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28-Mar-2024
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Rita Gam : Another Hollywood Gem passed away

     Rita Gam, the veteran Hollywood actress, died in Los Angeles on Tuesday due to respiratory failure. She was 88 and has to her credit a lengthy television and movie career. Gam, who started off with flying colours in Broadway, hit it off on the silverscreen soon after her debut in 1946.

Rita Gam’s first feature film was ‘The Thief’ with the then Hollywood actor Ray Milland; the role fetched heraGolden Globe nomination for the Most Promising Newcomer. Gam was most noted for her role of Estelle Rigault, a sex-crazed woman thrown into hell with a lesbian and a traitor journalist, and the time they spend together, in the movie named ‘No Exit’, also known as ‘Sinners Go to Hell’. Her performance in the movie led her to share the coveted Silver Bear for Best Actress with her co-star Viveca Lindfors in 1962 at the Berlin Film Festival.

Gam died from respiratory failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center here on Tuesday. She was a leading member of the Minnesota Theatre Company during the opening season (1963) of the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis with Zoe Caldwell, Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy. She also made guest appearances on various TV series as well.

Gam was married to director Sidney Lumet and, later, publisher Thomas Ginzburg, both marriages ending up in divorce. A close friend of Grace Kelly, the Hollywood actress,(they’d been apartment mates) Gam was a bridesmaid at Kelly’s wedding to Prince Rainier of Monaco and remained close until Kelly’s death.

Gam's career began onBroadway, with A Flag Is Born and A Temporary Island, before she broke out as an actress in the early 1950s. The Pittsburgh native went on to portray memorable roles in The ThiefSaadiaNight PeopleMohawkHannibalKing of Kings, and Klute she also appeared on such TV shows as The Jackie Gleason ShowThe Rockford Files, and Mannix. In her first movie The Thief, was a film that had no dialogues, yet, she carried out her role with ease and grace and promised the Hollywood audience some real talent to look forward to.

Along with being an actress, she was also a documentary film maker and a producer as well. She acted in television and regional theatre and produced two documentary series 

namely ‘World of Film’ and ‘World of Beauty’. Before producing documentaries, she learned to type and wrote two books: “Actress to Actress” (1986), which included a chapter on Grace Kelly, and “Actors: A Celebration” (1988). A hard worker from a young age, Gam used to model for hats and sell stuffed panda toys while pursuing a career in acting. She is survived by her son and daughter and two granddaughters.

The film ‘No Exit’ is based on the play by the brilliant French novelist and playwright Jean Paul Sartre. A firm preacher of Existentialism, Sartre brought the idea that acclaimed the freedom of the individual human being into every single piece of his writing. ‘No Exit’ is one such literary excellence that saw the limelight of Hollywood, through the beautiful portrayal of the complex characters by Rita Gam, Viveca Lindfors and Morgan Sterne. The film is directed by Ted Danielewski and remains one of Gam’s best performances on the sliver screen.

All the plays written by Jean Paul Sartre, in their emphasis upon the raw hostility of man toward man, seem to be predominantly pessimistic; yet, according to Sartre’s own confession, their content does not exclude the possibility of a morality of salvation. In the film ‘No Exit’, even though there is a cathartic transformation within the characters, they eventually accept the fate that is thrown to them. Rita Gam, beautifully painted the role of one of the women, and successfully threw the viewer into the whirlpool of questions that he or she may ask the self for a long time.