by Ray Hagen
The Lufts’ daughter was born on Aug. 15, 1945, three weeks before the due date, but died several hours later.
By 1945 Lynn had been at Fox for 12 years. “I’ve been at this studio longer than any actress on the lot,” she told Inez Wallace in February of ’46. “I’ve lived through two regimes for the reason that my job was so insignificant, when they were firing big names they didn’t even notice me, just kept me on like the furniture and other props.” She mentioned a pair of upcoming Fox projects. “I’m the only actress on the lot who doesn’t want to play Amber.” (Linda Darnell played Forever Amber, and it was a notorious flop.) But she did want to play opposite Tyrone Power. “If he does Captain from Castile, as is rumored, I’d love to play Catana. Come to think of it, I’d love to play Catana with or without Ty.” Power did Castile but newcomer Jean Peters played Catana. Laura was another plum she wanted but lost.
Fred MacMurray flirts with Lynn in Captain Eddie (Fox, 1945).
Lynn was loaned to RKO for Nocturne (1946), co-starring with George Raft. It was a standard-issue noir thriller and Lynn was the good girl, but ads showed her in a sexy black negligee looking luscious and lethal. Back on her home turf she appeared in her final three Fox films, all released in ’46. She was a baddie in Shock, a B thriller with Vincent Price, and played a librarian in Margie. The latter was a favor to the director, Henry King, who asked her to do it. Margie was a big hit but was strictly a Jeanne Crain vehicle with Lynn in a pleasant but unrewarding supporting role.
Her last role at Fox was as a harried mother of three who wrote crime novels in the comedy-mystery Home Sweet Homicide. She played the mother of Dean Stockwell, Connie Marshall and teenaged Peggy Ann Garner. Barbara Whiting was another of the teens in the cast and recently recalled that Lynn “was a good actress. Oh, she was beautiful. And nice. People liked her at the studio, everyone thought she was a good woman. She was good with the kids. In talking to me, she would kid about Sid [Luft]. She knew that my family knew him.”
The following year, Lynn asked to be let out of her contract and was given her release after a record 14 years as a Fox contract player.
Lynn filed suit for divorce from Sid Luft in May 1947, informing Superior Court, “During our marriage I was the only breadwinner in the family.” But after six months’ separation, they reconciled. Their son, John Michael, was born September 18, 1948.
Now a freelance actress, Lynn wasn’t finding much to do of any importance. Between 1948 and 1950 she made only three small movies for two small studios.
In January 1950 Lynn made her stage debut, joining a road company of Moss Hart’s Light Up the Sky for a lengthy tour, and followed that with a Chicago run of Goodbye, My Fancy.
By June she was in New York, diving head-first into television as the star of a CBS live summer replacement series, The Detective’s Wife (7/7/50–10/6/50). Lynn played the wife of a private eye (Donald Curtis) who helped her hubby solve crimes. As she told Colin Briggs in 1987, “This was the hardest work of my entire life. No one knew much about TV then and the whole thing was done with everyone’s hands clasped in prayer.”
As soon as the series ended, Lynn filed for divorce from Sid Luft, who had already begun his tempestuous relationship with Judy Garland. Louella Parsons reported that, on noon of Christmas Eve, Luft abducted their two-year-old son from Lynn’s home. “I had told Sid that he could see Johnny at 10 o’clock Sunday morning,” she told Louella. “At 12 o’clock he came to the door. I said the baby was asleep and could not be disturbed then. He went outside, kicked the window in, knocked my mother down, struck me, grabbed Johnny and ran with him. A spokesman for Sid telephoned to say that if I would promise not to prefer charges against Sid for striking my mother, breaking into the house and taking the baby he would return Johnny to me.” She refused to agree to any such thing, and Johnny was returned to Lynn at 8:00 that evening.
The divorce was granted on December 26. Lynn was given custody of John and Luft was ordered to pay support payments of $500 a month for the first year and $300 per month thereafter, plus a $1,500 cash settlement. By mid–1951 Lynn had asked for a contempt citation, stating that Luft had fallen behind in his support payments. In September he paid the amount due. The divorce became final on the last day of 1951. For 18 more years Lynn and Luft would be in and out of court over delinquent support payments, and the Garland connection assured heavy press coverage.
There were three films in 1951. I’d Climb the Highest Mountain brought her back to Fox and damned if it wasn’t another Other Woman role, trying to steal Susan Hayward’s husband (William Lundigan). On the Loose at RKO had her playing teenager Joan Evans’ selfish mother (she would play plenty of those), and Columbia’s bottom-drawer Sunny Side of the Street wasted her in a trivial wisecracking receptionist role that any bit player could have (and should have) done.
Universal gave her a mother role in Has Anybody Seen My Gal, entertaining piffle about a family’s war over an inheritance. For a mother role it was unusually strong, even central. Universal’s contract pin-ups Rock Hudson and Piper Laurie were top-billed but Lynn and Charles Coburn had no trouble commanding every scene they were in.
It was becoming clear that as good as her film career had gotten at 20th Century-Fox was as good as it was ever going to get. She made ten more movies between 1952 and 1968 and not one is worth discussing. She was far better served by TV and live theater.
Her second TV series, Boss Lady (7/1/52-9/23/52), was a summer replacement for NBC’s Fireside Theatre, filmed in Hollywood. Lynn starred as the head of a construction company with fellow ex–Fox player Glenn Langan as her boyfriend and Lee Patrick as her secretary.
On August 8, 1955, Lynn married Dr. Nathan Rickles, a Beverly Hills celebrity psychiatrist .
Lynn found herself back in court (and back in the papers) in September 1958 when Sid Luft, now married to Judy Garland, sued for and won custody of their son John. He somehow managed to convince a judge that the famously chaotic Garland-Luft home would be a healthier environment for John, but another judge took a more careful look and overturned the decision two months later, on November 26.
Lynn appeared in a 1959 TV commercial for an Ovaltine weight-loss program, smiling happily and holding up a flouncy period costume. “Remember this dress?” she asks. “I wore it in The Bridge of San Luis Rey 15 years ago.” And guess what, it still fit, thanks to Ovaltine’s miracle diet plan. Truth to tell, there weren’t many people in 1959 who even remembered The Bridge of San Luis Rey, much less the dress.
That year Lynn sang in a Pasadena Playhouse production of the Broadway musical Plain and Fancy. For the next 14 years she concentrated her energies on what became her favorite performing venue, the stage. She would pause long enough to do her two final movies, Trauma (1964) and The Young Runaways (‘68), both minor efforts, and occasional guest shots on episodic TV series (Ben Casey, Bronco, The World of Disney, Perry Mason, Death Valley Days, Lux Video Theatre, The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., The FBI, etc.). But it was live theater that excited and reinvigorated her as an actress. She toured in Bye Bye Birdie, Enter Laughing, A Clearing in the Woods, Anniversary Waltz, Horace, The Bad Seed, All the Way Home, Simon and Laura, Adam & Id, French Postcards and Ballad of a City.
She received great acclaim for a 111–city tour throughout the U.S. and Canada of Barefoot in the Park (1965-66). When the show played in Los Angeles, critic Margaret Harford wrote in The L.A. Times (1/27/66): “Miss Bari takes charge as the young bride’s terribly practical mother. The minute she comes puffing up the five-and-a-half flights to her newly married daughter’s nest, prospects for an evening’s fun brighten visibly. She is an artful comedienne, a real pro with a cool, ironic style and the wit to time a laugh just long enough without letting it get cold.”
Lynn divorced Dr. Rickles on July 26, 1972. As she later explained, “There must have been something wonderful about this man or I wouldn’t have married him. But I hadn’t realized how difficult the life of a psychiatrist can be. I acted as his secr
etary and his nurse; I was also taking care of the six-bedroom house in which we lived, and of Johnny, and of Nathan’s young daughter by a previous marriage, trying to give her love and a feeling of emotional security. I stood it as long as I could; then, to preserve what was left of my sanity, I decided I’d better get a divorce.
“I’ll never marry again,” she correctly predicted. “I think that after you’ve been married three times, you’re out. Each time I felt that I was marrying for a good reason but I was wrong.”
She quickly returned to the stage and received the best notices of her career as a sharp-tongued alcoholic in a six-month tour of Neil Simon’s The Gingerbread Lady (1972). The Dallas Herald commented: “She is a terrific actress. No one could question that after having seen Miss Bari so dominate the stage, giving so much power, poignancy and biting comic emphasis to the role.”
A long-time political liberal, in 1972 she went public and made it known that she was supporting the candidacy of Dr. Benjamin Spock for president.
The following year Lynn, hit the road for the last time, joining Vivian Blaine, Robert Alda, Selma Diamond, Hildegarde and Jane Kean in Stephen Sondheim’s Follies, playing Carlotta and singing “I’m Still Here” with skill and, God knows, conviction. Forty years earlier she had signed on as a starry-eyed MGM showgirl, and yes, by golly, Lynn Bari was still here.
But poor health, arthritis and a chronic back problem soon forced her retirement. She moved from Beverly Hills to Santa Barbara in 1982, where she shared an apartment with her son John, by then a successful artist.
Lynn died on November 20, 1989, of a heart attack. She was cremated, as per her instructions, and two days later her ashes were scattered at sea off the Santa Barbara coast. Her brother John Owen survived.
Back around the late 1960s, this writer was mindlessly watching some long-forgotten game show where celebrity panelists were asked to identify personalities whose photos were shown. I jumped as the TV screen was suddenly filled with one of Lynn’s foxy Fox glamour portraits. Just as suddenly, panelist Joan Rivers screamed out, “Lynn Bari! She had the blackest lips in Hollywood!” I recall wondering if Lynn might be watching. She’d have loved it.
1933: Dancing Lady (MGM), Meet the Baron (MGM). 1934: I Am Suzanne (Fox), Search for Beauty (Paramount), David Harum (Fox), Coming Out Party (Fox), Bottoms Up (Fox), Stand Up and Cheer (Fox), Handy Andy (Fox), Caravan (Fox), 365 Nights in Hollywood (Fox), Music in the Air (Fox). 1935: Charlie Chan in Paris (Fox), Under Pressure (Fox), The Great Hotel Murder (Fox), George White’s 1935 Scandals (Fox), Ten Dollar Raise (Fox), Spring Tonic (Fox), Doubting Thomas (Fox), Ladies Love Danger (Fox), Orchids to You (Fox), Curly Top (Fox), Charlie Chan in Shanghai (TCF), Dante’s Inferno (TCF), Metropolitan (TCF), Welcome Home (TCF), Redheads on Parade (TCF), The Gay Deception (TCF), Music Is Magic (TCF), The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo (TCF), Way Down East (TCF), Thanks a Million (TCF), Show Them No Mercy (TCF), King of Burlesque (TCF). 1936: My Marriage (TCF), It Had to Happen (TCF), The Song and Dance Man (TCF), Everybody’s Old Man (TCF), Private Number (TCF), Poor Little Rich Girl (TCF), 36 Hours to Kill (TCF), Girls Dormitory (TCF), Star for a Night (TCF), Sing, Baby, Sing (TCF), 15 Maiden Lane (TCF), Ladies in Love (TCF), Pigskin Parade (TCF). 1937: Crack Up (TCF), Woman Wise (TCF), On the Avenue (TCF), Fair Warning (TCF), Timeout for Romance (TCF), Love Is News (TCF), Wake Up and Live (TCF), Cafe Metropole (TCF), This Is My Affair (TCF), Wee Willie Winkie (TCF), Sing and Be Happy (TCF), She Had to Eat (TCF), The Lady Escapes (TCF), You Can’t Have Everything (TCF), Life Begins in College (TCF), Wife Doctor and Nurse (TCF), Ali Baba Goes to Town (TCF), Lancer Spy (TCF), Forty Five Fathers (TCF), Love and Hisses (TCF). 1938: Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (TCF), City Girl (TCF), The Baroness and the Butler (TCF), Walking Down Broadway (TCF), Battle of Broadway (TCF), Mr. Moto’s Gamble (TCF), Always Goodbye (TCF), Josette (TCF), Speed to Burn (TCF), I’ll Give a Million (TCF), Meet the Girls (TCF), Sharpshooters (TCF). 1939: Pardon Our Nerve (TCF), The Return of the Cisco Kid (TCF), Chasing Danger (TCF), News Is Made at Night (TCF), Elsa Maxwell’s Hotel for Women (TCF), Hollywood Cavalcade (TCF), Pack Up Your Troubles (TCF), City in Darkness (TCF). 1940: City of Chance (TCF), Free, Blonde and 21 (TCF), Lillian Russell (TCF), Earthbound (TCF), Pier 13 (TCF), Kit Carson (United Artists), Charter Pilot (TCF). 1941: Sleepers West (TCF), Blood and Sand (TCF), Sun Valley Serenade (TCF) We Go Fast (TCF), Moon Over Her Shoulder (TCF), The Perfect Snob (TCF). 1942: The Night Before the Divorce (TCF), Secret Agent of Japan (TCF), The Falcon Takes Over (RKO), The Magnificent Dope (TCF), Orchestra Wives (TCF), China Girl (TCF). 1943: Hello, Frisco, Hello (TCF). 1944: The Bridge of San Luis Rey (United Artists), Tampico (TCF), Sweet and Low-Down (TCF). 1945: Captain Eddie (TCF). 1946: Shock (TCF), Margie (TCF), Nocturne (RKO), Home Sweet Homicide (TCF). 1948: The Man from Texas (Eagle Lion), The Amazing Mr. X aka the Spiritualist (Eagle Lion). 1949: The Kid from Cleveland (Republic). 1951: I’d Climb the Highest Mountain (TCF), On the Loose (RKO), Sunny Side of the Street (Columbia). 1952: Has Anybody Seen My Gal? (Universal), I Dream of Jeannie (Republic). 1954: Francis Joins the WACS (Universal). 1955: Abbott and Costello Meet the Keystone Kops (Universal). 1956: The Women of Pitcairn Island (TCF). 1958: Damn Citizen (Universal). 1964: Trauma (Parade). 1968: The Young Runaways (MGM).
Joan Blondell: Trouper
by LAURA WAGNER
If any actress best represents the snappy 1930s dame, it’s Joan Blondell. During that era she played a lively assortment of chorus girls, waitresses, golddiggers, reporters and secretaries in a total of 53 movies, 44 of them for Warner Bros. “Yet, for all that overwork,” Mick LaSalle writes in Complicated Women, “Blondell hardly ever had a false moment. Self-possessed, unimpressed, completely natural, always sane, without attitude or pretense … the greatest of the screen’s great broads. No one was better at playing someone both fun-loving yet grounded, ready for a great time, yet substantial, too.”
She was fun-loving, but sometimes there were limits. As a flip waitress in Other Men’s Women (1931), Joan puts the breaks on a fresh customer:
BLONDELL: Anything else you guys want?
CUSTOMER (checking her out as she bends over): Yeah, give me a big slice of you—and some french fried potatoes on the side.
BLONDELL: Listen, baby, I’m A.P.O.
CUSTOMER (turning to friend): What does she mean, A.P.O.?
BLONDELL: Ain’t Putting Out.
“I was the fizz on the soda,” she once said. “I just showed my big boobs and tiny waist and acted glib and flirty.” While that’s a fair assessment of most of her early roles, it wasn’t the whole story.
By the time she was born on August 30, 1906, as Joan Rosebud Blondell, in New York City, show business had a solid hold on her family. Her father was the “original Katzenjammer Kid,” vaudevillian Eddie Blondell, and, at the time of Joan’s birth, he had a popular routine (“The Lost Boy”) with his wife Kathryn Cane. It was said that Joan was born during a matinee at the theater.
Naturally, she would soon join the act. “At three I went on the stage for the first time in Sydney, Australia,” Joan said in 1970. “Then I continued with the act on through Europe … with zillions of trips back to the States on the Orpheum Circuit and the Pantages Circuit. Then my brother [Eddie, Jr.] was born and when he grew up he got into the act, and when vaudeville got bad my sister [Gloria] came in and we all struggled in the act. We sang, we danced, we did comedy sketches, we did everything. Always on the stage, always going, a week in each town and then finally a night in each town, then split weeks when it got bad. But we were always together, always together.”
Her education consisted of a week here, a week there, at various schools along the traveling road. Main concern, however, centered on just surviving between shows. “I had to go make the rounds,” Joan told John Kobal. “I got a few punk jobs here and there on a small salary which kept us going [librarian, sales clerk, waitress].” She also won $2000 in a beauty contest during a stopover in Dallas, Texas, earning the title “Miss Dallas.�
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She kept auditioning and seeking work on the stage. When she was 21, Joan landed a small role on Broadway in Tarnish (1927). After she appeared at the Provincetown Theatre in Greenwich Village in a rotating group of shows, she declined a scholarship to the Robert Minton–John Murray Anderson School of Drama because her “family needed whatever I could earn and the scholarship was for tuition only.” This disappointment was softened by a seven-month gig in the road company of The Trial of Mary Dugan.
Joan returned to Broadway for George Kelly’s Maggie the Magnificent in a supporting part, along with an up-and-coming James Cagney. Opening the same week as the stock market crash during October of ’29, the play flopped miserably, ending its run after just 32 performances. The New York Times made mention of “the gum-chewing, posing, brazen jade played by Joan Blondell—inclining toward caricature, but highly amusing in a drama that needs tangible vitality.”
Portrait of Joan Blondell, c. 1939.
This standout appearance led to two other short-lived but important Broadway parts: Sporting Blood and Penny Arcade.
William Keighley, soon to be directing both Cagney and Blondell over at Warners, had seen the two in Maggie and felt they were “manna from heaven.” He told Cagney later, “I was looking for an attractive yet tough young cookie and a strong, beautiful broad, and here were you and Joanie on that stage, the living, breathing counterparts of the two I needed for Penny Arcade.”