by Ray Hagen
When you went to 20th, was it on a two-picture deal?
Yes. These were the two pictures, Male War Bride and Stella, that they turned up. They always nab you, you see, because they said, “If you can find a script we like, we’ll do a three-picture deal.” Well, I submitted scripts, and they didn’t like ’em.
That has a lot of holes.
Well, you can’t blame them. They have to take into consideration cost and nine million other things that, not being an executive or especially money-minded, I wouldn’t bother with. If I were going to produce it, that’s another matter. But the studio takes care of all that, and sometimes there are things that just cost too much.
Was Stella a script you had enthusiasm for?
I did have enthusiasm for it, I loved it. But it was a dreadful mistake, I didn’t like what I saw. It was dreary, and it shouldn’t have been. Something happened between the conception and the release of it. Now, David Wayne and Frank Fontaine are fine actors and I thought they were very funny. Evelyn Varden, who played my mother, is a wonderful actress. Victor Mature was a big, husky guy that all the gals went for, but there was something chemically wrong between us. And I believe in those set-ups. Cagney and I had it. I suppose I had some of it with Flynn. There is a certain animal magnetism, that’s all I can call it, that works between two people.
After Stella, there were four films for Universal. Was that a four-picture deal, or was it a longer contract?
That was a three-picture deal. Did I do four there?
Yes, Take Me to Town, Just Across the Street, Steel Town and Woman on the Run.
No, Woman on the Run wasn’t done at Universal. That was an independent picture, Norman Foster directed it.
They just got a Universal release for it, then?
They might have, I really don’t remember. Let me see, Just Across the Street so far has not paid off in percentages and neither has Take Me to Town. Steel Town has paid off lately. They finally had to.
I’d heard that Ross Hunter had been interested in using you for a lot more film work, perhaps the way he’s been working with Lana Turner more recently.
Oh, I’m sure he was. It’s just finding the right part. Ross went in with me to Universal at the same time I signed the deal with Leonard Goldstein. Ross was put on as an associate producer. Ross was an old friend of mine, and he worked with me on these three pictures. In fact, he was the one who sent me back here to New York. He was going to do Take Me to Town on Broadway. It was originally titled Vermilion O’Toole, that was her name in the picture, which I thought was absolutely fascinating, it’s the silliest name I’ve ever heard. And some executive in the front office said, “What the hell does Vermilion O’Toole mean?” Imagination? Like the back end of a handball court. Anyway, this was changed to Take Me to Town, the title of a song in it. Ross was struggling at the time to get the rights to this for a Broadway play, and he suggested that I come East and do summer stock to learn something about the stage, which I certainly wasn’t familiar with as an actress. And I did, that was 1958.
And now we come to Appointment in Honduras.
Ooh!! I never have seen that one.
Was that done under duress?
In a way. I had sued Howard Hughes at one point, and won the suit, over Carriage Entrance. Ava Gardner and Robert Mitchum did it later [as My Forbidden Past]. Well, at one time I had a deal with Colin Banks, the author of the book, to do it, and there was a big hassle over leading man. He made the deal to do it through RKO, and Howard Hughes bought the deal. Mr. Hughes and I couldn’t get together on a leading man. I had asked for Mitchum, he had wanted Mel Ferrer. He had three others in mind, I had three others. I had script and leading man approval, within reason. But the whole thing blew apart. He abrogated my contract and I sued him and won, and this was the end of it, because the lawyer advised me to always settle on the courthouse steps. So I was sent this script, Appointment in Honduras. Again, I thought it might be an interesting thing if well done, jungles and all that stuff—oh, well. And I was tired of fighting and thought it was just about time to call everything off and say, “Oh, to hell with it.” So I consulted the lawyer and he told me to do it if I thought the script was worth it, and I said, “Oh well, maybe, I don’t know.” So I accepted it. Never saw it. I heard it was an absolute horror.
And then Come Next Spring, which was really lovely. Every critic mentioned you favorably.
Thank you. I liked that very much. Unfortunately, it was not properly handled. Steve Cochran produced it but it had nothing to do with him, it had only to do with the studio release. Now in my contract, and I’m sure in his, was a clause which said that the picture would get an A picture release. Well, that can run nine different ways. I read, before I came back to New York that season, that it was released as a second feature! It didn’t matter whether his contract specified an A release, it was released in an A release picture house. Shortly after this picture, Herbert Yates, who owned Republic, finally retired.
Taking Vera Ralston with him.
Yes, Vera Hruba. Anyhow, it was poor Steve who finally got taken, because I had a flat fee deal.
Still, Come Next Spring was an exceptionally well-done film.
Yes, I think it was a sweet, charming little picture. Didn’t cost much, they said it cost a million, but I doubt it. It was shot in color in Sacramento during the summer.
Was The Opposite Sex strictly on a one-picture deal with Metro?
Yes.
And the following year, a film that puzzles me, Woman and the Hunter.
That was done for a British company. It’s a horrible thing, shot in Africa in color. A silly thing about a woman who wants to marry a guy, she’s his secretary, and she kills him and then takes on his son and she takes on the white hunter. It made sense in the script, but the way they cut it it made no sense whatsoever. And not even in color which was horrible, what with the color makeup, very black and very white and all that. My nephew in Dallas told me about it in 1960. He said, “I saw your African picture on TV,” and I almost fell out of the chair. I didn’t even know it was over here. Then later I read that it was going to be shown. I turned it on briefly that evening and said, “No, I don’t think I can bear this,” and turned it off. I don’t believe it’s ever been released. The picture was made in 1956 in Nairobi all over Kenya. I don’t think it’s made a dime, and of course I haven’t made a dime, because that was another percentage deal. You know, I think this was really a take-off on The Macomber Affair, which was a dull, talky thing. Well, we thought we had action. I did anyway. And I adored Africa, would give my neck to go back tomorrow.
And that was your last film.
That’s right. And should have been!
Then two things on the stage. Kind Sir in the summer of ’58….
Summer stock, all over. Altogether I would say 15 weeks dear, don’t ask me where. That’s what Ross Hunter sent me back for. Gus Schirmer directed it and we opened in East Hampton, Long Island.
What led you to decide on Kind Sir?
Well, it was written by Norman Krasna, a very fine writer. And I did want to learn something about the theater. Schirmer said, and he was right, that so many of the plays are so dated. And he felt that, with some cutting, Kind Sir was the most up-to-date. He sent it to me, I read it, I loved it. We didn’t play it at all like Charles Boyer and Mary Martin did [on Broadway]. We didn’t play it straight, it was strictly for comedy. Norman Krasna gave us permission to cut any damned thing we wanted to. I think we had a fairly good success with it.
And then Odd Man In late in ’59. That didn’t get awfully good reviews.
Odd Man In was an atrocity!
Then why did you do it?
Because I was promised there would be rewrites and that it would come in to Broadway. I should have know better than to trust producers, I should have known that it wouldn’t have been rewritten, but I believe people. We opened in—let me see, where did I have my first coughing fit?—Philadelphia. Opening night. The critic
s said the best thing about the play was Miss Sheridan’s coughing fit when she had to leave the stage. And I did, because by that time I had an infected sinus. Well, we got through the play. Usually the actors got pretty good reviews. The play, never. Did I tell you we played 69 cities in five months? I think out of the five months we had six weeks altogether where we stayed in one town. The rest were just one-night, two-night, three-night stands. The hard way to learn about the theater. And with a sinus infection. I was back down to 112 pounds again.
Have you done any stage work since then?
Nope. I won’t accept a bad play, I’d rather wash dishes. I made the mistake with Odd Man In of accepting their word, which was strictly phony. I should have learned that in Hollywood, about believing people.
How about the announcement late in ’64 about your doing a show about [scandal-ridden 1920s evangelist] Aimee Semple McPherson?
That was silly. It was jumped by my agent, who was out of his cotton-pickin’ mind.
Had you never agreed to it?
I agreed to talk about it.
I’ve heard that it was a project that has been going on for quite some time, but that they had never been able to get a clearance from the McPherson estate.
That’s quite true. David Hocker, who was my agent at the time, gave this out. It had been broached to me, and I said fine, if they would do Aimee Semple as I knew about her, if they’d tell the truth. There’s a brother in California who runs the temple, and a sister back here, a Mrs. David Salter. So I agreed to meet her, I said I’d love to meet Aimee Semple’s daughter, so David made the appointment. I arrived, and because I didn’t have my hair done I wore a white chiffon scarf over my head. I came in and the first thing she said was, “Oh, you came dressed for the part!,” with an angelic expression on her face. I said, “What?” and she said, “My mother always wore a scarf.” Well, you have never heard such an interview in your life! And finally somebody sitting across the table said, “Well, you can’t whitewash it.” I wouldn’t have said it. Well, automatically—“You don’t wish to do the story of my mother!” Do you know what they were going to do? They were going to have her sing songs, with that bloody tambourine, and baptize people! All purity and light. And I said, “That’s not her life!” The daughter got frightened, I’m sure. I wouldn’t play it that way for anything. And then, wouldn’t you know, this mad agent gives it to the newspapers without my approval. They were going to save money by having me just walk out and sing spirituals. Now I adore spirituals, I can shout to the rooftops and bawl ’em out like nothing you’ve ever heard in your life … [belts out] He’s got the who-ole world in His hands…, but you can’t do a musical like that. If you want music like that, you’ll need a singer. I’d adore singing them, but I’m no singer. I said, “There’s got to be something more. You’ve got to have a book and at least some of the background. The music is incidental.” They wanted to cheat.
That’s a shame, it’s one of the great stories to come out of the 1920s. It’ll be quite a while before it becomes public domain.
Well, I’ll get a face lift and play it then.
Okay, can we finish up with tidbits?
Sure.
A very grand-sounding question, your opinion of your overall position in cinema history—how does it strike you?
It doesn’t strike me at all. There’s no position, really. It’ll be just one of those things that’s written off, for heaven’s sake. It won’t mean anything.
How about your approach to acting? Just a natural projection of personality?
That’s right. Be as honest as you can. That’s the only approach I could possibly answer. Hard work and honesty. I think all actors and actresses are personalities. This even applies to character actors, even they are personalities. That’s why they are used.
When you were doing the bulk of your work back at Warners, and later, didn’t you see yourself as considerably more than a glamour girl?
Oh, of course I did. I had dreams.
And still?
Of course I have.
That it could have been more?
Yes, and that it will be more. I think Bette’s right. When they start making pictures for mature women again—I don’t give a damn how old we are.
You don’t intend to just up and quit?
I don’t think so. I think you should always work and always have an interest. I most assuredly do. But I won’t do some things that people think I should do. I won’t take one or two weeks of summer stock. That’s silly, and it just costs me money. I will not work with some of the general run of summer stock people. Some of them are very honest, hard-working people whom I admire, and some are liars and thieves. It’s a different matter if I find a play that someone will accept for, say, an eight- or ten-week run, and they’ll agree with me upon a leading man and director. I’m sorry, I will not take their directors or their local talent. I have tried that, it’s pretty gruesome.
Any preferences—comedy, drama, musical?
I love comedy, I adore it. I’d like to find a good part in a straight play, I don’t care whether it’s a starring role or not. But these are so out-of-date on Broadway. Of course, everybody wants a Broadway production, but they’re awfully hard to come by.
Any specific properties you’d like to do?
Well, I’ve read a story recently called Careful, He Might Hear You. I’d like to play the heavy in that, but I don’t know how interested the public would be in a little boy and a mean, mature woman, his aunt. It seems so hard to sell things like that, unless you do something on growing old, which I think the public likes to see, like The Subject Was Roses and Never Too Late. Either you’re in that category or it’s for the very young people, the teenagers. Somehow or other, they’re not doing in-between kind of things.
No, not any more. Well, stars are boys and girls now, and they used to be men and women. And that was nice, and I miss it.
Well, I do too. My God, you should see and hear the struggle that everyone has just to try and find a part. There’s nothing for mature women, except for Rosalind Russell. She does them all, and eventually she’ll get tired or something will come up that she won’t want to do.
Speaking of what they’re writing now, have you any thoughts about the horror cycle that Davis, Crawford, Bankhead and the others are now doing?
Wish I could find a good one. An ex-agent, Dick Levine, said they had me up for Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte before they cast Davis and Crawford in it. I didn’t know my name had been even mentioned. But I love those corny things. I’m crazy about soap operas, too, I adore them. Edge of Night and Secret Storm and all that.
I just thought of something that I dimly remember from when I was a tot. Haven’t seen them since, but others around my age have remembered them, too. A series of mystery books using names of stars as part of the titles, like “Ann Sheridan and the Case of the…” what?
Ann Sheridan and the Sign of the Sphinx, I’ll have you know. I’ve got a copy that they sent me, but I haven’t had nerve enough to read it. Utterly horrible, I’m sure. I flipped through a couple of pages and couldn’t bear it. But you’re right, it was Ann Sheridan and the Sign of the Sphinx. Isn’t that darling? Maybe we could make that into a soap opera.
Did they do this series with stars from all the studios, or was it just Warners?
Just Warners. They had some sort of tie-in with them, like they do for advertising bicycles and spark plugs and that sort of stuff. They got a lot of publicity from those tie-ins that they wouldn’t have gotten otherwise. Also a lot of people on the lot furnished their homes that way. You know, pose with the Motorola, blouses, shorts, slacks, dresses, anything under the sun they could make a tie-in with. If we’d been in the government, we’d have been accused of taking bribes.
I remember five or six years ago tuning into a Perry Como Show, and there you were singing “Guess Who I Saw Today.” Was that the only time you sang on TV?
No, there were other times, but that was the only time I
was on Perry’s show.
You’ve been doing a few of the panel shows lately, mostly To Tell the Truth.
Yes, I did The Match Game one week, and Missing Links once. And The Price Is Right. That’s all the panel shows I’ve done. But I’ve been on To Tell the Truth quite often in the past couple of years. It’s a lot of fun.
Do you usually watch your films when they’re shown on TV?
No! I don’t.
Oh. Okay. How about favorite actors? Not necessarily that you’ve worked with, just that you’ve admired.
Oh, Paul Scofield, and Laurence Olivier, naturally. The British actors, definitely. Most of them, the top ones like Guiness and Morley. I love them. Among the American actors, I would say people like Jimmy Cagney and Cary Grant—and this is not just personality-wise, it’s because I think they’re damn good actors. The parts they played they gave something to, always. But I think so many people are miscast now. I think Brando is a very fine actor, but he has been miscast in quite a few pictures.
How about actresses?
Oh, dear. A lot of them. I adore Bette Davis. I love Roz Russell because she has that vitality. She really kills herself doing all these things and it doesn’t seem to bother her at all. Then I go the other way to Margaret Rutherford, and who doesn’t love her? Bergman I like. I think she’s been miscast many times too, but that’s the fault of the story, not the actress. I think Mercedes McCambridge is a fine talent, such a good actress. Anna Magnani of course I love. I’ve seen some of her Italian pictures that have been very bad, but somehow or other they’re able to survive the bad ones. You know what everybody says, “You're only as good as your last picture,” but I don’t think that’s always true.