OMG- your daughter watched my very favorite movie for all time. When I first watched it , I fell in love with it. I think it fixed in my mind what "love" was-
enduring- when I was a young girl (pipe dreams, I know).
To answer your question: Captain Gregg was played by Rex Harrison- Mrs. Muir by Gene Tierney, and her daughter, by a very young, Natalie Wood. The sauve Miles Farley (the one and only suitor of Mrs. Muir) was played by George Sanders.
Now you 've gotten me started :facepalm: (and will probably regret the question and the answer, if you aren't someone who is crazy about movies and books).
The word "muir" means "the sea" in Gaelic. Many times sailors are said to have been "married" to the sea, or that the only woman they ever loved was the sea.
I just fell in love with Gull Cottage when I first saw the movie. I know I have posted this website before-
Hooked On Houses- (has lots of movie/TV houses). Just the name Gull Cottage in Whitecliff-by-the-Sea brings memories of Cape Cod to me (I spent my honeymoon and numorous vacations there). I wanted a Gull Cottage to live in -maybe that's why I finally bought a 150 year old house- since sold) and always wanted a Captain Gregg for myself. Just look at that marvelous kitchen, the beautiful staircase, Captain Gregg's bedroom with the balcony and telescope- and the beach! Marvelous!
Here is Gull Cottage:
http://hookedonhouses.net/2011/09/12/gull-cottage-in-the-movie-the-ghost-and-mrs-muir/
I have the book by R.A. Dick (another of my treasures). R.A. Dick was the pseudonym of Josephine Aimee Campbell Leslie, an Irish writer (who also wrote
The Devil and Mrs Devine). The book and movie are similar. The only thing that was really different in the book is that Lucy had a second child, while in the movie she had only a daughter, but the movie basically kept to the spirit of the book. A wonderful little bittersweet story to be read curled up in a cozy blanket on a rainy/snowy day with a cup of tea.
The story:
In early 1900s England, Lucy Muir, a young widow, moves to the seaside and into Gull Cottage with her daughter Anna and her maid Martha. She rents the house despite rumors the house is haunted, but she is visited by the ghostly apparition of the former owner, a roguish sea captain named Daniel Gregg, who promises to make himself known only to her; Anna is too young for ghosts. When Lucy's source of investment income dries up, he dictates to her his memoirs, entitled Blood and Swash. His racy recollections make the book a bestseller, allowing Lucy to stay in the house. During the course of writing the book, they fall in love, but as both realize it is a hopeless situation, Daniel tells her she should find a real,living, man. When she visits the publisher, she becomes attracted to suave Miles Fairley, a writer of children's stories known as "Uncle Neddy" who helps her obtain an interview. Captain Gregg, initially jealous of their relationship, decides finally to disappear and cease being an obstacle to her happiness. He ends their friendship and convinces her that he was all a dream while she sleeps. Shortly thereafter, Lucy discovers that Miles is already married and this sort of thing has happened before to other women. She leaves him, heartbroken. About ten years later, Anna returns to the cottage with a boyfriend and tells her mother that she too spoke with Captain Gregg, rekindling faint memories in her mother. After a long life spent at the cottage, Lucy dies. Captain Gregg appears before her at the moment of her death reaching out, he lifts her young spirit free of her dead body and says, "and now, my dear, you never will be lonely again". The two walk out of the front door arm in arm, into the mist. She is finally united with her captain.
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I still laugh out loud when an unseen Captain Gregg "escorts" Mrs. Muir's rude in-laws out of Gull Cottage and another time when he releases the brake on the visiting realtor's automobile and I never hear "
my dear" that I don't think of Captain Gregg and Mrs. Muir. I always wanted some man to say
"my [/I]dear" to me. I would melt into mush if he would. Those words seems so personal and full of love to me.
When Anna came back to Gull Cottage , she told her mother that she also saw Captain Gregg and thought it was all a dream and when she said, "Perhaps, he did come back and talk to us? Wouldn't it be wonderful if he had? Then you'd have something - you know what I mean - to look back on with happiness.". I cried for Mrs. Muir and the years of loneliness she endured.
You really must watch this movie, but maybe you aren't a mush like me.
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I also have the autobiography of Gene Tierney, Self Portrait, (another "treasure"-you can probably guess that a lot of my "treasures" are books :facepalm:- it's the simple things that give me pleasure). It's simply told, humble, painfully honest and heartbreaking. This book is her vision of her own life ( which fluctuates between dream and nightmare). The accounf of her descent into madness is chilling. It's a raw, painfully honest look at mental illness: the downward spiral into its darkness, the struggle to endure its consequences and then, finally, to overcome it. It is life affirming, IMO. I give her kudos to have had the courage to write such a book when mental illness was/is still a stigma in anyone's life.
"In 1943 Tierney gave birth to their child, Daria, who was born prematurely, severely retarded, and was eventually institutionalized. Much later, in a nightmarish twist of fate, Tierney learned that a female Marine had ignored quarantine orders to meet her idol during hostessing duties at the Hollywood Canteen. That was how the star contracted German measles late in her pregnancy - an innocent kiss from an admiring fan who wanted an autograph.
"Everyone told me I shouldn't go," the starstruck woman told Tierney years later at a tennis match, not realizing what she was responsible for, "but I just had to go. You were my favorite."
Sadly, little Daria paid the price, and so did her mother. Many believe this cruel irony brought about a troubled emotional life later on. It also served to inspire a story (never authorized or sanctioned by Tierney) dramatized in 1980 as an Agatha Christie whodunit called "The Mirror Crack'd" starring Angela Lansbury, Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, Kim Novak, Tony Curtis, Geraldine Chaplin and Pierce Brosnan."
http://www.cmgww.com/stars/tierney/about/bio.htm
Gene Tierney Documentary:
Gene Tierney Documentary - YouTube
And a portrait from the movie, Laura, that Gene Tierney starred in- another wonderful movie, IMO (but I won't write about this movie :floorlaugh
:
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There's a great website that goes into the movie in great depth- in 7 parts- that someone might be interested in:
http://theoldmoviehouse.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-ghost-mrs-muir-part-1-aug-18-2012.html
And this (just the music gives me goosebumps):
Ghost and Mrs. Muir - YouTube
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(The painting of Captain Gregg looks similar to my painting):
About the painting of Captain Gregg and me:
I was working on Wall St. and one day, on my lunch hour, I found a painting of a sea captain in the window of a shop and just had to have it. It cost me $100 and when I brought it home, my husband and I had our first "disagreement". We had been married 5 years and had just bought our first house. I guess he was upset that I didn't consult with him before I bought the painting- not at the actual painting (can't blame him as we always let each other know if we were going to spend money, lets say- over $50 or so). It is so lifelike and reminded me of Captain Gregg's painting. I couldn't resist. I couldn't tell who the artist was as the signature must be under the frame (and I don't want to take the canvas off of the frame), so I researched the painting on Google- or, at least, tried. I found a lot of captain paintings, but not mine. I did find this one (the face is similar, but has a more kinder face, but my painting only has the portrait with the Captain holding on to the wheel of his ship and not the ship. My painting is really very lifelike-you could almost reach out and smoke the pipe he has for yourself). It does have the same exact frame- painted by the artist Billy Wilder. :
I couldn't find anything about who my painter was (or who I thought is the painter). There is a painter, Lee Young, who did paintings of sea captains [this painting has a similar face that my captain has]):
http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/art-sea-captain-sailor-pipe-signed-136928752
I did find this about a painter -Billy Wilder who also painted sea captains:
"The reason no one can find any information on this artist is -All the paintings were done by an artistic interiors or the art connection both are oil paining art mill that turned out thousands of original oil painings for cheap department stores , tourist sites and also export. All artist that painted there had to use an ASSUMED NAME AND COULD NOT USE THEIR OWN NAME Also if a painting sold well many many copies were painted some with a few different variations but same scenes as these were good sellers Kind of like the bullfighter felt painting one buys on street corner in Mex as soon as one is sold a dupicate takes it place all painted as artist sits there all day paining same picture over and over again because it is a good seller. The company that sold these oil paintings does not give out any information about their artist as they could be from any third world country.
Once sold to stores and shops since 1970s they resell for anywhere from 10.00 to $300 depending the reseller trift or higher end shops So look as you will you will not find mr BILLY WILDER the ship captain and western oil painter. He did great oil painting however these were house decorations not great works of art. Another of these ghost oil painters that worked for these companies and no one can find any information on is G whitman you can search him too and find him to also have over 5000-8000 oil paintings most similar around thw world yet no one knows any thing about him either. I actually found one of his early works and found the artistiv interior label and certificate still attached So GOOD LUCK YOU DONT HAVE A MASTERPIECE BUT THEY ARE ENJOYABLE PIECES AND MAKE GOOD HOME DECORATIONS. Hope this information helps some one not to pay too much for one of these there was one for sale at thrift store for 19.00 so shop around and dont belive the hype about paying $$$$ hundreds for any of these."
http://www.askart.com/AskART/artists/bulletin.aspx?searchtype=DISCUSS&artist=122042
So my painting is worth, probably, just what I paid for it and that's OK, because I didn't buy the painting for it's value. I bought it so I'd have my own Captain Gregg.
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OMG- how I have rambled on and on :facepalm:- diarrhea of the mouth, anyone? I do go on and on. :stop:
:whiteflag::deadhorse::tmi And now you know that I am really a nut. :hills
I'm sorry if I have bored anyone with one of my obsessions, but I have enjoyed writing about my favorite movie and other stuff in reference to.
Thanks for reading. (that's if, of course, anyone has read this far :floorlaugh
(see what you get when you ask me one simple question, Carpe Pacem- gotta watch what you ask me next time.)
:floorlaugh: :floorlaugh:
