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Meg Foster visits the Old West

Throughout her film and television career, Meg Foster didn't appear in all that many Westerns. Sure, there was Oblivion and Oblivion 2 in the 1990s, but those were sci-fi westerns. There was also a 1990 guest appearance on the Western series The Young Riders. However, if you look far enough back, you'll find that Meg Foster made a pair of TV appearances on shows set in the Old West right at the beginning of her screen career.

Here Come the Brides - "Two Worlds" (February 20, 1970)

Meg Foster's guest role on Here Come the Brides is certainly earliest TV appearance I have seen of hers. Indeed, IMDb only lists an appearance on NET Playhouse as occuring earlier than this (though they could be and often are wrong).

Meg Foster has intense, bright blue eyes and because of this she has often played blind characters in various projects throughout the years. In this episode of Here Come the Brides, Meg Foster plays a blind girl whose father does not want her gain her vision for fear of losing her. Despite this, Joshua Bolt (played by David Soul) takes her from Seattle to San Francisco to see a doctor who thinks he might be able to help her see.

Looking quite young, Meg Foster handles her role on Here Comes the Brides quite deftly. It's really no wonder that she worked so steadily on TV throughout the 1970s if she could turn out performances this good so early in her career.

Meg Foster and David Soul

Bonanza - "The Silent Killer" (February 28, 1971)

Meg Foster's second Old West television appearance was on the long-running Bonanza series. The actress gives an expert performance as a woman who happens to be at the Ponderosa when an influenza epidemic breaks out.

As you can see above, Meg Foster even got a positive press blurb concerning her guest role on the show. Her scenes with guest co-star Louise Latham alone are nearly worth the price of admission.

It's actually a bit strange that Meg Foster never really got a chance to follow-up with any other Western work...It would have been nice to see her in an Old West film or miniseries (if you think about it, Meg Foster never really did all that many period pieces during any phase of her career...which is odd!)

Kathleen Beller in Deadly Messages

In 1985, Kathleen Beller starred in the TV thriller Deadly Messages. Her co-star was Michael Brandon, who she had previously shared the screen with several years before in the 1979 film Promises in the Dark.

Deadly Messages can be seen as a successful conclusion to a trio of TV thrillers featuring Kathleen Beller. In 1978 she had starred in Are You in the House Alone? and in 1981 she had done No Place to Hide, both fun made-for-television projects. After taking a break from TV movies, Kathleen Beller returned to the format in 1985 with Deadly Messages, perhaps her campiest foray into the TV thriller genre. Looking exceptionally cute with short hair, she unravels the mystery of her identity, beginning with the use of a Ouija board.

Here are some contemporary newspaper clippings concerning Deadly Messages and its star Kathleen Beller:

click to view full size

Frances Farmer in Exclusive

There's not much I could write about Frances Farmer that hasn't already been written. She's one of those legendary entertainers whose career ended too early leading to heavy scrutiny of the work that she did do. However, I don't care much for the mythology surrounding Frances Farmer...I'm much more interested in her fantastic performances on film. One such performance was in the 1937 movie Exclusive.

Exclusive is a fine film and, unfortunately, one of those titles that the powers that be refuse to release in a proper format. Frances Farmer plays Vina Swain, daughter of a newspaper man (Charles Ruggles plays her father). Fred MacMurray, also a newspaper man, plays her boyfriend and the two have some very nice chemistry in their scenes together. At 77 minutes in length, Exclusive moves along at a fairly brisk pace and certainly offered enough story-wise to keep my interest. Of course, Frances Farmer alone is worth the price of admission...she looks beautiful and she gives an engaging performance.

Nancy Guild in The Brasher Doubloon

In 1947, actress Nancy Guild appeared in her second film, The Brasher Doubloon. The movie, an adaptation of one of Raymond Chandler's detective novels featuring the legendary Philip Marlowe, is actually quite entertaining. George Montgomery plays Philip Marlowe with humor and confidence and Nancy Guild does quite well displaying the innocence and naivete of her character.

Here are some newspaper clippings (advertisements and reviews) concerning The Brasher Doubloon:

Here are some images of Nancy Guild in The Brasher Doubloon (click to enlarge, if you want):

Jill Townsend and Nicol Williamson

Jill Townsend was married to actor Nicol Williamson for a good part of the 1970s, though the pair had met years earlier. In the mid-1960s, they had appeared in the Broadway production of the play Inadmissible Evidence. With a ten year age difference between them, in that play he played her father (she would return the favor years later when she briefly appeared as his mother in flashback scene from his movie The Seven-Per-Cent Solution).

Their marriage only lasted six years and apparently didn't end all that well. However, the following newspaper clipping from December 1970 is from a better time in Jill Townsend and Nicol Williamson's relationship. Take a look: