One Woman

"I love all women; I love womankind. In the love of a good woman you have everything, all the wonders of the ages, the brown skinned girls who inflame your senses with the play; the cool, yellow-haired women who entice and escape you; the gentle ones who serve you; the slender ones who torment you; the mothers who bore and suckled you--all women whom God created out of the teeming fullness of the earth are yours in the love of one woman."

   ~ Leslie Howard

Leslie Howard and Bette Davis

in The Petrified Forest, 1936

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Remembering Joseph Cotten On His Birthday

Joseph Cotten (15 May 1905 - 6 February 1994) was one of my favorite actors. Between 1930 and 1981 he had a successful radio, stage, film and television career. He also co-wrote the screenplay for Journey Into Fear (1943). In 1934, Cotten had the good fortune to meet and become friends with Orson Welles, who helped launch his film career.

Cotten appeared on Broadway as C. K. Dexter Haven in the original production of The Philadelphia Story with Katharine Hepburn. He expected to recreate the role in the film version but found once he got to Hollywood that the role had been given to Cary Grant. At that point, Cotten made good use of his friendship with Welles by securing a role in Citizen Kane (1941). Although Citizen Kane did not do well at the box office due in large part to William Randolph Hearst's refusal to allow any of his newspapers to advertise it, Cotten did go on to play lead roles in Welles' productions of The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), Journey Into Fear (1943) and The Third Man (1949).

My favorite movies came later. And there are so many: Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt (1943) where he played a ruthless serial killer (also Hitch's favorite film), Gaslight (1944) with Ingrid Bergman and Charles Boyer, the WWII tearjerker Since You Went Away (1944) with Claudette Colbert and Jennifer Jones, Love Letters (1945) again with Jennifer Jones and one of my favorite character actors, Cecil Kellaway, and one of my all-time, absolute favorite movies, Niagara (1953) with Marilyn Monroe. And who can forget Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964).

 Happy Birthday, Joseph Cotten.

Joseph Cotten's Obituary, The New York Times, February 7, 1994

[Joseph Cotten, 1957]

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Have A Great Weekend!

It doesn't take brains to remember to have a fantastic weekend. See you Monday. Remember the blog.

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Getting Even

Apparently, Leslie Howard was a bit of a prankster and liked to keep the cast and crew of The Animal Kingdom on its toes during performances by pulling gags and ad libbing during the show. Well, they finally had enough and decided to seek revenge. Following is an excerpt from an article which appeared in New Movie Magazine, December, 1934, by Douglas Gilbert:

"In one of his scenes, alone upon the stage, he had to drink a rye highball. I needn't tell you good readers that a stage 'rye highball' carries about as much jolt as cold tea--which, in fact, it is. Well, he'd been gagging the cast to distraction. They saw this bit of business as a chance to out-smart him.

"Coming to the wings for his entrance the property man handed him his highball which he was to drink on the stage. No quotes on this one--it was a highball and no foolin'. The cast had jolted it with real rye, two-fingers of dynamite that would have lifted W. C. Fields into the flies. Then, they hastened behind the set to various points of vantage where they could watch Howard unseen by the audience. Howard took the drink, drained it, and without batting an eye, turned to the set where he knew the prankers must be stationed and, his back to the audience, raised his glass in a toast to the hidden cast and bowed low."

[Leslie Howard and Lora Baxter in The Animal Kingdom
at the Broadhurst Theatre, NYC, January - June, 1932]

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Leslie Howard, Swindler?

Bill Gargan recalls his time with Leslie Howard at the out-of-town engagement of The Animal Kingdom, 1932:

"When the show went on to Cleveland, before returning to Broadway, we stopped at a hotel near the station. There was a great deal of noise, which Howard, being an Englishman, couldn't stand. So he inquired regarding accommodations in the residential district.

"Finding a quiet location forty-five minutes by taxi from town, really a delightful place, he and Mrs. Howard engaged a suite and insisted I go along. When we signed the register, my room was thirty-five dollars a week. At the other hotel, I had paid at the rate of sixteen dollars a week.

"On my salary, with a wife and apartment to keep in Brooklyn, I couldn't figure how I could stand the gaff until Howard went into his act and said thirty-five dollars was too much for his secretary's room. 'That's different,' the manager told him, 'in that event, the rate will be twenty-two dollars.' At that reduced rent, I occupied a room adjoining the Howards. After the manager had seen the play, he seemed to get a great kick out of the trick played on him."

[from the article, "Pals," New Movie Magazine, October, 1934, by Whitney Williams]

[Leslie Howard with Bill Gargan, 1934]

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Best Friends

William Gargan, who named one of his sons after Leslie Howard, recalled their beginnings:

"Our friendship started from the moment Howard grasped my hand and said I was okay for the part ["Red" Regan in the play, The Animal Kingdom, 1932]. We seemed to click from the start, and on the way to Pittsburgh we really had a chance to get acquainted.

"Mrs. Howard accompanied her husband, and both accepted me as one of the family. The play made a great hit at its first tryout, so much so that Barry [Philip Barry, playwright] declared my part, the butler, too important for the sake of the starring role. He told Howard he'd cut it down.

"'You won't cut down any of the parts,' Howard informed him. 'If you have to make the play stronger, build up the star, but don't chop any of the lines the others have.' At that opening night, too, Howard made me take five curtain calls of my own."

[from the article, "Pals," New Movie Magazine, October, 1934, by Whitney Williams]

[From left: Mrs. Gargan, Leslie Howard, Mrs. Howard,
William Gargan, and Leslie's son, Ronald Howard]

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Too Tall for Leslie

Rehearsals began for The Animal Kingdom in November 1931. The play was to appear at the Broadhurst Theatre beginning in January, 1932. Leslie, the co-producer, was set to play Tom Collier and Bill Gargan had secured the part of his butler friend, "Red" Regan.

Katharine Hepburn had been cast in the part of Daisy Sage, Tom Collier's bohemian girlfriend. Hepburn only lasted through six days of rehearsal, though. According to Hepburn's biography, Me: Stories of My Life, she blamed Howard for her demise stating that she was too tall for him and that he was afraid she would run away with the play. In fact, Hepburn was at least three inches shorter than Howard and anyone who has studied Howard would know that he wouldn't care who emerged as the bigger star. As a matter of fact, the play's co-producer, Gilbert Miller, and the playwright, Philip Barry, thought Hepburn all wrong for the part. Even Bill Gargan noted that she was too inexperienced for the role which called for a passive femininity. A year later her performance in The Lake was panned by all the New York critics. Dorothy Parker wrote in The New Yorker that "she ran the gamut of emotions from A to B." [from Leslie Howard: The Lost Actor by Estel Eforgan]

Katharine didn't seem to hold a grudge though, as seen in the photo below.

[Leslie Howard and Katharine Hepburn
leaving a private screening at Jessie Lasky's
beach home in Santa Monica, May 12, 1933]

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Lots of Leslie Howards

Did you know that Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall are not the only couple to have named their child after Leslie Howard in gratitude for his help and friendship?

Howard first met Bill Gargan when Gargan read for the part "German Play Reader" in Leslie's new play, Out of a Blue Sky, which Howard wrote and directed. Howard had dismissed Clark Gable from the part during rehearsals. The comedy ran at the Booth Theatre in NYC for 17 performances in February, 1930.

A year or so later when Gargan heard that Leslie was returning to Broadway to perform as Tom Collier in The Animal Kingdom he didn't waste a minute asking Howard for the part of Richard "Red" Regan, Tom Collier's comic butler. Gargan met Howard at the pier as his boat pulled in from England. Initially, Howard thought Gargan too young for the part but brought him along to the theater to try out anyway. Gargan got the part and the two were on their way to becoming fast friends with Bill promising to name his next child, boy or girl, after Leslie. It was a boy and it was named Leslie Howard Gargan.

[Leslie Howard with Leslie Howard Gargan]

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Blow-Up

I like everything British. I hope one day to make it to England, but for now I only have the movies. And one of my favorite British movies will be playing on TCM at 1:30 am PST on Monday, May 9. (Check your listings for the time in your area.) I must mention it because its appearance on the tube here is rare.

Blow-Up, Michelangelo Antonioni's 1966 "mod masterpiece" about a fashion photographer who believes he accidentally caught a murder on film, defied the movie industry's Production Code of the time, a code abandoned in favor of the MPAA film rating system in 1968 due largely to the success of this film.

Herbie Hancock scored the movie which was ranked No. 144 in the Sight and Sound magazine greatest films poll. It is definitely at the top of my list. Check it out.

Blow-Up on Wikipedia

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See You Monday

It's the weekend everybody. Have a good one! I'm outta here.

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In Appreciation of a Kinder, Gentler Man

In the February 8, 1935, edition of the The New York Times Andre Sennwald reviews The Scarlet Pimpernel.

The New York Times Review, by Andre Sennwald, February 8, 1935

Sennwald says of Howard's performance, he "minces so expertly, plays the fool so well, that not even Chauvelin, the deadliest of the Pimpernel's foes, suspects this simpering dandy to be the bravest and shrewdest gentleman in all the world." Mr. Sennwald goes on to state "that Leslie Howard's newest performance is also his best" and that "Mr. Howard is the Pimpernel himself."

This brings to mind the criticism I have seen of Leslie Howard over the years. Not Sir Percy Blakeney, but Leslie Howard. Some people seem to think that Mr. Howard is the fop he played in The Scarlet Pimpernel. And, likewise, there are those who see him as the abused and put-upon figure Philip Carey from Of Human Bondage. Many people also choose to think he is actually the weak and indecisive Ashley Wilkes he portrayed in Gone With The Wind.

Honestly, I have never read Gone With The Wind. It is on my Bucket List. However, my view of Ashley Wilkes isn't as simple as labeling him indecisive, ineffectual, a milquetoast, lacking in honor, or wimpy. But that discussion is for another post at another time.

The fact that movie watchers seem to want to paint the man Leslie Howard with the same brush as they do his characters Blakeney, Carey and Wilkes merely proves what a fine actor he was. Howard was one of the few British actors who returned to England at the onset of WWII. And Howard and his family probably lost upwards of $40 million in box office receipts from Gone With The Wind for that decision. Many of the British producers, directors and actors who worked in Hollywood at that time decided to just ride out the war in their comfy Beverly Hills homes and they didn't even have as much to lose as Mr. Howard.

Leslie Howard gave up his life, not just for his country, but for all of humanity. He knew what he was fighting for and he was worried that it could get him killed. But he did it anyway. He didn't die as a soldier, but as a civilian in a civilian aircraft shot down by the Nazis. But he could have been considered a soldier for what was right. And all soldiers are not cut from the same mold. They aren't all macho or naturally aggressive. But they are all brave. And they are all heroes.

[Leslie Howard, c. 1935]

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The New York Times Review, February 8, 1935

From the The New York Times review by Andre Sennwald:

"It is a temptation to say that Leslie Howard's newest performance is also his best. This time the need is overbearing. For Mr. Howard is the Pimpernel himself, gallant and resourceful on his perilous missions across the Channel, downright superb when he is playing the simpering poseur in the English drawing rooms. He is an infinite delight even in a cast which is correct down to the smallest rôles and includes Raymond Massey and Merle Oberon among its principals. Robert Sherwood and Arthur Wimperis have struck off a witty, romantic and adventurous screen play, which has been costumed, photographed and set aflowing with the best possible taste. Did the narrative seem a trifle leisurely in places? No matter. It was a leisurely age and here is a succulent and captivating entertainment."

The New York Times Review of The Scarlet Pimpernel, 1935

[Leslie Howard in a colorized photo as
Sir Percy Blakeney in
The Scarlet Pimpernel, 1935]

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Happy Birthday to Tyrone Power (1914 - 1958)

It would be hard to choose a favorite Ty Power movie, but at the top of the list is Rawhide. Whenever I mention Rawhide people always utter, "What?" It's a great movie with a stellar cast: Susan Hayward, Hugh Marlowe and the best group of character actors ever assembled in one movie: Edgar Buchanan, Dean Jagger, George Tobias and the brilliant Jack Elam.

[Tyrone Power and Hugh Marlowe
in Rawhide, 1951]

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About Merle Oberon

Leslie Howard once quipped that he "didn't chase women but...couldn't be bothered to run away." During his career he had affairs with several of his leading ladies. But, according to Leslie Howard's daughter, Leslie Ruth "Doodie" Howard, her father fell passionately in love with Merle Oberon while filming The Scarlet Pimpernel during the summer of 1934.

[Leslie Howard and Merle Oberon, 1935]

Their relationship must have lasted for some time. The two were seen together all over London. Howard's behavior become rather embarrassing to his friends and associates, with several of them even asking him to tone it down. But the affair continued as they both returned to the States after completion of the film. Howard appeared devoted to Oberon. Apparently, he was considering leaving his family for Oberon, at her insistence. When Howard's wife, Ruth Martin Howard, became aware of this she flew to New York with the children in tow to confront Howard and remind him of his family responsibilities.

[Leslie Howard and Merle Oberon holding hands, 1934]

"Doodie" remembers that, at the tender age of ten years old, she was left alone with Oberon to "bond," in a step-motherly sort of way. She recalls that she must have been a real horror because Oberon told Howard that she didn't like his daughter. Howard adored "Doodie" (as evidenced in the many photographs he took of and with her throughout their lives) and the way she remembers it, Howard promptly ended his affair with Oberon.

Merle Oberon in The Scarlet Pimpernel, 1935

However, in January, 1935, after Howard began work in The Petrified Forest, Oberon appeared in New York ready for a showdown. Within a few days of her arrival, Howard was in the hospital too ill to report to work. Oberon had apparently triggered an attack of nerves and Howard developed boils. Not a very romantic ailment and not one for which Oberon was willing to administer aid. She took off and left Howard to repair his boils and the wounds he had caused to his family. He never again made the mistake of falling for one of his leading ladies. (He did have a long-term relationship with Violette Cunnington, but Cunnington was French and made it easy for Howard by, in the words of his son, agreeing to a "French solution," meaning no divorce.)

[Leslie Howard and Merle Oberon
in The Scarlet Pimpernel, 1935]

[Leslie Howard and Merle Oberon
in The Scarlet Pimpernel, 1935]

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Raymond Massey

I love Raymond Massey (1896 - 1983), especially as Citizen Chauvelin in The Scarlet Pimpernel. A more dastardly foe of Sir Percy Blakeney there could not be. But, of course, he was always thwarted by the cunning of the Pimpernel.

[Raymond Massey as Citizen Chauvelin
in The Scarlet Pimpernel, 1934]

Massey said of his experience filming the movie, "I never had such fun working in a movie as I did on The Scarlet Pimpernel. Of all the heavies I have played on the screen, the most wicked and the most fun to do was Chauvelin. There was a spirit in that company, a feeling of confidence, a sort of élan which I have often found in the theater but never sensed in any other movie."

During the filming of The Scarlet Pimpernel, Massey was not only starring in the play The Shining Hour on London's West End, but he was directing it as well. This meant long days for the director-actor but the film's producer, Alexander Korda, made it easier for him by making a car and driver available to Massey. This allowed him to get in a snooze during the one-hour trip to and from Elstree Studios in Borehamwood. Massey didn't have to worry about meals due to the fact that the play called for him to eat two full hot meals during his performance each night. (The play was known jokingly as "The Dining Hour.")

[Leslie Howard and Raymond Massey
in The Scarlet Pimpernel, 1935]

The original director of The Scarlet Pimpernel, Rowland Brown, was fired on the first day of shooting. In Raymond Massey's autobiography, A Hundred Different Lives, he recounts how producer Korda watched Brown direct a scene and then told him what he was doing wrong. Brown told Korda that the film was going to be his way or he would walk. Korda replied, "Please walk," which Brown did. Korda had hired a new director, Harold Young, by the end of the day. Massey stated, "The next day Young ostensibly took over, but the direction throughout the months of shooting remained an unofficial but smooth collaboration," which I take to mean that Young figured out that one doesn't argue with the Hungarian.

Raymond Massey also said of Korda, "Alex was Hungarian, imaginative, intelligent, extravagant. Although lacking business sense, he had an uncanny ability to find money, and he also had an uncommon feeling for quality."

Leslie Howard, Merle Oberon and Raymond Massey in The Scarlet Pimpernel, 1935

Leslie Howard, Raymond Massey and Anthony Bushell in The Scarlet Pimpernel, 1935

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Leslie Howard Radio Star

[Leslie Howard appearing
on CBS Radio, c. 1930's]

Leslie Howard was not only a theater and film star but a star of radio as well. He appeared five times on NBC's the Rudy Vallee Hour (once with Merle Oberon in A Minuet), with Bing Crosby on Kraft Music Hall, The Magic Key of RCA in Galsworthy's Justice, Your Hit Parade, on the BBC in Hamlet, on CBS in their 1937 summer series, Columbia Presents Shakespeare, in their production of Much Ado About Nothing, CBS's The Silver Theatre in A Study in Triangles, and The Gulf Screen Guild Theater in Never In this World with Kay Francis and Virginia Weidler, and many productions on Lux Radio Theatre including Sir Percy Blakeney in The Scarlett Pimpernel. Olivia de Havilland, whose French accent was very convincing, appeared as Marguerite St. Just. The two had just completed work on Gone With The Wind in 1939. Cecil B. DeMille, who produced the radio program, introduces the show with high praise for Leslie Howard. Howard also appeared on Eddie Cantor's Texaco Town late in 1936 and into 1937. It took the two of them six months and three appearances together before Howard finally delivered the punch line in the skit, "The Three Rubbers." Howard also had his own radio show in 1935 - 1936, Leslie Howard's Matinee.

[Cecil B. DeMille, host of
Lux Radio Theatre (1936 - 1945)]

To listen to one of Leslie Howard's radio appearances, click on this link:

Leslie Howard and Olivia de Havilland in Lux Radio Theatre's The Scarlet Pimpernel, 1939

[A studio audience gathers prior to a live production at
Hollywood's Lux Radio Playhouse, located one block
south of Hollywood and Vine at 1615 North Vine Street]

[Lux Ratio Theatre with Leslie Howard and
Helen Chandler at the microphone performing
Berkeley Square, December 9, 1934]

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Just A Bit Of Trivia

In this scene of The Scarlet Pimpernel you see a fly land on Leslie Howard's right sleeve, which I have noted in the IMDb Trivia section for the movie. Apparently, Elstree Studios, where the movie was filmed, had a problem with flies as I have noticed flies in other scenes as well. The director, Harold Young, either didn't notice the fly or had already become resigned to them by the time this scene was filmed. Honestly, I watched the film at least fifty times before I noticed the fly, probably because I am mesmerized by Leslie Howard's lean in on Merle Oberon instead.

[Leslie Howard and Fly]

Leslie Howard and Merle Oberon in The Scarlet Pimpernel, 1935

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They Seek Him Here, They Seek Him There

Leslie Howard and Edmund Breon in The Scarlet Pimpernel. Produced by Alexander Korda and London Films. Distributed by United Artists. Directed by Harold Young. Released in the UK December 23, 1934 and in the US February 7, 1935.

Leslie Howard and Edmund Breon in The Scarlet Pimpernel, 1935

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A Very Hungarian Affair

Baroness Emmuska Magdalena Rosalie Maria Josefa Barbara Orczy, born in 1865, was the daughter of aristocrat Baron Felix Orczy, a Hungarian-Jewish musician and composer, who left his homeland in 1868 with his young family after their home was vandalized by peasants. They eventually settled in London. Baron Orczy wanted his daughter to study music but she opted for art school instead. This is where she met her husband, Montagu Barstow. Orczy wrote The Scarlet Pimpernel herself in just five weeks but could not find a publisher for the book. So, together with her husband, she wrote a play based on the book which was produced for the stage in 1903. The novel was then published in 1905.

Enter Alexander Korda who was born in 1893 in what is now Hungary and who had formed his own production company, London Films. It was Korda who originally put The Scarlet Pimpernel on film. Korda had actually wanted Charles Laughton for the title role, but by that time the public already had an idea of what Sir Percy Blakeney looked like and it wasn't Charles Laughton.

And this leads us to our star, Leslie Howard. Howard was born Leslie Howard Steiner to a British mother, Lilian (née Blumberg), and a Hungarian-Jewish father, Ferdinand Steiner. Although born in England, Howard did live for a time in Vienna, Austria, where his father wanted the family to experience the richness of the cultural innovation and intellectual brilliance happening there. That experience is said to have influenced Howard for the rest of his life.

Leslie Howard and Walter Rilla
in The Scarlet Pimpernel, 1935

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The Scarlet Pimpernel

Leslie Howard and Merle Oberon in The Scarlet Pimpernel. Produced by Alexander Korda and London Films. Distributed by United Artists. Released in the UK December 23, 1934 and in the US February 7, 1935.

[Leslie Howard and Merle Oberon
in The Scarlet Pimpernel, 1935]

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