Georgine Darcy ("Miss Torso" in REAR WINDOW) Dies at 68
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Georgine Darcy, 68; 'Miss Torso' in Hitchcock's 'Rear Window'
By Myrna Oliver, Times Staff Writer
Georgine Darcy, who played the across-the-courtyard dancer dubbed "Miss Torso"
by wheelchair-bound voyeur James Stewart in Alfred Hitchcock's classic 1954
thriller "Rear Window," has died. She was 68.
Darcy died of natural causes on Sunday at her home in Malibu, said her friend
and attorney Bill Swearinger.
The former ballerina, who never viewed herself as an actress, was one of the
last surviving members of a stellar cast that included Stewart, Grace Kelly,
Thelma Ritter, Wendell Corey and Raymond Burr.
Darcy was 17 when she was chosen for the film. Hitchcock hired her based on a
publicity photo of her with a green feather boa and dressed in a black leotard
that emphasized her voluptuous figure.
In the film, restored and reissued in 2000, Stewart plays a professional
photographer sidelined with a broken leg who observes his neighbors through a
telephoto lens and solves a murder. Kelly, as his classy girlfriend, frowns on
his delight in the constantly gyrating Miss Torso.
When Darcy met Hitchcock, she had no idea who the legendary director was. He
suggested she get an agent, but she didn't and consequently was paid only $350
for the role that would make her a pinup.
After the film was completed, Hitchcock suggested, "If you go to Europe and
study Chekov, I could make a big star out of you." But she didn't follow that
advice either.
"Well, what a crazy suggestion! I assumed he was just teasing," she told
director Malcolm Venville earlier this year for a documentary to be introduced
at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in Scotland.
While "Rear Window" was greeted as a Hitchcock masterpiece and Darcy's role
memorable, she was not impressed. Recalling the premiere for Venville, she
said: "I was never an exhibitionist. I'd never seen myself so big as I was on
that screen, and I was terrified."
Although detractors claimed Hitchcock manipulated women, Darcy told Venville:
"He was incredibly gentle and quiet. People may think him ferocious, but to me
he was a big old penguin."
Born in Brooklyn, Darcy was urged by her mother to become a stripper. Instead
she chose ballet, and acted sporadically. She married twice — once at 19 and
for the last 30 years to actor Byron Palmer, who is her only survivor.
Other than "Rear Window," Darcy's most memorable role was as the irreverent
secretary Gypsy on the 1960-61 television series "Harrigan and Son," featuring
Pat O'Brien as her attorney boss.
She also appeared in the films "Don't Knock the Twist" in 1962, "Women and
Bloody Terror" in 1969 and "The Delta Factor" in 1970, and in guest roles on
television's "M Squad," "Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse" and "Mannix."
Darcy conceded in 2000 that she could no longer button the pink shorts with the
21-inch waistband that she wore in "Rear Window." She could, however, still get
them on and had never deteriorated to Thelma Ritter's sardonic prediction from
the movie that Miss Torso would end up "old, fat and alcoholic."
Swearinger said that services would be private and that Darcy had suggested
memorial donations be sent to Guide Dogs for the Blind in Yorktown Heights,
N.Y.; Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah; or Dogs for the Deaf Inc.
in Central Point, Ore.
copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times
S D
lens.
Vince Macek
Aww - sorry to hear this. I'll miss her, even though I don't know her
any more than L.B. Jeffries did.
I caught this one on TCM last week (I have it on tape, but I'll watch
it anytime it's on) and noted that she was, for some reason, the only
neighbor to get an outside-the-window closeup shot. Not that I'm
criticizing - Sir Alfred did like the blondes, didn't he...
VMacek
Tom Cervo
>it anytime it's on) and noted that she was, for some reason, the only
>neighbor to get an outside-the-window closeup shot. Not that I'm
>criticizing - Sir Alfred did like the blondes, didn't he...
There's an article to be written, if there hasn't been already, about the
window people. Miss Lonelyhearts was played by Judith Evelyn, who had quite a
career on Broadway before she went west. She turns up in "Giant" as Taylor's
mother. I'm betting that AH cast and directed those window dramas with the
same care that he used on his stars.
Grant Hurlock
>
That's terrific. Parental guidance is so important. It must be great
to have your mom stand behind you exhorting you to "shake that moneymaker."
Rear Window gave Georgine a little role in a big movie. To see her play
a big role in a little movie, check out His Wife's Habit (1969), in which
she stars as a hypersexual New Orleans woman whose wealthy husband is away
on business. Donning polyester hot-pants (which must have been literally
hot to wear) she goes on the prowl and finds several amenable bedmates,
including one young stud whom she pays for his services.
Her manhunt eventually even includes her daughter's boyfriend, played by
future tv-star Gerald McRaney. The prudish, look-alike daughter is played
by one of my favorite actresses, Christina Hart--(which is what led me to
this obscure film in the first place). Without so much as an "I thought you
were Dale," Gerald beds Georgine but is later killed in a road-accident
caused by a psycho grease-monkey who's been stalking her, wanting to service
more than her car.
[SPOILER COMING]
Psycho and buddy then lure mother & daughter to an abandoned motel, beat
them unconscious and engage in tag-team rape. When the baddies go down in a
final hail of police bullets, recovering Georgine surveys her daughter's
bloodied, naked body and the movie's message sinks in: promiscuity doesn't
pay.
Alternatively titled Women & Bloody Terror (as a companion-piece to
another of director Joy N. Houck's efforts, Night of Bloody Horror--also
1969, & starring Gerald McRaney), His Wife's Habit is more graphic but less
gruesome than Rear Window--inasmuch as nobody got dismembered & no little
doggies were harmed.