My one real problem with this film is that the actress looked nothing like the historical Lillian Russell.
There are many images of Lillian Russell online, at pages like http://www.judgmentofparis.com/Lillian1.htm. You can see for yourself that (with all due respect to Alice Faye), the real Lillian Russell was actually much prettier!
Hi,one can never be too rich or have too many friends. Did u know Lillian Russel was the model for Mae West? She created her gay 90's persona with a combo of Lillian and Mae's mother. According to one book Darryl Zanuck approached Mae about playing Lillian but she balked at playing a mother and gal who loses her man. When she demanded she write her own risque dialogue,Zanuck withdrew his offer.
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Yeah, and Maria Von Trap looked nothing like Julie Andrews...
shareThe historical Lillian Russell actually had many different looks as she aged. She hardly looked like her younger self as she ate her way into her portly self whereas the lovely and always under-rated and extermely talented Alice Faye, who had more moxies than most of the men working at 20th Century-Fox, keep her lovely physical appearance throughout her life. Lillian Russell's younger self may have been prettier than the lovely Alice Faye, but the older Alice Faye was certainly the prettier of the two throughout hers.
shareDefinitely agree, Diosprometheus! Even though I've seen plenty of '30s and '40s movies, I knew very little about Alice Faye until recently, when my husband bought the two boxed sets of Alice Faye movies, which came with some nice little "short subjects" in which her two daughters and some film experts talked about her life. That prompted me to look her up a bit on the Internet - and she did indeed look very "together" even in her later years. I think the young Lillian Russell and Alice Faye were more "pretty," rather than great beauties like Elizabeth Taylor or Grace Kelly (IMHO).
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