Goldie Jeanne Hawn, an American actress, producer, and singer, was born on November 21, 1945. She gained prominence on the NBC sketch comedy show Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In (1968–1970), before going on to win an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for her portrayal in Cactus Flower (1969).
Cactus Flower is a 1969 American comedy movie directed by Gene Saks and starring Walter Matthau, Ingrid Bergman, and Goldie Hawn, for which she received an Academy Award nomination. I. A. L. Diamond adapted the script from Abe Burrows’ 1965 Broadway play of the same name, which was based on the French drama Fleur de cactus by Pierre Barillet and Jean-Pierre Grey. In 1969, Cactus Flower was the ninth highest-grossing picture.
Toni Simmons, a twenty-one-year-old woman, attempts suicide by inhaling gas from her stove. Igor Sullivan, Toni’s next-door neighbor, detects the gas and saves her by performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, which turns into a kiss once Toni regains consciousness.
On Monday, December 15, 1969, the movie opened at the Paris Theater and the Astor Theatre in New York City. The picture became the ninth highest-grossing film of 1969 at the box office. ‘Both the vast scenario of I. A. L. Diamond and the flexible directing of Gene Saks open out and even ventilate the plot,’ according to Howard Thompson of The New York Times. Roger Ebert scored the movie three and a half stars out of four, saying that ‘the chemistry works’ and that ‘the movie is better than the play.’
