CiCi's Top Ten People Who Need A Biopic

I haven't made a list in a long while and I've been terribly bored since I've been at home, so with too much time on my hands I made this list of people, mostly actors, who have led lives as dramatic as the stories they tell!

I had to change the name from actors to people because one of the people on the list only ever appeared in films as themselves

Anyway, I shall get posting the few picks soon!

5. Clara Bow
6. Zsa Zsa Gabor
7. Jane Fonda
8. Hedda Hopper
9. Diana Dors
10. Edy Williams

Looking forward to this, Ci!

10. Edy Williams

Edwina Beth Williams was born in Salk Lake City, Utah in the forties. After modelling and winning several beauty pageants, she managed to strike up a contract with 20th century Fox in the early sixties. She mainly had bit parts, and from the possible exception of appearing in the original Batman series, she never managed to hit it big.

But then she met Russ Meyer, and made Beyond the Valley of the Dolls a film Grace Kelly personally lobbied against. She starred as a predatory porn star who was larger than life. In my opinion, she made the film just about watchable, but her next film with Meyer was a massive flop. Nevertheless, she married the "King Lear" of Hollywood before divorcing in '75, citing Meyer's devotion to his work splitting them a part.

Then she fell into B-movies, dated the notorious Micky Cohen, and made a yearly tradition of showing up to the Academy Awards in outfits like this:

By the 90s and now in her fifties, she ended her career in the limelight in a low budget film with Brinke Stevens, before going into porn.

She was, and still is, larger than life. Getting herself involved in Hollywood, the mob, and then her love for showing it all where she could, she made herself relevant, and succeeded in her own unique way.

Great idea for a thread!

Why thank you!

And about Edy Williams, rumour has it she was never allowed into the actual ceremony

I'm just waiting on my name to pop up.

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Totally agree with this one...I think her life would make a fantastic movie...any ideas on casting?

Someone voluptuous. She has a lovely, bountiful figure.

I can see in my mind's eye which female celebrity I would cast but cant remember her name. She's a dancer, and exquisite.

Young Edy would be tough. Had Julie Newmar been 20 today, she would have been perfect for her figure, wild chestnut hair, and sex appeal. I can't really think of anyone today, possibly Stacy Martin if she put a bit weight on.

Edy could play an older version of herself today!

This is who I'm thinking

9. Diana Dors

The 'British Marilyn Monroe' is best remembered today for being exactly that, a British answer to the blonde bombshell.

However, Diana Fluck as she was born, had a tumultuous life just like Marilyn. She actually managed to become a star in Britain before Marilyn entered the scene in the US. Breaking out in the late forties, she became the youngest registered owner of a Rolls Royce in the UK, aged 20, even though she couldn't drive.
Married four times, she launched the career of Richard Dawson when he couldn't get a break. But it was her husband, Dennis Hamilton, that caused much of the drama in her early life. He managed to ruin her career in the USA after just two pictures into her contract with RKO (he assaulted a photographer at a pool party she hosted in an attempt to obtain a house formerly owned by Marlene Dietrich), and thus had to return to Britain at the end of the fifties, still only in her late twenties.

Her career then faltered, an episode she filmed in 1961 for Alfred Hitchcock Presents was archived for years for being too gruesome at the time. Her company Diana Dors Ltd. went into debt after she had to sign over all her assets to Hamilton when they divorced, and she was reduced to doing cabaret tours. Her career with Dawson gave her a small break from this, but when they divorced, she returned to the UK to do much the same.

She then became the target of the tabloids when she began hosting adult parties in her mansion, where she filmed the participants and kept recordings of them. This, along with her quick wit, made her a chat show favourite. But strapped for cash, she had to tour working men clubs, something she utterly loathed.

Retreating to television presenting and appearing as the Fairy Godmother in a music video for Adam & The Ants, Dors' health began to fail. She died aged 52, from recurring ovarian cancer. Her husband, Alan Lake, then committed suicide just days after her death.

Her fortune, which she left in a code for her children, has still yet to be found after Alan Lake's death.

(I don't count the crappy TV movie made about her as a biopic, her life was better than what it made it out to be )

She'd be magnificent!

Isnt she glorious. I've never seen her dance but I think she's so beautiful.

I know everything about Diana Dors. Her last name is Dors, for example! Bet you didn't know that.

Even her name is so Edy Williams-esque though but I totally agree!

I haven't actually seen any of her films I just caught said TV film about her life and began looking her up afterwards. My parents and a lot of my aunts and uncles etc. remember her though!

Fantastic - now I feel super-old, like I should be swathed in bandages and lying entombed eighty feet under Egyptian sand kind of old. Oh to be young again

8. Hedda Hopper

Born Elda Flurry, the Queen Bitch of Hollywood ran away to New York City to appear as a dancer on broadway. There, she married DeWolf Hopper, a man 27 years her senior. He subsequently asked her to change her name since Elda was too similar to the names of his previous four wives; confusing him. Someone chose Hedda for her.

She made her motion picture debut in 1915, and appeared in over 120 productions throughout the course of her career as an actress. But by the mid thirties, she struggled to maintain an income, and began looking for alternative ways to supplement it. Insiders quickly recommended she start her own gossip column, with the actress already having a reputation for obtaining all the dirt on Hollywood's finest.

And thus started one of the most infamous feuds in Hollywood history, but her relationship with Louella 'Lolly' Parsons began pleasantly, with the former even actively encouraging her efforts in the beginning of her career as a columnist. However, when a 'hen party' was thrown to celebrate the success of 'Hedda Hopper's Hollywood' which saw the likes of Joan Crawford and Claudette Colbert in attendance, Louella Parsons entered the party before exiting in a huff. Parsons never believed Hedda would rival her, but neither did Hedda, who lamented that she couldn't even spell upon first being offered her own column.

Her audience soared to approximately 30 million readers at her peak. She became feared throughout Hollywood, and styled her own mansion as "The house that fear built". Such was her influence that it is believed she was partly responsible for the denial of Charlie Chaplin's re-admittance into the United States in 1952. (Hedda, a staunch Republican, loathed Chaplin's politics, success in America as a foreigner, and his love life with women far younger than himself).

Her primary female target of disdain, Joan Bennett, even sent her a skunk one valentine's day reading "I stink, and so do you". Spencer Tracy kicked her in the arse. But nonetheless, she wielded power in Hollywood that will probably never be repeated. She could make or break a career with the swipe of a pen, and frequently did.

I want Hedda vs Louella to be the premise of the second season of Feud due to her fabulous portrayal by Judy Davis. However, her life was so spectacular even outside of this catfight from hell.

I'd love to see a Hedda movie. I say the Coens should bring in Tilda and do the real thing after Hail, Caesar!