I've always been more fascinated with the behind-the-scenes aspects of Hollywood and movies in particular than celebrities as I outlined ...here in Behind The Scenes
I've been watching Feud on FX detailing the feud between Bette Davis & Joan Crawford...
and I have to say it's one of the best things ever made for television... Susan Sarandon and Jessica Lange and the outstanding ensemble cast are out of this world wonderful in their performances.
I actually remember when "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane" came out and although I liked the movie.. I was very sad with the ending from the final plot twist until the credits rolled. Several years passed before I saw it again and then was struck by how demoralizing it must have been for both of them to make this movie considering they were once at the top of their game starring in decades of movies with two of the top studios during the by-gone days of old Hollywood and were both considered each in her own way one of the most beautiful woman in the world...
Besides learning some interesting tidbits about the actual making of "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?" and "Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte", it offered some interesting insight in to who they both were as people and their off screen personalities. In the end they were both victims of age-ism in Hollywood but it's interesting to look back now to see how they each dealt with it or contributed to it and conducted their lives in the following years as a result of it.
Besides learning some interesting tidbits about the actual making of "Whatever Happened To Baby Jane?" and "Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte", it offered some interesting insight in to who they both were as people and their off screen personalities. In the end they were both victims of age-ism in Hollywood but it's interesting to look back now to see how they each dealt with it or contributed to it and conducted their lives in the following years as a result of it.
To tell you the truth I've never been a huge Joan Crawford fan and I only finished reading half of "Mommie Dearest" (it's a fairly interesting story of why I only read half... maybe I'll write about it sometime)... however I've always admired Bette Davis and her work. While I've been reminiscing about old movies and such I've been thinking about "Six Degrees Of Separation" or the 'Six Degrees Of Kevin Bacon' depending on how you want to look at it.... I never met Joan Crawford but I did meet Christiana Crawford on a cruise once and we used to have a family friend who was the wife of one of the big muckity-mucks at Pepsi Cola when Miss Crawford was involved. I never met Bette Davis either but my friend Jimmy did and told me how delightful she was in spite of having suffered a stroke and I have another friend who knows and once worked with BD (Barbara Davis)... but not to be outdone.... I once had drinks and dinner with Katherine Hepburn at George Cukor's house and helped her pick up litter on the lawn at Grant Park in Chicago a few years later while we worked we talked and shared a few stories about people we both knew at the time.... I've also met Kevin Bacon but I'll get back to all of this later...
More About Eve
I have several favorite movies... but I think somewhere close to the top of the list is "All About Eve"...
Did you know that it's based on a true story? A young actress named Mary Orr recounted the story as it related to English actress Elisabeh Berenger and her mishaps hiring an ambitious young assistant... it was called "The Wisdom of Eve" and Miss Orr sold the story to Cosmopolitan magazine for $800.00 ... it ran in the May 1946 edition.
One of the story editors at Twentieth Century Fox read the short story in the magazine and the studio optioned it... and it eventually fell into the hands of Joseph L. Mankiewicz who convinced Darryl F. Zancck the head of production to approve it for production. Mankiewicz rewrote the script without using a single word from the story but utilizing the plot and it's tone and theme... and eventually around 1950 the screenplay acquired it's name... "All About Eve"... in the true story there is a real Eve named Martina Lawrence who threatened to sue Mary Orr and later in the 80's corresponded with Mankiewicz in hopes of getting her side of the story told...she insisted she was nothing like the character Orr and Mankiewicz created.
The casting was flawless in my opinion... from left to right; Gary Merrill, Bette Davis,George Sanders, Anne Baxter, Hugh Marlowe and Celeste Holm
I never cease to be amazed at the casting process for this movie because I can't picture anyone else doing the roles... as a side note... Did you know MGM wanted Shirley Temple to play the role of Dorothy Gale in "The Wizard Of Oz" and even offered to trade Clark Gable and Jean Harlowe to 20th Century Fox for a one picture deal; but they could never reach an agreement... such a deal would have changed the movie entirely and the lives and careers of Miss Temple and Miss Garland substantially in my opinion... but back to Eve...
Did you know that the movie was optioned for Claudette Colbert to play Margo Channing and she had even signed the contract to star in the picture but hurt her back filming "Three Came Back" and needed to be in a metal brace for a lengthy recovery and subsequently lost the role...
The next choice was Gertrude Lawrence but she was committed to another project....
Bette Davis was the last resort and she thought someone was playing a phone prank on her when Darryl Zanuck telephoned her at RKO to offer her the part as the last thing he had said to her was "You will never work in Hollywood again."
Here are a few of the other casting considerations...
Nancy Davis for Karen Richards and Ronald Reagan as Bill Sampson...instead of Celeste Holm and Gary Merrill...
(I mean really!?)
Jeanne Craine as Eve... (maybe?)
The true bit of irony in the casting was they did not want Marilyn Monroe for the small part of Miss Casswell who had been fired a few years earlier by Zanuk as she was deemed not photogenic enough on film... She was signed for five hundred dollars a week with a one week guarantee. She eventually signed a long-term contract with Fox that lasted until she was fired in June 1962 two months before she died. Of all the people in the cast she was the only one who had a thriving career after Eve was completed....
Sheree North was top consideration for the Miss Casswell role over about 12 other candidates until Mankiewicz and Miss Monroe's agent wore Zanuck down... Although I was friends(ish) with Miss North for several years before her death she and I never discussed it.... Sheree North could have played the small part just fine... but not with the innocence and breathless charm Marilyn Monroe gave the character... several years after her death Mankiewicz recounted memories of her during shooting ... "I thought of her as the loneliest person I had ever known... she was not a loner... she was just alone."... part of that assesment could have been due to the fact that none of the female members of the cast were nice to her during production especially George Sander's wife Zsa Zsa Gabor.
They filmed the movie's theatre interior and exterior shots at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco for two weeks in April before returning to the Fox lot for a month of studio soundtage work....
One of the most notable incidents worth discussion while filming at the studio in Los Angeles was the famous car scene where they are stranded on a deserted road out of gas and Margo and Karen have one of the most touching scenes between any two woman in any movie I can think of... (they could not stand each other in real life even though they portrayed best friends in the script)... what makes it even more remarkable is they were both bundled in mink coats with a previously taped winter scene rear projected in reverse through the windows of the car... and the temperature of the un-air conditioned harshly lit studio was near 100 degrees. ( I think it's one of my favorite scenes in the movie because they bare their souls to each other and the audience) you would never know to watch it how uncomfortable they probably were with each other and the heat... and to make matters worse the first take had a technical issue and had to be shot a second time.
Funny Business A Woman's Career
If you have ever seen a car scene sequence filmed before the 70's it was done with the rear projection technique that was updated to front projection
and eventually to the Green Screen technology used now where scenery and animation can be computer generated in post-production.... (as seen below)
One of the things that seems most poignant that I remember when I read Miss Davis' memoir 'The Lonely Life' was when they did makeup tests with she and Gary Merrill and she was supposed to appear older as Margo... and did... she is quoted as telling columnist Hedda Hopper "People get the idea that actresses my age are dying to play younger woman. The fact is, we die every time we play one." this is memorable to me mostly because she was only 42 at the time. She also said in her book "Margo Channing was a woman I understood completely. I had hard work to remember I was playing a part".
Probably the scene in the movie that most people think of is the party sequence ... when Margo Channing says... "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night!" Mankiewicz wrote the line but the delivery and additional business was all Bette Davis because the script called for an immediate response when Celeste Holm's character Karen asks her "We know you, we've seen you like this before. Is it over--- or is it just the beginning?" For me each and every time I watch it... it's just the beginning. The property was used as a basis for the Broadway musical "Applause" a vehicle for Lauren Bacall & Len Cariou (I have some pretty good stories about that as well)...
... For the most part in my memory it was one of the first sophisticated adult themed movies that I fell in love with when I was young and it really stands the test of time and holds most of it's appeal with the exception of some small details that put it in a time capsule mostly due to the issues involved in that the studios were still under the strict scrutiny of the Code Administration standards of "good taste" ( this was all a result of Will Hays working to clean up Hollywood morals as member of President Harding's cabinet)... (this is the beginning of the reasons I despise censorship ...) but meanwhile in 1950 Joseph Breen was chief administrator of the Production Code...you have to understand this was a time in Hollywood when you could not show a married couple sharing the same bed... Breen insisted the word 'sex' be changed to 'love', he did not want a toilet visible in the bathroom of Margo's dressing room in an early scene of the movie... he wanted 'Ladies Room" to be changed to 'Powder Room' but Mankiewicz insisted because it related to the line of the understudy being a lady and not relating to powder.... Breen also wanted the slap that Addison DeWitt gives Eve in the hotel room removed as he felt it implied sadomasochism (where do they come up with this?)... fortunately for the scene and the movie it was not cut.
The films budget was slated at $1.4 million (that's about $14 million today) and came in under budget at $1,246,500.... "All About Eve" opened on 13, October 1950 and was a great picture that eventually became a Hollywood classic. The cast and crew never worked together again. Bette Davis and Gary Merrill were married on 28, July 1950 and divorced 6, July 1960.
The movie won six Oscars including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Screenplay, George Sanders won Best Supporting Actor and in addition Best Sound Recording and Best Costumes-B&W... (I think this dress is one of the most remarkable stories of the movie. I was actually brown and trimmed in sable... but it did not fit properly the day of filming and Bette Davis decided to wear it off the shoulder)
unfortunately in The Best Actress category Bette Davis, Anne Baxter and Gloria Swanson (in Sunset Boulevard) lost to Judy Holiday in "Born Yesterday."
... and finally one of the more interesting facts about the movie is The U.S. State Department asked the studio not to enter the film in a festival in Montevideo Uruguay for fear of offending Eva Peron with the similarities to her portrayed in the movie by the Eve character.
As far as the six degrees of separation for me to the cast of the movie... it's only one for almost everyone; in addition to Sheree North for Marilyn Monroe; I used to be friends with someone who bought Miss Monroe's house (but I guess that does not count because she had already died)... I actually met Anne Baxter on the set of "Hotel" and the one person for most of the others was Merv Griffin who I knew quite well when he was still alive (he is and was usually my one degree since he knew or interviewed almost everyone) ... and my friend Jimmy who met Miss Davis... I found out some rather interesting details last week from my other friend who worked with and knew B.D (Barbara Davis).... I was dismayed to hear how the pieces of her life came together and fell apart and sad to learn how Gary Merrill spent some of his final days.
... But Back to Susan Sarandon and Jessica Lange... I knew two different people who worked with Miss Lange on two separate pictures... and I almost worked with Miss Sarandon once... but we actually met briefly about 16 or 17 years ago ( I spilled coffee all over my pants and went across the street to buy something to wear as I was headed for the airport to go someplace or another and I was in a horrible hurry)... one of my biggest pet peeves are the people who dash in and out of line to pay but still continue shopping... and that's what S.S. was doing and I really let her have it and I was not very nice or charming in my delivery.... and I thought about that a couple of weeks ago when someone behind me at the supermarket was doing it and a nice lady from England behind her was pushing her cart along as the line moved.... and I said "That is really nice of you to do that for her".... and she replied...."The world has become such a terrible place in the last few years and particularly the last few months... the least I can to is be nice to her!" It made me think back to my own deplorable behavior years ago... so Susan if you are reading this... I am genuinely sorry I snapped at you the way I did; you did not deserve it just because I was in a hurry... I have now decided I will never use that as an excuse ever again(since it's being overused by practically everybody else in the world these days) and I'm going to do whatever it takes to be a nice person in an imperfect and sometimes not so nice world... you can cut all the flowers but you can't stop the spring from coming and you can burn all the books or try to change the truth but it won't eliminate knowledge and enlightenment.
And last but not least I would like to pay homage to Gilbert Baker.
Did you know that it's based on a true story? A young actress named Mary Orr recounted the story as it related to English actress Elisabeh Berenger and her mishaps hiring an ambitious young assistant... it was called "The Wisdom of Eve" and Miss Orr sold the story to Cosmopolitan magazine for $800.00 ... it ran in the May 1946 edition.
One of the story editors at Twentieth Century Fox read the short story in the magazine and the studio optioned it... and it eventually fell into the hands of Joseph L. Mankiewicz who convinced Darryl F. Zancck the head of production to approve it for production. Mankiewicz rewrote the script without using a single word from the story but utilizing the plot and it's tone and theme... and eventually around 1950 the screenplay acquired it's name... "All About Eve"... in the true story there is a real Eve named Martina Lawrence who threatened to sue Mary Orr and later in the 80's corresponded with Mankiewicz in hopes of getting her side of the story told...she insisted she was nothing like the character Orr and Mankiewicz created.
I never cease to be amazed at the casting process for this movie because I can't picture anyone else doing the roles... as a side note... Did you know MGM wanted Shirley Temple to play the role of Dorothy Gale in "The Wizard Of Oz" and even offered to trade Clark Gable and Jean Harlowe to 20th Century Fox for a one picture deal; but they could never reach an agreement... such a deal would have changed the movie entirely and the lives and careers of Miss Temple and Miss Garland substantially in my opinion... but back to Eve...
Did you know that the movie was optioned for Claudette Colbert to play Margo Channing and she had even signed the contract to star in the picture but hurt her back filming "Three Came Back" and needed to be in a metal brace for a lengthy recovery and subsequently lost the role...
Here are a few of the other casting considerations...
Nancy Davis for Karen Richards and Ronald Reagan as Bill Sampson...instead of Celeste Holm and Gary Merrill...
The true bit of irony in the casting was they did not want Marilyn Monroe for the small part of Miss Casswell who had been fired a few years earlier by Zanuk as she was deemed not photogenic enough on film... She was signed for five hundred dollars a week with a one week guarantee. She eventually signed a long-term contract with Fox that lasted until she was fired in June 1962 two months before she died. Of all the people in the cast she was the only one who had a thriving career after Eve was completed....
They filmed the movie's theatre interior and exterior shots at the Curran Theatre in San Francisco for two weeks in April before returning to the Fox lot for a month of studio soundtage work....
One of the most notable incidents worth discussion while filming at the studio in Los Angeles was the famous car scene where they are stranded on a deserted road out of gas and Margo and Karen have one of the most touching scenes between any two woman in any movie I can think of... (they could not stand each other in real life even though they portrayed best friends in the script)... what makes it even more remarkable is they were both bundled in mink coats with a previously taped winter scene rear projected in reverse through the windows of the car... and the temperature of the un-air conditioned harshly lit studio was near 100 degrees. ( I think it's one of my favorite scenes in the movie because they bare their souls to each other and the audience) you would never know to watch it how uncomfortable they probably were with each other and the heat... and to make matters worse the first take had a technical issue and had to be shot a second time.
Funny Business A Woman's Career
and eventually to the Green Screen technology used now where scenery and animation can be computer generated in post-production.... (as seen below)
One of the things that seems most poignant that I remember when I read Miss Davis' memoir 'The Lonely Life' was when they did makeup tests with she and Gary Merrill and she was supposed to appear older as Margo... and did... she is quoted as telling columnist Hedda Hopper "People get the idea that actresses my age are dying to play younger woman. The fact is, we die every time we play one." this is memorable to me mostly because she was only 42 at the time. She also said in her book "Margo Channing was a woman I understood completely. I had hard work to remember I was playing a part".
Probably the scene in the movie that most people think of is the party sequence ... when Margo Channing says... "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night!" Mankiewicz wrote the line but the delivery and additional business was all Bette Davis because the script called for an immediate response when Celeste Holm's character Karen asks her "We know you, we've seen you like this before. Is it over--- or is it just the beginning?" For me each and every time I watch it... it's just the beginning. The property was used as a basis for the Broadway musical "Applause" a vehicle for Lauren Bacall & Len Cariou (I have some pretty good stories about that as well)...
... For the most part in my memory it was one of the first sophisticated adult themed movies that I fell in love with when I was young and it really stands the test of time and holds most of it's appeal with the exception of some small details that put it in a time capsule mostly due to the issues involved in that the studios were still under the strict scrutiny of the Code Administration standards of "good taste" ( this was all a result of Will Hays working to clean up Hollywood morals as member of President Harding's cabinet)... (this is the beginning of the reasons I despise censorship ...) but meanwhile in 1950 Joseph Breen was chief administrator of the Production Code...you have to understand this was a time in Hollywood when you could not show a married couple sharing the same bed... Breen insisted the word 'sex' be changed to 'love', he did not want a toilet visible in the bathroom of Margo's dressing room in an early scene of the movie... he wanted 'Ladies Room" to be changed to 'Powder Room' but Mankiewicz insisted because it related to the line of the understudy being a lady and not relating to powder.... Breen also wanted the slap that Addison DeWitt gives Eve in the hotel room removed as he felt it implied sadomasochism (where do they come up with this?)... fortunately for the scene and the movie it was not cut.
The films budget was slated at $1.4 million (that's about $14 million today) and came in under budget at $1,246,500.... "All About Eve" opened on 13, October 1950 and was a great picture that eventually became a Hollywood classic. The cast and crew never worked together again. Bette Davis and Gary Merrill were married on 28, July 1950 and divorced 6, July 1960.
"All About Eve", "Titanic" and "La La Land" are all tied at 14 for the most Academy Awards nominated to a film . "All About Eve" still holds the record for four females nominated for a single film (Bette Davis & Anne Baxter-Best Actress) (Celeste Holm & Thelma Ritter- Best Supporting Actress)
unfortunately in The Best Actress category Bette Davis, Anne Baxter and Gloria Swanson (in Sunset Boulevard) lost to Judy Holiday in "Born Yesterday."
... and finally one of the more interesting facts about the movie is The U.S. State Department asked the studio not to enter the film in a festival in Montevideo Uruguay for fear of offending Eva Peron with the similarities to her portrayed in the movie by the Eve character.
As far as the six degrees of separation for me to the cast of the movie... it's only one for almost everyone; in addition to Sheree North for Marilyn Monroe; I used to be friends with someone who bought Miss Monroe's house (but I guess that does not count because she had already died)... I actually met Anne Baxter on the set of "Hotel" and the one person for most of the others was Merv Griffin who I knew quite well when he was still alive (he is and was usually my one degree since he knew or interviewed almost everyone) ... and my friend Jimmy who met Miss Davis... I found out some rather interesting details last week from my other friend who worked with and knew B.D (Barbara Davis).... I was dismayed to hear how the pieces of her life came together and fell apart and sad to learn how Gary Merrill spent some of his final days.
... But Back to Susan Sarandon and Jessica Lange... I knew two different people who worked with Miss Lange on two separate pictures... and I almost worked with Miss Sarandon once... but we actually met briefly about 16 or 17 years ago ( I spilled coffee all over my pants and went across the street to buy something to wear as I was headed for the airport to go someplace or another and I was in a horrible hurry)... one of my biggest pet peeves are the people who dash in and out of line to pay but still continue shopping... and that's what S.S. was doing and I really let her have it and I was not very nice or charming in my delivery.... and I thought about that a couple of weeks ago when someone behind me at the supermarket was doing it and a nice lady from England behind her was pushing her cart along as the line moved.... and I said "That is really nice of you to do that for her".... and she replied...."The world has become such a terrible place in the last few years and particularly the last few months... the least I can to is be nice to her!" It made me think back to my own deplorable behavior years ago... so Susan if you are reading this... I am genuinely sorry I snapped at you the way I did; you did not deserve it just because I was in a hurry... I have now decided I will never use that as an excuse ever again(since it's being overused by practically everybody else in the world these days) and I'm going to do whatever it takes to be a nice person in an imperfect and sometimes not so nice world... you can cut all the flowers but you can't stop the spring from coming and you can burn all the books or try to change the truth but it won't eliminate knowledge and enlightenment.
Gilbert Baker the artist and LGBTQ rights activist who created the rainbow flag, has died at age 65.
The Bay Area Reporter confirmed the news Friday on Facebook. The newspaper offered few details, but noted that Baker died in New York.
Baker, who was born in Kansas, designed the first rainbow flag in 1978 after he was approached by Harvey Milk to create a symbol for the LGBTQ community. Just months before he was assassinated Milk rode in the city’s June pride parade under Baker’s original flag, which featured eight colored stripes; hot pink, red, orange, yellow, green, turquoise, indigo and violet. The original design changed to the iconic, six-barred rainbow flag in 1979.
“The rainbow came to mind almost instantly as an obvious expression of diversity and acceptance,” Baker told CBS Chicago in 2012 “It’s beautiful, all of the colors, even the colors you can’t see. That really fit us as a people because we are all of the colors. Our sexuality is all of the colors. We are all the genders, races and ages.”
A second Facebook post noted that a memorial would be held Friday in San Francisco’s Castro district.
See you next week... I'm going to continue discussing another issue in Hollywood... but on a different note and key.
