anyone cares to look at the film, go to the Sidney/Elwell scene and see if the brunette passing their table resembles a very young Julie Andrews. It's bugging me!

reply

I watched the movie before reading your inquiry and, today, checked the scene selections. Not only do I agree with you about that scene, where a woman in a black gown walks across the screen and pauses during Tony Curtis's and David White's dialogue, but I think I also noticed her in two crowd scenes. One is the one where Burt Lancast and Tony Curtis are on a street corner at night and a few men are roughing up an old man outside a club. A woman is shouting for them to stop. I think the voice is dubbed; not unusual in order scenes. It does not SOUND like Julie Andrews but she looks a lot like her. There's something about the mouth. But this shot is far away, whereas the shot in the restaurant is a very close-up shot of a woman who seriously resembles Julie Andrews. By the way, David White, who plays Elwell, is uncredited! He has a pretty big role. I looked on IMDB and he is, indeed, listed as the uncredited actor of this role. If a movie can have a person in a role this big and let him go uncredited, why wouldn't it be tricky enough to have a cameo by a major up-and-coming star? Of course, were the INTERIORS filmed in New York? There are enough exteriors to have merited shooting the whole thing there. David White, by the way, is, of course, Larry Tate from the BEWITCHED TV series.
Anyway, I second the notion that Julie Andrews walks on during the restaurant scene with Tony Curtis and David White.

reply

Cool. I'll have to check it out myself. lol

It's a dirty job, but I pay clean money for it.

reply

Some of the interiors - at least of the nightclubs and restaurants - seem pretty cramped, so I think it's possible that a large amount of the movie must have been shot on location. Hunsecker's apartment was probably a set, likewise Sidney's office/apartment, but the remainder of the public watering holes and the television studio look like the real McCoy.

If voices were overdubbed, I'm not surprised. Anytime film studios of yore shot anything outside the voices were later overdubbed. If they shot the film in NYC and went back to the coast to edit and add music, etc. they would not have had Julie Andrews (if indeed that's her) around to dub what was probably ad-libbed anyway.

It's like the 1965 black comedy classic "The Loved One." Most of the film takes place outside, and EVERYTHING is overdubbed. Even in some of the interior scenes. I'd give a tooth to find out what Rod Steiger REALLY said to Anjanette Comer in the cosmetics room about tending to the infant's corpse. It had to be really offensive for them to re-dub his line, although I can't tell what's he's actually saying.

But that's a comment for another page...

reply

I can verify that the interior shots at both Toots Shors and the Elysian Room are authentic. The same goes for 21 where all filming took place on one sunday. (the restaurant being closed)
Proprietor Maxwell (Mac) Kriendler had a cameo and the restaurant was promised a $10,000 fee which was never paid!

reply

In the film GUYS & DOLLS Jerry Orbach has a cameo and people on that NG disgree
"I" didn't notice Julie
See some stars here
http://www.vbphoto.biz/

reply

These days screen credits go on for five minutes. You learn not only who played every role but most of the extras, who drove the car to the set and who went for donuts. But in the 50's, credits were very limited. If you look at the opening credits for this film, you'll see that only 11 actors are listed. And the closing credits? There are none, except for Burt Lancaster's production company. Many actors had significant speaking parts but if they weren't among the top 10-12 roles, they didn't get screen credit. David White in Sweet Smell of Success is one of them. So is the lady who walks past his table, whoever she is.

Maybe a better question is: if she's not Julie Andrews, who is she? The camera obviously wants us to get a good look at her, so she's a little more than just an extra. Was there a model in New York at the time who looked like this?

reply

The lady does look a lot like Julie looks in pictures taken from this period- with very dark hair and similar cut. She was certainly in New York at the time. She could have done it as a lark, especially since the elegant, sexy dress and the leering look David White gives her were contrary to her image at the time. (The woman trying to break up the fight in the previous scene doesn't look like the same woman at all to me.)

The problem I have with it is that Julie, while not the major movie star she would become in the next decade, was already a noted performer. She'd had two Broadway hits, "The Boy Friend", (1954) and My Fair Lady, (March 1956). She'd been on the Ed Sullivan show twice and on the cover of Life Magazine. She'd been on TV in "High Tor" with Bing Crosby and did Cinderella live on 3/31/57 before over 100 million people, (SSS was released three months later). It would seem to me that she would have rated a speaking part, even if she was doing a cameo just as herself.

I have three biographies of Julie- by John Cottrell, by Robert Windeler and by James Arntz and Thomas Wilson. None of them mention Julie being in this film. They do mention Julie spending nearly all her time on the play, which included matinees. She's quoted as complaining that she has no time or energy for anything else and is always turning down invitations to parties, etc. Windeler's book has a telling quote:

"But Julie Andrews was not thinking of movies in the late 1950's, except to attend the occasional special film. (She and Tony accepted as one of the 'perks' of her new stardom, reserved seats to the sold out Around the World in 80 Days.) In fact, she had no show-business aspirations beyond My Fair Lady, she said "I'd like to have worked awfully hard for another two years, then marry, then have lots of children. I really wouldn't mind retiring or working in London on one thing a year. I haven't much desire to go onto bigger or better things-what could be bigger and better than this?"

That, of course wouldn't rule out an appearance as an extra in SSS as a lark or for a friend. But the Windeler book lists in detail the offers she got in that period and the things she did but says nothing about this film. I suspect if that's really Julie, something would have been said about it at some point.

For another example of a supposed film appearance by a future star long before their "official" film debut see "Footlight Parade, (1933). That one turned out to be a near-look-alike and this one probably is, too.

reply

I've never noticed this. I'll be sure to look for Julie the next time I watch this film.

"Dry your eyes baby, it's out of character."

reply

After finding the scene on the DVD and able to hit pause and step through the frames, I think it clearly does NOT look like Julie Andrews. Just my humble opinion, of course.

reply

Very unlikely. First, the Blu-Ray commentary says the scene was shot on a set in Hollywood, not New York. Plus, though the lady in question slightly resembles Andrews at a glance, she also looks a few years older than what Andrews was at that time. So, I'd say 99.99999999999999999% "no."

reply

I totally agree. I watched it off a VHS tape I made from this month's viewing on TCM. I slowed down the tape when I too thought I saw Julie Andrews and in my opinion I believe it was her for sure.

reply

I’m not sure about Julie, but that’s one beautiful lady who accompanies the guy at the entrance to ‘21’ who berates Sidney for not getting him better publicity ('it's a dirty job but I pay clean money for it'). Does anyone know the name of the actress?

reply