How old is gigi supposed to be

Jonathan Van Meter wonders. By Jonathan Van Meter. Freed paused. From Photofest, digital colorization by Lee Ruelle. Mary Martin center, in blue shorts and cast members in HWD Daily From the awards race to the box office, with everything in between: get the entertainment industry's must-read newsletter.

Enter your e-mail address. Stars Actors Actresses Directors Producers. Walk of Fame All Hollywood Blvd. Vine St. Db Birth Dates Death Dates. Gigi Year: Director: Vincente Minnelli. Jacques Bergerac , who plays the skating instructor Sandomir, did not know how to skate.

Leslie Caron 's singing voice was dubbed by Betty Wand. Ina Claire was offered the role of Aunt Alicia but declined. Finally, movies that deal with older man involved with "jailbait" include Lolita , American Beauty , and Poison Ivy Sign In.

Gigi Jump to: FAQs 8 Spoilers 0. What is 'Gigi' about? Is 'Gigi' based on a book? What is a courtesan? How old was Gigi supposed to be? What were those little birds that Gigi and Aunt Alicia were eating? What was the card game that Gigi and Gaston were playing? How does the movie end? Any recommendations for other movies similar to 'Gigi'? Create a list ».

She is neither unfamiliar with films or their making, as her father was a screenwriter responsible for writing All That Jazz , not exactly the most feminist film of all time. Her slamming of Gigi , one of my all-time favorite films, came as a shock to me, but I know her as a person who appreciated the uncensored hostility on the NYT Film Forum.

Her championing of My Fair Lady over Gigi makes absolutely no sense, as Gigi is clearly the more knowing and inventive of the two films. I'm absolutely flummoxed by her rendered opinion, and have to imagine that she has some personal trauma associated with the musical. I'm shocked, truly. Marilyn, as I said up higher, Kate's incredibly gracious response to my "crabby dissent" been ages since I added to that tag, guess it was time -- the Oscars brings it out has made her Permanently a Good Egg in my eyes.

I figured, when she referred to someone on Twitter who snapped "I don't care who your father is" as though she brought that up! I don't know, there are a lot of people out there who dislike or even hate Gigi for her reasons; I barely scratched the surface. I'm glad to hear you love it too, though. DavidE, I think Minnelli had some run-ins with Beaton too, though mild. Anyone who read Beaton's diaries I only read excerpts would have no trouble seeing him as someone who could be difficult to get along with.

As for Anita Pallenberg, yes X The BFF of my dreams. I'm grateful that you have defended Gigi against those silly pedophile comments, and so beautifully too. I wouldn't take Ms. Aurthur too seriously.

After all, she's also clutching her pearls because Wings is silent and "I mean Or at least she's playing that role for clicks. And she has probably succeeded. A modern source relates that Freed also considered Gladys Cooper for the role.

Modern sources indicate that Lerner considered Dirk Bogarde for the role of Gaston, but the actor was unavailable.

Incidentally, I love this film like it's my own child--and I also believe the gown Gigi wears to Maxim's is possibly the most beautiful gown in cinema history. Well worth the wait, I hope. This unapologetic auteurist took advantage many years ago to see Gigi on the big screen of the Olympia theater.

Films can be just stories. Certainly, musicals especially can just be love stories with music song by characters. If film makes you ponder the mystery of life I don't know.

Perhaps, I'm superficial. Let me add my "thank you" to the chorus of those in the responses. I get so everlastingly tired of the "Gigi" bashing and the need to stand up for its, to me, undeniable artistry and to decry the misinterpretation of the story. Here, here. This film needs no defense, but you made your point excellently regardless. Gigi has long been one of my favorites my grandmother's too, whom we watched it with as children growing up.

I never saw anything reproachable with the story until a neighbor of ours said he despised Gigi because of its disgusting story line. No matter how many times I watched it since then, I still don't see anything objectionable with the film. Professor Higgins told his maid to take Eliza upstairs and "tear her clothes off! There wasn't anything like that implied in Gigi and yet My Fair Lady continues to be an all-around winner.

Arthur's list is made up of a lot of films that other critics have labeled "classics" and yet fall short when compared to some really great and not as famous films such as Powell and Pressburger's work which never won a Best Picture award. One of my warmest childhood memories as a little gilt is my mother singing "Thank Heaven for Little Girls" to me.

Later in life we went to see "Gigi" on the big screen, and cried together. No one will ever take that away from me. Sorry, Siren, but I'm still skeptical. I've seen seven Minnelli musicals, and clearly this is the least impressive. And the comparison with other best picture nominees is clearly off. Even if one believed "sex work" should be legal, it's hard to say that this is a subject that Hollywood has treated with scrupulous realism.

Marilyn, I'd like to read it if you write about how Gigi is more a knowing and inventive film than My Fair Lady. Karen, I agree about that dress in Gigi. The only other dress I've seen with stuffed birds on the shoulders was Scarlett's midnight blue number with a spangled net arrangement.

It was maddeningly shown in a brief glimpse on the New Orleans Honeymoon, and not completely. Great defense! You are basic a movie attorney! I didn't like Gigi as much as the other musicals because I saw an odd dubbed version.

But it's a charming movie with great color effects. The list didn't make me happy. Saying Wings was something like Crash of the silents? Putting all s winners in the last positions? I was actually very surprised of All About Eve in number one. I could bet it was The Godfather, the film 10 among 10 pseudo-cinephiles say is the best. Thank you. Context appears to not be a word the list maker is aware of, nevermind reading through the lyrics of 'Thank Heaven People just fixate on a thing and blow it up into hysteria without actually looking to make sure there is something to get hysterical about in the first place Thanks for this post!

As recently as last week, I was backpedaling on my own love for Gigi allowing it to be "inherently icky" while still enjoying it for its music and visual style , but I was wrong to do that. You are right, as usual. That said, I will say that I hated Gigi the first time I saw it at about age 11 or 12 because growing up in a conservative Christian home, I had no concept of courtesans, and I assumed throughout the film that everyone was preparing Gigi for marriage to a rich gentleman all along, and when marriage was presented at the end as the alternative to what they were actually preparing her for, I was confused and dismayed.

Watching it later, I realized it's actually quite adult and nuanced in its acceptance of what the societal situation were at that time and place. Musicals are often seen as bright and juvenile diversions, but I simply wasn't ready for Gigi at age Thank you again for this post that I can now use as ammunition to argue for how I actually feel about the film, rather than defend it in some half-assed and capitulating manner. Your piece above is on the money and pretty well brilliant.

A question that several, including Siren, the listmaker, and some respondents have offered answers to is: what is Gigi "about? What Gigi is about is the end of an era. Ah, yes, we remember it well. Not the end of mistresses and the men who keep them which even today we don't call "sex work.

In the filmmakers were in the speeding post-war years and, along with their audiences, could look at the turn of the century as a time equally quaint, romantic and clearly over. Minelli's Meet Me In St. Louis was another loving portrait of a time when many girls married as teenagers, both the working class and the well-to-do. The electrification of the Exposition at the film's end is a portent of a changing world, too - as is the scary prospect of moving to the big, fast New York City.

Gigi is not the last of her kind She is a Cinderella who rises from a certain working class to marriage with a businessman - not an aristocrat, but a high-falutin bourgeois.

As S-SS points out above, Gigi and Gaston are basically co-conspirators in usurping his old way of life - and creating their own kind of happiness at least at the point of the story where the camera pulls away.

Gigi asks her Aunt Alicia if no one in their family every marries.