The entertainment industry has produced many works that include catfights. Below is a selection of notable films and television episodes, many of them featuring major movie stars engaged in fighting. •
OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies.
Academy Award winning director
Michel Hazanavicius directed this 2007 French spy spoof that featured a clothes shredding catfight between
Bérénice Bejo and
Aure Atika. Instead of breaking up the fight,
Jean Dujardin, in the role of OSS Agent 117, watches with glee as the two barefoot brunettes battle each other. •
2 Days in the Valley.
Teri Hatcher and
Charlize Theron star in what the
Los Angeles Times referred to as the "spandex cat fight of the year". According to director
John Herzfeld the two women, who refused to use stunt doubles, were hitting each other so hard that at one point the filming was stopped after Hatcher connected to Theron's chin so that the resulting bruise could be hidden by make-up. After filming, when Hatcher was asked about the "catfight", she responded "It was actually a brawl—not a catfight because technically a 'catfight' is hair pulling and there was none of that." •
Back from Eternity. A 1956 remake of
Five Came Back starring
Phyllis Kirk and
Anita Ekberg. Jealous over her apparent attraction to a pilot played by
Keith Andes, Kirk starts a fight with Ekberg in a stream while washing clothes. Shooting the scene on a sound set required the creation of a stream with running water and foam rubber rocks to avoid injury to Kirk and Ekberg. and
Joan Taylor fight each other in the 1956
American International Pictures movie
Girls in Prison •
Barfly.
Faye Dunaway has a kicking, hair-pulling battle with
Alice Krige in a Los Angeles bar, described by
the Washington Post review of the movie as a "cat fight on skid row ... (that is) as preposterous as the script as a whole." •
Carry on Girls.
Barbara Windsor and
Margaret Nolan in a publicity event for a forthcoming beauty contest, get into a fight over Nolan wearing a silver bikini in a hotel lobby that Windsor says she stole off her in a previous contest, tearing off Nolan's hairpiece, her bikini top, and very nearly her bikini bottoms until contest organisers
Sid James and
Bernard Bresslaw just about manage to separate them apart. In a scene, shortly afterwards, Windsor said she deliberately provoked the catfight merely to arouse more publicity for the contest. •
Catwoman. Panned by critics, this 2004 movie nonetheless culminates in "a world-class catfight" between co-stars
Halle Berry and
Sharon Stone. • ''
Charlie's Angels''. Iconic 1970s TV show starring, in its first season,
Kate Jackson,
Farrah Fawcett, and
Jaclyn Smith. Dressed in a white bikini, Smith fought
Rosemary Forsyth in the first season's third episode titled "Night of the Strangler". Smith later engaged stuntwoman Heidi von Beltz in a locker room fight during the season-two episode "Angels in the Backfield" (von Beltz would later become quadriplegic as a result of injuries sustained while performing a stunt in
The Cannonball Run).
Cheryl Ladd joined the cast after Fawcett's departure and fought
Shera Danese in season three's episode "Disco Angels". •
Colorado Territory.
Dorothy Malone tries to alert the visiting marshal, played by
Morris Ankrum, that wanted felons played by
Joel McCrea and
Virginia Mayo have taken refuge in their ranch house, but is stopped by Mayo. The two women engage in what
The Village Voice called one of "The Best Catfights In Hollywood History." •
Community. In
The Psychology of Letting Go, the third episode of the second season of the 2009
NBC sitcom,
Alison Brie and
Gillian Jacobs have a fundraiser rivalry that climaxes in an oil wrestling bout. Todd VanDerWerff, writing for
The AV Club, commented "At this point, a comedy throwing its two hot girls into an ironic mud fight is essentially just a non-ironic mud-fight, it's happened so often." •
Comrade X.
Hedy Lamarr and
Natasha Lytess have a "hair pulling battle" over the affections of
Clark Gable in this 1940 movie. •
Destry Rides Again.
Marlene Dietrich and
Una Merkel engage in "one of the most famous female vs female fights ever captured on film."
The New York Times review of the 1939 movie said "The scene that really counts though is the cat-fight between Miss Dietrich's Frenchy and Una Merkel's outraged Mrs. Callahan ... we thought the battle in 'The Women' was an eye-opener, now we realize it was just shadow clawing. For the real thing, with no-holds barred and full access to chairs, tables, glasses, waterbuckets and as much hair that can be snatched from the opponent's scalp, we give you not 'The Women' but the two women who fight it out in Bloody Gulch." Adaptations of the movie include
Frenchie starring
Shelley Winters and
Marie Windsor as the combatants and
Destry starring
Mari Blanchard and
Mary Wickes. All four women, in both of the movies, were shown the Dietrich-Merkel fight in the original, as a point of reference. •
Four Queens for an Ace. Multiple
crêpage de chignons occur in this tongue-in-cheek
French Eurospy film starring
Roger Hanin. His jealous girlfriend, played by
Catherine Allégret, battles
Sylva Koscina and
Dominique Wilms at various points in the movie. •
From Russia with Love. In the role of
James Bond,
Sean Connery watches two gypsies engage in what many consider to be one of the entertainment industry's most iconic catfights. I was a very nice girl but Aliza was a cow. We had terrible clashes and I was disgusted with her. I had a lot of anger inside of me so that [fight] scene was a perfect way to work it out. We rehearsed the fight for three weeks but when we shot it, Aliza was really fighting. Everyone encouraged me to fight back, so I did. We got into a real scrapping match.— Martine Beswick •
Girls in Prison. Inmates
Joan Taylor and
Adele Jergens fight each other in a muddy field. and Eleise Cameron fight in the 1957 crime film
Gun Girls •
Go West, Young Lady. Dance hall girl
Ann Miller and her rival
Penny Singleton have a "rowdy free-for-all hair-pulling fight ... worth the price of admission", in this 1942 western starring
Glenn Ford. One biographer noted that the scene was humiliating for Miller, as she lost the energetic fight to Singleton. •
Gun Girls. 1957 American crime film, ridiculed for sloppy production and dialogue as well as for having women in their 20s portray teen-aged criminals. During the movie,
Eve Brent fights Eleise Cameron when she finds Cameron in her boyfriend's apartment. Brent would later star as
Jane in ''
Tarzan's Fight for Life''. •
Gunslinger.
Beverly Garland and
Allison Hayes fight in this
Roger Corman directed western. Garland, who injured her ankle filming an earlier scene, told Corman she was unable to stand up, let alone film a fight scene with Hayes. Corman responded by having a doctor inject her ankle with painkillers. In her biography, Garland said "You could be dead and Roger would find a way to film around that. We filmed the fight scene and I did all my own stunts ... we really scratched, punched and pulled each others hair! Of course I couldn't work for several weeks after that, I couldn't walk on that leg. But Roger got his scenes, that's all that mattered." •
Horrors of Spider Island. Blonde actresses
Barbara Valentin as Babs and
Eva Schauland as Nelly, fight each other in a remote cabin while a man-spider lurks outside. •
Hot Blood. 1956 musical drama starring
Jane Russell and
Cornel Wilde where Wilde is tricked by his brother into an arranged marriage with tempestuous Annie Caldash, played by Russell. "One of the liveliest scenes in the movie is a hair pulling battle, blonde vs brunette, when Jane encounters a rival for her hubby's affections ... and a free-for-all with blonde
Helen Westcott follows." •
Judex.
Georges Franju's re-working of the
1916 silent version culminates in the film's roof top fight scene between evil brunette Diana (
Francine Bergé) and good blonde Daisy (
Sylva Koscina), where their "good-versus-evil fisticuffs are literalized by their diverging black-and-white attire." Other reviewers have noted the eroticsm of the fight, as the women's legs tangle with each other. •
Kill Bill: Volume 1 and
Kill Bill: Volume 2.
Uma Thurman in the role of
The Bride uses a combination of swords, knives, and martial arts to kill
Lucy Liu,
Vivica Fox and
Daryl Hannah. '' promised the audience a catfight between the two women. •
Kansas City Bomber.
Raquel Welch stars in this feature film about the sport of female
roller derby. Portraying a divorcee and single parent, Welch in the role of K.C. Carr, engages in a number of fights, most notably against actress
Helena Kallianiotes who plays the role of a fading roller derby star, Jackie Burdette. Two weeks into the shoot, Welch suffered a cut lip and swollen face during a fight scene with Kallianiotes. An MGM spokesman said the two actors "got carried away" and Welch "got slugged" by Kallianiotes. •
Keep Your Powder Dry.
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's advertisements for the 1945 film about the
Women's Army Corps promised the audience a catfight between
Lorraine Day and
Lana Turner. An image of Day slapping Turner in the face was part of the movie's publicity campaign. • ''
Logan's Run''. Brief scene with
Jenny Agutter fighting
Farrah Fawcett. Allegedly, the fight scene was to be much longer but the director,
Michael Anderson became concerned that the two women were pulling each other's hair so hard, that a real fight would erupt. •
Meet Me in Las Vegas.
Cyd Charisse and
Liliane Montevecchi "rip off jewelry and various parts of clothing" in a dance fight choreographed by
Hermes Pan to the song "
Frankie and Johnny" performed by
Sammy Davis Jr. The dance sequence took over a month to rehearse and an entire week to film. The film received an
Oscar nomination for
best musical score. •
Mesa of Lost Women.
Jackie Coogan stars as a mad scientist in this 1953
B movie directed by
Ron Ormond. Near the film's conclusion actresses
Mary Hill and
Tandra Quinn fight each other in Coogan's laboratory. •
Mission: Impossible. In a 1966 episode titled
Old Man Out, former
Miss America Mary Ann Mobley and
Barbara Bain fake a lengthy cat fight as a diversionary tactic while the Mission Impossible team breaks a man out of prison. •
Naked Gun. Saloon girls
Veda Ann Borg and
Mara Corday fight over stolen money in this 1956 western 's laboratory assistant in the 1953 "B movie"
Mesa of Lost Women •
Off Limits. In this 1953 film, during a boxing match, where one of the fighters is being managed by
Bob Hope, two of Hope's girlfriends,
Joan Taylor and
Carolyn Jones, get into a boxing match of their own, distracting both the audience and the boxers fighting in the ring. •
One Million Years B.C.. Remake of the
similarly titled 1940 film. The remake featured two barefoot, bikini-clad women, one being the "good blonde"
Raquel Welch and the other, the "bad brunette"
Martine Beswick, who get into one of the most famous catfights in film history. •
Perils of Nyoka. A 1942 movie serial shown in 15 parts, starring
Kay Aldridge as the imperiled Nyoka and
Lorna Gray as her female nemesis, the evil Vultura. Aldridge, attractively attired in jungle shorts, and Gray also attractively attired in a revealing sarong, engage in multiple fights, the climactic battle occurring in the serial's final chapter when Vultura attempts to escape with a valuable treasure, only to be confronted by Nyoka. "The wrestling match between the two girls, their naked legs entwined, had something for everyone." Watching the women fight was Vultura's pet gorilla who, seeing that Nyoka was winning the fight, launched a spear at her, but missed and instead killed Vultura. •
Planet Earth. A 1974 made-for-TV science fiction movie created by
Gene Roddenberry about a post-apocalyptic matriarchal society where women keep men drugged and use them as slaves. Led by
John Saxon in the role of Dylan Hunt, a team of outsiders that includes
Janet Margolin as Harper-Smythe, visits a village looking for a missing friend. Hunt is quickly taken prisoner by
Diana Muldaur in the role of Marg, the head Amazon. Smythe quickly realizes she will have to fight Marg to get him back.
Marc Daniels brings professional polish and brisk pacing to the telefilm and the action sequences are very nicely-staged ... there's a very well-done catfight between Muldaur and Margolin where it's clear that the two actresses are doing much of the stuntwork themselves. Prior to that encounter, Smythe fights actress Sally Kemp in the role of an Amazon housemistress named Treece. The confrontation was interrupted by Treece's children who were clearly distraught at the site of their mother fighting another woman. This mirrors a scene in
Genesis II in which the shock wave from a nuclear explosion Hunt has triggered strikes on a Pax lookout just as a mother has brought her young children out to see the stars. There and in the
Planet Earth scene, the heroes witness the effect of their own violence on children, forcing them to rethink the use of force—a very effective and intelligent pacifistic touch from Roddenberry. •
San Antone. 1953 western where "bitchy Southern belle
Arleen Whelan" attacks Mexican
Katy Jurado with a knife. Jurado disarms Wheelan and the two fight each other until broken up by returning members of the group. '' •
Star in the Dust. Actresses
Randy Stuart and
Coleen Gray invited their husbands to watch the filming of their fight scene in this 1956 western. At the conclusion, Gray recalled in a later interview, the women dusted themselves off, but the two husbands "were pale and clammy and weak" having watched their wives engage in a fistfight. •
Stories of the Century. Premier episode of the 1954 season featured Detective Frankie Adams, played by
Mary Castle, attempting to subdue
Marie Windsor, in the role of
Belle Starr •
Swashbuckler. During a bar scene,
Geneviève Bujold accuses another woman of owning a trinket that is rightfully hers. The dispute leads to a fight between Bujold and stunt actress
Lee Pulford. The fight ends with Bujold knocking out her opponent. In an interview after the release of the film, the blonde-haired Pulford, who described herself as very athletic, said that Bujold didn't know how to fight and that during the rehearsals she was extra careful not to hurt the slender French-Canadian actress, one of the film's major co-stars. •
Tarzan and the Slave Girl. Jane, played by
Vanessa Brown and
Denise Darcel in the role of Lola, have a hair pulling, furniture throwing catfight in this 1950 Tarzan entry. In a later interview, Brown claimed that "Denise was impossible ... I really didn't like her. I don't think the catfight scene took much preparation on my part." •
The Bounty Hunter.
Marie Windsor and
Dolores Dorn engage in a "hair-pulling, kicking battle" over a gun in this 1954
Randolph Scott western. •
The Leech Woman. At gun point,
Coleen Gray fights
Gloria Talbott. Before the scene was filmed, Gray mentioned to Talbott that she was pretty strong and wouldn't have any problem taking the gun away. Talbott was taken aback by the comment and approached the scene with the intent of overpowering her blonde co-star even though the script called for Gray to win the fight. Years later, Talbott admitted in an interview that Gray was right, she was much stronger than Talbott, throwing her into a closet as the two women went off-script, wrestling each other. •
The Mini-Skirt Mob.
Diane McBain stars as the leader of an all-female motorcycle gang. Furious that her ex-boyfriend married another woman (played by
Sherry Jackson), she spends the entire movie terrorizing the couple and, at one point, gives a vicious beating to Jackson. Off-screen, McBain and Jackson were close friends and shared a Hollywood apartment. '' •
The New Adventures of Wonder Woman. In the 90 minute made-for-TV 1975 pilot movie,
Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman fights
Stella Stevens who plays the role of a Nazi spy. The previous year, an
initial attempt to start a Wonder Woman TV series starring
Cathy Lee Crosby failed when it did not garner sufficient TV ratings for
ABC Television to renew as a series. The movie was criticized for featuring the blonde-haired Crosby in the role traditionally reserved for a brunette, a decision that even Crosby had questioned. Crosby did have two short fights, one of which was against a renegade Amazon played by
Anitra Ford. •
The Old Chisholm Trail.
Johnny Mack Brown and
Tex Ritter are singing cowboys in this 1942 western that also stars
Mady Correll as a scheming ranch owner and
Jennifer Holt as the blonde heroine who own the local trading post where the two women get into a "vicious catfight". •
The San Francisco Docks. Actress
Esther Ralston, described as a "hard fighting blonde glamor girl", told director
Arthur Lubin that her and fellow actress
Irene Hervey did not want to have stunt doubles perform their fight scene, described by press accounts as a "whirlwind fistfight ... said to overshadow the most hectic feminine movie battles seen in recent motion pictures." Hervey later described the fight as a "terrific battle between me and Esther Ralston—with hair-pulling, kicking, the works." •
The Spy in the Green Hat. In this theatrical version of the two-part
The Man from U.N.C.L.E. episode titled "The Concrete Overcoat Affair",
Leticia Roman tries to escape from the guard of
Janet Leigh who responds by pulling a knife from her garter belt and attacking Roman. Knocking the knife out of Leigh's hand, the two women "roll around together on a conference table, and a good old-fashioned catfight ensues." One critic described it as "what may very well be one of the sexiest spy movie scenes ever, Janet Leigh versus Roman wrestling in skirts is the stuff dreams are made of." Advertisements showing the dark-haired Roman fighting the blonde Leigh were featured in many newspapers. One caption read "Guest stars Janet Leigh and Leticia Roman use cat-like tactics in this sparring scene from Friday night's 'Man From Uncle' telecast." •
The Three Musketeers. Near the end of the movie, Raquel Welch fights
Faye Dunaway, a battle described by Dunaway as a fight "where we try, more or less, to tear each other to pieces. Welch and Dunaway worked with trainers to make their fight as "physical and brutal" as possible without injuring themselves, although Welch suffered a sprained wrist when Dunaway shoved her so hard she fell. •
The Turning Point. In the film's pivotal scene, the two adult female protagonists, portrayed by
Anne Bancroft and
Shirley MacLaine, have an extended catfight on the roof of
Lincoln Center. •
The Women. After
Paulette Goddard steals
Rosalind Russell's husband, the two get into a kicking, hair-pulling fight that took three days and eight changes of costume to shoot. During the fight, Russell bit Goddard in the leg. Russell later said that Goddard suffered a permanent scar from the bite, but that the two actresses remained friends. A 1955 remake of the film was featured on the TV show ''
Producers' Showcase''. Goddard and
Mary Boland were the only cast members from the original 1939 film. Allegedly, Goddard and
Shelley Winters, a cast member of the remake, engaged in an actual "hair-pulling fist fight" during one of the rehearsals. Unlike the original,
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's 1956 remake titled,
The Opposite Sex, included men, music, color, and songs. During the rehearsal of the Russell-Goddard catfight from the original movie,
Ann Miller punched co-star
Delores Gray hard enough to knock her off her feet, twice. Later in the movie,
June Allyson slapped
Joan Collins so hard filming was postponed until Collin's facial swelling went down. fights scheming rancher
Mady Correll in the 1941 western
The Old Chisholm Trail •
The Wrecking Crew.
Nancy Kwan battles
Sharon Tate in a karate scene choreographed by
Bruce Lee. Released in 1968, this was one of Tate's last films before she was murdered by
Charles Manson. "Tate looks stunning in her micro-minis and even has a catfight with Nancy Kwan's evil enemy agent." •
Total Recall. Directed by
Paul Verhoeven and starring
Arnold Schwarzenegger as Douglas Quaid, the 1990 film featured a "knock down, drag-out battle between Quaid's wife (
Sharon Stone) and his dream girl
Rachel Ticotin. One reviewer noted that it was "the best screen fight between two women since
Destry Rides Again". In his autobiography,
stunt coordinator and
second unit director Vic Armstrong explained the discussion he had with Verhoeven about the fight scene between Stone and Ticotin, "This is one chance Paul where we can do a really good fight between women, where they actually land punches instead of pulling their hair and tearing their blouses and all that old nonsense." Verhoeven's "eyes lit up" and he agreed with Armstrong's scripting of the fight. A
2012 remake of the film featured
Kate Beckinsale and
Jessica Biel, in the roles previously filled by Stone and Ticotin. •
True Lies.
Jamie Lee Curtis and
Tia Carrere engage in a "precisely choreographed catfight" while in the back seat of an out of control limousine. •
Untamed Youth. Arguing over a bed in a prison camp dormitory,
Lori Nelson fights
Jeanne Carmen in the 1957 film about juvenile delinquency. The scene has been noted for unusual dialogue: before they fight, Nelson asks Carmen if she wants "an Italian hair cut", presumably referring to hair pulling. The fight begins with the dark-haired Carmen threatening to give Nelson a "beating", the two barefoot girls proceed to punch and wrestle each other until Carmen surrenders to her blonde opponent by telling her "Don't hit me in the mouth again, you'll break my dental plate." •
View from the Top. Flight attendants
Gwyneth Paltrow and
Christina Applegate fight each other in the cabin of a passenger airline. •
War Goddess. 1973 film, directed by
Terence Young who had previously directed
From Russia with Love that included the Beswick-Gur catfight scene.
War Goddess featured an oil wrestling match between
Sabine Sun and
Alena Johnston, two
amazons who were in competition to become the leader of their tribe. •
Woman They Almost Lynched. Saloon owner
Audrey Totter has a "hair pulling fight ... and then one of those clear-the-streets gunfight" with challenger
Joan Leslie. •
Yankee Pasha.
Rhonda Fleming and
Mamie Van Doren are both in love with
Jeff Chandler leading to a "catfight for supremacy" where Fleming landed an actual punch on Van Doren's jaw, sending her sprawling across the set. Van Doren later said that Fleming was "quite a fighter". Despite the mishap in what was otherwise a carefully choreographed fight that involved a lot of "tumbling and hair pulling", Van Doren claimed that as a young actress, she enjoyed working with Fleming in the movie. == Eroticism ==