"The Happiest Married Couple in Hollywood"

    Haines & Shields

   Hollywood’s Happiest Married Couple

During Hollywood’s “Golden Age”  (c. 1920-1955) studios pretty much controlled the lives, destinies, family histories and even names of all the actors they had under contract at any given time. Have an obviously ethnic or unpronounceable name like Mischa Ounskowsky, Naftaly Birnbaum, Jacob Julius Garfinkle, Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler or Simone Henriette Charlotte Kaminker? Well, with a mere snap of the finger and a couple of dozen press releases voila! - your studio had renamed you, in order, Mischa Auer, George Burns, John Garfield, Hedy Lamarr or Simone Signoret.  Each star - or star-in-the-making - was assigned a P.R. agent whose job was to keep their name in the movie mags when things were good, and off the police blotters when they wound up in trouble.  The studios also put their newcomers through a rigorous schedule of “schooling” in such varied areas as dancing, fencing, saddlery and, when talkies came in, singing.  

Much of studio “puffery” (a quaint term for “B.S.”) informed the adoring movie-going public that their favorite stars were either descendants of Mayflower families, Ivy League educated, inveterate church-goers, or somehow related to European (most British) royalty. It goes without saying that much of what the public “knew” about these stars and starlets was pure twaddle.   Beginning in the early 1920s, however, a series of scandals hit the film industry, effectively revealing that their idols had feet of clay.  Gossip columnists, particularly those working for Hearst publications, gave a lurid  accounting of the foibles and failings of their heroes.  Soon, “blue-noses” and members of women’s clubs began pushing the studios to institute morality codes for both the people they employed and the  films they made.  Among the things the strait-laced noted and complained about most bitterly was that a vast number of these movie people were piling up marriages and divorces at an alarming rate.  Quelle immoralité !

Truth to tell Hollywood has long suffered from an overabundance of monogamy . . . meaning too many people getting married far too often. Sometimes the marriages last but a few weeks or months; often they ended not in divorce, but in annulment.  Among the marriage champs we find:

• Lana Turner: 8 marriages (Her 1st, to bandmaster Artie Shaw [Arthur Jacob Arshawsky] last 1 day shy of 7 months); Shaw  next married Ava Gardner; that marriage lasted precisely 1 year

• Mickey Rooney: 8 (His first, to Ava Gardner, lasted a mere 26 months)

• Judy Garland: 5

• Rita Hayworth: 5 (including Orson Welles)  

• Clark Gable: 5

• Humphrey Bogart: 4

• Charlie Chaplin: 4 (all of whom were teenagers; in total, 2 of these wives presented him with 11 children; the first in 1925, the 11th in 1957)

•  John Barrymore: 4 (including the “love of his life,” the writer “Michael Strange.”)

As seemingly commonplace as this has been over the past century, there are also Hollywood couples whose marriages lasted far, far longer than most can imagine.  Consider the following:

• Norman and Peggy Lloyd (who was a friend of mine), were married for an amazing 75 years, 65 days.

• Karl Malden and Mona Greenberg were married 70 years, 195 days.

• Bob and Delores Hope were married for 69 years, 5 months.

• Kirk and Anne Bydens Douglas were married 65 years 253 days.

• Cyd Charrise and Tony Martin (Alvin Morris) were married 60 years, 34 days.

• Alan Alda and Arlene Weiss will be celerating their 66th anniversary on March 15.

• Sir Alfred Hitchcock and Alma Reville, were married for nearly 54 years.

• Dawn Nickerson (my dear friend and student) ) and Richart L. Fox , Sr. were married for 48 years. 

(IT SHOULD also BE noted that our parents, Alice K. and Henry E. Stone were married for 59 years. In many ways bipolar opposites, dad never missed a chance to usher at any of Madame’s performances. They proved how different they were at a 50th anniversary gathering (at the Sportsman’s Lodge), where my father gave a loving, romantic toast to his bride (which had most of the women wishing their husband’s were so articulate) and mom, responding in her 30 megawatt voice proclaiming : “HERE’S TO HENRY. FIFTY YEARS OF MARRIAGE AND NEVER ONCE CONSIDERED DIVORCE. Then, pausing for a perfect amount of time continued . . . “MURDER? MANY TIMES!”).

Returning to the opening paragraphs of this post, it should be noted that in Hollywood - a truly small town in every sense of the term - most everyone knew who their neighbors were in real life . . . behind the silver, P.R.-created curtain of fiction.  We knew who drank too much and who was popping pills, who was gay and who was an uneducated jerk.  And for the most part, it really didn’t matter.  One of the things that made growing up in that world so different (although as kids we did not know it) was how accepting most of us were taught to be.  

Continuing with the “marriage thread,” everyone knew that the actor William (“Billy”) Haines and his lifetime companion James “Jimmy” Shields were an ideal couple.  The two met in New York even before the Virginia-born Billy first hit Hollywood in the early 1920s.  It didn’t take long for Billy to become a major star; the picture which first brought him to the attention of the movie-going public was 1926’s Brown of Harvard. in which Billy played a supremely confident, wisecracking  player on the football team.  This would be the personality - that of a  wise-acre - which brought him to public acclaim.  So much so that by the late 1920s, he was the #1 box office attraction in the United States, making more than $1 million dollars a year and costarring with the likes of Marion Davies, Joan Crawford, Lon Chaney, and  Lionel Barrymore.  His best picture, in my estimation, was 1928’s Show People, costarring Marion Davies (also her best picture) and directed by one of Hollywood’s all-time greatest directors, King Vidor.  In this late silent film, Billy plays movie comic Billy Boone, who is in love with up-and-coming actress Peggy Pepper (Davies) who, taking herself oh-so-seriously, transforms herself into “Patricia Pepoire,” the cinematic ancestor of Jean Hagen’s character “Lina Lamont,” in 1952’s Singin’ in the Rain.

                                  William Haines at His Peak

Unlike stars Ramon Navarro, Greta Garbo, comedienne Patsy Kelley and directors Dorothy Arzner and George Cukor, of whom the movie-going public knew nothing vis-a-vis their proclivities, Hollywood was completely aware - and by a wide margin accepting - of their sexuality. Indeed, for many years, director George Cukor (1899-1983) was well-known in Hollywood for the legendary Sunday afternoon poolside Sunday brunches he would put on at his opulent home at 9166 Cordell Drive in Beverly Hills.  These gatherings included the best and brightest of the Hollywood homosexual underground. In time to come, Billy and Jimmy would serve as the interior designers of Cukor’s home.

The advent of talking motion pictures threw  a monkey wrench into the industry; all sorts of changes began to occur.  Stars like Vilma Banky, Karl Dane and Emil Jannings were let go because their European accents were impossible to understand.  Others, like top-flight stars Clara Bow and Norma Talmadge with their heavy Brooklyn “toidy-toid-and-toid” patois simply could not make it in the talkies. 

Pronunciation aside, MGM head Louis B. Mayer had another problem with William Haines; one which had nothing to do with his pronunciation.  Meyer told Haines, (the first proudly self-outed actor in Hollywood), know in no uncertain terms that if he were to continue earning his millions, he would first have to part company with Jimmy Shields (whom he had been with, by this time for nearly a decade) and enter into a “Lavendar” marriage . . . one with a woman, for the sake of publicity.  Haines refused Mayer’s ultimatum,  thereby forsaking his movie career for the man he loved.  Mayer was one problem for Haines; the other was the Hays Production Code, which in 1930, imposed a set of “moral” guidelines that actors were commanded to obey. One was an absolute  prohibition on "homosexual behavior" - both onscreen and off. At the peak of his stardom, Haines was able to have the clause removed from his contract and continue acting. But when several of his movies didn’t perform well at the box office, - including the overtly “swishy” 1930 film Way Out West, there was mounting pressure to conform.

Winfield House

A few years before being dropped by MGM, Haines had become part-owner of an antiques store on La Brea Avenue. He had an excellent eye and his home at 1712 Stanley Ave. (called the "Haines Castle)  was a designer showcase. He was best friends with Joan Crawford (whom he had nicknamed “Raspberries”)  and welcomed into the inner circle of William Randolph Hearst and Marion Davies, attending their famous parties in San Simeon.  Thanks to these and many other connections, Haines became Hollywood’s most in-demand decorator. Crawford was one of his first clients, followed by Tallulah Bankhead, Jack Warner, Betsy Bloomingdale, and, as mentioned above, director George Cukor. Without question, the pinnacle of Billy and Jimmy’s decorating career was their 1968 redecorating of Winfield House, the lavish residence of America’s Ambassador to the Court of St. James . . . who at the time was publishing magnate Walter Annenberg.

  Beyond his distinguished clientele, Billy Haines became synonymous with good taste in Hollywood. Gone were the dark, moody interiors, the leopard print rugs, the garish purchases made by rising stars suddenly flush with cash. In their places, he hung hand-painted wallpaper, refined low seating, chinoiserie, and English antiques; all harbingers of what we now call Hollywood Regency. Hollywood directors incorporated Haines’s aesthetic into their films, often literally: Billy and Jimmy’s personal art collection was hung on the walls of Tara in Gone with the Wind. Nancy and Ronald Reagan were also fans, and Haines decorated their home in Pacific Palisades when Reagan became governor of California (after he retired, his protegé Ted Graber decorated the Reagan White House).

It was Joan Crawford who first referred to Billy and Jimmy as “Hollywood’s happiest couple.”  In many respects, like many happily married couples, they were a study in opposites: Billy was always “on,” while Jimmy was quiet.  One was a born entertainer, the other more of a homebody.  And yet, it worked admirably well for nearly a half century.  There are very, very few pictures of the two together - either at home or in public.  What few exist are mostly from their later years . . . with the exception of the rare photo above at the beginning of this post.  

But alas, nothing lasts for ever.  Billy died of lung cancer in Santa Monica on December 26, 1973; he was 73 years old.  10 weeks later - March 6, 1974, Jimmy Shields put on a pair of Billy’s favorite pajamas, climbed into their bed, took an overdose of sleeping pills, and passed away.  His suicide note said, simply, "Goodbye to all of you who have tried so hard to comfort me in my loss of William Haines, whom I have been with since 1926. I now find it impossible to go it alone, I am much too lonely."

They are interred side by side in Woodlawn Memorial Cemetery in Santa Monica, California.  William Haines Designs remains in operation, with main offices in West Hollywood and an additional showroom in New York.  Playwright Claudio Macor created the biographical drama The Tailor-Made Man in the mid-1990s in London, telling the story of Haines' discovery in a talent contest, his movie career, its curtailment by Louis B. Mayer, and Haines' re-invention as an interior designer.  The 50-year marriage of Billy and Jimmy is, of course, a major theme of this work . . . which is only fitting for Hollywood’s happiest married couple . . .

Copyright®2023 Kurt F. Stone

#28 . . . "Casablanca": The Best Movie to Watch on the Fourth of July

There’s never been a question in my mind that Casablanca, the movie that captured the Best Picture award at the 1944 Oscars, is unquestionably the best film of all time. Period. I have also long believed that it contains the single-most emotional and patriotic 2 minutes in the history of motion pictures: to wit, the scene where the Czech freedom-fighter Victor Laszo (actor Paul Henreid) leads the in-house orchestra and all the escapees from Hitler’s Germany in the playing and singing of La Marseilles, in stunning counterpoint, drowning out the Nazis officers’ singing of Die Wacht am Rhein (“Watch on the Rhein”) at “Rick’s” café. At one point, the camera focuses on Yvonne, Rick’s former girlfriend/mistress (played by French actress Madelaine Lebeau) who has a real, honest-to-God tear rolling down her cheek while she sings her country’s National Anthem.  As a result of this one scene, she forever became the face of the French Resistance. 

There can be no question that her tears were real and not the product of typical movie magic -  spraying either glycerin or menthol into the eyes.  In matter of fact, most everyone in that scene -  the vast majority of whom were (mostly Jewish) escapees from Hitler’s Third Reich felt overwhelmed during its filming. Ironically, Conrad Veidt, the Berlin-born actor who played the utterly detestable Major Heinrich Strasser likely felt it more than most.  A virulent anti-Nazi, the well-known actor (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Man Who Laughs) claimed on both his c.v. and his German exit visa that he was Jewish  . . . as a sign of solidarity to his Jewish-born wife, Lily Prager.  He would die the year after Casablanca’s release from a sudden heart attack while playing golf in Los Angeles; today, his ashes are interred in a niche of the columbarium at the Golders Green Crematorium in North London, the  most Jewish section of that great city. 

In real life, Mme. Lebeau (that’s her, above) was married to fellow actor Marcel Dalio (born Israel Moshe Blauschild) who played the croupier Emil, the man who handed handed Capt. Renault (Claude Raines) his casino winnings just 5 seconds after announcing “I’m shocked!  Simply shocked to find out that there’s gambling going on here.”  At one point before fleeing Vichy-era France, the Germans, who had found some publicity stills of Dalio, displayed them throughout the city with the caption 'a typical Jew' so that citizens could more easily report anyone suspected of unrepentant Jewishness. Eerily following one of Casablanca’s major plotlines, Dalio and Lebeau fled Vichy and made their way to Portugal, where eventually, they wound up in Hollywood. Sadly, they divorced the year after Casablanca won the Oscar, and she made her way back to France at war’s end.  She would die in Malaga, Spain, in 2016, the film’s last surviving credited cast member. 

Let’s spend 2 minutes watching this most  heartfelt scene.  To this day - and after a minimum of 175 viewings, it still brings tears to my eyes:

As with most national anthems, La Marseillaise speaks to the proudest, most patriotic and courageous emotions within the Gallic genome. The first of its seven verses and refrain are sung in Casablanca.

                   Allons enfants de la patrie,                                        Let's go children of the fatherland                                                 

                   Le jour de gloire est arrivé!                                        The day of glory has arrived!
                   Contre nous de la tyrannie                                         Against us tyranny's
                   L'étendard sanglant est levé ! (bis)                              Bloody flag is raised! (repeat)
                   Entendez-vous dans les campagnes,                         In the countryside, do you hear
                   Mugir ces féroces soldats ?                                         The roaring of these fierce soldiers?
                   Ils viennent jusque dans nos bras                              They come right to our arms
                   Égorger nos fils, nos compagnes!                               To slit the throats of our sons, our friends!

                                                                                              Refrain:

                             Aux armes, citoyens !                                                     Grab your weapons, citizens!
                             Formez vos bataillons !                                                  Form your battalions!
                             Marchons ! Marchons !                                                  Let us march! Let us march!
                             Qu'un sang impur                                                          May impure blood
                            Abreuve nos sillons !                                                      Water our fields!

As originally intended by the film’s producers, Hal B. Wallace and Jack L. Warner,  La Marseillaise was supposed to be sung in counterpoint to Die Horst Wessel, the barely 12-year old anthem of the Third Reich.  (In comparison, La Marseillaise had been written in 1792).  Horst Wessel was a young Nazi who was shot in 1930, and shortly thereafter made into a martyr for the “state that would last for no less than 1,000 years.” The Warner Bros. legal department soon learned that the copyright to “Horst Wessel” was controlled by a German publisher. If they used the song, the studio would be able to show Casablanca in countries at war with Germany, but copyright restrictions would make it impossible to show the film in neutral countries, which included most of South America.  And so, Warners decided to replace Die Horst Wessel with a far, far older song, Die Wacht am Rhein, the singing of which went totally against the principles of the Nazi Party.

                     The Watch on the Rhine:                                                         The Horst Wessel
The cry resounds like thunder's peal,                                          The flag is high, our ranks are closed

  Like crashing waves and clang of steel:                                      The S.A. marches with silent solid steps.

  The Rhine, the Rhine, our German Rhine,                                     Comrades shot by the red front and reaction

   Who will defend our stream, divine?                                              March in spirit with us in our ranks.

    Dear fatherland, no fear be thine,                                             The street is free for the brown battalions)

   Dear fatherland, no fear be thine,                                              The street is free for the Storm Troopers.                                       

   Firm and True stands the Watch, the Watch at the Rhine!          Millions full of hope, look at our swastika

   Firm and True stands the Watch, the Watch at the Rhine!          The day breaks for freedom and for bread

 They stand, a hundred thousand strong,                                         For the last time the call will now be sounded

 Quick to avenge their country's wrong,                                           Soon will fly Hitler’s banners over every street

 With filial love their bosoms swell                                                    Our slavery will last only a short time longer   They shall guard the sacred landmark well.                                    The flag is high, our ranks are closed

At the 100th anniversary of the Eiffel Tower in 1989, the great French chanteuse Mireille Mathieu, accompanied by a full orchestra and chorus, sang the French National Anthem at the statue’s base. According to reports at the time, "Mathieu sang the anthem of France so grandly and shrewdly that tears welled up across the country, many patriotic citizens even needed medical treatment." Ten years later, she was awarded the Medal of the French Legion of Honor.   I share it with you to give but a small impression of what kinds of emotion can raised and felt on a day like today:

The average American citizen, I would imagine, only hears - let alone sings - the Star Spangled Banner at the beginning of sporting events.  And then, as the last few words are about to be sung the crowd begins to cheer . . . not so much for the spirit of the anthem, but for the future victory of their home team.  And as for our national heroes - Washington, Jefferson, Franklin and Lincoln - they are trotted out as spokespeople for sales campaigns rather than as symbols of our ideals.  Whenever I feel the need to reach some sort of emotional climax on the 4th of July, I watch anew the great musical 1776, and marvel at how this country came into being.  For as with a classic motion picture - such as Casablanca, the greatest of them all - its success is the more the product of its numerous close encounters with failure, than the absolute genius of its creators.

One of the things that has always drawn me to watching Casablanca on the Fourth of July is the incredibly emotional, patriotic vision it gives to one of its central characters: The United States of America. For to the refugees and émigrés of that North African city, America is a refuge . . . man’s last, greatest hope . . . the land of the open arms and willing hearts. One gets the sense that those who manage to escape Casablanca and finally land at Ellis Island, they will become wonderful, grateful additions to the American family. It is an image - and a reality - which is at root, the very meaning of the Fourth of July.

Yes, we are truly blessed to be citizens, residents, refugees or asylees of this great nation.  But at the same time, our blessings should never be taken for granted . . . especially in times like these when there are growing segments of the nation who do not consider those who have different opinions, different heroes and heroines or different backgrounds to be traitors, deviants or even worse.  Our motto, so far as I recall, has long E Pluribus Unam, which is Latin for "Out of many (comes) one.”  Alas, for so many of our fellow citizens - especially those who haven’t the slightest idea of what our national motto is . . . let alone where it comes from - this nation is not (in the words of Woody Guthrie) "made for you and me.” How sad it is that when it comes to observing the Fourth of July, we are no longer memorializing or drinking a toast to the same nation as others. 

Ironically, many of us of a certain age were considered "Communists,” "Socialists” or "Anarchists” a half-century ago when we wore our hair long, went without bras and,  as the  terminology of the day had it  "let our freak flags fly.”  Today, I consider our ilk - now in our sixties and seventies - to be far more patriotic, more in tune with the historic purpose of America, than those who seek to delimit freedom, see enemies  behind every crack and crevice, and reread history to the point that it suits their dishonorable purposes.  I for one would love nothing more than tearing up whenever I hear the Star Spangled Banner, like I do when La Marseillaise is sung at Cafe Rick’s in Casablanca, circa 1942.   

Undoubtedly, that is the main reason why I watch it every Fourth of July.

Copyright, ©2022 Kurt F. Stone

Rosebud

On March 17, 1941, just a couple of days after the world premiere of Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane, novelist/movie critic John O’Hara (often referred to as “The Rodney Dangerfield of American literature”) wrote a review of the movie for Newsweek Magazine. O’Hara began his review in the following manner:

It is [with] exceeding regret that your faithful bystander reports that he has just seen a picture which he thinks must be the best picture he ever saw.

With no less regret, he reports that he has just seen the best actor in the history of acting.

Name of picture: Citizen Kane.

Name of actor: Orson Welles.

Reason for regret: you, my dear, may never see the picture.

O’Hara’s reasons for the last line were multitudinous; it said as much about Hollywood’s feelings for the then 26-year old Welles, as it did about the Hollywood establishment itself.

[George] Orson Welles (1915-1985) claimed that the first words he ever heard while still in the cradle came from Dr. Maurice Bernstein (the Welles’ family physician), who proclaimed the infant a prodigy, “a genius in the making.” It turned out, of course, to be true.  (Years later, Welles would immortalize the good doctor by naming John Foster Kane’s business manager “Mr. Bernstein” in Citizen Kane. (The character, whose first name was never mentioned, was played by the venerable character actor Everett Sloane.)

Julius Caesar with Orson Welles and Martin Gabel as Cassius.

By his mid-teens, Orson Welles had convinced the manager of Dublin’s Gate Theatre that he was an important American actor, and starred in several of that legendary theatre’s productions. After about a year, he returned to America before his 19th birthday and created both the “Mercury Theatre on the Air” on radio and Broadway’s “Mercury Theatre,” the former of which scared much of the East Coast with his Halloween broadcast of H.G. Welles’ (no relation) “War of the Worlds.” Welles also became radio’s “The Shadow,” and went on to both produce and star in a modern-dress version of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (as  an anti-Fascist, anti-Mussolini drama); it turned out to be one of the 20th century’s most compelling versions of a Shakespearean play.  He also produced and starred in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, William Gillette’s Sherlock Holmes and Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days, among many, many others. And mind you, by this time he was barely twenty.

Working alongside his producer, future Oscar winner John Houseman, Welle’s Mercury Theater even had its own “Declaration of Principles,” - a statement which vowed that the company would cater to patrons “on a voyage of discovery in the theater,” who wanted to see “classical plays excitingly produced.” Fans of Citizen Kane will recognize in this the “Declaration of Principles” that John Foster Kane created for his first newspaper . . .

Not surprisingly, Hollywood came courting.  What was surprising, were the terms that RKO Studios offered the younger-than-young Welles: $150,000.00 ($2.8 million in today’s money) for each of two films of his choice, for which he could act as producer, writer, director and screen star, as well as having virtual complete control of the final film Prior to this earth-shattering contract, the studio chiefs maintained nearly complete control over a film’s destiny, including its script, casting, production budgets, assignment of technical staff, and the editing of the footage into a final print.

Nonetheless, no one, save Charlie Chaplin (who was using his own money) had ever received such an offer; heretofore, writers wrote, directors directed, producers produced and actors acted. But there was just something about Orson Welles. Even before Welles and his Mercury Theatre troupe detrained at the Pasadena Station, people in Hollywood were dubious, envious and wickedly  jealous of the boy genius.  As one biographer would note, “Welles radiated the physical presence of a movie idol long before he set foot in Hollywood.” Resentment and distrust were compounded when Welles arrived in Hollywood proper, sporting a beard [left over from his aborted production of Five Kings – an ambitious compilation of five of Shakespeare’s plays about British monarchs that Welles still hoped to produce after he completed a stint in Hollywood] . . . the beard served to alienate some . . . and amuse others.  According to an article in The Hollywood Reporter, “Errol Flynn sent Welles the perfect Christmas gift for a whiskered actor: a ham with a beard attached to it.”

Upon his arrival at RKO studios, Welles - accompanied by his future cinematographer Gregg Toland - went over virtually every square inch of the lot, with Welles drinking in every facet of film-making. When asked by the press what he thought about the studio, Welles likened it to “the best electric train set any kid ever had!” At night, he began contemplating his first film . . . but what would it be?  His first inclination was an adaptation of British writer Eric Ambler’s Journey into Fear (which Welles would make right after “Citizen Kane.”) The studio turned him down flat: Welles’ proposed budget for Journey was around $1 million; his contract permitted no more than $500k per picture.  Welles countered with Nicolas Blake’s espionage thriller The Smiler With a Knife. This too was rejected due to cost. In the meantime, Welles also watched plenty of films plenty of times.  These included John Ford’s Stage Coach,  Charles Chaplin’s City Lights and a minor 1933 film, The Power and the Glory, whose screen writer, Preston Sturges, would become the next great writer/director/producer.  This picture, which starred a young rising Spencer Tracy and former silent superstar Colleen Moore, told the story of a man’s life . . . beginning with his funeral and then working backwards to his extreme youth.  Welles loved the “life-told-in-reverse” concept; it eventually became the storytelling lynchpin of Citizen Kane.

Screen writer Herman Mankiewicz (whose grandson Ben is a host on Turner Classic Movies), who was recovering from a severely broken leg was sent away from Hollywood with John Houseman and a secretary to begin work on a screenplay originally entitled “American,” then “John Citizen, U.S.A.” Mank officially went on the RKO payroll ($1,000 per week) on February 19, 1940. While Mank wrote and Houseman kept the isolated screenwriter from drinking, Welles was back in Hollywood doing his initial pre-production work with cinematographer Toland.  What Welles and Toland came up with was a work of sheer genius.  Many of their scenes would be shot with ceilings.  For the most part, no one used ceilings . . . that’s where lights are hung.  So instead, they shot upwards, often digging holes in the floor for the camera to be encased.  They were able to film what appeared to be immense gatherings, while through ingenious movie magic, there were actually only had 15-20 people in the scene. The most famous of these are shots of Kane’s campaign speech . . . which contain only a few players in any individual  shot; the overall impact is one of thousands of people appearing in a whirlwind of action.  The ‘audience’ in the meeting hall is actually a matte painting, pricked with holes so light would shine through and give the illusion of motion to the ‘crowd.’” 

Then too, there is the brilliant scene where Kane’s 2nd wife, Susan Alexander (played by Dorothy Comingore) is about to make her operatic debut:  the screen seems filled with mobs of frenzied people from the staff and company of the opera production; the impact is achieved by carefully plotting the rushing of actors across the stage at five different distances from the camera – some only a few feet from the lens, blacking out the scene.  What seems like hundreds of people filling the frame is no more than twenty; the resulting visual impact of the intricately choreographed small groups of actors provided a far more stylized look to Citizen Kane than would more traditional surgings of teeming mobs. Susan appears to be performing before a full house; in reality, there is no one in front of her.  By shooting from behind the diva into the lights, the mind of the cinema-goers fill in the house through suggestion . . . thus saving tens of thousands of dollars.

          Deep Focus Photography at it’s Very Best

But the most fascinating thing Welles and Toland did in Citizen Kane was to employ a cinematic technique called “deep focus photography,” in which front, mid-range and back set could be filmed clearly all at the same time. Generally, when someone is right in front of the camera and speaking to someone at a distance, the moment the person being spoken to responds, they become the clear-eyed focus of the camera while the one who originally spoke becomes blurred. In deep-focus, everyone remains in focus. In fact, there is one scene in Citizen Kane which, although adding little to the story, is used in order to show off what Toland and Welles were doing. This is the scene where Welles is about to sign over his corporate ownership rights to the bank. Kane (Welles) gets up from the table where Mr. Bernstein and their longtime banker, Mr. Thatcher (played by George Coulouris) are seated. Kane walks and talks until he reaches the back of the room . . . which is far more distant that at first it appears to be . . . and then returns to the table. The only reason for this set-up is to show the magic of deep-focus. By far, the greatest - and most difficult - of all deep-focus shots came when Kane broke into his wife Susan’s bedroom soon after she had tried to commit suicide. Even the still shows the door, Kane and the bottle of poison in perfect focus . . . a prodigious feat of cinematography.

This use of deep-focus was as much a product of good timing as anything. From Toland’s point of view, Citizen Kane was not only well-timed artistically, but technically as well.  New developments in both lighting and film – in particular the release of Kodak’s new Super XX black-and-white film stock in 1938 – opened vast new horizons for cinematographers, allowing them to shoot with less light and achieve greater contrast and depth to the image. And although the movie-goer does not necessarily understand what they are seeing, it nonetheless leaves a lasting impression.

In addition to writing, directing and rehearsing his cast, Welles was also the star of the film, which meant often having to be in make-up by 3:00 in the morning. During the making of Citizen Kane, the makeup department created a total of seventy-two assorted face pieces for Kane – among them sixteen different chins alone – as well as ears, cheeks, jowls, hairlines, and eye pouches . . . aging him from twenty-five to seventy-eight. In one of the film’s most famous scenes - showing the dissolution of Kane’s marriage to Emily across the breakfast table - Welles decided that it would be best to film the scenes in reverse. He reasoned that it take far less time to strip away a layer of makeup and wigs - going from oldest to youngest - than doing the opposite. As such, Welles and Ruth Warrick were able to accomplish this vignette in a single day’s shoot. (n.b.: Welles always wore a prosthetic nose whenever he was on-screen or on-stage; he felt that his own was too small for his face.)

One question the public asked when they first saw Citizen Kane was where Welles had found all the great unknown actors who filled the various major roles: people like Joseph Cotten (Jed Leland), Agnes Morehead (Mary Kane), Ruth Warrick (Emily Norton Kane), George Coulouris (Walter Parks Thatcher), Ray Collins (“Boss” James Gettys), the aforementioned Everett Sloane (Mr. Bernstein) and Paul Stewart (Raymond, Kane’s butler) . . . all of whom would go on to long careers in Hollywood. The answer is simple: Welles merely moved his Mercury Theatre players out west to RKO.

        Charles  Foster Kane and Susan Alexander

Herman Mankiewicz and John Houseman originally thought about modeling their main character on millionaire inventor/pilot/filmmaker Howard Hughes, but soon settled on publishing magnate William Randolph Hearst. Unlike Hughes, who was too young and not exciting enough in real life, Hearst presented a character and appetites were truly larger than life. The public never had to be told that Charles Foster Kane was based mostly on Hearst, nor that Kane’s other-worldly estate “Xanadu” was undoubtedly based on Hearst’s castle (which the magnate simply referred to as “the ranch”) in San Simeon. Did it then follow that Susan Alexander, Kane’s second wife whom he tried desperately to turn into a operatic diva, was modeled after Hearst’s longtime mistress, movie actress and former Ziegfeld Girl Marion Davies? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. Personally, I have always seen Susan as an amalgam of at least 3 famous (or infamous) 20th century courtesans:

• Ganna Walska (1887-1984), who was married to publishing heir Harold McCormick (fourth of her six husbands), got him to finance an opera career for her; problem was, she couldn’t sing a lick;

• Kodak chairman Jules Brulatour (who also founded Universal Pictures) funded his 2nd wife Dorothy Gibson’s film career, and then his 3rd wife Hope Hampton’s aspirations in grand opera; Hampton, like the fictional Susan Alexander, did not fare very well. Hampton married several other multi-millionaires and became known as ““The Duchess of Park Avenue”

(A future “Tales from Hollywood & Vine, tentatively entitled Who Was Susan Alexander? is already being researched and outlined. It should be ready for posting within the next 8 weeks.)

It goes without saying that Hearst was furious with both RKO in general and Orson Welles in particular. He decided that if Welles and RKO released the picture, he would destroy them. No one, he bellowed, had the right to satirize, demean or make a fool of either him or his beloved Marion. At one point, Hearst attempted to buy up the rights to Citizen Kane with the idea of destroying the master print. Welles threated to sue RKO; RKO told Hearst to take a hike.

Welles did, however, relent on one scene in which he had Susan Alexander, Kane’s increasingly alcoholic second wife have an affair with another man. Hearst was livid; he adored Marion, and even though he never divorced his wife to marry Miss Davies, he refused to have anyone suggest - even on film - that Marion was anything but faithful to the man she frequently and lovingly referred to as “Old Droopy Drawers.”  This is not to say that Marion was a vestal virgin. Back in 1924, word got around Hollywood that Marion was carrying on with Charlie Chaplin. On one occasion, when Charlie and a bunch of Hollywood bigshots went out on Hearst’s yacht, the Oneida, Hearst caught Chaplin and Miss Davies canoodling in the latter’s cabin. Chaplin escaped, went out on deck and hid under the tarp of a life saving boat. Hearst, armed with a pistol chased Chaplin and fired at a man standing in front of him. It turned out that the man he hit was not Charlie Chaplin, but rather famed producer/director Thomas Ince, who actually looked quite a bit like the silent comedian. Ince died several days later at his Beverly Hills home from his gunshot wound. Louella Parsons, the Hearst writer covering Ince’s death, reported that the director had died from a heart attack. For her loyalty to Hearst, Parsons was rewarded with a lifetime contract and eventually became Hollywood’s most fearsome gossip columnist. And as long as W.R. Hearst lived, Parsons would do his bidding . . . up to and including panning any picture produced by RKO or Orson Welles. This had a lot to do with the financial failure of Citizen Kane.

In the end, Charles Foster Kane died alone, surrounded by his art and at a loss for friends or mourners.  As the collectibles and detritus of an opulent life are consigned to a furnace, the one question asked (by a young, uncredited actor named Alan Ladd) is what did his dying word - “Rosebud” mean?  We discover during the final frame that it was the name emblazoned on a cheap sled he had been given as a child.  So perhaps it was an expression of longing for his age of innocence - the last time he had felt truly happy or secure.  So far as the story of Charles Foster Kane goes, that works about as well as anything.  However, in the backstory that is Citizen Kane, “Rosebud” does have a purpose and a meaning.  According to those who knew Hearsts and Davies well “Rosebud” was Hearst's term of endearment for Davies’ pudenda, to employ medical terminology, or “honeypot” to a bit raunchier.

Today, Citizen Kane is largely considered to be the greatest film ever made.  And although it failed at the box office and received less than stellar distribution in its first year on the circuit, it did receive 8 Academy Award nominations, won for best original screenplay (Welles/Mankiewicz), and earned the praise of many, many respected critics, including John O’Hara, whose pithy remarks opened up this post.

But Welles, Hollywood last spectacular wunderkind wound up having the last laugh.  Despite a 40-year career as an actor, writer director and producer, he would have many ups-and-downs, gain a ton of weight and spend much of his time raising funds for his next picture.  But throughout it all, that initial contract with RKI remained a living, breathing entity.  When, in 1986 Turner Entertainment Company, which had obtained the home video rights to Citizen Kane in 1986, announced with much fanfare on January 29, 1989 its plans to colorize Welles’ masterpiece, there was an immediate backlash with the Welles estate and Directors Guild of America threatening legal action.  Turns out, the contract which Welles had signed with RKO back when he was no more than  a youngster, gave him - and his heirs - the rights to  the film.  As such, no changes could be made without the express written consent of Welles, his children, grandchildren or assignees.

Rosebud!

Copyright©2021 Kurt F. Stone