EDITOR’S NOTE: Stolen Face was first on Chiller Theater on Saturday, May 13, 1967 at 1:00 a.m. It also aired on March 11, 1972.
Emma Matzo was born in Scranton, PA but became Lizabeth Scott in New York City, becoming a stage actress and the understudy for Tallulah Bankhead — actually, she was given the role just to keep Bankhead in line and she was treated horribly; Broadway legend claims that Bankhead was victimized by Scott, who was the basis for Eve Harrington of All About Eve — and then was championed by Hal Wallis as she made her way to Hollywood.
She became known as a hard-boiled woman, the kind who ruined men in film noir like I Walk Alone and Too Late for Tears. She also wasn’t afraid to get involved with interesting people — nearly joining a cult started by Aldous Huxley, being friends with Ayn Rand, gaining an audience with the Dalai Lama — and not being reserved about it.
In 1954, she decided she’d had enough, saying “Out of the clear blue sky one morning, I woke and decided that I never wanted to make another film again. It was just a spark, I can’t explain it.” She was in three more movies — The Weapon, Loving You and Pulp — but went from being a huge star to being retired.
The Confidential article and lawsuit may have had a lot to do with that. That tabloid’s published Howard Rushmore put together a story on her with no evidence. The article claimed that Scott’s name was in a black book found when a house of prostitution got busted, as well as the fact that she was a lesbian. When she went to Cannes, it said, “In one jaunt to Europe, she headed straight for Paris and the left bank where she took up with Frede, the city’s most notorious lesbian queen and the operator of a night club devoted exclusively to entertaining deviates like herself.”
Frede’s club was Carroll’s, a cabaret that starred Earth Kitt. It was not an exclusively lesbian club. It was co-owned by Marlene Dietrich, which Confidential was using against her, claiming that she was also a lesbian. The lawsuit against the magazine was a mistrial. Another theory is that Scott had horrible stage fright. Either way, even though she did some acting on TV, she mostly took classes at USC from here on out.
Scott almost married an oil tycoon before he died suddenly. His will, which gave everything to her, was contested by the family and she lost the lawsuit in 1971. She also dated a ton of people — Van Johnson James Mason, Peter Lawford and Burt Bacharach are just a few — and devoted a lot of her later life to charity and friendship with stars like Michael Jackson.
As for Wallis, he never forgot their decade-plus affair. His last wife, Martha Hyer, urged him to write about her in his autobiography, as Wallis never fell out of love with Scott, watching her movies every single night.
Stolen Face stars Scott in two roles. She’s concert pianist Alice Brent, who falls in love with plastic surgeon Dr. Philip Ritter (Paul Henreid) in spite of being engaged to a man named David (André Morell). When he loses her, Ritter transforms his patient, Lily Conover (Mary Mackenzie before the operation) into a clone of Alice and attempts to change her from living a life of crime. They marry but she is soon bored; he tells her that she has everything a woman could want and she yells, “What, do you want me to be on my knees all the time thanking you?”
Supposedly based on a true story, this was directed by Terence Fisher. It’s a fine thriller and really, if the worst you do all day is watch Lizabeth Scott look gorgeous, is it all that rough?
You can watch this on Tubi.
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