During the war years, most of Warner Bros.’ general movies maintained a patriotic theme. From Jesse L. Lasky’s Sergeant York (1941) and the romantic drama of Casablanca (1942) to the spirited musical Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942), Harry kept his promise to make American films for Americans, but he also had to think about the future. In 1945, he announced:
The motion picture industry would be shamefully remiss if it were not looking ahead to its task in the postwar world. The essence of the task can be stated in a single phrase, “To interpret the American Way.” … One of our chief aims now in the postwar world will be to show Americans how millions of Chinese, Icelanders, Indians, Eskimos, and Russians live. I can think of no clearer, surer way to achieve a community of nations …
As World War II came to an end, Harry’s life erupted. His daughter Doris divorced and remarried. The entire episode caused Harry great embarrassment over what he considered dirty family laundry aired in public. Then to make matters worse, Lina Basquette resurfaced after almost 20 years. Her tumultuous life included six more marriages as well as numerous affairs. Now she wanted one-fourth of all Warner Bros. assets, claiming that as Sam’s widow, she was entitled to his share of the family goods. She settled for $100,000 in cash, but not before causing Harry further public shame.
As the House Un-American Activities Committee combed Hollywood for Communists, the Supreme Court ruled that movie studios could no longer own their theaters. More star players were going the independent route hiring agents to represent them and no longer tied to just one studio. Throw a new medium, television, in the mix and by 1950, the studios’ golden era was quickly coming to an end with Warner Bros.’ profits in a decided downspin.
Now in his seventies, Harry preferred life on his ranch among his prized horses to the studio. Besides it was also a place where he could avoid Jack. As age crept up on them, instead of mellowing the brothers out, Harry and Jack’s mutual animosity deepened. Their arguments became louder and more heated. Jack now owned a home in Cap d’Antibes near the French Riviera where he indulged in one of his favorite pastimes, gambling—another activity that Harry frowned upon. Abe was still living in New York and wanted to retire. Harry, however, wasn’t quite ready to give up the family business.
When Jack began talks with a Canadian conglomerate about selling the studio, he kept it from his brothers. Once the story leaked to the press, seventy-five-year-old Harry was irate. Jack insisted that he and Abe wanted out. They had all worked hard their entire lives and deserved a chance to “sit on our ass and watch sunsets.” He also reminded Harry that Rea and his daughters wanted him to take it easy. It took time for Harry to come to grips with the sale, but he finally agreed as long as all three brothers left together.
In the spring of 1956, the Warner Brothers sold their studio to a group of investors. What Harry and Abe didn’t know was that Jack made a deal of his own. Once the brothers signed over their shares, Jack would get his back and then be named president of the company—the position he always wanted and resented Harry for having. When Harry read about the underhanded deal in the paper, he collapsed—the victim of a stroke and his own brother’s deception.
Harry suffered several strokes before he died on July 27, 1958 at the age of 76. The official cause of death was a cerebral occlusion, but family members insisted that Harry died of a broken heart.
Chapter Twenty-Three
ANCIENT SLAVES, BAD FACELIFTS AND BROKEN TOWEL BARS
By 1928, Cecil B. DeMille was working with the Academy’s Committee on College Affairs, as well as helming the presidency of the MPPDA. He also signed a contract with MGM to direct three films with which he had to please the brass—namely, Mayer and Thalberg—by making sure he did not overspend during production and still end up with quality films that would earn-out at the box office. This was an adjustment for the controlling filmmaker who was used to having the final word on all of his productions. After three mediocre films, beginning with DeMille’s first talkie, Dynamite (1929), followed by his only musical, Madam Satan (1930) and ending with a remake of The Squaw Man (1931), neither DeMille nor MGM wanted to continue their relationship. But there was more …
In between these films, the stock markets crashed and DeMille lost one million dollars, but managed to hang on to the two million he had invested in California oil wells. He walked daughter Cecilia down the aisle when she married Los Angeles businessman Francis Edgar Calvin. In addition, he broke his ankle and also underwent an appendectomy.
After all that, he returned to the Paramount fold with the help of his old friend and partner, Jesse L. Lasky—much to Adolph Zukor’s displeasure. “Creepy” Zukor warned DeMille that he had just one chance to prove himself. If his first film for Paramount were not a blockbuster bonanza, it would be his last.
Despite the fact that Lasky was let go during production, DeMille didn’t disappoint. Relying on his tried and true formula, bible stories plus sex, The Sign of the Cross (1932) played to sellout crowds. With British actor Charles Laughton as arch fiddler Nero, and former banker Frederic March as Roman good guy Marcus Superbus, the film was a silver screen sensation. Between seductive slave dances, barely-there costumes and an unprecedented bathtub scene featuring an unclad Claudette Colbert submerged in donkey milk, the soon-to-be martyred Christians acted heroically as they faced a grisly death inside the Roman arena.
A typical DeMille day started at 6:30 a.m. on the aptly named DeMille Drive. By seven, he and Constance had breakfast together before he went to work. He arrived at the studio shortly after eight through his own entranceway—the aptly named DeMille Gate. He was on the set of his current production by nine where he filmed until after noon. He then ate lunch in the studio commissary with his staff who always waited for their leader’s arrival before indulging. Then it was back to the set until seven. After that, the daily rushes were viewed and meetings held. Back home on DeMille Drive around eleven, he and Constance shared a late dinner before the director locked up the house and trudged off to bed with a book.
After a couple more not-so-successful films, Zukor prodded DeMille: “Better do another historical epic, Cecil, with plenty of sex.” History and sex. For DeMille, that meant only one person—Egyptian Queen Cleopatra. Claudette Colbert, just back at Paramount after completing Columbia’s It Happened One Night (1934) with Clark Gable, was tapped for the leading role. With over-the-top battle scenes, shimmying slaves who were half-naked and royal seductions aplenty, Cleopatra (1934) brought DeMille back—front and center.
Temporarily abandoning the ancients and their debauchery, DeMille took a turn at American history with Gary Cooper as Wild Bill Hickok in The Plainsmen (1936). Mexican-born Anthony Quinn, a newcomer to Paramount, was cast as a Cheyenne Indian. During this time, DeMille also started moonlighting for Lever Brothers’ Lux Radio Theater pulling in two grand for his duties as host and director for each weekly broadcast. For the next nine years, DeMille ingratiated himself into private homes by introducing stars like Clark Gable and Barbara Stanwyck who read radio versions of popular movie scripts.
After the Wild West, DeMille turned his attention to the War of 1812 and the pirate Jean Lafitte in The Buccaneer (1938). Anthony Quinn had found his way into DeMille’s good graces and gained a supporting role in the film. He also married into the family, taking daughter Kathleen as his first wife on October 5, 1937.
In early 1939, the director, now in his fifties, collapsed on the set of Union Pacific (1939). Production was shut down for three weeks while he recovered from prostate surgery. DeMille, packed in ice, returned to work on a stretcher and kept right on directing his movie while lying on his back. Due to the film’s success, Paramount gave him a four-picture contract, his continued tension with Zukor notwithstanding.
Personal tragedy struck the DeMille family on March 15, 1941 when Katherine and Anthony Quinn’s two-and-a-half-year-old son, Christopher, wandered away from home. While playing with a toy sailboat, the toddler accidentally tumbled into a pond that belonged
to W.C. Fields who lived next door. The gardener found the boy and emergency personnel were summoned, but they could not revive him. DeMille arrived on the scene in time to help carry the child’s body back to the house to wait for the coroner.
Later that year, America entered World War II while DeMille was running his own production unit inside Paramount. He had also transitioned from black and white film to Technicolor making movies like The Story of Dr. Wassell (1944) and Unconquered (1947)—both pretty much flops despite the casting of fan favorite Gary Cooper in both starring roles. The press reported on the personal side of DeMille during those war years:
… The old tycoon of celluloid, bathtub and glamour, who for 30 years could obtain all the comforts of life by simply pressing a button, is now reduced to waiting on table at his house, tending the garden … washing his own socks … He has lost a valet and a writer to the draft, a butler, a maid and two gardeners to Lockheed, and the laundryman to a Japanese relocation center.…
After hosting more than 400 radio shows with millions of listeners around the country, DeMille resigned from the Lux Radio Theater in 1945 over a political dispute. He eventually returned to the bible for Samson and Delilah (1949)—another film filled with spectacle, skin and sin. The Academy honored the long-term director with a Special Award “for thirty-seven years of brilliant showmanship.” DeMille then took a turn in front of the camera when he played himself in Billy Wilder’s classic Sunset Boulevard (1950).
DeMille’s circus drama, The Greatest Show on Earth (1952), featuring Charlton Heston in his first major screen role, earned an Academy Award for Best Picture. The director also claimed the much-coveted Irving Thalberg Memorial Award that same year. Back in his biblical element, DeMille had one more film left in his directorial bag of tricks—a remake of his 1923 blockbuster silent movie, The Ten Commandments.
This time DeMille bypassed California’s Guadalupe Dunes and went directly to Egypt. While filming the famous Exodus scene there, he suffered a heart attack, but finished the picture in spite of his doctors’ protests. The star-laden film was the culmination of all of the demanding director’s previous work rolled into one—the biblical theme, the grandeur and the overwhelming spectacle that came to define DeMille. And yes, there was sex.
At home, a family drama played out when DeMille’s older brother, William, died at Playa del Rey on March 5, 1955 from cancer. Shortly after the funeral, a secret shared by the brothers for over thirty years was revealed when DeMille spoke to his thirty-three-year-old adopted son, Richard:
Before you were born, your Uncle William and I agreed that whichever of us died first, the other would tell you about your parents. Your father was your Uncle William. Your mother was a writer.
That writer was Lorna Moon—the friend of Frances Marion who had been stricken with tuberculosis and died in a New Mexico sanitarium on May 1, 1930 with funding from the sympathetic MGM producer Harry Rapf. The elder DeMille’s affair with the novelist resulted in a son, whom Cecil and Constance agreed to adopt, claiming he was a foundling.
After completing his autobiography and in the midst of planning a new film, the 77-year-old suffered a second heart attack. He died on January 21, 1959 with daughter Cecilia at his side. His book, The Autobiography of Cecil B. DeMille, was published posthumously. DeMille once announced that he didn’t write the bible and he didn’t invent sex. Maybe not, but it was his idea to shuffle them together on the silver screen. From the barn on Selma and Vine to the spectacle in Egypt, nothing was too risky or too big for the man who marched with Moses and flirted with Cleopatra. William DeMille summed him up best: “One thing I have always admired about my younger brother is his ability to bite off more than he can chew, and then chew it.”
Cedric Gibbons was also a director—an art director—who designed sets and sometimes awards. When the Academy decided to recognize outstanding achievements in the motion picture industry with what they called an “Award of Merit,” a committee was formed with Gibbons in charge of making up the program’s rules, as well as designing the award itself. The group considered all types of prizes—medals, certificates, plaques, etc. Gibbons felt a statuette would be more dignified and sketched a sleek, strong-looking knight with an imperial air of being the best—whom we now know as Oscar.
The dapper art director drove his Deusenberg to the studio every morning. After removing his fashionable hat and gloves, he got down to business—running the MGM Art Department. Gibbons ruled his realm much like an architectural firm. He was the man in charge, but coordinated various areas that also worked independently. While he took care of the budget, read scripts and sometimes provided rough designs to his staff, it was up to each Unit Art Director to pull all of the details together for their specific films. They worked with four separate factions covering special effects, set construction, set decoration and set painting. Within these divisions were professionals like wallpaper hangers, furniture-makers and interior decorators—all under Gibbons’ studio umbrella.
It was also up to the Unit Art Director to dissect a script, making note of the number of scenes and sets along with their estimated cost. Details would always be discussed with Gibbons who would then give his final approval on production plans. Afterward, each scene was drawn out in detail. Draftsmen then took these sketches and determined the necessary elevations along with possible camera angles. Blueprints were produced and the set built in miniature. If Gibbons liked what he saw, he gave the go-ahead for the actual set construction. If not, it was back to the drawing board—literally.
Gibbons also established a studio library where staff consulted reference materials to ensure accuracy right down to the type of sword a Roman warrior might have carried or the hairstyle preferred by a French queen. At work, he kept things professional. He rarely fraternized with his subordinates who always respectfully referred to him as “Mr. Gibbons.” An occasional “Gibby,” however, could be heard in the hallways or seen on internal studio correspondence. His crew was a loyal bunch who appreciated “Gibby”—especially when he took the heat for their mistakes. Never reprimanding a member of his staff in front of anyone, he would call them out in private when necessary. By requiring his people to come to him for sign-off on every single model, sketch or idea they finalized, Gibbons maintained control.
He also had clout. With stories and settings becoming more complex and more movies in production, MGM’s limited stage space became an issue. Gibbons requested and got approval for four more soundstages.
Outside of MGM, the divorced Gibbons fell hard for Mexican actress Dolores del Rio. María de los Dolores Asúnsolo y López Negrete was born to an upper class family in Durango, Mexico on August 3, 1905. At sixteen, she married the wealthy Jaime Martinez del Rio who was eighteen years older. Eventually the couple moved to Hollywood where Delores pursued acting while Jaime worked as a screenwriter. Her breakout role came when director Raoul Walsh cast her as the saucy Charmaine de la Cognac in his classic What Price Glory (1926). As her career blossomed, her marriage crumbled. She and Jaime divorced in 1928. He moved to Germany where he died from blood poisoning the following year. After a brief courtship, the actress married Gibbons on August 6, 1930 at the old Franciscan Mission in Santa Barbara.
Privately, Gibbons put his talents to good use. He designed his own home in the canyons of Santa Monica. The spectacular house was built in 1930 and had an ultra-modern and sleek look much like his MGM sets. Inside the white stucco structure, the floor plan was open with each room blending into the next. The first floor held a dining room, kitchen and guest suite along with a library whose winding staircase led to the strategically placed living room on the second floor. Here, white, black and gray dominated with a splash of occasional color for dramatic effect. Mirrors hung above the fireplace and recessed lighting made the room appear even larger.
Outside, terraces led to the swimming pool and tennis court. When the sun shone on the pool, the glimmer was caught in the sparkling living room mirror. At night, Gibbons tur
ned on roof sprinklers and shined the garden lights on his self-made “rainfall” for a similar evening effect. The unusual Gibbons home was featured in many magazines. His designs also influenced many modern homemakers, who often wrote letters asking him about his eye-catching movie sets. He explained that a home, like a movie set, should reflect the people or characters in it—unlike trendy fads that had to be replaced as they went out of fashion.
In the spring of 1933, the Gibbons entertained a houseguest—his sister’s twenty-year-old daughter, Veronica Balfe. When Uncle Cedric and Aunt Dolores threw a party for the young New York socialite, they invited lanky actor Gary Cooper. “Coop” was so smitten with “Rocky,” he married her before the year was out. The couple had a daughter, Maria, and remained together almost thirty years until Cooper’s death in 1961.
Longevity, however, was not in the cards for the Gibbons–del Rio union. After nine years, the couple separated. They divorced in 1941 with del Rio claiming mental cruelty. She told the court that her husband acted with “coolness” toward her that caused her to be “nervous and ill.” While Gibbons remained mostly silent about the ordeal, it was duly noted by the press that del Rio was often seen keeping company with recently divorced filmmaker Orson Welles.
On October 25, 1944, Gibbons took a third wife, model-turnedactress Hazel Brooks, thirty years his junior. Born in Capetown, South Africa in 1924, Brooks signed on with MGM when she was just 17 where she played mostly uncredited roles. Two years later, she was married to Gibbons by a Beverly Hills justice of the peace. Not long after, his health deteriorated. He experienced a heart attack in 1946 followed by a series of strokes that slowed him down considerably although he continued to work. In 1950, the Society of Motion Picture Art Directors honored the legendary art director with an award for his many contributions to the filmmaking industry.
Bringing Up Oscar: The Story of the Men and Women Who Founded the Academy Page 31