Dick Powell, Joan Blondell, Ginger Rogers, Gypsy Rose Lee, (Wheatley Institute Sex Report)

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention reports that over half of married adults in the United States enter marriage today having had five or more previous sexual partners. A new report from the Wheatley Institute at Brigham Young University (April, 2023) reveals that a large number of sex partners a person has prior to marriage is one of the strongest predictors of eventual divorce. Among the report's findings, according to Brian J. Willoughby, Ph.D.: Married men and women are remarkably similar in their levels of sexual activity before marriage, with 1 in 5 reporting 1 or 2 lifetime sex partners (20% of men, 19% of women), about 1 in 3 reporting 2 to 4 sex partners (35% of men, 33% of women), about 1 in 4 reporting 5 to 9 sex partners (23% of men, 25% of women), and the remaining 1 in 5 reporting 10 or more sex partners (22% of men, and 23% of women). In analyzing the overall trendline, for every additional sexual partner reported, the probability of being highly satisfied with their marriage decreased by almost 4%. About 18% of 30–34 year olds have had 9 partners or more in the US. One reason that more previous partners could lead to lower marital quality is that more experience may increase one’s awareness of alternative partners. Roughly two-thirds (69 percent) of Americans say that when a man has an affair, it is always morally wrong. Fewer Americans (58 percent) say it is always morally wrong when a woman has an extramarital affair. 

Seventy percent of women say that a married man who has an affair is always morally wrong, while fewer (56 percent) say the same when married women have relationships outside their marriage. Fifty-three percent of men say it is always morally wrong for a woman to have an affair, while 61 percent say same for men. The extent to which women judge the behavior of married women and men varies significantly by race. Nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of Hispanic women believe that a man having an affair is always wrong, while slightly more than half (53 percent) of Hispanic men agree. Conversely, black women assess the morality of marital infidelity about equally whether it is committed by a man or woman (65% vs. 63 %)  There is a notable age gap as well. Nearly three-quarters (73 percent) of young women say it is always morally wrong for a man to have an affair, while only about half (51 percent) say the same for a woman. The double standard among older women is not nearly as large. Sixty-nine percent of senior women say it always wrong for a married man to have an affair while sixty percent say it is always wrong when a woman does. Another survey concluded that “extremely liberal” women are more than twice as likely to have engaged in extramarital affairs as “highly conservative” women.  Similarly, “extremely liberal” men are nearly twice as likely to have engaged in extramarital affairs as “highly conservative” men. Source: www.americansurveycenter.org

TCMDB examines Ginger Rogers’ rise to stardom, the production of Twenty Million Sweethearts (1934), highlighting Ginger Rogers and Dick Powell’s previous history. The loan-out from Paramount to Warner Bros was hardly a problem for Rogers, who knew that screen exposure in a variety of films was the ticket to stardom. In addition, the film provided her a reunion with Dick Powell, whose talent and good looks had impressed her when he played banjo as part of the orchestra for a singing engagement she had in Indianapolis. At the time, Rogers had thought his good looks and youthful charm were a natural for the movies and was happy to find her prediction come true when Powell quickly hit the big time as the star of several lavish Busby Berkeley musicals at Warners. One columnist wrote at the time, "Dick wants all of Ginger's time. And he gets it... so that looks serious on Dick's part. As for how serious it is on Ginger's part - she's been obeying her new boyfriend implicitly, while ignoring Lew Ayres." 

June Allyson: "I borrowed a scrapbook from his dad and learned about Richard's early career; his romantic triumphs were also featured. Glamour and sophistication were obviously what he was used to. Richard had been linked romantically with his co-star in '20 Million Sweethearts', Ginger Rogers. Then there was his co-star in 'Dames', Ruby Keeler. When Ruby was separated from Al Jolson, she stirred up a minor scandal by moving to a house near Richard's bachelor pad. And then there was Rosemary Lane. They had been a continuing romantic saga in the press. Richard had snatched another beauty from the arms of Buddy Rogers, the actor who later married Mary Pickford. That was actress Mary Brian, whom he had started to date when he was master of ceremonies at the Stanley Theater in Pittsburgh and she had been booked as a visiting Hollywood star. Richard had certainly given Lew Ayres a run for his money when he was dating Ginger Rogers. One columnist wrote, "Dick, they say, wants all of Ginger's time. And he gets it. He doesn't even want Ginger to see Lew, so that looks serious on Dick's part." —"June Allyson" (1983) by June Allyson

Joan Blondell (about Warner Bros in the early 30s): "They wanted to change my name to, hold everything… Inez Holmes.” Reflecting about her career, she added: "I think I should have received some award, because I have given back more men to leading ladies than anybody else in the world," she laughed. "The toughest was handing Clark Gable back to Greer Garson," she told Hedda Hopper (Photoplay, November 1962). Joan Blondell and Mike Todd argued frequently, which prompted her to ask Dick Powell to let their kids Norman and Ellen live with him and his new wife, June Allyson, until the situation was ironed out. Blondell got a divorce in Las Vegas on June 8, 1950, charging Mike Todd with mental cruelty. Blondell never married again. Even though she once described living alone as a rather sad kind of life, none of her marriages gave her the fulfillment she'd expected. “George Barnes provided my first real home,” she said to Films in Review in 1972. “Dick Powell was my security man, and Mike Todd was my passion. Each one was totally different. If you could take a part of each one of them and put them into one man, you’d have one helluva husband.”

It wasn’t long after her divorce from Barnes when Joan Blondell began dating Dick Powell, and their romance intensified while they made Colleen (1936), although Ruby Keeler was the object of his affections on screen. Joan played a blonde cutie out to charm millionaire Hugh Herbert. Blondell and Powell were married on September 19, 1936, in a shipboard ceremony on the Santa Paula yatch in the harbor at San Pedro, California. For their honeymoon, the couple traveled through the Panama Canal. The timing was perfect as far as Warners was concerned, since their marriage gave Stage Struck (1936) a much-needed box-office lift. In this takeoff on 42nd Street, Joan gave one of her best performances as a temperamental star who makes life hell for her producer (Dick Powell). Joan and Dick worked together again in Gold Diggers of 1937 (1936), a good entry in the series, which was highlighted by “All is Fair in Love and War.” The Berkeley spectacle had Dick and Joan leading opposing armies in the battle of the sexes. 

The Powells shared a large bungalow on the Warners lot. Visitors had no problem figuring out which half was Dick’s—corresponding clothes and shoes, shaving materials and toiletries were all neatly stored. Joan, by contrast, had shoes and undergarments scattered over chairs and on the floor, and cigarette butts thrown into the most readily accessible receptacles. Joan made The Perfect Specimen (1937), a comedy with Errol Flynn. “Oh, I loved Errol,” Joan told Leonard Maltin in 1971. “He was a dear friend of mine and quite unlike his publicity, he most of all was just a guy who liked to tell stories, have fun, have some drinks and be with his friends.” In general, Joan's films at Columbia seemed no more or less distinguished than her Warners entries, but Joan didn’t seem to mind. “I wasn’t that ambitious,” Joan admitted to Maltin. “I enjoyed a home life more than a theatrical career. I just took what they gave me because I wanted to get home quickly.” Joan and Dick rarely ventured out of the house, and instead spent the day reading the newspaper, playing with their children and grilling hamburgers. “That’s the way we live, like any other family,” Joan told a New York Times reporter in 1940. “You’d be surprised how easy it is in Hollywood. It’s not a complicated place to live.” 

One admirer who was bowled over by Joan’s burlesque routine in Cry Havoc was Broadway producer Mike Todd, who wanted her to play Ethel Merman’s role in the national company of Something for the Boys. Joan headed east to test for the part, but her inability to belt out a tune in Merman’s flashy style cost her the role. Instead, Todd developed a show especially for her: The Naked Genius, a comedy about a burlesque stripper who fancies herself as an author. The play was written by Gypsy Rose Lee and staged by George S. Kaufman. After the Pittsburgh premiere, a frustrated Gypsy Rose Lee began bad-mouthing the show to the press. She knocked the revisions, which she felt destroyed her plot and her dramatic cohesion. “Every time I see that show, I get a new fever blister on my upper lip,” she said. The Naked Genius opened at the Plymouth Theater on October 21, 1943, to critical pans, except from Lewis Nichols of The New York Times. “Joan Blondell, as the leading player, is okay for figure, manner and accent, and she seems to be having fun—all of which is proper.” Todd tried to outfox the critics but his ploy failed and the show closed after thirty-six performances. Gypsy Rose Lee was secretly glad the show had failed, since she disliked Joan Blondell for having separated Todd from her. 

Todd wisely sold the rights to the play for $350,000 to 20th Century Fox. It was eventually adapted as a screen musical, Doll Face (1945) by Lewis Seiler, featuring plenty of showbiz atmosphere and sharp backchat, with Vivian Blaine in Joan Blondell’s role. Dennis O'Keefe as Doll Face Carroll's manager and boyfriend Mike Hannegan is loosely based on Mike Todd. Gypsy Rose Lee was credited in the film with her real name Louise Hovick. Burlesque acts had been outlawed in New York in 1937. Yet Hovick's story features a pretty and intelligent stripper Elizabeth ('Doll Face') Carroll who learns a valuable lesson: the upper classes are inferior and less appealing than the common middle class. —The Women of Warner Brothers (2002) by Daniel Bubbeo