Bawden James - Conversations with Classic Film Stars Interviews from Hollywoods Golden Era

Conversations with Classic Film Stars

Conversations with Classic Film Stars

Interviews from Hollywoods Golden Era

JAMES BAWDEN

and

RON MILLER

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Copyright 2016 by The University Press of Kentucky

Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth,

serving Bellarmine University, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Historical Society, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Bawden, James, interviewer, editor. | Miller, Ron, 1939 interviewer, editor.

Title: Conversations with classic film stars : interviews from Hollywoods golden era / James Bawden and Ron Miller.

Description: Lexington, Kentucky : University Press of Kentucky, 2016. | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015041242| ISBN 9780813167107 (hardcover : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780813167121 (pdf) | ISBN 9780813167114 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Motion picture actors and actressesUnited StatesInterviews. | Motion picturesUnited StatesHistory20th century.

Classification: LCC PN1998.2 .C614 2016 | DDC 791.4302/80922dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015041242

This book is printed on acid-free paper meeting the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence in Paper for Printed Library Materials.

Manufactured in the United States of America.

In memory of my parents, Maisie and Russell Bawden, who never imagined my childhood obsession with movies would result in an adult career as a newspaper TV critic.

James Bawden

To my wife, Darla, who shares my love of classic movies; and my loyal siblings: Barbara Childers of Colleyville, Texas, and Norman of Minden, Nevada, who paid my way to a showing of Samson and Delilah in 1950 and has never let me forget it.

Ron Miller

Contents

.

Introduction

Ron Miller

When my coauthor, James Bawden, and I retired from our regular jobs as television columnists, we possessed a treasure trove of rare interviews with some of the greatest stars of Hollywoods golden years, collected over more than half a century. Reviewing what we had in our inventory, we realized most of these performers were now gone and that the conversations we had with them should be part of their luminous legacy as icons of film history. Thats when we first began to envision combining our interviews for a book that would preserve them for generations of film lovers as a valuable work of oral history.

Our notion, using our original tape recordings and written notes, was to re-create the atmosphere of the interviews, describing the conditions under which we met and talked with the stars. These are not reprints of the articles as they originally appeared. We have presented the interviews in a format that expands and enhances them beyond their original presentation in newspapers and magazines. In every case, theyve been expanded and updated, covering what took place in each actors life after we talked.

All the interviews included in this book were conducted face-to-face; we have not included press conferences that we attended with the stars. In a few cases, both of us had done separate interviews with the same stars, so we have merged those encounters to enrich the overall content while retaining our separate comments on how our individual chats took place.

From the start, we knew we wanted to do this book together because we share a love of classic movies and knew that our approach is basically the same: to accurately reflect the personality of the star and to encourage him or her to take us behind the scenes for the real story of how they made their great films.

We sincerely believe that the stars of Hollywoods golden era were a different breed. Most came into movies while the so-called studio system held sway. In the golden age of the 1930s, 1940s, and early 1950s, movie stars were groomed carefully by the studios. Some actors had already established public personas if they came from Broadway, radio, or the music business. Irene Dunne, for instance, had starred on Broadway and Gene Autry was a singing star on radio. But most were retrained by their studios, which put them into a variety of roles in B movies or in smaller parts in A movies, a reliable way to discover if they had the appeal to become leading actors.

Actors of the golden age had to be pretty versatile if they hoped to survive. The studio might put you on a horse to see if you could handle the lead in a western. Or it might have you sing or dance to see if you could carry a role in a musical. Jane Wyman, for instance, worked in lots of silly comedies and musicals before she was deemed ready for the dramatic roles that made her a major star in The Lost Weekend and Johnny Belinda. Joan Fontaine was given a showcase role as Fred Astaires dancing partner in a musical, though she would gain fame as a dramatic actress. And so on. Of course, when the studio finally figured out the groove it deemed right for an actor, that often meant the actor was typecast, perhaps having to risk suspension for a chance to rise out of that studio-determined persona.

In our chats with these stars, you can learn a lot about the old studio system by reading between the lines, picking up on their common frustration with the conduct of their careers under studio rule. Austrian Luise Rainer, for instance, rebelled against the trivial roles she was given by MGM even after winning back-to-back Academy Awards. When her marriage also began to fall apart, she left Hollywood for good and virtually retired from movies.

However, they werent all miserableand youll sense that, too, as you listen to them talk to us in their own words, not the words put into their mouths by studio publicists.

As the 1950s wore on, the pervasive new competition from television, the antitrust rulings that forced studios to sell their movie theaters, the rising influence of powerful talent agencies, and the growing strength of the craft unions fostered an economic crisis for the studios, forcing them to jettison most of the exclusive star contracts they had held for a generation.

In putting this collection together, we have for the most part chosen wide-ranging interviews that give us a picture of the stars whole career. But weve also included some that, although less comprehensive, offer some rare insight into a stars life.