by Donald Bogle
When Sara and Elizabeth arrived at MGM, those other little girls sat outside the producer’s office. “At 5 o’clock the casting director and his assistant at MGM ushered in six little girls, all English, with their mothers, with schoolteachers to watch them. And the whole crowd,” Sam Marx recalled. “And I started looking them over to see who we would get that would fit this part—when my secretary called in from outside and said there’s another little girl just arrived. I said, ‘Send her in.’ That was Elizabeth with her mother.” Sam Marx, Lassie Come Home’s director Fred Wilcox, and others were immediately stunned by her appearance. “I still recall she was wearing a kind of blue velvet cape, and to me she seemed in a glow of purple. I don’t know whether her eyes, her hair, [were] enhanced by this cape she was wearing but it was truly like an eclipse of the sun. It blotted out everybody that was in the office. You just saw this gorgeous, beautiful darling little girl, which was really what Elizabeth was in those days.”
Still, she was a child, and would she be able to perform in front of the camera? “Don’t be scared,” Sam Marx said. Here Elizabeth’s composure came into play. “Oh, thank you, I’m not scared.” The other little girls were sent home. She was given her lines and told the basic situation of the scene. After a few minutes, Elizabeth said: “I’m ready now, thank you.” Director Wilcox then led her through the audition. “Finishing her lines,” said writer Ruth Waterbury, “Elizabeth lifted her head, just as Mr. Wilcox had told her to.” “We knew we had a find,” said Marx. Marx also said: “We never even tested her in the part. Nothing. She went into the film.” That, of course, seems unlikely. MGM would have had to have seen what she looked like on camera. But Marx and no doubt Wilcox knew she really needed no test.
Once MGM signed her for the film, the studio wanted to remake her image. “The studio wanted to pluck my eyebrows and dye my black hair brown,” Taylor remembered, “and change my name to Virginia. Certainly not, my father said. Take her as she is, or don’t take her.”
Lassie Come Home featured child star Roddy McDowall as a Yorkshire lad whose beloved dog, Lassie, has become too expensive for his poor family to maintain. Playing McDowall’s parents were veterans Donald Crisp and Elsa Lanchester. The dog is sold to a wealthy squire, played by Nigel Bruce, whose little granddaughter, Priscilla, played by Taylor, loves the dog as much as McDowall’s character, Joe. The film follows Lassie’s travails as she goes from one master to another, only to be reunited with McDowall’s Joe—with Taylor’s Priscilla nearby—at the film’s conclusion. Having given a lauded performance in John Ford’s Academy Award–winning drama about Welsh coal miners, How Green Was My Valley, McDowall had already established himself as an important child star. A friendship developed almost immediately between Taylor and McDowall, which endured over the next decades.
Finally, here was a film that let Elizabeth’s natural warmth, her love of animals, and her ability to convincingly play a character shine. Dressed in smartly designed girlhood suits, she looked like the perfect little Englishwoman. Exuding confidence, she proved not only to be a natural in front of the camera but also capable—as had been the case at Universal—of navigating her way through the demands of filming itself. When a cameraman said that she was wearing too much mascara and that it should be removed, Taylor spoke up, saying it wasn’t mascara. “That’s me.” No one who saw the film could fail to notice her. “Elizabeth Taylor, a pretty moppet,” wrote Variety, “shows up to good advantage as Bruce’s granddaughter.” Even at the studio, she drew stares. “Elizabeth Taylor was nine years old when I first met her on the MGM lot,” recalled the studio’s master hairstylist Sydney Guilaroff. “I thought at once she was the most enchanting girl anybody at the studio had ever seen.” She was on her way.
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During the 1930s and 1940s, an array of talented children were the darlings of the studios, each with his or her own unique immediately identifiable screen persona that lured audiences young and old into movie theaters. In many respects, these were the eras of the great child stars: Mickey Rooney, Freddie Bartholomew, Jackie Cooper, Judy Garland, Roddy McDowall, Margaret O’Brien, Jane Withers, Peggy Ann Garner, Dickie Moore, Dean Stockwell, and those kids from Hal Roach’s Our Gang series—George “Spanky” McFarland, Matthew “Stymie” Beard, and Billie “Buckwheat” Thomas—and, of course, the star who was in a league of her own: Shirley Temple. Child stardom didn’t come easily. And always it was fraught with hazards. Countless children might do a film or two, then vanish. For children in Hollywood, the situation was as hotly competitive as it was for their adult counterparts. Always there was an awareness among the children, and especially their parents—more often than not their ambitious mothers—that the kids could be dropped by the studios at any time. Looming over them was the prospect that their charms might dim as they grew older, that adolescence could mark the end of all the attention and success. By the time Elizabeth worked at MGM, it was basically already over for Freddie Bartholomew. The supremely talented Peggy Ann Garner would peak in 1945 with her sterling performance in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, which earned her a special Oscar, and though she would appear in television in the 1950s and 1960s, the mighty days of stardom had passed her. Such children as Carl “Alfalfa” Switzer, Allen “Farina” Hoskins, and Billie “Buckwheat” Thomas of the Our Gang series had troubled adult lives when the business had lost interest in them and when audiences had forgotten them. Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney would keep working and maintain their iconic positions, but neither had those huge careers as adult movie stars. Elizabeth Taylor would prove herself a one-of-a-kind child star who reached the pinnacle of her success as an adult.
Although MGM had signed her to a contract, the studio lent her to Twentieth Century Fox for the role of another British child, this time the doomed Helen in Jane Eyre, which starred Joan Fontaine, Orson Welles, and Peggy Ann Garner as the young Jane. Afterward, MGM cast Elizabeth, again opposite Roddy McDowall, again as a ladylike child with a lovely British accent, in 1944’s The White Cliffs of Dover under the direction of Clarence Brown. Because she worked so well with McDowall, there was talk about teaming them in other films. But the real teaming here was between Taylor and Brown. Like Sam Marx and Fred Wilcox, Brown saw something in those violet eyes and that demure British demeanor of Elizabeth. Within her, there was warmth and perhaps some fire. Clearly, there was drive as well, with both the daughter and, of course, her mother. Brown would not walk away from the film and forget her. Instead, they would soon work together on her most important film of the era.
Chapter 4
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IN RETROSPECT, IT was perhaps fitting that the first actual Jackson 5 performance came on Michael’s seventh birthday: August 29, 1965. It was the professional birth of an extraordinary career on the day of the birth of the great artist himself. The performance was at a children’s fashion show at a local shopping center. By then, the group’s name had undergone a change. Some mistakenly believe the group had originally been called Ripples and the Waves Plus Michael. But Jermaine Jackson has said that that was the name of a different group. Instead, they were often known as the Jackson Brothers Musical Group—until, according to Joe Jackson, a family friend, Evelyn Leahy (sometimes spelled Lahaie or LaHaie), suggested something else. Leahy was a model who traveled around the state, and after seeing the boys perform at a shopping mall in Gary, she said that the name the Jackson Brothers sounded too much like something of the past, like the Mills Brothers, who had been successful in the 1940s. When she suggested the name the Jackson 5, Joe snapped it up. There was another version to this story, as well. Katherine said that Evelyn told her about the name change. Perhaps Evelyn had told both parents. Nonetheless, with the new name and Michael in the lead, the group was on its way. Eventually, Johnny Jackson (no relation) became their drummer; Ronny (sometimes spelled Ronnie) Rancifer, their keyboardist. Things moved quickly. Joseph landed the group a contract with the local Steeltown Records, where they recorded the songs “Big Boy”
and “We Don’t Have to Be Over 21 (to Fall in Love).”
A big break came at Chicago’s renowned Regal Theater, where a roster of such legendary African American as Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington, Lena Horne, Nat “King” Cole, and Dinah Washington had once performed. On the bill that night with the Jackson brothers was Gladys Knight, who was sitting in her dressing room when she heard them performing onstage. She stepped into the hallway to see who these kids were. “Impressed” was not a strong enough word to describe how Knight felt. She suggested to Joe that he should speak to someone at her record label, Motown. Joe made overtures to the company. But nothing came of that. Knight even did her best to make Motown look at the group. But still nothing.
Then came August 1967, when the boys appeared in the ferociously competitive amateur night contest at New York’s famed Apollo Theater—where the audiences were known for being notoriously demanding. Only the best came out on top. Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Sarah Vaughan had all seen their careers get a much-needed jump start when they had won amateur night. But losers might find themselves booed or booted off the stage. “That was the toughest place of all to play,” Michael remembered. “If they liked you there, they really liked you. And if they hated you, they’d throw things at you, food and stuff. But we weren’t scared. We knew we were good.” That night, the Jackson 5 took first place. Joseph and his sons were thrilled, even more so when they returned to the Apollo in May 1968 as paid performers. Something big had to happen now. And it did. Two months earlier—in July 1968—the brothers had been playing at Chicago’s High Chaparral when singer Bobby Taylor saw them and, like Gladys Knight, contacted Motown. Finally, Motown paid attention. The company wanted the boys to come to Detroit to audition.
Founded by Berry Gordy Jr., Motown had become a major force in popular music. Contrary to what some have thought, Gordy was hardly some ghetto kid who happened to make good. Gordy had grown up in a staunchly middle-class family. His parents, Berry Gordy Sr. and Bertha Gordy, had migrated from Sandersville, Georgia, to Detroit in search of a better life and more economic opportunities. Gordy Sr. ran several businesses, including a printing shop, to secure a comfortable lifestyle for his family. He instilled in his children a hard-work ethic and a belief in social progress. The seventh of eight children, Berry Jr. was encouraged always to make something of himself. But he seemed at first the least likely of the family to do anything extraordinary. Quitting high school, he became a Golden Glove boxer, then served in the military in Korea. Afterward, he returned to Detroit, where he ran a music store for a time and worked on the assembly line of an auto plant. Through it all, he had a love of music, and he had a great ear for songs that would prove popular.
Just as important, Gordy had drive and a vision. He decided to write music. With his outgoing personality, his gift for gab, his awareness of the importance of visibility (people had to know who you were), he made contacts at Detroit’s well-known Flame Show Bar, a top-of-the-line club that headlined famous black entertainers that included Della Reese, B. B. King, and Sarah Vaughan. There he met singer Jackie Wilson, a dynamo of a performer and a sex symbol within the African American community. Michael would always be in awe of Wilson’s fancy footwork, his passion and energy, his mesmerizing ability to put a song across.
Working with his sister Gwen Gordy and writer Roquel Billy Davis (known sometimes as Tyran Carlo), Gordy cowrote the hits “Lonely Teardrops” and “To Be Loved” for Wilson, which turned Gordy’s fledgling music career around. Now he had a place in the business. Later, using royalties from various songs he had written, along with an $800 loan from his family, he formed the Motown Record Corporation.
Seeking to change the face of popular music in America (and eventually around the world), Gordy envisioned the day when rhythm and blues–style music would go thoroughly mainstream in a way that even the music of those early and successful masters of rhythm and blues and rock and roll—like Louis Jordan, Chuck Berry, and that whirling dervish Little Richard—had not been able to do. Gordy’s idea was to further extend and broaden the appeal of black music (and black musical artists)—and to make black music something else. Decades earlier a great singer like Ethel Waters had helped popularize the blues, making it cross over into the cultural mainstream. Eventually, Waters mastered a style and sound that might be called black pop. Though steeped in rhythm and blues, Gordy’s vision was music that also acted as a kind of black pop. Michael would be greatly admiring of and influenced by Gordy’s concept.
Gordy moved his company into a small building at West Grand Boulevard in Detroit. There, an old photography studio was converted into a recording studio, with offices on the bottom level. Berry lived upstairs. Those who later visited the premises were always surprised that in so small and modest a space came such big sounds, such tremendous hits. The property—eventually known as Hitsville, USA—was open round the clock. Gordy let no record be released without his stamp of approval.
Gordy inspired all those around him. “Loyalty, honesty, and obedience were demanded and often gladly given,” recalled Mary Wilson of the Supremes. “Berry was a perceptive judge of character and a quick study of almost anything. He knew how to get people to do his bidding. He knew their talents and weaknesses. After years of observing him I believe he often knew more about us than we knew about ourselves.” Women also found him attractive. In time, he had three marriages and three divorces. There were other women in his life as well. Eventually, he would father eight children, including a daughter named Rhonda from his raging love affair with Diana Ross. He would become Ross’s Svengali and was determined that she emerge as a star in her own right, not simply as a member of the Supremes.
In 1968, Motown had relocated its corporate offices from West Grand Boulevard to a high-rise in downtown Detroit at 2457 Woodward Avenue, but the company still recorded at its original Hitsville studio. Later the company’s headquarters would be in Los Angeles. Regardless of its location, Motown would never be the sprawling behemoth of an MGM that sat on those 167 acres. But the company would be a comparable empire in the way it affected American popular culture. As Michael walked into Motown’s office, it was similar to the day Elizabeth Taylor had been driven onto the lot at MGM. This was the top of the line. Motown was not only the greatest record company for black entertainers but also much more. Having made extraordinary inroads into mainstream popular culture, Motown had become one of the great record companies period. Some of the greatest musical acts of the twentieth century were on the Motown roster: Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, the Temptations, Martha and the Vandellas, the Four Tops, Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell, the Supremes, Junior Walker, Gladys Knight and the Pips, and that much undersung heroine, Motown’s first big star, now no longer a part of the roster but whose music remained undiminished, Mary Wells.
And there were all of those huge hits: “My Guy,” “My Girl,” “Shopping Around,” “OOO Baby Baby,” “The Tracks of My Tears,” “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” “Dancing in the Street,” “Heat Wave,” “Can’t Help Myself,” “Please Mr. Postman,” “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” “Where Did Our Love Go,” “Stop! In the Name of Love,” and countless more. But ultimately there would be dissension, discord, and anger among the performers, the composers, and the producers at Motown, mostly directed at Gordy. Though he might never want to see himself as a despot, Gordy could be tough, and in the eyes of some, ruthless. Some Motown performers never forgave him for the way they had been treated. Some complained about unpaid royalties. The writing trio Holland-Dozier-Holland battled Gordy over profit sharing and royalties. By 1968, they left Motown and started their own label. Others complained the company could stifle creativity, especially when it discouraged (some would say even forbade) some artists from writing their own material. Others believed that Motown/Gordy would drop one act in favor of building another. The Marvelettes, which had been the company’s first big girl group, appeared to have been replaced by Martha and the Vandellas. Then came the
Supremes, who were given the top writers and arrangers. Marvin Gaye and Mary Wells were among those Motown artists permanently embittered, and sadly, permanently scarred.
Perhaps the most heartbreaking was the case of Florence Ballard of the Supremes. Sensitive and insecure, she may well have created some of her own problems. Still, hers was a story with devastating consequences. Often depressed, she developed a drinking problem. But what ultimately caused an emotional upheaval was her belief that Gordy was pushing both Mary Wilson and her aside to promote Ross. Eventually, Ballard left the group, replaced by Cindy Birdsong. According to Mary Wilson, Ballard received a $160,000 settlement from Motown but she signed away her rights to any royalties from the Supremes’ music. After having traveled the world with the group, Ballard ended up back in Detroit, trying for a time for a solo career but without much luck or guidance. The mother of three children, she lost her home to a foreclosure. She ended up on welfare. In 1976, she died of cardiac arrest at the age of thirty-two. It was one of the great tragedies in the music industry, and whether fair or not, Gordy’s Motown was held greatly responsible in the minds of the public. Ballard’s story would reach legendary heights and serve as the basis for the hit 1981 Broadway musical Dreamgirls. And in Dreamgirls, the arch villain was a ruthless, cutthroat Berry Gordy–like character.