Dyan Cannon is 81, can you believe that? For someone that’s reached such a distinguished age she sure doesn’t look it most times, but then Cannon has tended to look absolutely amazing for a lot of years without ever really showing how old she truly was a lot of the time. There are always secrets to keep the aging process at bay, a lot of which don’t involve going under the knife, but really when it all comes down to it that’s kind of no one’s business but the person undergoing the work. In any case Cannon has been one of the most well-known and well-respected actresses for a very long time. Like many performers from back in her day time has kind of passed her on by and she’s had to take a back seat as a guest star a lot in recent years, but for someone that’s done as much as she has and been around for so long that’s not exactly a bad thing. It’s more like she’s there to supervise and make the set look good, which she’s managed to do for quite some time to be honest. Come on, admit it, when you saw her as a younger woman you couldn’t help but think how gorgeous she was and how full of life. Even as she got older she didn’t seem to age enough to ever lose that magnetic personality and those looks that helped to make her such a star in the first place.
That’s Hollywood royalty after all.
Her Career
Making her film debut in 1960 she starred in The Rise and fall of Legs Diamond. She’d been appearing in TV since the late 50’s but had finally stepped onto the big screen for her shot at greatness. Cannon had already established her acting prowess in TV productions like Wanted: Dead or Alive with Steve McQueen and in Johnny Ringo with Don Durant. But in 1960 it was time to take a leap of faith and make her way into the big time and create some real buzz when it came to her career.
Of course if you’re like me then you probably remember her in other films like Caddyshack II and Out to Sea with some of the funniest mean alive at the time. Her roles with Jackie Mason and Walter Matthau were simply hilarious and full of that quality that doesn’t come as often to movies any longer. In fact it’s safe to say that since the industry has changed the feel of the movies has changed with it, for better or worse depending on one’s opinion. But if you can’t laugh at her performance in these clips then you might have been born too far after the generation that found them hysterical.
In this film she played the role of a wealthy socialite who still found the main character, played by Jackie Mason, to be quite charming despite his rather blue collar attitude and demeanor. The film wasn’t nearly as great as the original but it did manage to play up the fight between the rich folks and the slobs to a tee when Bushwood was turned into an amusement park thanks to Jack buying out Ty Webb’s share of ownership. In many ways this film was pretty satisfying.
In this film she’s on the cruise to land a rich guy since the story of her own wealth is just that, a story. But when she meets Charlie she genuinely starts to fall for him and doesn’t care if he has money. The whole film is kind of one big punch line interspersed with dramatic moments as you might have come to expect from Matthau/Lemmon movies, but it’s done so well that you can’t help but roll on the floor laughing when you’re not watching to see what comes next.
Cannon has that kind of effect though. She can do comedy as well as she can do drama, and even if she’s not a comedian then she can play along with it to a tee. She’s been a great actress for so long that it’s hard to believe that she isn’t considered a cornerstone of what it means to be a success story in Hollywood. This only proves that the industry is and likely already has become so big that some of the most popular actors in the world have become footnotes to those that believe that they’re now standing on top and can’t be moved. From her appearances on shows such as Gunsmoke to Ripcord to her first major film role in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice she’s been absolutely great.
In 1976 she hosted Saturday Night Live during the first season and she even had a guest-starring role in The Muppet Show in 1979. Cannon earned a Golden Globe award for her role in Heaven Can Wait, and in the same year she costarred in Revenge of the Pink Panther. She’s starred with some of the greats such as Willie Nelson, Al Pacino, Christopher Reeve, and even Michael Caine. She was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1983, further immortalizing her name in Hollywood, and even into the 90’s she kept on acting, appearing in shows such as The Practice and Ally McBeal.
She’s had quite the career and done enough to be called one of the greats.
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