Joan Hackett

your fiend mr. jones

28Sep10

Neurotic. Intelligent. Eccentric. The characters she played were almost all of a type, that type being East Coast, moody and brittle. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that in the two remakes she did (television versions of “Rebecca” and “Les Diaboliques”) she played the character closest to a nervous breakdown. There was a quality in her acting, especially in her voice that suggested a fragile bird and one has only to watch her in “The Last of Sheila” try to toss off one of the gazillion bon mots written by Stephen Sondheim and Anthony Perkins (their only film as writers) to see how awkward she could play. “You said you were sick in Santa Barbara.” James Coburn tells her through his shark teeth (what a Joker he would have made). “I said I was sick of Santa Barbara” she replies, quick nervous smile, then back to her drink. We know she has a problem with alcohol, even before it’s spelled out in the film, just from her mannerisms. She died, much too early, after playing the vain best friend in “Only When I Laugh”. Her epitaph refers to how much rest she wanted in life- “Go away. I’m asleep.”