Joy Page, Actress: 1924-2008
Best known for her role as the beautiful Bulgarian bride who was willing to do anything to secure letters of transit for her husband and herself in the classic film Casablanca, actress Joy Page died April 18 of complications from stroke and pneumonia. She was 83.
Though her stepfather was studio head Jack L. Warner (her real father was silent Mexican film star José Paige aka Don Alvarado), Page was unable to get a studio contract with Warner Bros. She filmed Casablanca at age 17, but it was her last work for the studio.
She went on to appear in television and star in such films as Kismet and The Bullfighter and the Lady.
Filed under: News, Obituaries
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I like her work in Casablanca, Kismet and perhaps especially Bullfighter and the Lady, one of my favorite Boetticher films.
RIP.
Aw, another one. :-(
She was great in Casablanca.
RIP.
I think I only saw her in Casablanca, but that’s quite a screen credit to be known for. Sad that her talent (and her family connections) didn’t help her earlier in her career.
A strikingly beautiful woman who always stood out in a small part in one of my favorite movies.
It was such a key moment too when she’s saved from the clutches of Renault by softy Rick who lets her husband win at roulette.
Goddamnit, I love that movie.
I liked her in Casablanca too. As Daniel said that’s quite a film to appear in.
Alexander, the breadth of your movie watching continues to scare me.
“Goddamnit, I love that movie.”
That’s because you are Rick. And LiC is your place.
“Alexander, the breadth of your movie watching continues to scare me.”
Me too. Sometimes I wish I could clone myself so I could just sit in the dark while my double conducts the business of living.
LiC is even classier than Rick’s joint. Though I wish Ingrid Bergman would stop by one of these days. drools
Quick–what’s Armond White’s opinion on Casablanca? Is it a populist work of exceedingly considerable moral weight, reminding us of the vitality of human understanding, and a partly meditative attempt to truckle to the higher calling of civil and societal demands pertaining to personal responsibility or does it betray the pandering, unsophisticated banalities of an amoral charlatan, Michael Curtiz, whose unseriousness and cliched, base tropes result in a nugatory, senseless experience of dishonest smugness?
I’ve got to know which it is because I don’t want to love a wretched movie.
LOL! An excellent impersonation. But you know how it is with Armond. Both takes are simultaneously correct and incorrect.
The beauty part of Casablanca? Andrew Sarris said it decades before me: It is “the happiest of happy accidents, and the most decisive exception to the auteur theory.” In other words: Sometimes — rarely, but sometimes — great movies are the result of pure happenstance. That is both the scariest and greatest thing about the medium.
Great dig, Alexander. It’s even better since your typical prose is consistently more enlightening, more focused, and more readable than his piece was.
Joe, that ties in to the conversation we had about Bad Bad Leroy Brown in a way…good movies can happen miraculously from out of nowhere. Indeed the beauty of Casablanca is that if you look at any one of its component parts, it seems rather mundane for the time…but put together and add a touch of magic…et voila, you have a classic.
Thanks, Sartre and thanks, Daniel for the very kind words.
Joe, I agree with you. Auteur, schmauteur, Casablanca is one perfect film.