Hooray for Hollywood? Volume 2

We're back with another selection of remarks from our recently-procured book "Hollywood on Hollywood." Rather than put the book's cover on another post, I've opted to use Miss Deborah Kerr and one of her apt quotes on Tinseltown. And there are some more selections to follow! 

"The name Hollywood is, to this day, a misnomer-one very small section of an enormous area where many people work in the movie business, but hardly any people who work in that business actually live in Hollywood, as such." -- Deborah Kerr, 1977. (And still true today...!)

"I have thought, since my tours, that we in Hollywood run a great danger of becoming too insular. I know I was near it when I left. Hollywood is such a tight unit in the American scene that a Hollywoodite's map of the world is apt to show one large eastern seaboard area labeled 'New York,' and one west coast section labeled 'Hollywood.' There are a few pin dots scattered over the map reading, 'Sun Valley,' 'Palm Springs,' 'Miami Beach,' 'Bermuda.' The space between is arid waste. There are no dots reading 'Cincinnati,' 'Sioux City,' 'Augusta,' 'Spokane.'" -- Jeanette MacDonald, 1947. (Wow... Very perceptive and prescient. And decades later people on the coasts were still referring to the "flyover country" in-between.)

"I brought Ruth Warrick out to play Mrs. [Citizen] Kane because the part called for a lady. I have not been able to find a lady in Hollywood." -- Orson Welles, 1947. (He certainly did his fair share of looking...!)

The aforementioned Ruth Warrick in Citizen Kane (1941)

"Hollywood is not an easy place for two people to work. When you leave your house, you're both sleepy, since it's the crack of dawn. When you come home, you're exhausted. All you want is an Old-Fashioned and some peace and quiet. The two of you, as a result, are so full of your own problems that you can't help each other at the time when you most should." -- Cornel Wilde, the 1940s. (Wilde was, at the time wed to actress and sometimes costar Patricia Knight - from 1937-1951. Just after their divorce, he wed Jean Wallace in a union that lasted 30 years and many joint projects, but that, too, wound up in divorce.)

"People outside Hollywood don't understand how it is here. It's a battle to maintain a basic integrity; a scrap against bull and baloney. You've got to fight all the time." -- Burt Lancaster, 1949. (Lancaster was already forming a production company in order to maintain more control of his projects and it eventually emerged as Hecht-Hill-Lancaster, a success venture that put forth several notable movies.)

"There's more pressure on you in Hollywood than in New York. On Broadway, you do your performance every night and that's it. Here you have to get up at five in the morning - which is tough on me - in order to get ready in time at the studio. Then you have to rehearse, do your scenes, and you get home late where you have a relaxing dinner and start studying till bedtime. There's no let-up. There's also so much fussing about costumes and makeup and hair all day on the set. That's plausible, I guess, since the camera is on you - if you're lucky enough to get a close-up. One the stage your audience is at least twenty-five feet away." -- Vera-Ellen, 1949. (Vera-Ellen, a spectacular dancer, receded from view in the late-'50s when her sort of musicals were on the wane and a variety of ailments began to affect her physicality. The sudden death of her only child - of SIDS - in 1963 cemented her retirement from public view.)

"Young love deserves a better break on the screen. The over-age stars get all the clinches, while the young actors in Hollywood today - if they're lucky - get the meaningless kiss or two." -- John Derek, 1951. (Derek more than made up for any slights when he presented film after film featuring wife after wife in anything from semi-nudity to outright nakedness on screen! Inset features his costar Jody Lawrance.)

"In Hollywood you do nothing for yourself. You don't even apply your own make-up. You are awakened, taken to the studio, made up. You play your roles in snips and driblets, harassed by delays, interruptions and stupidities. Over the proceedings hangs a pall of indecision, the fear of the studio swami that the work may in some fashion upset a coal miner in West Virginia, a lama in Tibet. Timidity was the screen's curse. It still is. - Tallulah Bankhead, 1952. (From one of the least timid souls on earth...! This did change in the 1960s and '70s, but it's since pendulumed back to focus groups, committees, "correctness," et al, with a few exceptions.)

"Hollywood is full of these watching, waiting helpers, who look for pretty girls in distress. Mostly what they want is to help take your clothes off in their apartments. Many of them do have valuable connections, and will use them-but the asking price is rather high." -- Mamie Van Doren - 1964. (This quote was from her auto-bio "My Naughty, Naughty Life" [likely a play on Errol Flynn's "My Wicked, Wicked Ways."] She would later pen an even more frank book, "Playing the Field.")

"When I first arrived in Hollywood, they told me to get a new name, so I thought back to the best times I had as a kid playing on the tidal land [in Wales]. There was a tannery and old mills. It was really mill land. So I called myself Jack Milland but they said, 'In Hollywood, only dogs are called Jack,' so I looked down a list and picked the shortest name I could find - Ray." -- Ray Milland, 1972. (Milland was born Alfred Jones, January 3rd 1907, in Neath, Glamoran, Wales. Regardless of his desire for "Ray" he was nonetheless billed early on as "Raymond!")

"They treat you so great in Hollywood, make you feel important even if you really aren't. The technician there, you could have them in your home. They're bright they're alert, they're intelligent, they're trying to help you." -- Paul Lynde, 1973. (I wonder if ol' Paul ever had a Key Grip or a Best Boy over for tea and cookies? Ha ha!)

"There's a dismal swamp out there in Hollywood where the money goes and it's never accounted for. I had 5% of Patton (1970), which cost $10 million to make and grossed $40 million, and I've never made a dime." -- George C. Scott, 1974. (Movie accountants have long been noted by many people for their "creativity" with the numbers...!)

"There I was on the screen, a pancaked, lacquered Hollywood purse made out of a Cincinnati sow's ear." -- Doris Day, 1975. (I'm drawn to quotes that include Cincinnati, as that's where I reside. Day was raised not far from my area and the aforementioned Vera-Ellen just blocks from my house! By the way, popular as she was, I think she really blossomed most when they allowed her more natural - often comedic - attributes to come more to light than all the "lacquer.")

"In Hollywood they like you until you're standing on a pedestal and they hand you an Oscar. Then they say, 'How did he get up there? Let's knock him down.'" -- Yul Brynner, 1975. (True as this may be, Yul had it better than many others... And it doesn't seem to have applied to people like Tom Hanks or Meryl Streep, to name more recent recipients.)

"Certainly, there are good marriages in Hollywood, but to imagine that people who are beautiful, and glorified by the camera and publicity, wardrobe and make-up departments and who are thrown together in close proximity day after day; to imagine they don't get involved with each other, especially when the emotional requirements of their scenes are that they be in love with each other- I mean it's not human to believe they don't!" -- Shelley Winters, 1980. (Shelley did know of what she spoke...!)

"I've always enjoyed working in Hollywood. They are so efficient. And it's so exhilarating." -- Vivien Leigh, 1964. "I loathe Hollywood, and for no other part [Scarlett O'Hara] would I have dreamed of signing a contract. All their standards are financial ones. The more I see of Hollywood, the less possible it becomes." -- Vivien Leigh, quoted posthumously in the 1969 book "Vivien Leigh: A Bouquet." (So who knows what to believe....?!)

Fun Finds: Hollywood Studio Magazine, October 1990

Here we are in the midst of Hell Week for a show I'm performing in from August 11th through the 27th (and, of course, work has to live up to the same name - hell week - right along with it!) So it may be some sparse posting this month. For now, I give you another issue of a nostalgia magazine I enjoy picking up whenever I see one somewhere, such as a book store, flea market or the like. I will add a DISCLAIMER right away that in a few spots either subscriber Marcella Ollis or her gay grandson who lived in her basement, got handy with the scissors and cut photos out!! I was especially pissed about this because the magazine didn't say "as is" on the bag it was wrapped up in... But there was still enough to warrant a post here, so I proceed.

There's a rather sassy element to the writing of this article on Hollywood "10's" - I mean, the way the author refers to Gary Cooper?!

Lana Turner wasn't able to rate a mention here, nor Grace Kelly, which I thought was a bit surprising. No Cary Grant or Rock Hudson either. Of course my own 10s are off the mainstream track. Clint Walker is my male 10 and Sharon Tate would probably be my female one.

I love the idea behind this article as it is some of a "where are they now?" approach to some less-highlighted names. June Lang did do a few bit parts on 1960s TV and lived until 2005 when she passed away at eighty-eight. This article neglects to mention that her career was equally hampered by a 1940 marriage to a mob racketeer (who she divorced in 1943, claiming not to have known what he was. He was murdered years later.)

Virginia Field did several episodes of Perry Mason and made a few 1960s TV appearances. This recap doesn't mention that her affair with Dick Powell caused her divorce from Paul Douglas (or that she had a true dislike of Loretta Young.) She died just two years after this article at age seventy-four from cancer. 

Poor Jean Rogers barely made it into 1991 when she passed at age seventy-one following surgery. She defied MGM studio head Louis B. Mayer when wedding her husband in 1939 and it cost her her contract there, but the couple remained together until his death in 1970.

Trudy Marshall lived until 2004, passing away of lung cancer at age eighty-four. Her daughter Deborah understandably took the last name of her father and became better known as Deborah Raffin! We did our own tribute to Miss Mary Anderson, who died in 2014 at the age of ninety-six following some strokes. You can read all about her here!

There's a bit of a typo in that Anderson's bio concludes with the name Trudy instead of Mary! They sure didn't dig up a very old photo of Colleen Gray for the "then" selection! She lived until 2015 when she died at ninety-two. There is no "then" photo of Vanessa Brown...! On the last page is a "now" one. The leading lady referred to in the text would be Maureen O'Hara, whether the story is true or not I do not know... 

Jean Peters is another one of these ladies who's been profiled here in The Underworld. You can see and read much more about her right here. Peters died of leukemia at age seventy-three in the year 2000.

Marion Marshall is one of only two of these ladies still with us today! She is eighty-eight years of age at present. Kathleen Hughes is the other. She is currently eighty-eight as well. Hughes worked on TV through the '70s and did film bits up until 1998.

A full-page portrait of "Coop," Mr. Gary Cooper.

This is a nice biographical account of Cooper with a few scattered studio stills. I haven't seen Northwest Mounted Police, but I always thought that he and Madeline Carroll made an attractive couple together.

This magazine, apart from the cover, only contained four color pages and one of them (two sides) was cut out right after this! A color portrait of Cooper (with an illustration of Shirley Temple & Clark Gable on the back...)  Grrr...

However... Intrepid researcher that I am, I was able to use the sliver of page that was left in the magazine still to determine that THIS was the picture that was sliced out. No clue about what the one on the flip side looked like, though...

I love the way the Letters editor puts Beverly Shelton in her place after her pointed "correction" of an earlier article. 

Most of the letters have a bit of a snippy tone, though they may be justified in their opinions. Fans of classic movies and their stars can be very passionate, not to mention possessive about them. (Don't ask me how I know this! LOL)

Things turn a tad more positive in this little remaining segment. (No one bothers to answer the one guy's question about Dan Dailey's burial site, though!) The last letter sings the praises of Madonna and then gives a shout out to Underworld pal and legend, Dame Joan Collins.

It seems almost bizarre to have a column devoted to the stars' home addresses in this (mostly) pre-stalker era. Surely most celebs now have their mail handled by a P.O. box or service of some kind?

We adore Eleanor Parker and were happy to see her pictured amongst these others. I did write to her back in 1986 (one of only a handful I've ever sent anything to), but for whatever reason didn't get a response.

Plenty of devoted fans popped up in this magazine over the course of its publication. I know how these things can become obsessive, though I've actually relaxed about it a bit as I've gotten older. Look at the indefatigable Mitzi Gaynor, looking fab after a 1990 performance of "Anything Goes" in Seattle!

I read the Sammy Davis auto-bio profiled here about 4 or 5 years ago and remember enjoying it, even if I didn't always see eye-to-eye (so to speak) with its author. I've never come across any of the other three, but I'm sure I'd like those, too. I'm a voracious reader of celebrity bios and auto-bios.

At last a color page, this one of Vivien Leigh and husband Laurence Olivier.

This was an unusual selection of a photo of Marilyn Monroe, but perhaps it will please any "ass men" who happen to be reading this! It speaks to how puerile I am that I misread the title of the article upon first glance as, "On The Tail Of Monroe!"

What a horrible upbringing our Monroe suffered. Talk about a life of highs and lows...!

If you're reading this article, brace yourself because the mad cutter apparently felt the need to remove a photo of MM from one of the pages and it removed not only that, but part of the text on the opposite side...

No clue what dazzling photo of Marilyn was snipped from the mag.

Fun to see Eleanor again in this pic from Scaramouche, though it must be said that Stewart Granger was one of the very few stars that Parker acknowledged as being a bad egg. He used to mistreat his visiting wife Jean Simmons to the point of tears during filming, according to Parker.

I always felt that Granger possessed an inflated self-image and self-worth. A different reason for his and Parker's mutual dislike is relayed in the article on this page.

Granger passed away not too long after this in 1993 at the age of eighty from prostate cancer.

This feature on some of filmdom's most famed beauties was also struck by Mr. (or Mrs.) Scissorhands, so I apologize in advance.

LaMarr had one hell of a life and it's surprising that the woman's life - which included six husbands and countless lovers and was burnt out completely by age twenty-nine (not thirty as the article states) - has never been made into a film or TV-movie.

This time it appears to be a photo of Elizabeth Taylor that got snipped...

Because it was a large photo, it also took away much of the text about her on this side.

The third and final famous face is that of Gone with the Wind's Vivien Leigh.

I always like this segment because it features the classic stars in a contemporary setting, out and about in Tinseltown. George Murphy, featured here, would be dead from Leukemia just two years later at age eighty-nine. Rare to see a latter-day pic of Dennis Morgan, I think! He passed away about four years after this at age eighty-five from respiratory failure, but was looking quite good here for eighty-one. Joel McCrea and Frances Dee had enjoyed a wondrous marriage from 1933 to 1990. He died in October of 1990 just a short while after this public appearance from pneumonia at age eighty-four. Dee lived until 2004 when a stroke claimed her at ninety-four. Interesting to note that Jean "Dingbat" Stapleton played Aunt Eller in a stage version of "Oklahoma!" that year.

This might be the only time you see 5'6" Bart Conner towering over a fellow performer. Cathy Rigby was (is) only 4'11!" Bob Cummings, shown here during a ballyhoo over his eightieth birthday would be dead in a matter of months from kidney failure and pneumonia. By this time the health food proponent had been addicted to methamphetamine for almost four decades, something at odds with his comedic and carefully-cultivated image! 

Burt Reynolds had quite a little hit with his sitcom Evening Shade and was able to incorporate several of his industry pals into its landscape of characters. It turned out that Jack Nicholson won the part of Hoffa. I was stunned to read Edie Adams auto-biography last year and discover that at one point she just stops, as if the typewriter or the advance payment ran out! Irritated me. I really don't think I could have comfortably lived in Ramon Navarro's house at any price...

And this is the back cover. This collectables store was a heavy advertiser and contributor to Hollywood Then & Now magazine. They often came up with creative ways to publicize the store such as this shot with Dorothy and The Little Tramp. Take care until next time, my loves!