The Failed Screenwriting Career of F. Scott Fitzgerald

The popularity of novelist and short story writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, who achieved fame in the 1920s, began to wane considerably once the Great Depression hit. With the public no longer interested in reading about the extravagant lifestyles of the American elite, Fitzgerald was facing serious financial problems by the mid-1930s. Convinced that he could become a successful screenwriter, the author returned to Hollywood where he had briefly worked in 1927 and 1931.

In 1937, Fitzgerald was hired by MGM where he would earn $1000 a week (raised to $1250 after six months), his highest salary up till then. While under contract to the studio Fitzgerald was given three major script assignments: Three Comrades (1938), the only film for which he received screen credit; Infidelity, a Joan Crawford vehicle, which was abandoned after he had worked on it for several months; and The Women (1939), on which he and Donald Ogden Stewart collaborated but were eventually replaced by Jane Murfin and Anita Loos. In addition, Fitzgerald also worked (uncredited) on screenplays for A Yank at Oxford (1938), Marie Antoinette (1938), Gone With the Wind (1939) and Madame Curie (the project was shelved and not released until 1943).

F. Scott Fitzgerald (above) enjoyed great successes in the 1920s with his first two novels This Side of Paradise (1920) and The Beautiful and the Damned (1922) as well as his short stories for popular magazines. While his novel The Great Gatsby (1925) was not a success at the time, it is now regarded as one of the greatest American novels ever written. The Last Tycoon, Fitzgerald's unfinished novel about Hollywood, was published after the author's death. 

After eighteen months MGM decided not to renew Fitzgerald's contract. Much to the studio's annoyance, the writer often disregarded the rules of screenwriting, providing stylised dialogue and long descriptions that would be right for a novel but wrong for a script. Director Billy Wilder once said about Fitzgerald's screenwriting efforts that he was like "a great sculptor who is hired to do a plumbing job”. Still, Fitzgerald was determined to succeed in Hollywood and not only because of the money he could make. He was passionate about films and at one point even dreamed about being both screenwriter and director. (In a September 1940 letter to his wife Zelda, Fitzgerald wrote: "They've let a certain writer here [probably Preston Sturges] direct his own pictures and he has made such a go of it that there may be a different feeling about that soon. If I had that chance, I would attain my real goal in coming here in the first place.")

In the end, Fitzgerald's Hollywood career ended in failure. After leaving MGM in 1939, the author went freelance, taking on assignments like Winter Carnival (1939), with his contributions again uncredited. A few other projects he had high hopes for were eventually shelved, most notably Cosmopolitan, a film that was to star Shirley Temple. Fitzgerald's screenwriting career just wouldn't take off and this prompted him to start drinking excessively again. On 21 December 1940, after years of severe and chronic alcohol abuse, Fitzgerald died of a heart attack, only 44 years old.

__________

As mentioned, the only film for which Fitzgerald had received screen credit was Frank Borzage's Three Comrades, produced by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. Fitzgerald didn't even receive sole billing, being later paired with screenwriter Edward Paramore. Mankiewicz was not at all happy with the script, saying about it years later: "The actors, among them Margaret Sullavan, absolutely could not read the lines. It was very literary dialogue, novelistic dialogue that lacked all the qualities required for screen dialogue. The latter must be 'spoken'. Scott Fitzgerald really wrote very bad spoken dialogue." The producer, who had started his career as a screenwriter, made many changes to the script, and not just to the dialogue. Outraged by what was done to his work, Fitzgerald wrote to Mankiewicz on 20 January 1938, excerpts of his letter seen below. (His impassioned plea to undo the changes was ignored.)

Dear Joe: 

Well, I read the last part and I feel like a good many writers must have felt in the past. I gave you a drawing and you simply took a box of chalk and touched it up. Pat [played by Margaret Sullavan] has now become a sentimental girl from Brooklyn, and I guess all these years I've been kidding myself about being a good writer. 

[....]

To say I'm disillusioned is putting it mildly. For nineteen years, with two years out for sickness, I've written best-selling entertainment, and my dialogue is supposedly right up at the top. But I learn from the script that you've suddenly decided that it isn't good dialogue and you can take a few hours off and do much better. 

I think you now have a flop on your hands— as thoroughly naive as The Bride Wore Red [another Mankiewizc production] but utterly inexcusable because this time you had something and you have arbitrarily and carelessly torn it to pieces. [...]

You are simply tired of the best scenes because you've read them too much and, having dropped the pilot, you're having the aforesaid pleasure of a child with a box of chalk. You are or have been a good writer, but this is a job you will be ashamed of before it's over. The little fluttering of life of what's left of my lines and situations won't save the picture. 

[....]

My only hope is that you will have a moment of clear thinking. That you'll ask some intelligent and disinterested person to look at the two scripts. Some honest thinking would be much more valuable to the enterprise right now than an effort to convince people you've improved it. I am utterly miserable at seeing months of work and thought negated in one hasty week. I hope you're big enough to take this letter as it's meant — a desperate plea to restore the dialogue to its former quality — to put back the flower cart, the piano-moving, the balcony, the manicure girl— all those touches that were both natural and new. Oh, Joe, can't producers ever be wrong? I'm a good writer — honest. I thought you were going to play fair. Joan Crawford may as well play the part now, for the thing is as groggy with sentimentality as The Bride Wore Red, but the true emotion is gone. 

Source:  The Letters of F. Scott Fitzgerald (1963) by F. Scott Fitzgerald, edited by Andrew Turnbull. 

Note: As the letter indicates, Fitzgerald was not at all impressed with Joan Crawford. In a 1938 letter to a friend, he wrote while working on the script for Infidelity: "Writing for her is difficult. She can't change her emotions in the middle of a scene without going through a sort of Jekyll and Hyde contortion of the face, so that when one wants to indicate that she is going from joy to sorrow, one must cut away and then cut back. Also, you can never give her such a stage direction as "telling a lie", because if you did, she would practically give a representation of Benedict Arnold selling West Point to the British." (Infidelity was eventually abandoned due to the film's taboo subject of adultery.)

Joseph Mankiewicz (above) was a successful screenwriter, producer and director. His films include box-office hits like The Philadelphia Story (1940; as producer), Woman of the Year (1942; producer), All About Eve (1950; screenwriter, director) and Suddenly, Last Summer (1959; director). On most of his films as producer, Mankiewicz also made uncredited contributions to the screenplay.

__________

One of Fitzgerald's freelance assignments was Cosmopolitan, based on his own short story Babylon Revisited. In March 1940, having bought the rights to the story, independent film producer Lester Cowan approached Fitzgerald and asked him if he would write the script himself. The author accepted, but after finishing the script he disagreed with Cowan about the casting of the lead, the youngster Honoria. Cowan wanted Shirley Temple in the role and it was only after Fitzgerald had met Shirley in July 1940 that he approved of Cowan's choice. Fitzgerald was optimistic about the project and wrote to his wife Zelda on 21 September 1940: "... the Shirley Temple script is looking up again and is my great hope for attaining some real status out here as a movie man and not a novelist." Despite Fitzgerald's high hopes, however, Shirley's mother objected to the film and the project was abandoned.

Below is a letter from Fitzgerald to his secretary Isabel Owens, dated 16 August 1940. A month earlier Fitzgerald had met Shirley Temple and the second paragraph of his letter refers to that meeting. 

Source: icollector.com

Paul Newman's first family

Paul Newman's marriage to Joanne Woodward was one of Hollywood's most successful and enduring marriages. The couple tied the knot in 1958 and remained married until Newman's death in 2008. Once asked about his fidelity to his wife, Newman famously answered: "Why go out for a hamburger when you have steak at home?" 

The couple's 50-year happy marriage almost makes one forget that Woodward wasn't Newman's first wife. In 1949, at the age of 24, Newman married 19-year-old Jackie Witte, a fellow aspiring actor whom he had met while doing summer stage work. A year later they had their first child Scott, followed by daughters Susan in 1953 and Stephanie in 1954. Witte gave up acting and devoted herself to raising their three children. Newman, in turn, pursued his acting career and spent increasingly less time at home, which caused them to eventually grow apart.  

Newman met Woodward in 1953 while he was still married to Witte. He made his Broadway debut in Picnic where Woodward was an understudy. It wasn't until four years later, when they starred together in Martin Ritt's The Long Hot Summer, that they fell in love and reportedly started an affair. Newman divorced Witte and married Woodward in January 1958. With Woodward he eventually had three more children — Nell (1959), Lissy (1961) and Clea (1965). 

Paul, Jackie and son Scott

Shown below is a letter from Paul Newman to Barbara Rushmore (president of his fan club), written in April 1955 when Newman was at the start of his career*. In his letter he introduces the members of his (first) family. Newman's only son Scott, who became a stuntman and an actor, would tragically die of a drug overdose in 1978, only 28 years old.  

*At the time Newman was in the midst of his second Broadway production The Desperate Hours (which ran until August 1955), playing the role that Humphrey Bogart would later play in the film. The actor had thus far appeared in only one film, The Silver Chalice (1954), which he later called "the worst motion picture produced during the 1950s". 

Source: rr auction

Transcript: 

April 21, 1955

Dear Barbara -

Family consists of wife Jackie, actress, Scott, age 4 1/2 who is a monster and All American menace, Susan, age 2, who promises to be something of a Jean Harlowe [sic] and Stephanie age 7 weeks who just sneezes. We live in a small apartment in Long Island with a sort of patio on which there is a charcoal grill on which I cook hamburgers 5 nights a week. That’s just about all I do. All the children look like my mother-in-law. We have no dogs but recently acquired two goldfish. It is Scott’s duty to change the water, so the fish usually swim around in a complete fog. 

That’s the family.

Paul

Above: Paul Newman and his son Scott, photographed in 1972. In memory of his son Newman founded the Scott Newman Center for the prevention of drug abuse. Below: 1973, Newman and Woodward with their daughters (clockwise from left) Clea, Nell, Lissy, and Stephanie (from Newman's marriage to Witte). Photo by Milton Greene.

Barbara Stanwyck dressed by Edith Head

For more than five decades famed costume designer Edith Head had dressed Hollywood's biggest stars. One of the stars whom Head most enjoyed working with was Barbara Stanwyck, who also became a good friend. "She possessed what some designers considered to be a figure "problem" – a long waist and a comparatively low rear end", said Head. "By widening the waistbands on the front in her gowns and narrowing them slightly in the back, I could still put her in straight skirts, something other designers were afraid to do, because they thought she might look too heavy in the seat. Since she wasn’t the least bit heavy, I just took advantage of her long waist to create an optical illusion."

Head's costume designs for Preston Sturges' The Lady Eve (1941) proved career changing for Barbara. Playing two very different types —con artist Jean Harrington and British aristocrat Lady Eve Sidwich— Barbara had twenty-five costume changes, which made The Lady Eve her first "fashion picture" and also changed her image from "plain Jane" to sexy. From then on, regardless of what studio she was working for, Barbara included in all her contracts that only Head was to design her clothes. This meant that in most cases Head had to be borrowed from Paramount Pictures, her studio for 44 years. (Barbara never had a long-term contract with one studio and worked mostly freelance.)

Barbara in her dual role in The Lady Eve dressed in Edith Head's fabulous gowns: above as the posh Lady Eve and below as the con woman Jean Harrington.

In the early 1940s, Barbara signed a non-exclusive contract with Warner Bros. and Head made the costume designs for such films as The Gay Sisters (1942), Christmas in Connecticut (1945), My Reputation (1946) and The Two Mrs. Carrolls (1947). Below is an agreement between Barbara and Warners regarding the costs of Head's services in connection with My Reputation. Apparently Barbara first had to pay the costs herself —after the bills had been sent to her by Paramount— and would then later be reimbursed by Warners. Incidentally, the agreement is dated 26 October 1943; while My Reputation was filmed from November 1943 to January 1944, it wasn't released until 1946.

Source: icollector.com

Feel sure you will have a quick recovery

Italian-born Rudolph Valentino was one of the most popular Hollywood stars of the 1920s, starring in successful films like The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (1921), The Sheik (1921), Blood and Sand (1922) and The Son of the Sheik (1926). When Valentino suddenly died on 23 August 1926 at the young age of 31, it provoked hysteria among his numerous fans. A day after his death some 100,000 people gathered outside Frank Campbell Funeral Home in New York, where the actor's body lay in state. Frantic fans tried to enter the funeral home, determined to get a last glimpse of their idol and even smashing windows to get inside. A lot of people got injured being trampled underfoot or cut by broken glass. Eventually, after bringing in extra officers, the police managed to put an end to the disturbances. Valentino's death was the first celebrity death that had inspired such mass hysteria, with several fans even committing suicide.

Following a funeral mass in New York on 30 August 1926 (attended by a number of Hollywood stars including Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Pickford and Gloria Swanson), Valentino's remains were transported to Hollywood where a second funeral was held. He was eventually buried at the Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery, now known as the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. A memorial service honouring Valentino still takes place at the cemetery every year.

The cause of Valentino's sudden and premature death was attributed to peritonitis, an infection of the inner lining of the abdomen. Eight days before he passed away, Valentino had collapsed at a hotel in New York City and was rushed to the Polyclinic Hospital where he had immediate surgery. Initially diagnosed with appendicitis, the actor turned out to have a perforated ulcer mimicking appendicitis (a rare condition now known as Valentino's Syndrome). At first doctors were optimistic that Valentino was going to recover but then he developed peritonitis and his condition rapidly worsened. On 23 August 1926, he fell into a coma and died a few hours later. (It is said that Valentino believed that he would recover and that on the morning of his death he had chatted with his doctors about his future.)

While in the hospital, Valentino had received get-well telegrams from several of his colleagues, including the following two from United Artists founders Charles Chaplin and Mary Pickford & Douglas Fairbanks. At the time Valentino was under contract to United Artists after having been approached by Chaplin and Fairbanks to join their studio in 1925. Valentino eventually made only two films for UA, i.e. The Eagle (1925) and The Son of the Sheik (1926), the latter film released after his death. Sent on 17 August 1926, two days after Valentino had surgery, the telegrams below show that Chaplin, Pickford and Fairbanks were still hopeful of his recovery.

Source: Bonhams

Source: Bonhams

Here is some  interesting footage of the crowds outside Frank Campbell Funeral Home and Valentino's funeral in New York.

UPDATE 30 APRIL 2021

I came across this telegram sent by Charles Chaplin to George Ullman, Valentino's manager, on the day of Valentino's death.

Via: Facebook

The Birds Is Coming!

Film Bulletin, 4 March 1963 (via)

In February 1963, six weeks before The Birds was due to open in New York, Alfred Hitchcock met with the publicity executives of Universal Pictures to announce the advertising slogan for his film. While The Birds was an independent Hitchcock production, it was distributed by Universal and also financially backed by the studio. In The Making of Hitchcock's The Birds (by Tony Lee Moral, 2013) Evan Hunter, who wrote the screenplay for the film, recalled the moment when Hitch made his announcement. After the director had revealed his catchy slogan —"The Birds is coming!"— a young Universal executive, puzzled by what he had heard, asked: "Excuse me, Mr Hitchcock, sir? Don't you mean "The Birds are coming", sir?" 

No, Hitch had really meant "The Birds is coming". Technically, a grammatically correct phrase, The Birds being the title of the film, thus a singular subject taking a singular verb. However, like the Universal executive, a lot of people didn't see it that way. With billboards everywhere advertising "The Birds is coming", language lovers were appalled by what they considered a grave grammatical error and even sent letters to newspapers to express their indignation. In the end, Hitch's slogan and the commotion it caused gave the director exactly what he wanted — more publicity for his film with the interest of the general public piqued. (As Evan Hunter said: "It was pure genius, a seemingly ungrammatical catchphrase that combined humour and suspense.")

Apparently the slogan not only caught the attention of adults but also of children, including a group of school children in New York. On 5 March 1963, a Manhattan school class wrote a letter to Hitchcock (seen below), asking him to correct his error so children wouldn't learn incorrect English. 

Source: oscars.org

Transcript:

P.S.170 Manhattan

Class 3-4

New York 26 N.Y.

March 5, 1963

Mr Alfred Hitchcock

Hollywood, California

Dear Mr. Hitchcock

We saw an advertisement on the bus for your new movie. It said "The Birds is coming".

We are in the third grade and we have learned when to use is and when to use are. We learned that is is for one thing and are is for more than one thing. 

We think you made a mistake in your advertisement. We think you should change your sign to the "Birds are coming" if you mean many birds are coming, or "The Bird is coming" if you mean one bird is coming.

We hope you will change your advertisement because people or children will learn incorrect English. Please don't think English is strictly for the birds.

Sincerely,

Class 3-4

Much affection and constant admiration

Katharine Hepburn and Joan Crawford never worked together nor saw each other socially. Hepburn once said in a 1979 letter to Joan's daughter Cathy that she really didn't know Joan at all: "I suppose we met once or twice but that is all and those only brief how-do-you-do's ... She wrote me very sweet notes at Christmas. And I was aware that she thought well of me or rather of my work. And I always enjoyed her work." 

The correspondence between the two actresses wasn't just Christmas-related, though, as can be seen here and below. In June 1975 Kate wrote a letter to Joan, apparently after Joan had told George Cukor that she had never received any answers from Kate to her notes. Cukor was a very close friend of both women and passed on Joan's message to Kate.

Apart from Kate's letter, also seen below is a letter from Joan to Kate written around the same time. In it, Joan praised Love Among the Ruins (1975), a television film directed by Cukor, starring Hepburn and Laurence Olivier. The film was a big hit and received several Emmy awards at the ceremony in May 1975, including Emmys for the two leads and Cukor. Joan applauded their great team work and also expressed her joy for their Emmy wins.

Transcript:

Dear Joan -

I have answered every sweet note you have written me 

enjoyed them all -

+ cannot understand why you have never received the answers - very rude you must have thought + stupid too not to enjoy the praise of one's contemporaries - I know all this because George sent me your letter to him-

I talked to him Sunday- He's fine- + likes the stuff - of course it's a pain in the neck- But - he survives in good spirits-

My thanks to you- wasn't it nice that the Love among the Ruins turned out. Such a relief.

Affections 

Kate

Below is a draft of the letter Joan eventually sent to Kate. According to the source of both letters —the wonderful The Best of Everything: A Joan Crawford Encyclopedia— it's unclear whether this was sent before or after Hepburn's letter.

Transcript:

My very dear Kate

How wonderful to receive your lovely warm letter-

I was so overjoyed with the three of you winning because if ever I saw team work- "Love Among the Ruins" was team work to perfection. 

It was difficult to believe that you and Larry had never worked together before; and of course our beloved George knows how to get the best out of all of us.

Thank you again for your letter and I am eagerly awaiting your film with the "Duke" [Rooster Cogburn (1975)]

Much affection and constant admiration

Robin Hood is no picture for me

In January 1938, composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold was in his native country Austria when he received a telegram from Hal Wallis, head of production at Warner Brothers, which read: "Can you be in Hollywood in ten days time to write the music for Robin Hood?" (i.e. The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938) directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland as Robin and Marian). Korngold, who had left Hollywood for Vienna in May 1937 to work on his opera Die Kathrin, immediately left on the next ship that sailed for America. Although he had not read the film's script, producer Henry Blanke had told him that the love story between Robin and Marian was similar to that in Captain Blood (1935), a film Korngold had also scored.

The day after his arrival in Hollywood, Korngold went to the studio to attend a screening of a rough cut of the film. During the screening the composer grew increasingly concerned and distressed, seeing a fast-paced adventure film filled with action unfold before him. Convinced that he was not the right man for the job, he wrote a letter to Hal Wallis, informing him of his decision not to go through with it.

Shortly thereafter, however, something happened in Europe which made the composer change his mind. On 12 February 1938, Austrian chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg met with Adolf Hitler, their meeting ultimately leading to the "Anschluss", Austria's annexation into Nazi Germany. Korngold had just heard about the meeting when he received a visit from Leo Forbstein, head of Warners' music department, who had been sent to the composer's LA home to beg him to reconsider his decision. Due to the explosive situation in Austria, Korngold eventually gave in to Forbstein's pleas and agreed to write the score after all. (Korngold's home in Vienna was later confiscated by the Nazis and the composer would not return to Austria until after the war.)

While still plagued with doubts and on the verge of giving up several times, Korngold ultimately delivered a fantastic score. I think it's safe to say that The Adventures of Robin Hood wouldn't be the masterpiece it is without Korngold's music. Quite deservedly he won an Oscar for it, his second after winning for Anthony Adverse two years earlier. Other film scores by Korngold include Juarez (1939), The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (1939), The Sea Hawk (1940) and Kings Row (1942). Korngold would influence many others composers, among them John Williams who cited him as the inspiration for his music for the Star Wars series.

_________

Here is Korngold's letter of rejection to Hal Wallis after attending the screening of Robin Hood on 8 February 1938.

February 11, 1938

Dear Mr. Wallis:

I am sincerely sorry to have to bother you once more. I do appreciate deeply your kindness and courtesy toward me, and I am aware of the fact that you have made all concessions possible to facilitate my work.

But please believe a desperate man who has to be true to himself and to you, a man who knows what he can do and what he cannot do. Robin Hood is no picture for me. I have no relation to it and therefore cannot produce any music for it. I am a musician of the heart, of passions and psychology; I am not a musical illustrator for a 90% action picture. Being a conscientious person, I cannot take the responsibility for a job which, as I already know, would leave me artistically completely dissatisfied and which, therefore, I would have to drop even after several weeks of work on it and after several weeks of salary.

Therefore let me say "no" definitely, and let me say it today when no time has been lost for you as yet, since the work print will not be ready until tomorrow. And please do not try to make me change my mind; my resolve is unshakable. 

I implore you not to be angry with me and not to deprive me of your friendship. For it is I who suffers mentally and financially. I ask you to weigh the pictures for which I composed the music, such as Midsummer Night’s Dream, Captain Blood, Anthony Adverse, Prince and [the] Pauper, against the one I could not make, Robin Hood. And if during the next few weeks you should have a job for me to do, you need not cable all the way to Vienna.

With my very best regards, I am,

Gratefully and sincerely yours,

Erich Wolfgang Korngold 

Source: Inside Warner Bros. (1935-1951) (1985), selected and edited by Rudy Behlmer. 

Above: Recording session for The Adventures of Robin Hood with Erich Korngold and Basil Rathbone who played Robin Hood's arch-enemy Sir Guy of Gisbourne. Below: Korngold at the Oscar Ceremony in February 1939 receiving his prize from Jerome Kern. A few years earlier Korngold had written the Oscar-winning score for Anthony Adverse, but it was Leo Forbstein who was awarded the prize; at the time it was customary to award the head of the music department instead of the composer. 

She is fearless and has more guts than most men

Joel McCrea and Barbara Stanwyck made a total of six films together and became friends during the making of their first film Gambling Lady (1934). Their other five films are Banjo On My Knee (1936), Internes Can't Take Money (1937), Union Pacific (1939), The Great Man's Lady (1942) and Trooper Hook (1957). Right from the start McCrea was impressed by Barbara's work ethic. During production of their first film, Barbara had given McCrea a lesson in professionalism after he didn't show up for the stills shoot of the cast. When she asked him where he was and he indifferently said they didn't need him, she reportedly told him off: "I was in burlesque. We used to have to change our clothes on the train, and our makeup, and we couldn’t take a bath and we lived out of a suitcase. You’ve grown up in California where you go to the beach on your days off and ride the waves, and you’re a happy Southern Californian kid. Just get off your big fat ass and get to work."

Regarding the films in which he had starred with Stanwyck, McCrea was once asked to fill in a questionnaire, which is seen below. The questionnaire is undated and I don't know who composed it or for what purpose. At any rate, it told me a few things I didn't know, like the crucial role McCrea had played in Barbara's casting in Stella Dallas (1937). McCrea's opinion of working with Barbara, however, came as no surprise. Like many of his co-workers, he thought she was simply the greatest, the best he had ever worked with. By contrast, McCrea was quite modest about his own achievements: "All I had to do was try and stay aboard".

Source: icollector.com

Transcript of Joel McCrea's answers:

From Joel McCrea, Rt #1, Camarillo, Calif.—93010-1

GAMBLING LADY

1. She was unhappy & they were not treating her like the important star she was.

2. Mayo was great fun to work with. He kidded a lot and you were relaxed & happy working with him. I was inexperienced in 1934. He helped me a lot. Stanwyck was always great- as a person & actress.

3.—

BANJO ON MY KNEE

1. Zanuck wrote a disparaging letter to Barbara showing his ego & stupidity —Walter Brennan stole the picture.

[As is apparent from his answer, McCrea didn't like producer Darryl Zanuck. He thought Zanuck was "an egotistical little bastard; a gutty little guy and a chaser, but smart."]

INTERNES CAN'T TAKE MONEY

1. All I can remember is that Stanwyck & Lloyd Nolan were good & I was trying.

2. Barbara might know. I don't.

STELLA DALLAS

1. King Vidor, the director, wanted Stanwyck from the start but [Samuel] Goldwyn wanted to test 3 or 4 other good actresses to be sure. Barbara didn't want to test and I got Vidor to promise to hold out for her if she made the test. He agreed. Then I talked her into taking the test. She was far and away the best but she shouldn't have had to test, anymore than you would test [Clark] Gable for a part. There is no better actress than Stanwyck if she is cast correctly. Goldwyn was a peculiar man but he made fine pictures. Stanwyck should have gotten an award for Stella Dallas.

2. No, "Banjo on my knee"

UNION PACIFIC

1. No. Four months- in all of it.

2. Good conditions.

3. Yes, De Mille was great with process. Witness Ten Comandments [sic].

4. No, he did it all with us. 2nd Unit director was Mr. Rosson.

5. In everything - she is fearless & has more guts than most men.

6. Stanwyck was there with De Mille. I was working in a picture with Jascha Heifetz [They Shall Have Music (1939)] and had to talk via telephone.

THE GREAT MAN'S LADY

1. She can tell you.

2. Don't know

3. Wild as ever, but good.

a. [play it for him as] we [thought it should be done]

Stanwyck should have gotten an award for this film, if ever any one deserved it.

b. —

c. yes

d. no

e. all three

f. yes

4. She would know.

5. She did.

6. She was great. All I had to do was try and stay aboard. 

7. Paramount 2 months

8. Wellman can tell you

9. She was touched- cried- delightful, delightful

TROOPER HOOK

1. As always, she was a pro. I could ride the horse well & we talked constantly of Bob Taylor whom we both admired a great deal.

[Barbara and Robert Taylor were married from 1939 to 1951.]

Only the greatest.

No reservations- best I ever met.

Every crew we ever worked with loved and admired her and so did I. She taught me a lot & I shall be ever grateful to her.

Joel McCrea

Clockwise from top row left: Gambling Lady, Banjo on my Knee, Internes Can't Take Money, Trooper Hook, The Great Man's Lady and Union Pacific.

Barbara Stanwyck in the heartwrenching finale of Stella Dallas, her performance earning her an Oscar nomination. The film became a huge hit.

You have upset me so that I could die

Before Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier of Monaco in 1956, she was romantically involved with famed couturier Oleg Cassini and was also said to have been engaged to him. Cassini, who was once married to Gene Tierney (from 1941 to 1952), was responsible for creating the famous Grace Kelly look. The fashion designer said that Grace dressed "like a school teacher" when they first met, so he encouraged her to "put a little sex in her clothes". 

Since Grace's strict Catholic parents didn't consider Cassini a suitable match for their daughter (being a playboy and a divorced man), the relationship between the two eventually fell apart and not long thereafter Grace got engaged to Prince Rainier. About her break-up with Cassini Grace was later quoted as saying: "Do you realise if my mother hadn’t been so difficult about Oleg Cassini, I probably would have married him? How many wonderful roles I might have played by now? How might my life have turned out? That one decision changed my entire future.” 

During their relationship Grace wrote several (love) letters to Cassini, two of which are seen below. The letters were written in 1954 when the actress was staying at the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles while promoting her latest film The Country Girl (for which she would later win her only Oscar). The second letter is especially interesting, with Grace reprimanding Cassini for being jealous of Bing Crosby, her co-star in The Country Girl and later High Society (1956). Grace told Cassini that Crosby was just a good friend, so there was no reason for him to be jealous. It has often been said that Grace and Crosby did have an affair during production of The Country Girl and that he even proposed marriage. (If this were true, Grace naturally wouldn't confess to it in her letter to Cassini.) Incidentally, Crosby was dating Kathryn Grant at the time, whom he eventually married in 1957.

Transcript:

Thursday Night

Darling- 

How lovely it was to come home and find your flowers. We are watching Charles Boyer on television - and as much as I love him I can only think of you - I don't understand how such a thing could happen —

The last few days have been so hectic at the studio that I haven't been able to write all the things I have wanted to tell you — and even if I could it would be impossible as I think of you constantly -

The few minutes we speak each night are so wonderful for me - but I'm sorry I sound like an idiot - 

Had lunch with [producer William] Perlberg and most of his crew- He was telling me about the two previews of Country Girl  - apparently they were most successful and we all came off very well - I should be able to see it in a couple of weeks —

There are so many words for tomorrow that I will say good-night in order to be able to get a few of them right -

I think I'd rather have a ring instead of an automobile.

I love you -

Transcript:

Sunday -

Darling -

You have upset me so that I could die — I just don't understand your attitude -

It is incredible to me that having dinner with Lizanne [Grace's younger sister] and the Crosbys can make you behave like a schoolboy - If I went out with Bing alone you would be absolutely right - and I would never do that to begin with - Because I have no interest in anyone but you - but this I shouldn't have to explain -

Bing is a wonderful person and a very dear friend. I have great respect for him and I hope he will be our friend for many years -

I told you he said that he was in love with me- but there are many people that he feels that way about - and after the emotional strain of playing Country Girl - this was only natural - But Bing would never try to do anything about it - unless he thought I wanted it that way -

I have very few friends here - please don't ask me to give up their friendships -

Source of both letters: Harper's Bazaar

Above: 1954, on the set of The Country Girl Crosby signs a record for Grace. Below: 1955, Bing Crosby visits Grace on the set of The Swan.

David Selznick and Hitler's "Mein Kampf"

When America entered World War II in December 1941, David Selznick very much wanted to join the Army. About his wish to be a soldier Selznick's then-wife Irene said: "His spirit was fine, his idea impractical— he was nearsighted, slewfooted, overweight, overage. He didn't need an enemy, he'd kill himself." 

While Selznick never fought in the war, he desperately wanted to make his contribution to the war effort. Apart from being Hollywood's chairman to the China War Relief, at one point the producer intended to make a film adaptation of Adolf Hitler's book Mein Kampf (1925). For his film Selznick considered hiring Ben Hecht to write the screenplay and Alfred Hitchcock to direct. In the end, however, the US government torpedoed Selznick's plans and the film was never made. (It would have been quite interesting to see what kind of film Selznick had in mind, especially with Hitchcock directing.) 

The war film Selznick eventually did make was Since You Went Away (1944) about an American housewife and her teenage daughters living life on the homefront, while the husband/father is fighting overseas (starring Claudette Colbert, Jennifer Jones and Joseph Cotten). Selznick had written a long speech about the war effort and shot the scene with Charles Coburn delivering it but in the end decided not to use it.

Three days after America had entered WWII, Selznick sent the following memo to his associate Kay Brown. Determined to turn Hitler's book into a film, he told Brown to immediately register Mein Kampf with the Title Registration Bureau of the Hays Office and to keep the whole affair "utterly secret". Even Alfred Hitchcock and Ben Hecht were not to know about his plans yet.  

December 11, 1941

To: Miss Katharine Brown

Immediately upon your receipt of this wire please drop everything and rush over to the Hays Office to register "Mein Kampf" as well as anything else necessary to protect it, such as "Life of Adolf Hitler" and "My life, by Adolf Hitler." I hope that there will be no nonsense about whether this is copyrighted or noncopyrighted work, and I hope the Hays Office has the good sense to realize that I consider it noncopyrighted and have no intention of buying rights or of paying royalties, which in circumstances would of course be ridiculous. Even before we were at war, publishers considered it in these terms... Keep it utterly secret until I have had opportunity to check with Washington on the making of this film... Will await wired word from you, but better address me to my home to further guard secrecy, and please caution not to leave any wires concerning it around the desks, and not to even discuss it with people in our own organization... For purpose of wires and letters suggest you refer to it as "Tales from History"... To point out importance of treatment I plan for subject, I am thinking about Hecht for script and Hitchcock for direction, but don't want anything said even to these two. 

David  

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

David Selznick and Katharine Brown, photographed in 1936 with John Hay Whitney and John Wharton.