Perhaps the relationship with Columbo was already getting to her. Yes, she knew how it felt to be jilted because Hughes had done it to her just as Kahn had done it to Columbo. Now Carole found herself in the middle of a powerful sexual attraction as Columbo threw himself body and soul into an association that, when she stopped to think about it, scared the hell out of her. Soon each was calling the other “Pookie,” just as he had called Hannah “Sweetch” and she had called Bill “Junior” and “Popsie.” But as passionate and intense as the Lombard-Columbo relationship obviously was, Carole had her doubts. Something just wasn’t right with Russ Columbo.
In the fall of 1933 she leased a modest two-story stucco house at the end of Hollywood Boulevard and moved in there with Fieldsie, a combination that produced as many laughs as Laurel and Hardy. One writer noted that during a bridge party, Fieldsie sat idly eating chocolates, which she professed to dislike, “but I’m eating it to keep Carole’s face from breaking out.”
Their live-in situation rekindled old rumors around town that the two were lesbians. But Lombard didn’t have women on her mind; she had Pookie ensconced there and reflexively sought out her ex, William Powell, as a sounding board when she experienced that familiar old “breathless with the loss of freedom” feeling.
Three months into Lombard’s association with Columbo, Fieldsie dared to cross swords with Russ on Christmas Eve. He had called on Carole at the Hollywood Boulevard house, only to be met at the front door by Fieldsie who announced that Carole wasn’t at home. No need to say where she was (at Bill Powell’s house). A letter from Russ to Carole the next day indicates what happened afterward: Columbo reacted badly to Carole being “out.” The fiercely loyal Fieldsie had leveled her gaze on the not-singing-right-now Romeo and opined that what he and Carole had “was merely physical” and he needed to accept it for that only. Russ took this as a shot fired across his bow, not from the best friend, but from the girlfriend herself. And Carole got an earful for it.
“…As I gathered from Fieldsie,” he wrote bitterly, “I should have felt perfectly contented to take love as it was and enjoyed it and cherished the sweetness and loveliness when it was all over. Well—that’s all nice and lovely—if I had known that you wanted me just that way, but I gathered from our earlier meetings that you wanted me for always....”
A month later, Carole failed to show for Russ’s birthday party, and his letter to her echoed the excesses of Hannah Williams Kahn: “I worship you as the ancient worshipped their gods and goddesses. I have placed you on a pedestal, yes, and there I shall always keep you in my heart and soul, as my goddess—my infinite ideal.”
The fan magazines and gossip columns led the nation to believe that Lombard and Columbo were the perfect young couple, and this version of the story has been accepted by her biographers ever since. But Carole had retreated early on from the pressure and obsessiveness of Russ’s ardor. The sex was fantastic! But it came at a stiff price, and she knew now she had gotten what she wished for—a lover like she imagined Powell would have been in his prime, a man who could experience the heights of passion and sweep her up into rapture. That much Russ did, but to such excess that it drove her back into the protection of the dispassionate man who had alienated her in the first place.
She found the missing ingredient to be intellect.
Columbo poured his heart out in letters to his Pookie: “You know definitely in your mind that I do not meet your certain requirements, so therefore you look elsewhere for that. Physically you adore me and love me madly. But Angel, this is not a great love on your part. For if you loved me as greatly as I love you, there would be no requirement that you might demand from me, for a great love between man and woman demands nothing.”
She could only write of not wanting to hurt him, of loving him in a reasonable manner without the necessity of falling on some sword or other every moment. But he would not be assuaged.
In hindsight, this was not the all-consuming love of Carole Lombard’s life. Supposedly, Noel Fairchild Busch from Life magazine referred to Clark Gable as the love of her life in interviews with Lombard for an October 1938 cover story. This is the same Noel Busch who went on to gain acclaim as a World War II war correspondent and then as a biographer of not one but two Roosevelts, both Theodore and Franklin. The story goes that Carole’s snippy response about Gable was to say that Russ Columbo, not Gable, was her great love, “and that is most definitely off the record.” But her actions five years earlier, viewed through the prism of Columbo’s anguished letters, speak loudly about who loved whom, and how much. They reveal a Carole Lombard who was backpedaling as fast as her size 4 feet could manage from a character she found far too complex and oppressive. But Lombard’s own brothers had good reason to plant a story that credited Columbo and devalued Gable in the chronicle of their sister’s life. The second-hand quote discrediting Lombard’s feelings toward Gable has had legs to this day.
Says Lombard historian Carole Sampeck, “I think the whole Life magazine quote was indeed a plant by one of Carole Lombard’s brothers. My feeling is that it was Fred, not Stuart. Stuart got along just fine with Clark Gable; Fred never really warmed up to him.”
The situation between Lombard and Columbo grew so bizarre that Russ moved into a palatial Spanish villa on Outpost Circle, a moment’s drive away from Lombard’s Hollywood Boulevard home, and five minutes from the fortress on Iris Circle in Whitley Heights that Carole had shared with Bill, and that Bill now occupied alone. But just how alone was Mr. Powell, Russ wanted to know.
He began stalking Carole late at night with the brim of his fedora pulled low and the collar of his trench coat high, as proven by his journal, which contained such tidbits as the fact that on February 5, 1934, Lombard spent the night at Powell’s house on Iris Circle. The next morning Columbo had it out with Lombard, prompting a later telegram from her that included a cynical, “Your faith and belief in me is most inspiring.” Five days later Carole and Russ made up, and he reported in his diary’s shorthand, “all beautiful again.”
Lombard continued to work steadily at Paramount as the studio struggled to right its financial ship. Carole wore clothes well and received polite notices in picture after picture the likes of White Woman, the jungle drama; Brief Moment, a society drama; and Bolero, a dance drama. Then out of nowhere came one of those lucky breaks that resulted from working six days a week for three years and being seen on marquees and billboards and movie posters.
Columbia studios had stumbled upon a hit picture with It Happened One Night, a zany comedy about a runaway heiress and a newspaper reporter on the road in Depression-plagued America. With returns so strong, Columbia pushed ahead with another surreal comedy, Twentieth Century. John Barrymore, a big star with a big drinking problem, was signed as Broadway producer Oscar Jaffe. Barrymore had transitioned from silent film to appear in some of the most prestigious pictures of the early sound era, including Grand Hotel, where he romanced the great Greta Garbo, Dinner at Eight with blonde bombshell Jean Harlow, and Rasputin and the Empress, appearing with his brother Lionel and sister Ethel.
As Lily Garland, Jaffe’s protégée, Columbia chose Carole Lombard in a move that left insiders gasping. It had been nine years since Barrymore had chosen Lombard with such a flourish for The Tempest, the part she lost after the car crash, and now Carole worked nonstop as Barrymore’s looks and vitality slipped away. In Twentieth Century, Lombard enacted shy, innocent shop girl Mildred Plotka, whom Jaffe turns into shrieking, stomping diva Garland in the course of three years. Carole would credit “Jack” with pulling out of her a performance nobody expected, purring one moment, beating her temples the next in exasperation at Oscar Jaffe’s antics. The picture remains today a clever, vivid adventure in theatrics, and upon release in May 1934 it remolded existing impressions of Carole Lombard.
Said Shadoplay magazine, Twentieth Century presented a “Lombard like no other Lombard you’ve seen.... When you see her, you’ll forget the rather restrained and somewhat st
ilted Lombard of old. You’ll see a star blaze out of this scene and that scene, high spots Carole never dreamed of hitting.”
Photoplay focused on “Carole Lombard’s fiery talent, which few suspected she had.” These backhanded compliments—praising her excellence here in contrast to all the pale dramatic work that had come before—indicated just how ineffective she had been and how badly she needed some reinventing. Barrymore had made amends for cutting her out of The Tempest by co-starring graciously in Twentieth Century. “It would take a book to cover all the things he did to help,” she told one reporter. “But perhaps the greatest was the subtle way he built my self-confidence and flattered me into believing I was good.”
To another she said that working with Barrymore was “experience with a Capital E.” The truth was that, at the start, the aging reprobate had been far from supportive.
More than anything, the secret formula for Lombard’s success in the picture came courtesy of its director, Howard Hawks, the guy she had worked for just prior to her accident. Hawks had been attempting for weeks to cast the lead role of fictional Broadway star Lily Garland with no luck. Popular stage actress Tallulah Bankhead would have been right, but shied away from working with Barrymore. Silent star Gloria Swanson had been faltering at the box office but still said no, and so did fading leading lady Ruth Chatterton. Currently hot Miriam Hopkins fit the bill, but had already earned a reputation for being difficult to work with, which turned attention to the poor man’s Miriam Hopkins, Carole Lombard.
With the success of the stage version of Twentieth Century and the pedigree of writers Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur, with the participation of Howard Hawks, a director of some very popular pictures, and with the signing of John Barrymore, one of the most prestigious actors in the business, Twentieth Century would be an important film for Columbia. Casting of an actress capable of playing at Barrymore’s level continued to produce heartburn, and nobody was sold on Lombard. “She was a great personality,” said Hawks of the impression Carole had made onscreen, but “she couldn’t act for a damn. She just became completely phony.”
Hawks saw potential and signed her anyway, and then regretted it when shooting began. Hawks got the results he expected, a weak Lombard performance, and Barrymore was shocked at the transformation of fun-loving Carole into stiff and phony Carole when cameras rolled. Said Hawks of Barrymore, “He was kind of amazed, she was so bad. He held his nose behind her back.” Hawks took Lombard into the depths of the soundstage where it was just the two of them and asked why she seemed so intimidated; why she didn’t give Barrymore’s Oscar Jaffe back the level of energy he radiated. Hawks asked her what she would do if a man spoke to her that way in real life. She said she would kick him in the nuts. Hawks said, then kick him in the nuts and if she didn’t, he said, “I’m going to fire you and get another girl.”
She looked up at him—Was this a gag?—and said, “You’re serious, aren’t you?”
“I’m very serious,” he said.
They returned to the set with the cast and crew and played the scene. Recalled Hawks: “They were just in a little compartment of a train.… She made a kick at him and he jumped back and started pointing his finger at her and she waved her arms. She got back on the seat in the compartment and was kicking with both feet up at him and he was dancing around and finally he exited out of the scene and I said, ‘Cut, print it.’ Barrymore came back and said [to Lombard], ‘That was magnificent. Were you fooling me all the time?’ And she started to cry and ran off the stage.”
Hawks, a fellow Hoosier who would claim that he and Carole were second cousins, had made the connection in her brain between personality and character. It was a lesson she never forgot, and more than anything else, this created Carole Lombard, Queen of Screwball. She said of the experience of making Twentieth Century, “Somehow it seemed to loosen something that’s been tied up in me all my life, and to release an entirely new source of energy.”
Ironically, the picture didn’t do big business after all in spite of its pedigree. Columbia expected another windfall like It Happened One Night, but Twentieth Century wasn’t about salt-of-the-earth Americans; it was about theater people and the concept proved to be too highbrow for the “stix,” as Variety would call it—the small towns that sometimes made or broke pictures like Twentieth Century. Jaffe and Garland seemed to be carrying on about nothing important given that people were starving in all corners of America. So Twentieth Century earned terrific reviews and made a little money, and life went on for all involved.
But the perception of Lombard’s talent within Hollywood improved upon the picture’s May 1934 release, just as Russ Columbo was getting hot and earning consideration for a star turn in the pending production of Show Boat over at Universal Pictures. Romantically, the lovers were beginning to settle down and had pledged exclusivity to the other—or did he merely wear her down and obtain the appearance of surrender? Lombard and Columbo continued to enjoy sexual chemistry and spent a seemingly peaceful summer. He made his next picture at Universal, a musical called Wake Up and Dream; she made a melodrama at Paramount with rising stud Gary Cooper and six-year-old child sensation Shirley Temple called Now and Forever and then an endearing screwball comedy at Columbia called Lady By Choice.
Under the surface, Columbo kept another problem a secret: money troubles. He had run afoul of some shady characters, like songwriter Con Conrad, who would dog Russ for years demanding a portion of the crooner’s salary for services rendered.
During summer 1934, Carole got to know the Colombo family with its intense Italian culture and found herself at sea. She wasn’t Catholic; she had no desire to become Catholic. She loved her friends, she loved her career, and her pets, and her family, but she never experienced anything like the intensity of this family; the Colombos seemed to be passionate about everything. Suddenly, she understood why Russ was the way he was, and he was learning that maybe he should distance himself from his ethnic heritage or he might risk hitting a glass ceiling in Hollywood. Lombard biographer Larry Swindell stated that Columbo was “devoted to his Old World family but embarrassed by their overt ethnic stripe.” For her part, Carole kept quiet her doubts about marrying into the midst of these people, and contented herself with the sex and adoration.
Then, sometime in August, she began to feel some vague little something that all was not well in the cosmos. It grew into a feeling of dread that bad luck lurked ahead. She had always been intuitive and she always would be, and even Russ picked up on it to the extent that he drew up a will and spoke with his priest.
Carole and Russ approached the upcoming Labor Day holiday with trepidation. On Friday, August 31, Russ and Carole attended a sneak preview of his new picture Wake Up and Dream. On Saturday morning, while Columbo attended to a number of appointments, including studio recording, Carole, Petey, and Fieldsie drove two hours up to Lake Arrowhead for some R&R. Lombard had just wrapped the only picture of her career made at MGM studios, The Gay Bride, and was, as usual, coming down with something.
The next day she relaxed in the Arrowhead sunshine and finally began to unwind. Then came a phone call out of the blue: Russ Columbo had been shot.
7. A Perfect Flying Experience
Captain Arthur Cheney loved to fly and on this fine evening lifted his Western Airlines DC-3 up and away from Burbank heading north-northeast for the run to Salt Lake City via Las Vegas. He had been airborne 20 minutes when Western Airlines Dispatch was in his ear. “Flight 10, we have you over Daggett at 7-5-7, is that correct?”
“This is Flight 10,” said Cheney. “Affirmative, Dispatch. We passed Daggett at 7:57.” Daggett signal beacon stood just east of Barstow heading into the Mojave.
“Flight 10,” said Dispatch, “any sign of TWA 3? ATC should have had them over Daggett at 7-5-8.”
Art Cheney looked at his co-pilot, got a wag of the head. They both scanned the clear horizon. There was a thin cloud deck above, but the stars were brightening as night settled in. Winds calm.
A great night for flying. “Negative on TWA 3,” said Cheney, and Western 10 continued on toward Vegas.
For the next 30 minutes Capt. Cheney had Flight 3 on his mind and kept eyes peeled for any sign of the ship. Western 10 passed into Nevada airspace and wall-to-wall desert below. Desert and endless, empty black. Night runs in the void of desert were pleasant enough but never routine because a pilot always had the mental exercise of flying by instruments. Visual checks were all well and good, but a pilot lived by the instruments and what they read. Vertigo was real and vertigo was deadly, and Art Cheney knew enough never to let his guard down at night. They were also supposed to fly by radio beam and the co-pilot would handle that; weather over the desert was most often perfect or CAVU, ceiling and visibility unlimited, and closer to Las Vegas, flying was by visual reference.
Ahead and to the left, Cheney made out the blacker silhouette of the mountains of the Charleston Range from 40 miles off. Above, he could see some stars and high clouds. At a cruising altitude of 9,000 feet, he came in safely south of those looming mountains. Ahead lay Las Vegas. Cheney swung his ship around signal beacon 23A, now darkened by the blackout rules, and banked left at 6,300 on approach to Las Vegas Municipal Airport, known generally as McCarran Field, home of the TWA and Western Airlines hangers. It had been a milk run of a flight, just perfect; still, that call regarding Flight 3 nagged at him. He wondered who the pilot was and tried to remember who was on for TWA but couldn’t. Williams maybe. It could be Williams, a very well-known pilot among the brotherhood and a new man to the TWA western region, but Cheney wasn’t sure.
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