Robert J. Wagner - I Loved Her in the Movies: Working with the Legendary Actresses of Hollywood

T he great choreographer George Balanchine famously said that Ballet is woman.

It is easier to make dances for men, he said. They jump, they turn. A woman is more complicated... Another time he compared women to orchids: You have to know exactly how much sun, how much water, how much air and then take them inside before they wilt.

He was, of course, right, but Id go further. To my mind, theres something profoundly feminine not only about ballet but about the movies as well. Not just because sexual attraction is often the magnet that pulls us to one movie star and not another, but because theres something in the nature of the moviegoing experience itself that approximates the reverie that overtakes you when youre in love with a beautiful woman. Going to the movies drops you into a neutral dream state, in which you first become receptive, then, hopefully, enchanted.

Think about it. We step into the darkness, where we let go of whatever it is thats been bothering us. We relax. The screen comes alive, and we focus on something outside ourselvesthe plot, the characters. We become willing prisoners. Unless the filmmakers are inept, we dont question, we just accept what we see in front of us. As with love, reality has little to do with the experiencethings can happen faster than they would in real life, or much, much slower, but we suspend more than our disbelief. We suspend the various negative states we dragged into the theater.

Despite the expanding shores of television and all the great work being done in that medium, it cant duplicate the thrill of seeing movies in a theater. When youre watching TV, youre sitting in the living room, the lights are on, the kids or grandkids are running around, the dog hears something outside and begins barking, and if youre not absolutely riveted, you might check your e-mails. TV lacks magic, but movies always contain, at the very least, the possibility of enchantment.

Just as in dreams, sometimes theres an erotic component in films that can be startlingly intense. They say that the most important years in defining your tastes in the opposite sex are from about seven to fourteen or fifteen. I have to agreethe sight of Maureen OSullivan in her artfully arranged rags in MGMs Tarzan pictures provided a source of never-ending excitement for this particular adolescent.

All this is why Ive written this book about the female movie stars who defined my generation as well as succeeding onesits about what binds Kay Francis to Marilyn Monroe, what connects Bette Davis with Glenn Close... as well as what separates them.

As a young boy growing up in Westwood, I watched many of these women from the remove of a center-row seat at the Fox Theater. As I grew older, my luck increased exponentiallyI got to work with many of them, and know many more. Ive worked with about half of the legendary leading ladies of my lifetime: from Bette Davis and Marilyn Monroe and Barbara Stanwyck to Audrey Hepburn, Elizabeth Taylor, and Sophia Loren.

And Natalie.

Not to mention Janet Leigh, Joan Collins, Joanne Woodward, Debbie Reynolds, Capucine, Jennifer Jones, Stefanie Powers, Angie Dickinsonand a certain Jill St. John, with whom I not only acted but married.

Then there were those I knew socially: Gloria Swanson, Lana Turner, Joan Crawford, Gene Tierney, Loretta Young, and dozens of others.

I may as well admit to at least one basic prejudice: I think women in general have it tougher than men, and I think actresses in particular have it tougher than actors. On the other hand, theyre better equipped to cope than men are because women are more realistic. Not stronger necessarily, but more self-aware. And, in a strange way, less vain. Actorsand I dont except myselfcan walk around in a semiblissful state, their innate masculine vanity preceding them into the room by a good five yards. If theyre successful actors, they can be much worse. Actresses may use a lot more makeup, but that means they have to be cognizant of their weak points and strong points, and how best to disguise that which needs to be disguised.

Ive spent more than sixty-five years in show business and Ive given actresses a lot of attention and a lot of thought. So this is a book about the species Actress as I knew it, and the similar and unique characteristics of these remarkable women. Im going to consider not only what they were like on screen and off, but also why they became stars, and how their specific emotional and dramatic chemistries affected the choices they made as actresses, as well as the choices they made as women. Ill also discuss the strange alchemy of the camerahow it can transform the attractive into the stunning... and vice versa.