DARK SHADOWS FORUMS
General Discussions => Current Talk Archive => Current Talk '24 I => Current Talk '08 II => Topic started by: Taeylor Collins on July 04, 2008, 07:57:13 AM
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I ALWAYS thought Grayson Hall was goregous. And I had so many people to look at me crossed eyed when I would mention it. Yeah by the time she had landed on Shadows, she was in her fourties and a heavy smoker (which regardless of what you think will age your skin). Looking at the pics from A Hard Act To Follow, I was completly floored. The picture of her and her first husband! GOOD LORD! She was simply DIVINE!!! Maybe it wasn't meant to be however she could have been HUGE. She had the looks and the chops!! And now the new pics RJ has of her in the toga. WOW! She is breathtaking!! [ghost_rolleyes]
Love you and miss you GH!
Taeylor
Feel free to comment. Even if you don't see the beauty I see!!
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I happen to agree that she was a beautiul woman. She was very photogenic and I think the camera loved her.
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She had an amazing face, as well as presence, and I've only seen her on DS. By that point she's engaged in a certain amount of middle-age damage control, some of which I think she may have been better off without, but what would I know....
I like faces with facets on them. In certain eras the female stars look alike to me, like maybe the 40s, and now. I don't like generic appearance but faces that imply a cool personality.
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Of course, I heartily agree. Grayson was Goddess!
Taeylor, if you've never seen it, please please please get hold of SATAN IN HIGH HEELS. Every Grayson Hall fan deserves hir own personal copy of that movie!
Though released in 1962, it was filmed around Nov. of 1960.
G.
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Taeylor, I must agree with Gothick: Grayson is a beaut in "Satan In High Heels." A must-see for fans of GH/Julia. And a must-read is of course the fantastic biography "Grayson Hall: A Hard Act To Follow" by R.J. Jamison. There's a photo of Grayson with her father, Joe Grossman, where she looks almost exactly like my mother in a photo I saw of mum from the 50's! Maybe Grayson's a distant cousin of my mother's!! Six degrees of Dark Shadows separation....
She had incredible eyes and was - regardless of era - a striking presence, on stage/camera or off. Some of the wigs she wore on the show were not always flattering. Actually, I liked her Magda wig: it matched her haunting eyes.
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Absolutely! She had such an interesting face.
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I don't think that some wanted Julia to look good. She look better when they
went back in time.
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I always thought GH looked great. AT TIMES, she looked TIRED...but the makeup did a good job. In GH: A Hard Act To Follow. The writer said after she had her face "done" she looked as if she had had a facelift. That is not verbatim. I still think she was goregous. And if you haven't seen the pics of her on Graysonhall.net or in the book. YOU ARE MISSING OUT! The pic of her and first husband. The big one. MY GOD. She was as prettier or prettier to me than Lara Parker.
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I don't think that some wanted Julia to look good. She look better when they
went back in time.
One thing relayed to me was that Grayson wasn't really terribly self conscious or protective about her looks. As Nancy Barrett recalled that the makeup and costuming of Magda was so garish in a way many actresses would've absolutely refused but Grayson thought it fun.
And while others may disparage her for whatever reasons, in life, Grayson often found herself at the center of male attention--she had beauty and brains + personality in spades.
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Very true Julia 99!! What a woman!!
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i think grayson was perhaps what was once described as being a "handsome" woman and i find her to be quite striking.
after they discarded the ghastly wig from the "miss hoffman" period i think that they actually made julia look quite chic.the cropped,copper colored hair,the false eyelashes,the gloves,the suits,the jewelry.i'd say the show's costumers attempted to make julia look competent and sophisticated.
it's only with today's eyes,when middle aged women run around dressed like teenagers,that she can come across as "dowdy".
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PREACH IT! :) I hated that damn wig DC insisted she wear. HORRID!! I couldn't really understand the fact that Julia Hoffman couldn't have a chic style with short hair. Indeed she was a DR in a small Maine town, however, she owned a HOSPITAL for God's sake. I am sure Julia was well cultured. She was very chic indeed!!
I also thought JGrayson was gorgeous before her face work and after. I could never put my finger on what was different. I just thought she looked refreshed. I thought Grayson hadn't been on the show a while and I thought she probably just got really rested up and probably used the old cucumber method or perhaps visited a spa. I HAD no idea plastic surgery was as advanced then.
RANT OFF TOPIC: GOOD EXAMPLE stars of today. Do something subtle. These actresses want to go in and say "take 50 years off my face". It never works. I don't know if would be right to mention some of today's stars, but some of them look ghastly! SHEW!
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When was the face work? It just occurred to me that that one square nostril might be a surgeon's error.
As for stars having surgery, even the smart ones do it, not just face liftes but botox, when acting requires full use of your face muscles. People worship and trust MDs far too much.
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According to RJ Jamison's amazing book GH: A Hard Act To Folllow and this is not verbatim. Grayson only had an "EYE LIFT" they didn't mess with anything else. According to the book when she started seeing her father's baggy eyes staring back at her she was not pleased. Her dad and her had a troubled relationship. I hate to be hateful but the man sounds like a JACKASS. What he did to GH on her death bed made me really shed tears. I cannot imagine doing my daughter like that. RJ (Julia 99) could probably elaborate more. Or you SHOULD really buy this book.[ghost_wink]
So here is MY take. GH had the "EYE LIFT" cause it helped her to feel better about herself,she was on national television almost every day and she didn't have to see dear old dad's [ghost_mad] baggy eyes looking at her. I think it was very subtle and she looked great. She looked refreshed! Plus seeing her younger pics you can tell GH had nothing worked on but her eyes.
FOR any DS fan this book is amazing. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT!! Not just for us "LEGION"
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Sorry for the double post. I forgot to add. This bit of information was meant to help dispell a myth that Sam's writing got GH into more ep's then say Joan Bennett for example. When she was gone to recover. DC was really livid wanting to know where she was. Sam told him.
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When was the face work? It just occurred to me that that one square nostril might be a surgeon's error.
As for stars having surgery, even the smart ones do it, not just face liftes but botox, when acting requires full use of your face muscles. People worship and trust MDs far too much.
Nov-Dec 1970 during the 1840 storyline. And she had only an eye lift. People have suggested maybe she had other surgery, namely her nose but that is inaccurate.
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PREACH IT! :) I hated that damn wig DC insisted she wear. HORRID!! I couldn't really understand the fact that Julia Hoffman couldn't have a chic style with short hair. Indeed she was a DR in a small Maine town, however, she owned a HOSPITAL for God's sake. I am sure Julia was well cultured. She was very chic indeed!!
What I believe DC and the other producers meant with the wig was that Dr Hoffman was obsessed with her work not her looks, so she would get a perfunctory hair cut but not muss about how chic it was or was not. She wasn't vain in that way--brain oriented doctor that she was. Now once she fell in love with Barnabas of course she started to care about her looks. .leading to the new clothes and haircut. It actually fits quite well into the character development really.
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Love the Grayson Avatar, RJ- she looks like Joan Crawford! The whole 'eyelift' anecdote only proves how valuable Grayson was to Dan Curtis- by that time she was at the nucleus of DS like Jonathan. DC knew damn well that she was irreplacable!
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Let me get this straight... Dan Curtis thought someone was irreplaceable?!
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I doubt it. I think it's more likely that Dan Curtis liked the crew of characters he had put together to deal with whatever supernatural crises he cared to throw at them, and he didn't want to mess with it unnecessarily. As I remember the interview in which Sam Hall mentioned this, Hall (Sam, not Grayson) thought it would make for some interesting developments if Julia were eliminated and Barnabas had to find somebody else to deal with his period excursions into vampirism, but Curtis vetoed it. I imagine that Curtis wasn't interested in this sort of character development.
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If it had lasted I know GH would have probably left along with Barney too. I just can't imagine DS without GH though! I guess in a way I am glad the show only lasted the time it did. I hate on General Hospital when my faves leave. I would love to have back the 90's General Hospital writers it was so good then. And I miss Genie Franics (Laura) terribly!!!
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If Julia had been killed off, I expect that Grayson Hall would have been given another part, completely different from Julia. One possibility might be a descendant of Magda, searching for Count Petofi.
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And of course no one ever is really dead on soaps, even the "normal" ones. She could have returned!! The Magda idea is very cool though Lydia!! [ghost_grin]
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I regret that Grayson didn't get to play a different kind of role though I know she enjoyed Julia for allowing her to show heartbreak and Magda for just pure delightful craziness. . But on DS she didn't play a wife/mother (Magda's marriage to Sandor notwithstanding) with a few children who of course cowered at her every word . .. I wonder why they didn't think of switching actresses for 1840PT making Grayson the widow and Joan Bennett the embittered sister-in-law. . .
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I wonder why they didn't think of switching actresses for 1840PT making Grayson the widow and Joan Bennett the embittered sister-in-law. . .
That certainly would have been interesting. And it definitely wasn't because Grayson's age made for a more plausible [spoiler]red herring as Melanie's mother when her mother turned out to be Josette who had a son who was older than all of Flora's and, therefore, Joan's children.[/spoiler]
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Sorry, no way can I say she was a beauty, not on a show that had Lara, KLS, Donna Wandrey, etc, etc on it, I would say she had more of an interesting look...
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Have you seen the pictures from RJ's book? The Headshot type picture of her and her first husband. She is an ABSOLUTE knock out. I think if Grayson wouldn't have smoked so heavily, it would have helped her retain a more "youthful" appearance. Lets face it, smoking ages you. NOT to step on anyones toes who smokes. I used to. Thank GOD I was able to lay them down. I like Grayson have asthma and they told me if I didn't quit (when I was 24) that I would have ephesyman by the time I was 35. I am 30 now!
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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I stated on another topic that no actresses on the show held my attention like Grayson, Lara Parker, Alexandra Moltke and Joan Bennett. As for KLS and Donna Wandrey, they were pretty in a conventional way. For me, KLS and DW lacked that spark that the other four had.
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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I stated on another topic that no actresses on the show held my attention like Grayson, Lara Parker, Alexandra Moltke and Joan Bennett. As for KLS and Donna Wandrey, they were pretty in a conventional way. For me, KLS and DW lacked that spark that the other four had.
AMEN
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I don't think in terms of "beauty". Grayson's face grips you (sans uglification wig... DC's idea?). Frid's does too. "Pretty" is boring.
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I saw the pictures of her in the book and she is stunning when she was younger! Her skin looks so smooth.
I think she let herself get too thin at times, she looked better when more filled out.
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She was. The headshots and the picture with her first husband. G O R E G O U S!!! [ghost_tongue2]
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I wont post any photos here but in case others wonder WHAT photos others are referring to, e.g. late 1940s headshots and photos with her 1st husband-Ted, they are on the books website. wwww.graysonhall.net
My new avatar is an unused photo from the book. Very Crawford like Charles said earlier.
but still copyrighted and exclusive to my use I add.
so it better not end up for sale at a DSFEST or my legal
team will come getcha.
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but still copyrighted and exclusive to my use I add.
so it better not end up for sale at a DSFEST or my legal
team will come getcha.
It's quite sad that such warnings even need to be posted and legal action needs to be threatened for people to respect copyright. [sad3]
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but still copyrighted and exclusive to my use I add.
so it better not end up for sale at a DSFEST or my legal
team will come getcha.
It's sad that you have to issue such a warning. WE all SHOULD know that those pictures were given to by the family and they belong to you and the Hall family. And really how low would it be for someone to sell them at the fest or anywhere else.