Glamour and Heartbreak in the Golden Age

"In perhaps no other decade did the Hollywood film industry and its product look so different at its conclusion as compared to its beginning" (Ina Hark, American Cinema of the 1930s). At the beginning of 1933, with box office receipts 40 percent of what they had been in 1931 and both RKO and Paramount in receivership, the studios agreed, as they had in the 1920s under Will Hays, to police their films and the onscreen as well as offscreen behavior of their stars. Thus was ushered in the "Age of Order" or the "New Deal," as the "Don'ts and Be Carefuls" of the Hays Code of the 1920s gave way to the "uniform interpretation" of the Production Code in 1934 under the administration of Joseph Breen. If sexuality and violence did not disappear from the American movie screen, both were considerably tamed by the Code. By the summer of 1936, "all of the major studios were running in the black for the first time since 1931", and it was estimated that 80 million people went to the movies every week.' 

But there was a recession in 1937 for Hollywood as for the rest of the country, and the net earnings of the studios fell off 41.6 percent from 1937 to 1938, and another 11.4 percent from 1938 to 1939 - this despite the hyperbolic claims of Will Hays, in the foreword to a 1937 book by Barrett Kiesling called Talking Pictures: How They Are Made, How to Appreciate Them, that on a "strip of film are caught and held the best in art, the best in music, the best in acting, the best in drama, and the best in literature." Leo Rosten wrote in 1941: "Hollywood means movies and movies mean stars. No group in Hollywood receives as much attention as the men and women whose personalities are featured in films and around whom entire movie organizations have been geared." About 80 percent of all actors were the studios' property, thanks to the nonreciprocal "option contract" - complete with a "morality clause" designed to exempt a studio from damage caused by irrecuperably profligate behavior - that gave a studio exclusive rights to command their players "to act, sing, pose, speak or perform in such roles as the producer may designate," if stardom was achieved seven years and more (Kiesling 129; Klaprat 375).

According to Margaret Thorp, there were 17,000 motion picture theaters in the United States in the 1930s; even the smallest towns, "numbering their citizens by the hundreds," had movie theaters. Moreover, "it is in the small town that tastes are most definitely marked," she writes. Foreign stars, like Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich (whose popularity abroad was of considerable value until the war shut down overseas markets), fared particularly badly in small-town America. Warner Bros. had Al Jolson, George Arliss, Joan Blondell, Edward G. Robinson, James Cagney, George Brent, Ruby Keeler, Dick Powell, Barbara Stanwyck (until 1935), Bette Davis, Kay Francis, Paul Muni, Humphrey Bogart, Pat O'Brien, Olivia de Havilland, Errol Flynn, Claude Rains, and Ann Sheridan. 

Like screwball comedy, musicals, too, linked stars, especially dancing stars, to competence and entertainment values that were dependent upon beauty and sexual attractiveness. Backstage musicals were popular from 1933 on, when Ruby Keeler's wide-eyed innocence and earnest tap-dancing, supported by crooner Dick Powell and assorted other wisecracking personnel (including Ginger Rogers, whose best was yet to come) and surrounded by Busby Berkeley's extravagant numbers, made 42nd Street truly the "New Deal in Entertainment" that its promotion promised. Margaret Thorp wrote: "No capitalist civilization, measuring success by material possessions, can afford to abandon completely the refreshment of release by identification with an ideal personality, the necessity for escape by dreams." Analogous to its male stars, Warners' women tended to he either tough-talking dames or shrinking violets; on the one hand were Joan Blondell, Glenda Farrell, Ruth Donnelly, and later Ann Sheridan, on the other Ruby Keeler, Kay Francis, Anita Louise, and the Lane sisters. 

Dick Powell was considered one of Hollywood's most eligible bachelors after his memorable performance in "Blessed Event." "He always seemed to be in good humor. He gave the impression of always enjoying what he was doing," said his short-time fiancé Mary Brian. Out of the blue, Powell quit his commitment to Brian and fell by the spell of his habitual co-star Joan Blondell. By the time they made Broadway Gondolier, they had already appeared in four movies together. They were first spotted dating in late September of 1935, less than one month after Joan’s divorce from cinematographer George Barnes. On 17 September, they announced that they would be married in two days on the yacht Santa Paula at San Pedro to sail through the Panama Canal. Blondell wrote veiledly about her three husbands in the last chapters of Center Door Fancy. She critizices George Barnes (who started as a still photographer for Thomas H. Ince, the man who died on Hearst' yatch) for being remote and not wanting children. Later, after divorcing him, she finds out he suffered a terrible childhood. The most baffling reproachments against the collected crooner are quite contradictory. For example it's clear she was looking for security with Dick Powell, who was a practical family man. In fact, she leads Jim (Powell) to break up with May Gould (Mary Brian) making him doubt of his feelings. Blondell also expresses doubts to Sally (Glenda Farrell) about her true feelings towards Powell, saying "he's too nice to hurt."

Joan always conceded that Dick made a wonderful father. Such acknowledgment did not stop her from arming herself with lawyers and filing for divorce on 9 June 1944. Joan announced publicly her separation from Dick: “I am going to file against Dick as soon as he returns from the East. . . and after I have talked the matter over with him. The matter of a divorce is final, however.” Norman Powell said in 1996: “My mother said she was taken with the kindness and gentleness that he exhibited toward her, and the fact that he really seemed to love me. I think that’s what attracted her to him more than any other thing.” Once Joan sets her sights on Mike Todd, she proceeds to depicts Powell as "corny, unsure of himself, a cold fish, a cold-assed Don Juan, and surprisingly prudish", adding that "He will make love only in the dark, furtively. I’ve got a new guy, and Jim [Powell] would die of envy if he knew how we feel." Blondell tells her mother: "Mom. It doesn’t matter about the little crumb [June Allyson] who’s after him. I heard their voices on the detectives’ recording, and she’s so corny—pleading with him to marry her, guide her career. It’s like a cheesy B-picture. Doesn’t he know about his Amy? Everybody else does. Her reputation is in the public domain. She’s a tramp dressed like a little kid. She was a call girl in New York—exhibitions her specialty. Flynn, and even a New York doctor, told me they knew some of the guys she ‘entertained.’ She’s using Jim—can’t he see? It would be a giant step for her to get the Star Husband of the Year. You know something crazy? He thinks I don’t know about her. And he doesn’t mention Jeff. We’re both silent.” 

Dick Powell yells after Blondell announces her petition of divorce: “I, Jim Wilson, did not marry a bum!” Blondells writes: "Jim slammed the door shut and was gone. I was sitting up in bed, my lawyer standing by the window. He had been talking to me for over an hour about the division of property and finances. By law, everything we had should be divided, and the lawyer was urging me to use the proof I had against Amy O’Brien to get what was coming to me. I told him I couldn't prove anything. “I’ll sign it, whatever it is—let’s get it over with. I can’t stand the sight of Jim around the house any longer.” Blondell writes that Powell moved to a rented house in Beverly Hills, and Mike Todd many times a day talked to her from New York. Also, Blondell has Frances Marion suggesting that June Allyson slept her way to the top. 

June Allyson wrote in her 1983 memoirs: "Joan's account of this meeting in 'Center Door Fancy', a fictionalized autobiography, is loaded against me. Most of the names have been changed, but the true identities are obvious. Joan is Nora, David is first husband George Barnes, Jim is Dick Powell, Amy is me, Teresa is Marion Davies, and Jeff is Mike Todd. She wrote that I simpered and came down the steps pigeon-toed and cooed that I slept with his letter under my pillow every night. I had no letter. I never wrote a fan letter. I had no picture or letter from him or any star. It was ridiculous, but then, so was her charge that I had stolen her husband away, starting that night. In fact, Richard recorded his own account of our first meeting in his diary, and it differs substantially from Joan's: "Why I bother to put this down I don't know except that she certainly is the cutest thing anybody ever saw. Last night, I went to catch 'Best Foot Forward' and there was this little blonde character named June Allyson who sang so loud that the veins stood out on her neck like garden hose. I sat and guffawed through the whole routine. Really a funny act although I don't know if the producer meant it that way. Anyway, this afternoon I had to attend a formal luncheon and I got stuck with the most stubborn hunk of chicken I've ever had the displeasure of eating. It took all my attention and I was struggling with it until I guess my face turned red. Then, suddenly, I felt someone's eyes on me and I looked up. And there was this same cute little character from the show last night and she was convulsed with laughter. Laughing at me! I don't know whether or not I particularly like that girl, but she sure is cute." Once I called Richard's home, Joan did not seem interested and irritably called his husband to the phone. Then she came back on and said, with biting sarcasm:

"You want my husband? Well, you can have him." Richard was on the phone and I tried to hide my embarrassment as I said, "I've got a script from MGM and they want me to do this picture called 'Two Girls and a Sailor.' Joan Blondell was convinced that I was after her husband. I wasn't, even though Dick Powell gave me palpitations and shortness of breath just to look at him. I tried not to think of him, except as my mentor. Every major actress gets whispered about. With me it was the nymphomaniac thing. "She's not Goody Two Shoes, she's Goody Round Heels," said the malicious rumors.  But the only man who really made my heart flutter was, of course, Dick Powell. And he was determined to protect my reputation." Another time, June writes "Richard was taking me to Ciro's and I was ready. But when he saw me, he was speechless with my new sophisticated look. He slumped on a couch in the living room. He pulled me down on his lap. Richard grabbed me and started smooching. "Whew, you scared me this time," he said. "I'm here because being around you is like being in a fresh breeze. So don't go dramatic on me, right?" "Yes, sir," I said. "Goody Two Shoes reporting for duty." "Let's go," he said. "No, wait a minute." He kissed me again. "Monkeyface, I love you." In 'Center Door Fancy', Joan gave me the name of Amy, possibly after the selfish sister in 'Little Women' who steals Jo's boyfriend and marries him. How bitter she must have been to have written about me: "Doesn't he know about his Amy? Everybody else does. Her reputation is in the public domain. She's a tramp dressed like a little kid. She was a call girl in New York, exhibitions her specialty." I could not believe it. How untrue, and how cruel.

In 1943 Joan Blondell had began going solo to the exclusive Cub Room of the Stork Club, that see-and-be-seen nightclub on East Fifty-third frequented by the café society of Broadway, Hollywood, and Washington. Mike Todd frequented the Stork Club as well. The man was singularly charismatic. He could walk into a room and suck up all the available oxygen with his bear-trap mouth, ubiquitous cigar, and rattling voice. Beat the Band was an incidental moment in an outsized life, except that it offered him an introduction to Dick Powell’s wife. A sort of weariness had settled into Powell and Blondell's marriage as soon as 1941. No longer were they on the town arm in arm. Now they were stepping out separately, offering excuses of family duties or the flu to account for the oft-absent spouse. Dick went alone to see "Best Foot Forward" at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre and was taken with sprightly young cast member June Allyson, who sang the praises of the barrelhouse, blues, and boogie-woogie in the “Three B’s” showstopper. Dick went with Joan a second time, and backstage Dick asked Rosemary Lane to be introduced to June Allyson, who was agape that a star of his rank would single her out. In 1961, Allyson and Powell reconciled, went home and made love, after which he said that he would never leave her because "there is a lot of lovemaking but real love like ours is rare." --Sources: "Glamour in a Golden Age: Movie Stars of the 1930s" (2010) by Adrienne L. McLean, "Center Door Fancy" (1972) by Joan Blondell and "June Allyson" (1983) by June Allyson

June Allyson (Truth without Consequences)

The rumor that there was a new June Allyson running around Hollywood brought us face to face with June—Mrs. Richard Powell. June’s kingdom—her kids Pam and Ricky, and the man she loves, Dick Powell. And when she’s not busy rough-housing with her energetic bundles of joy, she looks back and remembers some of-the dreams she used to wish for . . . and the funny way dreams have of coming true sometimes when you’re not even looking. June agreed to play a new game with us. It’s called truth without consequences, looking for the truth about June Allyson 1958 style. . . and a smiling, pert mother of two who happens to be a movie star. 

Q: Is it true that there’s a new June? A girl who insists on leading her own life?

June Allyson: Maybe it just shows more now, but I’ve always been June Allyson, girl-individual. Even though Richard plays the boss, I make my own decisions about most things. I played in The Shrike, even though Richard was against it.

Q: Do you think you can be a real wife and a real help to your husband without sacrificing your independence?

June: Absolutely. I lead my own life, but here I am like a hen hovering over my brood. So of course, I think independence and family life can go together.

Q: How about the eternally ticklish problem of separate interests?

June: I think just about everybody has separate interests. It depends on how you handle the problem. I believe in not forcing your interests on your loving spouse. And I think, by now, Richard agrees with me. We tried to force our pet projects on each other once. Wow! Like that time I asked Richard to go skiing with me to Sun Valley. P.S.—he broke his shoulder. And one time, he took me on the boat he’d bought. Naturally I got terribly sick. P.S.—we sold the boat.

Q: Who are your best friends?

June: Pam and Ricky. I feel if you can’t be friends with your kids, what good is anything? Oh, I’m strict with them. But I’m strict only because I want them to be liked. Many times I’ll chastise one of them and then go to my room and cry. But sometimes it’s got to be done. Like one time when Ricky was planning to have lunch with the carpenter who works for us. It’s a big treat for him. But he was a bad boy that morning and I had to forbid him to go. Well, he sobbed and sobbed. It took all the strength I have to stop myself from wiping the tears from his eyes and sending him off to his lunch treat. But I didn’t. And the next day—well, it would make a better story to tell you he was bad the next day. But he was as good as gold. And he even forgave me.

Q: How about you, June? Are you sentimental?

June: Are you kidding? Everything makes me melt. I’m soft-hearted Sally, a sitting duck. Richard claims that I cry at the commercials on television. But that hasn’t been proved yet. Richard is sentimental too. But you’ll never get him to admit it.

Q: Do you think marriage to Dick has changed you in any important ways?

June: Yes. In at least one very important way. I’m not so selfish any more. In marriage you’ve just got to think of the other person. You give up things that you wanted very much, by adjusting to your husband. And then, suddenly, you find you didn’t really want those things at all. What you really want is a happy marriage. Last Monday was our anniversary and Richard gave me my heart’s desire: a big, large, gigantic, new refrigerator!

Q: That’s a nice small dream to have come true. Have you had any big dreams come true lately?

June: When I was a little girl I wanted more than anything else to be—not a nurse, like most girls, but a doctor. But we never had enough money. And, do you know what? My brother lives with us now, in a cottage near the house and he’s going to medical school. So, in a way, it’s my old dream coming true. Not for me, but for my brother.

Q: Is there a big dream hidden away somewhere right now?

June: The answer to that is emphatically yes! Except it’s not hidden very well. I want more than anything else to be able to sing, really sing! And with more lessons and some patience from my family while I practice, I’ll do it! I want to fulfill all the talents I neglected when I was a kid. I started out as a singer-dancer. People forget that and are so surprised when I’m mentioned for a musical picture. I know it sounds funny but Mrs. June Powell was a chorus girl in New York years ago.

Q: What was the most awful day of your life?

June: Hmmm. I won’t say it was the most awful, but the day I have in mind was the saddest. It was Christmas Eve and I had just gotten a job in a Broadway show. And on Christmas, I lost the job. I went down to the bus stop the next day and saw the company off with real tears in my eyes. It was like an unhappy ending to a fairy tale. It was even snowing as I waved good-bye to the company.

Q: Doesn’t that make Christmas a pretty sad memory?

June: No. Because some years later, after little June came to Hollywood, she married and lived happily ever after—she had a child. A boy named Ricky. And he was born on Christmas Eve. All during my pregnancy I used to joke with Richard saying, “I’ll give you a Christmas present no one can match.” And I wanted to give birth at Christmas time so very much that I really think I kind of willed it to happen just at the right time. My doctor doesn’t go along with this theory. I do.

Q: June, have you ever lost hope completely? Ever given in to despair?

June: There was one time. When Richard almost died. He was in the bedroom with me when he suddenly collapsed on the floor with a burst appendix. Somehow I’ll never know how, I managed to drag him to the bed and call the doctor. I lost twenty pounds in the first four days he was in the hospital. They’d given him up for dead. I stayed there day and night until finally one of the Sisters at the hospital sent me home to change my clothes. As soon as I got to the house the phone rang. It was the hospital. I was to come back right away. They’d given Richard the last rites. I tell you, I didn’t cry any more, or pray any more. I was drained of everything. There was nothing left inside of me. Four weeks later, thanks to God and Dick’s own good strength, they brought him home almost well. Then I cried, finally, and prayed in gratitude.

Q: People have said you’re a very temperamental star. Is that true?

June: Absolutely not; I do not go flouncing off sets and throwing dresses at people. I don’t know how that got started, but people used to write these things about me. Then when I showed up on the set of a new picture everybody expected me to be impossible to work with. I’ve had prop men and make-up people come to me and apologize for the ideas they’d had about me.

Q: How about the fact that some people (probably the same ones) have said that youre a—dare we repeat it?—scatterbrain?

June: That’s an easy one to answer. Once again I think that’s a fantasy based on a few parts I’ve played in movies. The same as the “Girl In The Peter Pan Collar” idea. I’m level-headed, not scrambled-brained, and next week I’m going to a party and I’ll wear a lovely dress.

Q: Do you have an ideal image of the kind of woman you admire, would want to be like?

June: My ideal has always been Ginger Rogers. And Ginger is now my very good friend.

Q: What do you think is a woman’s greatest need?

June: (WITH A BROAD GRIN) A great big large, gigantic, new. . . refrigerator.

Q: Every public figure, especially a movie star, is often the center of a lot of conjecture . . . some true, some false. What do you most wish people would stop thinking, saying and writing about you?

June: Most of all I wish that people would stop saying that Richard and I are breaking up again. It’s fantastic really. A while ago, Richard and I had a sort of second honeymoon. We went to Honolulu and had a sun-drenched, romantic holiday to end all sun-drenched romantic holidays. Then, in the middle of the night, suddenly the phone rang. Richard answered. It was my agent. “Listen,” he said to Dick, “I’m sorry to wake you, but there have been reports that you and June are in Honolulu together but that you’re living at separate hotels.” Richard scrubbed his eyes sleepily and answered, “Well, there’s a bed next to mine. And in that bed there’s a blonde. I think I recognize the hair. . . one minute while I check the face. Yep, it’s my wife June all right. So I guess somebody must be wrong.” And whoever’s wrong it’s not Richard and me. Because we’re right. We’re as right as two people can be. —MODERN SCREEN MAGAZINE (MAY 1958)

Doris Day and June Allyson

Although few think of Doris Day or June Allyson as comediennes, both were comedy and musical movie stars. In their personal lives, they were very different. Doris Day had a dark side behind her vacuous façade. Day began suffering panic attacks with frequent episodes of palpitations; she had been prone to heartburn since the days when she wolfed down hamburgers and huge portions of raw onions in the front of Al Jorden’s car. She was convinced she was about to succumb to a heart attack. On at least two occasions she had an attack in a restaurant and almost choked to death. Her friendship with Allyson was only intermittent, but they were not close. Day was more around musical comedy star Charlotte Greenwood and Judy Garland. Judy was a law unto herself, and she did offer Doris some sound advice: ‘Ditch the religion bullshit!’–which she, in her Christian Science under-the-spell state, chose to ignore. A ‘cure’ was therefore effected by more readings from Mary Baker Eddy and benders with Judy, which, though just as detrimental to Doris’ health as her imaginary illnesses, certainly enabled her to forget all about them until the next morning’s hangover. Away from the studio Doris Day became edgy and antisocial.

Christopher Frayling on BBC broached the subject of Mamie Van Doren’s attitude towards Doris Day's alleged ‘temperamental’ episode while they were making Teacher’s Pet. Van Doren’s memoirs had recently been published so she was currently in the media spotlight. ‘She is not well,’ Doris says of her. ‘This lady is making it up… I feel sorry for her to say something like that. I don’t behave like that!’ Steve Cochran was a very handsome and virile actor who oozed sexuality and said more with his heavy-lidded eyes than other actors could put into words. A former cowpuncher, he appeared in Mae West’s scandalous Broadway revival of Diamond Lil and invariably played the cynical, hard-edged thug whereas away from the set he was regarded as one of the nicest, gentlest men in Hollywood. 

Cochran also had a fearless reputation as a womaniser: besides Joan Crawford and Mae West his scores of conquests included Jayne Mansfield, Sabrina, Merle Oberon, Ida Lupino–and Mamie Van Doren, in whose memoirs no details about their sex-life are spared especially when discussing his legendary appendage which had earned him the nickname ‘Mr King Size’. Cochran’s lovers and friends, Doris Day included, were devastated when, in June 1965, shortly after his forty-eighth birthday, this fun-loving man died aboard his yacht of an acute lung infection, a tragedy made even worse by the fact that his body lay aboard the craft for 10 days until it drifted into Guatemala.

Besides of the rumors of being a nympho, Doris Day also seemed to suffer a compulsive eating disorder. Her first husband criticised her table manners; something that can be said to leave much to be desired in her formative years. Doris had a fondness for wolfing down hamburgers with huge portions of ketchup and raw onions (usually in Al Jorden’s car on their way home) and dropping chunks of food everywhere because of his reckless driving. She also had a habit of talking with her mouth full and spitting, which cannot have helped his mood swings. Whereas, June Allyson was not such a neurotic or hypochondriac personality. Legend has it that June was being tested by Hollywood and the best she could muster when asked if she considered herself a leading lady was, “Oh, I suppose”? It’s a scene that no screenwriter could possibly invent. It’s almost impossible to believe, and yet the clichéd Hollywood film image of a movieland wannabe eagerly putting her best foot forward does in fact morph into this very real-life picture of June Allyson’s ingenuity. This girl (Allyson, unlike Day) couldn’t pretend, and it’s a very big reason why she went on to become one the biggest female stars in post—World War II America. 

Another difference is whilst Allyson got along well with James Stewart in their romantic film trilogy, Doris did not want to work with James Stewart, a Hitchcock favourite. Such was her determination to have her way that she overrode Marty Melcher and provisionally agreed to do another film with Howard Keel–a remake of Clare Luce’s The Women, which George Cukor had directed in 1936. Doris was to have attempted the Shearer role–that of mild-mannered Mary Haines whose husband is having an affair with vampish Crystal Allen, formerly played by Joan Crawford and now assigned to Joan Collins. But Melcher would not hear of this. Taking a leaf out of Marty Snyder’s book, he forbade Doris to sign the contract (the part of Mary went to June Allyson, while Leslie Nielson took over from Howard Keel), and told her to accept Hitchcock’s offer and get along with James Stewart. 

To a certain extent their antagonism comes across on the screen and maybe Hitchcock planned this to get better performances out of his stars–the fact that they felt uneasy working together contributed to their on-screen tension. Angry over Hitchcock’s treatment of pets, Doris Day wandered around the pens and paddocks with a bottle of Jack Daniels, toasting each and every one and promising them a better life until she could scarcely stand on her feet, all the while ‘yelling more expletives than a legionnaire on dockside leave.’ Doris also made it clear that had there been another child, she would not have wanted Marty Melcher to be the father.

While she was incapacitated, Melcher was approached by director Rudolph Mare, who wanted Doris to star opposite diminutive actor Alan Ladd and William Bendix in The Deep Six. This centred round a Quaker naval officer (Ladd), who is reluctant to enlist to fight in World War II because of his religious beliefs. Mare was told that Doris would never appear in such a film owing to her religious beliefs and the part was given to the lesser-known Dianne Foster. Doris, who had always admired and wanted to work with Ladd, was said to have hit the roof. On the other hand, June Allyson not only would co-star with Ladd in The McConnell Story (1955), they would develop romantic feelings for each other. Doris renewed her recording contract with Columbia for a staggering $1 million per film. Her husband Marty Melcher negotiated an additional $50,000 for expenses that he promptly pocketed. Later they paid $150,000 for a ‘modest’ exclusive home in Beverly Hills on North Crescent Drive. When her estranged father passed away, Doris Day nonchalantly said to the press: ‘I never go to funerals,’ ‘I mourn the passing of someone dear to me in my own way. I don’t approve of public grief.’ But for her father, there would be no private grief either.  

Among the roles that she declined was that of Mrs. Robinson in The Graduate, a role that eventually went to Anne Bancroft. In her memoirs, Day said that she had rejected the part on moral grounds, finding the script "vulgar and offensive." She had a reputation for being difficult and wasn't especially well-liked in Hollywood. Even Audrey Hepburn thought Doris seemed self-absorbed and dumb after the studio arranged for the two to have lunch. If you watch some of her interviews, you can see that Doris was no walk in the park. She didnt really have a strong loving relationship with her son, Terry Melcher. She always looked to him as an advisor figure. When older, Doris had a scarce relationship with her only living relative, her grandson Ryan.

Even though he apparently never made his intentions known to Doris Day, Ronald Reagan talked about the possibility of proposing marriage to Doris to his friends George Murphy, Dick Powell and June Allyson. Reagan even went so far as to discuss with George Murphy the business angle of such a liaison. “I didn’t want to become Mr. Jane Wyman, but I’m thinking over being Mr. Doris Day, as I move into middle age. The roles are already drying up. I could be very aggressive, get the best movie deals for her, the best recording contracts. I’d make a great manager for her.” On the set of It’s a Great Feeling (1949), Reagan met the film's director David Butler. Reagan soon learned that Butler also had developed an unreciprocated crush on Doris Day.

June Allyson's Thou Swell (Connecticut Yankee) number with the Blackburn Twins was one of the highlights of Word and Music (1948), although the high spot is reserved for “Slaughter on Tenth Avenue” danced by Gene Kelly and Vera-Ellen. Even grumpy New York Times film critic Bosley Crowther wrote in his December 10, 1948 review: "To be sure, there is much that is appealing—specially to us reminiscent folks—about certain of the musical numbers that sit like islands in the swamp of the plot. It is pleasant to hear Betty Garrett, for a starter, sing “There’s a Small Hotel” or to watch little crinkle-faced June Allyson head a big production rendering of “Thou Swell.” 

Frank Sinatra had been given preferential treatment for a long time by MGM. Look at the finale of the Jerome Kern Juke-Box musical Till the Clouds Roll By (1946) when he sings Old Man River. No singer had gotten such a luxurious set-up in the history of movie musicals. Then Sinatra made an unfortunate remark about a former mistress of Louis B. Mayer (Ginny Simms) and Mayer was through with him. Mayer had fallen off a horse and sprained an ankle. Sinatra said Mayer had fallen off of Ginny Simms. That comment raced through MGM like a wildfire. No wonder LB Mayer kept casting Peter Lawford in musical leads when Sinatra was more talented. At one point Sinatra was pencilled in for Lawford’s part in Easter Parade (1948). Mayer thought there was no way Sinatra could have been cast as a football hero in Good News (1947), starring Peter Lawford and June Allyson. In The Good Old Summertime (1949) was also originally planned for Frank Sinatra and June Allyson, which starred instead Van Johnson and Judy Garland. When Sinatra co-starred with Doris Day in Young at Heart (1954), he said Doris was "the most remote person" he'd known.

In the strong literary voice and narrative constructed or her by A. E. Hotchner, Doris Day recounted her marriage to Martin Melcher, a well-meaning but domineering former agent who "managed" his wife's career until he died in 1968 of heart failure at 52. Feminist author Carolyn G. Heilbrun wrote that "an autobiographical subject's papers will often reveal a confident, hard-driving, ambitious woman of the type that is totally denied in the same woman's memoirs." Day herself saw Pillow Talk as the turning point toward a more grown-up, contemporary persona. The script, she recalled, offered "very sophisticated comedy, high chic, the leading lady an interior decorator, a lady very much tuned into the current New York scene. The plot, for 1959, was quite sexy.... clearly not the kind of part I had ever played before." Pillow Talk would win Doris Day her an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, the only one of her career. 

Doris Day never found her ideal romantic partner in real life and she even sounds a bit jealous when she pronounced in Photoplay magazine (August 1953): "Dick Powell is one of the most intelligent, nicest and richest men in Hollywood. Did a tall, beautiful, madly-dressed doll get him? No, Dick belongs to a wonderful gal with a sense of humor and a big heart, June Allyson." One of the most telling differences is that Doris Day didn't really love Marty Melcher; whereas June Allyson in her memoirs acknowledges the opposite, that Dick Powell was the love of her life, and she was certain his husband loved her.

Jonathan Rosenbaum (December, 2023): Christmas in July (1940) is an undervalued satire. For all the rising popularity of Preston Sturges as a master writer-director of screwy, satirical farces, his second feature continues to be one of his most neglected, even though its story about winning a contest to furnish a brand of coffee with the best advertising slogan is among his most memorable. In fact, the office clerk (Dick Powell) who believes he’s won the contest with his own slogan (”If you can’t sleep at night, it isn’t the coffee, it’s the bunk”) is actually the victim of a hoax concocted by his fellow workers. But after he runs off and spends a fortune purchasing gifts for himself, his fiancée (Ellen Drew), and his neighbors, believing that he’s struck the jackpot, his coworkers grow increasingly reluctant to inform him about their prank. This manic comedy has a great deal to do with the desperate fantasies of opulence developed during the Depression, with especially fragrant moments of eloquence and bluster. —Sources: "Doris Day: Reluctant Star" (2009) by David Bret and "June Allyson: Her Life and Career" (2023) by Peter Shelley

"European Perspectives" by Alexander Jacob

In European Perspectives: Essays (2020), Dr. Alexander Jacob seeks to differentiate Jewish-derived Marxist socialism from the German-derived spiritual socialism. Although “a professed anti-Semite,” Marx had a “Jewish mentality” that manifested itself in a “materialistic view of life”. This is in contrast to what might be called the communitarian ethos of Werner Sombart’s German socialism and Oswald Spengler’s Prussian socialism. One useful feature of European Perspectives is its assessment of a number of important European thinkers: Werner Sombart, Oswald Spengler, Erik von Kuehnelt–Leddihn, Julius Evola, Theodor Adorno, Hans–Jürgen Syberberg, Max Weber, Hannah Arendt and Theodor Herzl. Sombart, one of Jacob’s favorite scholars, believed “that the modern system of commercial capitalism was due not mainly to English Protestantism as Max Weber had proclaimed but to Judaism.” Jacob is an admirer of Spengler’s Prussian socialism which does not seek to destroy capitalism. Early on, Spengler saw that “democracy, in general, is an unholy alliance of urban masses, cosmopolitan intellectuals, and finance capitalists. 

The masses themselves are manipulated by the latter two elements through their specific agencies: the press and the parties.” Jacob’s ideology synthesizes Kuehnelt-Leddihn and Evola’s beliefs. He accepts Evola’s criticism of modern Jewry and the bourgeoisie, but appears to reject his disparagement of Catholicism. Jacob concludes that Syberberg wanted to use “art as a redemptive influence on society,” while Adorno used it “as an instrument of revenge.” In the fourth essay Jacob shifts gears to examine two books, both written in 2011, that analyze the success of Western civilization: The Uniqueness of Western Civilization by Ricardo Duchesne and The West and the Rest by Niall Ferguson. Duchesne’s thesis is that the West has always been different, more creative, than other civilizations. The source of this creativity is the “aristocratic egalitarianism” of Indo-European societies. 

This unique aristocratic egalitarianism was made possible by a political arrangement that provided “relative freedom and autonomy from centralised authority”. For Ferguson, the West’s greatness can be found in: “science, competition, property rights, medicine, the consumer society, and the work ethic”. Like Duchesne, Ferguson sees a lack of centralized power as a Western asset as opposed to the centralized bureaucracy of China. He believes property rights are closely associated with “the rule of law and representative government”. Ferguson is not, however, completely sanguine regarding the future of the Occident. He warns that the greatest threat to the West is “our own loss of faith in the civilization we inherited from our ancestors,” while Duchesne expresses similar concerns about the “nihilism, cultural relativism, and weariness” of the West.

To Jacob’s thinking, what Fukuyama considers 'the end of history' is Jewish “economic utopianism which manifested itself in the twentieth century as totalitarian Communism and was transformed in the new ‘promised land’ into totalitarian liberalism of the ‘American Dream.’” Jacob concludes that “Fukuyama’s neo-conservatism illustrates the incompatibility of the American system with genuinely European systems of political thought.” Jacob traces how the English, and later the Americans, deviated from traditional European values. In essence: the rise of Puritanism led to the English Civil War, the Revolution of 1688, the American Revolution, and the French Revolution. Puritans with their individualism and industry came to see “citizens as economic units of production not unlike those of the later Communist utopia of Marx.” Then, increasingly during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the Jews in America were able to transform the remnant of Puritanism into their own political/economic system, with the end results that we see today. There is a desperate need for a new aristocracy in Western societies. At present we are ruled by elites who are hostile to the interests of Western peoples. Before an aristocracy can develop, we need to create a revolutionary cadre from which a new elite will emerge. The historical peoples of the West are now slated to become minorities in their own homelands. We need new elites to propagate a new ideology and that is a monumental task. Nothing could be more difficult, yet nothing less will do. Alexander Jacob obtained his doctorate in Intellectual History at the Pennsylvania State University. His publications include Nobilitas: A Study of European Aristocratic Philosophy from Ancient Greece to the early Twentieth Century (2000), and Richard Wagner on Tragedy, Christianity and the State (2019). Source: unz.com

Happy New Year 2024!

Rhonda Fleming.

Joan Crawford.

Mae West.

Joan Blondell.

June Allyson and Dick Powell.

Loretta Young.

Sexual Armony and Disagreements, June Allyson & Dick Powell (Modern Screen)

Sexual disagreements in relationships are more strongly associated with women considering ending their relationships than men, according to a new study published in the Journal of Sex Research on November 14, 2023. This finding, emerging from an analysis of thousands of participants, challenges traditional notions about the impact of sexual harmony on relationship stability. "Based on traditional gender ideologies, we would expect that sexual disagreements are associated with instability more strongly among men than among women,” said study author Dominika Perdoch Sladká, a researcher and a PhD student at the Department of Sociology at Masaryk University. “Some previous studies found that men judge their relationships by the quality of their sexual life more often than women. We were interested in testing if the gendered relationship between sexual disagreements and union instability found in earlier studies from the United States still exists in the 21st century. Our study included both married and cohabiting partners.”

In comparison to those who never had such disagreements, women who frequently experienced sexual disagreements were 13.1 percentage points more likely to consider separation. In contrast, men with frequent sexual disagreements showed only a 5 percentage point increase in separation proneness compared to those with no disagreements. The researchers also found that, at every level of sexual disagreement, women were more inclined towards separation proneness than men. This difference was most stark among those with frequent disagreements, underscoring a notable gender disparity. The study, “Sexual Disagreements: Differences Between Men and Women in a Culturally Diverse Sample” was authored by Dominika Perdoch Sladká and Martin Kreidl. Source: https://www.tandfonline.com

June Allyson: Did you ever take a ride on the elevator of a skyscraper? Of course, well, you know how it feels when the elevator surges upward. . . phew, your head sinks to your toes—but soon, with a little effort everything returns to normal and you’re on a level keel again. And so it is with most stars, as they rise rapidly their heads swim but with a little effort the leveling off period is not far away. Sure, some stars never level off. I feel I am most fortunate being married to a man like Richard, my husband and loving critic. He has helped me to stay on that level keel, at least I’ve had my two feet on the ground. 

How do I get along with Richard? Fans write they hear rumors that I’m hypnotized, that I’m on strings, or that he’s a Svengali. Nothing could be further from the truth. So get your pencil and jot this down. When the lights are out at night, I lie in bed and thank God for my marital happiness with Richard. . . And I pray that my kids will find the happiness in his future marriages that I have found in mine. This all comes from my heart and I hope you realize that Richard is not twisting my arm. If this doesn’t kick the pins out from under the wagging tongues, well, then I’ll give up trying. Personally I couldn’t care less what gossips think and say . . . but since I have this opportunity to put it in the record—you’ve got it.

I truly wish that most husbands would be as considerate of their wives as mine is to me. Richard has a wonderful sense of humor. He knows how to make me laugh and does. He can always be expected to do the unexpected. He has no inhibitions and he exercises his prerogative as a husband to take the initiative, but always in good taste—he’s a man a girl can lean upon. Usually I lunch in my dressing room. This gives me a chance to slip into a robe and quietly relax. Here again I want to spike rumors that I’m aloof and don’t eat with the gang in the commissary. I love the gang, I love people, but I feel the picture comes first and that I must have a period of relaxation before starting the long afternoon. A little cat-nap does wonders, believe me. My favorite foods are steak and French fried onions, salads, Italian and Cantonese.

One evening in San Francisco we decided on an Italian dinner and were recommended to Vanessi’s. Well, “Uncle Joe” Vanessi, as he insisted we call him, ordered our dinner for us. It took three hours of eating our way through “Uncle Joe’s” hospitality before we could make our way out to our car. To me shopping in new places is the greatest. I always make the rounds of all the shops, see what everyone has to offer and then go back to where I saw something I liked. The trouble is, though, most of the time I forget where the shop is, or I don’t have the time to get back. Now, you asked me about traveling. We very often go to Palm Springs, about 100 miles south of Los Angeles. 

We spent a full week at Marion Davies Desert Inn, relaxing, playing tennis, golf and lying in the sun. Give us a hot day, a bottle of sun-tan oil and we’re in business. Sun-bathing is a bit mild for Richard, though; not enough action, he says. Later I went on a shopping tour with Richard. While I looked for clothes, Richard was looking at property. Yes, I love to travel. It’s fun to get away from the house but always twice as nice to return home. Who dresses me? By this I hope you mean who selects my clothes? But if you really mean “Who dresses me”—well, I’m a big girl now and I dress myself. The answer to the latter question is the same. I select my own clothes and I love to shop for myself. Richard has excellent taste in selecting clothes for me and loves nice things and likes to surprise me. I love tailored clothes, suits and lots of slacks and tops. And lots of full cottons for summer, and I adore evening gowns. It’s such fun getting dressed up for a party.

Sometimes I feel embarrassed when people stare at me in public. I jump when I hear my name spoken at nearby tables. I often wonder if other stars feel the same way, like a gold fish in a bowl—with no privacy. It seems to be a must in show business to maul and paw you with a greeting. To plant a big kiss on your cheek. I resent this when it’s done to me. I’m annoyed at over-demonstrative people. I’m sure it’s fun at home but I just don’t go for that bit . . . in public. I also resent some women being over-demonstrative with my husband and I don’t spare the horses in telling them off, I’ll tell you, I’m never annoyed by the same person twice. We see our friends and enjoy each other with small dinner parties at home. If a big group gets together, it becomes involved as to where to go, what to do and somehow, Richard always winds up as the social director. He automatically becomes the leader. It was funny when Jack Benny arrived one night with a whistle on a chain for Richard! Friends, fine friends, are where you find them. As the saying goes, “Show me your friends and I’ll know who you are.” Gosh, I’ve really been on a soap box, and here comes that man for his box, so I’ll step down. Sure, I’ll answer some more questions—some other time. —Modern Screen magazine, July 1956

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

"As long as we know in our hearts what Christmas ought to be, Christmas is." -Eric Sevareid (American author and journalist)

Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck in "Remember the Night" (1940) directed by Mitchell Leisen

From DeMille’s Irish postmistress at end of track to Clifford Odets’s worldweary “tramp from Newark,” Barbara Stanwyck was to play a seen-it-all, light-fingered jewel thief on trial in New York for shoplifting a blindingly sparkling bracelet. Mitchell Leisen, one of Paramount’s leading directors, was assigned the picture. Each of Leisen’s fourteen pictures had been a box-office success. Leisen was Paramount’s answer to George Cukor. Leisen wanted Barbara for the part of Lee Leander, jewel thief. He felt the part was written for her. Fred MacMurray was to be the hard-driving assistant district attorney prosecuting the case who, instead of sending her to jail, falls in love with her. Leisen thought MacMurray a goodlooking actor but he was quiet, genial, modest, and inexperienced. Though Preston Sturges came from the top and Barbara from the bottom—he from a European bohemian aristocracy and she from a showgirl street life—Barbara felt a great compatibility with Sturges. She thought him enormously talented and his script one of the best she’d ever read. “What’s on paper is on the screen,” she said. Sturges and Leisen were an interesting combination of sensibilities. Sturges wrote comedy with flashes of feeling and warmth; Leisen directed pictures that were warm with bursts of comedy.

The DA (Fred MacMurray) is getting ready to drive home to Wabash, Indiana, for the holidays to the family farm to see his mother and aunt. In the spirit of Christmas, he bails out the girl he’s about to prosecute so she won’t have to spend the holiday behind bars. The bondsman delivers her —with his compliments and a wink— to the DA’s apartment, the last thing he wants or expects (“What are you doing here?” he asks her. “I don’t know,” she says, “but I’ve got a rough idea”). Now he’s stuck with her; she’s been locked out of her hotel; she’s got nowhere to go, and she’s in his custody.

In the scene in which the family has gathered in the parlor around the Christmas tree, MacMurray plays the piano and sings “Swanee River,” and Barbara plays “A Perfect Day” on the piano as Willie (Sterling Holloway) sings. Leisen knew how to use visual business in a scene to create character, mood, story. His subtle eloquence and deftness was called the Leisen magic. Barbara teased MacMurray for being shy about filming love scenes. Barbara handled it by saying to the crew, “This is really going to be something, I am supposed to be kissed passionately by Fred.” She kidded Fred about it, as did the crew. When the day arrived, MacMurray gritted his teeth, determined to show them he wasn’t such a bad lover, and did the scene perfectly.

Barbara never looked more beautiful, more luminous, than she does in Remember the Night. In the end of Sturges’s script, “love reformed her and corrupted him, which gave us the finely balanced moral,” said Sturges, “that one man’s meat is another man’s poison, or caveat emptor.” In Remember the Night, Barbara is both classy and shopgirlish. Sturges was a loner, as Barbara had been before Bob Taylor came into her life. Barbara operates on many levels in 'Remember the Night': she is a believable crook; believably vulgar; believably sensitive and vulnerable; rebellious (in the scene with her mother, it is clear her defiance is bonded to her mother’s take on her). What Sturges gives Stanwyck is her longing for roots, her longing to go home for Christmas.

The combination of Barbara and MacMurray works: he is light and a good egg; she is breezy, grounded, larcenous, with a heart of gold and a yearning for home, like Sturges himself, who had such an uprooted childhood. “As it turned out,” said Sturges, “the picture had quite a lot of schmaltz, a good dose of schmerz and just enough schmutz to make it box office.” It was Leisen’s best picture to date and Barbara’s best performance. -"A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel True (1907-1940)" by Victoria Wilson

They go out to eat and talk about their situation. “Sounds like a play, doesn’t it?” asks Lee, which is Sturges acknowledging the whole “movie pitch idea” of his basic screenplay, then mocking it when John replies, “Sounds like a flop.” In 'Remember the Night,' this exchange leads us directly into the most important scene in the film, where Lee tries to explain her concept of right and wrong to John. Mrs. Sargent, who knows the truth about her, gently warns Lee that she might spoil John’s career if they were to get married. Lee is standing in front of a mirror, and when Mrs. Sargent puts her hands on Lee’s shoulders, Stanwyck freezes, with her mouth wide open, one arm up holding a comb, a vision of complete Mouchette-style awkwardness. Mirrors always bring out Stanwyck’s deepest feelings. Leisen films the hushed parting between John and Lee with real tenderness, but the complexities of the early scenes get politely swept under the rug. In many ways, it was a kind of holiday movie for Stanwyck. She said that the atmosphere on a Capra set was “like a cathedral,” while on a Sturges set it was “a carnival.” -"Barbara Stanwyck: The Miracle Woman" (2012) by Dan Callahan