And — please join us on Aug 22nd for our next Screen Classics Discussion Video Series Event with University Press of Kentucky and co-host Aurora from Once Upon a Screen, in which author Robert Crane will be discussing the book! It will be a live Facebook Chat, so you’ll be able to comment and ask questions!
In the meantime, please don’t forget to check out our other author discussions in the series, embedded for your convenience way down near the bottom of this post: “Jayne Mansfield: The Girl Couldn’t Help It,” “Vitagraph: America’s First Great Motion Picture Studio,” “Jane Russell and the Marketing of a Hollywood Legend” and “Growing Up Hollywood”.
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In order to qualify to win this book via this contest giveaway, you must complete the below entry task by Saturday, August 28 at 6PM EST. Winners will be chosen via random drawings.
We will announce our four lucky winners on Twitter @ClassicMovieHub on Sunday, August 29, around 9PM EST. And, please note that you don’t have to have a Twitter account to enter; just see below for the details.
To recap, there will be FOUR WINNERS, chosen by random, all to be announced on August 1st.
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Bob Crane… many fans know him from his starring role in Hogan’s Heroes
And now on to the contest!
ENTRY TASK (2-parts) to be completed by Saturday, August 28, 2021 at 6PM EST
1) Answer the below question via the comment section at the bottom of this blog post
2)ThenTWEET (not DM) the following message*: Just entered to win the “Crane: Sex, Celebrity and My Father’s Unsolved Murder” #BookGiveaway courtesy of @KentuckyPress & @ClassicMovieHub – #EnterToWin http://www.classicmoviehub.com/blog/crane-sex-celebrity-and-my-fathers-unsolved-murder-book-giveaway-august/
THE QUESTION: In addition to starring in Hogan’s Heroes, Bob Crane also played Dr. Kelsy on The Donna Reed Show, and also had his own self-titled show. What is your favorite Bob Crane role and why? And, if you’re not familiar with his work, why do you want to win this book?
*If you do not have a Twitter account, you can still enter the contest by simply answering the above question via the comment section at the bottom of this blog — BUT PLEASE ENSURE THAT YOU ADD THIS VERBIAGE TO YOUR ANSWER: I do not have a Twitter account, so I am posting here to enter but cannot tweet the message.
NOTE: if for any reason you encounter a problem commenting here on this blog, please feel free to tweet or DM us, or send an email to clas…@gmail.com and we will be happy to create the entry for you.
ALSO: Please allow us 48 hours to approve your comments. Sorry about that, but we are being overwhelmed with spam, and must sort through 100s of comments…
Join us on Sunday, Aug 22 at 9pm ET (6pm PT) for a Facebook Live Chat with Author Robert Crane
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If you missed our other chats in the Screen Classics Discussion Series, you can catch them on Facebook and YouTube:
Jayne Mansfield: The Girl Couldn’t Help It — with Author Eve Golden
Vitagraph: America’s First Great Motion Picture Studio – with Author Andrew Erish:
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Jane Russell and the Marketing of a Hollywood Legend – with Author Christina Rice:
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Growing Up Hollywood with Victoria Riskin and William Wellman Jr:
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About the Book: On June 29, 1978, Bob Crane, known to Hogan’s Heroes fans as Colonel Hogan, was discovered brutally murdered in his Scottsdale, Arizona, apartment. His eldest son, Robert Crane, was called to the crime scene. In this poignant memoir, Robert Crane discusses that terrible day and how he has lived with the unsolved murder of his father. But this storyline is just one thread in his tale of growing up in Los Angeles, his struggles to reconcile the good and sordid sides of his celebrity father, and his own fascinating life. Crane began his career writing for Oui magazine and spent many years interviewing celebrities for Playboy―stars such as Chevy Chase, Bruce Dern, Joan Rivers, and even Koko the signing gorilla. As a result of a raucous encounter with the cast of Canada’s SCTV, he found himself shelving his notepad and tape recorder to enter the employ of John Candy―first as an on-again, off-again publicist; then as a full-time assistant, confidant, screenwriter, and producer; and finally as one of Candy’s pallbearers. Through disappointment, loss, and heartbreak, Crane’s humor and perseverance shine. Beyond the big stars and behind-the-scenes revelations, this riveting account of death, survival, and renewal in the shadow of the Hollywood sign makes a profound statement about the desire for love and permanence in a life where those things continually slip away. By turns shocking and uplifting, Crane is an unforgettable and deeply human story.
Western RoundUp: Western Film Book Library – Part 5
Once or twice a year I’ve enjoyed sharing some
of my “Western Film Book Library” here at the Western RoundUp.
I’ve had some wonderful
responses as readers have let me know that these columns helped inspire them to
track down books for their own collections. With that in mind, this month I’m
presenting a new list of film books I’ve enjoyed!
For past Western Film
Book Library columns, please check out the links at the end of this post.
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Arizona’s Little Hollywood: Sedona and Northern Arizona’s Forgotten Film History 1923-1973by Joe McNeill
Arizona’s Little Hollywood: Sedona and Northern Arizona’s Forgotten Flim History 1923-1973by Joe McNeill was published by Northedge & Sons in 2010.
Arizona’s Little Hollywood: Sedona and Northern Arizona’s Forgotten Flim History 1923-1973 by Joe McNeill
Although the book has
been out for over a decade, I didn’t discover it until I chanced to find it in
Lone Pine’s Museum of Western Film History gift shop earlier this year.
I consider this book one of the most significant additions to my film library in the last few years, and that’s saying something! It’s 678 glossy pages of relatively small type, extensively detailing the Northern Arizona filming of over five dozen films – all but a couple being Westerns.
As seen below via these
sample pages, the book is beautifully illustrated with glossy photographs:
The book is a
fascinating history of many favorite films; it’s so dense that I haven’t
digested it all yet, but it was a tremendous help as my husband and I visited
Western movie locations in Sedona this past May. I highly recommend this book.
Gene Autry Westerns by Boyd Magers
Gene Autry Westerns by Boyd Magers is another discovery thanks to the Museum of Western History gift shop. I came across it during a brief stop in Lone Pine earlier this month.
Gene Autry Westerns by Boyd Magers
While Autry‘s not my favorite “B” Western star, there’s no denying his importance to the genre, including his foresight in making sure that his films were preserved in good condition. (The same sadly cannot be said of Roy Rogers‘ Republic Westerns.) Western fans also owe Autry a debt of gratitude for his establishment of the Autry Museum of the American West, which I wrote about here in 2019.
Author Boyd Magers is a key Western film historian; in 2019 I recommended a pair of books he co-wrote on Western film actresses. Magers’ name on this book made it a “must buy” for me.
As seen on this sample
page, this 456-page book is beautifully detailed. Each film has a credits list
for cast and crew, lists of songs and locations, cast biographies, reviewer
comments, and detailed information on the making of each film. This will be an
extremely useful reference for me going forward, and I suspect it will also
interest me in seeing a greater number of Autry’s films.
Gene Autry Westerns by Boyd Magers
Gene Autry Westerns was published in 2007 by Empire Publishing
of Madison, North Carolina.
On Location in Lone Pineby Dave Holland
On Location in Lone Pine by Dave Holland was published by the author’s The Holland House back in 1990. It’s subtitled A Pictorial Guide to Movies Shot In and Around California’s Alabama Hills.
On Location in Lone Pine by Dave Holland
This book was a gift
from my father years ago and was what my husband and I used to track down Western
film locations when we first began visiting the Alabama Hills about 15 years
ago.
The book’s numerous detailed maps and photographs helped us find locations for films such as Yellow Sky (1948), Rawhide (1951), and 7 Men From Now (1956) years before we began attending the Lone Pine Film Festival and going on location tours with experienced guides.
Along the way, Holland
also shares extensive history on movies shot in Lone Pine. It’s a key resource
for anyone interested in movie locations in general and Lone Pine specifically.
Anthony Mann, New and Expanded Edition by Jeanine Basinger
Anthony Mannis a study of the director by pre-eminent film historian Jeanine Basinger, published by Wesleyan University Press. I have the New and Expanded Edition published in 2007; the book was originally published in 1979.
Anthony Mann, New and Expanded Edition by Jeanine Basinger
The book covers Mann‘s entire life and career, but as Western film fans will be aware, many of Mann’s greatest films were Westerns.
Basinger is, in my opinion, an extremely engaging writer who always causes me to jot down lists of films I want to see thanks to her descriptions. She examines the films from numerous angles, including themes, character analysis, cinematography, and editing; her writing is simultaneously sophisticated and accessible.
Joel McCrea: A Film History by Tony Thomas
Joel McCrea: A Film History by Tony Thomas was originally published in 1991. In 2013 a revised edition was published by Riverwood Press with a new foreword by the actor’s grandson, Wyatt McCrea.
Joel McCrea: A Film History by Tony Thomas
In my experiences with Thomas’s books dating all the way back to my pre-teen years, his books are more error-prone than most; my understanding is that some of the author’s past errors were cleaned up for this new edition. Minor things have still crept in, such as 1937’s Internes Can’t Take Money being referred to in multiple places as Interns Can’t Take Money, but in my opinion, these types of issues are not significant enough to detract from the book’s value.
Also like Thomas’s other
books, this volume excels from the standpoint of photographs; some are new to
this volume, thanks to the McCrea family and other sources. The book also
presents engaging descriptions of the movies, many of which, of course, are
Westerns. It was this exact type of book which was key to helping develop my
interest in classic films. Wyatt McCrea’s warm introduction is another big
plus.
Joel McCrea: A Film History by Tony Thomas and Frances Dee: A Film History by Ed Hulse
Fans of Joel McCrea may also be interested to know that in 2016 Riverwood Press published a companion volume on McCrea’s wife, Frances Dee: A Film History, by Western film historian Ed Hulse. Like the book on Joel McCrea, it has a foreword by Wyatt McCrea and is exquisitely illustrated.
Fans of McCrea and Dee
will definitely want both of these volumes on their bookshelf.
As always, recommendations for additional books on Westerns are always very welcome in the comments!
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– Laura Grieve for Classic Movie Hub
Laura can be found at her blog, Laura’s Miscellaneous Musings, where she’s been writing about movies since 2005, and on Twitter at @LaurasMiscMovie. A lifelong film fan, Laura loves the classics including Disney, Film Noir, Musicals, and Westerns. She regularly covers Southern California classic film festivals. Laura will scribe on all things western at the ‘Western RoundUp’ for CMH.
For those of you who are unfamiliar
with Cinemallennials, it is a bi-weekly podcast in which I, and another
millennial, watch a classic film that we’ve never seen before, and discuss its
significance and relevance in today’s world.
In this episode, I talked with German film director, and host of Lars Henriks Podcast International, Lars Henriks about one of the most beloved films of all time, The Wizard of Oz (1939). While most Americans are introduced to the wonderful land of Oz very early on in their cinematic lives, this wasn’t the case for Lars who remembers his cinematic childhood through the lens of mostly Disney animated films and some traditional folk tales. As Lars is a director who has a special affinity for the unique and fantastical, I was intrigued to see how he would react to the quintessential American fantasy film.
The Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), The Tin Man (Jack Haley), Dorothy (Judy Garland) and The Cowardly Lion (Bert Lahr) traverse the Yellow Brick Road.
From being the first film that truly made Technicolor a culturally resonant phenomenon to its technical achievements, no wonder, The Wizard of Oz is considered one of the greatest films of all time, and is the film that made future fantasy stories – often considered impossible to adapt into film, like The Lord of the Rings – possible for generations to come. Oh and, we can’t forget the unforgettable cast of characters. Whether it be Dorothy, The Scarecrow, the Cowardly Lion, The Tin Man, or even The Wicked Witch of the West – all of the characters have their own charming personalities and rewarding arcs. We see them fail and fail until they skip over the hurdles that are constantly put in front of them on the Yellow Brick Road.
Dorothy (Judy Garland) singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow.
The film is also famous for the countless development stories that have emerged over the last 82 years – its mistakes, its successes, and of course, the people behind the scenes that went on to make cinematic history. The Wizard of Oz’s legacy is still prevalent today, as it is not only notable for its writing and directing, but also its casting, musical compositions, elaborate sets, and costume design. These elements have influenced the world of filmmaking since the film’s release in 1939.
The Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), watching over his crops.
During this episode, Lars and I will be discussing topics like a child’s blissful and yet often scary unconditional acceptance of film as reality, how certain childhood films can shape a region’s youth, and how sometimes in our day and age, someone that seems powerful may just be someone behind a curtain throwing levers and pushing knobs unknowing of what they do.
Through our journey to Oz and back, we as the younger generation, can see the timeline of all of our most beloved childhood films and can be made aware of how our cinematic experiences often shape our perceptions of reality – and how, through connecting to our childhood, we can create a kinder, more accepting world, just like the land of Oz.
I hope you enjoy this episode of Cinemallennials, which you can find here on apple podcasts or on spotify. Please reach out to me as I would love to hear your thoughts on The Wizard of Oz, especially if you’re a first-time viewer too!
Dave Lewis is the producer, writer, and host of Cinemallennials, a podcast where he and another millennial watch a classic film that they haven’t seen before ranging from the early 1900s to the late 1960s and discuss its significance and relevance in our world today. Before writing for Classic Movie Hub, Dave wrote about Irish and Irish-American history, the Gaelic Athletic Association in the United States, and Irish innovators for Irish America magazine. You can find more episodes of Cinemallennials, film reviews and historical analyses, on Dave’s website dlewmoviereview.com or his YouTube channel.
“I wish I knew how you wanted me to be. If only you’d tell me.”
Most fans who make their way through film noir will invariably stumble upon the tragedy of John Garfield. A remarkably naturalistic actor, Garfield was adept at taking hateable characters and humanizing them so much that their fates seemed unjust. Audiences knew he was wrong, but they couldn’t bring themselves to root for his downfall. He was one of them. If Humphrey Bogart was the patron saint of noir cool, then Garfield was the born loser, doomed to fumble the bad hand he’d been dealt.
Unfortunately, the doom that colored Garfield’s film roles bled over to his personal life. The actor was asked to speak before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1951, but his reluctance to testify landed him on the dubious Hollywood blacklist. Garfield was devastated by the decision, and he suffered a massive heart attack before he could regain any career momentum. He died at age 39, not far from his New York birthplace. He left behind three Oscar nominations, a slew of classics, and a death that made him all but inextricable from his screen persona.
Garfield and Winters bring dynamite chemistry to the film’s poster.
The overlap between Garfield the man and Garfield the persona is what makes He Ran All the Way (1951) such a remarkable sendoff. It was the last film Garfield completed during his lifetime, and the plight of his character, Nick Robey, hits so close to his offscreen paranoia that one can’t tell where the performance ends and the truth begins. It’s as though he knew the clock was ticking, and saw Robey as an outlet for his tortured real-life predicament. Try as he did, the film wasn’t cathartic so much as it was prophetic.
He Ran All the Way has a stronger fatalist slant than most noir films, as evidenced by the opening scene. Robey is seen having a nightmare in his rundown apartment, and the experience leaves him reeling. He urges his partner to delay their heist on the grounds that he’s “got no luck” today, but the plea falls on greedy ears and they proceed. Robey’s dream is treated as a moment of clarity, a moment in which he could have turned things around, but the allure of quick cash proves too much to resist. Robey ignores his bout of common sense and winds up shooting a cop. Suddenly, this nobody is a wanted man.
“You read that in a book somewhere. I think you’re dead wrong.”
Robey gets nearly cornered at an Amusement Park, but a chance flirtation with a woman named Peg Dobbs (Shelley Winters) gives him an out. He plays up his interest in her, and insists she invite him over for some coffee. Once inside, however, Robey’s fear takes over and he takes the entire Dobbs family hostage. It’s familiar noir territory, but the script adds a wonderful little wrinkle when Robey looks over the family newspaper. His paranoia is so strong that he gives himself away as the cop killer, when his name hadn’t even been in print. It’s a gut punch of a reveal, and one that Garfield delivers with withering self-despair. He can’t seem to catch a break.
The rest of the film takes place in the Dobbs household, with sporadic cuts to the outside. It begins to resemble a play, as characters bicker while moving in and out of the same space. Garfield shines in these lengthy scenes, casually alternating between cruelty and unexpected flashes of warmth. His character bonds with Peg’s little brother Tommy (Bobby Hyatt), and he even shares a moment of understanding with the Dobbs matriarch (Selena Royle). Conversely, he berates Peg for her looks and tosses out verbal abuse when he’s not lusting after her. The film never feels the need to categorize Robey as a bad seed or a misunderstood good guy, and it’s all the better for it. Instead, the film lets the viewer sift through his impulsive decisions and decide for themself. It’s a refreshingly modern approach and a reminder that noir’s ambiguity often allowed it to go places that other genres could not.
Robey’s paranoia repeatedly gets the best of him.
The doom that lingers over the film is promoted by Garfield, but he isn’t solely responsible. He Ran All the Way also benefits from the Dalton Trumbo-Hugo Butler script and the taut direction by John Berry. All three men were privy to the Red Scare that was sweeping the industry, and given their liberal views, one can’t help but place an allegorical reading on their approach to the Robey character. Robey’s crimes are not analogous to Communism, but the paranoia that was sweeping Hollywood is present in every frame, and the passing swipes at classism and American greed are commonplace in the works of Trumbo, Butler, and Berry. Not surprisingly, they would join Garfield on the blacklist by year’s end.
Robey’s premonition about being unlucky comes true when he entrusts Peg with his getaway plans. Once again, his paranoia proves his undoing. He accuses Peg of setting him up and makes a run for it, only to be cut down by the police. As he slumps down on the sidewalk, he realizes that Peg kept to her word. Too little, too late. The sequence is shot in devastatingly tight closeups, and Garfield’s pained expression is topped only by the image of his character crawling towards the headlights of a parked car. In a final, haunting moment of futility, he keels over before he can reach the light. All that’s left for noir’s patron saint is the black asphalt.
Robey makes one last attempt to run all the way.
He Ran All the Way will always be a notable release by virtue of it being Garfield’s last film. The parallels between his life and his character’s predicament are innumerable, and his performance is staggering, but even without the real-life context, the film is a remarkable piece of noir storytelling. The screenplay packs an ironic punch, and the cinematography by James Wong Howe is among the finest of the time period, particularly on the back end of the film. As far as swan songs go, it doesn’t get much better.
TRIVIA: Due to the blacklisting of Trumbo, Butler, and Berry, all three men’s names were removed from the film. Their credits have since been restored.
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–Danilo Castro for Classic Movie Hub
Danilo Castro is a film noir aficionado and Contributing Writer for Classic Movie Hub. You can read more of Danilo’s articles and reviews at the Film Noir Archive, or you can follow Danilo on Twitter @DaniloSCastro.
Lives Behind the Legends: Doris Day – Looking For Love
Doris Day
When you think of the iconic Doris Day, you probably think of a picture-perfect blonde who had it all — the all-American girl, the perfect housewife, the happy-go-lucky sweetheart. Doris almost seemed to personify the ideals of the 1950’s: her image was virtuous, sweet, joyous, and proper. Men wanted to marry her, and women wanted her to be the neighbor who gave them cooking advice. In reality, Doris’ life was far from a white picket fence dream. Though Doris always wanted a loving husband to make a happy home with, this dream eluded her time and time again. Eventually, she found that happiness can be achieved in many different ways and that love comes in many forms.
Doris had a complicated relationship with the first man in her life. Her father was a strict and old-fashioned man, who rarely showed affection. Still, for the first few years of her life, Doris seemed to have an idyllic home life. Her father’s job as a music teacher made sure that the family was surrounded by music and instruments, her mother was a loving housewife and Doris got along well with her big brother. They lived in a tight-knit community in Cincinnati, where the children were free to play to their heart’s delight. But this community would soon be rattled by a scandal, which was preceded by a traumatic night for ten-year-old Doris. As she tried to fall asleep while her parents were having a party downstairs, she heard her father and a close family friend come up the stairs. ‘My father and this woman came in and tiptoed to the bedroom beyond. I heard everything. God help me. I pulled the pillow over my head but there was no way to shut it out. I cried myself to sleep,’ Doris later admitted in her autobiography. Little Doris kept this information to herself in hopes of keeping the family together. It was no use; her mother found out about the affair soon after. Her parents divorced, and Doris’ father married his mistress. She would see him for dinners once a week as an early teen, but contact ceased after a while, and she did not have a relationship with him as an adult. Although this upset her, she was never angry with her father. ‘It is my nature to forgive’, she later lamented. Her friend Mike DeVita said that her parent’s divorce and the lack of a relationship with her father had a profound effect on Doris, even suggesting that she went on to look for the father she never had in her future husbands.
The idyllic home life
that had been her early childhood, was something Doris desperately wanted as an
adult. There were multiple twists and turns in Doris’ life that eventually led
to fame and fortune, but becoming a movie star was never her dream. As Doris
herself said: ‘I could have happily lived my entire life in Cincinnati, married
to a proper Cincinnatian, living in a big old Victorian house [and] raising a
brood of offspring’. Although she was already a singer in a popular band at age
sixteen, she saw this as something to do until she could start a family.
Doris Day as a teenager
So when she fell for 23-year-old trombone player Al Jorden, she did not waste any time. Despite objections from both her mother and her bandleader, the 17-year-old Doris married the unpredictable Al. The pair moved into a dingy apartment in New York, where Al had a job in a new band. Soon enough, Al turned out to be pathologically jealous and abusive. It was only the day after their marriage that this side of him surfaced; when Doris kissed his bandmate on the cheek after he gave her a wedding gift, Al dragged her to their apartment, blind with rage. His physical abuse became a pattern in their relationship and Doris lived in constant fear of him. As he became more brutal, she realized she had to leave their marriage. Then she found out that she was pregnant. Doris hoped that this would soften Al and she decided to stay. Unfortunately, her pregnancy brought out an even darker side to him. He did everything he could to get her to terminate the pregnancy, culminating in him trying to shoot her. She was able to talk him out of it and secretly started making plans to leave him. As soon as her baby boy Terry was born, Doris left Al and moved back in with her relieved mother. She would never see Al again: he was later diagnosed with schizophrenia and committed suicide.
At this point, Doris was a 19-year-old single mother and divorcee. Although she was thankful to have escaped her traumatic first marriage, this was not how Doris had imagined her life to go. But there were more pressing matters: she had to put food on the table. So Doris re-joined her old band and went out on the road, leaving Terry in the care of her mother. After two years, the band released the song Sentimental Journey and it became a huge hit. More chart-topping songs followed, but that did not matter much to Doris. She had fallen in love with a fellow band member once again: saxophonist George Weidler.
Doris Day and second husband George Weidler
Their bandleader
reportedly was not fond of his band members sharing a hotel room, so the
loved-up pair quit the band. They subsequently decided to get married and moved
to Hollywood, where there would be more job opportunities. Their marriage was a
rocky one from the start. Despite the passionate nature of their relationship,
George had a wandering eye. More worryingly, was that George was anything but
excited about the prospect of being a stepfather when Doris suggested that her
mother and son should move in. Still, their marriage was going strong until
Doris found an agent and was getting more job opportunities as a singer. After
only eight months of marriage, George let Doris know that he was filing for
divorce because he did not want to be known as ‘Mr. Doris Day’. Doris was
blindsided by the failure of her second marriage. She visited her mother and son
in Cincinnati to recover. She quickly found that what she really needed was a
distraction. So Doris went back to Hollywood and threw herself into her work.
She was right on time.
The creators of the film Romance on the High Seas were struggling to find their leading lady. They needed a wholesome, all-American girl who could sing. Newly returned from Cincinnati, Doris was dragged to an industry party by her agent Al Levy. One of the creators of the film was there as well, and after meeting Doris, he knew he had found the one. Warner Bros., the studio making the film, saw the potential in Doris as well and signed her to a seven-year contract. Doris never expected to become a star, but things happened fast. Only two years after her screen debut she found herself starring opposite her idol Ginger Rogers in Storm Warning and dating future president Ronald Reagan. Doris had made it. She thoroughly enjoyed this rollercoaster ride to stardom, and being a career woman unexpectedly suited her. She had a strong work ethic, and receiving accolades, such as being named ‘favorite star’ by servicemen in Korea, touched her deeply. Her romance with Reagan didn’t last, but Doris had no time to wallow; she was making films back to back. Her agent Al put a lot of effort into her career, but not just out of professional interest. He was developing an obsession with his client, and things got so out of hand that Doris had no choice but to contact his agency. Al was swiftly sent to New York, and Martin Melcher took over for him. Doris and Marty took an immediate liking to each other and they were married on Doris’ 29th birthday. The newlyweds moved into a big, beautiful home, and Marty adopted her son Terry. Finally, Doris had the family she always wanted.
Doris Day, husband Marty and son Terry on the set of Calamity Jane
At this point, Terry was nine years old and had always lived with his grandmother. Although he was now a part of Doris’ new family life, he would later state that it was his grandmother who raised him. Doris also admitted that they were more like brother and sister, since she had him when she was only 18. Still, they had a strong bond that would last their entire lives. The same cannot be said for Terry and Marty. Marty was an incredibly strict disciplinarian, who sent the boy to military school to ‘make a man out of him’. As Doris’ agent, Marty was the opposite of her second husband. He wanted her to work and was involved in every aspect of her career, including handling her finances. Some people in the industry called him her Svengali, but Doris would not hear of it. She was incredibly happy and said that she seemed to have found ‘the solid, serene life’ she had been seeking. Her career was still soaring as well; it was during this time that she starred in one of her most popular films: Calamity Jane.
Despite entering her third marriage before her thirties, her image was as prim and proper as ever, making Oscar Levant quip: ‘I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin’. Doris was never a fan of her image. She would later say, ‘My public image is unshakably that of America’s wholesome virgin, the girl next door, carefree and brimming with happiness. An image, I can assure you, more make-believe than any film part I ever played. But I am Miss Chastity Belt, and that’s all there is to it.’ Nonetheless, Doris loved her work. She founded her own film and music company with Marty, she had her own radio show and still managed to make popular movies and chart-topping songs. At one point, she had a complete burn-out, exacerbated by a hysterectomy for a benign tumor that left her unable to have any more children. By now, her marriage to Marty was all about business, and she came to resent his dominance. The final straw was Doris witnessing Marty hitting her son. She found out that this had been happening for years and she decided to separate from Marty. They never officially divorced and he would stay on as her agent. Doris was unsure if she should continue acting at this point. The swinging sixties had not embraced her and the press jokingly referred to her as ‘The World’s Oldest Virgin’. Besides, she had worked tirelessly for decades and was ready to slow down. In 1968, Marty fell ill, and Doris insisted on nursing the man she had loved for so long. He passed away a few months later and Doris mourned her third husband, who had still been a big part of her life. But she was in for a nasty surprise. Instead of millions of dollars in her bank account, she was actually hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. Marty and his business partner, Jerome Rosenthal, had squandered her earnings. Despite Doris wanting to quit acting, she found out that Marty had committed her to a television series, The Doris Day Show, and it turned out that she was going to need the money made from that show. Her court case against Rosenthal would take years and require a lot of money in legal fees. She later said about Marty that she was ‘mystified by this man who had slept with me, adopted my son, managed my career and business life.’ Still, she felt that Marty had never intended to betray her and that he had simply trusted the wrong person. The court case against Rosenthal dragged on until 1985, when she was finally awarded only a fraction of her once large fortune.
After The Doris Day Show, Doris mostly retracted from the limelight. She focused on the two loves of her life: her son and animals. She founded The Doris Day Animal Foundation and started a pet-friendly hotel with Terry. She gave love a shot one more time when she married maître d’ Barry Comden in the seventies. The marriage was over after three years, and Barry said that Doris had preferred the company of her dogs. He may have been right, since she admitted to a friend that she had originally thought marriage was the way to live, but felt it was ‘so confined’. In her old age, Doris could live life on her own terms. She lived happily in her beautiful home in Carmel, spoke to her son daily and took in every stray dog she wanted to take in.
About her love life, she would joke, ‘Boy, I know how to pick ‘em, don’t I?’ She suffered one more tragedy when her beloved son Terry passed away in 2004. She subsequently released the album My Heart, with songs produced by Terry, who was a successful music producer in his own right. The proceeds went to her animal foundation. In 2011, at age 92, she told People Magazine, ‘I love life. I have my pets around me and good friends. I’m young at heart and I love to laugh. There’s nothing better.’ She stayed committed to her animal foundation until her death in 2019 and loved reading and answering her fan mail. Every year on her birthday, a growing fan base would gather in Carmel to celebrate their icon’s life. In her final years, she admitted that her status as a national treasure was ‘so delightful’ it made her cry. In the end, the love Doris felt from her son, her animals and her fans brought her the happiness and warmth she had always longed for.
Arancha has been fascinated with Classic Hollywood and its stars for years. Her main area of expertise is the behind-the-scenes stories, though she’s pretty sure she could beat you at movie trivia night too. Her website, Classic Hollywood Central, is about everything Classic Hollywood, from actors’ life stories and movie facts to Classic Hollywood myths. You can follow her on Twitter at @ClassicHC.
Silents are Golden: Silent Superstars – The Eternally Glamorous Gloria Swanson
If you hear the words “glamour” and “movie star,” which famous name comes to mind? Chances are someone like Marilyn Monroe or Sophia Loren. Or perhaps – hopefully! – you thought of Gloria Swanson. Heck, her name even sounds like “glamour”. For a small gal (she was about 5’ 2”, and didn’t mind joking about it), she left a big legacy.
Gloria Swanson
A former “military brat” growing up around various army bases, by the time Swanson was a teenager her family was living in Chicago. She developed a crush on screen heartthrob Francis X. Bushman, which gave her Aunt Inga the idea of taking her on a tour of Bushman’s Chicago-based Essanay studio. This was a dream come true to young Swanson, and delightfully, it led to another dream also coming true. Swanson, who had decided to doll herself up, was spotted by an Essanay casting director and he allowed her to do a walk-on role in a Gerda Holmes film. Meeting Essanay’s approval, she was then hired as a bit player and extra. The girl’s life-long career had begun.
Gloria as a young girl.
Deciding to drop out of school and work in “moving pictures” full time, she stayed busy at Essanay and was soon graduating to larger roles. In 1915 she acted in the comedy Sweedie Goes to College starring Wallace Beery (known today as one of the silent screen’s go-to villains). When Beery was hired by Mack Sennett’s Keystone studio in Los Angeles, Swanson also headed west. She and Beery married in 1916.
Swanson and Wallace Beery at Essanay Studio.
The marriage didn’t last long–Swanson had regrets about the mismatched union almost immediately–and Beery only worked in a few films at Keystone before being fired. But happily, Swanson was a hit at Keystone. She was costarred with the equally diminutive Bobby Vernon in comic romances such as The Nick of Time Babyand Teddy at the Throttle(both 1917). And contrary to popular legend, she had never been one of the Sennett Bathing Beauties – frequently-circulated photos of her in an old-timey bathing suit were publicity for her starring role in The Pullman Bride(1917) (Bathing Beauties always acted as an uncredited group).
Gloria Swanson with Reggie Morton and Bobby Vernon in A Social Club (1916).
While she was popular, the lofty-minded Swanson disliked the Sennet slapstick and aspired to more “moonlight and magnolias” types of roles – in later years she drily said, “In those days, I was rather a prissy young lady.” She got her chance in Triangle’s 1918 dramas Her Decisionand You Can’t Believe Everything. These films caught the attention of legendary director Cecil B. DeMille, who offered her a contract. Moonlight and magnolias were finally within reach.
Gloria in her element.
DeMille would direct six of her films, where she often starred alongside matinee idol Thomas Meighan. These light comedy-dramas, centered around romantic complications, were set in wealthy homes and featured ballgowns and pricey parties aplenty. Swanson proved game for more than posing in elegant frocks, too–in a fantasy sequence in Male and Female(1919), she insisted on acting in a dangerous scene with a real lion. Under DeMille’s direction, she quickly attained her rightful place as one of the 1920s’ biggest movie stars.
Of her many popular 1920s features, noteworthy appearances included sharing the screen with Rudolph Valentino in Beyond the Rocks(1922), starring in the French-American Madame Sans-Gêne (1925) filmed at historic Napoleon-related sites, and starring in the eyebrow-raising Sadie Thompson(1928), filmed by her own Gloria Swanson Productions. The latter became noteworthy for the number of curse words lip-reading moviegoers were able to spot.
Swanson was not only known for her beauty and
talent, but her extravagant lifestyle befitting one of the Jazz Age’s most
bankable stars. She was said to receive 10,000 fan letters a week and had a
mansion in Beverly Hills staffed with a dozen servants. She recalled later on:
“We lived like kings and queens, and why not? We were in love with life…We
had just fought the war that was to end all wars, and everyone believed there
was nothing but peace and pleasure ahead.”
Her personal life also frequently made the gossip columns, since she would marry six times in all. One marriage was to a marquis (albeit not a wealthy one), and in between husbands she was usually involved in affairs (both real and rumored). Her final and longest-lasting marriage was to William Dufty in 1976, which would last until her death.
As talkies became popular at the end of the 1920s she attempted a final silent: Queen Kelly, directed by Erich von Stroheim. The expensive production was riddled with problems, including long hours and Swanson’s objections to unnecessary innuendo and a “grim” storyline set in Africa. Stroheim was eventually let go and an edited, milder Queen Kelly would have a limited release in 1932.
A scene from Queen Kelly later used in Sunset Boulevard.
With her busy career finally winding down throughout the 1930s, Swanson began to make fewer screen appearances and turn her attention to other pursuits. Throughout the ‘40s and ‘50s, she was an avid painter and sculptor, designed clothing, appeared on radio and on the stage, advocated for healthy lifestyles (she was a vegetarian), was a politically active Republican, and even hosted her own television show, The Gloria Swanson Hour. Always staying busy, in 1954 she also distributed a newsletter called Gloria Swanson’s Diary.
In 1950 she was offered a prominent role: the aging former silent film star Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. Swanson was game to play the role, which other former silent-era actresses had turned down and threw herself into it. Surreally, Erich von Stroheim played her butler, and in one scene he runs a projector so Norma can give a showing of Queen Kelly. Her “comeback” of sorts (maybe we should call it a return) earned her an Academy Award nomination.
Posing with the stars of Sunset Boulevard.
For the remainder of her career, Swanson would frequently appear on talk shows and make appearances in television shows like Burke’s Law and The Beverly Hillbillies –while not appearing on the stage. Her final film appearance was as herself in the hit drama Airport 1975(1974). She and her husband William Dufty would also give talks about nutrition, especially macrobiotic diets. After a full and busy life, she passed away in 1983 at a New York City hospital from heart disease. An icon in her time, she remains so today, an elegant symbol of the glamour Hollywood used to have.
Posing amid the ruins of the Roxy Theater. The first film the 1920s-era theater had played was Swanson’s The Love of Sunya(1927).
Lea Stans is a born-and-raised Minnesotan with a degree in English and an obsessive interest in the silent film era (which she largely blames on Buster Keaton). In addition to blogging about her passion at her site Silent-ology, she is a columnist for the Silent Film Quarterly and has also written for The Keaton Chronicle.
Silver Screen Standards: Dangerous When Wet (1953)
Williams was at the height of her career as the star of MGM’s “aqua musicals” when she made Dangerous When Wet in 1953.
In June, I was finally able to return to the retirement community where I present classic movie programs for the residents, and I knew that Esther Williams was the perfect star to celebrate summer and the sense of joy we all felt at being able to gather again. We watched three of Williams’ pictures, including Bathing Beauty (1944) and Neptune’s Daughter (1949), but Dangerous When Wet (1953) was the crowd favorite and for good reason. Most of Esther Williams’ movies are fun, light-hearted musical and romantic comedies, but Dangerous When Wet combines all of these elements with a more coherent story that uses Williams’ talents as a swimmer to the fullest. We get a great sports story, plenty of romance with Fernando Lamas, some wonderful family elements, and a fabulous animated sequence that pairs Williams with cartoon stars Tom and Jerry. It’s no wonder that Dangerous When Wet was a box office hit when it first appeared in 1953 and remains a favorite today with classic movie fans.
The highlight of the movie is an extended dream sequence in which Williams swims with cartoon stars, Tom and Jerry.
While Bathing Beauty and Neptune’s Daughter are both thin on plot and heavy on musical numbers from performers like Xavier Cugat, Dangerous When Wet settles into a proper story about the healthy, happy Higgins family, who run a dairy farm in Arkansas and keep in shape with lots of exercise – especially swimming. Promoter Windy Weebe (Jack Carson) discovers them while hawking a health tonic called Liquapep, and he quickly engineers a scheme in which the Higgins family will travel to England to swim the English Channel as an advertisement for the tonic. Windy has a particular yen for the eldest daughter, Katie (Esther Williams), but while swimming in the heavy English fog Katie meets handsome Frenchman André (Fernando Lamas), who distracts her from training with his ardent attention. When the rest of the Higgins swimmers are disqualified, the family’s hopes and future all depend on Katie successfully completing the grueling Channel swim, especially because her father (William Demarest) has already bought expensive dairy upgrades on credit with the intention of paying for it out of their winnings.
The Higgins family gathers around as Windy (Jack Carson) pitches his promotional idea of them swimming the English Channel to his boss at Liquapep.
Of course, we also get the colorful musical spectacles we expect from an Esther Williams “aqua musical,” although these are less Busby Berkeley style showstoppers and more musical moments woven into the narrative. The movie opens with a song from the Higgins family, “I Got Out of Bed on the Right Side,” which sets the tone and introduces us to this peppy, can-do crew. Barbara Whiting, who plays second daughter Suzie, performs a fun number called “I Like Men” at the Liquapep talent contest, which gives Windy the opportunity to recruit the family for his English Channel scheme. We also have songs featuring Fernando Lamas, including “In My Wildest Dreams” and “Ain’t Nature Grand,” but as handsome as he is the Argentine actor gets upstaged by Tom and Jerry in the extended animated sequence. Like the similar segment in Anchors Aweigh (1945), this portion of the film combines live-action footage of the star with the animated characters and is a crowd-pleasing highlight of the picture. Ironically, the lack of synchronized swimmers and elaborate staging helps us really see and appreciate Esther Williams’ ability to “swim pretty” throughout this part of the movie, and it’s clear that she’s performing underwater and holding her breath for long stretches to get the unbroken takes of her cavorting with her animated companions.
As her worried family watches, Katie (Williams) prepares to swim the icy English Channel with only her goggles and a layer of goose grease to protect her.
Williams is very much the star in her prime, with almost a decade of leading roles behind her after her big breakout appearance in Bathing Beauty, but I really enjoy the supporting cast for this outing, too, especially William Demarest and Charlotte Greenwood as Katie’s loving if somewhat unconventional parents. Greenwood gets a chance to demonstrate her famous long-legged high kicks during the “Ain’t Nature Grand” number, but she’s solid throughout as the mother of the family, while Demarest is typically gruff but lovable as the dad. Fernando Lamas, in real life a champion swimmer and thus a perfect partner for Williams, has such good chemistry with his leading lady that he ended up becoming her third husband in 1969, a union that lasted until his death in 1982. Lamas and Williams have a terrific swimming scene together that cements their rightness as a couple, but the climactic end of the Channel swim adds dramatic emotional realism to their earlier flirtations. You won’t think for a minute that Jack Carson’s Windy is the man for Katie, but he’s more fun when the tables are turned by Denise Darcel as the spunky French swimmer who sets her swim cap at him.
For a fun homage to and parody of Williams’ aquatic stardom, see Scarlett Johansson in Hail, Caesar! (2016).
While Dangerous When Wet is probably my favorite of the Esther Williams pictures, plenty of her other movies are worthwhile if you’re in the mood for splashy summer romance. See her first real film appearance in Andy Hardy’s Double Life (1942) and then the breakout role in Bathing Beauty to understand Williams’ rise to stardom, or go with Take Me Out to the Ball Game(1949) and Million Dollar Mermaid (1952) for other high points in her career. Don’t miss the loving parody of Williams’ unique kind of stardom in the 2016 Coen brothers picture, Hail, Caesar!, in which Scarlett Johansson plays a pregnant swimming star struggling to fit into her spangled mermaid costumes.
Georges Méliès and the Creation of the First Horror Film
It started with a bat.
And what a perfect opening image it was for the world’s first horror film. After all, the bat has been one of the most iconic images in movies for more than century thanks to Bram Stoker’s Dracula.
Yet Le Manoir du Diable – also known as The Haunted Castle (U.S.), The Devil’s Castle (Britain) and House of the Devil – was made in 1896, the year before Stoker’s Dracula was published.
The film came from the fertile imagination of the film’s writer, director and star Georges Méliès, a master illusionist and film pioneer who was always ahead of his time. In this case, he not only made the first horror movie, but the first vampire film as well since the bat also transformed into a demon as it would in countless vampire films since.
In a scene played out in horror films for more than 100 years, a crucifix is raised before a demon in the first horror film, the 1896 film Le Manoir du Diable by Georges Méliès.
And let’s go for the horror triumvirate by calling Méliès,
the auteur best known for decades of whimsical fantasy films, the first horror
film director. (There would be other “firsts” for Méliès, not the least of
which was making the first sci-fi film, ATrip to the Moon in 1902.)
That’s a lot of accolades for a film that barely clocks in at 3 minutes, but had a starring role in film history.
This would not have been the case except for a simple twist of fate involving a jammed camera. To get to that tale, we must first know more about Georges Méliès. Here is the shortest biography you will ever read about him.
Georges Méliès was a master illusionist who took what he did on stage and transformed it to the screen.
Méliès was born in Paris in 1861 and showed an interest in the arts, including puppetry, as a child. His father owned a footwear factory and Georges was expected to follow in the family business. Sent to London for an apprenticeship in textiles and to learn English, he found a city filled with magic shows and returned to Paris obsessed with them. He studied and experimented while working for his father. When his father retired in 1888, he sold his share of the business to his brothers to buy the famous house of illusion Thêatre Robert-Houdin, where he created his own magic shows. And he was excellent at it.
In less than a decade, however, a demonstration of the Lumière Brothers cinematograph (a camera and projector) in 1895 changed his life. Soon Méliès was taking the illusions he crafted for the stage and transforming them on screen, creating the “cinema spectacle” and becoming the father of special effects, thanks again to that jammed camera.
Here’s what happened.
Méliès was filming a street scene in Paris when his camera momentarily stuck. Later while editing the film, Méliès was surprised to see there was a shift in the location of objects including a Madeleine-Bastille bus that turned into a hearse with a family following behind. The accident would be known as the camera freeze, becoming the first cinematic special effect and one Méliès exhaustively used in creating his worlds of fantasy.
That’s what he did in Le Manoir du Diable as all sorts of people and props appeared and disappeared as he stopped and restarted the camera.
That flying bat in the opening seconds turns into a demon with dark powers before our eyes. He conjures a small assistant and a cauldron from which a woman rises in a billow of smoke. Two men arrive but one is driven off by fear, while the other stays and is taunted by demonic activity. A skeleton turns into bat then the demon. A beautiful woman becomes a hag, and specters and witches appear. Those effects are all packed in under 3 minutes – imagine what Méliès would have done with another minute!
Is our first horror film horrifying? Not to today’s audiences. But in 1896, movies were under 30 seconds long and showed real-life images like a train famously moving toward them in L’arrivée d’un train en gare de La Ciotat by the Lumière Brothers. (Two of the earliest shorts by Méliès were called Playing Cards and Watering the Flowers for a very good reason.)
In the Georges Méliès short film Le Manoir du Diable, a skeleton suddenly appears on a bench which must have been a terrifying sight for 1896 moviegoers.
For those audiences, watching a “long,” 3-minute film with a
demon making things appear and disappear would have been terrifying.
But it’s doubtful Méliès was looking to scare people. Judging by his decades of work on stage and film, you can see how he enchanted audiences with illusion and fantasy. In fact, these early Méliès films were considered horror comedies through their use of pantomime and gags (a man getting poked with a pitchfork in the rear will always get laugh). Yet the film carries imagery still familiar in horror films today like the shadow of a cross on a wall and what appear to be vampire brides in long white coverings stalking a man.
Méliès would make more than 500 films in his career that was unfortunately filled with as many lows as highs while the infant film industry was finding its way. In 1923 he became so despondent over what was happening to his films, that he burned most of the negatives stored at his studio in Montreuil, a suburb outside Paris. Thankfully, preservation efforts have uncovered about 200 films.
One of those was Le Manoir du Diable, which was discovered in 1988 at the New Zealand Film Archives. We owe the person who originally bought it in a junk shop around the 1930s or ‘40s in Christchurch, New Zealand a debt of gratitude for finding the world’s first horror film.
* * * *
To learn more about Méliès, his career and the search for
his films, watch the excellent new documentary The
Méliès Mystery, which recently had its U.S. premiere as part of the TCM
Classic Film Festival.
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More from the horror master
Méliès churned out an incredible 81 shorts in 1896, the year he made Le Manoir du Diable. Here are a few of his other “horror” works he filmed around the same time.
Une nuit terrible (A Terrible Night), 1896. A man (Méliès) fights a giant bug in his bed.
L’auberge ensorcelee (Bewitched Inn), 1897. A hotel guest (Méliès) is haunted by a mischievous spirit.
La Cavernemaudite (The Cave of the Demons),1898. Translated into the “accursed cave,” a woman stumbles into a cave with spirits of those who died there. This presumably lost film marked the first film Méliès used double exposure.
Le Diable Geant ou Le Miracle de la Madone (The Devil and the Statue),1901. A young maiden attacked by the devil prays to a statue of the Madonna to save her while her love is trapped outside by barred windows.
In the Georges Méliès short, La Chaudron Infernal (The Infernal Cauldron), the devil sacrifices three women who then rise from the dead in visions of white.
Le Chaudron Infernal (The Infernal Cauldron),1903. Satan sacrifices three young women into a fiery cauldron but when their spirits rise from the dead, they turn the tables on him.
Damnation of Faust. Méliès filmed multiple versions of the story of Faust including in 1903 and 1904, and impressively used such techniques as dissolves, pyrotechnics and superimposition.
Toni Ruberto, born and raised in Buffalo, N.Y., is an editor and writer at
The Buffalo News. She shares her love for classic movies in her blog, Watching Forever. Toni was
the president of the former Buffalo chapter of TCM Backlot and now leads the
offshoot group, Buffalo Classic Movie Buffs. She is proud to have put Buffalo
and its glorious old movie palaces in the spotlight as the inaugural winner of
the TCM in Your Hometown contest. You can find Toni on Twitter at @toniruberto.
These titles will be available for FREE STREAMING all month long on the CMH Channel. All you need to do is click on the movie/show of your choice, then click ‘play’ — you do not have to opt for a 7-day trial.
In celebration of July Birthdays, we’re featuring the lovely and talented Olivia de Havilland (born Jul 1, 1916 in Tokyo, Japan) with Michael Curtiz’s The Proud Rebel, co-starring Alan Ladd. We’re also celebrating Barbara Stanwyck’s birthday (born Jul 16, 1907 in Brooklyn, NY) with the critically-acclaimed film noir The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, directed by Lewis Milestone. We’ll also be featuring films starring Charles Laughton, James Cagney and William Powell, born Jul 1, 1899, Jul 17, 1899 and Jul 29, 1892, respectively.
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We’re also celebrating Fan Favorites this month with some personal favorites 🙂
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For those of you who aren’t familiar with the service, Best Classics Ever is a new mega streaming channel built especially for classic movie and TV lovers. The idea of the channel is to make lots of classic titles accessible and affordable for all. That said, Classic Movie Hub is curating titles each month that our fans can stream for free on the Classic Movie Hub Channelat Best Classics Ever. If you’d like access to the entire selection of Best Classics Ever titles, you can subscribe to everything for a low monthly fee of $4.99/month (Best Stars Ever, Best Westerns Ever, Best Mysteries Ever, Best TV Ever) or for an individual channel for only $1.99/month.
You can read more about Best Classics Ever and our partnership here.
Noir Nook: Uncommon Ladies of Noir – Susan Hayward
Susan Hayward
Susan Hayward has long been one of my favorite actresses. When I was growing up, I thrilled with her performances in such films as Smash Up: The Story of a Woman (1947), for which she earned her first of five Oscar nominations; I Can Get It For You Wholesale (1951), where she starred as a ruthlessly ambitious fashion designer; and I’ll Cry Tomorrow (1955), based on the life of singer Lillian Roth. It wasn’t until years later that I discovered that she had quite a presence in the realm of film noir, with appearances in four features from the era: Among the Living (1941), Deadline at Dawn (1946), They Won’t Believe Me (1947), and House of Strangers (1949). This month’s Noir Nook shines the spotlight on this talented, versatile, and often-underrated actress.
Hayward was born Edythe Marrenner in the Flatbush section of
Brooklyn, New York. At the age of seven, she was hit by a car, suffering a
fractured hip. Although her doctors predicted that she would never walk again,
the future star was able to get around on crutches after six months and a year
later, she returned to school. The accident left her with one leg shorter than
the other – she wore a lift in one shoe, contributing to the sexy, strutting
walk that would become her trademark in years to come.
Edythe showed an early affinity for acting, performing in numerous plays at Girls Commercial High School, and started her career as a model for the Walter Thornton Agency. Shortly after she was featured in a spread in the Saturday Evening Post, she signed a test contract with Selznick Studios and became one of the countless young women who tried out of the part of Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With the Wind(1939) The part, of course, ultimately went to Vivien Leigh, but Edythe was undaunted. She boarded a train to California and before long had engaged an agent, signed a six-month contract with Warner Bros., and changed her name to Susan Hayward.
Although she was dropped by Warner’s at the end of her contract, Hayward was snapped up by Paramount, where she appeared in a small but memorable role in Beau Geste (1939) and a couple of programmers before entering the shadowy world of noir.
Among the Living (1941)
Susan Hayward and Albert Dekker in Among the Living (1941)
Released near the start of the noir era, Among the Living stars Albert Dekker in a dual role as twins – John Raden is a millionaire and his brother, Paul, who was thought to have died in his childhood, is a criminally insane serial killer. Hayward plays Millie Perkins, whose father owns the boarding house where Paul rents a room. Unaware that Paul is a killer, Millie uses her flirtatious ways to solicit his help in securing the reward for finding the murderer – who everyone thinks is John.
Deadline at Dawn (1946)
Susan Hayward and Paul Lukas in Deadline at Dawn (1946)
In this feature, Bill Williams is Alex Winkley, a naïve sailor on a 24-hour leave who finds himself in hot water when he learns that a woman he encountered while drunk has turned up dead. Alex enlists cynical-but-good-hearted dance hall girl June Goth (Hayward) to help him track down the killer. (A bit of trivia – and who doesn’t love trivia? – Bill Williams later married actress Barbara Hale, of Perry Mason fame, and the couple had three children, one of which was William Katt, who would later star in the 1976 horror classic Carrie and on TV’s Greatest American Hero. You’re welcome. Back to Susan.)
They Won’t Believe Me (1947)
Robert Young and Susan Hayward in They Won’t Believe Me (1947)
I was always fond of this noir-with-a-twist, but I liked it even more after seeing it with 20 minutes of restored footage as part of the 2021 TCM Virtual Film Festival. In this film, Hayward is Verna Carlson, one of three women involved with womanizing – and very married – stockbroker Larry Ballentine (Robert Young). Most of the film is presented in flashback, as we learn from Ballentine the circumstances that led to him being on trial for the murder of his wife.
House of Strangers (1950)
Richard Conte and Susan Hayward in House of Strangers (1950)
Richard Conte stars here as Max Monetti, whose bank owner father, Gino (Edward G. Robinson), and three brothers comprise the strangers of the film’s title. When Gino is arrested for his often illegal banking practices, Max is the only son to come to his father’s aid – but his methods land him in prison. As Max’s girlfriend, Hayward is devoted and passionate, but also strong-willed and independent – just what Max needs after a seven-year stint in the pokey.
Away from the big screen, Hayward was married for 10 years to actor Jess Barker; the couple had two children, but by all accounts, the union was a stormy one. Hayward fared far better with her second marriage, to Floyd Eaton Chalkley, an attorney and former FBI man from Carrollton, Georgia; they were together from 1957 to 1966, when Chalkley died of hepatitis. In 1973, Hayward’s son, Tim, revealed that she was suffering from several inoperable brain tumors and was only expected to live another six months. Like the strong-willed little girl who’d been told she would never walk, Hayward proved the doctors wrong; a year later, she appeared as a presenter at the 1974 Academy Awards, and she hung on nearly a year after that, finally succumbing on March 14, 1975, at the age of 56.
Hayward herself once summed up the determined, unyielding persona that propelled her to fame and saw her receive numerous accolades throughout her career, including the Academy Award for Best Actress for I Want to Live! In 1958: “I had to slug my way up in a town called Hollywood where people love to trample you to death. I don’t relax because I don’t know how. I don’t want to know how.
“Life is too short to relax.”
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– Karen Burroughs Hannsberry for Classic Movie Hub
Karen Burroughs Hannsberry is the author of the Shadows and Satin blog, which focuses on movies and performers from the film noir and pre-Code eras, and the editor-in-chief of The Dark Pages, a bimonthly newsletter devoted to all things film noir. Karen is also the author of two books on film noir – Femme Noir: The Bad Girls of Film and Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir. You can follow Karen on Twitter at @TheDarkPages. If you’re interested in learning more about Karen’s books, you can read more about them on amazon here:
