This book provides a brief profile of 50 of the most adoring ladies of studio era when studios had an identity and style of its own with the films they made and the stars they created. MGM studios built on glamour, class and gut decisions in making movies during the Great Depression when experts said they will fail. Warner Brothers Studios specialized in urban action, gangsters and the gutters. Each movie studio had a stable of stars and penchant for beautiful women. The bio-data of each lady described in this book illustrate that these ladies were superb performers with strong identifiable persona and a sense & style they created that attracted movie fans, and women in particular. The incredible and penetrating eyes of Bette Davis, fragile grace of Lillian Gish, strong characteristics of Katherine Hepburn, stunning and graceful looks of Greta Garbo and Grace Kelly are some of the examples.
The brief biography discusses the career of each lady. The movies she made and the influence she had on others, and the role played by many directors and studio bosses in making them successful. There is also section called “Style Notes,” and “Behind the Scenes,” for each star which provides some tidbits. For example, it is well known that Greta Garbo and Jean Arthur were very reclusive and enigmas in Hollywood who never opened up to the public. Director Frank Capra used Jean’s talents in three of his movies. Clara Bow on the other hand alienated Hollywood by telling the press every sordid details of her life. Her career was tarnished by a string of love affairs and out of control life style with addiction, and a law-suit against her secretary who was stealing money and selling Clara’s personal secrets. After her mother tried to kill her during sleep, she became a life-long insomniac. Louise Brooks was a beautiful, headstrong and erotically charged with sleek and bobbed hairstyle had a meteoric rise in the silent era but made serious error of defiant behavior which annoyed Paramount Studios. She lived in shear poverty until her former lover Bill Paley, the founder of CBS supported her for the rest of her life with financial assistance. Rumor has it that she turned to the “oldest profession” to stay afloat until Bill Paley came to her assistance. Joan Crawford was obsessive about knitting, cleaning and answering her fan mail personally. Joan had a real cat fight with her longtime rival Bette Davis in the movie “Whatever happened to Baby Jane.” Marion Davis had a jealous boyfriend in the wealthy William Randolph Hearst who shot her boyfriend to death in his yacht. Being practical joker, once she made President Calvin Coolidge get drunk by giving him wine by lying that it was fruit juice. Bette Davis and Carole Lombard were truly patriotic in that Bette organized Hollywood Canteen for soldiers passing through Los Angeles and Carole organized war bond rallies in her home state of Indiana to help in the war efforts. Bette was honored with distinguished civilian award.
Marlene Dietrich was bisexual and did not believe in monogamous relationship. She was also a strong opponent of the third Reich and refused to work for the film industry under Hitler. She devoted to her new homeland and participated in USO tours and became the first woman to earn the Medal of Freedom. Screwball comedienne Irene Dunne was nominated five times in the Academy Awards in the best actress category and Cary Grant recalled that it was a lot of fun to work with her. She had one of the longest marriages in Hollywood and that lasted until the death of her husband. A long time republican, she was nominated as the alternate delegate to the United Nations by President Eisenhower in 1959.
Greer Garson holds the record with Bette Davis for the most consecutive Academy Award nominations, five in a row from 1941-1945. During filming of Mrs. Miniver, actor Richard Ney played the role of her son and she eventually fell in love with him. MGM studio was worried that it will have negative impact on the movie and asked them to postpone wedding until the film was released. President Roosevelt honored Carole posthumously by awarding the Medal of Freedom as the first woman to die in the line of duty during the WWII.
When Gish sisters were visiting their friend Mary Pickford at Biograph Studios, director D.W. Griffith drew a prop gun and started shooting at them and chasing them around the studio. Their terrified expressions pleased him and hired them on spot.
According to Hollywood legend Susan Hayward’s cancer was that the result of radioactive fallout that allegedly landed on the sets of The Conqueror in 1956 in Utah. Many of her costars including John Wayne, Dick Powell, Agnes Moorehead and John Hoyt developed cancer. Actress Hedy LaMarr is known for technological discovery of radar guiding system that helped allies fight the Nazi war machine.
Carole Lombard was tired of seeing how women are used and abused in the film industry. She learnt from her brothers all swear words they knew and used against men successfully not many bothered her except when Columbia Pictures head Harry Cohn made a pass at her and she responded to hi so well that he never did that again. She was also famous for parties, pranks, and impish behavior. Once she hollered across a hotel breakfast room to Bing Crosby, “by the way, Bing, I forgot my nightie in your bedroom.” Once she arranged for cows to greet director Alfred Hitchcock on the sets of Mr and Mrs. Smith, because of his views that all actresses are silly cows.
Myrna Loy was not afraid to speak to authority figures. In 1940s she argued with studio heads about stereotyping African Americans as servants. “What about a black person walking up the steps of a courthouse carrying a briefcase.” Myrna Loy was homebody preferring to spend time with her mother and brothers when she not working.
Kim Novak’s father disapproved her working in the movie industry especially after making the movie, “Kiss me Stupid” which was condemned by Catholic Church for her depicting as an adulteress. Pope turned down her request for an audience with her but relented later but her father was no more when she got to the opportunity. In the movie, Vertigo, Hitchcock did not like to cast Novak but the studio bosses prevailed. He expressed his displeasure by making her fall in the San Francisco bay several times during the suicide scene of the movie.
Once Debbie Reynolds told her friends that doing the movie “Singing in the Rain” and childbirth are the hardest things she did in her life. MGM assigned Co-star Gene Kelly to coach her numbers for the movie and he was cruel to her that she practiced non-stop for hours until her feet starting to bleed.
Ginger Rogers and her mother were strong anti-communists and supported government’s efforts to rid communist sympathizers in Hollywood. Ginger’s mother testified in congress about the infiltration of the movie industry. In the movie, Tender Comrade (1943), Ginger refused to read one line which said, “Share and share alike, that is the American Way.”
Director Frank Capra was a strong admirer of the acting abilities of Barbara Stanwyck who needed only one reading she always did the best in the very first take. During the filming of “Forty Guns,” a stuntman refused to be dragged by the horse, but Barbara, even at 50, did that stunt herself.
Actress Gene Tierney fell for John Kennedy when he visited the sets of “Dragonwyck,” and their romance ruffled the feathers of her family. They were Episcopalian republicans who were infuriated that she was dating a Catholic democrat with lofty ideas of helping the poor. She confided with one of her friends.
Mae West spent most of her career at war with the censors. She developed a sexually charged act modeled on the moves of female impersonators and African American entertainers and wrote a script called sex which was a hit on Broadway. But NYPD closed the show and sent her to jail for 10 days. She wrote most of her dialogues for her movies and even saved Paramount Studios from bankruptcy by her film, “She done him wrong, an adaptation of Diamond Lil in 1933. Mae appeared in her first meeting with costumer Walter Plunkett wearing 10 inch wedge, two inch eye lashes and a foot long wig and nothing else. “Honey” she said “I thought you would like to see the beautiful body you are gonne have the opportunity of dressing.” Mae was neither a smoker nor a drinker and a contributor to Catholic charities when she became spiritual at the end of her life and ESP was like a religion to her. After her Paramount contract ended she was asked to work for MGM and co-star with Clark Gable. She turned it down.
Actress Natalie Wood had a sense of humor. When The Harvard Lampoon awarded her the worst actress award, she went to Harvard to accept the award. She also had terrible fear regarding swimming after an accident on the sets of movie, “Green Promise.” While filming the ‘The Star,’ she refused to swim, and in “Splendor in the Grass,” she had terrible hysteria and the one seen in the movie was not acting but the fear was real.
Reference: Leading Ladies: The 50 Most Unforgettable Actresses of the Studio Era by TCM (Robert Osborne and Molly Haskell)
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