RIP Shanen Doherty

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Center Door Fancy (fiction vs reality)

Dick Powell was considered one of Hollywood's most eligible bachelors after his memorable performance in "Blessed Event" (1932). "Dick 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, one month after Joan’s divorce from cinematographer George Barnes. On 17 September 1936, 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 (1972). 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'd 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, Joan (Nora) leads Jim (Powell) to break up with May Gould (Mary Brian) making him doubt of his feelings. When Powell asks Joan if she still loves George Barnes: "Do you still love David?" Joan (Nora) says she doesn't. Her intimate relationship with Powell starts at this moment, when both share a kiss, and she abandons George Barnes, favoring the secure arms of Dick Powell, who had sent her a 1000$ check for her son's childbirth. Blondell also expresses doubts to Sally (Glenda Farrell) about her true feelings towards Jim, saying "he's too nice to hurt." They marry, spending their honeymoon at the Santa Paula yatch, and they consummate their marriage. She seems to find Powell charming when he gives her a playful whack on her behind. Also, she writes: "He smiled and put his hands on my shoulders. He says (naughtily): 'I'm sure that we didn't do it the last few nights because your eyes would look glassy now'." Nora (Joan) feigns not knowing: "Glassy?" "From doing it too much!" Powell jokingly says. In the mid-30s, the press took notice of the odd pairing, 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.

Joan rolls her eyes and tells to herself: "What did I get into?" Supposedly she was a sex enthusiast and later thinks of Powell as mechanical in bed, but it sure doesn't look like that from her initial account during their honeymoon. When Nora bumps into a table playing with her son and bruises her leg, Jim says worried: "People will say I did some weird sex thing to you, and I can't have that." So he sounds sensible and pretty knowledgeable of sexual matters. Powell wasn't just a hick from Arkansas, he was a very intelligent, amiable man and obviously he had sex-appeal. It's true that Powell was conservative politically and Blondell was a liberal, and she tries to exploit this gap too, trying to characterize Powell as racist and anti-semite. She has Powell ranting: "Damned Jews run this business! Damned niggers get some fancy salaries now. The goddamned government is killing us with taxes! I've got to change agents, the son of a bitch does nothing for his ten percent." She tries so hard to make an impression of Dick Powell as Nixon, it is not even funny. In the last chapter, Joan (Nora) acknowledges that Dick Powell and Ronald Colman (a friend of Barnes) drew up a pension fund for Joan through Lloyds of London, which would allow her to retire at the age of 47. "It's with Lloys of London and when I'm 47, I'll get money enought to live on the rest of my life," she boasts to Mike Todd. And don't get me started on her obsession towards her eternal rival, the sweet and easygoing June Allyson. Oddly, Joan (Nora) barely talks of her terrible fights with her third husband Mike Todd, who was pathologically jealous and threatened with killing her if she ever cheated with him. 

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 set her sights on Mike Todd, she proceeded to depict 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." Her memoirs are full of similar braggadocio: "I’ve got a new guy, and Jim [Dick Powell] would die of envy if he knew how we feel." Also, a jealous 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, to guide her career. It’s like a cheesy B-picture. Doesn’t Jim 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. Jeff Flynn [Mike Todd], and even a New York doctor, told me they knew some of the guys she ‘entertained.’ She’s using Jim [Dick Powell]—can’t he see? It would be a giant step for her to get the Star Husband of the Year.” 

After Blondell announces her petition of divorce, Powell yells at her: “I, Jim Wilson, did not marry a bum!” Blondells shrugs: "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 phoned 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."

Center Door Fancy: So it went—a week of school in Trenton, Dallas, Sioux City, Denver, Seattle, Pittsburgh, Washington. . . “I don’t think she’s really learning anything, Johnny,” Cecilia said. “For instance, what is there to learn? Is arithmetic anything to laugh at? What’s so funny about grammar? History she’ll make. She can read every marquee and billboard we’ve ever passed. Geography she knows. What other kid of her age has been all over the world, and across the U.S.A. sixty-seven times?” On days when there was no school Johnny would see that I was free to walk lovely, tree-lined streets, to peer into shop windows. My own security came from the theater dressing room, its smells, colors, and sounds: greasepaint; L. T. Piver lotion; Cashmere Bouquet soap; Smith Bros, cough drops; putty; Yardley’s sachet; the towels heavy with the scent of makeup; Mum; tobacco; Yankee Clover toilet water; Fels Naphtha. With fascination I watched Mom “bead” her eyelashes with a toothpick dipped into the black wax, Cosmetique, heated in a pan held over a candle. Lump after lump, and presto-chango her lashes looked a foot long. Then she dipped her pinky into a jar of red greasepaint and painted her full lips and rubbed them together until they were smooth and perfect. And that skin! Wherever Cecilia went, people would speak of it. Looking at my mother, I yearned to be beautiful, too. My eyes shifted to my father’s mirror. My skin is dark—so is his. People mentioned the “bigness” of my eyes so often that I wished I could take a needle and sew them up on the sides. Last night Mom said to Johnny, “It doesn’t seem possible Nora’s grown up so fast. Men are starting to look at her. She’s too darned developed for her age.” David (George Barnes) grinned. “Jim takes May Gould (Mary Brian) to the Clover Club every Saturday night.” 

Joan Blondell: "Honestly,  I don’t think men should be movie actors—it isn't natural." He smiled. “Shush, here he is. Hi, old pally!” They whacked each other on the back. I picked up the ice bucket to stave off a Jim Wilson hug. “How’d you get here?” I asked. “I took a plane to Palm Springs—Frank McHugh had an extra ticket he gave me. Taxi wanted twenty-five clams from there, so luckily a fan picked me up and dropped me off about half a mile down the road. You turtle doves having fun?” “Have a drink.” David gave Jim a Coke that had been thoroughly spiked. “I never touch the stuff,” Jim quipped. After a swig and a “Wow!” he turned to me. “Brought my new script, sweetie, thought you could cue me on the ride back.” “I will,” I promised. They fixed their fishing rods. Faye (Frances Marion) lit a cigarette and exhaled swiftly. “Nora, the name Amy O’Brien ring a bell?” “Nope—Why?” “Amy O’Brien is a new contractee here from a New York City musical. I’ve been coaching her for months, so I know her pretty damn well.” “And what, Faye?” She spoke rapidly. “She’s after your old man, but I mean after. She’s beaded down, and she’s gonna leave no stone unturned. I’ve watched her operate. I’ve listened to her phone work, her set work, her commissary work, the whole megillah. This dear little starlet is a nose-to-the-grindstone hustler. No more than she was signed up, she got the lay of executive-land and laid it. Now she’s started to work on Jim. She’s got a small role in his picture, but she’s on-the-spot every minute. I tell you, she’s a dangerous, determined tomato.” I protested: “Jim’s too wise not to see through that. He’s always had fans drooling over him.” Faye insisted: “Take my word. This one’s no fan, she’s got an overall plan.” “Amy O’Brien,” I repeated. “Thanks, Faye.” We parted, and I continued to Stage Ten. 

Amy O’Brien, Amy O’Brien, I said to myself as I walked toward the lights of the scene they were rehearsing. Jim was standing in front of the camera while the makeup man banged powder on his nose. “All right, everybody, we shoot,” called the director. It was a long dolly shot. As Jim sang, the camera pulled back, and I saw someone who looked like a little child with a pink babushka tied under her chin perched on the camera stand below the lens. In all my years in pictures, through all the years of Berkeley shots, I never saw anyone sit there before, I thought. I turned to a member of the crew standing next to me. “Who’s that sitting on the camera, Bill?” “Amy O’Brien.” He paused. “A pain in the butt.” After the take Jim called to me, “One still, and I’ll be right with you, sweetheart.” Then added: “Everyone knows my beautiful wife; beautiful wife, this is Amy O’Brien.” Halfway through my “How-do-ya-do,” Amy clapped both hands over her mouth as if terrified, and ran off the stage. “What was that bit with Amy O’Brien?” I asked after we had ordered our lunch. “She’s some kind of a nut,” Jim answered, saluting Joe Schenck as he passed our table. 

“Hey, Jim—who calls you ‘James?” I asked. “What?” He looked up from his dinner plate startled. “We’ve gotten a dozen or more phone calls here in the last couple of months. The voice is always the same, and so is the conversation—or lack of it. ‘James?’ it says hopefully even when I answer. ‘James who?’ I generally ask. An ‘Ooooh’ or ‘Oh-oh,’ or ’Sorry,’ is hastily muttered, then it hangs up.” “I have no idea,” Jim answered, tackling his salad. “A crank or a fan.” “But you’re ‘Jim,’ not ‘James’—world-famous Jim—and we have a very unlisted phone number.” “I don’t know,” he snapped. We ate our dessert in silence. Those calls from Amy O’Brien are designed to affect no one but me—just bitchiness, I thought, stabbing the apple pie. With an exaggerated hip roll I slunk out of the dining room. “Hey,” Jim called, “what’s with you?” In 1943 Joan Blondell had began going with Mike Todd 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. Joan socialized only with already established friends, including actresses Glenda Farrell and Betty Bruce. She was still close to Gloria in California, they talked at least once a week, and she was thrilled when her sister met, courted, and wed handsome ad man Victor Hunter. 

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. Evelyn Keyes, like Claire Trevor in Murder, My Sweet, seemed to harbor a big crush on Dick Powell. Keyes alludes in her memoirs to a brief affair with Powell, but, unlike other actors she had dalliances with, she doesn't offer many specifics. 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 with Dean Martin. In her 1977 autobiography, Evelyn Keyes said Mrs Mike was her best film. 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. 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”, 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." Amidst the production of Johnny O'Clock, she married impulsively John Huston in Las Vegas. Back on the set, she felt Dick Powell acted somehow jealous. "It was weird. Perhaps it was just the hyped-up, spaced-out mood the benzedrine caused, or maybe only imagination. But it seemed strange, all around me that day. There were congratulations, but with distinct lack of enthusiasm. Dick Powell was particularly lukewarm, almost resentful, as if I had double-crossed him." 

Keyes's onscreen interactions with Powell in Johnny O'Clock show that an intimate spark lighted between them. Mrs Mike was released on December 23, 1949. That had been a bad year for Powell & June Allyson due to the incessant rumors of her affair with Dean Martin, so it's very likely Powell succumbed to Keyes' charms. As surmised by Nick Tosches in Dino: Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams, Martin could be a bona-fide weasel and was bent on wooing Allyson, the America Sweetheart. Evelyn Keyes: "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.” 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. 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 until the day I picked up the phone and 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. Keyes philosophized in 1977: "The good part was that I invested all my money in Around the World in 80 Days, and that set me up for life." 

Indeed, Keyes owned 5% of Mike Todd's film company. "I vaguely knew who Mike Todd was, a producer of shows in New York. I had seen Star and Garter with Gypsy Rose Lee doing her strip act right there on Broadway. A promoter, I believe they called him," she wrote when she was first introduced to Todd. "He was busy getting together a new film technique to be called Todd-AO, a combination of his chutzpah and a scientist at American Optical: a new wide lens camera, to replace the recently introduced Cinerama."  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 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." 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, in stark contrast with her other lovers. Powell seemed to have regretted the affair, according to Keyes.

After his divorce from his first (alcoholic) wife Mildred Maund, Dick Powell was going to marry Mary Brian, but Joan played her cards well. When Powell, who was thinking of marrying Brian, asked Blondell for advice, the blonde bombshell made him doubt of his true feelings. Powell broke up with Brian in 1933 and dated Margaret Lindsay, while he initiated a romance with Blondell in late 1934. Center Door Fancy: Jim continued: "You have good common sense, Nora. I’m considering marrying May—what’s your advice?” “Do you love her?” “Well, hell, she’s a hell of a gal—not many around like her.” Jim continued: “I picked her up the other Saturday morning to grab some chow, and she wanted to know if I’d park by the Bank of America on Highland for a minute, as she had to clip some coupons. I sat out there for two solid hours while she clipped and clipped,” he leaned toward me. “My!” “We didn’t wrap our lips around a bite until after three-thirty. What do you think about a lil ole wedding?” I paused. I frankly didn’t care much about either of them. My one evening as a guest at May’s home was barren: no cocktails, barely enough chicken to go around, no butter for the air-holed bread, weak coffee, lumpy ice cream, and every lamp in the house had strips of cellophane covering the shade, though she had lived there for over ten years. I answered his question as truthfully as I could. “I might just take your advice. After all, a gal with her—er—qualifications—well, the first one drank a lot.” “I didn’t know you’d been married before!” “Neither does the press department. Remember me? America’s most desirable bachelor?” He playfully grazed my chin with his clenched fist. “What was she like?” “A beauty—dark, and from my home town. She was seventeen when I took the leap. She was from a wrong-side-of-the-tracks family, but they were okay. Damn glad about the catch their kid made! After all, Nora, I was a thousand-bucks-a-week MC in Detroit, and you know dames. So the little babe was in luck, she didn't have a dime.” I don’t think I like you, I thought. “What happened to the marriage?” “It lasted four years. The first two were fair, and then she started to drink. Jesus Christ, what drinking! I had an important reputation to live up to, so I sent her to one of those cure places—and a pretty penny that was!” He paused. “I’ll be a son-of-a-bitch if she didn’t stop drinking the minute she registered, but as soon as she got home, she’d drain every bottle that wasn’t tied down. “I’ll tell you something, Nora, a guy shouldn't be single in this town. The gals expect too much and the married babes can hound a guy to death.” “Two can live as cheaply as one,” I deadpanned.  

Joan (Nora): I was seated at the dressing table in my lacy lingerie looking into the mirror at Sally brushing my hair. “Sally, I can’t—I can’t go through with it. I don’t love Jim, really love, and he’s too nice to hurt.” “Did you ever tell him you loved him?” Sally asked, still brushing my hair. “No, never. When he asked me if I did, and my answer stuck in my throat, he said, ‘Nora, I love you enough for both of us—your honesty is one of the reasons I want you for my wife, and because you’re a helluva good actress, and you’re beautiful! What more could a guy ask for?’ Will I love him in time, Sally? Does that happen?” “I can give you wisecracks, pal—no answers.” Joan (Nora): “Bring on the wedding drag—I’m getting married!”

In the New York Times, Bosley Crowther wrote: "Cry Danger is a tidy package of fictional extravagance. Usually you don't find much occasion for laughter in a picture that is concerned with revenge and murder. But in "Cry Danger" scenarist William Bowers has found room for some sardonic lines that are tossed off most effectively. This is the story of a man who was framed into a jail term and gets out when a former marine comes up with a convenient alibi. The marine just wants a cut of the $100,000 swag Rocky Mulloy is supposed to have stashed away. Dick Powell plays Mulloy with an air of cocky toughness that inspires confidence in his ability to run down the sleazy characters who fingered him as the fall guy for a big robbery and murder rap. As the chief feminine interest, Rhonda Fleming turns on the charm effectively and Jean Porter is amusing as a blonde pickpocket. This report will not disclose anything more about the plot details of "Cry Danger." Inside intelligence; Mr. Powell is in town—he appeared on the Paramount's stage yesterday—and he can be pretty rough on squealers." The first bump happened around 1949, after the rumors floating about a dalliance of June Allyson with Dean Martin. The Paramount stage could allude to the set where Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis were filming My friend Irma (1949), which was produced by Hal B. Wallis and released on August 16, 1949, by Paramount. A jilted Powell and a conceited Martin may well have exchanged some heated words at that time. After reconciling with Dick Powell following a brief separation in 1957, triggered by a frustrated romance with Alan Ladd, June Allyson filed for divorce in 1961, citing his workaholic nature.

The odd thing is that Dean Martin never owned the fact of an affair with June Allyson, and in her biography June Allyson doesn't even mention Dean Martin's name. Very strange, since Allyson doesn't have any problem at confessing her romantic feelings towards Alan Ladd, Peter Lawford or her special chemistry with James Stewart. So something definitely happened for Allyson giving Martin a whole silent treatment. And another curiosity about Center Door Fancy is the degree of delusion of Joan Blondell in several instances of her recountings. June Allyson has never been exposed by any sensationalist writer, not even Darwin Porter dares to tarnish Allyson's reputation, not even Kenneth Anger, William J. Mann or any of their ilk. Ironically, it's Joan Blondell whose reputation suffers at Porter's hands (in consonance with Glenda Farrell's), it's Blondell who never is sure how many abortions she underwent, never really explains why she lost interest in Dick Powell and later in Mike Todd in only a few years. Also, she torpedoed Dick Powell's relationship with Mary Brian, flirted with Errol Flynn, Bing Crosby and Clark Gable, pursued James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart and John Wayne unsuccesfully and appears to have fostered a dark past, a traumatic family background and an unhealthy obsession with hypersexuality, and whose grudge against June Allyson makes her lose many points of credibility. 

In an interview with Stuart Oderman in 1970 at The New Theatre in NYC, Blondell adds some more pearls: "Ruby Keeler was always a nice girl, a sweet girl, naïve in those days when she got with Al Jolson. She had a musical background, being in the theatre (Sidewalks of New York in 1927) and had been going around with a mob guy who looked after her, as a lot of those girls did. And Al was older, and I guess that meant security. There’s no accounting for taste. Ruby tried to convince me to go into No, No, Nanette, saying it’ll be like the old days… and I stopped her saying, ‘I don’t want to talk about my marriage to Dick Powell. That’s past history." It's startling Joan tells nonchalantly that Ruby Keeler was a protegé of a gangster, when in her recent biography "Too Marvelous for Words: The Life and Career of Ruby Keeler" (2017) there is no mention at all of this factoid. Also, Oderman notices: "The dressing rooms resembled a row of slightly enlarged closets. Joan Blondell’s dressing room, in deference to her leading role, is the first off the stage. Inside her room you’ll find a table, a mirror, and a small sofa. What catches your eye immediately is the framed glossy photo on the wall of Joan’s former husband, producer Mike Todd."

June Allyson was granted an interlocutory divorce in January 1961, which would become final in a year. But Powell had other plans; on the day following the court hearing, Allyson said, “he was sitting at the little breakfast nook, having breakfast and reading the paper.” “And I said, ‘What are you doing here? We just got a divorce,’” Allyson recalled. “He said, ‘No, you didn’t—you just got a paper that said you can have a divorce in a year.’ And he said, ‘You know, I’m never going to let you go. And you’ve spent all that money for no reason at all.’ And he went right on eating his breakfast. And we never did get the divorce. For which I’m very grateful.” —Sources: "Center Door Fancy" (1972) by Joan Blondell, "June Allyson" (1983) by June Allyson, "June Allyson: Her Life and Career" (2023) by Peter Shelley, "Joan Blondell: A Life between Takes" (1993) by Matthew Kennedy, "Glamour, Glitz, & Gossip at Historic Magnolia House" (2019) by Danforth Prince, "Bad Boys: The Actors of Film Noir" (2003) by Karen Burroughs Hannsberry and "Talking to the Piano Player: Silent Film Stars, Writers and Directors Remember" (2004) by Stuart Oderman

Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy audiobook

 

Audiobook's Club presents "Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy" (2024) by Elizabeth Beller: In this video, we delve into the mesmerizing life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy, the iconic figure who captivated the world with her elegance and grace. "Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy" explores her journey from a private upbringing to becoming a style icon and beloved wife of John F. Kennedy Jr. Through personal anecdotes and insightful commentary, we uncover the untold stories of Carolyn's life, her enduring legacy and the profound impact she left on fashion and society. Join us as we celebrate the timeless allure of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy.

"Brats" (2024) by Andrew McCarthy, exploring the Brat Pack, Molly Ringwald's offbeat candor

Brian Tallerico: I have seen so many hagiographic clip reels masquerading as documentaries that I kind of just presumed that Hulu’s “Brats” would be a similar love letter to the young stars of the ‘80s, the actors and actresses who shaped pop culture in the middle of the decade in a way that’s still being felt today. I’m happy to report it’s not that. It’s an ambitious, introspective look at how pop culture and acting careers can be shaped by reputation and even just a nickname: "The Brat Pack". The well-spoken interviewees make an intriguing case that the Brat Pack were the main driving force in an entire cultural shift to stories of young people, which gives “Brats” unexpected poignancy in that these actors and actresses who made such an impact were reduced to an undeniably insulting label. Even if it derailed the dreams he once held, McCarthy appears to find some peace with his membership in this exclusive club—which never really existed, since they never hung out or even knew each other—by grasping that it made him and his “branded” brethren the very thing all movie actors aspire to be: immortal. “Brats” is a reclamation and a reshaping of that label. And it’s overdue. Source: rogerebert.com

Molly Ringwald: "The character of Claire in The Breakfast Club was the most different from me, because I never considered myself a popular kid, and I didn’t come from a wealthy family or anything, so at the time that was a real stretch for me. Also, I have never actually given my panties to a geek." Source: people.com

Pauline Kael review on Pretty in Pink (1986): Molly Ringwald, who possesses a charismatic normality, is enshrined as the teenage ideal in this romantic movie of teenagers, although its script slides at moments with the consistency of watery Jell-O. The spoiled-rotten richies are mean to Ringwald's Andie, a poor-girl high-school senior who lives in a dinky, rattletrap house on the wrong side of the tracks. But she's the opposite of trashy: blessed with quiet good taste, she's proudly conventional. And so she ends up wining both a college scholarship and the rich boy of her dreams. John Hughes, who wrote the script and supervised the work of the first-time director, Howard Deutch, seems to project the Boomers' approach to a teenage romance. In its sociological details, it might have been made by little guys from Mars. With the winsome comedienne Annie Potts as Andie's closest friend, Andrew McCarthy as her rather passive young prince, Jon Cryer as the smartmouth nerd who follows her around, Harry Dean Stanton as her  stricken daddy, and James Spader as a snobby hunk. 

In Sixteen Candles (1984), Kael reviews: Samantha (Molly Ringwald), a high-school sophomore, is having the worst day of her life. It's her 16th birthday, and, in the midst of preparations for her older sister's wedding, the whole family has forgotten about it. And in the evening, when she goes to a school dance and longs to be noticed by the handsome senior (Michael Schoeffling) who's the man of her dreams, she's subjected to the unrequited attentions of a scrawny freshman (Anthony Michael Hall), who's known as Geek--a pesty, leering smartmouth with braces on his teeth. Less raucous than the usual 80s pictures about teenagers, this new comedy by writer-director John Hughes is closer in tone to the gentle English comedies of the 40s and 50s. Hughes devised too much of a farcical superstructure, and a lot of the characters function at a sit-com level, but he brings off some fresh scenes, and he has a feeling for teenagers' wacko slang. The geek confesses that he has never "bagged a babe." And Molly Ringwald has a lovely, offbeat candor, a truly weird creation. 

Anthony Michael Hall as nerdy Brian Johnson in The Breakfast Club: "Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain... and an athlete... and a basket case... a princess... and a criminal... Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club." Pauline Kael's review of The Breakfast Club (1985): "Set mostly in the library of a suburban Chicago high school, this encounter-session movie by the writer-director John Hughes is about five students, a cross-section of the student body, who in the course of serving a 7-4 Saturday detention peel off their layers of self-protection, confess their problems with their parents, and are stripped down to their "true selves." The five are: a champion wrestler (Emilio Estevez), a popular redhead "princess" (Molly Ringwald), a nerd (Anthony Michael Hall), a glowering rebel-delinquent (Judd Nelson), and a shy skittish weirdo (Ally Sheedy). 

With the exception of Ringwald and Sheedy, who have a marvellous comic sprite and transcend their roles until they are jerked back into the script mechanics, the movie is about a bunch of stereotypes who complain that other people see them as stereotypes. Hughes has talent, and when the kids are just killing time the dialogue has an easy, buggy rhythm, but this is a wet enterprise that appeals to young audiences by blaming adults for the kids' misery. Judd Nelson, who is supposed to represent what authorities want to crush, has the worst-conceived role, though Paul Gleason's part as the callous dean is a close runner-up. Each kid in turn tells the group of the horrors of home: the wrestler's father pushes him to compete, the princess is given things but not affection, the brainy grind is pressured to be a straight-A student, the (secretly sensitive) rebel is beaten and burned by his brute of a father, the shy girl—the basket case—has parents who ignore her. It's she who puts her finger on the source of all their troubles. "It's unavoidable," she says. "When you grow up, your heart dies." The dean's heart is dead, all right—he hates the students. He's a bureaucrat who's in the school system strictly for the money. He tells the rebel that he's not going to let anyone endanger his thirty-one thousand a year.

There are stray bits of oddball parody when you can't tell exactly what is being parodied. But the scenes involving the snotty, callous dean ring false right from the start, and though Paul Gleason seems miscast, maybe anybody playing this villain would seem miscast. Judd Nelson's role as the catalyst-rebel—the working-class kid who's good with his hands (he loves shopwork), and is also a hipster, and fearless—is a dud, too. And Nelson doesn't seem to have a speck of spontaneity. After his early scenes, he becomes too self-pitying, and he's given to tilting up his head and pointing his nostrils at the camera. The four other leading performers fare a lot better than Nelson. 

As the straight-arrow jock, Estevez is a little heavy on sincerity—but he does a creditably good job, especially in his long monologue about his father's always telling him to ''win, win." Molly Ringwald's role isn't as festive as her birthday-girl part in Sixteen Candles, but she slips into the well-heeled Miss Popularity languor without any unnecessary fuss. And Anthony Michael Hall delivers a thoughtful, nuanced performance. He excels in math and is active in the Physics Club, but is a frightened, virtuous dork away from his books. And then John Hughes makes his soggiest mistake: the princess takes Allison in hand, scrubs all the black eye makeup off her, gets her out of her witches' wrappings, and brushes her hair back and puts a ribbon in it, and she comes forth looking broad-faced and dull. But she's supposed to be beautiful, and she captures the jock's heart. The Breakfast Club is The Exterminating Angel as a sitcom." For a more extended discussion, read Pauline Kael's book State of the Art (1989) —The Age of Movies: Selected Writings of Pauline Kael: A Library of America Special Publication (2016) by Sanford Schwartz 

Lou Reed, Jeff Tweedy & Wilco

What defines Lou Reed’s best work—besides fearlessness, beauty, intelligence, and switchblade New York City wit—is what places it at the highest level of art making: its empathy. Reed wrote his way into other voices, not all of them pretty, some belonging to “the other half/the irredeemable half”. These kindred humans, regardless of gender, spoke as if with Reed’s own voice, a compassionate ventriloquism that always seemed geared toward understanding both the subject and himself. And when you sensed Reed was indeed writing about himself—in a song like, say, “Waves of Fear,” as visceral a depiction of end-stage addiction and the panic-attack hellscape of withdrawal as any musician is ever likely to record—he seemed to be doing it to commiserate as much as to exorcise. New York, his most consistent and satisfying album attacked the greed and hypocrisy of America’s poisoned political and economic systems as they played out among the haves and have-nots on his hometown streets. And toward the end, in a storybook denouement, he achieved a kind of redemption, and grace, in large part through love.

“It was a devastating thing for me,” Reed said of Kennedy's assassination. “I thought Kennedy could change the world.” Indeed, a generation looked to Kennedy—the youngest president in history, elected at forty-three—and Jackie Onassis as the ultimate inspiration. Even that nascent counterculture skeptic Bob Dylan was impressed. “If I had been a voting man,” he affirmed in one of his memoirs decades later, “I would have voted for Kennedy.” John Cale believed that Reed’s “fears about sanity” led him toward “provocative behavior, actively and purposefully trying his darnedest to set people off. That made him feel he was in control, rather than living in a state of uncertainty or paranoia. This put him in the position of perpetually seeking a kind of advantage for himself by bringing out the worst in people.” Lou Reed often combined Desoxyn with heroin. Desoxyn was straight methamphetamine, stronger and longer-lasting. Either way, speed was the ideal New York City drug. Distributed widely via legit prescriptions from psychiatrists and general medical practitioners, as well through gray-market diet clinics and assorted black-market channels, it’s estimated that between 8 and 10 billion amphetamine tablets were ingested annually in the United States between 1963 and 1969. 

Lou Reed remarked about “Waves of Fear”: “It’s about anxiety and terror about which nothing can be done. Terror so strong that the person can’t even turn a light on, can’t speak, can’t make it to a phone. Afraid to turn a light on for what they’ll see—for what he is.” “What motivation,” Bruno Blum asked, with astonishment, “could you possibly have to approach that subject?” Reed responded flatly and plainly, as if there was just one conceivable answer: “Empathy,” he said to the French author and journalist Bruno Blum. Reed was performatively frank about his tastes. He called the Beatles “garbage” and claimed he never liked them, while the Doors were “painfully stupid and pretentious.” He expressed dislike for Stephen Sondheim (“Broadway music I despise”) but admiration for Randy Newman. Reed was largely dismissive on the topic of Bowie. —Lou Reed: The King of New York (2023) by Will Hermes

Jeff Tweedy: "It’s hard to believe that someone with a reputation for being as relentlessly thorny and unkind as Lou Reed could write something as empathetic and tender as “Candy Says.” But he did. This is all my way of saying that I don’t quite believe the nasty image most of us have of what Lou Reed was really like. I don’t doubt the stories of his mistreatment of people that deserved better. But what doesn’t make sense is the idea that any amount of bad behavior could conceal a heart big enough to write “What do you think I’d see/If I could walk away from me?” I love this song so much. And I love that Lou Reed that belongs to only me, partly fictional as Lou might be for me. That Lou Reed made of a powerful magic able to move one’s mind behind someone else’s eyes. Maybe surrendering to an unwanted emotion is the only way we survive without getting trapped in our sadnesses and angers and jealousies... at least I think that’s how it works." 

Not unlike Kurt Cobain, Jeff Tweedy actively demythologized the figure of the rock & roll hero. Instead of painting a self-indulgent portrait of bravado, Tweedy related tales of social awkwardness and panic attacks overcome by hard work, claiming vulnerability as his defining artistic trait. Jettisoning the hackneyed image of the womanizing rock star, Tweedy defied that archetype, recounting a haunting story about a sexual encounter with a female friend named Leslie (25) when he was just 14. After Farrar left Uncle Tupelo after a bitter quarrel over Farrar's girlfriend Monica, Tweedy and his remaining bandmates formed Wilco, whose album Being There gained critical acclaim. Tweedy met his wife Sue Miller in 1991 at the Chicago club Lounge Ax and they were married on August 9, 1995. In 2001 Tweedy would fire Jay Bennett from the band. Tweedy suggests that he and Bennett were enabling each other's addictions: "I fired Bennett from Wilco because I knew if I didn't, I would probably die." Tweedy's music has never shied away from darkness, but he's also never been afraid to celebrate joy. His personality, like his music, has been alternately sorrowful and triumphant. Source: npr.org

 

Jeff Tweedy: My girlfriend had left Belleville to attend SIU–Carbondale college. She met a guy there during her first semester away while she and I were still technically dating. I was devastated. I’d experienced rejection before, but not that world-shattering feeling of betrayal. That feeling marked the beginning of the first identifiable pattern of depression in my life. When you’re prone to depression, this is the kind of catalyst that can bring it on and turn something upsetting into something debilitating and seemingly insurmountable. I drove down to Carbondale to see her, and I found her walking hand in hand with a guy toward her dorm room. And then I knocked the door. They were already in bed. God, it was a full-on catastrophe. Almost comically hurtful. And as inconsequential as it would be in the grand scheme of things, at that moment I couldn’t see it as anything less than the end of my life. I wrote “Gun” a little while after that: “It hurt much worse when you gave up/which way I oughta run/Crawling back to you now/I sold my guitar to the girl next door/She asked me if I knew how/I told her, I don’t think so anymore.” That was probably the most honest and direct I’d ever been in a song up to that point. Telling the world that I’d sold my guitar wasn’t saying I’ll kill myself, but it was close. To me, it was almost the equivalent of killing myself at that point. I was in so much pain I was willing to give up the one thing in the world that was sustaining to me, the only thing that mattered. That might seem like a martyrdom fantasy—“If I can’t have what I want, I don’t want anything!” It is grandiose, but I was serious about it. The feeling that “anything is better than this,” even giving up the only thing you love if it would just make it go away, is real. I can still identify with that. When I play Gun, that’s what hooks me in.

While Sam Jones's "I am trying to break your heart" documentary progressed, Jay Bennett started pitting people against one another, whispering rumors and stoking paranoia. If you weren’t in the room, he was talking behind your back or diminishing your contributions. I heard about all the nasty things he’d been saying about me when I wasn’t around—I guess it never occurred to him that the rest of the guys in Wilco would compare notes—and when it was just Jay Bennett and me alone in the studio, he said the rest of Wilco wasn’t pulling their weight. I suggested to create sounds that didn’t involve us, like an organ with some keys taped down, or a tape echo feeding back on itself, an electric fan strumming a guitar. The plan was to come back the next morning, turn all of our self-playing instruments back on, and hit record. But when I got to the Loft, Jay Bennett was already there, walking the camera crew and talking about how he’d put it all together, the whole room was buzzing, and he was fielding questions from Sam Jones about 'his' sonic experiments. I didn’t say anything—I knew that was petty and I didn’t want to get into another fight in front of the cameras—but I was furious. That was an idea that I’d suggested. There were many reasons I didn’t want to make music with Jay Bennett anymore. I fired Jay Bennett from Wilco because I knew if I didn’t, I would probably die. I know that sounds like hyperbole, but it’s really not. I told him I knew what was going on. That’s one of the first things I said to him. “You’ve been getting FedEx packages full of pills.” 

The guy who was running the Loft for us would see him there in the mornings, counting his pills on a desk in the back. I told Bennett we would help him. If he wanted to find somebody to talk to about addiction and maybe get into a program, we would pay for everything. But he was incredulous, saying: “If I had a problem I would admit it.” I had to confront my Vicodin addiction in rehab. My thoughts were: “I’m not some junkie who wants to disappear. I have real migraines. I have real panic attacks. And I’m only being responsible by finding a way to control them so I can keep doing my job.” Some fans thought I should have stayed with Jay as a sign of loyalty for the band. But I think that kind of devotion, to something entirely made up like a “band,” is silly and even dangerous. There are only three people I’ve committed myself to completely for the rest of my life: my wife Susie, and my sons Spencer and Sammy. My actual family. 

Jeff Tweedy and her wife Sue Miller (married August 9, 1995)

Jeff Tweedy: My wife is Susie Miller Tweedy. I’m tempted to say that if you aren’t married to her then your life is crap. But hearing her voice in my head, I’m thinking better of saying such a thing. See, even without consultation, she’s been steering me toward a subtler and kinder way of saying what I want to say. Which all goes to show what a force she’s been in my effort to get better. After 29 years of marriage and over 30 total years of going steady, I still can’t believe my good fortune. Somehow the coolest and funniest woman alive thought enough of me to take my hand. I love her more every day and I wouldn’t be here without her. Happy Anniversary, Sukierae! Source: www.avclub.com

Carolyn Bessette and John Kennedy Jr (25th Anniversary) video, Elizabeth Beller's book review

 

Carolyn Bessette and John Kennedy Jr: video dedicated in honor of the 25th Anniversary of their passing.

My review of Once Upon a Time: The Captivating Life of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy (2024) by Elizabeth Beller: This magnificent book by Elizabeth Beller is a state of art biography, an all-encompassing account of the life and career of Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy. Despite some reviewers protesting about the book being a bit too benevolent, I wonder if they had heard a previous unbiased version until this book arrived? The answer is a resounding NO. All the previous accounts about this extremely accomplished trailblazer woman referred to a soulless mannequin and were surrounded by sexist toxicity. It was about time some writer, and in this case Eizabeth Beller is unrivaled, expounded another different side of this fashion icon, a young woman who had daddy issues and mood swings, she was a perfectionist and she could be stubborn, she became increasingly paranoid due to her harrassment by a voyeuristic press, but guess what? She was actually a nice woman who in the early 90s stumbled upon the beloved John Kennedy Jr and she fell in love with him (not the public persona, his real self). Beller summes it up best: "The assumptions were from the pictures that she was icy, that she was cold. What I quickly learned was that she was warm and effervescent. She was joyful and loved to laugh.” A splendid biography totally worth your time. Highly recommended. Available now on Amazon.com

New Beatles book: Shake It Up, Baby!

Ken McNab’s new book, Shake It Up, Baby! The Rise of Beatlemania (May 7, 2024) is a gritty account of the Beatles’ rise to fame. McNab, an award-winning journalist from Glasgow, breaks down the Beatles’ concerts, business deals and bloody fights month by month during the transitional year of 1963. Much of the grit stems from Brian Epstein, the dapper, driven manager who kept the Beatles working incessantly. The group' stints in Hamburg between 1960 and 1962 exposed them to the rough quarters of the city’s Reeperbahn as the band tightened their sound. Success on the level the Beatles achieved was unprecedented in British pop, causing inevitable mistakes as Epstein learned the ropes of a cutthroat music industry. Tensions on the personal front also loomed. During a holiday to Spain, Epstein, a gay man who made no secret of his attraction to John Lennon, faced a potentially devastating scandal after the two vacationed separately from the other band members. Although McNab discredits rumours the relationship turned physical, rampant homophobia in England (where homosexuality was still illegal in 1963) made the insinuations dangerous. Lennon fueled the fire by violently assaulting a comedian who joked about the alleged “relationship” with Epstein. The author’s compulsion for detail makes Shake It Up, Baby! feel scholarly without sacrificing readability. Source: popmatters.com 

Albert Goldman was a celebrity ghoul who took advantage of his subjects being dead to avoid libel laws. His mission of undeifying icons like Lenny Bruce, Elvis, and John Lennon gave him the money and notoriety he could have never otherwise gained as a writer. His main sources usually had axes to grind or self-serving legal agendas they were trying to service. Albert Goldman was a celebrity gravedigger and a ghoul who wrote salacious books about those dead celebrities who conveniently couldn't sue him. His primary sources were usually disgruntled people in serious legal troubles. Goldman assaulted cultural icons he seemed to loathe and he could list his questionable and tainted sources so he could defend his tripe as "well researched."

Peter Doggett, in You Never Give Me Your Money, wrote about  Goldman's book: "The Lives of John Lennon was lousy with errors of fact and interpretation, speculative in the extreme, ill-willed and awash with snobbery. Yet Goldman pinpointed Lennon's almost clinical need for domination by a strong woman; the dark ambiguity of a man of peace being governed by violence, either vented or repressed; the unmistakable decline in his work after he left England in 1971, which led him from guru to guru, each obsession spilling into disillusionment and creative despair." People well versed in the Beatles lore think of The Lives of John Lennon as plain historical fiction. 

I remember Philip Norman's biography of John Lennon was the one that made him seem the most like a real person to the reader. The Lives of John Lennon portrayed Lennon as a volatile, perverted drug-user who had a gay affair with The Beatles' manager Brian Epstein and maybe even had killed Stuart Sutcliffe in Germany. It's not a question of whether his books were best sellers, it's a question of what kind of person devotes years of research to destroying a dead man's reputation, even for cash. One wonders whether Goldman himself, or anyone else, could have withstood the merciless scrutiny he devoted to his subjects. Goldman's first biography, "Ladies and Gentlemen, Lenny Bruce!!" helped him get an advance for the Elvis Presley book. Its success earned him a seven-figure advance for the Lennon rip-job. At the time of his death, Goldman was picking over Jim Morrison's bones for yet another book. Fortunately for the rock music fans, he died in a flight crash in March 28, 1994. Source: consequenceofsound.net

It’s impossible to tell how many books have been written about The Beatles, but definitely in the thousands. Mark Lewisohn alone has written 15 detailed books. Instead, about their main influence Buddy Holly, there are only about ten books published. Despite Paul McCartney admitting there would have not been The Beatles without Holly: “John and I started to write because of Buddy Holly.” In an interview with Skip Brooks and Bill Malcolm, Holly's former manager Norman Petty still found it difficult to address why he hadn’t been more supportive of Buddy Holly’s need to experiment as an artist; Petty admitted he had lacked vision. As John Beecher (author of Remembering Buddy: The Definitive Biography Of Buddy Holly) recalls: "Norman and Vi Petty sent us information, but mostly they obstructed us in our efforts to gain access to photographs, recordings, and footage of Buddy and The Crickets - something I found really hard to understand until later, when I worked out that Norman Petty was just waiting for an opportunity to make some money." 

"I suspect that by the time Buddy discovered what had been going on with their income that had been directed to Clovis, it was too late for Norman to regain trust and he knew this. Thus, he burned all his boats with Buddy and cold-shouldered his attempts to get his royalties. Soon, lawyers were involved in getting Buddy his money and the process would have taken years to resolve. When I visited Clovis, I saw the problem at first hand; it was not until MPL took over Nor Va Jak that writers received regular statements and payments." About Ellis Amburn's mean-spirited biography, of which Bill Griggs said "that book belongs to the trash can," John Beecher agrees: "I don't much dig what Albert Goldman had to say on Elvis. I knew that a lot of what he attributed to John Lennon wasn't true; he tried to destroy Lennon's soul for commercial gain and I think that's unforgivable. A bit like the tales Ellis Amburn told on Buddy Holly - so many of his facts that were able to be checked were so out of line that it made one doubt his assertions on anything he wrote. It looked like Goldman again." —"Rave On: The Biography of Buddy Holly" (2014) by Philip Norman