Errol:

Nice to speak with you again.

Of course my favorite writing scene of Susan's is in "I'll Cry Tomorrow" when she sits down at the desk and tries to write out a check to her mother. Remember? She was so shaky from needing a drink that she had to use her left hand to steady the checkbook. Love that scene for its authenticity. Throughout the movie she uses her right hand (to hold drinks, pore them, etc.) so she definitely was a "righty".

HI Jill....I think you are right! Now that you have mentioned the scene from I'LL CRY TOMORROW....it all makes sense that she was a righty!...

Errol/Jill:

Thanks for bringing up the right-handed vs. left-handed subject. I too wondered about this in I Want to Live, when they showed Susan sitting on her cot in the cell writing to Carl, supposedly with her left hand. It made me wonder if Susan herself was a righty or lefty. Strange that it never occurred to me before!

Another funny thing is that, even though I recall reading that Susan felt Barbara Graham was innocent, I could swear I read somewhere else that she felt Barbara was indeed guilty. I guess we'll never know.

I Want to Live was very difficult for me to watch yet again, as I'm sure it was for everyone else. I think my favorite Hayward line was when the prison matron was coaching her how to sit/breathe/etc. in the death chamber to make it easier for her to go through, and Susan asked, "How would you know?" Who else but Susan could deliver that line that way? I have to believe that some of the dialog in the movie was written for Susan specifically, since my understanding is that she had not read a fully written script before taking on the picture but a treatment. Here again, I wonder if we'll ever know.

Errol, I agree with you that Susan gave an even better performance in I'll Cry Tomorrow and should have won the Oscar for that film. That film just tears me up, especially the parts when she's so far gone into alcoholism and tremors that -- as you said -- she couldn't even write a check to her mother. This, to me, was Susan's absolute peak of performing. It's shameful that Hollywood didn't acknowledge it.