JIMMY’S OFFSCREEN SHENANIGANS WITH JOHN BROMFIELD
Sailor Beware (1952) was a loosely equivalent remake of the hugely popular 1942 movie musical, The Fleet’s In, that had starred Dorothy Lamour and William Holden.
In spite of a weak script and stale jokes, Sailor Beware did better box office than Gary Cooper’s High Noon and MGM’s Singin’ in the Rain, which later was hailed as the best musical ever made. Sailor Beware was built around the onscreen antics of Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin, then the number two box office attraction in America.
Once again, Jimmy was disappointed with his small role, but it was a larger part than he had been given in Fixed Bayonets!. Playing a “corner man” for Lewis’ boxing opponent, Jimmy was featured in several minutes of screen time, mostly in the background, but only one line of dialogue.
On his first visit to the set of Sailor Beware, the cast and crew attended a studio breakfast paid for by the producer, Hal B. Wallis. Jimmy was perhaps the only member of the cast who found Lewis and Martin funny that morning. The comedic duo ran around the film set pouring pancake syrup over everybody’s head, including Jimmy’s. Production was delayed for two hours that morning while everybody showered.
During the shoot, Lewis paid no attention to Jimmy, although he later claimed, “I discovered the boy,” after Jimmy became a famous star.
Although Jimmy was needed on the set for three days of shooting, he convinced the film’s director, Hal Walker, to let him hang out afterwards, asserting, “I want to see how movies are made.”
“OK, kid,” Walker said, “but don’t get in the damn way or I’ll kick you out on your ass.”
An unfunny, exhibitionistic, neo-slapsticking, caper
A footnote in Hollywood history, Walker, who hailed from Iowa, is known mainly for helming some early Dean Martin/Jerry Lewis films. He’s even better known for directing Bing Crosby and Bob Hope in their famous road pictures during their (cinematic) travels to Bali, Morocco, and Zanzibar.
Jimmy was on the set when Betty Hutton appeared on Walker’s arm. She had signed for a cameo role as Martin’s girlfriend, a character named “Hetty Button.” She’d had a supporting role in the wartime version of the film, The Fleet’s In.
She had recently scored big triumphs, first in Annie Get Your Gun (1950), in which she’d replaced Judy Garland and consequently faced a hostile cast and crew; and in Cecil B. DeMille’s The Greatest Show on Earth (1952). Yet her career was heading for a nosedive, and, to Jimmy, she seemed to be coming unglued. Walker introduced him to Hutton, who seemed to clutch him. When the director was called away, she continued to cling to Jimmy, whispering to him, “I’m afraid.” He noticed that she was trembling. “Hold onto me. Don’t let me go. God help me!”
Tragi-Funny Lady: Betty Hutton
This embarrassing moment for Jimmy continued for about four minutes before Walker returned for her. She immediately transferred her emotional dependence to Walker, not even looking back at Jimmy.
Two views of the French sex kitten, Corinne Calvet.
Lower photo: With her errant husband, pinup hottie, John Bromfield.
That night he told Rogers Brackett, “If that’s what big stardom does for you, count me out!”
Two days later, Jimmy got to witness the star of the picture, the Parisian actress, Corinne Calvet. In postwar France, she had become the country’s number one pinup girl, although she had originally studied criminal law at the Sorbonne. Her mother was a distinguished scientist, who played a part in the development of Pyrex glass.
As a regular patron of Paris’ famously artsy Left Bank café, Les Deux Magots, Calvet held her own in animated conversations with Jean-Paul Sartre and Jean Cocteau.
American audiences came to know her when she played opposite sexy Burt Lancaster in Rope of Sand (1949). Privately, she cut a seductive path through Hollywood’s forests of studly men, seducing the likes of Errol Flynn, Tyrone Power, Jimmy Stewart, and John Barrymore, Jr., among others.
All of this was accomplished despite her marriage at the time to John Bromfield, considered by his admirers as the sexiest man in Tinseltown. This hunk of beefcake was known to bestow his favors on both men and women.
Jimmy stood with Bromfield as both of them watched Calvet emote in a scene from Sailor Beware with Dean Martin. Jimmy and Bromfield seemed to size each other up, and, as events would later prove, they liked what they saw. Their flirtation was interrupted by the sudden appearance of Wallis on the set. From a concealed position behind the camera, he’d been watching Calvet and Martin during the filming of their love scene.
He stepped forward and yelled, “Corinne, I told you I don’t allow my actresses to wear falsies.”
Her French temper flared. “I’m not wearing them,” she shouted back at him.
“Go to your dressing room at once and remove those god damn fake tits!”
“Are you calling me a liar?” she asked. She walked toward him and, in front of Jimmy and her husband, who stood nearby, she took Wallis’ hand and placed it inside her brassiere. Does that convince you they are for real?”
Then, without saying a word, Wallis stormed off the set. As he was leaving, Martin yelled “Bravo!”
Bromfield whispered to Jimmy, “Let’s get the fuck out of here. I’ve seen enough for one day. I’m sure when the scene is over, Martin will take my wife to his dressing room to fuck her.”
Outside the sound stage, Bromfield directed Jimmy to two motorcycles, which he had borrowed. He asked Jimmy to ride with him into the Hollywood Hills. “We’ll stop for lunch somewhere.”
Over sandwiches, Jimmy learned that he’d been a tuna fisherman and that he’d been discovered by that notorious Hollywood agent, Henry Willson, whom Jimmy had already met. “He examined all my body parts,” Bromfield candidly admitted. “I was also introduced to his second prize, Rory Calhoun. Rory and I are just coming down from a white heat affair. Rory’s a love ‘em and leave ‘em kind of guy. He seduces as many women as he does men.”
Jimmy never discussed any of the details of his brief fling with Bromfield. However, he did tell William Bast, “That Corinne Calvet is one god damn lucky French gal.”
The following day, Jimmy faced the cameras himself, playing one of two managers of an amateur Navy boxer, who must face Lewis in the ring. In one scene, Jimmy massages his boxer as he listens to Lewis boast that he’s won one hundred and one previous bouts in the ring. Of course, this is all comedic bluff. Jimmy delivers his one line to his own boxer: “That guy’s a professional.”
He conspires with the other manager to bring in the sailor’s older professional brother to face Lewis in the ring. Entirely by accident, Lewis knocks out the pro and wins the bout.
Although he had nothing more to say, Jimmy can be seen in the background climbing in and out of the boxing ring as the action unfolds. He is dressed in a white T-shirt and slacks, with a towel wrapped around his neck.
Jimmy Submits to a “Physical” from Vince Edwards
(TV’S FUTURE DR. BEN CASEY)
Jimmy never saw Bromfield again, but on his final day on the set, he met another actor, equally handsome and well built. He was billing himself as Vincent Edwards, later as Vince Edwards. Eventually, he became a household name thanks to the role he played of Dr. Ben Casey in a popular TV series (1961-1966).
The whacky, campy 50s. Two views of heartthrob John Bromfield.
top photo: in Revenge of the Creature (1955); lower photo: Beefcake fiesta with Tab Hunter
Both actors were bisexual. The Brooklyn-born Edwards was three years older than Jimmy. A top-rate swimmer, he had been part of the U.S. Ohio State University swim team that won the U.S. National Championships.
When Jimmy met him, he was about to sign with Paramount Pictures for his major film debut in Mister Universe (1951). According to Bast, to whom Jimmy revealed his fling with Edwards, Jimmy was both attracted to Edwards and jealous of him at the same time. Edwards appeared to be heading for film success much faster than Jimmy.
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He was not particularly modest, telling Jimmy, “I studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, but I think I can make it big in the movies based on my looks alone.”
Unlike Jimmy, Edwards had been assigned a private dressing room. After meeting Jimmy, he invited him there during a luncheon break.
Once inside, Jimmy had to take a leak, heading to Edwards’ cramped little bathroom. Over the toilet hung a full frontal nude of the actor, revealing his well-muscled body and endowment.
Back in the dressing room, Jimmy became more flirtatious with Edwards. As he was undressing, Jimmy moved in. “I’ve already gotten a sneak preview of what I’m going to get.”
“Oh that!” Edwards said. “I was photographed for an arts style class. The male nude, you know.”
“Mighty impressive physique,” Jimmy said, weaving himself into Edwards’ arms.
[Two days later, when Jimmy returned to the set where he was not needed, he spotted Edwards and approached him, whispering, “Thanks for showing a guy a good time. You’re one hot dude.”
“Fuck off, faggot! Edwards said. “Get out of my face or I’ll slug you.”
Later, Jimmy learned that he’d approached the wrong Edwards. Vince had a twin, Anthony Edwards.]
Sailor Beware was the fifth cinematic teaming of Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. Jimmy overheard Lewis bragging about their conquests of women. “All the broads are crazy for Deano,” Lewis said. “Even Marilyn Monroe. Actually, I’ve fucked more women than Deano, but most of them want to burp me.”
Ironically, later, both Martin and Jimmy would pursue the same actress, Pier Angeli.
Brackett claimed, “From Jimmy, Angeli heard talk of love. But Lana Turner set me straight on Martin. He was romantic at night, all wine and candlelight. But come the dawn, all a gal got was a pat on the ass and a promise ‘to see you around, kid.’”
Two views of Vince Edwards, a.k.a., Dr. Ben Casey. “I’m a grower, not a show-er.”
Sailor Beware marked the first time that Jimmy’s name appeared in The Hollywood Reporter under “castings.” Jimmy later told Bast, “My acting, if that is what it was called, mostly involved standing around looking at Lewis go through a lot of crazy antics. At one point, he pretended to be punch drunk and cauliflower brained.”
Where Jimmy’s future was concerned, the most important contact he made on the set was with another struggling young actor, Dick Clayton. He admitted he didn’t have much talent as an actor, and decided he was going to become a theatrical agent instead.
“You interested in signing on as my first client?” he asked Jimmy.
Clayton was told by Jimmy that he planned to go to New York to seek stage work. “In that case, I want to set you up with an agent, Jane Deacy. She’s not the biggest but she’s one of the best agents.”
Jimmy wrote down all the details. “I’ll call her for you and recommend you as a client,” Clayton promised.
“Great!” Jimmy said. “Soon, I won’t have any more need for Isabelle Draesemer.”
Ironically, in just a few short months, Clayton was working as an talent agent for the Famous Artists Corporation, and in that capacity, signed Jimmy on as a client for the duration of 1954 and 1955.
Clayton later was quoted as saying, “Jimmy seemed very vulnerable when I met him, very impressionable, with this little boy lost puppy dog look. We were friendly, but something in his attitude made me pull back. I figured he wasn’t the type of boy you hugged.”
Draesemer’s later claim to fame involved her “discovery” of James Dean, thus guaranteeing her a footnote in Hollywood history.
Like James Whitmore, she, too, encouraged Jimmy to move to New York, even though it meant losing him as a client. She also coached Buddy Ebsen and Hugh O’Brien to stardom.
After swearing all her life that she’d never marry an actor, she wed the Bpicture cowboy star, Tex Terry, and retired to Indiana, Jimmy’s home state.
With her husband, she opened Tex’s Longhorn Tavern in the state’s famous Parke County, known for its collection of covered bridges. Until her death, she was always willing to talk about Jimmy to out-of-state tourists, relaying her version of that famous teenage boy from Indiana who wandered into her office so long ago.
Rock Hudson vs. James Dean
HOW A HOLLYWOOD FEUD ORIGINATED AS A HOT TRICK
Jimmy’s last Hollywood film before his relocation to New York City via Chicago was Has Anybody Seen My Gal? When he signed for a bit part within it, it was entitled Oh Money, Money. It was the best of a lackluster group of Hollywood films in which he would briefly appear before he hit the bigtime.
The 88-minute color film, released in the summer of 1952, was the first in which Jimmy uttered a complicated line of dialogue from a position in the foreground of the frame.
Helmed by Danish-born director Douglas Sirk, Has Anybody Seen My Gal? starred Piper Laurie in the lead, with Rock Hudson and Charles Coburn getting second billing. Also featured was child actress Gigi Perreau, whose chief rival was Natalie Wood, Jimmy’s future co-star.
In her memoirs, Learning to Live Out Loud, Laurie claimed that she was rather embarrassed to be billed over Coburn, an Oscar-winning actor. She also alleged that “He had this tic about pinching women’s bottoms, and if you were female and under one hundred and five, you had to give him wide berth.”
She also said that at the time she was unaware of “the young boy who sat at the end of the counter in a drugstore scene.” Years later, her uncle called from New York after watching the movie in its TV release. “Did you know you were in a movie with James Dean?”
That was her first awareness of that. By that time, Jimmy was well on his way to becoming Hollywood legend.
As for Rock Hudson, Laurie admitted that she was unaware of his gender preference when they starred together. “There was no chemistry between us. He never made a pass at me. I just assumed I wasn’t his type.”
In contrast, Jimmy was well aware of Hudson’s sexual preference, having flirted with him at a party at the home of Hudson’s gay (and predatory) agent, Henry Willson. Hudson recognized Jimmy and invited him for lunch. He was filled with gossip, telling Jimmy that he’d heard that Laurie had had an affair with Ronald Reagan.
Jimmy would be appearing in a television drama with Reagan within a few months.
Over sandwiches, Hudson seemed bitter at Universal for awarding star billing to Laurie and for arranging for studio publicists to promote her career more aggressively than his. “They claim that she bathes in milk every day and that she dines on flower petals as a means of protecting her luminous skin. What bullshit!”
Like Jimmy, Laurie in time, would tire of making bad films in Hollywood and would retreat to New York to study acting and to seek work on the stage and in television.
After lunch, Hudson invited Jimmy to his dressing room, since he wasn’t needed on the set. The invitation from the tall, handsome actor was blunt: “I like to fuck and get fucked. How about it, Kid?”
“You’re on, Big Boy,” Jimmy said. He’d later give a blow-by-blow description of his sexual encounter to William Bast.
Usually, men came on to Jimmy during his early appearances in Hollywood. An exception was Lynn Bari, a co-star in the film. She was seventeen years his senior and found Jimmy very attractive. At this stage in her declining career, she’d been reduced to portraying matronly characters rather than the femmes fatales she’d been known for in the late ‘30s and ‘40s.
During World War II, the sultry, statuesque brunette, once known as “the Scarlett O’Hara of Virginia,” was the nation’s second most popular pinup girl, ranking just under Betty Grable. Bari had played man-killers in some 150 films for Fox.
After hanging around the set for days, Jimmy was called for his scene. He had tried unsuccessfully to get Sirk to notice him, but he had seemed more intent on promoting Hudson, who had been cast as Laurie’s soda-jerk boyfriend.
Sirk told Coburn that he found it amusing that Hudson towered over Laurie. �
��Rock looks great in his raccoon coat.”
Two years later, Sirk would cast Hudson in a remake of Lloyd Douglas’ novel, Magnificent Obsession, in a role that interacted, romantically, with the Oscar-winning Jane Wyman, the former Mrs. Ronald Reagan. Like Laurie, Jane was unaware of Hudson’s sexual preference and made the mistake of falling in love with him.
Before facing the camera, Jimmy heard Sirk’s direction: “Act superior and offhand.”
The director approved Jimmy’s red bow tie, his 1920s-era college sweater, his straw boater, and his white trousers.
In an extended interlude, Jimmy comes into the drugstore where Coburn is working as a soda jerk. Jimmy says, “Hey, gramps, I’ll have a choc malt, heavy on the choc, plenty of milk, four spoons of malt, two scoops of vanilla ice cream, one mixed with the rest and one floating.”
Coburn snaps back, “Would you like to come in on Wednesday for a fitting?”
Sirk shot the scenes three times until he got it right. At the end, he ignored Jimmy, but complimented Coburn as “the perfect Frank Capra curmudgeon.”
Later, Coburn invited Jimmy for coffee. The young actor learned that the older actor had been born in Macon, Georgia, in 1877. He confessed to Jimmy that, “I have the hots for Nancy Davis.” At that time, she had not yet married Reagan.
Coburn also told Jimmy that he had been cast in the 1953 Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. “I’m faced with a hard choice,” he said. “Do I chase after busty Jane Russell or go for that bleached blonde thing, Marilyn Monroe?”
With his work finished, Jimmy tallied up his total receipts for his brief appearances in three separate films. They came to $300.
His romance with Hudson lasted on and off for about ten days. Roddy McDowall, who came to know Jimmy quite well in New York, claimed, “Rock and Jimmy started out as lovers, but in time, they became bitter enemies. There was a lot of jealousy on Jimmy’s part. He would have given anything to be Rock Hudson.”
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