Tales of Hollywood: The Wild Ride of Preston Sturges

<div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYchoHo42rMPSkQTvjQKu_O4ry017QPfLgRavxZmfG_JOTb6JBh92sAL0gm32cDvr6F-KEdv3xyCmyzzdo0_0z-FoaM3c3VpzwfOu_Oi3_ysApLZtcOZAZofHhMFtlvfwJD5JIywreYcn4/s1600/sturges.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="270" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYchoHo42rMPSkQTvjQKu_O4ry017QPfLgRavxZmfG_JOTb6JBh92sAL0gm32cDvr6F-KEdv3xyCmyzzdo0_0z-FoaM3c3VpzwfOu_Oi3_ysApLZtcOZAZofHhMFtlvfwJD5JIywreYcn4/s400/sturges.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="color: #990000;"><span style="font-size: small;">Turner Classic Movies began its salute to Star of the Month <a href="http://www.tcm.com/this-month/article/480406%7C0/Joel-McCrea-Wednesdays-in-May.html" style="color: blue;">Joel McCrea</a> on Wednesday, May 2, with two of his most enjoyable films - and two of the best films from writer/director Preston Sturges: <i>Sullivan's Travels </i>and <i>The Palm Beach Story</i>. Sturges was one of Hollywood's brightest lights during the early '40s, writing and directing in quick succession a unique and inspired string of spirited satires: <i>The Great McGinty </i>(1940) for which he won the first Oscar awarded for Best Original Screenplay, <i>Christmas in July </i>(1940), <i>The Lady Eve </i>(1941), <i>Sullivan's Travels </i>(1941), <i>The Palm Beach Story</i> (1942), <i>The Miracle of Morgan's Creek</i> (1944) and <i>Hail the Conquering Hero </i>(1944). His last great gem, the dark, deft <i>Unfaithfully Yours </i>(1948), was made during his fall from grace and was for years overlooked. The world of Preston Sturges was the definition of a "cockeyed caravan"* - onscreen and off<i>...</i></span><br /><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><div style="color: black; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>~ </i></span></div><div style="color: black; text-align: left;"><br /><span style="font-size: small;">Born in Chicago in 1898 and shuttled back and forth between the U.S. and Europe as a child by his capricious mother, Sturges served in the Army Air Service toward the end of World War I before making his way to New York in the 1920s. He eventually penned one of Broadway's biggest hits, <i>Strictly Dishonorable</i>, in 1929. The film version, adapted by <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0499628/" style="color: blue;">Gladys Lehman</a>, was released by Universal in 1931. In his memoirs, Sturges recalled his arrival in the dream capital the following year:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><i>In Hollywood I started at the bottom: a bum by the name of Sturgeon who had once written a hit called </i>Strictly Something-or-Other<i>. Carl Laemmle of Universal offered me a contract, with unilateral options exercisable by the studio, to join his team as a writer. My wife had decamped, my fortune was depleted, and even though I was living on coffee and moonlight, my costs of living continued to cost...</i></span><br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxl4IWlGU2THSwOKaT2rdp3hHGjQktOV3kOnv3u8FsCUjoyLCZlWHEI5z9TWP3Wj6yptt3zexzq3O1opLEiL-7GsrE534RUplCKCueaMWpd7F0vLz4uGe7LajHFFLbKoFsrfiQ5ZhgpJPx/s1600/easy+living.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxl4IWlGU2THSwOKaT2rdp3hHGjQktOV3kOnv3u8FsCUjoyLCZlWHEI5z9TWP3Wj6yptt3zexzq3O1opLEiL-7GsrE534RUplCKCueaMWpd7F0vLz4uGe7LajHFFLbKoFsrfiQ5ZhgpJPx/s320/easy+living.jpg" width="211" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Easy Living </i>1937</td></tr></tbody></table>Sturges spent his early screenwriting years working in a variety of genres on many films, including <i>The Power and the Glory </i>(1933), <i>The Invisible Man </i>(1933), <i>Twentieth Century </i>(1934), <i>Imitation of Life </i>(1934) and <i>Diamond Jim</i> (1935). He made his name with an adapted screenplay for <i>Easy Living </i>(1937) and an original screenplay for <i>Remember the Night</i> (1940). But he always had multiple irons in the fire and while he grew and prospered as a Hollywood screenwriter, he also invested his time and money in other interests. An inveterate inventor, he launched the Sturges Engineering Company in Los Angeles in 1935, initially building and selling internal combustion machines. In 1936 he helped finance and became a partner in Snyder's Caf<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">é, a trendy nightspot on Sunset Blvd. (later a location for Wolfgang Puck's Spago). Sturges took great pleasure in playing host at Snyder's and spent most evenings there welcoming guests, buying drinks and singing with cronies around the piano. Neither Sturges nor his partner, Ted Snyder, had a head for business and by the time it closed two years later, the </span></span>Caf<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">é was deeply in debt. But Sturges enjoyed the role of restaurateur and had already hatched a plan to open a place of his own.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">By the late '30s he was working for Paramount Pictures, where his reputation would soon be made. After the studio renewed his contract at the end of 1937, Sturges spent 1938 toiling over scripts, meeting and marrying his third wife, Louise, and negotiating the purchase of a restaurant site. The coming years would be the most productive of his frenetic life...</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">One night in 1939 Sturges invited Paramount production chief <a href="http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=11705188" style="color: blue;">Bill LeBaron</a> over for dinner and showed him a script he'd been working on for six years. He offered LeBaron a deal. If Paramount would allow Sturges to direct the picture, he would sell the script to the studio for $1. A check in the more generous amount of $10 was cut in August and the picture to be known as <i>The Great McGinty</i> went into production in December. It opened to sensational business the following summer. This advancement from writer to writer/director was precedent-setting and paved the way for every future writer/director from Billy Wilder to Francis Coppola and Woody Allen to the Coen Brothers (the title of their <i>O Brother, Where Art Thou?</i> was appropriated from <i>Sullivan's Travels</i>) and beyond.</span></span><br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisJUa9e_x7eteVzTksOSmbwUo_A6Cluz-JmkQrq2ttyPSQdviKl9xc-MtgZh3T7C7pESOpxhQK1bYajyg67-m-t_lOwrLQc3xxl2ef9YbiUkjS2_IHWD4W5Q7HS8rutP5K2gZgZJ-cURL0/s1600/lady+eve+set.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisJUa9e_x7eteVzTksOSmbwUo_A6Cluz-JmkQrq2ttyPSQdviKl9xc-MtgZh3T7C7pESOpxhQK1bYajyg67-m-t_lOwrLQc3xxl2ef9YbiUkjS2_IHWD4W5Q7HS8rutP5K2gZgZJ-cURL0/s320/lady+eve+set.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fonda, Sturges, Stanwyck on the set, <i>The Lady Eve</i></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: right;"></div><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The Mitchell Leisen-directed film of Sturges' screenplay for <i>Remember the Night</i> opened in January 1940 breaking significant box office records, but Sturges was now committed to writing <i>and </i>directing movies. That year he went to work on his next two films, <i>Christmas in July </i>(1940) and <i>The Lady Eve</i> (1941). At the end of the year he signed another contract with Paramount and got the good news that his wife was expecting their first (and his first) child.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Sturges was also deeply engrossed in his new restaurant. When the lease on Snyder's expired in December 1938, he moved furniture, </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">fixtures and equipment to the three-level building he'd purchased at 8225 Sunset Blvd. and began construction on the restaurant/nightclub he would christen The Players. Sturges supervised every facet of the project, from menu planning to designing uniforms, selecting paint and overseeing carpentry. The Players opened quietly in the summer of 1940. It was much larger and, with music and dancing, far more expensive to operate than Snyder's, but Sturges had high hopes.</span></span><br /><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">By the time his son was born in 1941, <i>The Lady Eve</i> was on its way to becoming one of the biggest hits in the history of Paramount, Sturges had two more films in the works and The Players had gained popularity as one of the "smartest places" in Hollywood. According to his wife, Louise, the lure of The Players for Sturges was that it allowed him to "be Grand Pasha after hours - that was the main attraction..." He relished the role of genial supper club proprietor and being at the center of a convivial crowd, dining, drinking and carrying on into the wee hours.</span></span><br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhibGHY_xrg2GxH6FXcXTkw5mfE2s0wMfA-cfy-6_3RGh0jBubebj7xBjYc2sWW_-5IMKizo6ArzOn5rEx4HYiipBA1zmXV5BEYfMCeQdGKdVZQ2pX45tVtIchO0cKSaGPdqUdOSMiTDhR5/s1600/Players+and+Chateau.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="246" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhibGHY_xrg2GxH6FXcXTkw5mfE2s0wMfA-cfy-6_3RGh0jBubebj7xBjYc2sWW_-5IMKizo6ArzOn5rEx4HYiipBA1zmXV5BEYfMCeQdGKdVZQ2pX45tVtIchO0cKSaGPdqUdOSMiTDhR5/s400/Players+and+Chateau.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Players (foreground), Chateau Marmont (right)</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: left;"></div><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The location of The Players, at the top of the Sunset Strip, was ideal for Sturges's purpose, providing a place for movie industry pals to unwind - with him. The fabled <a href="http://www.chateaumarmont.com/insidechateau.php" style="color: blue;">Chateau Marmont</a> was perched on the side of the hill directly behind The Players, with only a small lane separating the two. Across Sunset Blvd. was the famed <a href="http://www.martinturnbull.com/?page%20id=125" style="color: blue;">Garden of Allah</a>, the former mansion of silent screen star Alla Nazimova that had been converted into an exotic hotel/apartment complex. Together, the three formed a kind of "Golden Age of Hollywood Triangle" into which many film colony luminaries disappeared.</span></span><br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqeMfPnoOza4IwuBmhHyE_Gp-Kbkv-Az_RlOvXx9J9Z-JWMGiMYK_j4Ak6Gq36mrzou9ulMxqSbDczU8fxIM9MPgDwnBiAFsQrY1Yv7ohK5TT79ysJL__O1rKpbPFuSJ-fiPxcMLCzmI0n/s1600/Marmont+from+the+hills.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqeMfPnoOza4IwuBmhHyE_Gp-Kbkv-Az_RlOvXx9J9Z-JWMGiMYK_j4Ak6Gq36mrzou9ulMxqSbDczU8fxIM9MPgDwnBiAFsQrY1Yv7ohK5TT79ysJL__O1rKpbPFuSJ-fiPxcMLCzmI0n/s320/Marmont+from+the+hills.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chateau Marmont</td></tr></tbody></table>Chateau Marmont, today a Los Angeles historical/cultural landmark, began life in 1929 as an upscale apartment building. It's fortunes fell with the stock market a few months later and in 1931 the building was sold and turned into a suites hotel. The new owner was Albert E. Smith, co-founder of American Vitagraph (purchased by Warner Bros. in 1925). Smith and his wife furnished the Chateau with pieces found at local estate sales and auctions, giving the hotel what is known as "the Marmont look." Over the years, the Chateau developed a reputation for its discretion in providing guests with maximum privacy. In 1939, Columbia Pictures president Harry Cohn famously advised rising stars William Holden and Glenn Ford, "If you must get in trouble, do it at Chateau Marmont." The Chateau's long history is filled with rumors and legends, among them: Clark Gable and Jean Harlow rendezvoused there, F. Scott Fitzgerald lived and wrote there, Vivien Leigh was a guest following her split with Laurence Olivier and covered the walls of her suite with pictures of him, script readings for <i>Rebel Without a Cause</i> were held in one of the hotel bungalows, Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward met there...and on and on.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnT-nd8Qm-noVxykCwft3BBLWTqBe-SBC1g3PK-VXYze2v7AdMI1avNwqGtq84jK5z_tWIOLiEEJt3gikN-KDsiBe4k60pCVlO8MUN7-u2zmU2NP7J1ADe3JELbbxKbLoWZIGmSmqFKmtY/s1600/garden+of+allah.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnT-nd8Qm-noVxykCwft3BBLWTqBe-SBC1g3PK-VXYze2v7AdMI1avNwqGtq84jK5z_tWIOLiEEJt3gikN-KDsiBe4k60pCVlO8MUN7-u2zmU2NP7J1ADe3JELbbxKbLoWZIGmSmqFKmtY/s320/garden+of+allah.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Garden of Allah, Sunset Blvd., Hollywood</td></tr></tbody></table><a href="http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/139371%7C11173/Nazimova/" style="color: blue;">Alla Nazimova</a> built a grand manor (dubbed The Garden of Alla) at 8152 Sunset Blvd. in 1919 when she was an extravagantly well-paid star of the silent screen. In the mid-'20s, as her career faded, she decided to develop the property into a hotel. 25 two-story villas were constructed on the grounds of the 3 1/2 acres surrounding her mansion and in January 1927 The Garden of Allah opened for business. It was an immediate success and was often, like Chateau Marmont, the first place Hollywood's new arrivals called home. The Garden of Allah also boasted a colorful history: Humphrey Bogart lived there first with his third wife Mayo Methot and later with fourth wife Lauren Bacall, Marlene Dietrich had a habit of swimming naked in the pool, Charles Laughton came home for lunch while filming <i>The Hunchback of Notre Dame</i> and stood in the pool careful to keep his face, in full Quasimodo makeup, out of the water. When in Hollywood, Dorothy Parker, Robert Benchley and other members of New York's Algonquin "roundtable" lived and partied hard at The Garden of Allah...<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO9ypVffder4rBbvj0RcAIgkEVRAmnnDVPM0T47gShLO5COaiMPmTzqlWMQGjFzN4EdqYiryjBNH1qT2dXOioMUNRtOqWNqjud8XcdLPncxSgm6hn_Qaj-ijGK7y0-QJTxYzw_sKI7mHeG/s1600/Lubitsch+with+Sturges+at+The+Players.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO9ypVffder4rBbvj0RcAIgkEVRAmnnDVPM0T47gShLO5COaiMPmTzqlWMQGjFzN4EdqYiryjBNH1qT2dXOioMUNRtOqWNqjud8XcdLPncxSgm6hn_Qaj-ijGK7y0-QJTxYzw_sKI7mHeG/s200/Lubitsch+with+Sturges+at+The+Players.JPG" width="165" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sturges and Lubitsch at The Players</td></tr></tbody></table>There was never a shortage of famous names and faces in attendance at The Players. Many, like Orson Welles, Humphrey Bogart, Howard Hughes, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner and the Algonquin set were either staying up the hill at the Chateau or down the street at The Garden of Allah. Good friends of Sturges like William Wyler, Ernst Lubitsch, Barbara Stanwyck and Joel McCrea stopped in - as did friends of friends like Lana Turner (who came to celebrate her birthday as the guest of Howard Hughes). A visiting tourist of the time captured the allure of The Players with a <a href="http://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/preston-sturges-players-restaurant-hollywood-1945" style="color: blue;">postcard</a> she sent home on which she gushed about dining at "the glamour spot of Hollywood" and sighting both Miriam Hopkins and Boris Karloff while eating "the best raspberry shortcake I ever had."<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFMTo-mfdx-hJ2tCRx2ughJZjWcV2JkZxYu72RwI3NacWg5KjO6ZgLVZoHTfnIqm5ksn6_P7C8jNipmb7tW2mUJESO42LvfSAGKqkAPYTliz2X5EaZ3M05kBpkOIbWSQF_eUpDnOllUBKQ/s1600/Bergman+and+Rossellini+at+The+Players+Club+in+the+40s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFMTo-mfdx-hJ2tCRx2ughJZjWcV2JkZxYu72RwI3NacWg5KjO6ZgLVZoHTfnIqm5ksn6_P7C8jNipmb7tW2mUJESO42LvfSAGKqkAPYTliz2X5EaZ3M05kBpkOIbWSQF_eUpDnOllUBKQ/s320/Bergman+and+Rossellini+at+The+Players+Club+in+the+40s.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini (far right) at The Players</td></tr></tbody></table>A good part of the enormous income Sturges earned at Paramount was lavished on The Players. The original redesign and reconstruction of the building had been expensive, but out-of-control operating costs along with constant renovations and additions prevented The Players from ever breaking even. In fact, it was such a drain on his finances that Barbara Stanwyck warned Sturges, "That goddamned greasy spoon is ruining you!"  The Players reached its zenith during the war years, with restaurants operating on all three levels and a barbershop on the mezzanine. A dinner theater/dance floor featuring a hydraulic revolving stage was installed and eventually even a hamburger stand was added. And there was the long-standing rumor that Sturges had gone to the trouble of building a tunnel beneath Marmont Lane connecting The Players to the Chateau so celebrities could  slip away discreetly - for clandestine affairs or simply to avoid the press and/or the police.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6urxE33ixkBkSGYSABzoUV-oJKpcvfSZdwm7q4HCa2JlCXeN9vzDvyYmgwDbqqptyetyGEevM4Uo1FM2NNNzjgzSXgjqOQDvamUwwOqFM7QacmFtSD8PBw3wWUq0ktxUFITIsihp1wL_L/s1600/Hail+the+Conquering+Hero.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6urxE33ixkBkSGYSABzoUV-oJKpcvfSZdwm7q4HCa2JlCXeN9vzDvyYmgwDbqqptyetyGEevM4Uo1FM2NNNzjgzSXgjqOQDvamUwwOqFM7QacmFtSD8PBw3wWUq0ktxUFITIsihp1wL_L/s320/Hail+the+Conquering+Hero.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Filming <i>Hail the Conquering Hero</i>, a smash hit of 1944</td></tr></tbody></table>Paramount Pictures ended its increasingly contentious relationship with Preston Sturges as 1943 came to a close.  Two of his most successful films, <i>The Miracle of Morgan's Creek </i>and <i>Hail the Conquering Hero</i>, were yet to be released but the studio had concluded that its brilliant but headstrong writer/director was more trouble than he was worth. Sturges optimistically and against all advice went on to form California Pictures with Howard Hughes. Following the collapse of that disastrous partnership, Sturges wrote and directed the last of his great films, <i>Unfaithfully Yours</i>, in 1948 for Darryl F. Zanuck at Twentieth Century Fox; it was unsuccessful. Sturges later looked back on his years in the movie business with some irony:<br /><br /><i>The only amazing thing about my career in Hollywood is that I ever had one at all.</i><br /><br />Edwin Gillette, assistant to Sturges from 1937 - 1942, recalled that his boss loved to "play around" and "be the great raconteur, but he had to work to get the money to enjoy himself." With or without the money, Sturges was a profligate spender. His engineering company was sold after the war with proceeds going to the IRS. He was able to hold onto The Players until 1953 when the government put a lien on its income, auctioned off its contents and finally sold it to cover taxes and debts. Sturges lived six more years and died just before his 61st birthday while working on his memoirs at the Algonquin Hotel in New York. Coincidentally, two months earlier The Garden of Allah in Hollywood had been demolished.<br /><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5aX4-K0-CVE73aw8WaNuC3S4oqaXHQnofULawkH5PY2__Ls_9B5A3puq7ZBF_e-iW8oOW9IJxOvw59f2LWrZWGzBEwLx5D_dBYoXsq-Rz_6vWVm7LJsFnvrmjHSxxKj2KXP9KWsLpYCEw/s1600/sullivans-travels1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5aX4-K0-CVE73aw8WaNuC3S4oqaXHQnofULawkH5PY2__Ls_9B5A3puq7ZBF_e-iW8oOW9IJxOvw59f2LWrZWGzBEwLx5D_dBYoXsq-Rz_6vWVm7LJsFnvrmjHSxxKj2KXP9KWsLpYCEw/s320/sullivans-travels1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Joel McCrea and Veronica Lake in <i>Sullivan's Travels</i></td></tr></tbody></table><br />But the site that housed The Players lived on, going through several incarnations in the decades that followed. Beginning in 1953 it was Imperial Gardens, a huge Japanese restaurant with reflecting pools on the upper floors, popular with musicians and actors. Next, in 1989, it re-emerged as The Roxbury, a trendy and notorious nightclub where patrons included Tom Cruise, Prince and Eddie Murphy. In 1997 it changed hands again and became Miyagi, a restaurant/nightclub with 7 sushi bars, 5 regular bars, a Zen garden, a waterfall, a dance floor, pool tables and more. In April 2012, it opened as <a href="http://la.eater.com/archives/2012/05/04/just_in_time_for_cinco_de_mayo_the_first_complete_look_inside_pink_taco_on_sunset.php#4fa41aa785216d4408030be9" style="color: blue;">Pink Taco</a>, part of a Mexican restaurant chain owned by 30-year-old Harry Morton, son of Hard Rock Cafe chain founder Peter Morton and grandson of Arnie Morton, founder of the Morton's restaurant chain.<br /><br /><div style="color: black;">During the renovation of the property, restaurateur Morton managed to dig deep enough to find not only the revolving stage beneath Sturges' dance floor, but also the entrance to The Players' "legendary VIP tryst tunnel" to Chateau Marmont - apparently sealed off by the city long ago. According to Morton, he dug through layer upon layer of debris, "But when I stripped it all down, incredible things came to light."</div><div style="color: black;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC3OJRcp2uIlwsZYSQzwJ1FmG1OWz3-VTs2FFMnPoNxIojDPPg5riZYh1wDCRB9ODKr4yKoBb6cc-_C3VGfRb9rpQfFEFlqUEC6nONPHtZpSiYX777v0GuCVbwqnuc1yRd85X5g5LxOJyn/s1600/Sturges+in+front+of+The+Players.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjC3OJRcp2uIlwsZYSQzwJ1FmG1OWz3-VTs2FFMnPoNxIojDPPg5riZYh1wDCRB9ODKr4yKoBb6cc-_C3VGfRb9rpQfFEFlqUEC6nONPHtZpSiYX777v0GuCVbwqnuc1yRd85X5g5LxOJyn/s320/Sturges+in+front+of+The+Players.JPG" width="224" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Preston Sturges in front of The Players</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="color: #990000;"><br /></div><div style="color: #990000; text-align: center;"><span style="color: black;">~ </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="color: #990000;"><br /></div><div style="color: #990000; text-align: left;">* "There's a lot to be said for making people laugh. Did you know that that's all some people have? It isn't much, but it's better than nothing in this cockeyed caravan." - John L. "Sully" Sullivan (Joel McCrea), <i>Sullivan's Travels</i></div></div><br /><u>Sources</u>: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Preston-Sturges-His-Life-Words/dp/0671747274" style="color: blue;"><i>Preston Sturges on Preston Sturges</i></a>, Simon & Schuster (1990), <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Madcap-The-Life-Preston-Sturges/dp/051707219X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1336890052&sr=1-1" style="color: blue;"><i>Madcap</i></a> by Donald Spoto, Little, Brown & Co. (1990), <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Romantic-Comedy-Hollywood-Lubitsch-Sturges/dp/0306808323/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1336890124&sr=1-1" style="color: blue;"><i>Romantic Comedy in Hollywood from Lubitsch to Sturges</i></a> by James Harvey, Alfred A. Knopf (1987)<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiipcBKfnXbBvR4Vyj-YSmfWfjwMDLOHvCCw8qTXRc8241G2G6N8HSLqn73N_W8ZVlIda7tcCU3Z7KimK9UGZ4qA6MnVdoNRaF_Nnw2rA5aCIk8MHIFIJwfc8ATKRJEPdprKOathAB9pHUz/s1600/Eve+Ends.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="230" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiipcBKfnXbBvR4Vyj-YSmfWfjwMDLOHvCCw8qTXRc8241G2G6N8HSLqn73N_W8ZVlIda7tcCU3Z7KimK9UGZ4qA6MnVdoNRaF_Nnw2rA5aCIk8MHIFIJwfc8ATKRJEPdprKOathAB9pHUz/s320/Eve+Ends.JPG" width="320" /></a></div></div></div></div>

Chateau Marmont Joel McCrea Preston Sturges TCM The Garden of Allah The Lady Eve (author) The Players Tales of Hollywood: The Wild Ride of Preston Sturges

Turner Classic Movies began its salute to Star of the Month Joel McCrea on Wednesday, May 2, with two of his most enjoyable films - and two...

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Coming to a Theater Near You: Turner Classic Movies Presents "Casablanca"

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-MRk0xA1i4frMdG3SKO-QMLRh4ryFNwi3Gzi_WPsTvPY8sq6jcHEbGyajfHtU-QchfNHyn-UjaKnhKCvLXCAIFMHqvgLQILzaH9GuQIQDH7YTSRcdVU3GTRiZax54tCe1vGkTc9JKL1Uz/s1600/casablanca+event.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-MRk0xA1i4frMdG3SKO-QMLRh4ryFNwi3Gzi_WPsTvPY8sq6jcHEbGyajfHtU-QchfNHyn-UjaKnhKCvLXCAIFMHqvgLQILzaH9GuQIQDH7YTSRcdVU3GTRiZax54tCe1vGkTc9JKL1Uz/s1600/casablanca+event.JPG" /></a></div><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Turner Classic Movies, Warner Bros. and NCM Fathom have joined in celebration of <i>Casablanca</i> as it turns 70 with <i>Turner Classic Movies Presents the Casablanca 70th Anniversary Event</i>. On Wednesday, March 21, at 7:00 pm (local time), the film that topped the AFI's list of the "100 Greatest Love Stories of All Time," will screen at select theaters nationwide.</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">  </span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPqE7BrIbIWNKDk81SRGxMqS_NFgXq5zqrBa5tksFErwxE7vC0AuCPYTrrbzIGjy2nD78_MtrqDq8fw5CDKA-sJBq1u7Lngd2GAsCqwu6x5KcFOc8Kf8gcdvsH8q9EPTfB0aeFpois7PIT/s1600/Claude++Rains,+Conrad+Veidt++%28Casablanca%29.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhPqE7BrIbIWNKDk81SRGxMqS_NFgXq5zqrBa5tksFErwxE7vC0AuCPYTrrbzIGjy2nD78_MtrqDq8fw5CDKA-sJBq1u7Lngd2GAsCqwu6x5KcFOc8Kf8gcdvsH8q9EPTfB0aeFpois7PIT/s200/Claude++Rains,+Conrad+Veidt++%28Casablanca%29.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Conrad Veidt and Claude Rains</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Winner of Oscars for Best Picture, Best Director (Michael Curtiz) and Best Original Screenplay (the Epstein brothers and Howard Koch), <i>Casablanca </i>was nominated for a total of eight Academy Awards in 1942, including nominations for Best Actor (Humphrey Bogart), Best Supporting Actor (Claude Rains) and Best Musical Score (Max Steiner). Is there a silver screen classic that better defines World War II romance? I don't think so. Who can resist a wartime tale of lost love and broken hearts with stars like Bogart and Ingrid Bergman - </span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> set in Morocco and Paris</span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">? And then there's the phenomenal supporting cast - Claude Rains, Paul Henreid, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Conrad Veidt, S.Z. Sakall, Dooley Wilson, Leonid Kinskey, Joy Page and Madeleine Lebeau (still with us at age 88) - a brilliant script and Max Steiner's iconic score. </span><br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtnjSJsPSmqJg8KTt4jTwwOZ5xcnQ5KTbr2dd4QUc7hui3MSIJbcl4SFq1HdbgOJyWNXT1rMpUZkUJIog8Dw8OsmTQbFSdBWPt0L7cVKlATn68Uypgb3ZK_rETn3UbC9Fmh1YtqF13jOzn/s1600/Casablanca+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="135" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtnjSJsPSmqJg8KTt4jTwwOZ5xcnQ5KTbr2dd4QUc7hui3MSIJbcl4SFq1HdbgOJyWNXT1rMpUZkUJIog8Dw8OsmTQbFSdBWPt0L7cVKlATn68Uypgb3ZK_rETn3UbC9Fmh1YtqF13jOzn/s200/Casablanca+2.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The beginning of a beautiful friendship</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The presentation will begin with a special 15-minute segment hosted by TCM's  Robert Osborne who will take the audience behind the scenes on the making of the <i>Casablanca</i>...and more. This is a one night only event, although some participating theaters will present additional matinee screenings.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Tickets are available now, </span><a href="http://www.fathomevents.com/upcoming/alllocations.aspx?eventid=1067"><span style="color: #cc0000; font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Click here</span></span></span></a><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: #cc0000;"> </span>for a list of theaters taking part in this extraordinary event.</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.fathomevents.com/upcoming/alllocations.aspx?eventid=1067"><span style="color: blue;"></span></a></span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> </span><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/WO9nZmSl1Yc" width="420"></iframe></div><br /><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="http://eves-reel-life.blogspot.com/2011/07/casablanca-with-san-francisco-symphony.html" style="color: #cc0000;">Click here</a> for my July 2011 review, <i>Casablanca with the San Francisco Symphony</i>.</div>

Casablanca TCM The Lady Eve (author) Turner Classic Movies Presents Casablanca Coming to a Theater Near You: Turner Classic Movies Presents "Casablanca"

Turner Classic Movies, Warner Bros. and NCM Fathom have joined in celebration of Casablanca as it turns 70 with Turner Classic Movies Prese...

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"A Month of VERTIGO," TCM and...Synchronicity

<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo3dfFiXT04if4kxFnE7LhIBIxDxVSa6a7rQdA97nTTTcJ7cr1wNphyJVHkPApqzegvWw1PM06I26dmJJ-nODeIYYUXTk6dd6bMIAbfj41Qkjr42iWqj4_1E8KrLvQtnw0c5CvVbwyyH4t/s1600/cats13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="295" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo3dfFiXT04if4kxFnE7LhIBIxDxVSa6a7rQdA97nTTTcJ7cr1wNphyJVHkPApqzegvWw1PM06I26dmJJ-nODeIYYUXTk6dd6bMIAbfj41Qkjr42iWqj4_1E8KrLvQtnw0c5CvVbwyyH4t/s400/cats13.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Sans Soleil</i></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">This blog was consumed by <i>Vertigo</i> all through January and half of February. I thought I'd moved on, was looking forward to <i>Mad Men </i>on Sunday nights - and then I opened the March issue of TCM's <i>Now Playing</i> guide.</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><a name='more'></a></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">One of my <i>Vertigo </i>guest bloggers, Dan Auiler, author of the definitive <i>Vertigo: the Making of a Hitchcock Classic</i>, considered two films by French filmmaker Chris Marker in his piece, <a href="http://eves-reel-life.blogspot.com/2012/01/vertigo-for-life.html" style="color: #990000;"><i>Vertigo for Life</i></a>: <i>La Jetee  </i>(1962) and <i>Sans Soleil </i>(1983). I read of Marker with interest; I was completely unfamiliar with his work, but Dan's references to his films and the links of each to Hitchcock's <i>Vertigo </i>piqued my interest and I put both on my "to watch" list. I did not have to wait for very long...</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">This Sunday night (for some, the wee hours of Monday morning), March 4, Turner Classic Movies will air both films, <i>Sans Soleil </i>at 2:15 am Eastern/11:15 pm Pacific, and <i>La Jetee</i> at 4:00 am Eastern/1:00am Pacific.</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7U_INveKKcCLQKyz-sz1VXtrJrBep1vgjvuN3U_0pffWU8VK76nztbClR97kqJ_tDuJH5kzDhR7G-5gk-ks_sn1AZtXiwJwKURT_8K_-c5IHepGJJ-D-LnJ1R2aS_E__wTCXD7Yq7fdi9/s1600/la+jetee.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="318" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7U_INveKKcCLQKyz-sz1VXtrJrBep1vgjvuN3U_0pffWU8VK76nztbClR97kqJ_tDuJH5kzDhR7G-5gk-ks_sn1AZtXiwJwKURT_8K_-c5IHepGJJ-D-LnJ1R2aS_E__wTCXD7Yq7fdi9/s400/la+jetee.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>La Jetee</i></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Chris Marker, born in 1921 and still with us today, studied philosophy with Jean-Paul Sartre in the 1930s and was part of the French Resistance during World War II. He is best known for the two films mentioned as well as <i>A Grin Without a Cat </i>(1977) and the 1985 documentary, <i>AK</i>, on Akira Kurosawa. Marker is classified among France's <i>Left Bank</i> (<i>Rive Gauche</i>) filmmakers, a group contemporary to but considered distinct from the <i>French New Wave</i>. Others in the <i>Left Bank</i> cluster include Alain Resnais (<i>Hiroshima mon amour</i>, <i>Last Year at Marienbad</i>, <i>Mon oncle d'Amerique</i>), Agnes Varda (<i>Le Bonheur</i>, <i>Vagabond</i>) and others - like Varda's husband Jacques Demy (<i>Lola</i>, <i>The Umbrellas of Cherbourg</i>, <i>The Young Girls of Rochefort</i>). </div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>La Jetee</i>, composed primarily of cinematically showcased still photos, has been called a Science Fiction masterpiece (even at a short 28 minutes) and has inspired or provided the basis for several later films. Of these, the most familiar to and popular with American audiences is Terry Gilliam's 1995 hit, <i>12 Monkeys</i>, starring Bruce Willis, Brad Pitt and Christopher Plummer.</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>Sans Soleil</i> reflects on time and memory and features several locales around the world - including the San Francisco Bay Area where locations shown in Hitchcock's <i>Vertigo</i> are revisited. <i>Sans Soleil</i> is said to recall <i>Vertigo</i>'s structure and themes.</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Between <i>Vertigo</i>, the Oscars and <i>Mad Men</i>, I'll be making time to discover Chris Marker this weekend...</div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_LTLyIqeB6898d_HYJB65llDmUkTb8bxHsv5wwJ3pU5ggFRgXnv_lzHzQ7HpKVcV2MHvitW2ZYM0QbHvcaLl0EBUAu-6qNt7b7oTN50jCEJqghatgMWDb1TsRkEUJS2fIKROBzIDMJPuG/s1600/Vertigo-trees1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="293" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_LTLyIqeB6898d_HYJB65llDmUkTb8bxHsv5wwJ3pU5ggFRgXnv_lzHzQ7HpKVcV2MHvitW2ZYM0QbHvcaLl0EBUAu-6qNt7b7oTN50jCEJqghatgMWDb1TsRkEUJS2fIKROBzIDMJPuG/s400/Vertigo-trees1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alfred Hitchcock's<i> Vertigo</i></td></tr></tbody></table>

A Month of Vertigo Chris Marker Dan Auiler La Jetee Left Bank filmmakers Sans Soleil TCM The Lady Eve (author) "A Month of VERTIGO," TCM and...Synchronicity

Sans Soleil This blog was consumed by Vertigo all through January and half of February. I thought I'd moved on, was looking forward to ...

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One Year Ago Today...

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTpiz8huiiayQq6tRxZZ1wVzu6-iKEjtVWFfp8D2mm8UvdNg3SZe1bz12zkWtN4PYmSdoFBtr5ppe9QARmMP1K3gnxTRD8C-QV_fWhlvMgjd7cc_mDxcr9HEHHsBlobQeu-K5vC7EMgF2W/s1600/Cake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="303" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjTpiz8huiiayQq6tRxZZ1wVzu6-iKEjtVWFfp8D2mm8UvdNg3SZe1bz12zkWtN4PYmSdoFBtr5ppe9QARmMP1K3gnxTRD8C-QV_fWhlvMgjd7cc_mDxcr9HEHHsBlobQeu-K5vC7EMgF2W/s400/Cake.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">The Lady Eve's Reel Life is one year old today...and no one is more surprised by this anniversary than the lady herself. When I nervously posted my first piece on TCM's Classic Film Union blog pages about 2-1/2 years ago I didn't imagine I'd soon be contributing to a collaborative blog (<i>The Classic Film & TV Cafe</i>) and would, not too much later, begin a blog of my own. I never would have believed that along the way I'd get to know and interview two amazing women, one a former child actress who'd been featured in a Hitchcock classic,<i> </i>and the other the daughter of an iconic star of the silent era. As fulfilling as all of this has been, equally rewarding is getting to know the many classic film fans and bloggers I've met in the past few years.</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> I received a lot of help from these new friends as I set off on my blogging adventures and want to particularly thank Rick Armstrong, who couldn't be more supportive, helpful - and patient!<br /><br />At first I thought I might celebrate here by sharing links to some of my early TCM and <i>Cafe</i> blogs, but reconsidered. I'd rather nod in the direction of the film that inspired my online moniker, the scintillating work of brilliant and meteoric writer/director Preston Sturges -<i>The Lady Eve </i>(1941)...</span><br /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> </span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/1T53iV8HKXQ" width="560"></iframe></div></div><br /><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Thanks to all who visit Reel Life, with deepest gratitude to my loyal followers!</span>

TCM TCM Classic Film Union The Classic Film and TV Cafe The Lady Eve (author) One Year Ago Today...

The Lady Eve's Reel Life is one year old today...and no one is more surprised by this anniversary than the lady herself. When I nervousl...

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Starry, Starry Night(s)

<div style="text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaf-WUz-kc9cTd75h6Mfm2n6rB83FLPbCFgDjUiH3yRdM4QjknqWIjctCdJ-1xPOo1l11yyRwI7Yqw7IlvoNh1mFUhs5xKFIwnwyC0XyBeo4mHPa0-LIvmxUdRbFPJkcNJmNQJp8M6vUv1/s1600/shooting+star+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaf-WUz-kc9cTd75h6Mfm2n6rB83FLPbCFgDjUiH3yRdM4QjknqWIjctCdJ-1xPOo1l11yyRwI7Yqw7IlvoNh1mFUhs5xKFIwnwyC0XyBeo4mHPa0-LIvmxUdRbFPJkcNJmNQJp8M6vUv1/s1600/shooting+star+2.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b>TCM'S ANNUAL FESTIVAL OF STARS DRAWS TO A CLOSE </b></div><br />Since 2003, August on Turner Classic Movies has meant a 31 day parade of stars, each day filled with the films of a different star, each star honored for 24-hours of what is known and celebrated as "Summer Under the Stars." <br /><br />This year, many received a day of their own for the first time. I was  surprised to discover that Charles Laughton, Montgomery Clift and Ronald Colman hadn't been featured before. I wasn't at all surprised but was infinitely thrilled to find that Jean Gabin, icon of the French cinema, was to be honored for the first time. <br /><br /><a name='more'></a><br />In his introduction to Renoir's brilliant <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Bête humaine </i>(1938), Ben Mankiewicz remarked that Gabin was to Europe what Bogart was to the U.S. Many have called Gabin ‘the world’s coolest movie star;’ indeed, Jean-Paul Belmondo seems something of a poser by comparison.</div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEjbDaAuj5RDvcG-UFPB8JfvrKuzY3KS1bkg_s2br0o1qShyphenhyphenEARTA5e0cV4mmRoZgjmWUHa64n6g1jCGjp7uQYM8UMmdE68U7WP_hJoxwOJN_jWyGzA91ALrgL6nENk6d8BcbVA-eNR58X/s1600/la+bete+humaine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhEjbDaAuj5RDvcG-UFPB8JfvrKuzY3KS1bkg_s2br0o1qShyphenhyphenEARTA5e0cV4mmRoZgjmWUHa64n6g1jCGjp7uQYM8UMmdE68U7WP_hJoxwOJN_jWyGzA91ALrgL6nENk6d8BcbVA-eNR58X/s320/la+bete+humaine.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gabin and Simone Simon, <i>La </i><i>Bête humaine</i> (1938)</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />I’m no stranger to the charms of Jean Gabin. Many years ago, when a profusion of revival houses regularly screened foreign classics, I had the great luck to see Gabin's best known films - Jean Renoir’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Grande illusion</i> (1937) and<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> La Bête humaine</i> (1938),  Marcel Carné’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">La Jour se l</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">éve </i>(1939) - on the big screen. And last February, while working on a post about Ida Lupino for a film noir blogathon, I watched for the first time Gabin’s American film debut, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Moontide</i> (1942); Lupino co-starred. It's an oddly charming bit of dock-side noir and it rekindled my interest in the magnetic M. Gabin.<br /><br />Once I realized TCM would soon be honoring him, I sat down in front of the DVR with my copy of the channel's "Now Playing" guide. I’ve been watching what I recorded ever since...some films more than once. Of those I hadn't seen before, two from 1954 stood out. The early '50s had been a period when the French actor's career seemed to be just about over. Not so, as it turned out.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYURQqMqxVxkQpr6rxnvGV8cFhfqKVWW_4PFlPIDxX1HvHXLJUXjA1rkpeA5JvpWZH0Zg3bGWZjuW4DmNXWUFZtrCKw1fAe7SW_XkYBZcxxBn6S7JO2LgulOm70flD4RNiy-Bew6wnLx3S/s1600/touchez-pas-au-grisbi-07-g.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhYURQqMqxVxkQpr6rxnvGV8cFhfqKVWW_4PFlPIDxX1HvHXLJUXjA1rkpeA5JvpWZH0Zg3bGWZjuW4DmNXWUFZtrCKw1fAe7SW_XkYBZcxxBn6S7JO2LgulOm70flD4RNiy-Bew6wnLx3S/s320/touchez-pas-au-grisbi-07-g.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Touchez pas au grisbi </i>(1954)</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />Jacques Becker's <i>Touchez pas au grisbi </i>was the film, according to Mankiewicz, that "marked Gabin's return to prominence" (others have termed it his "spectacular comeback"). In it, Gabin portrays Max the Liar, a lifelong criminal, well respected among his underworld peers, who has pulled off his last great heist and is set to 'retire.' Gabin's Max is as confidently matter-of-fact and laconic as any successful, self-possessed businessman. His treatment of his women as well as the men who serve him is fairly off-hand. Only his partner, the luckless Riton, seems to stir visible affection in fatalistic Max.  Director Jacques Becker, though not of the school, was an influence on the French New Wave, and this film preceded Melville's rather similar <i>Bob le flambeur</i> and Dassin's <i>Rififi</i> by a year. A very young Jeanne Moreau appears in a supporting role.<br /><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 11pt;"></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/rJ37yKiP3Qw" width="420"></iframe></div><br /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Marcel Carné’s <i>L’Air de Paris </i>is an entirely different sort of film.</span></span> <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Very popular in its day with audiences, though not with French critics (those </span><i style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">enfants terrible </i><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">of </span><i style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Cahiers du Cinema</i><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">), it is romantic and charming, with Gabin portraying Victor, a character softer than, though as blas</span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">é</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> as Max, opposite the magnificent Arletty (of </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Carné’s </span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span><i style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Les Enfants du paradis</i><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">, and Gabin's co-star in </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Carné’s </span></span><i style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">La Jour se l</i><i style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">éve</i><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">) and Roland Lesaffre. Victor is a one-time boxer, now a trainer, who has discovered a young fighter (Lesaffre) he believes he can take to the top; his wife Blanche (Arletty) is less enthusiastic.</span><br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ4M-CLnRLWeApHeGtFjy9YtUkhQI5DghnSQEVPntNHLlj2w5lrvoOqBylz8-2pNALpN3cEKbFVvC2PSiZjbQ_NPaiw2G6CGJdN1XxR9ZFRUEDTbqKvvVwQpgYZCARPfJR0ZYIj-tSnhih/s1600/arletty.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQ4M-CLnRLWeApHeGtFjy9YtUkhQI5DghnSQEVPntNHLlj2w5lrvoOqBylz8-2pNALpN3cEKbFVvC2PSiZjbQ_NPaiw2G6CGJdN1XxR9ZFRUEDTbqKvvVwQpgYZCARPfJR0ZYIj-tSnhih/s200/arletty.jpg" width="161" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Arletty</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Jean Gabin was a great star of French cinema's era of “poetic realism" in the '30s and '40s. Gabin's screen presence and style were ideal for the films of this age. Solid, earthy, worldly-wise, there is understated longing in those knowing eyes, a passion for life in that working-man's frame. His career spanned the '20s through the '70s; Gabin died in 1976 at age 72.</span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br />I will be saving and viewing these films for some time to come. I've also rented <i>Zou Zou </i>(1934) co-starring Josephine Baker, and Carné’s <i>Le quai de brumes </i>(1938). With more to come: Renoir's <i>French Can-Can </i>(1955), about the beginnings of the Moulin Rouge.<br /><br /></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">August 31 marks the end of "Summer Under the Stars" and on that day the spotlight goes to Marlene Dietrich, a supernova of a movie and concert star if there ever was one. TCM last bestowed this honor on her in 2003.</span><br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"></div><div style="text-align: left;"></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn90MeLbJSIvMMmd8zE2uEDKsLne6s0OiUdQOu1kxUyIFbRrJUQKrQ7vNKVSuiFRSeeazBABkfE2N6DndAWtjdalEiLn1K7lQXwFopTui5UYkZBN2n9TPdaha3KPMogW98RuvlUB-qAyZY/s1600/jean+gabin+dietrich+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn90MeLbJSIvMMmd8zE2uEDKsLne6s0OiUdQOu1kxUyIFbRrJUQKrQ7vNKVSuiFRSeeazBABkfE2N6DndAWtjdalEiLn1K7lQXwFopTui5UYkZBN2n9TPdaha3KPMogW98RuvlUB-qAyZY/s320/jean+gabin+dietrich+2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Marlene Dietrich and Jean Gabin, 1946</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Except for her early German films, I've seen all of Marlene Dietrich's movies many times, but I'll still be watching and recording much of her day on TCM. Dietrich is one of those timeless luminaries of film who never ceases to fascinate, particularly in those legend-making classics of the 1930s she starred in under the direction of cinematic magician, Josef von Sternberg. One of the day's not-to-be-missed highlights is the documentary <i>Marlene Dietrich: Her Own Song </i>(2001), the work of her grandson David Riva.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Marlene Dietrich and Jean Gabin were romantically involved for several years in the 1940s. Dietrich gave Josef von Sternberg her loyalty and credit for her career, a life-long marriage and a ranch in the Valley to her husband Rudi - and her charms to various and sundry, but it was Gabin she remembered as the great love of her life...<i>je comprends</i>.</span><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/VlA0EbSHRFA" width="420"></iframe></div><br /><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Marlene Dietrich, August 31, "Summer Under the Stars" on TCM</b></span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><u>All Times Eastern/Pacific</u>: </span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">6:00 am/3:00 am <i>The Monte Carlo Story </i>(1957), with Vittorio De Sica</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">7:45 am /4:45 am<i> Knight Without Armour </i>(1937), with Robert Donat</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">9:45 am/6:45 am <i>The Lady is Willing </i>(1942), with Fred MacMurray</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">11:30 am/8:30 am <i>Kismet </i>(1944), with Ronald Colman</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">1:15 pm/10:15 am <i>Stage Fright </i>(1950) with Jane Wyman, directed by Alfred Hitchcock</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">3:15 pm/12:15 pm <i>Rancho Notorious </i>(1952), with Mel Ferrer, directed by Fritz Lang</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">4:45 pm/1:45 pm <i>Marlene Dietrich: Her Own Song </i>(2001), documentary</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">6:30 pm/3:30 pm <i>Shanghai Express </i>(1932), with Clive Brook, directed by Josef von Sternberg</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">8:00 pm/5:00 pm <i>The Scarlet Empress </i>(1934), with John Lodge, directed by Josef von Sternberg</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">10:00 pm/7:00 pm <i>The Devil is a Woman </i>(1935), with Lionel Atwill, directed by Josef von Sternberg</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">11:30 pm/8:30 pm <i>Manpower </i>(1941), with George Raft, Edward G. Robinson, directed by Raoul Walsh</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">1:30 am/10:30 pm <i>A Foreign Affair </i>(1948), with Jean Arthur, directed by Billy Wilder</span></div><div style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">3:30 am/12:30 am <i>The Blue Angel </i>(1930), with Emil Jannings, directed by Josef von Sternberg</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>

Arletty Jean Gabin Jean Renoir Jeanne Moreau Marcel Carne Marlene Dietrich Roland Lesaffre TCM The Lady Eve (author) Starry, Starry Night(s)

TCM'S ANNUAL FESTIVAL OF STARS DRAWS TO A CLOSE Since 2003, August on Turner Classic Movies has meant a 31 day parade of stars, each day...

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Father and Mother Were Movie Stars: Leatrice Gilbert Fountain Remembers

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlSGSA81MlOJy4z6AOeD9MJ7kpnXZOeeegTbRCLjJM0Z3KEXAYTyz1LxRqfoIkxPnrQVEJM5lyNxKdOiOH2pK-HtKdE_PF7ZjNN5P5g11erTKqBrCmihKjZISNSngKoxHTmN6oHkapyD_m/s1600/hollywood+postcard+cathay+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlSGSA81MlOJy4z6AOeD9MJ7kpnXZOeeegTbRCLjJM0Z3KEXAYTyz1LxRqfoIkxPnrQVEJM5lyNxKdOiOH2pK-HtKdE_PF7ZjNN5P5g11erTKqBrCmihKjZISNSngKoxHTmN6oHkapyD_m/s1600/hollywood+postcard+cathay+2.jpg" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt;">Just over a year ago, as Turner Classic Movies prepared to honor silent screen legend John Gilbert with a day of his own for the first time during “Summer under the Stars” 2010, I interviewed Leatrice Gilbert Fountain, daughter of the actor and his second wife, silent screen star Leatrice Joy. Leatrice Fountain and I had become acquainted several months earlier and it seemed a perfect idea to publish a discussion of her father’s career on the same day TCM fêted him. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><a name='more'></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt;">Leatrice and I have stayed in touch ever since, and over this 4^th of July weekend we spent more time talking about her memories…</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt;">Leatrice’s story has its origins in 1918, when John Gilbert and Leatrice Joy met on a Peralta Studio picture called <i>One Dollar Bid</i>. He was kind to the nervous actress who hadn’t worked for a while and was preparing for a scene. He was also taken with her - and she thought he was the most attractive man she’d ever seen.  Their romance began when they met by chance months later.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYNUpF3G065fWD6Mb2mIsHVJmUIhaHA7kKx9z4HaS7q6Lf4dlYn8y6kGYESJGSDDSDU4xCIsXcvWo2EOAC76HyiFWY5O9Jy6I43mrzKi3fOUKjhwOYzpyYHBJNokTGRHkpyEfrLG_0j5wj/s1600/leatrice+joy+3+b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYNUpF3G065fWD6Mb2mIsHVJmUIhaHA7kKx9z4HaS7q6Lf4dlYn8y6kGYESJGSDDSDU4xCIsXcvWo2EOAC76HyiFWY5O9Jy6I43mrzKi3fOUKjhwOYzpyYHBJNokTGRHkpyEfrLG_0j5wj/s1600/leatrice+joy+3+b.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Leatrice Joy</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt;">From their early days together and throughout their marriage, Joy had the bigger career and salary. In 1922, the year she married Gilbert, she signed with Paramount to be groomed for stardom by Cecil B. DeMille. She had been working for Goldwyn and when that contract ended, her brother Billy, then her agent, got in touch with DeMille knowing C.B. had lost his great star Gloria Swanson and was looking for a replacement. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt;">John Gilbert was on his way up, but during his time with Joy he hadn’t yet made the films that firmly established his stardom. The couple’s relationship was always tempestuous, and they were apart as often as they were together. For his part, DeMille would have liked the pair to part permanently. Their daughter recounted this story: </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt;">“Father had drinking problems, the two would quarrel, and sometimes mother would show up at the studio looking sleepless and unhappy. DeMille finally told her that she must move out of her home until the picture was finished and stay with her mother who lived nearby. This of course infuriated Jack and they fought bitterly. A few days later she was driving on Hollywood Blvd. and saw him ahead of her. He stopped, parked, and walked into a barber shop. She parked behind him, walked into the shop and got into the chair next to his. Neither spoke. When the barber asked her what she wanted she said, I want a haircut just like his (in those days women did not enter the sacred masculine environs of the barber's). It did not cross her mind that this might interfere with the film she was shooting with her long flowing curls. Poor DeMille...” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt;">Some have called Joy a forerunner to Katharine Hepburn and Rosalind Russell because her leading roles were often as emancipated women (and she became famed for her boyish, close-cropped haircut). She was one of Paramount’s top stars and the best known of her films is DeMille’s first version of <i>The Ten Commandments</i> (1923) in which she had one of the featured roles.</span><br /><br /><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt;">Young Leatrice was born in September, 1924, just as her parents were divorcing. Her uncle Billy tried hard to keep Gilbert away from mother and daughter, and her father played virtually no part in the girl’s life for many years; she remembers that she called Billy Joy “Uncle Daddy.” </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifAwVE4tLhPGOo_LCyN3mceoooktoR3lGz2dQ45Dv0ICfi4YqvjJing4qV8qV_Ej_m4vi3LfXocZoEBgwMKKFTXNfxKIyuaF_gYSr7DH8ahuE3Zz42aC-YZsOzTLwNmA_z47zazTLpGJul/s1600/john+gilbert.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifAwVE4tLhPGOo_LCyN3mceoooktoR3lGz2dQ45Dv0ICfi4YqvjJing4qV8qV_Ej_m4vi3LfXocZoEBgwMKKFTXNfxKIyuaF_gYSr7DH8ahuE3Zz42aC-YZsOzTLwNmA_z47zazTLpGJul/s320/john+gilbert.jpg" width="289" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Gilbert</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt;">Baby Leatrice arrived as John Gilbert’s career was about to skyrocket. He had co-starred in the newly formed MGM’s first production, <i>He Who Gets Slapped</i> (1924), with Lon Chaney and Norma Shearer. But it was in 1925, the year his divorce from Joy was finalized, that Gilbert achieved the heights. He starred in MGM’s production of Erich von Stroheim’s opulent <i>The Merry Widow </i>and also starred in the film that established MGM’s reputation, King Vidor’s smash hit <i>The Big Parade</i>. Just over a year later, not long after the demise of Rudolph Valentino, Gilbert and Greta Garbo co-starred for the first time - in Clarence Brown’s sensual <i>Flesh and the Devil </i>(1926), a runaway success. John Gilbert was now Hollywood’s top romantic lead, adored by millions and in the midst of a great romance with Garbo.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP8CbEVrm3NmxPIkSpbcxWvOLACvTcngqkni8n0MGv8a7h4QLiwrvpeaon34BI7KSKNjzEHuzEnhZB8F4Z8GCCW5XA2mWgtE5pR5jIAgEkV9O_-jRasGs5zB3vkw6OSo453F65bPYVchAL/s1600/Cecil-Demille.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="196" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP8CbEVrm3NmxPIkSpbcxWvOLACvTcngqkni8n0MGv8a7h4QLiwrvpeaon34BI7KSKNjzEHuzEnhZB8F4Z8GCCW5XA2mWgtE5pR5jIAgEkV9O_-jRasGs5zB3vkw6OSo453F65bPYVchAL/s320/Cecil-Demille.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cecil B. DeMille</td></tr></tbody></table><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt;">At just that time, Leatrice Joy’s career began its decline. In 1925, DeMille departed Paramount, Hollywood’s reigning studio, to create his own production company. When he left, his agreement with Adolph Zukor and Jesse Lasky allowed him to take his stars with him - if they were agreeable. Joy was one of those he took. According to Leatrice Gilbert Fountain, this was at a critical stage of her mother’s career, “she hadn’t yet reached ‘name above the title’ status, but she was being built up.” Joy didn’t want to leave the studio, DeMille’s new company hadn’t yet worked out a distribution deal, and she had been happy at Paramount but, she said later, she was under the impression Zukor and Lasky didn’t want her because they agreed to let DeMille have her. When she realized this wasn’t true, she reacted, according to her daughter, “childishly.” She begged DeMille to release her, but he refused. After that she would not speak to him, “even when they were walking together.”  Joy’s success was modest with the DeMille company; she was assigned to program pictures and DeMille never directed her again. Her daughter mused, “She was a subtle actress who deserved more.”</span><br /><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="345" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/OHIWIBjoSt8" width="420"></iframe></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt;"><i><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "Helvetica Neue",Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Leatrice Joy on "To Tell the Truth"</span></span></i> </span></div><br /><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt;">At one point, Joy was off the screen entirely for about 18 months. During that time she toured the country on the vaudeville circuit, performing scenes and singing with an accompanist (her daughter recalled that she was awarded a gold medal as the most popular entertainer on the tour). </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt;">Joy’s partnership with DeMille ended unhappily in 1928 and he reportedly held a grudge for years. She signed with MGM and made the last of her silent films for that studio.  The coming of sound effectively ended the film careers of both Leatrice Joy and John Gilbert. Her strong southern accent was considered a detriment, and his voice was called unsuitable.  Joy freelanced for a couple of years for lesser studios and then left movies for nearly a decade. Meanwhile, John Gilbert struggled to revive his waning career until he died suddenly in 1936.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMnXiHGnySOjoDw8yF-qAZGvTdVOsA0XZTDX2Oiid-346fUWhfIFMH4r4d1S1PULjojs-ODFDQztB-l_T6OZW0Bujp6xra5sh0Qz7y0ilNVSnC3ymF27b4kSiBe6JOClHh9_qJpwsJswBz/s1600/MM+62+JFK+bday+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMnXiHGnySOjoDw8yF-qAZGvTdVOsA0XZTDX2Oiid-346fUWhfIFMH4r4d1S1PULjojs-ODFDQztB-l_T6OZW0Bujp6xra5sh0Qz7y0ilNVSnC3ymF27b4kSiBe6JOClHh9_qJpwsJswBz/s200/MM+62+JFK+bday+3.jpg" width="176" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Marilyn Monroe</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt;">Joy’s final film was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Love Nest</i> (1951), one of Marilyn Monroe’s early films. She told her daughter that Monroe had an effect similar to Jean Harlow’s. She wasn’t talking about her onscreen persona so much as her stunning impact on men - who stopped in their tracks and stared the moment they caught sight of her.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt;">Leatrice Gilbert Fountain remembers Jean Harlow. Her family was linked to the ‘platinum blonde’ on both sides. Members of her mother's family were Christian Scientists, as was Harlow, “…my family was very fond of her. My grandmother was Jean's</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt;"> Christian Science Practitioner (like a healer). She was a really lovely person who always paid attention to a scruffy little girl hanging around [Leatrice].” She remembers the young actress as “a warm, friendly, easy-going girl. She didn’t push herself, others pushed her.” Leatrice’s ‘Uncle Daddy,’ Billy Joy, was Harlow’s first agent and arranged for her initial screen test – for which she wore a dress lent to her by Leatrice Joy. At that time Harlow was under contract to Howard Hughes, an agreement she discussed at length with the more experienced Joy.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3G5FZvSFXCDOigH3iXe5OGoN7no1fWRLniMZ_jsAZrw97VHE06U9o4zd5Nz2aMVZVJ4TvqsdiPWagnv0JkYymsf_ezayQOcIaBAvZ9e6mJDADdOl4-Pu7u8mDdF2I9fo2N2A8c4jn-3wV/s1600/harlow+wedding.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj3G5FZvSFXCDOigH3iXe5OGoN7no1fWRLniMZ_jsAZrw97VHE06U9o4zd5Nz2aMVZVJ4TvqsdiPWagnv0JkYymsf_ezayQOcIaBAvZ9e6mJDADdOl4-Pu7u8mDdF2I9fo2N2A8c4jn-3wV/s1600/harlow+wedding.jpg" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">John Gilbert (right) at Jean Harlow's wedding</td></tr></tbody></table><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt;">On the other side of the family, John Gilbert was the best man at Harlow’s wedding to her second husband, Paul Bern, in 1932. Bern was a writer, director and producer at MGM, and a close friend of Irving Thalberg. Bern had at once shared a bachelor pad with John Gilbert and Carey Wilson, an MGM screenwriter Oscar-nominated for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Mutiny on the Bounty </i>(1935). Leatrice chuckled as she recalled that many years later silent screen star Colleen Moore referred to the place, a house above Sunset Blvd., as “a circus” for all that went on there.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc_wYjNGfahUFQmBfgXEJQnMK5cduTTwJ5InFY5N5ijnUdSFvbODN1CF1EgjGPvvXRoqSH2yipZqOIYnn8RusRtAaN58ivWG1rMxQlRzSeKONWqaqsCy9tGoB7Dpwqk4_yHh2tyOHG5VT6/s1600/of+human+hearts.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgc_wYjNGfahUFQmBfgXEJQnMK5cduTTwJ5InFY5N5ijnUdSFvbODN1CF1EgjGPvvXRoqSH2yipZqOIYnn8RusRtAaN58ivWG1rMxQlRzSeKONWqaqsCy9tGoB7Dpwqk4_yHh2tyOHG5VT6/s320/of+human+hearts.jpg" width="232" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Leatrice Gilbert's first film</td></tr></tbody></table><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt;">Leatrice remembers getting to know the children of other stars, Harold Lloyd’s daughters went to school with her at the Westlake School for Girls; she knew Maria Riva, Marlene Dietrich’s daughter, also born in 1924. Riva, who had a brief career as an actress and appeared on TV in the early ‘50s, seemed to Leatrice a “quiet, withdrawn child” very unlike her illustrious mother.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt;">Leatrice also got to know child actors like Freddie Bartholomew and Judy Garland once she made her own foray into ‘the family business.’</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt;">At 12, she portrayed Ann Rutherford (‘Annie Hawks’) as a child in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Of Human Hearts</i> (1938), starring Walter Huston, James Stewart and Beulah Bondi (Oscar-nominated for her supporting performance). Around the same time she made a screen test for Hunt Stromberg and was cast as the lead in MGM’s upcoming production of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">National Velvet</i>. The test, she told me, was a scene set the day before the Grand National, in which Velvet and Mi have a talk. Stromberg was planning to shoot the picture in England, but the advent of World War II in Europe and other issues at MGM put the picture on hold for years…</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpDHsDu1ge7T3CpjOaY4aNGZ4LCI5-QV-JxSp0fDWtDZvu_Trcc27llFq7_u2FEIfWGT5UMS0nydkzxc9Luara4bDoJG9VU3Eukm8jQrUhzFD_GGFLcsC70nTX3u9GmW4YDuJg1T0g-zN9/s1600/Ava+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpDHsDu1ge7T3CpjOaY4aNGZ4LCI5-QV-JxSp0fDWtDZvu_Trcc27llFq7_u2FEIfWGT5UMS0nydkzxc9Luara4bDoJG9VU3Eukm8jQrUhzFD_GGFLcsC70nTX3u9GmW4YDuJg1T0g-zN9/s200/Ava+2.jpg" width="150" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ava Gardner</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt;">As an MGM contract player in the early ‘40s, Leatrice appeared in several films, including <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Random Harvest</i> (1942), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">A Guy Named Joe </i>(1943), <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kismet</i> (1944) and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo </i>(1944). During this time she knew all the other young hopefuls on the MGM lot, liked many and became friends with some, including future star Ava Gardner. She recalls of Ava that she was “beautiful, down-to-earth and warm when so many were distant and aloof…she was so personable.”  Leatrice thought back to an evening when she, Ava and another friend went out on the town to one of Old Hollywood’s great night spots, the Mocambo. She remembered that all eyes in the room followed Ava...and Ava took it in stride, paying little attention to her devastating effect on others.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt;">In 1944 Leatrice joined the war effort by becoming a WAC. She was a clerk-typist for just a year when the war ended.  Out of the Army, she went to New York and for two years attended the school of Tamara Daykarhanova, formerly of the Moscow Art Theatre, source of “the method” approach to acting. Daykarhanova had been with Maria Oupenskaya’s New York acting school before Ouspenskaya relocated. At the studio Leatrice met her first husband, a fellow student. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMJf26B7eS7xLdVgjRncJVvbdqrsVAeMKuCHVSD7z-wpWrvIrEcGHEqzHIB_W1kMe81mBis0I9LYUHtf3_BefPVUVfd-G1DLRlMZ936XHgGsIVCrENHYpnkVdZy2G_eGSfj9UeUhQxIB4-/s1600/dark+star.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhMJf26B7eS7xLdVgjRncJVvbdqrsVAeMKuCHVSD7z-wpWrvIrEcGHEqzHIB_W1kMe81mBis0I9LYUHtf3_BefPVUVfd-G1DLRlMZ936XHgGsIVCrENHYpnkVdZy2G_eGSfj9UeUhQxIB4-/s1600/dark+star.jpg" /></a></div><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt;">Many years later, Leatrice became interested in the life and career of her father and eventually wrote his definitive biography, <u>Dark Star</u> (St. Martin's Press, 1985). Her exhaustive research on his life put her in touch with many luminaries of Hollywood’s ‘golden age.’  She interviewed the likes of Joan Crawford, Norma Shearer, Colleen Moore, Lillian Gish, Marlene Dietrich, John Ford, Howard Hawks, King Vidor, Clarence Brown and many others. She came to know and was assisted in her journey to learn more by esteemed film historian/filmmaker Kevin Brownlow (winner of an Oscar in 2010, the Governor’s Award). Along with taking part in silent film festivals world-wide in her continuing effort to restore her father's professional reputation, Leatrice became an oft-quoted source for books and documentaries about Hollywood icons as well as Hollywood itself. In the last few months I’ve come across her comments in biographies of Jean Harlow, Louis B. Mayer and Cecil B. DeMille. Charlotte Chandler’s 2011 <a href="http://eves-reel-life.blogspot.com/2011/04/marlene-dietrich-gets-personal-in.html" style="color: #990000;">biography of Marlene Dietrich</a> quotes Leatrice at length so I asked Leatrice about Chandler, the somewhat enigmatic author of several Hollywood bios…</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh06z7_S57bwJpO5ZYGc-6I_QAHcnjYPT7dJvvGygkydeusblJT2eIVrdllQ1KFU3DFHu3GfJm3utBQLHRfLxfTOuaP9pmw3fjsiUrbOuH7H5xRnmPTByDgDbaj1wjFUojY-ofMVKftXGeV/s1600/Leatrice+Gilbert+Fountain.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="193" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh06z7_S57bwJpO5ZYGc-6I_QAHcnjYPT7dJvvGygkydeusblJT2eIVrdllQ1KFU3DFHu3GfJm3utBQLHRfLxfTOuaP9pmw3fjsiUrbOuH7H5xRnmPTByDgDbaj1wjFUojY-ofMVKftXGeV/s200/Leatrice+Gilbert+Fountain.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Leatrice Gilbert Fountain</td></tr></tbody></table><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt;">“...I knew her and ran into her continually at MOMA in the heyday of the film department (there was nothing like it anywhere except for Langlois in Paris). And she seemed to know everyone. How she has kept herself a mystery is one in itself.”</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt;">I could’ve asked Leatrice to reminisce for days, but her two visiting sons returned from a fishing expedition and it was time for us both to return to the 4^th of July weekend and our daily lives. We agreed to talk again soon…</span><br /><br /><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><i><a href="http://classic-film-tv.blogspot.com/2010/08/about-john-gilbertan-interview-with.html" style="color: #990000;">Click here</a><span style="color: #990000;"> </span>to view my original interview with Leatrice. <a href="http://eves-reel-life.blogspot.com/2010/10/house-that-jack-built.html" style="color: #990000;">Click here</a> for my piece on the fabled history of her father's house in Hollywood.</i></span> </span><br /><br /></div></div></div>

Ava Gardner Cecil B. DeMille Jean Harlow John Gilbert Leatrice Gilbert Fountain Leatrice Joy TCM The Lady Eve (author) Father and Mother Were Movie Stars: Leatrice Gilbert Fountain Remembers

Just over a year ago, as Turner Classic Movies prepared to honor silent screen legend John Gilbert with a day of his own for the first time ...

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From Saint to Sinner: Jean Seberg

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi9_HFFULxvQdH48SzNa_FHjy7dG3TIJKOCmUZ8ioZ_9Ujm-9DQT9ZRbmsq85YsPEvH5M3f-rMiP6TYvhrB6K5rC9ys-hwZnM5ZgJktlhtu4qFtCvThrCiqceN5Z24E-5zlDPWN-SDWfi-/s1600/JeanSeberg%255B1%255D.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi9_HFFULxvQdH48SzNa_FHjy7dG3TIJKOCmUZ8ioZ_9Ujm-9DQT9ZRbmsq85YsPEvH5M3f-rMiP6TYvhrB6K5rC9ys-hwZnM5ZgJktlhtu4qFtCvThrCiqceN5Z24E-5zlDPWN-SDWfi-/s320/JeanSeberg%255B1%255D.jpg" width="238" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">This Sunday, March 13, the first Sunday of Lent, Turner Classic Movies will feature films about one of the Catholic Church’s most popular saints, Joan of Arc. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">On Wednesday the 16^th, TCM will honor the Museum of Modern Art’s film archive by screening 14 films representing its collection. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Each of these tributes will include a film starring Jean Seberg and directed by Otto Preminger.</span><br /><a name='more'></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">While <b>Saint Joan</b> (1957) and <b>Bonjour Tristesse</b> (1958) rank somewhere in the mid-range of Preminger's body of work (which includes <b>Laura</b>, <b>The Man With the Golden Arm</b> and <b>Anatomy of a Murder</b>), they were Seberg’s first two films and significant for their influence on the evolution of her unconventional career.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Preminger was riding high in 1956 when he announced that, a la David O. Selznick’s <b>Gone with the Wind</b> campaign, he was going to audition unknowns for the title role in his upcoming opus, an adaptation of the 1923 George Bernard Shaw play <b>Saint Joan</b>. Enormous publicity accompanied his worldwide search and he auditioned thousands of candidates. In the end he made only three screen tests and selected an inexperienced American teenager over actresses Kelli Blaine of New York and Doreen Denning of Stockholm.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Jean Seberg was a 17-year old amateur from Marshalltown, Iowa, when she was chosen to star as Saint Joan. Though she had aspired to be an actress from an early age, her stage experience consisted of one season with a local stock company. But Preminger was impressed with the unusual combination of piquancy and pliability he detected in her - plus Seberg was an innocent, “younger than springtime,” fine-featured blonde.</span></div><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix7cGIoKKZWZZyY6R4Ntz-tn569lRGS9gGTcmSlvU071XYFolNLaqr-AACtfzHEjfmSTwCKgIKxK8gJLx_NzJT4Ig5dBoWksFCN1iD3qr4MaKUXo4xG_8_ExVdZ3rfQXUnOm-eaWQa18in/s1600/saint+joan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix7cGIoKKZWZZyY6R4Ntz-tn569lRGS9gGTcmSlvU071XYFolNLaqr-AACtfzHEjfmSTwCKgIKxK8gJLx_NzJT4Ig5dBoWksFCN1iD3qr4MaKUXo4xG_8_ExVdZ3rfQXUnOm-eaWQa18in/s200/saint+joan.jpg" width="173" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jean Seberg as Saint Joan</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">For Seberg, the high point of her experience on <b>Saint Joan</b> may have been her fairytale discovery. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Once</span> filming began she found herself in the intimidating company of veteran actors such as Richard Widmark, John Gielgud, Anton Walbrook, Richard Todd and Finlay Currie. Gielgud, who was fond of her, noted that she barely knew the rudiments of acting but struggled mightily to find her way. Preminger did little to help. Notorious for mercilessly bullying actors (though not stars), he made no exception for his protégé. In the view of observers including Gielgud, the director endlessly berated her, crushing the very freshness and spontaneity that had attracted him in the first place. As if Preminger's behavior and the pressures of making her first film weren't enough, an accident on the set may have summed up Seberg's dilemma. The scene in which Joan of Arc was to be burned to death required that the actress be chained to a stake. During filming, as smoke and flames began to engulf her, Jean started to scream that she was actually burning. She was quickly rescued and not badly hurt but Preminger, who realized the mishap had been caught on film, was so pleased with "crowd rea</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">ction" that he told a reporter he might actually use the footage.</span><br /><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Saint Joan </b>was not well received, though Preminger's promotional fanfare had stirred up great interest and anticipation. Saul Bass's evocative title sequence (shown below) hints at the film's appeal. Perhaps its true potential was the moderate success of a well-intentioned presitige piece, but it failed with the mass audience to which it was promoted. The press criticized Preminger's direction and Grahame Greene's screenplay, but it was Jean Seberg who received scathing reviews and was widely blamed for the flop.</span></div><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="269" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/SXqeCnTr9MY" title="YouTube video player" width="425"></iframe><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Preminger's next project was already in the works by the time <b>Saint Joan </b>wrapped. And he planned, once again, to feature Jean Seberg in a starring role.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">In 1954, 19-year-old French writer Francioise Sagan created an international sensation with her racy first novel, <u>Bonjour Tristesse</u>. Preminger and Seberg's next film would be an adaptation of Sagan's bestseller. Seberg was to co-star with Deborah Kerr and David Niven as Niven's daughter, a spoiled caf<span style="font-family: "Calibri", "sans-serif"; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">é</span></span> society brat. The melodramatic tale of dissipation and cruelty was primarily set and filmed on the French Riviera during the high season. And Preminger provided his company with the finest in accommodations and luxury extras. Nevertheless, Seberg was once more subjected to his volatile temperament. This time, though, one of her co-stars stood up to the director. Deborah Kerr challenged Preminger, telling him she could not tolerate his abusive treatment of the young actress.</span><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKwMLc1VDOZaE96UEDer1CHyQaUa8KPfvCHxNkhGLktg_tD8T51BhqaV5qaHW-0kYUtUPlUZ1pJ66aQd1o14SsCwzD5_CA_VgQeFrk55ugOscv-xHeHHyfVOWLoAfjcEWpyFYfmxYhdLUn/s1600/jean+seberg+tristesse.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="141" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKwMLc1VDOZaE96UEDer1CHyQaUa8KPfvCHxNkhGLktg_tD8T51BhqaV5qaHW-0kYUtUPlUZ1pJ66aQd1o14SsCwzD5_CA_VgQeFrk55ugOscv-xHeHHyfVOWLoAfjcEWpyFYfmxYhdLUn/s200/jean+seberg+tristesse.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Verdana;">By the time filming was completed, Seberg was engaged to Francois Moreuil a French lawyer, and her collaboration with Preminger was about to come to an end. <b>Bonjour Tristesse</b> was set for release in January 1958 and, following the demise of <b>Saint Joan</b>,<b> </b>Seberg's career seemed to rest on the success or failure of her second film. In an interview at the time of <b>Bonjour Tristesse</b>'s<b> </b>release, she was aggressively grilled on the subject... <a href="http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/multimedia/video/2008/wallace/seberg_jean.html"><span style="color: #990000;">click here</span></a> to view Jean Seberg's January 1958 interview with Mike Wallace.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Bonjour Tristesse</b> failed miserably when it was released, and both Preminger and Seberg were subjected to a drubbing in the press. Perhaps by this time the director had given up his dream of making her a star for he had no future plans to work with her and when Francoise Moreuil, by now Seberg's husband, approached him about selling her contract to Columbia, Preminger agreed. Within a year the studio cast her in<b> The Mouse That</b> <b>Roared</b> (1959), a popular Peter Sellers vehicle and, though a "small" film, it was Seberg's first success.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Very soon Jean Seberg's career would undergo another unexpected twist.</span><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj91vPLis5INBRyQW-GBhR5D6WmkQB_JkM2V159NLZiL8OQj-sgHN_g8qXwj813W3P7uUeDv8CTW1vWdC94wDVywvSHd3-8yKtbSvK50i7iapUJUgXOZk7D97S0YvinOFAoOay6XxZyCR7K/s1600/jean+and+jean+paul.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="169" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj91vPLis5INBRyQW-GBhR5D6WmkQB_JkM2V159NLZiL8OQj-sgHN_g8qXwj813W3P7uUeDv8CTW1vWdC94wDVywvSHd3-8yKtbSvK50i7iapUJUgXOZk7D97S0YvinOFAoOay6XxZyCR7K/s200/jean+and+jean+paul.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">...with Belmondo in <b>Breathless</b></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">T</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">o begin with, and importantly, <b>Bonjour Tristesse </b>had been a critical success in France and Seberg had become a critics' darling there. Meanwhile, her French husband, Francoise Moreuil, happened to be connected to filmmakers/writers associated with the fabled French publication, </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><i>Cahiers du Cinema</i> - where both <b>Saint Joan </b>and <b>Bonjour Tristesse </b>were highly regarded and Seberg was revered. Soon the young actress was being pursued by about-to-become-legendary filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard to co-star in his first major feature, <b>A Bout de Souffle</b>...or <b>Breathless </b>(1960).</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Seberg was introduced to Godard by her husband. After much discussion between the actress and the auteur, a 12-page telegram from Godard to Moreuil and an affordable arrangement for all concerned, a deal was struck. Godard saw Seberg as an international name who could help his film succeed outside France, and Seberg was anxious to prove herself. To her good fortune, Godard was no bully and worked well with actresses, filming them to advantage. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Another surprise for Seberg in working with Godard was his approach to the script. She might be given her lines on pieces of paper in the morning before a shoot or Godard might shout lines to her during a scene. Godard was experienced at writing dialogue and he was able to shout while shooting because the film was shot mute with sound and dialogue added later. But all of this was new to Seberg whose previous performances had been entirely controlled by the autocratic Preminger.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana;">No one on the project at the time realized <b>Breathless</b> would receive the level of acclaim or have the influence on cinema that it achieved. Hailed for its bold visual style and approach to editing, it became a pivotal film of the French New Wave.<br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Jean Seberg became a legend along with the film and her co-star, Jean-Paul Belmondo. Her casual boyish chic and pixie haircut (predating Mia Farrow's famous 'do by many years) remain iconic today. She went on to make films in both Europe and the U.S., though her later American films were generally lackluster.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b>Saint Joan</b> is now appreciated as a sincere if uneven attempt to translate weighty Shaw to film and is generally viewed as an honorable effort. </span><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><b>Bonjour Tristesse</b>'s <b></b>popularity has improved dramatically since 1958. Frequently cited are visually striking scenes of grainy black and white that dissolve into stunning color as the story moves from present to past and back again. The film's themes, estrangement and excess among the rich and languid, are noted for anticipating those Fellini famously visited with <b>La Dolce Vita</b> a few years later. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Jean Seberg's earliest performances have been assessed more fairly in recent years and many critics view her work far differently than her detractors of the 1950s. David Thomson has called her Saint Joan "a shrewd and touching fusion of provincial America, rural France, and Shaw's notion of a fustian saint picking logic with kings and bishops." He has deemed her portrayal in <b>Bonjour Tristesse</b> "marvelous" and praised her self-possession and maturity.</span><br /><br /><u><span style="font-family: Verdana; font-size: x-small;"><b>Turner Classic Movies Schedule</b></span></u><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Saint Joan </b>airs Sunday, March 13, at 10:30pm Eastern/7:30pm Pacific</span></span><br /><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><b>Bonjour Tristesse </b>airs Wednesday, March 16, at 9:30pm Eastern/6:30pm Pacific </span></span><br /><br /><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="269" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/kjNkrlLiJQg" title="YouTube video player" width="425"></iframe></span>

Bonjour Tristesse Breathless Jean Seberg Jean-Luc Godard Jean-Paul Belmondo Otto Preminger Saint Joan TCM The Lady Eve (author) From Saint to Sinner: Jean Seberg

This Sunday, March 13, the first Sunday of Lent, Turner Classic Movies will feature films about one of the Catholic Church’s most popular sa...

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