by Ray Hagen
They were very big on that.
Oh, they sure were. But not too big, he threatened to suspend me because I was on the CBI, the China-Burma-India tour, four months and didn’t get back on time. So the agent said, “Go right ahead, suspend her.” Of course he didn’t. But he’d kept trying to get wires and letters through to me, but everything was censored. And I’d be in one spot when he wrote me and I got the letter three weeks later somewhere else. He kept writing, “When are you coming home?” That started as soon as I got there. But we didn’t know where we were going until we were out over the Atlantic Ocean and opened our orders. We were delayed a month by some idiot special service man in Casablanca who sent us on the wrong route. We were a month late getting into Kharachi, India, and all hell broke loose. But it wasn’t our fault, we had nothing to do with it. So I was a month late getting back.
You didn’t mind so much as he did?
No, I didn’t mind so much. I was worn out, it had been rough and I’d gone from 128 pounds down to 112, living on K-Rations, or food I was completely unaccustomed to. And the heat, travelling constantly, and sleeping in bucket seats and on the floors of planes until we couldn’t sleep in a bed.
Who were the others on the junket with you?
Ben Blue, and Jackie Miles was the emcee. And there was Mary Landa, who had danced for a long time at Warners, and accordionist Ruth Dennis. We had a tough time, but we had fun, too.
What was your act?
I did a couple of songs and played straight girl in one of Ben Blue’s crazy acts. The GIs absolutely adored him. And Jackie Miles has such a wealth of material. As long as they wanted it, these guys stayed on. And Mary had a tremendous amount of dancing to do. She could do almost anything, and in a few places, when the platforms on the trucks were smooth enough, she even did some tap dancing. And Ruth did a lot of accordion playing. But the weather—never cool. And sand in your teeth, sand in your eyes. The Azores was the same thing. Casablanca was a little more comfortable, and it was intriguing, French Morocco. We met all the prostitutes, and I was asked to have a drink with one of the madams, but the MPs wouldn’t let us. Bob Hope told me before we left not to let the officers occupy all of our time, that the GIs were the ones we were going to entertain. You can’t imagine the arguments we got into with officers, some of them with a little too much under the belt. One of them in India threatened to court-martial two MPs that were sent for us unless they brought us back. This is incredible to me, that people can do this. All those dull, stupid pink teas with the officers’ wives—the minute they demanded that we go, we wouldn’t. We all stuck together on that. We went to entertain the GIs.
But it must have been great, in retrospect, to have gone.
I wouldn’t have missed it for anything in the world, believe me. I remember getting back to New York at eight o’clock in the morning. The first thing I wanted was milk, which we hadn’t had, of course. I bought two pints of milk and an ice cream cone. I was starving to death for milk. We had boiled milk in one place. I can’t bear boiled milk. And also, we had ice cream full of bugs. Night bugs that flew, little gnats. You know, I got so I didn’t mind? It was ice cream. Didn’t taste like ice cream, but it was cold. They froze it by sticking it into a well. Not really frozen, just crispy enough to stand up for two minutes. But I remember coming in, getting the ice cream and the milk, and going to the apartment of a friend who let me stay there. I went in, said hello to the maid and went to bed. And I could not sleep. So I took a sheet, a pillow and a lightweight blanket, got on the floor and I slept for 18 hours. Just dead. I didn’t move, nobody bothered me. It was absolutely wonderful. Everyone was worn out. Jackie Miles, Ben Blue—just shadows.
Was it when you returned that you started on Shine on Harvest Moon?
No, I came back and I was signed to do The Animal Kingdom. We worked for five weeks on it. Then Mr. Warner found out that Barney Glazer, the producer, hadn’t had it okayed by the Johnston Office. So they closed the picture because it had no Seal and couldn’t be released. Irving Rapper was the first director on it. So there was a whole rewrite done. Dane Clark, who played a completely different character than had ever been in the original, was written out. They closed it and I came to New York, stayed six weeks, went back, did Shine On Harvest Moon, then finished this with the rewrite. They put Peter Godfrey on as the new director. It was released as One More Tomorrow, with Dennis Morgan, Jack Carson, Jane Wyman, Alexis Smith—the company. You can tell the difference in the scenes between the things Rapper had done and what Godfrey did. It was one of the most horrible things I’d ever seen! They bought Mr. Glazer’s contract, paid him $150,000 and sent him, so they told the papers, for a rest in South America. We did Harvest Moon after the first five weeks on this.
Harvest Moon was supposedly Nora Bayes’ biography, but they weren’t all that factual.
Oh, they couldn’t be. She had five husbands, dear, and they couldn’t possibly show that. The Johnston Code said it was making fun of marriage if you even show a guy drinking too much champagne at a wedding. But I’ve never really seen a script for an original picture musical that had a really good story. Incidentally, I remember a very funny incident on that picture. Milo Anderson, who designed the costumes for it, was called down by LeRoy Prinz, the dance director, to see this dance thing he had done for Irene Manning, with all the fans and the hats and everything they could put on her, and 19 muscle guys lifting her and tossing her about. So Milo came in and LeRoy said, “I want you to take a look at this,” and they did the number and LeRoy said, “What do you think of that? What do you think she needs?” And Milo said, “Piano wire!”
Did you especially enjoy singing in pictures, or was it just part of the job?
Part of the job. It’s a different thing if I love the song, but you really get so tired, it’s so much hard work unless you have a God-given voice. But when you have to work at it—oh, brother. There was a stand-by singer for me in all the pictures. All the studios did that, in case you couldn’t do the song. But I did them. But it wasn’t that you just stood up and did a tremendous number, like anybody with a voice. There were all those guys who cut the little pieces together. Dave Forrest saying, “Well, you did that phrase pretty well, let’s go back over and add this one to it.” It takes a tremendous amount of time, and it’s excruciating. All of them were just a lot of hard work.
[Note: Ann never saw Shine on Harvest Moon and was unaware that the studio decided to have Lynn Martin re-record the songs and dubbed her vocals over Ann’s. Except for one brief trio number in Naughty But Nice, it was the only time Ann was ever dubbed.]
I remember the advertisements for Harvest Moon, “It’s Sheridandy.”
It was pretty horrible, I just loathed those pictures. I wanted good parts and it just didn’t happen.
In 1946, you were seen in only one film, One More Tomorrow, and it would seem that at this point they would be utilizing you more.
Suspension, dear. Over stories. Knock-down, drag-out. I went on suspension for 18 months after One More Tomorrow was finished. That’s when the strike began for better scripts, a pay raise and a picture deal. My option was coming up, which put me in a good position.
When the strike was finally settled, what was the deal?
I had a six-picture deal, over a period of three years. Two pictures a year, paying so much for each one, with script approval.
So the first one was Nora Prentiss, followed by The Unfaithful and Silver River. What prompted you to accept these?
Vince Sherman, a wonderful guy and a good director, came up with the first two stories. They were the best available. And I enjoyed doing them, I liked the stories. Now, Silver River was not a good picture. I understand that Mr. Warner was amazed that I accepted it. I accepted it because Errol Flynn was a big box office name and women didn’t get to do Westerns very often and I thought it might be a good combination, and I thought that it might turn into a good picture. Unfortunately, it didn’t. They tried to get me to do another pic
ture after Silver River, but I refused, and since I was on a picture deal, they couldn’t suspend me. So I went out to RKO and did Good Sam instead. They didn’t want to loan me out, but they finally did. I did Good Sam in ’48 and then I sat for quite some time because they didn’t have another story. They tried to get me to do Serenade, the thing that Mario Lanza did. They wanted me to play the Mexican girl. And that wasn’t the only time that this came up. It had been going on for quite some time, this Serenade bit, and I’d keep turning it down. Can’t you just see me playing the Mexican girl?
You’d get a chance to put on your Crusades black wig again.
Oh, that—my Crusades black wig! And what was that delightful thing—oh, Treasure of the Sierra Madre. I had a good black wig in that. I played a hooker.
You did?
I walked down the street in a big fat disguise to see if Bogart would recognize me. There’s a shot where he comes out of a bar—I guess he had the toothpick, he always did, and the hat turned up—and he passes me and then turns and looks back. And you see a girl twitching down the street in a black satin dress. That’s me. A bit. John Huston and I whipped that one up. Now, where were we?
You had just finished the last of your things for Warners and you went to do Good Sam for Leo McCarey. Were you satisfied with it?
No, I really wasn’t, but I don’t think that was necessarily Leo’s fault. I think a lot of it might have been casting. Gary and I did not have the spark we should have had together. It was a huge, elongated picture and I worked for 11 weeks on it. It was a delight to work with Leo and Gary, I’d known them both a long time. Cutting may have had something to do with it because they stuck really to the family things. There was a lot of comedy, but so much was cut out. And then I sat for a long time because Warners didn’t have anything for me. By this time, 20th had contacted me about I Was a Male War Bride. Well, I would have taken anything of Howard Hawks’, and with Cary Grant in it, sight unseen. I read the script, which was the longest thing I’d ever read in my life, and when Howard called me back to see if I’d read it he told me to tear out the first 85 pages because they weren’t going to use them. That was written off the cuff, mostly by Mr. Grant. Anyhow, my option would have been up on January 8, 1949, so I had six months to go, approximately, and I didn’t want to sign with them again because I was not getting good properties. I only did three pictures. That’s when I bought my way out of Warner Bros.
Do you remember the figure?
Thirty-five thousand dollars. They wanted 50, we compromised at 35.
How had been your relations with Jack Warner during all your years there?
Socially, excellent. Professionally—if I was on suspension, I wasn’t to be spoken to, either inside or outside the studio.
The word went out?
Of course. All the whispering campaigns about—oh, back to my first suspension. They’d give it to all the columnists, she should be spanked, she’s being a naughty girl, and after all the studio’s done for her. They never take the other side into consideration. But of course these columnists had to get their information from the studios, so they’re going to stay on the studio’s side. I just don’t think people can get to Jack in the office, he has too many people surrounding him. And of course he hates agents. I can’t blame him, though, they’re in there to get anything they can.
Did you deal with him personally or always through agents?
Through agents, always. Sure, that’s what they’re for.
No dramatic scenes, slamming into the office and throwing fits?
No, not I. I wouldn’t dream of doing that. I think that’s rude. He has his side to fight for and I have mine. You know, I could slam my way into his office and be kicked out, too, and that’s pretty silly. But I adore Jack socially. He’s a lot of fun.
Warners never really utilized you as an actress after Kings Row.
They always thought of me as the Oomph Girl, never as an actress, I could never convince them that I could act.
I know that the Oomph Girl thing stayed in their minds. Do you think the additional onus of having been a beauty contest winner hurt even more?
It certainly did. Anybody who would look over a bio of mine, any executive or producer who didn’t know me, had never worked with me or seen me work with a good director, would say, “Oh my God, not a beauty contest winner! Oh, not the Oomph Girl!” Yes, between the two I think it certainly was a hindrance to my getting good parts, or better parts.
Do you think that if you had freelanced during the time you were under contract to Warners, you would have done better?
I’m not at all sure of that, because unless a studio could get you under contract they didn’t want to give you those nice fat, juicy, plum parts. They wanted them to go to their contract people. So it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other.
How about the contract system, are you generally for it?
I think the contract system was an excellent idea for stock people because they had a chance to get training with good directors, even in bit parts. They did picture after picture after picture, and whether the training you got was good or bad, you learned something.
But after you had gotten a name, when they had you under contract and you were established, and knew what you wanted to go after, do you feel that it was limiting?
I think it was to this extent. There was a great deal of jealousy among the studios and they wouldn’t freely loan out their people. After Olivia de Havilland did Gone with the Wind, she came back to Warners and took a suspension. She refused to do a script and the front office got furious.. They said, “There will never be a loanout for you from this lot again.” Bette Davis went to England and spent all her money trying to get her freedom from Warners, and the judge was very nasty to her, because he thought it was a rahtha high price for an actress to be getting. I think he’s nuts. Bette Davis was worth more than anything she ever earned, she made millions of dollars for them. De Havilland certainly earned whatever she got. All of us did. We were highly underpaid at the time.
Well, with the dollars your names were bringing into the box offices in scripts that would have done nothing with unknowns…
That’s right. They were turning them out like a factory in those days, shoving everything down the public’s throat. They’d rewrite white elephants that had been on the shelves for years, and people would do them just to get them over with. Ruth Chatterton, for example. Now this was before my time at Warners, but I was married to her ex-husband, George Brent, so I know. She had a contract for five scripts. They would hold up the fifth script, the one they really wanted her to do, submit four that she had already turned down, and she had to take the fifth one or lose her money. It’s all very cleverly done. It’s like the very unfair thing of Warners not releasing me from my contract for so long. They finally charged me $35,000, and two weeks later Jack Warner gave Barbara Stanwyck her release because they couldn’t find stories for her.
Were there any roles you wanted to do for other studios that Warners wouldn’t let you do?
Many. I wanted to play Texas Guinan in the thing that Betty Hutton did at Paramount [Incendiary Blonde]. Probably just as well that I didn’t. Oh, there were several others, but I can’t think of the names of them. You’re digging too far back.
You can’t recall any of the others you especially wanted to do?
Oh, well, only Scarlett O’Hara, dear, naturally. I was interviewed by George Cukor for it, but you know what happened to that. I must admit that he was right, she [Vivien Leigh] was absolutely wonderful. But I can’t say I wasn’t envious. My not getting that had nothing to do with Warners. And I always wanted to play the girl in a book called The Wall, but I don’t think it’s ever been filmed. Of course I’m much too old now. Then I wasn’t.
Now, about I Was a Male War Bride, one of my favorite Sheridan pictures. You and Grant were absolutely marvelous together, and I wish you’d made many more films.
Thank you. We tried to. We were going to make s
equels. We talked to Mr. Hawks about it quite often, but there was just nothing that could come up to Male War Bride. I know that the man and woman who wrote it, it was about them, were thinking about making a sequel. We just never found another good comedy, that’s all. It’s a sin and a shame too, because I think we should have done two or three.
The wit, the style, the ease between you two was just beautiful. I’ve seen it often and have wondered for some time whether much of the dialogue between you and Grant wasn’t ad lib?
Oh, it was. Cary did it. The scene where we’re in front of my commanding officer and she said, “There’s a hitch,” and he said “Itch? Do you itch, Catherine?” and I said, “No, I don’t itch”—this was all Cary, all ad lib. He was right, he’d say, “People don’t wait for somebody else to finish a line, they talk over each other.” We would sit and work for hours. We were on the picture for ten months, because of illness. I got pneumonia, and when I’d finally gotten over it and was able to work, he got hepatitis. We finished in California and some of the things that were supposed to be shot in Bremerhaven, Germany, were shot at Wilmington. And we redid a lot of the things that we shot in England, because we had several different cameramen. It took a full ten months to do it. But anyway, remember that scene in the haystack—“Oh, you think a French girl can kiss better than I can?” That was all Cary.
I Was a Male War Bride with Cary Grant (Fox, 1949).
Well, it was the two of you.
No. Howard Hawks would sit on the set and he’d say, “Well, I’m not quite satisfied with this scene, what would you say in a situation like this?” So we’d sit and think, and it was invariably Cary. He would tell you what to say. Howard is a very clever man. He picks brains. And he had a very clever brain to pick with Cary Grant, believe me. If only Cary had directed. I begged him. I said, “Please, get something and direct it before I’m too old to play comedy,” and he said, “No, no dear, too much work. Not I. I want the drawing room comedies—cigarette, anyone?” It’s a shame that those comedies like The Awful Truth—you know, with the hands in the pockets, the fish-and-tails, the dignified gentlemen and all, it’s a way of life that’s just gone. Look at Bill Powell and Carole Lombard in My Man Godfrey. I tell you, it’s one of the classic films. She was such a tremendous comedienne, and you couldn’t beat Powell. He was right up there with Grant. And of course it’s in the writing.