Bombshells and The Opposite Sex: Barbara Payton, Evelyn Keyes, Joan Blondell

Bombshells: Hollywood’s Leading Ladies (Winnetka-Northfield Public Library, November 2023): Hollywood has had its fair share of leading ladies, with many of them remaining iconic to this day as studio bombshells. Join Film Historian Dr. Annette Bochenek as she presents the history of the Hollywood bombshell, some of the top Hollywood bombshells, and their legacies today. The program will include a multimedia presentation consisting of photos, video clips, and captivating stories. The registration link will be made available closer to the presentation date. Source: www.wnpld.org

Irish Screenwriter/Director and U.S. Celebrity Biographer team up to bring the story of Actress Barbara Payton to the big screen: Forever is Just a Weekend. It's a project more than 25 years in the making. Now the story of actress Barbara Payton is getting ready to head to the big screen, where it essentially started – explosive as a firecracker – and burned out just as quickly. Author and celebrity biographer John O'Dowd has teamed with award-winning Irish screenwriter and director Ciaran Creagh to write the quintessential movie script about this beautiful and talented young actress, who garnered a salary of $10,000 a week in the 1950s, then ended up on skid row little more than a decade later. It was O'Dowd's dedication to telling the whole poignant tale of Barbara's life, with integrity and empathy, that allowed him to write the full story in a way no previous author had done.

After years of working to get his book made into a screenplay worthy of production, O'Dowd joined forces with Creagh. The pair have worked diligently to transform O'Dowd's two books on Payton – the biography and his exquisitely crafted second book "Barbara Payton – A Life in Pictures," into the new screenplay, which they hope to bring to the big screen very soon. O'Dowd, a native of New Jersey, first encountered Payton as a small boy watching her film "Bride of the Gorilla." He was captivated by her beauty and began what would become a lifelong journey to learn about and tell her story. As he grew up and became a celebrity interviewer and biographer, he set out to write the consummate book about the rapid rise and downfall of the blonde beauty. Creagh discovered Payton similarly by watching one of her films. This time it was her performance with Gregory Peck in the western "Only the Valiant." Creagh found O'Dowd's works about the fallen star. Creagh, whose latest film "Ann" is gaining acclaim and awards, has helped lift O'Dowd's work on the Payton story to a whole new level as they teamed up to co-write this screenplay. Currently his feature “Cry from the Sea” has just wrapped shooting in Ireland. Source: instagram.com 

“What seems like it might be a flippant topic to study, hairdressers cutting off too much hair, is actually quite serious,” said Danielle Sulikowski, a senior lecturer at Charles Sturt University and president of the Australasian Society for Human Behaviour and Evolution. “The hairdresser scenario is just a vehicle for asking questions about how women sabotage in subtle, barely detectable ways. Female aggression tends not to manifest as physical violence. Rather, female aggression is well-known to take the form of reputation damage. In adolescence this involves scurrilous rumors that can be socially devastating. In adulthood, it can involve malicious allegations which if taken seriously, can destroy reputations, livelihoods, marriages and relationships.” The researchers found that women who reported higher levels of intrasexual competitiveness were more likely to recommend that clients have more hair cut off. The reason behind this recommendation might be to subtly diminish the physical attractiveness of other women. The study, “Off with her hair: Intrasexually competitive women advise other women to cut off more hair“, was authored by Danielle Sulikowski, Melinda Williams, Gautami Nair, Brittany Shepherd, Anne Wilson, Audrey Tran, and Danielle Wagstaff. Source: www.psypost.org

MGM generously included Joan Blondell into the snazzy all-star fashion farce The Opposite Sex in 1956 and cleverly invented a logical way to include her fuller figure by being pregnant and the family mother with other kids. There was no point in having her compete with the much younger glamourpuss actresses in their spectacular outfits, and so Joan was wisely and generously fitted as 'the mother hen' character. One sly joke is at the theatre watching a musical number about Bananas where she says she feels pregnant sick and clearly has had enough of 'that banana'. The film was praised by Variety; Bosley Crowther in The New York Times wrote that June Allyson did an excellent job, but the film was not a box office success. Allyson has a one-on-one scene with Joan Blondell who plays Edith. 

Allyson reported that the latter scene was very awkward since Blondell had called Powell to say his wife had tried to keep her out of the film. Allyson said this was not true; she didn’t even know that Blondell wanted to be in it. Allyson thought Blondell was great in the film. Blondell was also reportedly insecure because she had not been in a film since 1951’s The Blue Veil. Except for Joan Blondell's irrational dislike of Allyson, all the actresses boosted and praised each other on the set. Blondell asked that Allyson not be on set to read lines off-camera for her in their scene together. Allyson insisted that she do it, and later Blondell thanked her for it. Despite June Allyson's good intentions towards Joan Blondell, Joan would try to convince herself that Dick and June both had extramarital affairs; the latter June Allyson denied in her autobiography, claiming Dick Powell never gave her any motive for suspecting of his unfaithfulness. ―Source: June Allyson: Her Life and Career (2023) by Peter Shelley

Dina Shore: June Allyson explained it to me afterwards, when we were alone for a moment. The gossip columnists had been wagging their tongues about her marriage; she and Richard had been quarrelling, they had said. It wasn’t true. “We have our spats, of course,” Junie told me. “All married people do. But we never quarrel, why Richard is the sweetest, the most thoughtful man.” But that wasn’t what was worrying her. She and Richard were secure in their marriage; they needn’t care what the gossips said. Except, and this was what really hurt, June was afraid the rumors would hurt her chances of getting a baby. I know the helpless feeling you have when anyone writes something about you which may jeopardize a relationship or a situation. If only they really understood what damage just a few idle words can do. All I could say to June was that I was sure the agency wouldn’t pay any attention to malicious gossip. Five more long months went by, though, before June’s wish came true. Finally Richard gave in and they put their names on the waiting list at the Tennessee Children’s home. 

Then came the Hollywood gossip. There had been rumors before, but the Powells had shrugged them off. Now they threatened to do real damage. June had to go to New York for radio shows. Richard couldn’t go with her. And the rumors flew again. When they reached Richard he realized that they might cost them their baby. He knew that those in charge of the home might hear the irresponsible talk and postpone or cancel the adoption. He called Tennessee to reassure the officials that all was well. And he convinced them. “An advantage working with your wife,” Dick Powell says teasingly. “You can yell at your wife and you can’t at professional actresses. I'm joking here, June knows I love working with her anyway,” he adds. “She’s fun.” They had once hoped to co-star in a tender love story, “Mrs. Mike.” Their initial starrer, however, turned out to be a hilarious comedy and their love scenes were played with live lions stalking them in “The Reformer and the Redhead”  —Photoplay magazine (November 1956)

In Dark City Dames: The Wicked Women of Film Noir (2001), Eddie Muller recounts Evelyn Keyes showing him a film poster from Johnny O'Clock hanging on her bedroom's wall, "featuring a youthful golden-maned Evelyn being manhandled by Dick Powell." "What did you do to kill a man?" Harry Cohn had asked her when Keyes' first husband committed suicide. Evelyn Keyes alluded in her memoirs to a brief affair with Powell. While they shooted Mrs Mike in 1949, Dick Powell was reportedly burn-out due to the rumors spread by Confidential magazine of an affair between his wife June Allyson and Dean Martin. Robert Osborne on TCM said the camera liked more than loved Evelyn Keyes, but she could walk into a room and people would turn away from Hedy Lamarr and flock to her.

The London Film Review's film critic Derek Winnert (author of The Ultimate Encyclopedia of the Movies in 1995) mentioned in 2017 the affair between Powell and Keyes in his reviews of Johnny O'Clock and Mrs. Mike, writing: "Evelyn Keyes said Mrs Mike was her best film. She also admitted she had to fend off studio boss Harry Cohn’s advances during her career at Columbia. Among the many Hollywood affairs she recounted was one with Dick Powell." Some of Evelyn Keyes's best performances in film noir were: Face Behind the Mask, Ladies in Retirement, Johnny O’Clock, The Killer That Stalked New York, 99 River Street, and The Prowler. However, Keyes' favorite film was Mrs. Mike, co-starring Dick Powell, and directed by Louis King. Dick Powell was one of the co-producers of Mrs Mike through his company Regal Films. Powell had personally requested Evelyn Keyes for the leading female role of Kathy Flannigan, after their successful pairing in the previous Johnny O'Clock. Source: www.derekwinnert.com

Evelyn Keyes expressed her opinion that Mrs. Mike (1949) was her best film. Among her many love affairs in Hollywood she recounted in Scarlett O'Hara's Younger Sister, were those with film producer Michael Todd (who left her for Elizabeth Taylor), actors Glenn Ford, Sterling Hayden, Dick Powell, and Kirk Douglas. Keyes was married to businessman Barton Oliver Bainbridge from 1938 until his death from suicide in 1940. Later, she married and divorced director Charles Vidor (1943–1945), director John Huston (1946–1950), and bandleader Artie Shaw (1957–1985). Keyes said of her marriages in 1977: “With Artie Shaw, it was really a marriage.” About her four husbands and dozens of lovers, she said: “I wrote about them all with affection.” The only malice in the book, she added, was directed toward Fredric March, with whom she had a small role in The Buccaneer (1938). Except for March, Miss Keyes said she was careful not to mention explicitly the name of a man who was married at the time [Dick Powell] or who might be embarrassed by the notoriety [Harry Belafonte]. Source: nytimes.com

Evelyn Keyes showing her wedding ring to director Robert Rossen on the set of “Johnny O’Clock” (1947) after she returned from Las Vegas where she married John Huston on July 23, 1946. 

In 1971 Keyes wrote a novel loosely based on her life, I Am a Billboard, about a southern girl named Christabelle Jones who becomes an overnight star in Hollywood. It's no coincidence the model that editor Lyle Stuart chose for the cover resembled Joan Blondell. Eddie Muller: "Perry Bullington worked in casting at Canon Films. One night a book fell off the shelf above and conked him: it was Evelyn Keyes's novel I Am A Billboard. Perry knew a good thing when it hit him on the head. He raved to Glaser-Hunter Productions about the story, and once Allan Glaser and I read the thinly veiled memoir about a young Georgia girl's coming-of-age in the 1930s and her journey to Hollywood, we agreed it would make a terrific movie. The screenplay was re-named Blues in the Night and Allan Glaser rekindled interest by engaging Four Seasons Entertainment to possibly produce it. Peter Bogdonavich was invited to a dinner as a potential director. Bogdonavich was anxious to meet Evelyn, but she wouldn't see her story reflected on the silver screen."

Evelyn Keyes: "I was voted N#1 Star of Tomorrow in 1946. I was ranked as one of Columbia’s most reliable leading ladies. “Johnny O’Clock” (1947), Robert Rossen’s first directorial job, became another highlight in my career. Dick Powell played an honest gambler in trouble and I was his girlfriend. During the shooting of “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” (1948), Betty Bacall and I hung around on the set, went shopping, or were sunbathing near the swimming pool. I really liked Betty, and I envied Bogart’s devotion to her. Betty used to call John [Huston] ‘The Monster.’ Variety described my performance in “Mrs. Mike” in its review of December 12, 1949, as a ‘portrayal that has excellent emotional depth and just the right touch of humor.’ So Louella Parsons thought I should have won an Oscar for “Mrs. Mike and lobbied for me.” Source: filmtalk.org

Unlike Joan Blondell, who clearly came to detest Mike Todd (whom she divorced in 1950), Evelyn Keyes described Todd as attentive, generous and ambitious. In 1953, Evelyn Keyes became the constant companion of the brash, flamboyant and often volatile producer Mike Todd, who lavished Evelyn with attention, gifts and journeys to far-off locales. Soon she was head-over-heels in love with him. She worked very little during her time with Todd. Evelyn Keyes states in her memoirs: "Thanks to Mike Todd, I never had to worry about money again. He gave me a 15-carat diamond engagement ring while we worked on our wedding details [late 1956]. All was going well, I thought, until the day I picked up the phone and before I could say anything, Mike blurted out: 'I'm in love with Elizabeth Taylor'. Anyway, I always maintained a fondness for him." Keyes compared Todd favorably over John Huston ("an irredeemable womanizer") and she thought Todd's main faults were his poor manners and a streak of jealousy.

Maybe was Dick Powell the love of her life? Difficult to fathom, since Evelyn Keyes always remained skeptical of the opposite sex, as their memoirs (specially I'm a Billboard) indicate. What is known is her odd obsession with Mrs Mike and her vague allusions to a courteous romance with Powell seemingly out of a fairly tale (with references to a Hollywood bungalow and a Murphy bed), in stark contrast with her other lovers. "I said I didn't want to be a lady. I wanted to be a billboard." But Philip [Dick Powell's I'm a Billboard stand-in] assures her she always will be a lady in his eyes. Keyes stated to Eddie Muller for Dark City Dames: "I never had to hustle in Hollywood. I always had someone taking care of me. I never learned to fight. If the men close to me didn't disappear, I'd pick the ones who would do. And if they didn't go, I would do things secretly to ensure they'd go and let me alone." 

A fiercely independent and complicated woman, Evelyn Keyes probably scared off Dick Powell, who had already endured a previous volatile marriage to bombshell Joan Blondell. In the mid-30s, the press took notice of the odd pairing from Warner Bros, giving them nicknames such as "Floozie and Dopey." But Powell was no dope, as his career as a producer, director and tough guy star would prove later. Accustomed to neurotic and possesive partners, Dick Powell appears in I'm a Billboard as that rare specimen who didn't ever try to manipulate Keyes, a chivalrous old-fashioned man who was so gentle with her (intimately and profesionally) that she didn't know how to respond to that kind of man. Philip Grimes (the producer whose company has purchased the rights of a best-selling novel) is probably the stand-in for Dick Powell. Grimes displays "a deep sincerity, the kindest smile." "Every morning the coffee was ready on her personalized mug when Christabelle arrived. She never let him know she disliked coffee in the mornings." —I Am A Billboard (1971) by Evelyn Keyes