Lizabeth Scott (born September 29, 1922) is an American actress who achieved much success within the film noir genre, as well as other mainstream films.
She was born Emma Matzo in the Pine Brook Section of Scranton, Pennsylvania, the daughter of John and Mary Matzo, Roman Catholic immigrants from Slovakia. She attended Central High School and Marywood College.
She later went to New York City and attended the Alvienne School of Drama. In late 1942, she was eking out a precarious living with a small Midtown Manhattan summer stock company when she got a job as understudy for Tallulah Bankhead in Thornton Wilder's play The Skin of Our Teeth. However, Scott never had an opportunity to substitute for Bankhead.
When Miriam Hopkins was signed to replace Bankhead, Scott quit and returned to her drama studies and some fashion modeling. She then received a call that Gladys George, who was signed to replace Hopkins, was ill, and Scott was needed back at the theatre. She went on in the leading role of "Sabina," receiving a nod of approval from critics at the tender age of 20. The following night, George was out again and Scott went on in her place.
Soon afterward, Scott was at the Stork Club when motion picture producer Hal Wallis asked who she was, unaware that an aide had already arranged an interview with her for the following day. When Scott returned home, however, she found a telegram offering her the lead for the Boston run of The Skin of Our Teeth. She could not turn it down. She sent Wallis her apologies and went on the road.
Though the Broadway production, in which she was credited as "Girl," christened her "Elizabeth," she dropped the "e" the day after the opening night in Boston, "just to be different."
A photograph of Scott in Harper's Bazaar magazine was seen by movie agent Charles Feldman. He admired the fashion pose and took her on as a client. Scott made her first screen test at Warner Brothers, where she and Wallis finally met. Though the test was bad, the producer recognized her potential. As soon as Wallis set up shop at Paramount, she was signed to a contract. Her movie debut was in You Came Along (1945) opposite Robert Cummings.
Paramount publicity dubbed Scott "The Threat," in order to create an onscreen persona for her similar to Lauren Bacall or Veronica Lake. Scott's smoky sensuality and husky voice lent itself to the film noir genre and, beginning with The Strange Love of Martha Ivers (1946) starring Barbara Stanwyck and Van Heflin, the studio cast her in a series of noir thrillers. Film historian Eddie Muller has noted that no other actress has appeared in so many noir movies, with more than three quarters of her 20 films qualifying .
Don DeFore and Lizabeth Scott in a promotional still from Too Late for Tears
The dark blonde actress was initially compared to Bacall because of a slight resemblance and a similar voice, even more so after she starred with Bacall's husband, Humphrey Bogart, in the 1947 noir thriller Dead Reckoning. At the age of 25, Scott's billing and portrait were equal to Bogart's on the film's lobby posters and in advertisements. The movie was the first of many femme fatale roles for Scott.
She also starred in Desert Fury (1947), a noir filmed in Technicolor, with John Hodiak, Burt Lancaster, Wendell Corey, and Mary Astor. In it, she played Paula Haller, who, on her return from college, falls for gangster Eddie Bendix (Hodiak), and faces a great deal of opposition from the others. Scott was paired with Lancaster, Corey, and Kirk Douglas in Wallis' I Walk Alone (1948), a noirish story of betrayal and vengeance. In 1949, she starred as a vicious femme fatale in Too Late for Tears. The film is unusual for featuring her as the main character, rather than the supporting role most women were relegated to in film noirs of the period.
Having being known professionally as Lizabeth Scott for 4 1/2 years, she appeared at the courthouse in Los Angeles, on October 20, 1949, and had her name legally changed. After completing Loving You (1957), Elvis Presley's second movie, Scott retired from the screen. She did occasionally guest-star on television for several years, including a 1963 episode of Burke's Law.
In 1972, she made one final motion picture appearance, in Pulp with Michael Caine and Mickey Rooney. After that, she retreated from public view and has declined many interview requests. She did, however, appear at an American Film Institute tribute to Hal Wallis and more recently at the AMPAS Centennial Celebration for Barbara Stanwyck on 16 May 2007.
The actress never married.
Lizabeth Scott has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her contribution to motion pictures at 1624 Vine Street in Hollywood.
