by Ray Hagen
And you got some excellent notices for your performance.
Yes, nice reviews for that.
And Navy Blues, which was to get Kings Row. Wasn’t Humphrey Bogart instrumental in your doing Kings Row?
He was. He was the one who told me about Warners having bought the story. He said they bought it for Bette Davis, Jimmy Cagney and Pat O’Brien, and he said, “I think you ought to have it, I think you’d be wonderful as Randy Monaghan. Read it, fight for it, do anything you can.” That’s when I got the book. I loved Bogart, but he was a monster. After he touted me for Kings Row, and it worked out so well, he came down to the set of something I was doing and said, “Annie, the front office has bought the greatest story under the sun, and you’ve got to do it.” And I’ll hold the tag line for you ‘til the end, because he told me the name of it, and I said, “Oh Bogie, God love you for Kings Row, that was the greatest part I ever had, thank you for touting me on it and tipping me off on this one, I’ll get in touch with them right away.” Well, this monster went to Ida Lupino and pulled the same thing, and a couple of other actresses on the lot, and if I hadn’t had to go right into a scene, I would have been on the telephone too. I understand that the front office, I think it was Steve Trilling at the time, was deluged with actresses wanting to get a copy of this script. I said to the fashion editor of Warners in my dressing room, “Oh, God love that Bogie, he’s just tipped me off on another thing to do,” and I told her the title and I saw a strange look come over her face. She said, “Oh, well, yeah, that’s wonderful,” and let it go. Mark Hellinger came in a few minutes later, and when I told him he asked me what it was, and I said, “The Story of Fanny Hill.” Well, Mark got hysterical with laughter and said, “Don’t you know who Fanny Hill was?” And I said no, and I didn’t. Lupino didn’t know either, she’s one of the ones they told me called the front office. I can imagine Trilling, shocked, horrified, groping—“We don’t have such a script!” And all of us stupid dames not knowing. But Hellinger was rolling on the floor, telling me she was the greatest known madam in England. I’d heard of Lee Francis and Polly Adler, but I’d never heard of Fanny Hill in my life. Those are the kind of gags Bogart pulled on everybody. We all had laughs about it, and afterwards of course I threatened to kill him.
“I’d work one day on Kings Row and the next day on The Man Who Came to Dinner.” Above with Ronald Reagan; below with Bette Davis, Monty Woolley (both Warner Bros., 1942).
Naturally. You were very unlikely casting for the part of Randy at that time, what with the publicity and all. Did you have to test for it?
No, after those first tests I did, the only tests I made were wardrobe tests. Somebody decided that I was going to get a part, and the producer didn’t demand that you do a test for it. Except for The Man Who Came to Dinner. I didn’t want to do that.
Why not?
Because I was doing Randy. Two pictures at once.
They were both at the same time?
Yes. And my only love was Randy Monaghan. I didn’t care about playing Lorraine Sheldon. I used to work, say, one day on Kings Row and the next day on Man Who Came to Dinner, or one morning I’d work as Lorraine Sheldon and that afternoon I was Randy Monaghan.
That’s a treacherous switch of character.
Well, it was horrible. And more than that, the makeup, hairdo, everything. But Mr. Wallis decided he wanted me after I made the test for Man Who Came to Dinner.
Was it true that there were some altercations with Bette Davis during that?
Very, very little. She wasn’t happy about a lot of things, there’s no doubt about that.
She had a very straight part.
That’s right. And I think she was conditioned at the time to remain angry at Miriam Hopkins and think that anybody on the set was going to fight with her. I wouldn’t fight with her at all. I agreed with her, with everything she said. Then she got very nice and today we’re very friendly. She was just—temperamental? Who isn’t temperamental? I’m as temperamental as all get-out if I feel I have to be. Maybe she had a headache, maybe she didn’t feel well. Maybe she wasn’t satisfied with her part or her clothes or the way the director was doing a scene. Many things can enter into it.
It was common to write back in those days that every up-and-coming young actress said she wanted only to be half the actress that Bette Davis was. Was it true in your case?
Oh, certainly. All of us had the greatest admiration for her. She was the queen. One of my greatest, greatest favorites. They always tried to start a feud between Bette and me, the Warner publicity boys. You never know who plants it.
How about others on the Warner lot you especially liked?
Oh, dear. Well, of course most of them were men, I have to say that. But of the women—well, Ida Lupino is a dear, close friend. I adore her. And she’s a damn fine actress, too.
Yes, she certainly is. It’s a shame she was in Bette Davis’ shadow for so long.
Yes, if Davis had not been on the lot, or if Ida had been on another lot and they’d had those scripts, I think a lot of those wonderful parts would have gone to Ida. I’ve known her since Paramount. In Search for Beauty, she played the lead.
Also in Come On, Marines.
Oh, no, another one I’d forgotten! Oh, you’re bringing back horrible memories. Actually, though, Paramount was sheer fun, It was hard work, but this was the glitter, the glamour, stars in your eyes. I didn’t care if I worked all night and started on another picture the next day. I was dead tired, but there was always the energy. But when you get parts that required a little concentration, learning dialogue at night and all that, you can’t do it. You can’t work all night and start another picture the next day and be too happy about it, especially if you don’t care for the part, and you’re supposed to carry something. At Paramount I never had to carry anything. At Warners I did, even Mignon Eberhart. I was up there and I was the one they were going to blame. Not the producer, not the director. This one. I started learning, in other words. Responsibility.
Others on the Warner lot, of the ladies, Barbara Stanwyck?
Never worked with her. She worked on the Warner lot and I knew her because she worked with my ex-husband, George Brent [in The Gay Sisters]. On one set we had rigged up a whole thing for Brent. They had a wedding scene, and I left the picture I was on and put on her wedding gown. George and I had just been married, two or three months. And when “Here Comes the Bride” was played, I walked down the aisle and stood beside him. You know what? I could have killed him. He didn’t even break up. He out-deadpanned every one of us. I finally said, “You’re supposed to laugh,” and he grinned! But Stanwyck is so tiny and I’m so broad-shouldered, her wedding dress stayed open all the way down my back. She was such a tiny thing.
How long did the marriage to Brent last?
Nine months. I got the divorce exactly a year to the day, January 5, 1943.
While we’re on the subject, I don’t have the date for the marriage to Eddie Norris.
July 1936. It was two years, 18 days, 3 hours and 30 seconds later that we separated, that’s as close as I can come. It was about two and a half years all told.
Now, Kings Row. I guess everybody thinks it’s the best thing you ever did.
Well, I think so.
It was a beautiful performance. It could have been done so badly, just sweet and mawkish, or just plain hard. But it was marvelous.
Well, I thank you, I loved it. I worked so hard, I worshipped the part. [Director] Sam Wood was absolutely wonderful. And for the first time in any picture we rehearsed three weeks before one single shot was made. The sets were up and we knew where we were going, what was going to happen. Bill Menzies, the technical director, laid out every shot. The dialogue in Sam’s script, and in Bill’s too, was on one page, and facing it, on the back of the preceding page, were color sketches of what they were going to do. James Wong Howe followed that, and of course there’s no finer photographer in the world. Every line, everything was known by that direct
or and those people before we moved into the set.
All the work paid off, and it showed.
It really paid off. And I think Casey Robinson did a magnificent job on the script. It was a picture I could find no fault with, except that I had to do the others to get it. I loved it.
That was an astounding set of ads they used, with you in a strapless gown and those blurbs about finding love on the wrong side of the tracks.
Wasn’t that something? Wouldn’t you just know they’d do that? And I was told later that the New York critics gave it bad reviews because they thought it was Communistic, the poor winning over the rich! But some of them saw it later and said, “My God, we didn’t realize…” At the time everyone said it needed a comic touch. And don’t forget, Warners had just done Mission to Moscow, and things were very touchy. If you didn’t like bread and butter, it was a Commie thing.
I’ve read quite often that Warners had originally planned to cast you and Ronald Reagan in Casablanca as a follow-up to Kings Row.
No, they did not. If Casablanca had been announced or planned for me, I would have known about it.
This is all news to you?
All news to me. Everybody talks as though they’d been sitting at Jack Warner’s side all that time. This is silly, I never heard of Casablanca being bought for me. Everything on the lot was bought for Bette Davis, it comes down to that. She had first choice. I spent so many years at Warners reading about them saying I was announced for things they had no intention of ever putting me in. It’s just more publicity. And if it happened to be something I really wanted, I never got it.
Why in the world, after the tremendous reaction you got from Kings Row, did they put you in Juke Girl?
Remember I said two bad ones for every good one? You’re supposed to carry it. I was under contract, it was either do it or take a suspension. I’d just come off an eight-month suspension. And I wasn’t paid twice for doing Kings Row and The Man Who Came to Dinner, I was paid once. You’d have to be paid for both now, but then, no.
Wings for the Eagle was not an awfully important film either.
Oh that was dreadful. That was the beginning of the Dennis Morgan-Jack Carson-Jane Wyman-Alexis Smith tie-up. We became the Warner Brothers stock company of all time. We also went out to Lockheed and did speeches trying to get the people to buy War Bonds. I think it was the first film about war that was done on the Warner lot during the War.
After which you finally got another good one, George Washington Slept Here, which was fun.
Oh, that was fun. And of course Jack Benny and Bill Keighley—well, Bill directed Torrid Zone, and these are just two great people to work with. It wasn’t too great a part, the only thing I did was kind of whine my way through, but it was with a wonderful comic and I had fun working with him. If the script’s bad I can put up with that, I won’t like it and I may beef, but I’ve got to have fun working with the people on the set. I don’t like dissension at all. I could fight with the front office, but I never wanted to do that either. I didn’t beef about George Washington because it was Jack Benny. I certainly beefed about Juke Girl. There were many things that I fought not to do. And there were many times, too, that I went on suspension and then came back and did the picture to get a salary raise.
I’ve heard quite often that you, Lauren Bacall and Ida Lupino were the suspension queens of Warner Bros.
Well, Lauren swears that she was on suspension more than anybody else. And I finally gave her that. More often, but I was on the longest time. The first suspension was eight months, the last one 18 months. These are the pictures I did, but you should have seen the scripts I turned down!
Remember any of the names?
Not all of them, certainly. There were several. One was Hollywood Canteen. They wanted me to play the lead and I refused it.
The Joan Leslie role?
You know, I’d forgotten that Joan Leslie played it. Yes, the young girl who gives the GI the come-on. The movie star he falls in love with, and she lets him think she might really love him and marry him when he comes back. And I said, “This is ridiculous! What a horrible thing to do to a GI. You’re going to get every guy in the Army all upset, thinking he can marry a movie queen. He doesn’t even know what he’s getting into.” Honey, you should have seen that script. I’m sorry, I like the man who did it, Delmer Daves, but this was dreadful! I refused to do it and took another suspension. I didn’t know about this, but they had even sent my stand-in out to my place and made street shots of her walking around my property to start the picture. They would not believe that I wouldn’t do it. They’d say, “It’s your patriotic duty!” Well, that had nothing to do with patriotism.
Do you remember any other films you had refused to make?
Well, I turned down Mildred Pierce, I turned down Caged.
Didn’t like the scripts?
Nope. But something I wanted to do very badly was Saratoga Trunk. Bergman did it, and she was right for it. I had made a test in a blonde wig, though, and I had a French teacher working with me all the time on the set of Juke Girl, trying to teach me a French accent. Can you imagine a French accent with my Texas accent? It was the most horrible-sounding thing. I didn’t see the test, but I saw stills of myself in the blonde wig, and I cannot wear blonde hair, my face just sort of goes to mush. My features are too big to be a blonde.
Now we come to Edge of Darkness, which I thought was another fine performance.
Thank you. I enjoyed the picture very much. It was timely and I think it made a lot of money. And the people in it were just wonderful.
Walter Huston, Ruth Gordon—a brilliant cast.
Yes, and Judith Anderson. How can you ask for any better?
Did you enjoy working with Flynn?
Oh, that was a wonderful time. He was going through the Peggy Satterlee rape trial. He used to go to court in the morning and come back and report to us on the set what had happened. [Director] Lewis Milestone and all of us used to just gather around and start gurgling from the toes up at the reports of Old Dad Flynn. It was absolutely fascinating, the things this idiot child accused him of. I think what hurt him most was when she said he raped her with his boots on. This would be very indelicate and ungentlemanly for Old Dad, and he said, “My God, next she’ll accuse me of wearing my top hat.” No, Flynn was always strictly fun. Never any trouble. I adored him. I never had trouble with any leading men. Really, I always got along well with everybody. You see, all of us were covered. If I was in a scene with Flynn, and it was his scene, I knew that the scene was going to be played mostly on Flynn. I could only play my part to the best of my ability. I knew that I would be protected because I was also a studio property. If the scene was mine and they wanted it to go to me, they would cut to me. I had nothing to do with the cutting, or any of that. I’ve known other people to go in and beef at the cuttings of pictures, but I never did.
How about Thank Your Lucky Stars?
I did that under duress, because I wanted to go to Mexico and get my divorce from Brent. They didn’t know I wanted one. I went immediately from Edge of Darkness into Thank Your Lucky Stars because, again, Mark Hellinger asked me to do it. So I said, “All right, can you shoot it fast? I’m doing it under protest. I don’t think this is going to be a hit, with all the different stars in it, but if you want me in it, fine.” I adored him. And I think we shot my number [“Love Isn’t Born”] in three days. I was champing at the bit because I had reservations to take off for Mexico, and of course they were standing with another script for me to do. That never stopped, that submission of scripts. I just thought of another one. I did The Doughgirls for Mark because they were going to suspend me again, but I hated it. I was in New York at the time it was chosen for me, or I was chosen for it, whichever you want to call it. I went to see the play and notified the studio that there wasn’t one single part that I could play with any honesty, and that I didn’t think it was a good play. I figured that unless you could use the dirt of the play, which they certain
ly couldn’t do on the screen with the Johnston Office, that it would lose all its color. Which it did. But, oh, there was a big knock-down, drag-out fight over that, threatening me with suspension. If it hadn’t been for Mark, I wouldn’t have taken it.
You did it just because you wanted to work with him again?
Warners knew I loved Mark, and he knew it. He wasn’t trying to use me, though, he was trying to help me. They cancelled a Bing Crosby Show on me at the last minute, which was very dirty playing. I drove down to the radio station, but they wouldn’t take me. Warner had already called and cancelled it. And he’d already given his word three weeks before. But Mark finally talked me into it. I’d get adamant, saying, “I won’t be pushed around, this is dreadful!” and he’d say, “Now come on, Annie. This is assigned to me, I’ve got to do it. You’d be doing me a great favor.” And there was another thing. I said, “All right, I’ll do Doughgirls if after I finish it Mr. Warner will release me to do a USO tour.” I had been waiting nine months to do one, I’d even taken booster shots. But every time I’d finish a picture, and Mr. Warner had given his permission for a USO tour, up would come another picture—“Well, just do this one, then you can go.” So I got the promise from Mr. Warner that after Doughgirls I would be allowed to make my USO tour. And I was. They came to me with another script, and I said, “Uh-uh, sorry. Remember?” Doughgirls was finished just before I went overseas in June ’44. It was released just before I got home. I remember somebody sent me the reviews on it. I came home that September and had already gotten the reviews in China. Oh, they were horrors!
Hadn’t you done a tour through Wyoming, Kansas and Missouri?
Oh, Fort Riley and all that. That was just after I’d married Brent. We were on our honeymoon, in Palm Springs, dahling. I think we’d been married all of two weeks. And I got a call from my agent saying, “Mr. Warner says you have to go on a USO camp tour, it’s your patriotic duty!”