Completely forgot about Marti Webb. The Good Companion had an embarrassment of riches.
I'm glad others are enumerating Gable's sadly cut-short career. He was a rarity, a ballet star who moved comfortably into acting and singing. And it's worth noting, he was entirely different in all three of the Russell films that I mentioned. The naif in The Boyfriend was 180 from the dashing, rapacious lover in The Music Lovers, opposite an excellent Richard Chamberlain -- and "competing" with Glenda Jackson. (The film is an over-the-top study in excess, but never less than fascinating. And the actors are uniformly compelling.) When I mention that he was the event in The Good Companions, it likely sounds like the major stars were ignored. But in the 70s, the Russell films made quite a splash. Russell was an iconoclast with a theatrical eye and unafraid to fail spectacularly, which he decidedly did in the eyes of many. In my early 20s, I was riveted to everything he directed.
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