Playing a Norwegian resistance leader during WWII in Lewis Milestone's Edge of Darkness (1943), Errol is pictured here with co-star Ann Sheridan. |
_____ |
Source: RR Auction |
Errol and Olivia |
Playing a Norwegian resistance leader during WWII in Lewis Milestone's Edge of Darkness (1943), Errol is pictured here with co-star Ann Sheridan. |
_____ |
Source: RR Auction |
Errol and Olivia |
David O. Selznick and Samuel Goldwyn were two of Hollywood's most successful independent producers, both with their own group of contract players. Among Selznick's contracted stars were (at one time or another) Joan Fontaine, Ingrid Bergman, Gregory Peck and Joseph Cotten, while Goldwyn had under contract such stars as Gary Cooper, Joel McCrea, David Niven and Danny Kaye. One of the people also under contract to Selznick was British director Alfred Hitchcock, who came to Hollywood in early June 1938 at the invitation of Selznick.
Before being signed by Selznick, however, Hitch met with Samuel Goldwyn. Goldwyn was also interested in Hitch but made no serious bid to land him. (According to Selznick, Myron Selznick (David's brother and Hitch's agent) could "not get bids for [Hitch] at the time I signed him".) Eventually in mid-July 1938, Selznick and Hitch struck a deal, entering into a seven-year contract. The two worked together only four times, i.e. on Rebecca (1940), Spellbound (1945), Notorious (1946) and The Paradine Case (1947). More often than not, Hitch was loaned out by Selznick to other studios at considerable profits (much to Hitch's resentment as he didn't share in the profits).
In late December 1942, Hitch had a meeting with Goldwyn about a production deal. Shooting on Shadow of a Doubt (1943) had already ended and Hitch's next project would be Lifeboat (1944) on loan-out to Twentieth Century-Fox. When Selznick heard about the Hitchcock-Goldwyn meeting, he was furious and next wrote a letter to Goldwyn. With Hitch still having a few years left on their contract, Selznick resented Goldwyn for trying to "seduce" Hitch into coming to work for him, and for telling Hitch not to waste his talents on projects like Shadow of a Doubt (which was not produced by Selznick but by Skirball Productions). Ironically enough, Shadow was to become Hitch's personal favourite.
January 6, 1943Mr. Samuel Goldwyn
1041 North Formosa
Hollywood, California
cc: Mr. O'Shea
Dear Sam:Recently, you have had a couple of occasions to remind us forcibly that you are a "frank" man, although God knows no reminder was necessary. However, I do hope that you grant to others —such, for instance, as myself— the right to be equally frank:Sometimes, Sam, I am frank to say that I don't understand you. You scream and yell about other people's ethics, and then behave in a fashion that makes my hair stand on end with a combination of anger and incredulity.You recently have sent direct for one of my people, Alfred Hitchcock, and talked with him without so much as either asking us, or even letting us know after the fact. I wonder just how you would behave if I reciprocated in kind — or if any of the big companies did it with your people. I have always maintained that no one is in permanent bondage in this business, and that once a contract has expired, or is soon to expire, every individual in the business should be free to negotiate with anyone he sees fit, without giving offense to the studio to which he or she has been under contract, and regardless of the desire of the original contracting studio to make the bondage permanent. I am not talking about such a case: rather, I am referring to a man who you know full well is still under long-term contract to me. Or if you don't know it, everyone else in the business does, and you ought to know it. The very least you could have done was to find out. Ignorance is no more a defense in these matters, if that be your defense, than it is in the law.
Hitch has a minimum of two years to go with me, and longer if it takes him more time to finish four pictures, two of which I have sold to Twentieth Century-Fox. And not alone did you try to seduce him, but you tried something which I have never experienced before with any company or individual— you sought to make him unhappy with my management of him. When you told Hitch that he shouldn't be wasting his talents on stories like Shadow of a Doubt, and that this wouldn't be the case if he were working for you, what you didn't know was that Hitchcock personally chose the story and created the script— and moreover that he is very happy about the picture, which I think he has every right to be. Further, that in the years since I brought Hitchcock over here from England (at a time when nobody in the industry, including yourself, was willing to give him the same opportunity...) and established him as one of the most important directors in the world with the production and exploitation of Rebecca, he has never once had to do a story that he was not enthusiastic about. This has always been my attitude about directors, and I happen to know that it has not always been your attitude toward directors under contract to you ...
By contrast with your own behavior, I have for months met criticisms of you with praise for your work, and for your contributions to the business, and for your integrity of production. I have said to literally dozens of people in important positions that you have never received as much recognition in the industry as is your due. And just yesterday, and despite my growing rage with you, I went even further than this with an important magazine writer who is doing an article about you. I not alone sang your praises, but I painstakingly corrected some impressions he had gained elsewhere, taking half an hour out of a very busy day for the purpose. When I hear of you doing the same thing, instead of doing your best (which would appear to be synonymous with your worst) in the opposite direction, I will believe your fine statements, and not before. I regret that I have to write you in this vein, and I do so not because I have any reluctance about rebuking you verbally, for you know from our past relationship that I have never been hesitant about such matters when I felt you to be in the wrong. I write you now, first, because I want it a matter of record, in connection with my future dealings with you; and second, because I have learned from experience that it is impossible to get you to listen to this many words unless they are in writing.
With best wishes for a fine and reformed New Year,
Sincerely yours ,
Source: Memo from David O. Selznick (1972); selected and edited by Rudy Behlmer.
Dr. Strangelove received numerous accolades, including four Oscar nominations (i.e. for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (Peter Sellers) and Best Adapted Screenplay). The film was praised by the majority of critics and also proved a big hit at the box-office. However, not everybody was charmed by Strangelove when it first came out. In June 1964, Stanley Kubrick received the following letter from a Mrs Dobbs from Florida, "a conscientious American", who found the film "despicable" and warned her fellow Americans not to watch it. Dobb's letter was one of several letters displayed at the Stanley Kubrick Exhibition in Barcelona in late 2018/ early 2019. It was one of the many letters Kubrick had kept. In fact, Kubrick had kept almost all of his fan letters (or in Dobbs' case, a non-fan letter), yet only seldom responded.
A year after Joan Crawford's death, Christina Crawford —the eldest of Joan's four adopted children— published her memoir Mommie Dearest (1978), in which she accused her mother of emotional and physical abuse towards her and her siblings. The book became a huge success and in 1981 was made into a film of the same name (starring Faye Dunaway as Joan Crawford). Several people corroborated Christina's story, stating they had personally witnessed some of the abuse (among them Helen Hayes, read more here), while others said that the allegations were pure lies. Among the latter group were Joan's twin daughters Cathy and Cindy, Joan's ex-husband Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Barbara Stanwyck and Myrna Loy.
Joan Crawford and daughter Christina |
Source: The Best of Everything: A Joan Crawford Encyclopedia (click on the link if you want to read Dietrich's full letter) |
Joan Crawford and Marlene Dietrich in the 1930s |
Source: The Best of Everything: A Joan Crawford Encyclopedia |
Kate Hepburn |
Source: Bonhams |
Above clockwise: James Stewart and Kim Novak in Vertigo, in a scene from Bell, Book and Candle and on the set of Vertigo. |
November 28, 1943
...per L.A. "Dailey News" Article 23rd, I resent and won't stand for your continuing to take all credit for "Watch on Rhine", "This is the Army", "God is my Copilot", "Princess O'Rourke" and many other stories. I happened to be one who saw these stories, read plays, bought and turned them over to you. You could have at least said so, and I want to be accredited accordingly. You certainly have changed and unnecessarily so.
November 30, 1943
Stop giving me double talk on your publicity. This wire will serve notice on you that I will take legal action if my name has been eliminated from any article or story in any form, shape or manner as being in charge production while you were executive producer and in charge production since your new contract commenced. So there will be no misunderstanding it will be up to you to prove and see that my name is properly accredited in any publicity.
Edwin Schallert
Los Angeles Times
202 W First Street
Los Angeles CalifMarch 4 1944
I have been with Warner Bros for twenty years and during this time it has been customary here as elsewhere for the studio head to accept the Academy Award for the best production. Naturally I was glad to see Jack Warner accept the award this year for "Casablanca" as he did for "The Life of Emile Zola". I am happy also to have contributed my bit toward the making of that picture. Your comment in your column this morning on rivalry at Warner Bros. is totally unjustified. I would be grateful if you would correct the misleading impression created by it ...
Hal B. Wallis
Excerpt from Starmaker: The Autobiography of Hal Wallis (1980) by Hal B. Wallis and Charles Higham:
Matters came to a head that Oscar night. After it was announced that Casablanca had won the Academy Award for Best Picture of the Year, I stood up to accept when Jack ran to the stage ahead of me and took the award with a broad, flashing smile and a look of great self-satisfaction. I couldn't believe it was happening. Casablanca had been my creation; Jack had absolutely nothing to do with it. As the audience gasped, I tried to get out of the row of seats and into the aisle, but the entire Warner family sat blocking me. I had no alternative but to sit down again, humiliated and furious.
[Eventually, Wallis did receive a Best Picture Oscar for Casablanca.]
Source of all correspondence: Inside Warner Bros. (1935-1951) (1985), selected and edited by Rudy Behlmer.
The critically and commercially successful Splendor in the Grass (1961), directed by Elia Kazan and starring Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood in the leads, was Beatty's screen debut. At age 23, Beatty was an ambitious young man who —in Kazan's words— "wanted it all and wanted it his way". Natalie Wood said in interviews that throughout production of Splendor she and Beatty had not gotten along, describing the actor as being "difficult to work with". Others shared her opinion, including Don Kranze, assistant director on Splendor. "Warren was a pain in the ass", recalled Kranze. "He was very young, anyway, but his emotional maturity was about thirteen... we all sort of felt about Warren that he's an immature boy playing a man's game." According to Splendor's production designer Richard Sylbert (a good friend of Beatty's), Beatty was going to do whatever he wanted to do, not caring what anybody thought.
Warren Beatty, Elia Kazan and Natalie Wood on the set of Splendor in the Grass. Long after production of the film had ended Beatty and Wood entered into a tumultuous two-year relationship. |
May 22, 1963
Dear Warren:
Forgive the impertinence of a friend. I really do like you, and it disheartens me when I hear from the underground that you are giving everybody a bad time in Maryland. I know rumors are unreliable and it’s not right to repeat them. But, damn it, they dishearten me. I always say: "Warren at bottom is a damn fine guy!" But there’s some contradiction all through your behavior. On the one hand you say that you want to be a movie star. You’ve said it again and again not only to me but to lots of people. But I must tell you that becoming a first flight movie star depends, as you well know, on working with the elite directors on the real good stories. And when these director-glamour boys hear that you are being "difficult" their only reaction can be: "Who needs it?"
It seems to me that you must find a way of legitimately asserting yourself and even forcibly making your opinions and impulses felt. While, at the same time, being agreeable to work with, decent to deal with, fun to be with, and a contributor to an overall effort. It’s very regrettable that so many people think of you as a special problem. You have so much: intelligence, talent, sensitivity. You are handsome, vigorous, physically able. But all this can be nullified or badly handicapped by the kind of stories — true, part true, quite false, whatever — that have been getting back to me here.
As I said, it’s possibly impertinent of me to write you this way. I am not your father or your brother, only a friend. But think about what I say.
Yours,
Source: The Selected Letters of Elia Kazan (2014), edited by Albert J. Devlin
Above: Snow White meets the Seven Dwarfs (gif made by my sister who blogs at Classic Movies Round-Up). Below: On 23 February 1939, at the 11th Oscars ceremony, Shirley Temple presented Walt Disney with an honorary Oscar for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the award consisting of one full-size Oscar and seven little ones (watch the clip here). |
A day before the Oscar ceremony, Margaret Herrick (Executive Secretary of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) sent telegrams to the Oscar nominees with instructions regarding the ceremony. The following telegram was sent to Olivia.
Source: Bonhams |
The infamous picture of the two sisters, shot by Hymie Fink |