Product Details

• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: A & E Home Video
• VHS Release Date: February 2, 2001
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: 0767023722
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #457,064 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Portrait of the star-crossed screen actress who won fame while still a teenager, but whose private life was marred by alcoholism and a tempestuous marriage to a man twice her age. Darnell's sad story ended when she died from burns sustained in a fire.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A matchless beauty. We were privileged to have her briefly., August 13, 2004

By 

Joseph H Pierre "Joe Pierre" (Salem, OR USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Biography - Linda Darnell: Hollywood's Fallen Angel [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I grew up with Linda Darnell movies, and of all the actresses in Hollywood in the early 'forties, I thought her by far the most beautiful. She had a sultry beauty, with her heavy-lidded mocking eyes, lush, full lips and perfect features. I was in love with her, as were many others in those years. At the time, when I was in my teens, I did not realize that she was also a teenager. She played older parts, and one accepts the myth.

Nor did I realize that her private life was so fraught with problems (in those days, we called them 'problems', not 'issues'). She was manipulated and driven by a stage-struck mother who ran her life, much as did Shirley Temple's mother, to the point where her mother was banned from the lot when Linda was making a movie.

Later in life, Linda developed a problem with alcohol, and she experienced problems with the men in her life. But she was a wonderful actress, and absolutely stunning to look at, even in the tawdry parts she sometimes had to play. The girl was more than an ornament: she could act, and she did!

Her tragic death in a housefire in Chicago, visiting firends, came just as she was making a comeback, and was again in demand.

I was personally devastated by her death, and still cannot watch one of her old movies without feeling grief at her premature departure from us. She was the best.

Joseph (Joe) Pierre