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Lucy (as in Ball) Strikes Back — Literally.

May18
2012 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

We probably always knew that Lucille Ball, in addition to being a fine actress and superb comedienne, was a someone you didn’t tangle with offscreen.  She could be one tough woman.

Hello, everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, here today to conclude our two-blog discussion of the recently published Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars, written by Scotty Bowers with Lionel Friedberg. 

The book makes a whole bunch of bawdy assertions about the private lives of some of Hollywood’s most famous stars based on Bowers’ shady career — running a bisexual prostitution ring for several decades beginning in the years following World War II.

Although he denies being a pimp, the now 88-year-old ex-Marine — who started his operation out of a  gas station at the corner of Van Ness Ave. and Hollywood Blvd. (near the Paramount studio) — claims he set up hookers for sexual liaisons with Desi Arnaz, Ball’s husband for nearly 20 years.

This was in the 1950′s when Lucy and Desi were the most famous married couple in America thanks to the I Love Lucy tv sitcom, which drew millions of regular and adoring viewers. (Since the couple owned a piece of the enormous hit, they ranked among Hollywood’s richest and most powerful couples at the time.)

Bowers writes that while he didn’t know Lucy, he certainly knew Desi, six years younger that his wife.

He was a “hot-blooded Cuban,” who supposedly used Bowers’ services to line up “at least two or three girls every few days. He was a lusty fellow, to say the least.  And the girls were crazy for him.”

A big reason for that, the book suggests, is that Arnaz was a big tipper.  ”Instead of handing over the typical $20, which was the going gratuity at that time for a trick, he would often slip a girl as much as $200 or $300.”

One night at a Hollywood party Bowers was working as a bartender, Ball showed up in an evening gown.  ”Lucille came striding over to me…stopped in front of the bar, glared at me for a second or two, and then…Wham!

She slapped me in the face and yelled ‘You! You stop pimping for my husband, y’hear!’ “

Turns out that Lucy — not a small woman, and one who could deliver quite a wallop — had apparently been monitoring Desi’s phone calls to Bowers, and knew all about her husband’s extra curricular sexual escapades.

“I know exactly who you are, mister!, she shouted. You’re the infamous Scotty Bowers. Get out and stay out of my husband’s life.”

Desi, who had witnessed the confrontation along with other stunned guests, is described as being “in shock. No one said a word as Lucille stood there glaring at me, her chin thrust out, her eyes on fire.”

With the grating, all too glib “I’m all right, you’re all right” attitude he adopts throughout his randy tell-all memoir, Bowers concludes that “the incident didn’t leave me with any anger toward (Lucy). She was right. Nobody ever messed around with Lucille. Her temper equaled her charm.”  


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‘SECRET SEX LIVES OF THE STARS’ — Really?

May17
2012 2 Comments Written by classicmovieguys

A minor controversy in the normally placid classic movie world accompanied the February publication of the randy memoir, Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars, by Scotty Bowers with Lionel Friedberg.

The book is a highly detailed (sometimes nauseously so) tell-all about the sexual preferences a gaggle of Hollywood stars (many British) in post-World War II Hollywood. Many of the book’s assertions are not new but some are, and might surprise you.

Hello, everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, here to explain that some, perhaps many, of our readers might find this material offensive — especially when a beloved star is mentioned.

But those behind the book (published by Grove Press) feel it is less a prurient tell-all than “a window into an erased, forgotten and denied past of Los Angeles,” according to a lengthy Jan. 29 article on the tome in The New York Times. Certainly the book reads less sexy and more historically clinical.

Scotty Bowers came from the Midwest, served with the Marine Corps. in the Pacific and settled in Los Angeles immediately following his WW II discharge. He found himself pumping gas at a filling station at the corner of Van Ness Ave. and Hollywood Blvd. (near the Paramount studio).

One day, he claims, Walter Pigeon drove by, and invited Bowers to parttake in a sexual triangle involving the actor and another man.

Bowers accepted, and thus, according to his book, began the formation of a secret prostitution ring catering largely to gay and bisexual men and women, many familiar stars. For a selection of big names in the Forties and Fifties, Bowers was the go-to guy to arrange that illicit rendezvous.

For the record, Bowers — now 88, married to the same woman for 27 years, and residing in the Hollywood Hills — insists that he was never a pimp. And, despite his personal involvement in countless homosexual “tricks” over decades, he maintains he always has preferred sex with women.

Bowers says he arranged multiple gay liaisons for director George Cukor, composer Cole Porter, and even the Duke of Windsor. He numbers character actor Franklin Pangborn as regular client. There are by-now familiar assertions in his book about the household sharing of Cary Grant and Randolph Scott, and more information on Rock Hudson.

Here’s a item from the book about Vivien Leigh. At the time working as a bartender-caterer of celebrity parties, Bowers claims to have had an assignation with Vivien in a guest house on the estate of her close friend, director Cukor, just as A Streetcar Named Desire was going into production in the early Fifties.

She was a hot, hot lady, reports Bowers. She was very sexual and very excitable…That night we screwed as though the survival of the world depended on it…She had orgasm after orgasm and each one noisier than the last. 

Reading an explicit account of an encounter with Charles Loughton requires a sturdy stomach to digest. That kind of behavior may seem disgusting but, you know, it’s surprising how much of it goes on, writes Bowers in his Happy-Hooker prose style. So who was I to judge? To each his own.

Tyrone Power and Laurence Olivier are depicted as harboring “unusual fetishes.” Bob Hope is said to have preferred paid heterosexual encounters with older women that were efficient — short and presumably sweet.

The book’s most controversial claim is that Katherine Hepburn was a confirmed lesbian with complexion problems, and that Spencer Tracy  indulged in sex with men.  Bowers dismisses the time-honored image of the pair as longtime lovers, virtually an old-married couple.

Even if NONE of Bowers allegations are true, the book remains a modern day version of the tried and true — that gossip about stars is always news.


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KIRK DOUGLAS Battles The French at Cannes — An ‘Exclooseeve’

May16
2012 1 Comment Written by classicmovieguys

In the middle of each May, the Cannes Film Festival kicks off a fortnight of cinematic revelry on the French Riviera, and the stakes for movies with artistic ambitions couldn’t be higher.  A top prize in the Festival’s main competition — the world’s most influential of its kind — often results in millions at the foreign box office.

The prizes are awarded by an international jury comprised of filmmakers, critics and cineastes. After two weeks of eyeballing main competition features, they huddle, argue, carry on, and finally vote on which prize goes to which film.

The results are then splashed across a lavishly-staged, Oscar-like television extravaganza at the Festival’s conclusion.  The event draws big audiences throughout Europe, and is usually spiced by the presence of at least one Hollywood star.

In 1980, the main man at the 33rd Cannes Festival was our own Kirk Douglas, who was named to the influential post of Cannes jury president after Swedish director Ingmar Bergman bowed out at the last minute.  To please his French-born wife, Douglas reluctantly took on the job — which came with the twin perks of a limo and a suite at an expensive hotel near Cannes.

Hello, everybody. Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys,  here to welcome back Hy Hollinger, our longtime pal and veteran Hollywood correspondent –who has covered many a Cannes Festival — to chronicle the saga of Douglas vs. the French, or more specifically, Douglas vs. the French bureaucrats in charge.

No Cannes Festival can end without disappointment, a rhubarb or two and a touch of comedy, Hollinger accurately reported in the May 28, 1980 edition of weekly Variety, an account which Hy provided to us “exclooseevely,” as Louella Parsons used to pronounce it.

The Cannes Festival jury’s screening processes that year went without a hitch, but when it came time to decided the all-important movie prizes, the merde hit the fan.

Douglas, a true-blue American who believed in playing strictly by the rules, was bewildered and perturbed by last-minute efforts by festival officials to alter the agreed-upon  prize structure in favor of a French-made movie.

Instead of sticking to their original decision — to split the top Palme d’Or (Golden Palm) prize between Bob Fosse’s All That Jazz and to Japanese director Akira Kurosawa’s Kagemusha — the jury without Douglas (who was back at his hotel) caved into bureaucratic pressure.

They voted to split the Palme d’Or THREE ways by also including Mon Oncle d’Amerique directed by Frenchman Alain Resnais, a move that upgraded the movie from its previously voted second prize (the Grand Prix Special du Jury) status.

The behind-the-scenes maneuvering was done without his knowledge, Douglas told Hollinger. What also ticked off the actor was the president of the Festival’s decision to hold a televised press conference announcing the prizewinners without Dougas’ participation, explaining that he  was ill and could not attend, which was untrue.

The actor told Hollinger that by splitting the top prize three ways, the status of the second prize category was automatically diminished.

You can’t eliminate a prize, he said. You have to abide by the regulations…I thought it was wrong to award three first prizes . It gets to be a joke to have so many winners. I was against it and I don’t believe in it, he told Hy.

For his pains, Douglas was later verbally taken to task by other jury members, notably by a French critic. Hy contacted Douglas in New York and here’s the actor’s response:  I took the assignment in the last minute when (Bergman) dropped out. Why should I try to be detrimental? They may not agree with me. But why such a personal attack?

Ah, those naughty French.

 


 

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‘THE WIZARD OF OZ’ Quiz — The Answers At Last!

May15
2012 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

Hello, everybody. Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, here today with the answers to our The Wizard of Oz quiz that we recently ran.  We expect that you all were and remain on tenterhooks, awaiting the final words on our not-too-tough (we hope!) questions. So, here we go:

Question:  ’The Wizard of Oz” worried the MGM brass in 1938 because of its high production price tag.  Exactly how much did it cost to make the picture 1) $5 million; 2) $7 million; 3) $1 million; or 4) $3.2 million?

Answer:  4) $3.2 million, which, as producer Mervyn LeRoy noted, was a lot of money in 1938.  It has made so much more than that…however, that that it would have been cheap at five times the cost, he said.

Question:  It may come as a shock for today’s ‘Oz’ fans to discover that Judy Garland was NOT the first choice to play Dorothy.  Who was? 1) Deanna Durbin; 2) Jean Harlow; 3) Norman Shearer; 4) Shirley Temple?

Answer:  4) The MGM brass was unanimous in its preference for Temple. Both LeRoy and MGM’s so-called “Dean of Musicals” Arthur Freed persuaded studio boss Louis B, Mayer that Garland was the better choice. At the time, she had a gap between her front teeth, and I sent her to a dentist who gave her that winning, gapless smile, recalled LeRoy. 

Question:  Just how old WAS Judy Garland when she made ‘The Wizard of Oz.” 1) 12; 2) 15; 3) 19; 4) 22; or 5) none of the above?

Answer:  5). None of the above.  Garland entered the MGM talent machine (one of 253 contract players) on Sept. 27, 1935, three months after her 13th birthday.  When she started on the ‘Oz’ production she was 16. 

Question:  Which one of Judy Garland’s six movies prior to ‘Oz’ ultimately won her the role as Dorothy?  1) Broadway Melody of 1938; 2) Pigskin Parade; 3) Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry; or 4) Everybody Sing?

Answer:  2). Wrote LeRoy, I had seen my Dorothy… when I caught a low-budget Fox musical ‘Pigskin Parade’ (with Garland participating as an MGM loan out). Garland…had the quality I wanted for Dorothy. For the record, Garland’s part in the Fox picture was that of a frumpish kid sister to an aspiring football player.

Question: Who was the first choice to play the part of the Wizard? 1) Jack Benny; 2) Ed Wynn; 3) Fred Allen; or 4) Bob Hope?

Answer:  2).  For the Wizard, I wanted Ed Wynn (the father of Keenan), but he turned me down.  He said the part was too small for him, wrote LeRoy. A giant misjudgement by the veteran vaudeville, radio and tv comedian.  Frank Morgan wound up with the part, and he turned out to be ideal.

Question: MGM management disliked ‘Over the Rainbow,’ the signature song of the movie that turned out to be Garland’s defining vocal statement for the rest of her career. They wanted to drop the Harold Arlen-E.Y. (Yip) Harburg tune.  Why? 1) Louis B. Mayer thought it was too sentimental; 2) The song, a ballad, clashed with the movie’s zippier musical material; 3) producer LeRoy was told he couldn’t have a cut of the song royalties; or 4) there were reservations about Garland’s handling of the tune?

ANSWER: 2). After a test screening of ‘Oz’ in San Bernardino, some MGM execs complained that ‘Over The Rainbow’ detracted from the movie’s generally uptempo musical score. “This song has to go,” they said. LeRoy, Harburg, Arlen and Freed disagreed, and persuasively made their case to studio boss Mayer, who determined that the song “stays in the picture.”

Question:  Judy Garland was born Frances Ethel Gumm, and toured with a family vaudeville act before landing at MGM.  How many family members were part of that act? 1) 12, in an ensemble circus group; 2) four, in a family chamber music quartet; 3) three, in a conventional song and dance act; 4) eight, in an acrobat act.

Answer: 3). There were three Gumm Sisters, Garland and her two older siblings: Mary Jane and Virginia. Both were conventionally pretty.  It was the unconventional looking Garland, though, that had the big career.

Question:  Although hard to imagine in retrospect, character actress Margaret Hamilton was NOT the first choice for the role of the Wicked Witch.  Who was? 1) Billie Burke; 2) Edna May Oliver; 3) Gale Sondergaard; or 4) Fanny Brice?

Answer:  3.  At one point, producer LeRoy mulled the casting of Sondergaard as a “glamorous witch.” Sensible heads prevailed and Hamilton, then a 36-year-old, newly divorced single mother earning her way on small character parts, won the role.

Question: The “yellow brick road” required the importation from India of specially painted bricks. True or False?

Answer:  False. Ordinary, “cheap,” yellow fence paint was used, and the yellow brick road finally looked like what a yellow brick road should look like, wrote producer LeRoy.

Question:  Jack Haley was NOT the first choice for the Tin Man role. True or false?

Answer:  True.  Buddy Ebsen was, but he fell ill after breathing in the aluminum dust he was sprayed with.  Haley had better luck using an aluminum paste.

Question: MGM went through three directors before ‘Oz’ completed production. Can you name them?

Answer:  In order, George Cukor, Richard Thorpe and Victor Fleming, the film’s director of record. 

 

 

 

 

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No Stereotypes Off Screen — Motoring with STEPIN FETCHIT

May14
2012 2 Comments Written by classicmovieguys

Although in the 1930s actors such as Hattie McDaniel, Louise Beavers, Willie Best, and Stepin Fetchit, were forced to portray stereotypes on screen, off screen they led lives much like their contemporaries.

They had fine houses, threw lavish parties and drove expensive cars, and often had chauffeurs.

Hello, everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, with another of our Motoring With The Stars series.

This time our subject (pictured above left) is Lincoln Theodore Monroe Andrew Perry, who under the screen name Stepin Fetchit, was one of the biggest stars of his era. Born in Key West, Florida, he played segregated vaudeville circuits until his part in a two-man comedy act — as “the laziest man in the world” — caught on with mainstream audiences.

His movie career began in the Twenties. His star status solidified in the 1930′s, lasting through at least two more decades. Stepin Fetchit is rightly regard as an extraordinary gifted physical comedian.  (He referred to Charlie Chaplin in discussing his work.) He was also one of the highest paid black performers of his period.

Among his most notable movies was 1936′s Dimples with Shirley Temple; director John Ford’s The Sun Shines Bright, a 1953 period piece set in the old South; and 1952′s Bend of the River,  director Anthony Mann’s western costarring Jimmy Stewart and Rock Hudson. 

Stepin Fetchit often played shoe shine men or handymen as slow-witted jive talkers. These presentations earned for the actor-comedian disdain for a time from militant blacks. Cooler perspectives eventually prevailed, and he wound up being honored by the National Association for the Advance of Colored People for having created job opportunities for minorities in Hollywood.

Stepin Fetchit worked until 1976, when he made his last picture, that catchall of faded stars, Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who saved Hollywood.  In all he appeared in 54 shorts, features and TV movies. He died in his early 80′s in 1985, and is justly regarded today as one of Hollywood’s most entertaining physical performers.

He certainly had excellent taste in automobiles — and in spiffy-looking chauffeurs, for that matter.

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BARBARA PAYTON — Hollywood ‘Bad Girl’ (The Genuine Article)

May11
2012 2 Comments Written by classicmovieguys

Every once in a while, as Joe is looking the other way, Frank likes to slip in a “bad girl” blog, a short appreciation of a marginal Hollywood talent of the 1940s or 1950s who hardly qualifies as a STAR.

Hello, everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, here today to celebrate an actress who truly was a “bad girl” — Barbara Payton.

Frank remembers reading about her exploits in Fifties issues of Confidential magazine, and was inspired anew when he plucked out of Joe’s library a rare paperback edition of Payton’s 1963 autobiography, I Am Not Ashamed. (Editorial comment:  Maybe she should have been.)

Her movie career, which began in 1949, was NOT extensive, only about 15 or so features. But what down-market gems, sometimes created by such interesting directors as Curt Siodmak (1951′s Bride of Frankenstein) and Edgar G. Ullmer (1955′s Murder Is My Beat).

In her prime, Payton was gorgeous, a full-figured blond with fine features and a pouting, full mouth. She had a slightly insolent attitude — daring men NOT to be sexually moved by her presence. She was made for film noir roles, and her first costarring part, opposite Lloyd Bridges, was in the 1949 Eagle-Lion production of  Trapped. 

The same year, Payton signed a one-year contract at Universal-International, and made a western, Silver Blue, opposite a rugged leading man wannabe, Tom Neal. Thus began her torrid on-again, off-again romance with the rugged, good-looking actor, who eventually made those Confidential magazine headlines when he belted (and seriously injured) Franchot Tone in an argument over Payton’s romantic-sexual favors.

Tone may have lost the battle but he eventually won the marital war, however briefly. He married Payton in 1951; the divorce came a year later.

Two A-list Hollywood stars figured in Payton’s career. James Cagney starred opposite her in his own production for Warner Brothers, 1950′s noir drama Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye. Barbara, well received, got a career a boost for a while.

As a producer, Cagney also cast her opposite Gregory Peck in the 1951 western, Only The Valiant. She personally did not get along with Peck, and later claimed she was the only actress ever to be barred from the set of picture she starred in.

Payton later turned to the stage — opposite Neal in a touring production of The Postman Always Rings Twice — and made low-budget pictures in England.  By the early Sixties, her movie career was over. (Payton and Neal pictured below.)

By then, she had developed a grade A problem with alcohol. Without a husband, her movie money long since spent, Payton took to prostitution. By at least one account, she was very good at it.

In the recently published tell-all memoir, Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars, Hollywood procuror Scotty Bowers writes that he fixed up none other than Bob Hope with hookers. His favorite was a very well-known ex-actress by the name of Barbara Payton.

For many years she was regarded as the number one hooker in town. In a personal endorsement, Bowers adds: I have to say that a half hour with her was like two hours with someone else. She was electrifyingly sexy and made a man feel totally and wholly satisfied.

Payton had a short, dissolute life. (She never made it to 40; she died in 1967 of heart and liver failure at 39.)

 

 

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‘The Wizard Of Oz’ Quiz — Test Your Knowledge Of This Classic

May10
2012 2 Comments Written by classicmovieguys

You’ve no doubt seen it countless times.  You agree that it ranks among the all-time great classics to emerge from the Hollywood studio system.  But how much do you really know about The Wizard of Oz?

Probably a lot, undoubtedly due to the excellent body of literature about this musical including the 1974 memoirs of its producer — Mervyn LeRoy’s That Song Has To Go —  and Aljean Harmetz’ most useful The Making of the Wizard of Oz, published in 1977.  (Both questions and answers, to come later, were based on these two sources.)

We hope that our periodic classic movie quizzes promote more understanding of the films discussed, and are fun to take.  So, let’s get to it. Let’s see how much you really do know about this treasured film.

Question:  ’The Wizard of Oz” worried the MGM brass in 1938 because of its high production price tag.  Exactly how much did it cost to make the picture

1) $5 million; 2) $7 million; 3) $1 million; or 4) $3.2 million?

Question:  It may come as a shock for today’s ‘Oz’ fans to discover that Judy Garland was NOT the first choice to play Dorothy.  Who was?

1) Deanna Durbin; 2) Jean Harlow; 3) Norman Shearer; 4) Shirley Temple?

Question:  Just how old WAS Judy Garland when she made ‘The Wizard of Oz?

 1) 12; 2) 15; 3) 19; or 4) 22?

Question:  which of Judy Garland’s six movies prior to ‘Oz’ ultimately won her the role as Dorothy?  1) Broadway Melody of 1938; 2) Pigskin Parade; 3) Thoroughbreds Don’t Cry; or 4) Everybody Sing?

Question: Who was the first choice to play the part of the Wizard?

1) Jack Benny; 2) Ed Wynn; 3) Fred Allen; or 4) Bob Hope?

Question: MGM management disliked ’Over the Rainbow,’ the signature song of the movie that turned out to be Garland’s defining vocal statement for the rest of her career. They wanted to drop the Harold Arlen-E.Y. (Yip) Harburg tune.  Why?

1) Studio boss Louis B. Mayer thought it was too sentimental; 2) The song, a ballad, clashed with the movie’s zippier musical material; 3) producer LeRoy was told he couldn’t have a cut of the song royalties; or 4) there were reservations about Garland’s handling of the tune?

Question:  Judy Garland was born Frances Ethel Gumm, and toured with a family vaudeville act before landing at MGM.  How many family members were part of that act?

1) 12, in an ensemble circus group; 2) four, in a family chamber music quartet; 3) three, in a conventional song and dance act; 4) eight, in an acrobat act.

Question:  Although hard to imagine in retrospect, character actress Margaret Hamilton was NOT the first choice for the role of the Wicked Witch.  Who was?

1) Billie Burke; 2) Edna May Oliver; 3) Gale Sondergaard; or 4) Fanny Brice?

Question: The “yellow brick road” required the importation from India of specially painted bricks. True or False?

Question:  Jack Haley was NOT the first choice for the Tin Man role. True or false?

Question: MGM went through three directors before ‘Oz’ completed production.  Can you name them?


 

 

 

 

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BELITA Part II- The ‘Suspense’ Is Killing Us.

May09
2012 1 Comment Written by classicmovieguys

Hello, everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, here to usher in the second of writer and old pal Edward Z. Epstein’s two guest blogs — written exclusively for Classic Movie Chat — on Belita, the ‘ice maiden’ (yup, that’s her above with co-star Barry Sullivan).

Belita -Take 2  Part II

by Edward Z. Epstein

Sonja Henie’s films were happy stories, family entertainment. Suspense, planned (in 1946) as Belita’s “break-out” film, was a tale of adultery and murder, and the film would certainly prove that skating was not out of place in a melodrama. It provided Belita with an opportunity to showcase her outstanding versatility, and it was Monogram’s first “A” production, complete with million-dollar budget.

The director was Frank Tuttle, a Hollywood veteran. The script was by Phillip Yordan, who’d successfully guided Ava Gardner through her first starring role the previous year (in Whistle Stop). A top supporting cast was assembled, including Barry Sullivan, Bonita Granville, Albert Dekker, and memorable character actor Eugene Pallette (this was his last film).

Although uncredited, the legendary Edith Head (under contract to Paramount) created Belita’s wardrobe; the producers were sparing no expense, and wanted everything about her first-class. The great Nick Castle conceived the skating numbers — a moving camera, mounted on a crane, an expensive piece of equipment in those days, was utilized for some numbers, and deftly captured the excitement and momentum of ice skating. Daniele Amfitheatrof’s music and Karl Struss’s photography were top-drawer.

It’s definitely not like watching a skating competition on television.

One of the crucial plot points involves skating star Roberta Elva (Belita) doing a split-jump through a hoop of “knives.” She bursts from the “Jaws of Death,” skates flashing, her costume glittering. She circles the rink at ever-increasing speed, building to the split jump.

It wasn’t trick photography, she recalled. They weren’t knives, of course, but they might as well have been. The “blades” were fashioned of hard rubber, pointed and dangerous and sheathed with aluminum that had enough of an edge to draw blood if you ran your finger over it.

The stunt was perilous. The hoop wasn’t the prop I’d been prepared for. I’d been training to jump over a line of “knives,” a high jump. At the last minute the producers switched it and suddenly I had to do a long jump.

She did it on the first take. Tickets had been sold for the day’s shooting (which required an audience). The producers, the King brothers, wanted a second take, she recalled. I did it only once.

A memorable solo number had her costumed in off-the-shoulder white, her blond hair dressed Greek goddess-style. The number is exciting and timeless, combining the power of skating with the grace of ballet, culminating in a “Charlotte” spiral that is a virtual show stopper, even by today’s standards. (The great American skating champion Sonya Klopfer Dunfield summed up this routine, and Belita’s technique, when she exclaimed, with unbridled enthusiasm: ”The control! The control!”)

In the film, Belita also performs a sexy, throbbing Latin number; at another point she skates on a small frozen mountain “lake,” executing turn-and-a-half flips and a blurry cross-foot spin. The film is a tour-de-force for her, not only displaying her skating but revealing a believable, understated, likable persona in the acting scenes.

As one of her longtime friends told me: If she’d been a relentless self-promoter, money oriented and determined to be a household name, she could have and would have accomplished that. But she was first and foremost ‘an artist,’ she could be quite difficult, and life held other attractions, and distractions, for her.

There were many love affairs. She was married twice: to Joel McGinnis (the marriage lasted ten years) and, for thirty-three years (until his death), to Irish actor James Berwick.

She studied acting with Charles Laughton (even appeared with him in a stage production of The Cherry Orchard), but, after Suspense, she skated in no more films (although she starred in her own highly successful ice show abroad). The cycle for skating films had run its course; even Sonja made no more movies after 1948 (except for her self-produced Hello, London! ten years later).

Belita was re-united with Suspense co-star Barry Sullivan in a well-regarded noir, The Gangster. She was in The Man on the Eiffel Tower (Laughton was one of the stars). She had a small role as a ballerina in Silk Stockings, and, in a long, platinum Veronica Lake-like wig, was the featured “killer blonde” dancer in Gene Kelly’s Invitation to the Dance.

There were other films, but Belita off the ice was like Esther (Williams) out of the pool: a major element was missing.

That memorable June evening in 1992, (mentioned yesterday) — the Ice Theater of New York benefit — was awash in nostalgia. Belita was sixty- seven, a survivor (including a bout with cancer), and proud of it.

There’d been no plastic surgery on her face. She looked glamorous in a coffee-colored chiffon cocktail dress, sling-back high heels, her blonde hair worn up, a delicate pearl and diamond brooch sparkling on her shoulder.

After the screening of Suspense, there was a question-and-answer session. She began by making a statement: I appreciate your response, but I must emphasize that the company of skaters in ‘Suspense’ was marvelous! A wonderful, talented group of people. I want to make a special point of that, how important they were. We inspired each other to do our best.”

She was pleased with the adulation she inspired, but hardly viewed her Hollywood years, or her years as a skating star, through a rose-colored filter. Quite the opposite.

Her skates, the “lucky” pair she’d worn through much of her career (and in Suspense), were discreetly displayed on a side table. One couldn’t help staring at them — they were old and worn, but for a skating buff they had the same impact as the ballet slippers Moira Shearer wore in The Red Shoes.

Belita died in 2005, at the age of eighty-two. Will future skaters, and believers in the art of film noir, be inspired by the magic of Belita? To quote one of the people at the tribute: As long as ‘Suspense’ remains in circulation, so will she.”

xxx

Joe Morella and Frank Segers saying thanks, Ed.  Your two parter on Belita was fascinating.

Our readers might like to know that Ed Epstein, who has co-authored a number of books with Joe Morella, is also a skater, a former Middle-Atlantic States Novice champion.  He wrote the notes for, and helped organize, a festival of Sonja Henie’s films for MoMA in New York;  he’s also written a biography of young figure skating legend Michelle Kwan (Ballantine).

Epstein’s biography of Jennifer Jones, “Portrait of Jennifer,” the only full-scale, hardback biography of Jones to date, has recently been published by Simon & Schuster in a trade paperback edition.

Here’s one more shot of Belita.

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‘Fire and Ice: The Magic of BELITA’

May08
2012 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

Hello, everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, delighted to turn over our blog today and tomorrow to our pal and fellow writer Edward Z. Epstein, who best appreciates Belita because Ed was formerly a formidable figure skater himself.

Exclusive for Classic Movie Chat

Belita – Take 2

by Edward Z. Epstein

It was 1992, and Belita had traveled from London to New York especially for the event. It was quite an occasion, and took place on June 9 at Dick Button’s Manhattan apartment. Famous skaters, past and present, choreographers, and production people, many of whom had worked with Belita, were on hand — the star was being honored by Ice Theatre of New York.

It was an evening to benefit the organization’s Rehearsal Fund, and the highlight was to be a screening of Belita’s memorable (1946) film, Suspense, followed by a question-and-answer session.

I’d written an article on her — Fire & Ice: The Magic of Belita – for Ice Theatre’s skating magazine, and the reaction was totally unexpected. There were phone calls and letters from all over the world, from people who had worked with and admired Belita, a skater’s skater, and who wanted to know how she was, where she was, what she was doing.

Soon afterwards, I received an early Sunday morning phone call, at home. It was an unfamiliar female voice: “Mr. Epstein? This is Belita. I want to thank you for that article.” She was calling from London. The whispery, soft voice from Suspense had evolved into vintage Lauren Bacall, and she went on to say how kind I was for “bringing me back into the spotlight…”

Her absence from the spotlight had been voluntary. She’d retired from skating in 1956 (at the age of thirty-three), and three years later was out of show business altogether: “A civilian at last!” In 1981, at the age of fifty-eight, there was a brief return to the ice for a special one-night-only benefit performance at Madison Square Garden.

Maria Belita Gladys Olive Lyne Jepson-Turner had been decades ahead of her time in brilliantly combining figure skating and ballet (she’d had classical Russian ballet training). As a young dancer, she was partner to Anton Dolin, appearing with the prestigious Dolin-Markova ballet.

She would rise to prominence in the skating world, not as a competitor, but in the world of professional skating, a world unto itself. She was a sensation in an ice show at Manhattan’s New Yorker Hotel.

Hollywood came calling. She skated in several films in the early forties, but Suspense was the one with lasting impact (even the dance critic from The New Yorker was on hand to report on the Ice Theatre tribute).

It was a film noir, released in 1946, an outstanding year for noirs: The Postman Always Rings Twice, starring Lana Turner and John Garfield, and Gilda, starring Rita Hayworth, were big hits.

Like Lana and Rita, Belita was a femme fatale, but with an added element: she was a figure skater of breathtaking ability, and totally different in style than the skating world’s leading star attraction, the inimitable Sonja Henie.

Was Sonja intimidated? The two were as dissimilar as Lana Turner and Doris Day. According to Belita, Sonja’s studio, 20th Century-Fox, had early-on offered Belita a contract — “They told me I could name my own price” — with a proviso: she was “never to set foot on the ice again!” (One of Belita’s closest friends, Joe Marshall, owns a memento she gave him, a photograph of Sonja, inscribed: “To Velita [sic] — Sonja Henie.”

Thirteen-year-old Belita had competed in the 1936 Olympic Games, won by 24- year-old Sonja (Belita placed sixteenth.)  If Cyd Charisse had been a figure skater, she’d have skated like Belita.

Gwen Verdon was a teenager living in California when she first saw Belita skate in person (the young women were around the same age). They used to let her skate between public sessions at the Pan Pacific rink in California, Verdon recalled. “The rink was huge, and there’d been so many people skating on it that there was a good inch of water covering the surface. But Belita would work out, she wanted the water there, because she was going to try dangerous moves and once she got her speed going, if she fell, she wouldn’t hurt herself because she’d just slide more with the water.

We all took up ice skating after seeing her, Verdon noted. She was so wonderful and her legs were so long.

Belita’s films were produced by a very small studio, Monogram. Silver Skates and Lady Let’s Dance were popular enough so that the studio had bigger plans for her, although Belita’s cool, artistic style was perhaps a bit too sophisticated for mass film audiences of the day.

Another factor inhibiting widespread recognition of Belita’s movies was the fact that there wasn’t room in those days for more than one “specialty” superstar per field. Esther Williams was the girl in the MGM swimming pool; Sonja Henie, of course, was the goldmine-on-ice at 20th Century-Fox. The major studios owned theatre chains; smaller operations had to distribute their product on a much more haphazard basis, the films usually playing in far fewer theaters and at dramatically less profitable terms.

STAY TUNED, LOTS MORE ON BELITA… PART II TOMORROW.

The photo above was taken by Constantine and is courtesy of Joe Marshall.

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More Motoring with the Stars

May07
2012 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

Each Monday for the last few weeks we’ve been featuring movie stars and their automobiles. But today we’re featuring the car and not the star (or in this case, stars).

Hello, everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, here today to continue in a fashion our Stars & Cars series.

The above photo is a shot from the the 1937 film Topper which starred Cary Grant, Constance Bennett and Roland Young.

In the movie, the Kirbys (Grant and Bennett) were a wealthy, madcap couple and Topper (Young) was their banker.  When they are killed in an accident, Topper inherits their car, a Cord roadster, and the ghosts of George and Marion Kirby.

Did the movies make the Cord a more desirable auto, or did the movies just use the popular and sought after auto to glamorize the stars and the films?  The chicken or the egg?

Cords were indeed flashy and popular in 1937. They were manufactured by the Cord Corporation, founded by one Errett LobbanCord in the late 1920′s. Besides the Cord brand, the company also put out another model popular in classic Hollywood, the Dusenberg. These vehicles were actually manufactured in that most American locale, the state of Indiana.

The Cords was certainly among the most beautiful automobiles ever made, and the designs, as you can see, were truly revolutionary.  The vehicles had a short life, though. By the year Topper came out, the Cord Corp., financially ravaged by the Great Depression, went into bankruptcy.

Still, it’s a bit of an eye-opener to see what beautiful vehicles the American auto industry USED to make.  And, classic Hollywood fully appreciated that beauty.

Here’s director Cecil B. deMille in his Cord!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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