Possessed (31 page)

Helen Wright was not a character role, but she was certainly an unforgettable woman, and Joan may have foreseen that henceforth she could corner the market on women whose beauty and drive masks dangerous psychoneurotic impulses. Her audience, after all, was still mostly female, and Helen could touch the feelings of women who had married the wrong man and then fallen into a pattern of unrequited love. Sophisticated, rich and important to a young violinist called Paul Boray (John Garfield), this Helen was certainly a soap-opera figure—but a terrifying one, doomed by her possessiveness to lose her life because of her own obsessions. She was irresistible to an actress who wanted a substantial, unforgettable role—not merely one that would win the love of fans and critics.

Humoresque
began filming in late December 1945, and with her weekly salary still in place, Joan was able (after taxes and salaries to agents, managers, publicists and a new team of household employees) to bank about $40,000 that year. This was a princely income at a time when the average American salary was $3,150 annually, and when a substantial home could be purchased for $12,500.

The production was interrupted for one day—Thursday, March 7, 1946. At Grauman’s Chinese Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard, searchlights were mounted on trucks and beamed into the night sky. For the first time in five years, now that the war was over, celebrities again wore sparkling formal dress to the Academy Awards.

The events of 1945 had been literally cataclysmic. President Franklin D. Roosevelt died in April. The following month, Nazi Germany surrendered to the Allies, and so began the long, slow process of rebuilding Europe. That summer, two atom bombs were dropped on the civilian population of Japan. In San Francisco, the United Nations was founded. But Oscar night 1946 seemed to inaugurate a new period of industry optimism, or at least of adjustment to peacetime.

Decades later, it seemed that the most popular movies of 1945 had indeed withstood the test of time—among them, Alfred Hitchcock’s
Spellbound,
Leo McCarey’s
The Bells of St. Mary’s,
Billy Wilder’s
The Lost Weekend
and Michael Curtiz’s
Mildred Pierce.
Together, this quartet of films received twenty-two nominations, six of which related to
Mildred Pierce,
in five categories—for best black-and-white cinematography (Ernest Haller), for best screenplay(Ranald MacDougall), for two candidates as best supporting actress (Ann Blyth and Eve Arden), for best picture and for Joan Crawford as best actress of the year 1945.

Also nominated in Joan’s category were actresses with formidable talents: Ingrid Bergman, in
The Bells of St. Mary’s;
Greer Garson, in
The Valley of Decision;
Jennifer Jones in
Love Letters;
and Gene Tierney, in
Leave Her to Heaven.
Garson, Bergman and Jones had each taken home an Oscar over the previous three years, but nothing in the rules said they could not step up to the stage again.

As the crowd settled into their seats at Grauman’s, it quickly became clear to the audience that Joan Crawford was not present. Word then went around that she was ill at home with influenza.

Over the years, many people asserted that she feigned illness for dramatic effect: if she won (so the argument went), the press would be forced to hurry to her home, where she would hold court in regal, private splendor, sharing the spotlight with no one. And if she did not win, she would not have to affect a gracious smile.

Forever after, Joan insisted that she had indeed been confined to bed with a high fever, and that her physician would not permit her to leave the house. “I was running a temperature of a hundred and four,” she said, “and had been suffering with flu for the past week, while filming
Humoresque.
The picture could not be delayed, and flu, coupled with the nervous tension of being eligible for an Oscar, had me shaking with chills and fever.”

When it was announced that she had won the best actress Oscar that night, there was a virtual stampede up the aisles of Grauman’s. Friends, colleagues, reporters and photographers jumped into their cars and raced west to Brentwood. Photographs taken that evening show Michael Curtiz handing the statuette to Joan in her bed; by this time, she had applied her makeup and brushed her hair, and she seemed well on the way to recovery.

Not long before she died, Joan spoke frankly. “I remember how I felt the night the Awards were presented—hopeful, scared, apprehensive, so afraid I wouldn’t remember what I wanted to say, terrified at the thought of lookingat those people, almost hoping I wouldn’t get it, but wanting it so badly. No wonder I didn’t go. I stayed home and fortified myself [with alcohol], probably a little too much, because when the announcement came, and then the press, and sort of a party, I didn’t make much sense at all.”

“IT WAS A GOOD film and I did a good job,” she said years later of
Mildred Pierce,
“but I think the Academy voters honored me as much that night for
A Woman’s Face
and
Strange Cargo
and maybe
Grand Hotel
as they did for
Mildred Pierce.
Or maybe it was just for staying around so long!”

Joan returned to work two days later with new confidence. She had been in Hollywood for over twenty years but had never been proposed for any accolade. With
Mildred Pierce,
she was raised to the professional pantheon, and she took the award very seriously. Her most important scenes in
Humoresque
were still to be filmed, and she worked with more intensity than ever.

Released in December 1946, the picture remains something of a curiosity. On the one hand, it represents Warner’s new approach to prestige postwar moviemaking: it is a serious story of obsession and selfishness that capitalized on the new interest in abnormal psychology that became so popular in Hollywood after the death of Freud in 1939 and in light of the horrors of World War II.
(Spellbound
and
The Snake Pit,
to name just two other movies, also concerned mental illness.)

On the other hand,
Humoresque
is self-consciously artistic with its protracted classical music for violin, orchestra and piano. Thus attempting to be both psychologically provocative and culturally high-toned, the movie seems to collapse under the weight of its own mixed methods. That Joan’s performance was not undone by such structural finagling was a testimony to her strength and skills as a maturing actress.

She first appears thirty-three minutes into the picture, drinking excessively, flirting with young men, spotting a fresh victim—the struggling young violinist—and then moving in for the kill. Some viewers have described
Humoresque
simply as the love story of two mismatched souls. But Helen and

Paul feed off their respective selfishness: if she gives in order to own, he takes in order to have. Nor is his mother (acted with proper cunning by Ruth Nelson) the loving, protective person she seems at first blush: she, too, is frighteningly possessive, manipulating her son and his wacky benefactor behind a mask of altruistic devotion. In
Humoresque,
love does not conquer all—or even help anything; facsimiles of love destroy.

Joan was enormously inventive in bringing Helen Wright to life, and she was canny in undertaking so unsympathetic a role. In this regard, it is fascinating to see how she managed her career in the postwar period, finding new roles and fresh depths in herself. Unconcerned about the amiability of the characters, Joan pitched herself into the challenge of turning negative stereotypes into recognizably human (if sometimes grotesque) specimens of humanity.

Mildred Pierce is a highly neurotic masochist with consciously good intentions, but her motives paved a hellish road. She works her way up to financial success, which was just what American women wanted to see after the war, when many of them had worked hard at all kinds of jobs on the home front. But then her ambitions for her daughter lead to the loss of everything. Helen Wright is even more possessive and manipulative than Mildred, and to the point of manic self-destruction. Mildred learns to gulp down a shot of bourbon at noon, but Helen reaches for a decanter of Scotch at breakfast.

About
Humoresque,
Joan was typically forthright: “I have mixed feelings about that one. John Garfield, who really was a brilliant young actor, did a fine job. [Jean] Negulesco directed it with feeling, the right sort of feeling. And most of the time, I thought I was doing well. But when I saw the final print, I cringed. I overacted and overreacted in so many scenes. I don’t know. I should have done better.” But late in life, she stressed, in letters to friends, how much she “adored making that film with John [Garfield].”

The critics were impressed. “Moviegoers will note that Joan Crawford, once a mere MGM clotheshorse, has made great progress as an actress since her Charleston-dancing-daughter days,” ran a typical notice. “She remains a bithandsome and unmussed to be a convincing drunk, but her jittery, unhappy egocentric is just what the script calls for.”

THE FILM WAS COMPLETED by the end of April, just when Joan was briefly involved with a short, stocky cowboy star named Don Barry, best known as “The Red Ryder” in a series of forgettable Westerns. The affair ended abruptly when Barry presumptuously told a Hollywood theatrical producer that he could deliver Joan Crawford to star in a play. With that, the cowboy was booted out—and Greg Bautzer returned.

The Crawford-Bautzer liaison, which blazed, cooled and then flashed again in a constant, dizzying cycle, lasted from late 1945 until early 1949, while they both pursued numerous other affairs—he with (among others) Ginger Rogers and she with (among others) the fledgling producer Peter Shaw. “Joan Crawford was slightly confused,” according to a newspaper column, “when hearing over the air that she was to marry both Greg Bautzer and Peter Shaw. Said Joan, ‘Is it a sin for a girl to have fun in this town? I’m not thinking of marrying anybody, and if I do, it’ll probably be an unknown.’ “ (Not long after, Peter Shaw was sprung free of this
ronde,
and from 1949 to his death in 2003, he was very happily married to Angela Lansbury.)

The relationship with Bautzer cannot accurately be called a romance, for it was marked by constant quarrels, “sharp words and nagging” (as she admitted), scenes of jealous recrimination and tempestuous physical attacks—it was, in other words, a foolish liaison between two people who should have known better. During this period, they were, as one reporter noted, “the most photographed film-town couple.”

“It disturbed my sense of balance,” Joan said later with hilarious understatement. “We didn’t have an exclusive arrangement, so I couldn’t say to him, ‘I’m jealous and I don’t want you seeing other women.’ “ Soon, others witnessed their outbursts, at public receptions, private dinner parties and movie premieres. They were, in other words, quite impossible.

At times, she became his slave. On February 5, 1948, a columnist reported,"Joan Crawford turned in her old Cadillac and got two new ones—one for herself, another for Greg Bautzer.” On July 14, it was reported from coast to coast that “Joan Crawford’s flare-up at Greg Bautzer the night of [a party] is the talk of Hollywood. She called him later to stage a reconciliation, but he was in a mood to stick with a tall glass [of whiskey].”

Christina recalled incidents “that scared the daylights out of me. They used to have terrible fights late at night. I was frightened because I hated the screaming and yelling and kicking and pounding.” According to Bautzer, things occasionally became dangerous. “I had been in several fights with men,” he told an interviewer, “but no man ever put a scar on my face. I’ve got about four scars on my face that she put there. She should have been a New York Yankees pitcher—she could throw a cocktail glass across a room and hit you right in the face two out of three times.” On his side, he landed a few punches that left Joan with blackened eyes and a swollen jaw more than once.

Hollywood gossips knew about the affair and, according to the custom of the time, described it as a “romantic friendship” in which the couple was “dating.” When things went along too smoothly and Joan was either too arrogant or too possessive, Greg simply went out on the town with other actresses. If he had his way too often, Joan made certain she was photographed at a restaurant with her old friend Clark Gable; in short order, the faint toll of their imminent wedding bells was heard in the public’s fantasies—and Bautzer was again brought to heel. And so it went, repetitious and tedious, until even the principals grew weary. “We always got together again,” Joan said, “until we didn’t.” When
Sturm
finally separated from
Drang,
many in Hollywood breathed more easily.

THE TENSION AND VIOLENCE of the Crawford-Bautzer affair was matched decibel for decibel by her next picture. Based on a story by Rita Weiman,
Possessed
(which had no connection to her 1931 movie with the same title) required one of Joan’s most intensive efforts. “I worked harder on it than on any otherpicture,” she recalled. “Don’t let anyone tell you it’s easy to play a madwoman, particularly a psychotic. It was a heavy, heavy picture, not very pleasant, and I was emotionally and physically exhausted when we finished shooting.”
⁴

Silvia Richards wrote the first draft of the movie—but in an effort to duplicate the success of
Mildred Pierce,
Jerry Wald engaged Ranald MacDougall to do a total rewrite. Filming began in June but was interrupted for six weeks that summer while Joan visited psychiatric wards in Santa Barbara, Santa Monica and Pasadena. Imprudently, she and director Curtis Bernhardt did not ask permission to witness a patient at one clinic undergoing a session of electroconvulsive shock therapy. Warner Bros. later had to pay a substantial sum to the woman, who claimed invasion of privacy.

Considered retrospectively,
Possessed
was like the final installment of a Joan Crawford trilogy that had begun with her portrayals of neurotic Mildred and continued with destructive Helen. In this “heavy picture” (as she called it), Joan was the extreme character of the previous two: lovesick, psychotic Louise Howell, consumed by a lunatic obsession for a man who does not return her brand of possessive love. Here, characters formerly rendered by Ann Blyth and John Garfield were subsumed into one played by Van Heflin.