In Memoriam: Myrna Loy

Many actresses complain about the lack of interesting roles available to women after they've reached a certain age; others refuse to accept that just because they're not asked to play romantic leads anymore that the roles of mother and matron somehow aren't interesting, when in fact mothers and matrons are some of the most interesting people in the world...

Myrna Loy - born on this day in 1905 - is clearly of the latter category, born a member of perhaps the last generation to hold a mother (with her wisdom, insight, and experience) in higher esteem than an ingenue. In fact, Loy's own ingenue roles - beginning with 1925's notorious What Price Beauty? opposite Natacha Rambova and Nita Naldi - were a mish-mash of grotesque stereotypes compared to the mid-career roles in which she played the dream wife and the dream mother.

Yet off camera, Loy was more circumspect; 'Some perfect wife I am,' she once said, referring to her typecasting. 'I've been married four times, divorced four times, have no children, and can't boil an egg.'

It's specifically because she had no children of her own to keep her legacy alive - a situation in which I find myself - that the Pop Culture Institute has undertaken to fulfill that role itself, by posting her name and her picture as often as feasible. To a certain extent, though, the movies she made - including a record fourteen memorable pairings with William Powell - are the children she never had; not only do they do their part to keep the memory of Myrna Loy alive, but they provide me with countless hours of the most enjoyable 'research' imaginable...
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