by Joan Kramer
She asked to see the questions we’d be asking in the interview. So the following day we delivered them by messenger to her hotel. That was also the day she went shopping for her new wardrobes.
Then, a curve ball was thrown at us. On Monday morning, Roger called to say that she was upset by the questions we’d sent. We explained that we had based them on the stories she had told us, and so didn’t understand her reaction. Suddenly, it looked as though all the arrangements, which had taken so long to put together, were now falling apart, and this interview might not happen. Our guess is that she had a case of nerves, realizing she was about to go public with her long-held feelings about Errol Flynn. We don’t quite remember how it was smoothed over, but it was, and the shoot was that same afternoon.
DH It had been agreed that the Warner Home Video director would use our camera crew to film the Gone With The Wind piece in the morning. Then we’d do our interview after the lunch break. I had already discussed with the cinematographer what would be the best locations to use in the hotel suite, which had a large living room, a small bedroom, a foyer and, of course, a bathroom. We found two areas in the living room that could be made to look different, and would not be too cramped. So when I arrived that afternoon, I was taken aback to find the crew setting up in the bedroom. Even with the bed pushed to one side, there was hardly room for lights and a camera position. The cinematographer told me that de Havilland had insisted that the interview be done in a different room from the piece for Gone With The Wind, and this was the only space left. (She later denied having any involvement in choosing the bedroom.)
Knowing that she was already unhappy with us because of the questions we had sent, I knew we had to make this work somehow. We did it by bringing the camera and some of the lights out into the foyer, and shooting through the open bedroom door from as far away as we could get. This allowed us to use a more flattering lens, and also prevented the room from looking cramped on camera (although in reality it was very tight).
JK When she arrived, whatever had been bothering her had been put aside. She was dressed in a pale blue suit, and appeared calm and confident. We had already decided that David would ask the questions.
However, with her first answer, we had another surprise: a completely different Olivia de Havilland. The relaxed, engaging woman with whom we had spent much of Saturday was not there. Instead she had decided to give more of a performance. At first we were disappointed, but then realized it was more in keeping with her image as a “grande dame,” and it did work. The fact is that what she had to say was marvelous. It added a new dimension to the program, because she was honest about her feelings for Errol Flynn, from the first time she met the “handsomest, most charming, most magnetic, most virile young man in the entire world,” until the time she heard about his death in 1959.
DH She told us that he had expressed his love for her while they were filming The Adventures of Robin Hood. But he was still married to Lili Damita, and Olivia had made it clear to him that he had to sort out his marital situation before she would begin a personal relationship with him, and he agreed. However, when he showed up on the set with Lili, it became clear to Olivia that he wasn’t keeping his promise.
When they had to shoot a kissing scene, she decided to get her revenge. She deliberately blew every take. “So we had to kiss all over again. And Errol Flynn, if I may say so, had a little trouble with his tights.”
I couldn’t quite believe what I’d just heard. And neither could everyone else in the room. Because the camera was rolling, none of us could laugh out loud, but it was hard not to. It’s the last thing I expected from this perfectly coiffed, beautifully dressed, refined lady. Of course, we used that comment in the show and it’s the one that audiences remember most.
JK After the interview was over, Olivia asked me if I knew Flynn’s daughters. She said she’d recently received a letter from Rory, but wondered about Deirdre. I told her that while I’d spoken to Rory on the phone, I’d never met her, but that we’d filmed Deirdre for the program when we were in Los Angeles. I explained that the two sisters weren’t on speaking terms. She put her arm around my shoulder and said in a conspiratorial tone of voice, “My dear, I know about sisters who don’t speak.” (She was referring, of course, to the fact that she and her sister, Joan Fontaine, hadn’t spoken to each other in many years either. As far as we know, they never did make up before Fontaine died in 2013.)
DH A few weeks later, I flew back to Jamaica for the shoot with Patrice Wymore Flynn. She wore a red silk shirt and simple jewelry, with her gray hair pulled back. She lit up when she spoke about meeting Errol Flynn when they co-starred in the 1950 film, Rocky Mountain. They fell in love and he formally asked her parents for her hand in marriage. He was forty-one years old; she was twenty-three. The ceremony was meant to be a small private gathering in Monte Carlo, but the press got wind of it and the crowd outside the church grew so large that the local police had to be called in to control the frenzy.
I asked whether she had had any doubts about marrying a man who had such a famous reputation as a womanizer. She said, “I know there was a big to-do over it, but I felt that the love between us was strong enough.”
However, Flynn’s wandering eye was built into his character. And so were his addictions to drugs and liquor. While he was making Too Much, Too Soon on the Warner Bros. lot, he met fifteen-year-old Beverly Aadland. It was at a time when Pat was “getting rather impatient with his daily injections of morphine,” and had revived her own career as a stage performer. He was meant to meet her in Las Vegas after one of her club dates, but he never showed up.
“So I called the hotel where he’d been staying,” she said. “And was told he’d checked out. I asked, ‘Did he leave a forwarding address?’ ‘No,’ said the receptionist.
“So he just walked out.”
JK According to her, they remained in contact over the next couple of years, and were planning to give their marriage another chance. In October, 1959, almost exactly nine years after their wedding, she came offstage at the end of a performance, and the manager of the club handed her a drink, suggesting she sit down. He then broke the news to her that Flynn had died a few hours earlier. Strapped for money, he had gone to Canada with Beverly Aadland to sell his yacht, Zaca. His life of self-destruction had taken its toll. He was fifty years old.
Pat decided that he should be buried at Forest Lawn in California, even though others thought he should be laid to rest in Jamaica. But she felt that if his children wanted to visit his gravesite, it would be more convenient for them if it were in Los Angeles.
After a few years, she went to live permanently on the Flynn property in Jamaica, where she died in March, 2014, at the age of eighty-seven. She asked to be buried next to her husband in California.
JK and DH So it seems that none of the women in his life were ever able to get over their love for Errol Flynn. His first wife, Lili Damita, hounded him for money and apparently even stalked him; his second wife, Nora Eddington, remarried several times, but did many interviews about their relationship prior to her death in 2001; Patrice Wymore Flynn, his widow, never remarried, but lived the life he loved on their ranch in the Caribbean. And Olivia de Havilland still admits to her love for one of the most profligate and exhilarating of all Hollywood stars.
We gave a premiere party for the TCM broadcast of The Adventures of Errol Flynn in April, 2005, and Pat Flynn flew in from Jamaica to watch it on the air with us.
When it was over, she said, “Thank you. Errol would be so proud that finally he’s being taken seriously as an actor.” Of all the reviews the show received, that one from Pat was perhaps the most meaningful.
It was the last profile we produced, and it may be one of our best.
David, Pat Flynn, and Joan.
Jamaica, 2004. Authors’ collection.
Authors’ collection.
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE
A Few That Got Away
It has to be obvious by now that
every production had its bumps in the road. We usually overcame the obstacles that were thrown in our way, but not always—twice we were fired. There were also those projects that came tantalizingly close to actually happening, but not close enough.
We spoke to Cary Grant, who gave us a somewhat back-handed blessing to produce a profile of him, but made it clear he wouldn’t appear in it. “I never do television,” he said. “But I can’t stop you.”
We replied, “We think you know that you control the use of clips from many of your films. So you actually can stop us.”
“That won’t be a problem,” he said. “I know you won’t choose any that make me look silly. Call me any time. Here’s my home number.” Then, to our dismay, PBS would not fund the project.
Marlene Dietrich was living as a recluse in Paris when we approached her. Her response was terse—and unprintable. We also pursued shows about Gene Kelly, Rita Hayworth, Esther Williams, Jack Benny, George Burns, Johnny Cash, Sol Hurok, and Irving Berlin, but could not get over the final hurdle with any of them. A profile of George and Ira Gershwin, to coincide with George’s 100th birthday, had the full co-operation of their estates, but fell apart when the owner of their music publishing rights, Warner/Chappell, would not even consider negotiating an affordable deal. Barbra Streisand requested copies of every show we did; we met with her manager and then with her. She’s well-known for taking years to decide on a project—and we’re still waiting. Dick Cavett agreed to let us do a retrospective of The Dick Cavett Show, and narrated a sample reel we’d put together, but the residual payments to the guests, directors, writers, and musicians, made the budget prohibitive.
While we made a name for ourselves in the non-fiction world of television, we always wanted to produce a feature film. Michelle Pfeiffer became our partner to produce, and play the lead in, an adaptation of Edith Wharton’s The Custom of the Country, with a script by Academy Award-winning writer, Christopher Hampton. We had it set up at TriStar, but “development hell” and the ever-changing powers at the studio put an end to that. And Pulitzer Prize-winner, Charles Fuller, wrote a script for us based on Paula Fox’s book, The Slave Dancer, which had been the recipient of the Newberry Prize. We had a deal for it at Disney, but eventually that too collapsed. Joanne Woodward agreed to co-produce and star in several dramatizations of novels we all thought could be turned into movies for television, including Kinds of Love by May Sarton, and three mysteries that Gore Vidal had written under the pseudonym Edgar Box. Vidal was an old friend of Joanne’s and the agreement she made with him was that we’d produce them as a trilogy. A&E was interested in the concept, but refused to commit to all three up-front, and that became the stumbling block that derailed the entire project.
In the documentary arena, the list of those we did work with still astounds us. Most belong to the era in Hollywood that blossomed after the introduction of “the talkies,” when the industry was reinventing itself. They were products of the studio system, which closely protected its most valuable assets by controlling every ounce of publicity about them and the pictures they made. Little was known about the stars’ real lives, and many of the stories released about them were manufactured to nurture their public images. As a result, there was a mystique and mystery surrounding them. They existed on the big silver screen in movie palaces, and not in our living rooms, which is perhaps what gave them a special aura—the feeling that they were just out of reach. And even though there was no shortage of fan magazines, there wasn’t the daily barrage that feeds today’s celebrity-obsessed culture, in which we’re told more than we really need to know about everyone from performers to politicians.
Some thirty years ago, we brought back to life a dormant form of programming and perhaps can take credit—or blame—for the abundance of movie star profiles that have sprung up as a result. When we happened to luck into this niche that others were ignoring, the field was wide open, so we had our choice of the biggest and the best. By establishing relationships with these icons from the “Golden Age of Hollywood” and their families, we had the chance to shine a new spotlight on them. Or did we? After all, they were damn good actors.
In retrospect, we realize that each of our shows was a stepping stone to the next; each star who allowed us to pierce his or her wall of privacy effectively told the next ones that we could be trusted, that we wouldn’t hurt or exploit them, that our goal was to present their stories as accurately and completely as we could.
So who do we want to do next?
After we completed our profile of Errol Flynn, we felt that the time had come to stop. We met some remarkable people, and we’ll never see their likes again.
Now it’s time for new challenges. Writing this book is one of them.
Authors’ collection.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In putting together this book, we would have been lost without the help and support of many people. They include our literary agent, Doug Grad; Eric Kampmann and Megan Trank of Beaufort Books; Brian T. Whitehill for his beautiful cover design; Mark Karis for the interior design; and Felicia Minerva at Midpoint Trade Books, and Jeff Abraham at Jonas Public Relations for getting the word out.
We subjected many of our friends to early drafts of chapters and received valuable comments. From some we requested advice on clearances and ownership, and from others we were given support and encouragement. In alphabetical order, they include Rick Amon, Mark Bagang, Pamela Becker, Albert Bellas, John Berendt, Sherry Buch, Dick Cavett, Jean Cohen-Neiditch, James Curtis, Richard Dreyfuss, Shirlee Fonda, Julie Garfield, Maria Cooper Janis, Peter Kane, Carol Katzka, Sherri Kramer, Su Lesser, Bette LeVine, the late Don Lynn, Roger L. Mayer, Kay Mazzo, Dennis Millay, John L. Miller, Charles Mintz, Michael Mowatt-Wynn, Arnold Neiditch, Bonnie Nelson, Robert Osborne, Scott Rodman, Hazel Rudeis, Ann Rundio, Renee Russell, Bess Schenkier, Carol Schneider, Lynda Sheldon, Lillian Smith, Golf Srithamrong, the late Edward Summer, Charles Tabesh, Susie Tracy, Blair M. Westlake, Robert Wolders, and Joanne Woodward.
The majority of the photographs are from the authors’ personal collections. However a number of photographers have generously allowed us to use their pictures here, and we are especially grateful to them: Scott Bryson (on behalf of his father, the late John Bryson), Ken Diego, John Haggerty, Brownie Harris, Don Perdue, the late Len Tavares, and Mitzi Trumbo. We also want to thank Shirlee Fonda, Susie Tracy, and Blair M. Westlake for allowing us to use images from their collections.
Films and television programs are essentially collaborative efforts, and we will be forever indebted to all those who contributed to the ones we produced. A comprehensive credit list would overwhelm this book, so will not be attempted here, although many key people are identified in the relevant chapters.
Not least, we want to thank all those who let us tell their stories, as well as their families and friends, and the many others who participated in our programs. Without them, this book would be filled with only blank pages.
APPENDIX
Productions referenced:
Skyline and Skyline with Beverly Sills (WNET)
1978-80
Fred Astaire: Puttin’ On His Top Hat (WNET)
1980
Fred Astaire: Change Partners and Dance (WNET)
1980
Starring Katharine Hepburn (WNET)
1981
Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward (ABC News 20/20)
1984
Judy Garland: The Concert Years (WNET/Sid Luft)
1985
The Spencer Tracy Legacy: A Tribute by Katharine Hepburn (WNET/MGM)
1986
James Stewart: A Wonderful Life (WNET/MGM)
1987
Bacall on Bogart (WNET/Turner Entertainment Co.)
1988
Broadway’s Dreamers: The Legacy of The Group Theatre (WNET)
1989
The Perfect Tribute (Proctor & Gamble Productions)
1991
The Fred Astaire Songbook (WNET/Turner Entertainment Co.)
Fonda on Fonda (Top Hat Productions/Turner Pictures)
1992
Katharine Hepburn: All About Me (Top Hat Productions/Turner Pictures)
1993
The Universal Story (Top Hat Productions/Universal Television)
1996
The Lady With the Torch (Top Hat Productions/Sony Pictures Entertainment)
1999
The John Garfield Story (Top Hat Productions/Turner Entertainment Co./TCM)
2003
The Adventures of Errol Flynn (Top Hat Productions/Turner Entertainment Co./TCM)
2005
INDEX
NOTE: Page numbers in italics indicate a photograph. Page numbers followed by an “n” indicate a footnote.
AADA (American Academy of Dramatic Arts), 122, 123–26, 140. See also Spencer Tracy Legacy, Broadway premiere
Aadland, Beverly, 387
ABC
20/20 program, 51–52, 59, 60–61
The Dick Cavett Show, 2–3, 6, 6, 11, 12, 392
and Spencer Tracy Legacy, 68
Academy Awards, 291, 319, 319n, 341, 362
Fonda, Henry, for On Golden Pond, 291
Garfield nomination for Four Daughters, 362
Hepburn, Katharine, 319, 319n
for It Happened One Night, 341
Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, 144, 145. See also Emmy Awards
actors
about, ix
off-stage wounds, 369, 382–83
Screen Actors Guild, 45, 60, 157
and “The Method,” 261–62, 266, 297, 301, 368
Adam’s Rib (film), 31, 32
Adler, Stella, 262, 265