Imitation of Life (1959) on Netflix
Aspiring actress Lora Meredith meets Annie Johnson at Coney Island and takes her in as a housekeeper. Annie's light-skinned daughter Sarah Jane tries to pass as white while Lora chases stardom.
- Netflix4.1/5
- IMDb7.8/1020,102 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes82%
Trailer
Plot summary
On a busy day at Coney Island in 1947, Lora Meredith, a white widow chasing a stage career, loses track of her young daughter Susie and finds her with Annie Johnson, a single Black mother. Annie's daughter Sarah Jane, who is light-skinned and about Susie's age, refuses to be seen as Black. With nowhere to stay, Annie and Sarah Jane move into Lora's small New York apartment, where Annie keeps house and minds Susie while Lora goes to auditions. Lora talks her way into the office of the agent Allen Loomis, who offers her a part in a new comedy by the playwright David Edwards, and she begins a romance with the photographer Steve Archer, who wants marriage while she wants a career.
Cast
- Karin Dickeras Sarah Jane (8)
- Lee Goodmanas Photographer
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Imitation of Life (1959)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Producer Ross Hunter knew the rewritten plot would let Lana Turner parade gowns and jewels for a female audience. Turner's wardrobe alone cost more than $1.078 million, among the most expensive in cinema up to that time.
- Many actresses, most of them white, were screen-tested for Sarah Jane before Susan Kohner took the part. Kohner is of Irish, Mexican and Czech-Jewish descent: her mother was the Mexican actress Lupita Tovar and her father the agent Paul Kohner.
- Douglas Sirk said he had deliberately and subversively undercut his own star, Lana Turner, so that attention would fall on the two Black characters. Critics later reckoned Juanita Moore and Susan Kohner stole the picture from her.
- Imitation of Life was the last film Douglas Sirk made in Hollywood, and it dealt head-on with race, class and gender before he left the American industry behind.
- The film seeped into pop music: Diana Ross & the Supremes built their 1969 single "I'm Livin' in Shame" on its story, and R.E.M. borrowed the title for a 2001 song although not one member of the band had seen it.
