Victor Fleming: An American Movie Master (Screen Classics) (99 page)

346
“quit behaving like a temperamental actor”: Canutt,
Stunt Man.

347
superbly caring in his direction of children: Patrick Curtis, who played the newborn Beau, was the baby of Daniel Curtis, the comptroller of Republic Pictures. His mother, Helen, was a friend of Cukor’s—that’s how she knew about the role. His father was a motorcyclist like Fleming—and that may be why he got the part and kept it, he says, jokingly. He’s on-screen “for about as little time as anyone can be in the movies. I’m on there for those few seconds in which Olivia de Havilland is holding me, and she’s saying, ‘Ashley is coming home!’ ” But Sam Wood was the one who directed
his
scene.

348
memos flew: Selznick Archive.

348
“You do whatever these Jews want”: Haver,
David O. Selznick’s Hollywood.

348
anti-Semitic:
An Oral History with Sam Jaffe.
Interviewed by Barbara Hall. Beverly Hills, Calif: Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences 1992. Margaret Herrick Library.

349
his “damn”: Coghlan,
They Still Call Me Junior.

349
“essential and required”:
Gone With the Wind
file, Production Code Administration Collection, Margaret Herrick Library.

350
“selfish egotism”:
Motion Picture,
Feb. 1940, quoted in Walker,
Vivien.

350
“I never liked Scarlett”:
Los Angeles Times,
March 31, 1968.

350
“At least there is some doubt”: Macdonald,
Dwight Macdonald on Movies.

350
“to detract from the brilliant job”: Behlmer,
Memo from David O. Selznick.

351
“Doug has taken his last leap”:
Los Angeles Times,
Dec. 13, 1939.

351
“Fairbanks was outstandingly”:
Los Angeles Times,
Dec. 14, 1939.

352
“The stars of today are lazy”: Ed Sullivan column, Dec. 14, 1939.

352
“Can you smell the wisteria?”: Herb Bridges,
Gone With the Wind: The Three-Day Premiere in Atlanta,
Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1999.

352
“C’mon chillun—let’s dance,” “as a Southerner”: From the recording of the NBC broadcast, Recorded Sound Division, Library of Congress.

352
“The
Gone With the Wind
festivities”: Adair also recorded that his daughter Roline attended the costume ball with one Jimmie Newton, who “had on an old Confederate uniform he bought at a rummage sale on Decatur Street.”

354
“pandemonium broke loose”:
Los Angeles Evening Herald
(and other papers), Dec. 29, 1939.

354
the industry’s night of nights: It also was the first time Bob Hope played master of ceremonies on Oscar night. “I think it’s a fine thing, this benefit for David Selznick,” he cracked as
Gone With the Wind
neared the end of its awards sweep. It also was the night Hope first trotted out a joke he would recycle in years ahead: “But I like it here in Hollywood. In fact, Hollywood is the only place you can let your hair down—and then put it back in the box.”

354
“I wish you’d call Victor”: Selznick Archive.

23
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

356
yet he proposed: Simmonds,
John Steinbeck.

357
spoke of taking court action: Benson,
Short Novels of John Steinbeck.

357
first long-term contract: MGM’s legal files demonstrate the studio’s determination to sign him to an exclusive deal. Mannix proposed one for three years in October 1935 and another for seven years in October 1938 and got nowhere. The contracts department made roughly a dozen
requests
for Fleming to sign an agreement. Fleming finally agreed to a five-year contract drafted November 13, 1939, to start Jan. 1, 1940, with an expiration date of December 31, 1944. The Nov. 13 contract dropped the morality and insurance clauses and enabled him to direct radio or theater not connected to MGM.

357
“putting up in tourist camps”: Hedda Hopper column, July 11, 1940.

357
“We should prepare immediately”: Mannix to Fleming, Aug. 8, 1940, MGM legal files.

358
“I like directing women, too”: Sheilah Graham column, Jan. 18, 1940.

358
His meticulously publicized romances: Bowman was a busy man-about-town in the 1930s. In print, he also was linked to Joy Hodges (in 1938, she announced she was going to marry him), the Broadway actress Virginia Peine (
Lady in the Dark
), the ballerina Irina Baronova, the ice-skater Sonja Henie (who reportedly advised him to get fitted for a toupee), and Wendy Barrie, with whom Bowman had a lengthy affair.

359
“looked as if”: Garnett,
Light Your Torches and Pull Up Your Tights.

359
hex on Bessie’s private life: The story of her grandmother’s death was in the
Charleston Post and Courier,
Nov. 10, 1912. The fireplace accident is a family story. Her first husband, Dr. Thomas T. Fauntleroy of Staunton, Virginia, was a young dentist from one of the area’s most prominent families. Her second husband, Luther Lee Bowman, also was from a Staunton family who owned a department store and hotel. Luther Bowman, who was active in harness racing, started a local department store himself in 1912 before moving Bessie and his sons to Cincinnati in 1914 to start the brewery. He died in the mid-1920s. Bessie Clyde died in 1967, age eighty-four.

359
when it failed:
Cincinnati Enquirer,
May 10, 1916.

359
the Bowman hex: It would continue with Lee. He died on Christmas Day 1979, just before his sixty-fifth birthday. While cleaning up his kitchen at his home in Brentwood, California, late on Christmas Eve, he fell backward into a glass door. A shard pierced an artery in his back, and he bled to death. His family, however, announced that he had died of a heart attack.

360
“Don’t do that”: King Vidor recorded interview, June 17, 1971, Department of Special Collections, UCLA Library.

360
“fly a first-line American director”:
The New York Times,
March 11, 1940.

360
planned a London production:
The New York Times,
May 13, 1940.

362
“loved this girl”: Bergman and Burgess,
My Story.

363
“Although I’d known”: Ibid.

363
“that role is so deep”: Turner,
Lana.

364
“Toland did such wonderful things”: Selznick to Fleming and Ruttenberg, Jan. 22, 1941, Selznick Archive.

364
“He got things out of me”:
Times
(London), Jan. 13, 1971.

364
In Mamoulian’s version: Mamoulian’s script has his penciled-in striptease for Miriam Hopkins. Rouben Mamoulian Collection, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.

365
“most mornings to perfect her accent”: Saville,
Evergreen.

366
“You know, I’m scared of my part, too”: Ingrid Bergman, “My Favorite Film,”
National Enquirer,
Feb. 17, 1974.

367
“Mr. Mayer thought”: Davidson,
Spencer Tracy.

367
“I even suggested”:
Chicago Tribune,
Feb. 22, 1941.

367
“hydizations”: Vladimir Nabokov,
Lectures on Literature,
ed. Fredson Bowers (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980). Nabokov told his students to “ignore the fact that ham actors under the direction of pork packers have acted in a parody of the book, which parody was then photographed on a film and showed in places called theatres; it seems to me that to call a moviehouse a theatre is the same as to call an undertaker a mortician.” But even Nabokov recognized the weakness of the author’s portrayal of Jekyll’s whispered-about pleasures and Hyde’s “monstrous exaggerations” of them—and that weakness is one reason all the major movie versions, heretical though it may sound, are dramatically far sturdier than the more poetic story.

368
“I’ve got an idea”: Kress told this story a number of times. This version is in Lobrutto,
Selected Takes.

369
“Victor was not only well informed”: Saville,
Evergreen.

370
“Robert Louis Stevenson”: Ibid.

370
“these two base passions”: Falzon,
Philosophy Goes to the Movies.

370 “delete all scenes,” “unduly exposed breasts”: Breen to Mayer, June 3, 1941, Production Code Administration Files, Margaret Herrick Library.

370
“If you could see me now”: Mamoulian added the first “Free” in this: “Free, free at last! Free to dare and to do! (Then, with a sudden change of mood) Mad, Twaddle, eh, Lanyon? Eh, Carew? Hypocrites! Deniers of life! (He mimics Carew) You must wait, my dear fellow. Wait! Slaves! Slaves! If you could see me now, what would you think, eh?” Mamoulian’s note to himself for March’s appearance after his transformation is written in Russian: “Shy and frightened on the floor,” then Hyde “glancing back” at the “change of room.” (Translation by Olga Golosinskaya, Library of Congress.)

371
“Wh-which one”: Kanin,
Remembering Mr. Maugham.

372
“to race up the stairs,” “Big and strong”: Bergman and Burgess,
My Story.

372
“To double Tracy”: Mank,
Hollywood Cauldron.

372
“differences of opinion”:
Lion’s Roar,
Jan. 1944.

372
“I was in a happy mood”: Turner,
Lana.

373
“I just couldn’t do it”: Bergman and Burgess,
My Story.

373
“Fleming was very mean to me”: Bergman, “My Favorite Film.”

373
“Shall I ever be happier”: Bergman and Burgess,
My Story.

374
“enormously exciting”: Selznick to Fleming, March 6, 1941, Selznick Archive.

374
“By the time the film was over”: Bergman and Burgess,
My Story.

374
“I am certainly only human enough”: Night letter, Saville to Fleming, sent to Meadowlark Ranch, also retyped and sent by messenger to 1050 Moraga Drive, June 26, 1941. MGM Collection, USC Cinema and Television Library.

374
“To tell the truth”: Saville,
Evergreen.

24
The Yearling
That Wasn’t

375
“I got them to buy it”: McGilligan,
Backstory.
Mahin’s story of locking horns with Sidney Franklin is one of the highlights of this interview, and, indeed, the whole anthology.

376
“By the time
The Yearling
”: Fleming to Rawlings, Feb. 9, 1940, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Papers, University of Florida, Gainesville.

377
“It seems every other kid”: Grady,
Irish Peacock.

377
“skinny and weak-looking”: Eckman eventually grew to a height of six feet and enjoys perfect health.

378
“2 sick fawns in crate”: Marchant to Charles J. Chic, June 16, 1940. MGM legal files.

378
“All fawn arrived”: Marchant to Richard Gerstell, June 19, 1940. MGM legal files.

378
“Central Florida had become”: Worsley,
From Oz to E.T.

379
Sidney Franklin sent his brother: Franklin’s account of the filming is in his unpublished memoir, “We Laughed and We Cried.”

379
“He wanted more finesse”: Clark to George Lofgren, May 13, 1941. MGM legal files.

380
“many a smart Hollywood station wagon”:
The New York Times,
May 25, 1941. MGM legal files.

381
“he was goddamned”: Marquand’s biographer Millicent Bell (
Marquand: An American Life
) wrote that he told a colorful version of
The Yearling
debacle
in a speech he gave that December, quoting Tracy excoriating Eckman, the heat and the corniness of it all. Anne Revere later told Selden West, “I would be the first to say I was not ready [to play Ma Baxter in the movie], but I was not the cause of this debacle.”

381
“JUST SAT DOWN”: Hay,
MGM.

381
“nervous, hen-pecking manner”: Weddle, “
If They Move . . . Kill ’Em!
”