Susan Hayward has always been my favorite dramatic actress and though she made some bad films, I always credited her with toward the end of her career when some of her contemporaries were taking work in garbage horror films, she never sunk to that level. As was said about another screen legend, what there is is 'cherce'.
Though she never planned it her last role was in a fine made for TV film, Say Goodbye Maggie Cole. Hayward plays the title role of a recently widowed doctor who decides to make a complete change in her surroundings and career.
She and her late husband Richard Anderson were both doctors involved in a research facility with a good reputation headed by Dane Clark. Even after Clark pleads with her to stay, she decides to move to Chicago and takeover a practice that general practitioner Darren McGavin has.
This is all new to Hayward, dealing with people instead of test tubes. And McGavin's not an easy guy to work with. But she does take it all in stride, although not without a lot of heartache on the way.
Say Goodbye Maggie Cole was filmed at 20th Century Fox where during the Fifties Hayward had some of her best roles so it was fitting that her last work be done there. She got a really good supporting cast besides those I've mentioned, Beverly Garland is also in this as the wife of Richard Carlyle who Hayward suspects of having something seriously wrong with him. Maidie Norman delivers a fine performance as McGavin's nurse and all around girl Friday.
Jeanette Nolan plays the grandmother of a young girl who Hayward boards with when arriving in Chicago. The young girl is Michelle Nichols who is a clerk at a drugstore that Hayward and McGavin patronize. She is also diagnosed with leukemia which at that time was a death sentence in 1972. Almost 40 years later there are drugs that leukemia patients take that have prolonged life way beyond what could be expected back then. Part of the plot involved Hayward using her research connections to get some untested drugs to use on Nichols.
In any event Susan's best scenes are with Nichols and they are guaranteed to get an emotional reaction out of a turnip. As for Nichols she does a good job playing a most innocent young woman who is facing life's end before she's really lived.
Say Goodbye Maggie Cole might have been a good pilot for a television series and maybe we might have seen Susan Hayward once a week in this part had her own health problems not killed her. Though the film does tend a little bit to be soap opera, it's still a wonderful part for one of the best actresses ever to take her curtain call.
