Mary Astor once said that there are five stages in the life of an actor:

1. Who’s Mary Astor?
   
2. Get me Mary Astor.
   
3. Get me a Mary Astor type.
   
4. Get me a young Mary Astor.
   
5. Who’s Mary Astor?

Last night I watched A Kiss Before Dying with Get-Me-Robert-Wagner, Who’s-Virginia-Leith?* and in a very small but instructive role, the actual Mary Astor. It’s not a good movie, but is worth seeing for the Technicolor, the clothes, George Macready’s character scar, and pretty young Robert Wagner being banally evil in pursuit of wealth and position.

Wagner’s scenes with Astor are brief but important, and he’s good at belittling her and throwing her disdainful crumbs of attention. And she, of course — in the four minutes of actual screen time she’s given — is wonderful at conveying how confusing and deeply hurtful it is to be treated so badly by the son she adores.

Matt Dillon played the evil boyfriend straight up sinister in the 1991 remake, which contributed to its general badness  (trust me, I spent five bucks of perfectly good beer money to see this in the theater when it came out), a condition made worse by having  both sisters played by Sean Young, who has more Virginia Leith in her than she'd care to admit.

I happen to be in the middle of Astor’s memoir, A Life on Film, and skipped ahead to see what she said about working on the original A Kiss Before Dying. Not much, as it turns out, except for this precious gem of an encounter on the set: “[A] young starlet looked at me, her beautiful eyes popping, ‘Mary Astor! I thought you were dead!’”

Perhaps there is a sixth stage in the life of an actor.

Astor's first memoir  covers her alcoholism, her bad marriages, her parents lawsuit for financial support, and the bitter custody battle with an ex-husband. This isn't that memoir,  but there's enough sex and scandal around the edges to make A Life on Film quite the page-turner, as well as a concise history of filmmaking. I had no idea how extensive Mary Astor’s silent career was. I mean, I’m halfway through the book and we haven't even got to Dodsworth yet! Read it if you can find it.

* This is what become of Virginia Leith. Hers is The Brain That Would Not Die, a Mystery Science Theater 3000 favorite.