Shirley Jones Elmer Gantry 1961

1961 was the year of the prostitute as both the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress honors went to portrayals of hookers. In “Elmer Gantry,” Burt Lancaster plays a fast-talking salesman-turned-preacher. Shirley plays his former girlfriend. She turns to prostitution after their relationship goes south. As Lulu Baines, Shirley gave a performance that made casting directors forget about her previous roles as the musical ingenue.

Nine years later, Shirley Jones would reunite with her Elmer Gantry director, Richard Brooks, in the film “The Happy Ending.” This production was among the many films of the 1970s about married women leaving their husbands to find themselves. Shirley assumes the role of Flo Harrigan, a former acquaintance of the title character in this movie. In college, Flo worked as a $20-an-hour hooker to support herself. Eventually she segued into being a full-time sugar baby. She provided companionship and sexual intimacy to a string of married men in exchange for receiving financial and material benefits. The story does have a happy ending for Flo. She accepts her most recent “beau’s” proposal of marriage, thereby liberating herself from the sugar baby lifestyle to which she has become accustomed.

Shirley once again donned the role of the woman of ill repute in “The Cheyenne Social Club.” Two friends find out one of them has inherited his brother’s business. Once they arrive, they are surprised to find out the company is a brothel run under the supervision of Shirley Jones’s character, Jenny.

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