Lizabeth Virginia Scott (born Emma Matzo; September 29, 1921 – January 31, 2015)[1][2] was an American actress, singer and model for the Walter Thornton Modeling Agency,[3] known for her “smoky voice”[4] and being “the most beautiful face of film noir during the 1940s and 1950s”.[5] After understudying the role of Sabina in the original Broadway and Boston stage productions of The Skin of Our Teeth, she emerged in such films as The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946), Dead Reckoning (1947), Desert Fury (1947), and Too Late for Tears (1949). Of her 22 films, she was the leading lady in all but one. In addition to stage and radio, she appeared on television from the late 1940s to early 1970s.
| Lizabeth Scott | |
|---|---|
| Born | Emma Matzo September 29, 1921 |
| Died | January 31, 2015 (aged 93) |
| Other names | Elizabeth Scott |
| Occupation | |
| Years active | 1942–1972 |
 | |
Lizabeth Scott Wiki, Biography
Emma Matzo (Ema Macová in Slovak) was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania,[6][7] the oldest of six children born to Mary Penyak[8] and John Matzo (Ján Maco in Slovak).[9] Several conflicting accounts have been given as to her parents’ ethnic origins,[10][11][12][13][14] with most mentioning English, Rusyn,[15][16][17][18] Russian, and Ukrainian.[19][20][21][22][23] The family lived in the Pine Brook section of Scranton, where her father owned Matzo Market.[24] Scott characterized her father as a “lifelong Republican”, which influenced her capitalistic views. The love of music influenced Scott’s voice.[25][how?]
Scott attended Marywood Seminary, a local Catholic girls’ school.[26] She transferred to Scranton’s Central High School, where she performed in several plays.[8] After graduating, she spent the summer working with the Mae Desmond Players[27] at a stock theater in the nearby community of Newfoundland.[28] She then worked at the Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia.[29] That autumn, she attended Marywood College, but quit after six months.[30]
In 1939, with her father’s help, the 17-year-old Scott moved to New York City, where she stayed at the Ferguson Residence for Women.[31] In New York she was a model for the Walter Thornton agency.[32] Scott read Maxwell Anderson’s Mary of Scotland, a play about Mary, Queen of Scots and Elizabeth I, from which she derived the stage name “Elizabeth Scott.” She later dropped the “E”.[33]
In late 1940, an 18-year-old Scott auditioned for the national tour of Hellzapoppin. From several hundred women, she was chosen by John “Ole” Olsen and Harold “Chic” Johnson, stars of the original Broadway production. She was assigned to one of three road companies, Scott’s being led by Billy House and Eddie Garr.[34] Landing her first professional job, she was billed as “Elizabeth Scott”.[35] The tour opened November 3, 1940, at the Shubert Theatre in New Haven, Connecticut. She did blackouts and other types of sketch comedy[36][37] during her 18-month tour of 63 cities across the US.[6]
Scott then returned to New York in 1942, where she starred as Sadie Thompson in John Colton’s play Rain, which ran on the then equivalent of off-Broadway. It was her first starring role, but no drama critic reviewed the play.[38] But the producer of a Broadway play, Michael Myerberg, did see the show.[39]
Myerberg had just moved an experimental production of Thornton Wilder’s new play The Skin of Our Teeth starring Tallulah Bankhead from New Haven to the Plymouth Theatre. Impressed by Scott’s Sadie Thompson, he hired her as the understudy for Bankhead, despite Bankhead’s protests. Bankhead had signed a contract forbidding an understudy for the Sabina role, which Myerberg breached by hiring Scott. Previously, Bankhead had controlled the production by not showing up for rehearsal. Now, Myerberg could simply put Scott in Bankhead’s place.[40] Scott has acknowledged that Myerberg used her to keep Bankhead under control and that Bankhead was furious about the situation.[6] Describing her own experience with Bankhead, Scott recalled, “She never spoke to me, except to bark out commands. Finally, one day, I’d had enough. I told her to say ‘please,’ and after that she did.”[31] During her eight months[41] as the understudy, Scott never had an opportunity to substitute for Bankhead, as Scott’s presence guaranteed Bankhead’s. During her time with the production, Scott played the role of “Girl/Drum Majorette.”[42][43] The play ran from November 18, 1942 to September 25, 1943.
The rivalry between the two actresses is cited as an alternative to the Martina Lawrence-Elizabeth Bergner origin[44] of Mary Orr’s short story, The Wisdom of Eve (1946),[45] the basis of the 1950 film All About Eve. Broadway legend had it that Bankhead was being victimized by Scott, who supposedly was the basis for the fictional Eve Harrington.[46]
Rumors of an affair between the married Myerberg and the new understudy were rife.[40] Scott has said that her fondest memory was of Myerberg telling her, “I love you,” but the two eventually parted.[47]
The continuing feud between Myerberg and Bankhead worsened Bankhead’s ulcer, leading her to not renew her contract.[48] Anticipating Bankhead’s move, Myerberg suddenly signed 39-year-old Miriam Hopkins in March,[49] catching Scott off-guard. Bankhead’s final zinger to Scott was “You be as good as she (Hopkins) is.”[50] For a brief period, Scott understudied for Hopkins. While Scott liked Hopkins much more than Bankhead, she was still disappointed about being passed over for the Sabina role.[6]
Scott eventually quit in disappointment. Before quitting, Scott replaced Hopkins for one night.[51] When Scott finally went on stage as Sabina, she was surprised by both the approval and fascination of the audience.[6] Her replacement as understudy was another future femme fatale, 19-year-old Gloria Hallward, soon to be known as Gloria Grahame. When Michael Myerberg pulled Grahame from the play for another experimental production in Philadelphia[52]—Star Dust[53]— no understudy was available when Gladys George took over for Hopkins.[54]
On August 30, 1943, Scott once again played Sabina when George was ill.[55] Joe Russell was in the Plymouth Theatre audience that night. Afterward, when a friend from California came to New York on one of his biannual visits to Broadway, Russell told him about Scott’s performance. Russell’s friend was an up-and-coming film producer for Warner Bros., Hal B. Wallis.[56]
Personal life
In May 1969, the future wedding of Scott to oil executive William Dugger of San Antonio, Texas, was announced[198] after a two-year engagement.[199] In late 1969, musician Rexino Mondo was helping Scott decorate her fiance’s mansion on Mulholland Drive before the wedding. She “introduced me to her fiance, Texas oil baron William Lafayette Dugger, Jr. He was in his late forties, of medium build, good-looking, with dark hair, a warm personality, and a strong handshake.” Dugger himself described Scott as “A misunderstood soul searching for love. Her outward appearance is just a shell.”[200] Dugger planned to make a film in Rome starring Scott, but he suddenly died on August 8, 1969. A handwritten codicil to his will leaving half his estate to his fiancée was contested by Dugger’s sister, Sarah Dugger Schwartz.[201] The will was judged invalid in 1971.[202]
Previous to Dugger, several books claimed, Scott was a mistress of Hal B. Wallis, then married to actress Louise Fazenda.[82][203][204][205] Wallis had a falling out with Scott around the time of Bad for Each Other, with recriminations on Wallis’ part. After Scott freelanced for a few years, Wallis made an effort to revive the relationship by making Scott the leading lady opposite Elvis Presley in Loving You (1957), as it might be his last chance to star Scott in anything.[206] After shooting was completed, Scott walked away from film acting to try her hand at singing. The 14-year-relationship that began at the Stork Club in 1943 came to an end. Scott herself knew the relationship was over—only Wallis remained in denial. After Louise’s death in 1962, Wallis went into a depression and became a recluse before marrying Martha Hyer in 1966. In later life, he was reticent on the subject of Scott,[207] despite an unjealous Hyer urging him to include Scott and his other mistresses in his autobiography. Though Casablanca was the film of which Wallis was most proud, the ones he watched repeatedly were those starring Lizabeth Scott. Even during his second marriage, Wallis continued to screen Scott’s films at home, night after night.[208]
Scott herself tended toward secrecy about her personal relationships and publicly disparaged former dates who told all to the press. Once their date appears in the press, “‘the man goes off [my] date list’ … ‘I think,’ said Miss Scott, ‘that gentlemen don’t tell.'”[209] In 1948, Burt Lancaster said of Scott: “Becoming her close friend … is ‘a long stretch at hard labor.'”[210] In the period between 1945 and the 1970s, the press reported Scott dating Van Johnson,[211] James Mason,[212] Helmut Dantine,[213] plastic surgeon Gregory Pollock,[214] Richard Quine,[215] William Dozier,[216] Philip Cochran,[217] Herb Caen,[218] Peter Lawford,[219] Anson Bond of the clothing store chain family,[220] Seymour Bayer of the pharmaceutical family,[221] David Mountbatten, Marquess of Milford Haven,[222] race-track owner Gerald “Jerry” Herzfeld,[223] and Eddie Sutherland,[224] among others. Burt Bacharach dated Scott during his breakup with Angie Dickinson.[225] According to Bacharach: “She personified what I love about a woman, which is not too feminine but a little bit masculine. Just the strength and the coolness and the separation from the frilly woman who is always touching you and wanting something … I think Diane Keaton had that kind of quality.”[226] In 1953, Scott was briefly engaged to architect John C. Lindsey.[227]
Despite the Confidential article, Scott remained active on the Hollywood dating circuit, but the allegations continued to haunt her. A friend, David Patrick Columbia, commented: “One night driving her home from a party we’d been to, she remarked apropos of nothing we’d been talking about, ‘and you know David, I am not a lesbian.'”[116]
Later years
Scott made her final film appearance in her second comedy noir, Pulp (1972), alongside Michael Caine and Mickey Rooney in a nostalgic pastiche of noir cliches.[228] The director and screenwriter, Mike Hodges, spent a long time coaxing Scott out of retirement to fly to Malta for the shooting. Scott said that while she enjoyed Malta, she was not pleased that most of her footage was cut out—eight scenes in all.[229] Hodges for his part reported that Scott was challenging to work with while shooting and struggled with nerves. Despite disagreements among the cast, crew, and past critics, Pulp, as with the 1949 Too Late for Tears, is considered an artistic success by film historians.[230]
After that, Scott kept away from public view and declined most interview requests.[231] From the 1970s on, she was engaged in real estate development[232] and volunteer work for various charities, such as Project HOPE[233][234] and the Ancient Arts Council of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art,[8] where she was a major donor.[116]
Unlike her favorite actress, Greta Garbo, Scott’s seclusion was not total. She continued to date within a close circle of old Hollywood insiders.[116] “One of her best friends was the singer Michael Jackson, and on very rare occasions, she could be spotted on his arm.”[5] Nor did she forget Hal Wallis. She appeared on stage at an American Film Institute tribute to Wallis in 1987 and fondly recalled her time with him. In 2003, film historian Bernard F. Dick interviewed Scott for his biography of Wallis. The result was an entire chapter titled “Morning Star”, in which the author observed Scott was still able to recite her opening monologue from The Skin of Our Teeth, which she had learned six decades earlier.
Scott died of congestive heart failure at the age of 93 on January 31, 2015. Lizabeth Scott has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1624 Vine Street in Hollywood.
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Net Worth
The Estimated Net worth is $80K – USD $85k.
| Monthly Income/Salary (approx.) | $80K – $85k USD |
| Net Worth (approx.) | $4 million- $6 million USD |