Stage Door
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Stage Door is a 1937 RKO film, adapted from the play by the same name, that tells the story of several would-be actresses who live together in a single boarding house. The film stars Katharine Hepburn, Ginger Rogers, Adolphe Menjou, Lucille Ball, Huntley Gordon, Eve Arden, Ann Miller, Constance Collier, Gail Patrick and Andrea Leeds.
The film was adapted by Morrie Ryskind and Anthony Veiller from the play by Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman. The writers listened to the young actresses talking off set during rehearsals and incorporated their style of talking into the film. The film was directed by Gregory LaCava.
Stage Door was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture and Leeds was nominated as Best Supporting Actress.
Plot
Hepburn plays Terry Randall, a young debutante who wants to be an actress. She moves into The Footlights Club, a theatrical rooming house, while trying to make it and rooms with a flippant, cynical dancer, Jean Maitland (Rogers). When producer Anthony Powell (Menjou) makes a play for Jean, Terry breaks up the situation. Terry is given the lead in Powell's new play (her father is working behind the scenes), which breaks the heart of Kaye Hamilton (Leeds). The totally inexperienced Terry is horribly bad, but on opening night Kaye commits suicide and an emotional Terry gives a heartfelt performance. The ending of the film is similar to that of Morning Glory, for which Hepburn won her first Academy Award.This is the film in which Hepburn delivers the famous lines: "The calla lilies are in bloom again. Such a strange flower--suitable to any occasion. I carried them on my wedding day; now I place them here in memory of something that has died." When we first hear Terry deliver these lines she is laughably inept, but then on opening night she delivers the same lines with emotional devastation.
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