European Film Star Postcards: Geraldine Brooks

27 July 2023

Geraldine Brooks

American film, stage and television actress Geraldine Brooks (1925-1977) was a resolute, blue-eyed brunette with attractive, slightly pinched features. She played ingénue roles opposite Barbara Stanwyck and Joan Crawford. In Italy, she appeared in Vulcano/Volcano (1950) with Anna Magnani. Later she acted in a long string of television dramas, interrupted by summer stock and occasional films.

Dutch postcard by Fotoarchief Film en Toneel, no. 3441. Photo: Warner Bros.

Dutch postcard, no. 3045. Photo: Warner Bros.

Dutch postcard, no. 3156. Photo: Warner Bros.

A promising debut

Geraldine Brooks was born Geraldine Stroock in 1925, in New York City. Her Dutch parents had a theatre-based background and her given name was in honour of opera star Geraldine Farrar. Her father, James Stroock, owned a top costume company and her mother, Bianca, was a costume designer and stylist. Little Geraldine was in dance shoes from age 2. Other relatives were also extensively involved in theatre - one aunt, Helen Stroock, was a former Ziegfeld Follies girl and another aunt, Rosa Olitza, was a contralto at the Metropolitan Opera until 1910. Her older sister, Gloria Stroock, also became an actress, primarily on TV.

Geraldine attended the Hunter Modeling School as a young teen and graduated from Julia Richman High School in 1942 as president of her drama club. In New York, Geraldine studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Art and the Neighborhood Playhouse. She debuted as an ingenue in summer stock productions at Bridgeport, Connecticut and at Montclair, New Jersey. In a pre-Broadway tryout of 'Follow the Girl' in 1944, Geraldine subsequently went with the show to Broadway in May of that same year and enjoyed a nine-month run.

Following her role as "Perdita" in 'A Winter's Tale' at the Theatre Guild, she was signed by Warner Bros. and made her film debut promisingly as a second femme lead in the mystery thriller Cry Wolf (Peter Godfrey, 1947) starring Barbara Stanwyck and Errol Flynn. At this time, she shunned her odd-sounding last name of "Stroock" in favour of the more euphonious marquee name of "Brooks", which was the name of her father's costume company. Playing Errol Flynn's cool, conniving niece who gives trouble to Stanwyck, she gave added suspense to the film.

In her second film, the Film Noir Possessed (Curtis Bernhardt, 1947), she was again at odds with another powerhouse star, this time Joan Crawford, but showed more sensitivity against the manic Crawford character. Geraldine moved to dramatic lead status with Embraceable You (Felix Jacoves, 1948) opposite Dane Clark and played daughter to real wife-and-husband team Fredric March and Florence Eldridge in An Act of Murder (Michael Gordon, 1948), a drama that dealt with the topic of euthanasia.

Less impressive was the standard Warner Bros. "B" Western The Younger Brothers (Edwin L. Marin, 1949) and her MGM loan-out appearance in Challenge to Lassie (Richard Thorpe, 1949). Floundering a bit at this time and failing to strike a star-making chord with audiences, she attempted a few continental film assignments. In Italy, she acted opposite Vittorio Gassman in the melodrama Ho sognato il paradiso/Streets of Sorrow (Giorgio Pastina, 1950) and she played Anna Magnani's younger sister in Vulcano/Volcano (William Dieterle, 1950). She grew quickly disillusioned in Europe as well and returned to America.

Dutch postcard by Fotoarchief Film en Toneel, no. AX 140 Photo: Warner Bros.

Vintage postcard, no. AX 140. Photo: Warner Bros.

A somewhat unsatisfying career

During the 1950s, Geraldine Brooks focused on stage and TV, including a Broadway stint in 'Time of the Cuckoo' starring Tony-winning Shirley Booth. Eventually, she went back to studying acting again. In 1956, she became a member of the Actor's Studio and a strong exponent of its method style. Despite this renewed, enlightening acting technique, her film career found no momentum at all.

In fact, she appeared in only two films in the oncoming years as brittle, harder-core ladies in Street of Sinners (William Berke, 1957) and Johnny Tiger (Paul Wendkos, 1966). Her greater notices were to be found guesting on various popular TV series. Particularly noteworthy were her roles on Perry Mason (1957), The Defenders (1961), Bus Stop (1961) - for which she earned an Emmy nomination, the pilot of Ironside (1967) and the last final climactic episode of The Fugitive (1963).

She was a regular as Dan Dailey's secretary on the mildly received Faraday and Company (1973). In the 1970s, Brooks also appeared in episodes of Kung Fu (1972), Cannon (1971), Barnaby Jones (1973) and McMillan & Wife (1971), in which her sister, Gloria Stroock, had a recurring role as Rock Hudson's secretary.

Geraldine's later theatre included her Tony-nominated role in 'Brightower' (1970) despite it closing after only one performance on Broadway and as Tevye's wife, Golde, in the musical 'Fiddler on the Roof'. Gary Brumburgh at IMDb: "Her final movie part came in the rather ho-hum crime movie Mr. Ricco (Paul Bogart, 1975) alongside Dean Martin. A short-lived series regular as the matriarch of The Dumplings (1976), a rare comedic venture for her, and a stage production of Jules Feiffer's 'Hold Me!' in 1977 capped her capable but somewhat unsatisfying career. She deserved much better attention than she got, especially in films".

Divorced from TV writer Herbert Sargent after only three years (1958-1961), she married author Budd Schulberg, best known for his screenplay of On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954), in 1964. The couple moved to Los Angeles and for a time, set up a workshop for black writers in the Watts section of Los Angeles. In 1970, they returned to New York and, the following year bought a shore home at Quiogue in the Hamptons. Between television engagements, she gardened at Quiogue, tended her three cats and two adopted swans, and took up a new art, photography. She collaborated with Budd Schulberg on the book 'Swan Watch' (1975), a study on the elegant birds with her photographs and essays by Schulberg. In addition, she wrote poetry for children although she herself never had any. Sadly, Geraldine Brooks died in 1977 in Riverhead, New York, of a heart attack while battling cancer. She was only 51 and was survived by her husband, mother and sister.