Katy Jurado Sure Gave Lloyd Bridges a Good Talking-To

Welcome to 2023, everyone! 

 

In the first Nine Pockets installment of the new year, we'll be going back exactly 70 years, to a set that Topps released in 1953 called Who-Z-At Star? 

 

It's an 80-card set that features many remarkable actors, actresses, singers, and musicians from the era: Clark Gable, Elizabeth Taylor, Lionel Barrymore, Gene Kelly, Slim Pickens, Ava Gardner, and Errol Flynn, to name a few.

 

And here's the focus of today's post: actress Katy Jurado.

 

 

 

Jurado became a crush for me as soon as I saw her in the classic 1952 Western called High Noon, starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly. In the film, she plays a beautiful and tough saloon owner named Helen Ramirez who, among other things, gives a young Deputy Marshal named Harvey Pell a good stern talking-to about manhood in the Wild West. (Pell was played by Lloyd Bridges.) 

 

The role earned Jurado a Golden Globe award for Best Supporting Actress. Have a look:

 

She's a stunner inside and out, right? 

 

Jurado played memorable characters in other films of the decade as well, such as Bullfighter and the Lady (1951), Arrowhead (1953), Broken Lance (1954), and The Racers (1955). She also had a love for Mexican cinema, and devoted as much of her time, if not more, to starring in Mexican films as she did Hollywood films.

 

Here are some quotes from Jurado that help define who she was:

[On High Noon] I am very proud to make this picture because I look and act like a Mexican—not imitation. Some Mexicans go to Hollywood and lose their career in Mexico, because they play imitation. I don't want this to happen to me.

 

Movies will have to change—they just show too much. Sex is supposed to be what people feel and think. If you show it, there's no sex. It's just like women's skirts and see-through dresses. They got shorter and shorter and were so ugly until they came out with the maxi. People get tired of that sort of thing.

 

[When asked if she preferred Hispanic men] Nationality has nothing to do with being a man. What counts is the way he brushes your hand, the way he looks at you, and the little things he does and says.

I am not afraid to play mothers. Some of these little girls are afraid to admit they are getting older. I am not afraid. You can't put your finger in the sun and stop time.

 

Women can have a career, but the real career is to be a woman. It's beautiful to be a woman and give birth.

 

 

There's definitely some food for thought in those quotes, all these years later. And I'm happy to have a Katy Jurado card in my collection. 

 

Here's what the card back looks like. 

 

 

 

They're pretty well done. I might have to pick up a few other cards from the set, too.

 

As for where this card came from, I've got to thank Mr. Jon Pennysleeves.

 

He saw the card on my want list at TCDB, and sent it to me as a RAK. Or, more specifically, a return RAK for a book that I'd sent him shortly before. You can learn more about the book, which documents Theodore Roosevelt's adventures through the Brazilian wilderness, at another one of Jon's blogs, My Kind of Nonsense. The blog—and the book—are both worth a read, for sure.

Jon, thank you so much for the surprise gift. It's the new star of my vintage collection. If I can get down to Tennessee one day, maybe we'll meet up and watch High Noon, or explore the Tennesean wilderness like Colonel Roosevelt did in Brazil—just with a little less danger and difficulty, thank you very much.

From the Favorites Box: Theodore Roosevelt, 1952 Topps Look 'N See #6

A series where I post some thoughts about favorite cards. Previous cards in the series are available here.

 

The man featured on today's card is an absolute legend in my book. Many of you likely know a thing or two about him—if not from what you may have learned in school, then from numerous books and television documentaries about him. (The PBS series about some of the key members of the family is worth a watch.)

 

And as card collectors and sports fans, you might also know this man from a portion of a certain speech he gave that's been quoted by a few athletes over time, none bigger than Tom Brady.

 

The full speech is titled "Citizenship in a Republic", and the entire thing is powerful. I'll add a quote here from the specific portion that's so popular with athletes. After reading it, I think you'll see why.

 

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

 

Softball season just started over here, and I know I'm ready to slug some hits and get dirty in the field.

No more beating around the bush, though. Here's the man himself, on cardboard.

 

 

 

 

This Theodore Roosevelt card is one of the bigger hitters in the 1952 Look 'N See set, but you know what? I'd hardly purchased any cards for my collection in 2021, and I definitely wanted a copy of this one, so I found a decent deal online and went for it.

What pushed me to the point of purchase, however, was not anything I've mentioned above. It was a result of reading a book that Roosevelt wrote a few years after his second term in office called Through the Brazilian Wilderness.

 

Accepting an invitation from some highly regarded Brazilian leaders and naturalists, Roosevelt and his son Kermit would travel to the country and help chart some of its unexplored areas on foot and by dugout canoe, cataloguing some never-before-seen animal, insect, and plant species along the way.

It was a monumental task. The team would have to venture down uncharted rivers (including one called "The River of Doubt"), fend off snakes and swarms of insects, endure poor weather, rapids, near starvation, injury, sickness, the whole nine yards. And Roosevelt was in his mid-50s by then. 

 

But his vigor remained. Just read this statement from the man regarding the journey he and his American-Brazilian team completed. It's one of my favorites in the entire book.

No man has any business to go on such a trip as ours unless he will refuse to jeopardize the welfare of his associates by any delay caused by a weakness or ailment of his. It is his duty to go forward, if necessary on all fours, until he drops.

And there were times in the journey when they really were pushed that far. Here's another excerpt:

 

Kermit's experience in bridge building was invaluable in enabling him to do the rope work by which alone it was possible to get the canoes down the canyon. He and Lyra had now been in the water for days. Their clothes were never dry. Their shoes were rotten. The bruises on their feet and legs had become sores. On their bodies some of the insect bites had become festering wounds, as indeed was the case with all of us. Poisonous ants, biting flies, ticks, wasps, bees were a perpetual torment. However, no one had yet been bitten by a venomous serpent, a scorpion, or a centiped, although we had killed all of the three within camp limits.

 

I think people were indeed tougher back then.

 

But let's get back to the card now. Here's the text and design on the reverse:

 

I might be a little partial because Mr. Roosevelt is such an icon to me, but the motivation I receive from reading about him seems almost limitless. Here's one more quote from "Citizenship in a Republic".

 

To say that the thriftless, the lazy, the vicious, the incapable, ought to have the reward given to those who are far-sighted, capable, and upright, is to say what is not true and can not be true. Let us try to level up, but let us beware of the evil of levelling down. If a man stumbles, it is a good thing to help him to his feet. Every one of us needs a helping hand now and then. But if a man lies down, it is a waste of time to try to carry him; and it is a very bad thing for every one if we make men feel that the same reward will come to those who shirk their work and to those who do it.

 

Strong points for the world in which we currently live.

 

Now it's time to decode the card back. The text box at the bottom of the card asks, "What was the name of the group of soldiers led by Teddy Roosevelt?"

Know the answer? 

 

Okay, time to place my digital red cellophane paper atop the card.

 

The Rough Riders. Bully for the whole unit. Bully for Colonel Roosevelt. Bully for all of you readers and collectors.

And for continuing to motivate us to get off our duffs and accomplish great things—more than 100 years now since he first spoke those words quoted above—1952 Topps Look 'N See #6 has a place in my box of favorites.