Frank Talk About Sex

That blog title may get your attention!  Sex and the Single Girl was a big hit in 1964.  The main characters, Natalie Wood (1938 - 1981), Tony Curtis (b. 1925), Henry Fonda (b. 1925), and Lauren Bacall (b. 1924) are all talented and made it great.

As far as frank talk about it, there was only one cast member in the movie named Frank, Frank Baker (1892 - 1980).  He made over 100 films starting in 1916, and 15 of then were silent.  His career was full of big movies, but you probably don't recognize his name.  He was a bystander in My Fair Lady (1964), released just before Sex where he played a pretzel vendor as the cars drove by.

Some great Bit Actors are in this film.  Look for Larry Storch (b. 1923) from "F-Troop;" Stubby Kaye (1918 - 1997) who became famous but was never really in anything good, he was just in everything; and Edward Everett Horton (1886 - 1970) who worked for nearly 50 years from 1922 until his death.

This was the last film of Otto Kruger (1885 - 1974), another good actor who had a mysterious air about him.  He was in Alfred Hitchcock's Saboteur (1942), and High Noon (1952) with Gary Cooper. 

One of my favorite Bit Actors is Max Showalter (1917 - 2000).  He had 88 roles from 1949 to 1984.  He was in two Marilyn Monroe movies, Niagara (1953) and Bus Stop (1956).  Other great films of Showalter's, Hellcats of the Navy (1957), Elmer Gantry (1960), The Music Man (1962), and How to Murder your Wife (1965) just after making Sex and the Single Girl.

Natalie Wood was particularly sexy in this film, entirely on purpose, as were the other two young women, Fran Jeffries (b. 1937) and Leslie Parrish (b. 1935).  Jeffries was a lounge singer in Las Vegas and only appeared in five films.  Parrish had a long acting career appearing in 70 roles from Daddy Long Legs in 1955 to Crash! in 1977 with Jose Ferrer, plus a lot of television.

Sex is great!  I mean the movie.  But you knew that.  I would have loved to follow Natalie Wood's career if she hadn't died so young.  She is missed.