Allan R. Ellenberger - Miriam Hopkins: Life and Films of a Hollywood Rebel

Praise for

Miriam Hopkins: Life and Films of a Hollywood Rebel

Screen and stage star Miriam Hopkins has long deserved a full-length biography covering her extensive career. This meticulously researched book does the actress complete justice. The author presents a vivid study of a high-strung talent who, professionally and romantically, was often her own worst enemy. A great read!

James Robert Parish, author of Hollywood Divas: The Good, The Bad, and The Fabulous

Allan Ellenbergers thorough, empathetic biography captures the passionate, full-blooded story of celebrated actress Miriam Hopkins, revealing the remarkable life of one of Hollywoods most intelligent women.

Mary Mallory, coauthor of Hollywood at Play: The Lives of the Stars between Takes

Tennessee Williams called her a magnificent bitch. Theres probably no better label to sum up the force of nature known as Miriam Hopkins, whose professional achievements both on Broadway and in Hollywood were as notable as her feuds with Bette Davis, Edward G. Robinson, Samuel Goldwyn, Warner Bros. head Jack Warner, and other luminaries of the studio era. Allan Ellenbergers Miriam Hopkins is a must-read for those interested in getting to know this complex, contradictory, and immensely talented twentieth-century personage who dared to rebel against conventional womens roles both on- and offscreen.

Andr Soares, author of Beyond Paradise: The Life of Ramon Novarro

MIRIAM HOPKINS

MIRIAM HOPKINS

LIFE AND FILMS OF A HOLLYWOOD REBEL

ALLAN R. ELLENBERGER

UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY

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Copyright 2018 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.

All rights reserved.

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www.kentuckypress.com

Unless otherwise noted, photographs are from the authors collection.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Ellenberger, Allan R., 1956author.

Title: Miriam Hopkins : life and films of a Hollywood rebel / Allan R. Ellenberger.

Description: Lexington : The University Press of Kentucky, [2018] | Series: Screen classics | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017042898| ISBN 9780813174310 (hardcover : acid-free paper) | ISBN 9780813174327 (pdf) | ISBN 9780813174334 (epub)

Subjects: LCSH: Hopkins, Miriam, 19021972. | Motion picture actors and actressesUnited StatesBiography.

Classification: LCC PN2287.D315 E45 2018 | DDC 791.4302/8092 [B] dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017042898

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.

To

Michael Hopkins (19322010)

Christiane Carreno Hopkins (19312016)

Contents

Prologue

One fall afternoon in 1940, stage and screen actress Miriam Hopkins opened the door to her suite at New Yorks Ambassador Hotel. Standing before her was a short young man wearing thick glasses, a threadbare corduroy jacket, and muddy riding boots.

A southerner like herself, they had met once at the opening of her recent play The Guardsman, in Upstate New York. The prestigious Theatre Guild was producing the young mans first play, and he was here to give Hopkins his script, hoping she would portray the plays central character: a lonely, disillusioned Mississippi Delta housewife trapped in an unfortunate marriage.

The fledgling playwright was Tennessee Williams, and the play was Battle of Angels. Another southern actress, Tallulah Bankhead, had turned it down, claiming sex and religion didnt mix onstageor so she said.

Hopkins read the script and thought it needed work, but she agreed to do it and willingly invested her own money.

Now, in that second, more intimate, setting, Williams was nervous. After a champagne dinner, Hopkins raised the roof about her part. She construed Williamss anxious behavior as indifference, and that annoyed her. Then, her tone became more heated, and Williams, having had enough, prefaced his response with, As far as I can gather from all this hysteria. Hopkins was speechless. Such conduct from a gentleman wasun-southern. But what appeared as conceit and arrogance on Williams part was sheer panic.1

Their sparring continued through rehearsals on Battle of Angels, right up to its opening in Boston, where the critics and the city council called the play, among other things, dirty.

Hopkins jumped to Williamss defense. She called a press conference and told reporters that their reviews were an insult to the fine young man who wrote it. The play was not dirty, she insisted. The dirt was in the minds of the beholders. After all, she wasnt at a place in her career where she had to appear in dirty plays.2

Hopkins endeared herself to the playwright, and they became close allies for the rest of her life. Throughout their long friendship, Tennessee Williams accepted Hopkinss contradictory extremes, describing her sometimes as morning mail and morning coffee and at others as like a hat-pin jabbed in your stomach. The quintessence of the female, a really magnificent bitch.3

Hopkins was smart. A woman ahead of her time, she never let anyone find out how smart she was until it was too late. After years of research, I was amazed by her intellect and temperament, which flared up unexpectedly and disappearing as quickly. Sometimes her demanding mother would trigger it, but usually she was fighting for her careeror so she thought.

Throughout the 1930s, the freewheeling Hopkins was a unique case, remaining a top Hollywood star at no less than four studios: Paramount, RKO, Goldwyn, and Warner Bros. And no matter where she worked, in her quest for better opportunities, Hopkins fearlessly tackled the studios powers-that-be, from the venerated Samuel Goldwyn to the irascible Jack Warner.

Whatever drove herambition, insecurity, or something altogether differentshe created conflict with her costars. She was either loved or hated; rarely was there an in-between.

Having said that, whenever she trusted her director and costars, she was an ideal team player; but if she did not, life for them wasnt worth living. If rewriting screenplays, directing her fellow actors and her directors, and fighting with producers and the studios front office were necessary, so be it.