Elizabeth McGovern-what happened?

She married an Englishman and settled in England to raise a family. When that was done, she returned to acting.

Sadie and the Hotheads, McGovern's band.

No r1. She worked continuously throughout, never left the profession.

She made a string of underperforming stinkers before she "took a break to raise her family."

She also lost her looks when her chubby face was no longer adorable as she aged. I believe she's had facial sculpting done.

she was a big star. dont u ever watch bewitched. how come the dont show it and i dream a janeie on tv anymore. i love those old shows

R6 needs remedial English.

I hope R6 is joking.

Tards amongst us.

After putting audiences to sleep all through the 80s she finally bored herself out of acting.

nah r10.

She was pretty great in Ragtime, Ordinary People and The Handmaid's Tale.

It turned out there wasn't a morning after.

R11 Ragtime ha THAT'S an Oscar nomination I always forget until someone reminds me.

R5 I agree. I don't know necessarily what she has had done but the general point that people with her kind of features tend not to age well once they are no longer "cute." Now, she looks like she has a permanent sourpuss on her face.

Didn't she film OP while she was attending Juilliard?

[quote]Didn't she film OP while she was attending Juilliard?

I think she had to drop out of her last year to do it. She wasn't sure what to do because the part was so small, she wasn't sure if it was worth it. Someone convinced her that she had been handpicked by Redford so she better take the opportunity since it might never come again.

Found this imdb:

Can be seen in The Making of 'Amadeus' (2002), uncredited. In footage from her screen tests (in costume, apparently testing for the role of Constanze) her face has been blurred but her name can be read clearly on handwritten lists of actors that appear onscreen in a shooting log.

Wonder why Foreman didn't give it to her. She did Ragtime for him. Seems like she'd have been great in Amadeus. The wife they choose was always kingd of an odd choice.

Foreman was boinking the other actress at the time.

She was never really pretty, just ordinary. And she was never a great actress, just had massive PR. She's the worst actress on Downton, watching paint dry is better actually.

Which one r16?

Meg Tilly got the role but got injured on the set and had to quit. Then they got Elizabeth Berridge.

The funny thing with McGovern and Foreman and Ragtime was Foreman was dating Nasttasia Kinski at the time(to much controversy due to the age difference and the fact that she had dated Polanski too). She was announcing that Ragtime would be her next film during all the press for "Tess" and then Foreman got cold feet and got worried her English wasn't good enough for the role and hired McGovern at the last minute and fired Kinski.

About 30 years ago she was very, very good in the first production of Tina Howe's Painting Churches, at Lamb's Theatre in New York. Her parents were played by Donald Moffatt and Marian Seldes, who never gave a better or funnier performance.

I think she looks fine for 53 or 54. On Downton they do nothing to make her look younger, which is appropriate for the time. Plus the clothes and hats are very aging. When you see her interviewed, Elizabeth looks much younger because she is dressed in current fashions.

I am always amazed at how much Cora and Lady Mary look like mother and daughter.

Got lucky. Can't act. Can't act now; couldn't act then. Amazing she got "Downton"; easily the worse thing in the show. Ought to kill THAT character off next.

I would agree that she's a competent, but not a great actress. I've liked her in some films (OP, RACING WITH THE MOON, LOVESICK, THE BEDROOM WINDOW) but she faltered early on in roles where she needed to be sexy (RAGTIME, ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA), and that's not something she does well.

I think that's what put the breaks on her becoming any kind of star. So she became more of a working actress.

I'm hot and cold on her in DOWNTON - since season 1 too often Cora is nothing more than a decorative character and McGovern tends to reply on that single expression that has now become the source of jokes. But on those occasions where she has to show a little strength (e.g. when she tells off Thomas in the current season) she's better.

I think it's all the of the antiquated powdery makeup they put on her face which brings out her wrinkles and make her look even older than she is, which is entirely appropriate for the character.

Her voice is just dreadful! Do you think Maggie Smith and Penelope Wilton make fun of it in their trailers?

She got cast in the Redford movie I think her second year at Julliard and they old fossils there wouldn't let anyone do professional work during training so she left.

She would have had a different career if she had broken at the beginning of the 70s rather than the beginning of the 80's. The business had changed and tastes had changed.

She was young and probably didn't know how to choose scripts.

You guys are so harsh, like any of you got cast in a Robert Redford movie and then had ANY kind of acting career.

I think she wonderful. Subtle on Downton. Wonderful in OP. Seems like a happy' well adjusted person too. Haters could learn from her if they'd just shut up.

It's Milos FORMAN.

She showed her breasts in Once Upon A Time in America and they were very unappealing. Killed any future chance of becoming a leading lady.

Ive just caught this kid in a motion picture talkie called 'Once upon a time in America' You got to catch this at your local drive through while you can. This gal will go far!!

She's all right. And she does that understated fury thing to perfection. Honestly, in a show with six other WAY over the top hams all competing for attention, I relish her in the room.

Having said that - I know it's historically accurate, but Jesus Christ those fashions are just fucking atrocious.

That freaky accent she has on Downton is actually how she talks!

She had a very Chicago esque twange in She's Having a Baby.

When she was young she had the kind of soft, delicate prettiness that looked great in historical films, but which limited her to ingénue roles in modern-day stuff. The old-fashioned essence may have limited her opportunities, I doubt straight men considered her super-fuckable.

She also had terrible acne as a young woman, she looked terrible in interviews where they didn't cover it with makeup and lighting.

I always got her and Elizabeth Perkins mixed up.

She was TERRIBLE in Once Upon a Time in America, first thing I ever saw her in. Jennifer Connelly, who played the same character as a child (she was around 12 or 13 at the time), was much better even at that age. Have never thought McGovern could act, which she proves of course in DA. Methinks her English writer husband, Simon Curtis, is friends with Fellowes, which probably helped her get the job.

Her special brand of wry simp-face is called for only once every 15 years or so.

R35, true enough, but you really need to find a new home.

I would concur that Elizabeth's casting in DA was through the friendship of Julian Fellowes with her husband Simon Curtis, another Brit film maker.

And the casting was probably thought to be rather spot-on originally as Cora is an American living in the UK for a couple of decades because of her marriage to an Englishman.

But that voice, that accent! What were they thinking??

R36

I always felt she needed more screen time than she got in The Towering Inferno.

39 responses and nobody has stated the obvious? The woman is cock-eyed.

r40, I've thought that too. She also speaks like she's had a mild stroke.

She probably wouldn't suck cock, let alone the right ones, to get ahead. Hence the career path

She was in that awful movie with Kevin Bacon.

I saw her in "The Wife" last night and couldn't believe how much she's aged. I loved her in Ordinary People and Bedroom Window. I don't know if it's because she lost weight or is really sick but she looked ghastly in The Wife. Was her character supposed to look this old and broken down?

She's aging like Judy Davis.

The hair and make-up are too dark.

In that still from Once Upon a Time in America, she looks a lot like DL legend Melissa Sue Anderson. They're about the same age, I wonder how often they were up for the same role back in the day. Neither were any great shakes in the acting department, though MSA was probably branded as 'tv' as opposed to McGovern who had OP and Ragtime right out of the gates. To be fair, she was given a LOT of chances throughout the 1980s...'I think She's Having a Baby' was her last 'star' turn, and that was released in 1988.

Meg Tilly. Now there's an overrated actress. All the baby boomer guys were drooling over her in The Big Chill. She's a nothing looking little mouse. What were they drooling over?

Her flexibility, R47

She looks like Cora Grantham in R44's photo, down to the facial expression. Such an unflattering look for her. Maybe she got type-cast after Downton Abbey.

Hated most scenes she was in, unfortunately. Laura Linney would have been so great as Cora! (With Richard Gere as Lord Grantham because they have always had such great chemistry---but he'd suck at an English accent, so no.)

She's awful in The Wife. I don't know how someone could fuck up that little role but Elizabeth found a way.