"Rebecca": Casting Maxim de Winter

In 1938, with Gone with the Wind (1939) in pre-production, producer David O. Selznick was preparing his new cinematic endeavour— the adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's novel Rebecca. Selznick bought the rights to Rebecca in July 1938 —the novel itself was not published until August— and officially hired Alfred Hitchcock as director a few months later. Casting Rebecca (1940) was not a smooth affair, in particular the casting of the second Mrs de Winter, eventually played by Joan Fontaine. While finding a suitable Maxim de Winter was less complicated, it was not settled immediately either.

As early as January 1938— about six months before the rights to the novel were formally secured— Selznick was already discussing casting options for Maxim de Winter with Hitchcock. The following telegram shows that his preferred choice was Ronald Colman, though Colman himself had misgivings about the role. Selznick had turned down William Powell, still hoping he could get Colman. As the telegram shows, Leslie Howard was considered too.

January 9, 1938

Alfred Hitchcock

153 Cromwell Road

SW 5

London (England)

Dear Hitch: Thanks for your kind mention of me on radio. Saw "Lady Vanishes" last night and I love you. Regret have to inform you Colman so fearful about murder angle* and also about possibility of picture emerging as woman-starring vehicle that he will not do it unless he sees treatment, and we might find ourselves in jam by waiting. If move within next few hours can sign Leslie Howard for it; otherwise will lose him too. Bill Powell has been absolutely wild about role and anxious to do it, but I turned him down on expectation of getting Colman.... Wish you would dictate reply immediately upon receipt of this, giving me your reactions.

David

 

*Spoiler: One of Colman's objections was that in Du Maurier's novel Maxim murders his first wife, Rebecca. Obviously, Colman didn't know then that the censors wouldn't allow Rebecca to be murdered and for Maxim to get away with it. Much to Selznick's dismay, the murder eventually became an accident in the film.

Laurence Olivier as Maxim de Winter

(l-r) Ronald Colman, William Powell and Leslie Howard

In June 1939, more than a year later, Selznick sent this telegram to his business associate Lowell Calvert. While about to sign Laurence Olivier, Selznick wanted to have a meeting with Calvert, as William Powell was still very eager to play the role. To Selznick, both Olivier and Powell were second choices. He still believed that Ronald Colman, who had declined the part, was "the only perfect man". 

Incidentally, other stars who were reportedly considered for the Maxim role include Walter Pidgeon and Melvyn Douglas, though they don't seem to have been serious contenders.

June 15, 1939

To: Mr. Lowell V. Calvert

We are about to close for Laurence Olivier for "Rebecca", but before doing so, anxious to have immediate check on the following. Since I cannot delay Olivier negotations, would like to have some word early in the morning. William Powell is still extremely anxious to play the part; he would cost $100,000 more than Olivier, which means we would have to gross $150,000 additional to break even on the expenditure. Even if we want him there is still no certainty we can get him, since it would require MGM's consent. However, Powell is hopeful this might be obtained. Obviously I do not want to make the attempt until and unless we are sure we want him. This is not a question of casting, as we can make this decision ourselves, and on this point there is much to be said on both sides. For instance, Powell is much more right as to age, whereas Olivier is better perhaps for the moody scenes, also his English, and perhaps he has the more obvious edge romantically. The decision should probably rest not at all upon which one is better for the role, since Colman is the only perfect man and we cannot get him and therefore we are possibly equally well off with either of these second choices from standpoint of accurate casting. The decision instead should be based solely on whether William Powell is likely to add hundreds of thousands of dollars to the gross. He will have his next "Thin Man" picture immediately before....

David O. Selznick

Olivier was signed that same month, his lower salary likely clinching the deal. (According to biographer Donald Spoto, Olivier was hired for $30,000.) It's probably a good thing that Powell's asking price was too high, as he would have been totally wrong for the part (not the type!). However, I can easily understand Selznick's first choice, Ronald Colman, who I think was very much the type and would have made a good Maxim. Colman would later portray Maxim in a 1941 Lux Radio Theatre version, playing opposite Ida Lupino (odd choice!) as the second Mrs de Winter. (If you're interested, you can listen to Colman and Lupino here.) After rereading the novel and rewatching the film, I still think Olivier was very well cast, despite being ten years younger than the novel's Maxim. He was perfect in type —I think even more so than Colman— and gave a compelling performance as the tormented hero. As a seasoned Shakespearean stage actor, Olivier himself later said about his performance: "I literally walked through the part — it had nothing to do with the real work of acting. Most people thought I was excellent... That, of course, was the bloody exasperating thing about film acting. The less acting one did the better one came across." 

During the filming of Rebecca, Olivier was not a happy man. Apart from being very worried about the outbreak of the war, Olivier reportedly found working with Hitchcock difficult, feeling he wasn't given enough direction. The actor had just finished Wuthering Heights (1939) under William Wyler, and Hitch's direction stood in sharp contrast to Wyler's, who was an actor's director. But perhaps more than this, Olivier's sullen mood on the set was caused by the fact that Vivien Leigh, his lover and later wife, was not cast as the second Mrs de Winter. After Leigh heard about Olivier being cast as Maxim, she immediately wanted to play the female lead, despite not having been interested in the role before. Selznick thought she was totally wrong for it and refused to cast her. Olivier's hostile attitude towards Fontaine during Rebecca's shooting was, at least in part, due to his not playing opposite Leigh. (In 1950, Olivier and Leigh did star in Rebecca together in another Lux radio adaptation, which you can listen to here.)

Behind the scenes of Rebecca: Director Alfred Hitchcock with his two stars, Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier.

While Olivier and Fontaine didn't get along during filming, here they seem to be engaged in a friendly talk.

Thanks to Rebecca, Olivier became an international star and his performance earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. While there seems to be no record of what Daphne du Maurier thought of Olivier's portrayal of Maxim, she was satisfied with the picture as a whole and later said: "I was surprised with the treatment of Rebecca. I had worried that the film would turn out like Jamaica Inn [Hitchcock's 1939 adaptation of her novel], but I was proved wrong. The film was perfect, and I wrote to Selznick and Hitchcock and told them so!". Rebecca was nominated for a further ten Oscars (including nominations for Hitchcock and Fontaine), winning two, i.e. David Selznick for Best Picture and George Barnes for Best Cinematography.

Concluding this post, I will leave you with a memo from Selznick to Hitchcock. In the early stages of filming, the producer was critical of Olivier, in particular of his timing and his screen acting. In his memo, Selznick asked Hitch to deal with these problems.

October 13, 1939

To: Mr. Alfred Hitchcock

Dear Hitch,

Today's rushes were, I thought, all right, but frightened me from the standpoint of tempo more than any we have had so far....

Larry's silent action and reactions become slower as his dialogue becomes faster, each day. His pauses and spacing on the scene with the girl in which she tells him about the ball are the most ungodly slow and deliberate reactions I have ever seen. It is played as though he were deciding whether or not to run for President instead of whether or not to give a ball. I realize that he is not anxious to give the ball, and the reasons therefor, but even if the decision were a much more important one, for screen purposes the timing is impossible. For this reason I think you had better plan on picking up close-ups, as you discussed.... And for God's sake, speed up Larry not merely in these close-ups, but in the rest of the picture on his reactions, which are apparently the way he plays on the stage, where it could be satisfactory. But while you are at it, you will have to keep your ears open to make sure that we know what the hell he's talking about, because he still has the tendency to speed up his words and to read them in such a way that an American audience can't understand them....

DOS 

 

Source of all correspondence: Memo from David O. Selznick (1972); selected and edited by Rudy Behlmer. 

Selznick and Hitchcock

This post is my contribution to THE 2026 CLASSIC LITERATURE ON FILM BLOGATHON, hosted by SILVER SCREEN CLASSICS. To read the other entries, go here. 

For the 2020 edition of this blogathon, I wrote about the casting of the second Mrs de Winter, which you can read about here.

Hence my nervousness that the property could get away from us

In the late 1950s, producer David O. Selznick and director Billy Wilder had plans to make a film together, starring Jennifer Jones, Selznick's wife, in the female lead. The letter for this post shows that the two wanted to make a film adaptation of a story by Austrian author Stefan Zweig, although it's unclear which of Zweig's works they were planning to film. In any case, it was a Zweig story dealing with an adult subject, which was previously considered taboo. At the time of Selznick's letter to Wilder, the Zweig property had not been purchased yet and Selznick worried that, if they didn't act quickly, it might slip away from them. 

Of Selznick's five-page missive to Wilder, this is the first page. "The [Audrey] Hepburn picture", mentioned by Selznick, is Love in the Afternoon (1957), and "the diamond story" is likely Some Like it Hot (1959). Paul Kohner, referenced in the letter, was a prominent agent hired to secure the rights to the Zweig property.

Source: RR Auction

Transcript:

28 May 1958

Mr. Billy Wilder

Samuel Goldwyn Studios

North Formosa

Hollywood, California

Dear Billy:

I am terribly afraid lest Jennifer's fervent desire, and what I had understood was your desire, to make the Zweig story with her —and to make it after you had finished the Hepburn picture and the diamond story at the latest (unless, unexpectedly, it became possible to do it earlier)— is getting all snarled up, in consequence of mysterious goings-on which frankly I don't understand. To obviate the possibility of any misunderstandings, I should like to impose upon you this statement of my position, which normally I would have thought quite unnecessary.

As you know, MCA is our agent for Jennifer, and our dealings with them have been through George Chasin. As is my wont, I have by memoranda informed Chasin of our conversations concerning the matter, and have further expressed my views, as they occurred to me, in the hope that it could be expedited, and out of my fear that the property might fall into the hands of somebody else. I am aware that the property has been around for a long time without it being bought; but the danger of it falling into other hands is, in my opinion, enormously aggravated by what could become the knowledge, if indeed this has not already happened, that you want to do it, that Jennifer wants to do it, that I am interested in it; and, at the very least, this could substantially boost the price— which, from what I understand of your own plans, could be most damaging to you personally. Furthermore, the principal reason why it has not been picked up sooner by others is obvious: the subject matter is of a sort that would have made it taboo until the recent easing, from a practical standpoint, of regulations on adult subjects. Additionally, there is apparently the complication about the French rights, which I was glad to hear from you Kohner thought he could clear up; but which would have kept many companies, particularly the European producing units, from wanting it; but since this apparently can be cleaned up, and since further this would not necessarily today be a deterrent to American companies (who are only able to exhibit a fraction of their pictures in France anyway, because of quotas), this too is no longer a factor upon which we can rely to obviate competition. Hence my nervousness that the property could get away from us while we were going through these elaborate manoeuvers and delays. 

****

Below is the last page of Selznick's letter (the other pages are not provided by the source). Walter Mirisch, mentioned here, was an independent producer and produced many of Wilder's films through The Mirisch Corporation. Interestingly, Selznick also mentions William Wyler, the renowned director; Wyler too is named as a possible producer and one of the potential buyers of the Zweig property (either independently or perhaps in partnership with Wilder). At any rate, Selznick's main concern was clearly to purchase the rights to the property before competitors did, with the matter of ownership and possible production structures to be settled later. 

Henry Citron, also mentioned in the letter, was a MCA agent, like George Chasin.

Transcript:

If, on the other hand, you still wish to wait for Mirisch's return, that is also all right with me; and in this case I should appreciate your consent to my telling Jennifer that you are going to go forward with Mirisch, if he is agreeable. And, finally, I do again urge that we instruct Kohner to close. By the time the copyright could be cleared and the contracts drawn, we would presumably know whether it has been approved by Mirisch or by Wyler; and we could then simply insert the name of the buyer -- whether you, or myself, or Mirisch, or Wilder-Wyler, or whatever other company or unit does go forward with it. 

You decide the course of action, or of inaction, as the case may be: let me know, and I will follow it precisely. 

You are of course perfectly free to show this letter to Citron and/or to Chasin.

Affectionate regards.

Cordially,

'David' (signed)

****

In the end, the project never happened, and Selznick and Wilder never worked together. In August of the same year, Wilder started filming Some Like It Hot, generally considered one of the best comedies of all time (despite Selznick's warning to Wilder beforehand that gangsters and comedy didn't mix). Selznick, by contrast, would never produce a picture again. While he kept looking for projects, his last film remained Charles Vidor's A Farewell to Arms, which was released in December 1957.

Incidentally, other than this letter, I could find no more information about this unrealised Selznick-Wilder project. 

David Selznick (right) with Rock Hudson and Jennifer Jones, the stars of the last film he ever produced, A Farewell to Arms (1957). 

In the summer of 1958, instead of working with Selznick, Billy Wilder (right) started shooting Some Like It Hot (1959); here he is pictured on the set with one of his stars, Marilyn Monroe, and Maurice Chevalier who paid them a visit. 

Let me function or else come down and shoot it yourself

David O. Selznick's final film was his production of A Farewell to Arms (1957), based on Ernest Hemingway's successful novel of the same name. Prior to and during production of the film, Selznick went totally overboard with his infamous memos, reportedly dictating about 10,000 (!). Trying hard to control every aspect of the picture, the producer bombarded just about everyone with his directives. Director John Huston took the brunt of it, a very lengthy memo eventually causing him to quit the film before shooting had even started. (Huston and Selzick had constantly clashed, in particular about the script.)

As Huston's replacement, Selznick chose Charles Vidor who now became the main recipient of the producer's memos. Vidor grew increasingly annoyed with Selznick as more of his messages came pouring in. The director would occasionally send back angry responses, at one time accusing Selznick of not wanting a first violinist as a director, but a piccolo player. 

Charles Vidor (left), David Selznick and the film's leading man Rock Hudson on the set of A Farewell to Arms.

Another time, Vidor reacted angrily to a memo from Selznick regarding a kitchen scene. On 26 May 1957, the producer had written: "I am bothered by the stirring of the gruel for such a long period of time in the kitchen scene. I think it is going to be a bore. Couldn't the nurse be fiddling with an Italian coffee machine and/or preparing Italian bacon .... ". 

Vidor responded by telegram the following day:

I received your memo regarding the kitchen scene STOP in the light of my past performance on this picture alone I find it idiotic and I think that by the light of Monday morning you will too STOP the memo indicates that you think you have on your hands a hopelessly inexperienced director STOP if you don't stop I will think that I am stuck with a totally inexperienced producer STOP for heaven's sake let me function or else come down and shoot it yourself.

Vidor   

Source: Selznick (1970) by Bob Thomas

An offended Selznick answered by memo (of course), feeling their relationship did not call for such a telegram. He also wondered: "It is only two days since you were flattering enough to be enthusiastic about my memoranda, and to ask me to "keep them going." I am now confused: am I to keep sending them, but first to screen them through your sensibilities?..." Eventually, Selznick suggested he and Vidor have lunch together and to "get on with the show!"

Above: Charles Vidor with his leads Jennifer Jones and Rock Hudson on the set of A Farewell to Arms. Below: Having dinner in a restaurant in Rome during the film's production, (l to r) Hudson, Jones, Vidor and Selznick.

A Farewell to Arms, starring Selznick's wife Jennifer Jones and Rock Hudson in the leads, ultimately proved both a commercial and critical failure. Ernest Hemingway hated the film and especially resented the fact that Selznick had cast Jones, at the time nearly 40 years old, to portray the author's 24-year-old heroine. After this film Selznick would never produce another again. While he did plan to make other pictures (including a film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel Tender is the Night), A Farewell to Arms remained his final achievement.

_____

Concluding this post, I will leave you with excerpts from a column by Art Buchwald. The columnist had travelled to Italy, where A Farewell to Arms was filmed, in order to cover the film's shooting. Intrigued by Selznick's compulsive memo-writing, Buchwald wrote this funny piece:

There is a legend in Rome that if you throw a memorandum by David O. Selznick into the Fountain of Cinecitta Studios, you will never work on A Farewell to Arms again.

The people who have said farewell to A Farewell to Arms now number in the hundreds and include one director, John Huston, one chief of photography who quit two weeks ago, three art directors, a film editor, a special effects director, four chauffeurs, and the entire staff of the villa where Mr. and Mrs. Selznick were staying.

Most of the people claim it was not Mr. Selznick but his memorandums that got them down.

(....)

Since he dictates them at night to three secretaries who work in shifts, Mr. Selznick has no time to read them once they are typed up. This occasionally leads to misunderstandings between the producer and his help and most everyone on the picture keeps a bag packed in case he wants to leave Rome in a hurry.

(....)

People on A Farewell to Arms collect Selznick memorandums like other people collect stamps. The memo written to John Huston which caused him to quit is worth three memos that Selznick wrote to the cameraman about photographing Jennifer Jones. One person in the company has a collector's item, a Selznick memorandum of one line. He has been offered 50,000 lire for it, but refuses to sell it.

Each person reacts differently to a Selznick memo. One department head who is no longer there thought he would fight fire with fire and so when he received a memo from Selznick he sent him back a memorandum of the same length. But he got a memo the next day from Selznick saying please don't send him any memos any more because he doesn't have time to read them.

(....)

Mr. Selznick, according to his detractors, has a tendency to keep referring to Gone with the Wind when trying to make a point in a memorandum. He was so intent on making A Farewell to Arms as big a success that he insisted that all of the technical staff attend a special screening of GWTW.

An outsider who attended the command performance came up after it was over and said: "What is Selznick worried about? The rushes look great to me."

Source: Selznick (1970) by Bob Thomas 

David O. Selznick, champion at memo-writing

Shearer does not seem to be associated with sex

Norma Shearer was one of the first serious contenders for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in David O. Selznick's Gone with the Wind (1939). On 21 March 1937, Walter Winchell, a famed newspaper gossip columnist and radio commentator, reported that Selznick desperately wanted her to play Scarlett. The announcement evoked a public response which was overwhelmingly negative. People felt that Norma, at the time a major MGM star, was not at all right for the part; while some could see her play Melanie, Scarlett she was not.

Above: Norma Shearer as the poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning in a publicity still for The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934). Below: Norma playing a loose woman in A Free Soul (1931), the first of three films she made with Clark Gable.

Two days prior to Winchell's announcement, Kay Brown (Selznick's representative and talent scout) had sent a memo to her boss, sharing the opinions on Norma Shearer of several people, including GWTW's author Margaret ('Peggy') Mitchell. Like the general public, none of them was enthusiastic about Norma playing Scarlett, feeling she was "not the type". Brown believed that the actress was being associated too much with her "good girl" roles in The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934) and Romeo and Juliet (1936), despite having also played less virtuous characters in films like A Free Soul (1931) and Riptide (1934).

Source: Martin Turnbull

Transcript:

TO  Mr. David O. Selznick

FROM  Miss Katharine Brown

DATE  March 19, 1937

SUBJECT  NORMA SHEARER

Dear David:

I am sorry to make this kind of report on Miss Shearer, as I was so terribly in favor of the idea when it was first discussed.

I selected three people, as we decided on the telephone, one of whom is the editor of RedBook, Edwin Balmer; Lois Cole of Macmillan, and a rank outsider to the picture business.

The suggestion in each case proved a shock and the response was "but, she's not the type." Then, as I advanced arguments about the fact that she is a great actress and could play Scarlett, they warmed up to the idea.

Mr. Balmer thought her selection would be analyzed as a compromise. They didn't feel that she could hurt the picture, but nobody reacted enthusiastically. This was all a great disappointment to me.

Peggy Mitchell was scared to death to say anything at first, but I reassured her that her conversation would be only for your ears. She, too, was very lukewarm; not against her but, like the others, not enthusiastically excited about the idea. 

Shearer seems to be tied up with pictures like JULIET and ELIZABETH BARRETT. People forget her first great success in THE FREE SOUL and RIPTIDE. Shearer does not seem to be associated with sex. Both Balmer and Mitchell said you couldn't imagine Shearer killing in cold blood and bargaining her body.

Everybody says get someone with no name so Scarlett can be Scarlett and it won't be Miriam Hopkins making believe she is Scarlett, just as if we weren't all half crazy trying to do this!

(signed) Kay

On 30 March 1937, following Winchell's announcement and the public outcry it had caused, both Selznick and Norma issued statements in which they denied Norma being a candidate for Scarlett. Selznick said: "Miss Norma Shearer and we of Selznick International have jointly come to a conclusion against further consideration of the idea of Miss Shearer playing the role of Scarlett O'Hara in "Gone with the Wind". Miss Shearer has made other arrangement, and we are continuing the search begun several months ago, and never interrupted, for an unknown, or comparatively unknown, actress for the part ..." And Norma said: "... I have other plans, which I cannot divulge at this time, which preclude my giving the idea any further consideration. I shall be watching with great interest to see who Mr. Selznick selects and whether she will be a well known star or a newcomer. I know she will be wonderful, and I will be wishing her luck."

Dallas Morning News, 24 June 1938

Despite these statements, Norma's GWTW adventure did not end here. About a year later, the actress would again be a contender for the role of Scarlett. In fact, on 24 June 1938, several newspapers announced that she had already been cast, including The New York Times and The Dallas Morning News. And again, like Walter Winchell's announcement had done a year earlier, this announcement also evoked a great many negative reactions from people who felt Norma was unsuited for the role. On top of that, people were shocked by the fact that she had asked Selznick to change the script in order to make Scarlett more sympathetic. (In a previous post, I reproduced four of the many letters that Selznick received regarding Norma's casting as Scarlett; you can read them here.) Ultimately, due to public pressure, Norma withdrew from the picture and gave up the role for good. 

In November 1938, several months after giving up Scarlett, Norma wrote the following letter to Marjory Pollock, one of her fans who had been in favour of her playing Scarlett. Norma reflects on her decision not to play the part and in particular talks about the traits of Margaret Mitchell's heroine that had bothered her. 

Source: Bonhams

Transcript:

November 10, 1938.

Dear Marjory Pollock:

Reading some of the thousands of letters that came in after the announcement that I would play Scarlett O'Hara, I find your gracious note. I am so happy to know that you wanted me to play the role, even tho I have decided against it. Your confidence in me is most inspiring.

When the studio asked me if I would accept the role, I gave it careful consideration; but I was troubled by traits - such as her disrespect for the death of her husband, her neglect of her child, her marriage to a man for whom she even had no respect, her indifference to the revelation of Rhett Butler's love at the end of the story - which I knew would be unpleasant to portray on the screen. I think any woman - no matter how hard she has been - must be redeemed by such a great love as Rhett's.

It has always been my desire to vary my roles, as you know, but I felt I had been associated with such idealistic characters in the past few years that to play Scarlett whole-heartedly might be offensive and leave an unpleasant impression on the minds of the public.

I was so glad to read that your father recovered so completely from his illness, and the nice things he said about me were most pleasant to listen to.

My sincere appreciation, and good wishes to you both,

(signed) Norma Shearer

Miss Marjory Pollock,
Fine Arts School,
South Bend, Indiana.

Norma Shearer and Clark Gable at a Hollywood event in 1938; they played in three films together (i.e. A Free Soul (1931), Strange Interlude (1932) and Idiot's Delight (1939)) but their fourth was not to be. Instead of Shearer, Vivien Leigh would star in GWTW in her only pairing with Gable.

Sam, I am frank to say that I don't understand you

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).

Above: Selznick and Hitchcock — the men had a difficult working relationship. Below: At a dinner in Los Angeles in October 1953, (l to r) Goldwyn, Jennifer Jones (Selznick's second wife) and Selznick. The two producers reportedly admired and liked each other.

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, 1943

Mr. 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. 

On the set of Shadow of a Doubt with Hitch (far right, seated) and Shadow's main players (l to r) Joseph Cotten, Teresa Wright and Macdonald Carey. The film was shot on location in Santa Rosa, California. It was  Hitchcock's own favourite of his films because —in Hitch's own words—  it "brought murder and violence back in the home, where it rightly belongs" .

Selznick's most successful achievement was his 1939 Gone with the Wind, and Goldwyn will probably be best remembered for The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). Both films won numerous Oscars, including Oscars for Best Picture.

I'm a great deal better now

In May 1956, during production of Raintree County (1957), Montgomery Clift attended a party at the house of co-star and friend Elizabeth Taylor and her husband Michael Wilding. On his way home from the party —feeling exhausted and having had too much to drink— Clift lost control of his car and smashed into a telephone pole. The actor had a severe concussion, broken jaw, broken nose and other facial injuries, which required surgery and several months of recovery. Clift's face eventually healed, although the left side of his face was left partially paralysed.

At the time of the accident, studio work at MGM had already been completed and the cast and crew of Raintree County were about to go on location to Mississippi. Due to the accident, however, the location shooting was postponed and it wasn't until 23 July that Clift returned to work. Two days earlier he had written a letter to his friend, theater actor William LeMassena, mentioning his recovery, his new dentures and the location shoot. Clift had reportedly been in a relationship with LeMassena during the early 1940s. The two remained close friends until Clift suffered a fatal heart attack in July 1966 (following years of drug and alcohol abuse). At the time of his death, Clift was only 45 years old. 

Source: Gotta Have Rock and Roll

Monty Clift and Liz Taylor on the set of Edward Dmytryk's Raintree County. While the film did well at the box-office —people went to see it en masse, if only to see the difference in Clift's facial appearance before and after the crash— it did not recoup its huge costs.

_______

Billy LeMassena

Also addressed to William LeMassena is the following letter from Monty Clift several years earlier, dated 5 January 1952. Besides the personal content of the letter —with repeated use of the F-word— Clift fleetingly mentions David Selznick, whom he despised and reportedly called "an interfering f*ckface" behind his back. Clift worked with Selznick on Terminal Station (1953), a film directed by Vittorio De Sica and co-produced by De Sica and Selznick. The actor hated Selznick's interference with De Sica's picture and sided with the Italian director in his disagreements with Selznick. Terminal Station was re-edited by Selznick and in 1954 re-released in the USA under the title Indiscretion of an American Wife. When Clift saw the American cut, he hated it and called it a "big fat failure".

"Eternity" mentioned in the letter is Fred Zinnemann's From Here To Eternity (1953), in which Clift played the role of Private Robert Prewitt. He was the first actor to be hired for the film, with production starting in the spring of 1953. For his performance Clift would receive his third Oscar nomination but didn't win (the other nominations were for The Search (1948) and A Place in the Sun (1951)).

Source: Gotta Have Rock and Roll

Note:

Monty Clift probably misdated his letter, the year being 1953 instead of 1952. Terminal Station was filmed in Rome, Italy from October until December 1952. So it seems likely that the letter was written in January 1953 after production of the film had ended, with Clift being more than eager to go home.

David Selznick and Monty Clift

Fields would probably make better Micawber

Published in 1850, Charles Dickens' David Copperfield is an autobiographical novel which was also the author's personal favourite. The story follows the life of David from childhood into young adulthood, during which he encounters hardship, abuse, poverty but also love and happiness as he meets an array of vivid characters. It was a big wish of producer David O. Selznick to adapt David Copperfield for the screen, a novel he had cherished since childhood. Selnick's Russian father had learned English by reading the novel and had next read it to his sons. Initially, MGM boss Louis B. Mayer saw nothing in Selznick's idea to turn the book into a film but Selznick —at the time under contract to MGM— eventually convinced Mayer to okay the project. Subsequently, Selznick hired Hugh Walpole to adapt the story from Dickens' novel and Howard Estabrook and Lenore J. Coffee to write the screenplay. George Cukor was hired to direct.

It took a bit of effort to cast some of the film's pivotal roles. Selznick and Cukor extensively searched in the USA, Canada and the UK for a child actor to play young David. While Mayer had wanted MGM child actor Jackie Cooper, Selznick was adamant about casting a British youngster in order to stay true to the novel. In 1934 on a scouting trip to London, Selznick and Cukor eventually found young Freddie Bartholomew and gave him the part.

The casting of Mr. Micawber was a different story. While W.C. Fields, who eventually played Micawber, had been under consideration from the start, it was Charles Laughton who was Selznick and Cukor's first choice. Laughton had just won the Best Actor Oscar for The Private Lives of Henry VIII (1933) and would be the most important and bankable name in the large cast. Amid much publicity, Laughton was given the role but after just two days of shooting he wanted to be released from it. Having lost his confidence and convinced he was all wrong for the part, Laughton was eventually dismissed. Cukor said Laughton just didn't know how to play Micawber, lacking the geniality that was required. (According to cameraman Hal Kern, in the rushes Laughton "looked as if he was going to molest the child".) 

Selznick now set out to hire Fields and borrowed him from Paramount. Although Fields wasn't right physically —with his head shaven Laughton had "looked Micawber to the life", said Cukor— he was quite eager to play the role, despite his dislike of working with children. Fields was a Dickens fan and David Copperfield is the only film where he followed the script and refrained from ad-libbing. Although his contract stipulated he should speak with a British accent, the actor wouldn't drop his American accent and in his defense later said: "My father was an Englishman and I inherited this accent from him! Are you trying to go against nature?!"

_______

Laughton in 1933

Regarding the casting of the Micawber role David Selznick wrote several memos, two of which are seen below. The first one was sent to Louis B. Mayer in May 1934 and the second one several months later (in September) to MGM executive Robert Rubin. As stated above, it is generally believed that Laughton himself wanted to be released from the film, a viewpoint that was also shared by Laughton biographer Simon Callow. Selznick's memo to Rubin, however, suggests that other factors led to Laughton's dismissal, having to do with costs as well as "certain difficulties" the actor experienced with MGM. (What those "difficulties" with MGM were, I don't know. As for the costs, Selznick was afraid that they would be "impossible" if he had to wait for Laughton to finish the Paramount film Ruggles of Red Gap (1935); during rehearsals Laughton had fallen ill with a rectal abscess and spent a number of weeks hospitalised, causing the picture to be delayed.)

 

MAY 17 1934 

LONDON

TO: L.B. MAYER

...MUST KNOW WHAT CHANCE CHARLES LAUGHTON FOR ROLE OF MICAWBER. FEEL MORE THAN EVER VITAL IMPORTANCE OF BENDING EVERY EFFORT TO SECURE HIM, BUT MUST KNOW WITHIN FEW DAYS SO CAN DECIDE WHETHER TO SIGN ANOTHER MICAWBER. IF LAUGHTON UNAVAILABLE FOR MICAWBER, MIGHT LIKE W.C. FIELDS. CAN WE GET HIM? TO AVOID NECESSITY OF TRYING PARAMOUNT, THINK WE SHOULD GET WORD TO FIELDS DIRECT, WHO WOULD PROBABLY GIVE EYE TOOTH TO PLAY MICAWBER ... CORDIALLY

DAVID

SEPTEMBER 27, 1934

J. ROBERT RUBIN

1540 BROADWAY

NEW YORK, N.Y.

CONFIDENTIALLY, ENTIRELY POSSIBLE WE WILL NOT, IN SPITE OF EVERYTHING WE WENT THROUGH, BE ABLE USE CHARLES LAUGHTON IN "COPPERFIELD" BECAUSE HIS ILLNESS HAS DELAYED HIS PARAMOUNT PICTURE AND IF WE WAITED UNTIL HE FINISHED THAT, COST WOULD BE IMPOSSIBLE. ALSO WE ARE HAVING CERTAIN DIFFICULTIES WITH HIM. WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW IMMEDIATELY IS WHETHER IF IT COMES TO ISSUE, HOW MUCH DIFFERENCE COMMERCIALLY WOULD THERE BE HAVING W.C. FIELDS INSTEAD OF LAUGHTON? IT OF COURSE NOT CERTAIN WHETHER WE CAN OBTAIN FIELDS, BUT AM RAISING QUESTION IN HOPE WE COULD. FIELDS WOULD PROBABLY MAKE BETTER MICAWBER, BUT WE'VE ALWAYS FELT WE REQUIERED THE ONE IMPORTANT NAME IN CAST IN LAUGHTON. WOULD YOU CHECK THIS IMMEDIATELY WITH FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC SALES DEPARTMENTS AND ADVISE ME. REGARDS

DAVID SELZNICK 

 

Source:  Memo from David O. Selznick (1972); selected and edited by Rudy Behlmer. 

1934 - Selznick & Co on their return from England after a "David Copperfield" work visit. Left to right: Peter Trent (who was considered for the role of the adult David but eventually lost the part to Frank Lawton), screenwriter Howard Estabrook, Irene Mayer Selznick and David O. Selznick, Hugh Walpole (who adapted the story from Dicken's novel and also played the vicar in the film), George Cukor and Fritz Lang (who had just been signed by Selznick to a MGM contract).  

Freddie Bartholomew as young David and WC Fields as Mr. Micawber in a publicity still for David Copperfield. Upon its release in January 1935, the film was a big success with both critics and audiences. It was nominated for three Academy Awards, including Academy Award for Best Picture (losing to Mutiny on the Bounty).