In this, the final sequel of the Torchy Blane series, Jane (right) replaced Glenda Farrell (left). Farrell had defined the role of a tough, fast-talking blonde, through four previous sequels.
Already out of steam by the time Jane arrived, the series was terminated after her first and final try.
“By the time I took over the role of Torchy, the series had run out of steam,” Jane later recalled. “Noel Smith, the director, wasn’t much help to me.”
“I watched all of Farrell’s previous Torchy films in the Warners’ screening room,” Jane said. “She played her as a fast-talking, wise-cracking, tough-acting broad, but I wanted a different interpretation that was more who I was. Farrell’s characterization of Torchy was rather annoying. I wanted to play her with more sympathy.”
In the Torchy Blane movies that had featured Farrell, her none-too-bright boyfriend had been a detective played by Barton MacLane. Jane ended up with character actor Allen Jenkins, with whom she’d worked before. “I liked Allen,” she said, “but I don’t think any movie-goer will take us seriously as a romantic couple.”
Smith not only helmed Jane in her debut as Torchy, but had also been assigned to her upcoming film, wherein she would also play a detective. At the end of the shoot, he had only praise for Jane. “She always showed up on time, perfectly made up, and with all her lines remembered. She was most cooperative.”
“My, she was one good-looking dame, and my crew used to stare at her. Behind her back, they talked to each other about how they wanted to plug her. She’d joke and banter with them, but never give them any action. Frankly, the word back then was that Jane slept only with big-name stars like Henry Fonda or Clark Gable, perhaps an occasional director. But no cameramen, grips, lighting technicians, or messenger boys. Anytime Reagan called, she came running, even though he wasn’t a big star.”
One hot afternoon, Farrell showed up on the set to see how Jane’s interpretation of Torchy was coming along. She and Jane chatted between takes.
“I’m leaving Warners,” Farrell said. “Or, more accurately, it’s leaving me. I hope I’ll find work at Columbia and extend my career. But if I don’t, I’ll be like Blondell, one of those Depression-era film blondes of the 30s who tried to make Americans forget their troubles.”
Jane wished her luck in her future career.
Years later, Jane tried to put a spin on her own B-pictures of the 1930s. “The writing, direction, and overall production values [of those films] may not have been much, but they did move fast and got all the action packed into less than an hour. I found that the shortcuts sharpened my timing and gave a razor-edge to my acting style. It was like being trained in an acting school. [Thanks to them] I learned how to be a stronger presence on the screen.”
Jenkins more or less echoed Jane’s sentiments. “The result was a hell of a lot of good pacing, compressed action with not a second wasted, and an overall root-a-root-toot effect that, I’m afraid, action films tended to lose when they got too long and careful.”
“Of the three women who played Torchy, including Farrell and Lola Lane, Jane was the most attractive in purely physical terms,” Jenkins said.
When the Torchy Plays With Dynamite came out, movie reviewers compared the three actresses who, over time, had interpreted the character of Torchy Blane. They defined Farrell as “the toughest broad of them all. For pure brass, she wins the prize,” or so claimed the New York Journal-American. “Lane was more feminine and genial, less sure of herself. Wyman was less brassy, but more in control as Torchy, more her own woman.”
For the most part, Jane’s reviews were better than those for Lane. Most critics defined Lane as “a ghastly substitute for Glenda Farrell.”
One reviewer asked, “Has any movie-goer ever seen Allen Jenkins get the girl until now?”
One of the worst reviews asserted, “If you’ve seen one Torchy film, you’ve seen them all. Jane Wyman does all the cutesy tricks she’s learned from working in all those Warners’ potboilers.”
She liked Variety’s appraisal of her performance best of all. She clipped it out to read it to Reagan on their next date.
“Jane Wyman is new to the title role of the newspaper scribbler and her casting as Torchy Blane is a happy choice. She clicks nicely with Allen Jenkins as her detective sweetheart, and goes through another exciting experience with mobsters. Wyman circumvents any temptation to overact and makes her romance with the detective lieutenant realistic.”
“I’m grateful to Variety for saying that,” Jane told Reagan. “But I didn’t think my so-called romance with Allen looked realistic at all. Far from it!”
Torchy Plays With Dynamite had opened across the country as a B-list programmer on a bill that featured an A-list 1939 movie, Dodge City, starring the dashing Errol Flynn. Jane was disappointed when her picture flopped. Subsequently, the Torchy Blane series did not survive the 1930s.
Jane did not appear in Dodge City, but Warners publicity wanted to send her on a junket with Flynn to Dodge City, Kansas, for its premiere. She was told that the publicity she’d generate would help her career. Other Warners stars included Ann Sheridan and newcomer John Garfield.
Jane, of course, remembered, unfavorably, her one-night stand with the Australian star, Flynn, a major Hollywood seducer. She wondered if she’d be competing with Sheridan for his legendary romantic attentions.
***
One night, Reagan had dinner with his friend and Father Confessor, Pat O’Brien. He told the older actor that although he felt a strong need to become married with children, he did not want to abandon forever his life as a free-wheeling bachelor. He wondered if it were in him to dabble in the best of both worlds, although that would involve betrayal.
Susan Hayward, Jane Wyman, and Ann Sheridan were virtual fixtures in his life. He’d dropped Ila Rhodes, and now, he wanted to find time for two beautiful blondes, Carole Landis and Betty Grable, who had each been phoning him.
As he told Dick Powell over lunch at the Brown Derby, “I may be spreading myself a bit thin, but I think there’s enough of me to go around.”
When he discussed his dilemma with O’Brien, telling him, “If I accommodated all the starlets calling me, I wouldn’t have time to make any movies,” Reagan found him less than sympathetic.
“Poor Baby,” O’Brien responded. “If only I had that problem. Even my wife turns me down more often than not.”
***
On April 1, 1939, at Union Station in Los Angeles, Jane, with three big suitcases stuffed with wardrobe items from Warners, boarded a specially chartered train headed to Dodge City, Kansas, for the premiere of a Technicolor western starring Errol Flynn.
Jane was not in the cast of Dodge City. Warner’s had commissioned Olivia de Havilland as the female lead. Jane was sent out as a Warners starlet, along with others, to publicize the film, but also to garner publicity for her own burgeoning career.
At the station, she joined some of the other passengers, including Humphrey Bogart, Ann Sheridan, Wayne Morris, John Garfield, De Havilland, Bruce Cabot, and another starlet, Jean Parker.
Sheridan and Jane were shown to their individual compartments by a porter. Jane whispered to her friend, “I wonder what the sleeping arrangements are going to be on this train ride.”
Although Jane wasn’t in Dodge City, she was invited along on its promo tour.
Above, Olivia de Havilland and Errol Flynn, the featured stars of the picture, get dodgy.
“Errol already slept with me during the making of Dodge City,” Sheridan confessed. “And Garfield and I have just made a thing called They Made Me a Criminal (1939). We’ve been spending some very hot nights together, but there’s been absolutely no talk of marriage, which I’m glad about, ‘cause I’m just recovering from a divorce. John feels he’s got to share his dick with half the females of Hollywood, but he said it took a whole week before he got laid after arriving in Hollywood.”
“How tragic for him,” Jane said.
“I’m sure Morri
s will be knocking on the door of your compartment soon,” Sheridan said. “And perhaps Errol will throw you one, too.”
“Been there, done that,” Jane said. “But I could easily handle a second helping from that Tasmanian Devil.”
Sheridan was riding the crest of her Oomph Girl! publicity buildup. Even though her role as a dance hall hostess was minor, she was nonetheless assigned third billing in Dodge City, one of Warners’ “big budget” releases for 1939.
“I’m surprised Bogie is along for this trip,” Sheridan said. “Maybe he’s escaping from that harridan of his, Mayo Methot.”
“I saw him slipping some little wren onto the train back at the station,” Jane said. “She looked sixteen if she’s a day. So I think we won’t be seeing much of him.”
The train stopped first in Pasadena, where De Havilland got off to report to the MGM sound stages to begin her role as Melanie in Gone With the Wind. Jane envied her, having coveted that part for herself.
After that, the train made sixteen stops en route to Dodge City. At each of them, all the actors, including the stars—with the visible exception of Bogie, who didn’t seem to care—got off to pose for photos and to sign autographs.
William Lundigan...Erotically involved with Errol Flynn
Since Kansas was dry and because many of the stars were heavy drinkers, the prop department at Warners had converted one of the railroad cars into a replica of the hard-drinking bar [“The Gay Lady Saloon”] that had been featured within the movie.
During the first night of their transit from L.A. to Kansas, Jane awoke after midnight and discovered that the light in her compartment didn’t work. She exited from her compartment in search of a night porter. During her search, she spotted a young actor, William Lundigan, emerging from Flynn’s compartment. She had already met him, finding him clean cut and good looking.
Sheridan had told her that Flynn had gotten him a small role in Dodge City. That would lead to future roles in Flynn’s films, including Santa Fe Trail, in which Reagan would co-star.
The following evening, in the Gay Lady Saloon, Jane was surprised at how open Flynn was in flaunting his bisexuality.
Rising from his table at around midnight, he looked at Lundigan. In front of everyone, he said, “Fancy a poke, sport?”
The young actor dutifully rose from his chair and followed Flynn to his compartment.
Jane had expected Wayne Morris to come knocking on her door, but he hadn’t. She soon found out why. He was spending his nights with Jean Parker, the Montana beauty, who had been working as a Warners starlet since 1932. Like Jane, she had unsuccessfully auditioned for the role of Melanie in Gone With the Wind. Parker had previously appeared with the Barrymores (John, Ethel, and Lionel) and with such performers as George Raft, Katharine Hepburn, and Robert Donat.
She was married to George E. McDonald, the prominent New York socialite and newspaperman, but her marriage was coming to an end, as indicated by her ongoing affair with Morris. Parker would divorce her husband in 1940. Jane viewed Parker as her rival, and managed to avoid her throughout the course of the train ride.
Jane found Garfield, a New York trained actor and “bad boy,” immensely attractive and sexually appealing, but dangerous. She was reluctant to get involved with him because of her friendship with Sheridan. But any time Sheridan was not around, Garfield sent Jane “signals.”
He told her that Warners had recently completed a survey of movie fans. “Jack said I have a powerful image on the screen, a certain persona that’s very sexy. He claims I’m unique among actors because I appeal to both genders—I mean, regular guys, and not just the fags, seem to like me.”
She assessed his cocky attitude and feared that it would soon catalyze some ongoing feuds with the Warners’ brass.
“You know, I’m the obvious replacement for Bogie, and as you probably noticed, he’s been avoiding me. I can also play those Edward G. Robinson roles. I find both Bogie and Robinson a bit creepy. You may not know this, but Robinson’s a fag. And Bogie has no sex appeal at all. When are you going to let me provide you with one of my samples?”
“Give me a raincheck,” Jane said.
***
Late one night, before the Warners train rolled into Kansas, Flynn knocked on the door of Jane’s compartment. “How about it, sport?” he asked.
Young John Garfield (from: They Made Me a Criminal).
“I thought you’d never ask,” she said, ushering him inside.
She offered him a drink, during which time he complained that he had been woefully miscast in Dodge City. “No one appreciates my acting. Everybody seems more interested in my thighs.”
“That’s because you encase them so well in those green tights,” she said.
“I’m just a god damn sex symbol to the whole fucking world,” he said.
“You should be flattered,” she said. “I’m honored that you could include me in your busy schedule.”
“Of course, sport,” he said. “I adore you. Sheridan and Lundigan are just passing fancies. I really like quality gals like you.”
Then he stood up. “Don’t you think I should get out of my clothes and show you I’m still The Perfect Specimen? I’m sure you saw that movie I made with your buddy, Joan Blondell.”
“I did indeed,” she said. “But I prefer to see the real thing, not the screen image.”
Flynn spent the rest of the night seducing Jane, promising to continue the adventure after they got to Dodge City.
During their final drunken night within the Gay Lady Saloon, “The Boys” gathered on the far side of the car. Jane still hadn’t spoken to Big Boy Williams, having never forgiven him for his attack on her. His was the loudest voice, audible during conversations he conducted, respectively, with Alan Hale, Patric Knowles, Lundigan, Flynn, and Bruce Cabot.
Jane and Sheridan sat together at the far end of the railway saloon, in a position that allowed them to clearly overhear every word the men were loudly saying. Their topic was Venus’s flytraps, which Jane quickly figured out was a reference to a vagina.
“When I married Lili Damita, her honeypot was so big it could stretch a country mile without tearing an inch,” Flynn said.
“Since Bogie isn’t here, I confess that I’ve had his wife, Mayo Methot,” Cabot said. “So has Flynn here. So has Knowles. It was the biggest hole I’ve ever seen. A guy could fall in.”
“My dear friend, John Barrymore, described the Venus’s Flytrap better than anyone,” Flynn said. “He once told me what it was like to fuck Tallulah Bankhead. You shove it in, a journey through the depth of a West Virginia coalmine, until you come to the main saloon and gallery. There, a cabin boy descends with a ladder, ringing a bell, inviting you to go on to the lower depths, if only human skin could stretch that far.”
Jane later told Sheridan, “I was afraid to get up and leave. I didn’t know what Big Boy would say about me.”
When the train finally arrived at Dodge City, the passengers were met with a brass band and a parade. As they were driven through town in open cars, Jane waved to the adoring crowds.
Dodge City was previewed that night in three different movie houses. The film was shown around the clock until dawn, so that the town’s entire population could see it if they wanted to.
The first night in Dodge City, Flynn kept his promise and visited Jane’s suite. He left at two o’clock that morning, returning to his own suite which he shared with Lundigan.
As Jane told Sheridan over breakfast the next morning, “How could you and I go through the 30s as starlets at Warners without bedding Errol Flynn? If either of us hadn’t, we’d be disgraced.”
***
One night, when the sands from the desert winds were blowing into Los Angeles, an elated Susan Hayward arrived on Reagan’s doorstep. “I’m a star!” she shouted, as she kissed and embraced him. “Perhaps not the biggest star in Hollywood, but I’m on my way.”
Her first big break had come when she was cast in Paramount’s 1939 remake
ofBeau Geste, the original story based on a silent film, released in 1926, that had starred Ronald Colman. In the newer version, three brothers—Gary Cooper, Ray Mil-land, and Robert Preston—were the stars, with Hayward cast as their love interest and the female lead.
The dream of every Hollywood starlet, Susan Hayward was the belle of the ball in Beau Geste, attracting the leering interest of Robert Preston, kneeling at her feet; Gary Cooper, standing guard over her; and Ray Mil-land, moving in on the right.
“Coop” won the prize in all departments, but later dumped her.
Even though she was broadcasting the news of her big break, Hayward was also aware of its limitations. “I’m the gal who says goodbye to the boys as they set off to war at the beginning of the picture, and I’m the one who’s there to welcome them back.”
“Congratulations and come on in,” he said, taking her wrap. “I’ve got two steaks on the fire.”
“At last my Flatbush accent is gone,” she said gleefully. “The director, William Wellman, told me I now sound like a combination of Ronald Colman and Barbara Stanwyck.”
Reagan tactfully avoided asking Hayward about her romantic life when she wasn’t with him. Rumors were spreading that she and Cooper were engaged in an affair.
As a means of publicizing Beau Geste, Paramount had sent her on a splashy publicity tour to her native New York, where she received a lot of personal publicity, including her appearance on the front cover of The Saturday Evening Post.
The next day, Reagan lunched with his new friend, Eddie Foy, Jr. During its course, they discussed their upcoming film, Smashing the Money Ring, another “Brass Bancroft, Secret Agent” thriller.
“He confided in me,” Foy later said. “He told me that he’d never known Susan to be this wild and passionate. But he also expressed an unease about her, as if she were too vital and way too intense. His exact words to me were, ‘Susan’s a fiery tigress. I have this awful feeling that when she’s in bed with me, she’s going to sting me like a Black Widow spider after our dirty deed is finished.’”
Love Triangle: Ronald Reagan, Jane Wyman, & Nancy Davis (Blood Moon's Babylon Series) Page 29