Posts tagged Howard Hughes

Guess Who Told Off Super-Womanizer Howard Hughes.

Apr04
2013 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

Hello, everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, here to disclose that last week we received the note below from a reader, Peter, citing an old blog of ours on Howard Hughes, The World’s Greatest Womanizer?, which ran way back in November of 2011.

Peter wrote: That’s not entirely true that Hughes was never told off. The actress Jane Greer (pictured below) did actually tell off Howard Hughes. She was married at the time and he tried to woo her in order to sleep with her. But she wouldn’t have it and as such, her career took a dive. Shows just what kind of a man Hughes was.

If he didn’t get what he wanted especially from an actress, he would ruin their careers. So I really don’t see what’s so great about this man. He seemed like a selfish brat who never really did anything too much that was worthwhile aside from the airplane ventures.

Peter, you’re right, Jane Greer, so good as one of film noir’s nastiest femme fatales in 1947′s Out of the Past opposite Robert Mitchum, actually DID rebuff Hughes and her career did suffer.

But you were mistaken about the woman in the picture at the top, which originally ran with the article on H. H.  That is Ginger Rogers.

In any event, we don’t say Hughes was a “great” man in his relationship with women, far from it.  But interesting in Hollywood legend.

He was so powerful that many in classic Hollywood overlooked his huge personal quirks.  Pianist-wit Oscar Levant recalled in his The Memoirs of an Amnesiac (1965) that he and guests were once in Chasin’s Restaurant in Hollywood when a slovenly attired man came in and said hello to me.  I cut him dead.

Someone said, ‘That was Howard Hughes.’  Just to reveal my lack of character, I got up, went to his table, and shook hands with him.

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WHO TOOK CAROLE LOMBARD’S VIRGINITY? And Other Notes From The Email Bag

Dec12
2011 1 Comment Written by classicmovieguys

Hello, everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, here to catch up with our email.  It’s a great pleasure to hear from you, our very knowledgeable readers, who always keep us on our toes.

First up is Vincent, who weighs in about the time-honored subject of how many movie actresses Howard Hughes bedded.

We covered some of this in our Howard Hughes: The World’s Greatest Womanizer (Nov. 23), but Vincent has an interesting addition.  She was a superb and very sexy comedienne (her last movie was the 1942 classic, To Be Or Not To Be) and left Clark Gable a widower.

Writes Vincent: Not many are aware of it, but apparently one of Hughes’ bedroom conquests was Carole Lombard, around 1929; in fact, it’s believed she lost her virginity to him. In “Screwball,” Lombard biographer Larry Swindell wrote as such, but had to dance around it a bit, describing Hughes but not mentioning him by name. (“Screwball” was issued in the fall of 1975, about half a year before Hughes’ passing, and I’m guessing the publisher, remembering the Clifford Irving hoax of a few years earlier, didn’t want to take any chances.)

For more on the Lombard-Hughes relationship, go to http://carole-and-co.livejournal.com/11206.html and http://carole-and-co.livejournal.com/57165.html.

In response to the second of our blogs about classic movie ‘cougars’ (women who bed and/or marry younger men), specifically Joan Crawford’s fling with a teenage Jackie Cooper (Was Joan Crawford A Cougar? Nov. 18), we received this comment from Page:

I enjoyed your post and observations. I don’t think I’ll pass judgment though since my fiancee is almost 11 yrs younger than I am. : )   I always assumed Joan (Crawford’s) husbands were around her own age but I suspect her affairs were with much younger men, like Lana Turner’s for example. The stars did have their fun.

That they did, Page.

Also weighing in on the subject of older women-younger men pairings was our pal Mark, who recalled that actor Robert Wolders – the ‘younger man’ who was Merle Oberon’s last husband, and who subsequently bedded Audrey Hepburn until she died – once appeared as the ski instructor who drew the attentions of Mary on an episode of tv’s The Mary Tyler Moore Show.

We asked Mark if Mary Richard’s feelings for Wolders’ character were strictly physical. Here’s his response:

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the episode, but, from what I remember of it, the answer is: “Yes”…and “No”:

As her friends all comment on how good looking and allegedly “superficial” the Wolders’ character is, “Mary” (who admits to neighbor Phyllis Lindstrom that she was the one who “picked Wolders up” when she saw him in the sporting good department of her local department store) begins to worry that the only reason she’s dating him is because he’s so attractive. (Flaky Phyllis “helpfully” points out that the only thing the two could have in common is a physical attraction, since Wolders is a skiing instructor and Mary hates skiing.)

After some reflection, Mary decides to end the relationship and, at dinner that evening asks Wolders : “What would you say if I told you the reason I was going out with you is because you’re so attractive?”

Wolders’ response (“So what? That’s why I’m going out with you.”) momentarily floors and delights Mary, but she quickly gets back on point by asking him whether that makes their relationship, superficial…

Wolders denies they have a superficial relationship, because, as he says, “I really like you, Mary.” Mary confesses that she “really likes” Wolders, too, He asks, “So what’s the problem?” and, in a classic MTM line she replies : “D****d if I know!” and they continue their dinner date.

On the other hand, like so many of “Mary Richards’ ” dates, I don’t think the Wolders character ever makes another appearance on MTM, so maybe their relationship was too superficial to last? Thanks, Mark.

From Taci, this public service in response to our Dec. 2 Why Old Movie Fashions Really Do Matter blog, in which we discussed Elizabeth Taylor’s wedding outfits.

A picture is worth a thousand words, so here is a link to Taylor’s »real life« wedding gowns:

http://www.instyle.com/instyle/package/general/photos/0,,20475651_20475707_20927504,00.html(though the pictures are mostly in black and white which is a shame, because the yellow dress for 1st try with Burton looks gorgeous in color – see herehttp://www.thewellappointedcatwalk.com/2011/03/style-icon-elizabeth-taylor.html – must be that a color pictures says even more, say 2000 words?)

Thanks all and folks, keep those cards and letters coming. 

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HOWARD HUGHES — The Godzilla of Big Studio Moguls

Nov22
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s become trendy in academic circles these days to view the big studio bosses — Adolph Zukor, Louis B. Mayer, the fractious Warner brothers, Darryl F. Zanuck,  Harry Cohn — as tough-as-nails egomaniacs and ruthlessly strong-willed dictators, necessary if you wanted to get the job done.

The moguls, goes this view, may not have been even remotely likable as individuals. But boy, they ran their respective dream factories with iron-grip efficiency. They may have been personally nasty, bestial to those who worked for them and renowned casting couch enthusiasts.  But, they were the tough, competent chiefs the Hollywood dream factories demanded.

Hello, everybody. Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys, here today to discuss the one mogul who definitely doesn’t qualify for this revisionist, forgiving academic assessment.

We are talking about Howard Hughes.  (That’s a flattering photo of young Howard above.)

Of all the moguls, he most resembled today’s all-to-common financial and business executive who profits in incompetence, who screws up whole enterprises and then departs with a huge benefit package. When Hughes was through with RKO, the studio was in ruins while Howard was millions richer.

“While a profusion of books, articles, movies and television programs about Howard Hughes are biblical in scope, his ownership of RKO Studios has often been little more than a footnote compared to some of his more notable exploits,” writes Alan K. Rode, author of the excellent Charles McGraw: Biography of a Film Noir Tough Guy published by McFarland & Company.  (McGraw, a superb all-around supporting actor for decades, starred in some of RKO’s finest noir titles ever made during his two-year tenure at the studio, begun in January 1950.)

Rode argues that the famed builder of the “Spruce Goose” heavy transport aircraft never had the makeup of a studio mogul. “The balanced temperament and specialized skill sets required to run a delicately complex operation like a movie studio were noticeably absent from his personal repertoire.” That’s putting it mildly.

Hughes was far more interested in machinery than movies. In his 1978 memoir, director Edward Dmytryk wrote of his Hughes fascination. He recalled what Lewis Milestone (who directed two of Hughes’ early movie ventures, 1927′s Two Arabian Knights and the 1931 version of The Front Page) had told him. When Milestone planned to screen film footage, he was flatly told one day his usual projection room was not available.

“On his way past the booth, (Milestone) stuck in his head to see what was wrong.  There, on the floor, was a spread-out sheet, and on the sheet sat Howard Hughes, surrounded by the hundreds of parts of a completely stripped-down projection machine.

“Just wanted to see how it worked,” Hughes explained.

His work habits were strange, to put it mildly.  He often didn’t show up at the studio’s Gower and Melrose Streets headquarters. Robert Mitchum, a huge RKO star, dubbed him “The Phantom.” Hughes was a micro-manager, who hounded, alienated and finally drove out his cadre of expensive managers including producers Dore Schary and Jerry Wald, among many others.

Hughes obsessively reviewed final cuts, ordering extensive re-shooting at whim — expense and distribution dates be damned. He was infamous for delaying the release of finished pictures for years. And, he ripped through employee ranks, ordering wholesale firings.

Hughes bought RKO on May 11, 1948 for $8.8 million; that’s about $82.5 million in today’s dollars.  At the time there were 2,000 employees working at the studio. By 1953, there were about 450 left.  By then, Hughes was bored with being a studio boss.

Hughes managed to reach an agreement to sell RKO to a syndicate of Chicago investors with Mafia ties. That deal collapsed after the press got wind of some of the unsavory personalities involved (Hughes was suspected of leaking the information.)

In July 1955, the studio was finally sold to a unit of General Tire at a profit to Hughes of at least $6 million — which works out to the equivalent of $50 million in today’s dollars. (The Gower and Melrose lot was bought two years later by Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, becoming their Desilu TV production colossus.)

“Hughes walked away with millions and (RKO) ceased to exist,” Rode notes.  Gone was the studio that gave us Citizen Kane, King Kong, Top Hat, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Journey Into Fear, The Magnificent Ambersons, the Val Lewton-produced titles and perhaps the best film noir ever made, Out of the Past.

Why did Hughes insist on trying to be a studio head?  We explore the answer to that in tomorrow’s blog.  Hint — it had much to do with a three-letter word beginning with “s” and ending with an “x.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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TONY CURTIS AND JANET LEIGH –a Hollywood Marriage

Jun22
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

 

First, let’s set the pivotal scene….

The small wedding party gathered on a beautiful spring day outside the courthouse in Greenwich, Conn. The ceremony was delayed by the late arrival of  the best man, Jerry Lewis, who had earlier advised Janet and Tony against their marriage (but later recanted).

Hello Everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers here again.. Today, we bring you Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis in their own words.  He said, She said.

Janet said:

It was “short, sweet, sedate and solemn. We gave each other our plain gold bands, and I was Mrs. Bernie Schwartz…It was glorious, it was happy, it was fun, it was volatile, it was crazy – it was wonderful!…That set the tone for the rest of the day. And for a lot of years as well.”

Tony said:

“Despite all the warnings and naysayers, Janet and I were married one day after my birthday, on June 4, 1951, in the country outside New York City…Our wedding was a lot of fun. We had a wonderful dinner at Danny’s Hideaway, a trendy New York restaurant.”

Thus began one of the most celebrated star marriages in Hollywood history. Janet’s recollection of the day is emotionally effusive.  Tony’s is more self-centered and matter-of-fact.

Both accounts are contained in books each wrote decades after their wedding – Janet’s in “There Really Was A Hollywood: An Autobiography,” published by Doubleday in 1984; and Tony’s in his remarkably candid “American Prince: A Memoir,” written with Peter Golenbock and published by Harmony Books in 2008.

The groom was 26 at the time of the marriage, a teen-idol-in-the-making under contract to Universal Pictures. He had 10 undistinguished movie appearances under his belt including “The Prince Who Was A Thief,” a swashbuckler with Curtis co-starring opposite Piper Laurie.

He recalled that during promotional tours for the movie, “ the girls would scream” when he walked onstage. “It happened in every city. It was nuts. I couldn’t believe that I could generate that kind of response after nothing but bit parts and one starring role.”  But Curtis soon got used the idea. His career of was off and running.

Janet was a month shy of her 24th birthday when she married Tony.  It was Tony’s first marriage, but Janet had been wed before –twice. She’d eloped at 15.  Her parents had that annulled. Then as a 19 year old she married again.  But when she signed with MGM that marriage was dissolved too.

When she and Curtis wed she was the much bigger star.   She was such a hot property that even psycho-lecher Howard Hughes found himself making lavishly expensive but unsuccessful plays for her sexual favors – a practice he usually reserved only for the most established leading actresses.

Hughes wasn’t the only shady character in hot pursuit of Janet before the wedding.  Another suitor was Johnny Stompanato. Yes, THAT Stompanato — the gangster-lover of Lana Turner who was fatally stabbed by Turner’s daughter, Cheryl.

In 1950, Janet was starring in Hughes’ production of “Jet Pilot” at RKO studios, an ill-fated movie that took seven years to finally reach theaters. Perhaps symbolically, given the outcome of their marriage, it was also the time that Janet first met Curtis.

She was on loan to RKO from her home studio, MGM, and was moving in swift company – director Josef von Sternberg, leading man John Wayne and, of course, producer-studio-owner Hughes.

As Tony tells it, Janet, playing a Russian fighter pilot of all things, decided to attend an RKO publicity party directly from the “Jet Pilot” set. He was there as well. “She had her hair pulled back, making her look sweet and vulnerable, and, boy, was I stunned by the way she looked,” recalled Tony.

Janet was more specific. The RKO publicity party was held at Lucy’s, a popular Hollywood watering hole on Gower Street and Melrose Avenue. “The gathering was in full swing when we arrived.…At one point I was introduced to a devastatingly handsome young man – beautiful really – with black unruly hair, large sensitive eyes fringed by long dark eyelashes, a full sensuous mouth – and an irresistible personality…I didn’t forget him.”

Janet Leigh was at the peak of her beauty, as the photo above attests.

Throughout their ensuing courtship Tony felt somehow inferior. Janet, he wrote, “was someone I admired greatly, and I badly wanted her to admire me back.  She was better educated than I was, and I was honored that she wanted to spend time with me.” Then comes this confession:

“Janet and I had been nuts about each other when we first started going out.  We loved the sex, and we loved the companionship; but it wasn’t long before the differences between us that had seemed so exciting at first started to create friction…(Janet) had developed very firm ideas about how everything should be.”

Janet would criticize Tony’s manners at parties; would feel uncomfortable with the attention that came with celebrity while Tony thrived on it. She began, said Tony,  “bossing me around, just as my mother had bossed my father around.” Curtis suffered through a Dickensian New York childhood explaining why he never liked to be reminded about the old days.

In her book Janet glosses over or ignores outright the couple’s early differences.  Instead, she warmly recalls their foreign travels, the socializing with their famous friends (notably the Kennedys) and the movies they were working on. And, of course, the arrival of the couple’s two daughters, Kelly Ann and Jamie Lee.

But their children didn’t cement the crumbling marriage.


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Did Jane Russell Sleep With Howard Hughes?

Jun01
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

Today’s question, posed in the headline above today’s picture, is not meant to be disrespectful or rude. Not at all.

It’s  just that this blunt question arises whenever you assess the career of Jane Russell, one of Hollywood’s biggest stars of the Forties and Fifties.

Hello everybody.  Joe Morella and Frank Segers, your classic movie guys here again.

Whatever Jane Russell”s acting skills — and Frank rates her higher in this category than most — she oozed sex onscreen.  Not the cuddly, baby-talking kind exuded by Marilyn Monroe, Russell’s costar in Howard Hawk’s wonderful  1953 rendition of the fortune-hunter romp, “Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.”

No.  Russell’s eroticism was more direct, a lipcurling, no-nonsense, full figured approach that made amply clear the rewards of pleasing her were great, but those crossing her would be chewed up and spit out before breakfast.  Her figure was her claim to fame as Bob Hope, her costar in “The Paleface,” and its sequel,”The Son of Paleface,” would point out to the world when he’d  introduce her “as the two and only…”

Check her out in Josef von Sternberg’s 1952 thriller “Macao,” in which Jane was cast opposite Robert Mitchum as a sultry, worldly-wise nightclub singer at loose ends in the steamy Asian gambling capital now part of China. The chemistry between the two stars is evidently helped by the fact they were fast friends off-camera.

Both intensely disliked the Vienna-born von Sternberg (Marlene Dietrich’s svengali.)  During “Macao’s” less-than-smooth shooting, the director would turn to Mitchum and say: “Now we have to bolster this beautiful girl with no talent.”  This infuriated Mitchum, who would cut von Sternberg short — in more ways than one. (Von Sternberg was eventually taken off the picture to be replaced by a young Nicholas Ray.)

Getting back to our headline question, we felt compelled to search for the real Jane as expressed in her 1985 autobiography, “Jane Russell My Paths & My Detours.”

– Did Russell sleep  with  Howard Hughes, the studio mogul who made her an international sex symbol in her first movie, “The Outlaw”?

Jane says, absolutely not.  She found him likable, kooky and timid. “I often hollered at Howard, and I think in a funny kind of way I scared him.” Hughes would later confide to friends, “that woman terrified me.” Hughes did make one serious pass, according to Jane, but got nowhere.  Hughes did volunteer during the making of “The Outlaw” to design a special-fitted bra for Russell, but she didn’t wear it.  ”I found it uncomfortable and ridiculous.” The powerful agent Lew Wasserman, who represented Jane at one point, asked her: “Look, are you sleeping with this guy or what?” A stunned Jane responded, “No, Lew, my God! He’s my friend.”

There were rumors that Hughes lent, or gave Jane money when she found herself in financial straits late in her career.  This isn’t true,  but the eccentric mogul did provide financially for her after he sold the RKO studio and after completion of 1955′s “Underwater,” which Jane bluntly described as a “turkey.” Hughes offered what she described as a “unique” contract reserving his right to loan Jane out to any other studio (she was under contract to him at the time) for six pictures over a five-year period with her payments spread over 20 years. She could also make pictures on her own. Jane was guaranteed $1 million dollars, a pretty big payday 56 years ago. Agent Wasserman “helped Jimmy Stewart and many stars set up the same format, but mine was the first of its kind,” boasted Jane.

One of Russell’s best remembered films is”Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.”  The box office receipts and  the critical reviews were “great,” recalled Jane.  The picture was a highlight of her 27-year-career.

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OUR SALUTE TO JANE RUSSELL

May31
2011 Leave a Comment Written by classicmovieguys

 

Hello everybody. Morella and Segers at it again.  This time with our musings on a unique star of yesteryear.

At her death in late February at the age of 89, Jane Russell was memorialized in the mainstream press with lengthy obituaries fairly dripping with condescension.

“Sultry Star of the 1940’s” read the headline in The New York Times.  “Screen Siren” screamed the Los Angeles Times’ headline.

The subtexts seem to suggest that Russell was beneath serious consideration, the bimbo creation and sexual toy of mogul Howard Hughes, who led her leash-like through a good part of her – at best – mediocre career.

We are here to say, loudly, that that interpretation is wrong.

Yes, of course, she was a genuine two-fisted sex symbol. “Of all the screen’s sex goddesses, Jane Russell seemed to be the most amused by the performance,”  writes David Thomson, the British film author-critic who is singular in his refreshingly balanced appreciation of her.

“Russell was no actress, but she was dryly skeptical and physically glorious.  Such droll eroticism is rare in Hollywood and we are lucky that she was allowed to decorate so many adventure movies.”

We disagree in one respect. Jane was a better actress than even she acknowledged. In addition, she was a talented singer of superb musical taste, and woman of principle who didn’t bend – not even to Howard Hughes.

She was the tomboy daughter of a former actress married to an office manager for the Andrew Jergens Company, which made Woodbury soap. Born in Bemidji, Minnesota, Jane was transported to Glendale, California when she was all of nine months old. The large Russell clan included four younger brothers.  It was an active household but hardly an affluent one after Jane’s father died while she was in her teens

A longstanding Hollywood myth is that Hughes had spotted the 19-year-old Russell in 1940, in a chiropodist’s office where she was employed as an assistant, and hired her on the spot to star in “The Outlaw”

As she dryly notes in “My Paths & My Detours,” her 1985 autobiography, Jane did indeed work in the doctor’s office at the time where “I wore a white uniform, took the patients’ shoes and socks off, and stuck their feet in pails of warm water… for a week!  Then I gave the chiropodist my regards.”

What actually occurred is this:  Jane had been doing some part time modeling in Hollywood for a photographer, Tom Kelley – no nude calendar stuff but lots of outdoorsy ski clothing and other sports-related shots.  Posing in front of the camera in a demure bathing suit, Jane “never felt so vulnerable in my life. You see for years I’d been so skinny that the boys in school called me ‘bones.’”

But when the pictures came back, Jane was “thrilled. I didn’t look so skinny after all.  Tom Kelley was some photographer.”  –  He was indeed.

One of those shots Kelley took wound up in the possession of a hustling agent by the name of Levis Green.  He later explained that he had swiped Jane’s photo  from Kelley’s office and, as he made his usual rounds of the studios, showed it to casting directors. No interest until Green showed her picture to a representative of Howard Hughes.

“She looks like the type,” the Hughes man commanded. “Bring her in.”

Jane was indeed being considered for the leading female part in the 1940 production of “The Outlaw,” to be directed by Howard Hawks.

At her first meeting with Hawks, the director explained the part was of a girl “who was half-Irish and half-Mexican” whose brother had been killed by Billy the Kid, and “she hated his guts. When she tries to kill him with a pitchfork, he rapes her.”

Said director Hawks:  “We’ll be testing Monday, so learn the scene, and good luck.” This is how Jane Russell’s career spanning 24 movies over 27 years began.

Tomorrow we’ll have Part II of our blog on Jane Russell, and some of it will be quite gossipy. Promise.  So please stay tuned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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