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Rules of Hollywood Survival have always fascinated me. “Persistence is the key – always present yourself to the studios like a total bitch,” Bette Davis once confided. “Never be mistaken that a star can become a loyal personal friend,” Billy Wilder advised. “Since the studios are always lying, the producer’s mandate is to invent bigger lies,” said David O. Selznick.
As a collector of Hollywood war stories, I was delighted to discover this week a new book (741 pages) with the disturbing title Hollywood: An Oral History – one that greatly expanded my list of intrigues.
Over the past 50 years, AFI (American Film Institute) has semi-secretly recorded and now publishes interviews with established stars and directors, creating an intimate Hollywood story told in the first person (HarperCollins is the publisher).
Approaching a book of such volume as a summer read, I decided to focus not on thoughtful analysis, but rather on combat. Consequently, AFI’s interview collection is like attending a cocktail party with the likes of Katharine Hepburn, Natalie Wood, Olivia de Havilland, Jack Lemmon, Wilder and George Lucas.
All of them are most candid in exploring their rivalries and conflicts. Our “local guides” in the AFI book are Sam Wasson and Janine Basinger, two talented film geeks who curated the collection (he wrote The big goodbye and she is a film historian and professor at Wesleyan).
Case in point: was Marilyn Monroe really emotionally disturbed? To contemporaries, her depression was a device. “Marilyn always got her way by faking breakdowns,” suggests Lemon, her fellow Harvard graduate.
Was Humphrey Bogart unavailable both on and off the set? No, but by repeatedly clicking all the “mask the crap” he survived in “a profession not suitable for adults” (his words).
How did the superstars of the 1930s and 1940s cope with restrictive studio contracts? “They owned the hell out of us — you learn to deal with it,” Wood said.
Signed as a child and having lived through nine Andy Hardy films with Mickey Rooney, Anne Rutherford concludes: “The only way to get a decent script is to steal it from the make-up or costume designers.”
De Havilland eventually became so angry with her pact with the studio that she broke the rule — she sued Warner Bros. and won: “They owned me and traded me as a commodity,” she said.
Only a few stars (like Cary Grant) emerged from the fray loved or admired by colleagues. Some were considered crudely reserved (Bing Crosby), hopelessly unpredictable (Judy Garland) or just plain stupid (Montgomery Clift).
Dealing with mood swings, directors of this period have their own strategy for dealing with narcissistic intrigue. “I stayed away from the stars on a social level – as far away as possible,” Wilder said.
“If you run into an actor’s personality problem, an expensive dinner and a lot of wine is the only way to melt them away,” says Elia Kazan.
Initially daunted by the challenge of directing Bette Davis, Ron Howard humbly requested, “Please just call me Ron, Miss Davis.” To which Davis snorted, “I’m going to decide if I like you or not first.”
The most effective way to deal with an argumentative actor was to say, “How about you shut up?” advised George Cukor, the talented director who was fired in the fourth week of Gone with the Wind. His style did not sit well with Clark Gable, who thought Cukor was basically “a woman’s director”.
Selznick, the producer, brought in first Victor Fleming, then Sam Wood, then Fleming again to calm Gable, as well as Vivien Leigh and de Havilland, the fierce sister.
So, overall, does the studio system in its heyday work for its celebrity employees? Each of the film factories produced between 40 and 80 films a year and commanded a huge team of players. Fox had 76 writers under contract and MGM had deals with 250 actors.
But while powerful studio bosses like Louis B. Mayer or Harry Cohn made the big decisions, they lacked the structure to handle the talent. A writer like William Faulkner would sign with Fox, then disappear for a year and still get weekly checks from a studio. Remarkable talents like George Bernard Shaw or F. Scott Fitzgerald would wander into the studios, but no one knew how to use them.
Everett
Studio publicity departments, run by tyrants like MGM’s Howard Strickling, would freely reinvent the careers and personalities of future “talent.” Hedy Lamarr, who was born Hedwig Kiesler, was given the name of a deceased actress to become her new name. She meekly protested, but no one cared.
Leslie Caron could never have managed to pose for a studio photo without the presence of a cat, but she hated cats. Lemmon was signed to test the role of a serious businessman, only to be cast as a young comedian. Nelson Eddy, a singer-actor, remained under a lavish contract at MGM for five years, but was never invited to appear in a studio film.
Of course, out of the chaos came a lot of fun movies, along with some expensive crap. So the AFI book opens with a quote from director Ridgway Callow, who states, “Hollywood is the cruelest and most despised city in the world.”
Co-writer Wasson, after sifting through a treasure trove of interviews, came up with a different perspective: “Hollywood in its heyday was a happy, productive place. There was always a battle behind the scenes, but the pride in the work and the sense of community carried the filmmakers.”
Mind you, I personally wasn’t there at the time.
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