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Seduction: Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes's Hollywood

Page 53

by Karina Longworth


  The Las Vegas Story, directed by Robert Stevenson. 1952. Las Vegas: Warner Archive. DVD.

  Wait ’til the Sun Shines, Nellie, directed by Henry King. 1952. Los Angeles: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. DVD.

  The Hitch-Hiker, directed by Ida Lupino. 1953. Los Angeles: Kino Classics. DVD.

  The Bigamist, directed by Ida Lupino. 1953. Los Angeles: Film Chest. DVD.

  The French Line, directed by Lloyd Bacon. 1953. Los Angeles. Out of print.

  Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, directed by Howard Hawks. 1953. Los Angeles: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. Digital download.

  Mogambo, directed by John Ford. 1953. Kenya: Warner Archive. Digital download.

  Niagara, directed by Henry Hathaway. 1953. Los Angeles: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. Digital download.

  Pickup on South Street, directed by Samuel Fuller. 1953. Los Angeles: Masters of Cinema. Blu-Ray.

  The Barefoot Contessa, directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz. 1954. Los Angeles and Rome: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. DVD.

  Three Coins in the Fountain, directed by Jean Negulesco. 1954. Los Angeles and Rome: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. Digital download.

  Peyton Place, directed by Mark Robson. 1957. Los Angeles: Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation. Digital download.

  Notes

  INTRODUCTION: THE AMBASSADOR HOTEL, 1925

  the Cocoanut Grove: Burk, Are the Stars Out Tonight? Additional details about the Ambassador Hotel from Goodyear, “Hotel California.”

  On this night in 1925: Maas, The Shocking Miss Pilgrim, 75–78.

  “Gross, ugly, hairy Eddie Mannix”: Ibid., 77.

  “I’d seen firsthand how Hollywood can bring you down”: Ibid., 78.

  “The romance stories were a lot of bologna”: Collis, “The Hughes Legacy.”

  “Remember her?”: Mathison, “Cradle-Robbing Baron.”

  “the whole equation”: Fitzgerald, The Last Tycoon, Kindle loc. 271.

  CHAPTER 1: HOLLYWOOD BABYLON

  “Prohibitionists, suffragettes, retirees”: Williams, The Story of Hollywood, 41.

  driven around town: Marshall Neilan, handwritten autobiographical notes, 1954, Folder 21, Marshall Neilan Special Collection, Margaret Herrick Library.

  the first motion picture made entirely within the community of Hollywood: Schickel, D. W. Griffith: An American Life, 149.

  Love Among the Roses: Williams, The Story of Hollywood, 58.

  resurrected the Ku Klux Klan: Rosenwald, “The Ku Klux Klan Was Dead. The First Hollywood Blockbuster Revived It.”

  “the most virulently racist major movie”: Cheshire, “Why No One Is Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of the Feature Film.”

  “The picture had me on the edge of my seat”: Maas, The Shocking Miss Pilgrim, 11.

  “a magic name”: Simberg, “Studio Club Closes Doors on Memories.”

  “I’m not psychic”: Drew, “Billie Dove,” 15.

  “I wanted motion pictures”: Ankerich, “Billie Dove,” 76.

  “Not that I doubted”: Stamp, Lois Weber in Early Hollywood, Kindle locs. 352–54.

  “The only bona fide woman’s sphere”: Ibid., Kindle locs. 661–63.

  “Hollywood is honeycombed with prostitutes”: Williams, The Story of Hollywood, 89.

  “plainly, they were food”: Brownlow, The Parade’s Gone By, 43.

  “She was not well dressed”: Drew, “Billie Dove,” 21.

  Schulberg made the Alexandria the family’s first stop: Schulberg, Moving Pictures, 91.

  the Alexandria lobby: Schulberg, Moving Pictures, 90; and Marshall Neilan’s autobiographical notes.

  “After she finishes a picture”: Schulberg, Moving Pictures, 91.

  “You wouldn’t hear about it”: Louella Parsons Oral History, June 1959.

  “bichloride of mercury”: Pita, “Olive Thomas, the Original ‘Flapper’ and a Mon Valley Native, Still Fascinates.”

  cleaning product: Goessel, The First King of Hollywood, 261.

  “wild cat combat”: Vogel, Olive Thomas, Kindle loc. 1384.

  ruptured bladder: Williams, The Story of Hollywood, 107.

  Griffith built a model of Babylon: Ibid., 87.

  “Hollywood Babylon”: Ibid., 93.

  he returned to the East Coast: “Lo, the Movies Have Achieved Revivals!”

  CHAPTER 2: THE MANY MRS. HUGHESES

  “A Motion Picture Novel”: Kemm, Rupert Hughes, 75.

  “a Bowery washerwoman”: Finstad, Heir Not Apparent, 380.

  “kiss nearly every woman”: Ibid., 347.

  “to take a cruise”: Rush Hughes deposition, September 10, 1976.

  “Hollywood wasn’t even on the map”: Louella Parsons Oral History.

  “WELCOME WILL H. HAYS”: Williams, The Story of Hollywood, 112–13.

  “Hays was the guest of honor”: Kemm, Rupert Hughes, 135.

  “search for my fortune”: Finstad, Heir Not Apparent, 60.

  “The outermost ends of the earth”: Ibid., 107.

  Houston Riot of 1917: Wisenberg, “The 1917 Houston Riot. And the Era of Black Lives Matter”; Brown, “Seeking Justice for the Mass Hanging of Black Soldiers After the Bloody 1917 Houston Riots.”

  “I lived right in the middle of one race riot”: Citizen Hughes, 162.

  paranoia that he could contract polio: Fowler, “Howard Hughes: A Psychological Autopsy.”

  “She was taken for a minor operation”: Annette Gano Lummis deposition, August 12, 1977.

  “Never share control”: Raymond D. Fowler, Ph.D., “A Brief History of Howard R. Hughes,” Folder “Fowler—A Brief History of Howard R. Hughes 1979,” Raymond Fowler files, courtesy of Sandy Fowler.

  Annette agreed: Finstad, Heir Not Apparent, 117.

  “a charming young boy”: Annette Gano Lummis deposition, August 12, 1977.

  “movie people”: Finstad, Heir Not Apparent, 118.

  letter from Allene to Big Howard: Dietrich, Howard: The Amazing Mr. Hughes, 32.

  “the truest film play you ever saw”: Kemm, Rupert Hughes, 129.

  “Mrs. Rupert Hughes”: Ibid., 132.

  “There was something the matter with her”: Ibid.

  “an opportunity to expound”: Ibid., 139.

  “Marriage is the greatest bunco game in the world”: St. Johns, “Is Marriage a Bunco Game?”

  like a younger version of Adelaide: Eleanor Boardman d’Arrast deposition, March 30, 1977.

  Rupert shot her down: Kemm, Rupert Hughes, 143.

  “a brave, brilliant woman”: “MRS. RUPERT HUGHES A SUICIDE IN CHINA; Message from Standard Oil Man at Haiphong Tells Author of Tragedy.”

  “Howard R. Hughes Jr., son of the late president of the Hughes Tool Company”: “Death Car Driver Free.”

  Stoddard’s family suspected: Allyson Malek (grand-niece of Mata Stoddard), email correspondence with author, November 2016.

  “swathed in bandages”: “Death Car Driver Free.”

  Hughes first denied: Mata Stoddard coroner’s inquest, February 11, 1924, transcript.

  “I can’t remember”: Ibid.

  “constant problem”: Johnston, Houston, the Unknown City, 328.

  “the only two people”: Fowler, “A Brief History of Howard R. Hughes.”

  its success had been inconsistent: transcript of tax hearing held in Washington, D.C., on September 30, 1926.

  “had such a fortune”: Felix T. Hughes to Howard R. Hughes Jr., January 28, 1924.

  “My father bragged so much”: Howard R. Hughes Jr., telegram to R. C. Kuldell, January 29, 1924.

  “serious developments”: R. C. Kuldell, telegram to Howard R. Hughes Jr., February 15, 1924.

  “indiscreet in the Conlin affair”: Howard R. Hughes Jr., telegram to R. C. Kuldell, February 18, 1924.

  Hughes was sending Conlin money: Hal Conlin to “Mac” (Neil S. McCarthy), May 27, 1928.

  “dishonorable ungenerous selfishness”: Kemm, Rupert Hughes, 148–49.

>   “lied flatly again and again”: Ibid., 149.

  “calling me a liar, a thief and a miser”: Howard Hughes to Rupert Hughes, April 29, 1924.

  The relatives demanded: Transcript of tax hearing, September 30, 1926.

  forcing Hughes to put up his own shares: Carl Byoir and Associates notes on Stephen White draft of “The Howard Hughes Story,” written for Look in 1954.

  “I may have owned it”: Howard Hughes, in conversation with Stephen White, transcript dated December 23, 1953.

  “The thing I knew”: Muir, “Fabled Flier’s Millions Resulted from Doing What Came Naturally.”

  “I wasn’t building anything for myself “: “A Texan with Ideas of His Own Risks His Millions in Movies but Finds Originality Pays.”

  “steady, sober young man”: Dietrich, “The Howard I Remember.”

  “The doctor called Ella”: Ibid.

  “never saw the slightest sign of affection”: Ibid.

  “she was the queen”: Annette Gano Lummis deposition, August 12, 1977.

  “I can’t send him with all that money”: Ibid.

  “very shortly after my mother’s death”: Rush Hughes deposition, September 10, 1976.

  Rush and Avis never saw Rupert again: Ibid.

  “throw his mother down the stairs”: Drew, “Eleanor Boardman,” 50–51.

  “that son-of-a-bitch”: Finstad, Heir Not Apparent, 287.

  twin beds: Dietrich, Howard, 34.

  CHAPTER 3: NO TOWN FOR A LADY

  “You’ll let me watch”: Keats, “Howard Hughes: A Lifetime on the Lam,” 127.

  “postproduction was not going smoothly”: A. A. MacDonald, telegram to Howard R. Hughes, June 4, 1925.

  “enthused and disgusted”: A. A. MacDonald, telegram to Howard R. Hughes, June 14, 1925.

  Graves’s cut of the film: Neil S. McCarthy, telegram to Howard R. Hughes, March 10, 1926.

  cut Graves out: Ralph Graves to Howard R. Hughes Jr., May 12, 1926.

  “lifelong debt”: Ralph Graves to Howard R. Hughes Jr., 1962.

  “investors”: unsigned letter to Lloyd Wright, October 27, 1967.

  “I had to prove me right”: Keats, “Howard Hughes,” 128.

  “Failure was unconscionable”: Dietrich, Howard, 45.

  “the richest man in the world”: Ibid., 39.

  “I don’t carry any money”: Ibid., 55.

  “I don’t want to go on record”: Ibid., 57.

  “friendship with Marshall Neilan”: Publicity biography of Howard Hughes, February 1930, Lincoln Quarberg collection.

  Hughes would request: Howard Hughes to Stephen White, December 23, 1953.

  “roar on into the night”: Marshall Neilan, handwritten notes, 1954.

  “pretty virgins”: Maas, The Shocking Miss Pilgrim, 74–75.

  “protégée of mine” Neilan, handwritten notes.

  a new young Texan oilman: Beatty, “The Boy Who Began at the Top.”

  “the screen is a powerful influence”: “A Texan with Ideas of His Own . . .”

  “If my pictures didn’t make money”: Ibid.

  “any price”: Vaught, “Howard Hughes: The Producer of Hell’s Angels at Home in Los Angeles’s Hancock Park.”

  built for socialite Eva K. Fudger: Ibid.

  “Cannot understand”: Ella Rice Hughes, telegram to H. R. Hughes, December 22, 1925.

  “Love Ella”: Ella Rice Hughes, telegram to H. R. Hughes, December 24, 1925.

  wiring Dietrich instructions: Howard Hughes, telegram to N. Dietrich, December 31, 1925.

  “a tentative deal”: Neilan, handwritten notes.

  “Let’s make it”: Ibid.

  “Vaseline-haired pretty boys”: Ibid.

  Neilan made an excuse: Ibid.

  four members of Hughes’s crew to die: Rogers, “4 Million Dollars, and Four Men’s Lives.”

  “Howard wanted to film”: Dietrich, Howard, 71–72.

  “Hughes was unfamiliar”: Rogers, “4 Million Dollars, and Four Men’s Lives.”

  “As he whirled earthward”: Ibid.

  “the Caddo office direct”: “‘Hell’s Angels’ Completed.”

  “For over two years”: Rogers, “4 Million Dollars, and Four Men’s Lives.”

  “your idea of a practical joke” and further correspondence and photograph: Lincoln Quarberg files, Folder 4, Margaret Herrick Library.

  “a heck of a life”: Finstad, Heir Not Apparent, 27.

  “a spendthrift kid”: Dietrich, Howard, 77.

  “I think she didn’t like the people”: Annette Gano Lummis deposition, August 12, 1977.

  “extroverted, voluptuous actresses”: Dietrich, Howard, 80.

  “all mixed up with Klan”: Fred Lummis to Howard Hughes, November 8, 1928.

  The divorce agreement: “Agreement between HRH and Ella Rice.”

  “The divorced wife of Howard Hughes”: Los Angeles Paper, September 14, 1930.

  “We got married and it didn’t work”: Muir, “Fabled Flier’s Millions Resulted from Doing What Came Naturally.”

  “I have been accused of practically everything”: Howard Hughes to Stephen White, transcript of conversation dated September 29, 1953.

  CHAPTER 4: THE GIRL WITH THE SILVER HAIR

  “It sounds like I’m bragging”: Ankerich, “Billie Dove,” 95.

  “silver-flecked long bob”: Spensley, “For the Love of Billie.”

  “Going mole hunting on Dove”: Skolsky, “Tintype (Billie Dove).”

  “I was once a fan”: Busby, “Beauty Bows to Brains: Billie Dove, Long Praised for Bewitching Charm, Wins Praise for Histrionic Ability.”

  tears came to her eyes: Ankerich, “Billie Dove,” 75.

  “It was a short name”: Ibid.

  “I just sat up there smiling”: Drew, “Billie Dove,” 16.

  “took it for granted”: Ibid.

  “I knew nothing about sex”: Ibid., 18.

  “only marry a Jewish girl”: Ankerich, “Billie Dove,” 81.

  “We didn’t kill him”: Willat and Birchard, “Conversations with Irvin V. Willat.”

  “Marry me, marry me, marry me”: Ankerich, “Billie Dove,” 82.

  “okay to get married”: Drew, “Billie Dove,” 26.

  “Westerns and boat pictures”: Ibid., 25

  “I just stood around and looked scared”: Ankerich, “Billie Dove,” 83.

  “our philosophies of life”: Stamp, Lois Weber in Early Hollywood, Kindle loc. 4610.

  “The producers select the stories”: Ibid., loc. 4663.

  “The real American girl”: Kingsley, “Busy U City.”

  “cute little dolls”: Elliot, “Exit Flapper, Enter Woman.”

  “The modern girl”: Stamp, Lois Weber in Early Hollywood, Kindle loc. 4917.

  “I wanted to look ill”: Drew, “Billie Dove,” 33.

  “He tried to run my life”: “Billie Dove Obtains Divorce; Beatings by Willat, Director, Related.”

  “Marion had a special butler”: Ankerich, “Billie Dove,” 88.

  postmaster of Burbank: Drew, “Billie Dove,” 36.

  “cutting the back of my hair”: Ibid., 37.

  “a zombie”: Ankerich, “Billie Dove,” 88.

  “he had me cased”: Ibid.

  “deep love”: Ibid., 89.

  3 A.M. movie: Behlmer, “Howard Hughes and Hell’s Angels.”

  “I was still Mrs. Irvin Willat”: Ankerich, “Billie Dove,” 89.

  Believing Hughes had disposable cash: Willat and Birchard, “Conversations with Irvin V. Willat.”

  “Billie and my father”: Wagner, “Still Big in Germany.”

  “bought and sold”: Drew, “Billie Dove,” 47.

  “I lost all the respect”: Ankerich, “Billie Dove,” 89.

  “What, you go to Las Vegas?”: Drew, “Billie Dove,” 47.

  “a dress, very plain and long”: Ibid.

  “After we got off the train”: Lillian E. Kenaston (Billie Dove) deposition, July 23, 1981.

&n
bsp; “I never asked any questions”: Drew, “Billie Dove,” 48.

  “We didn’t stay”: Ibid.

  CHAPTER 5: A BODY LIKE A DUSTPAN

  “There’s a girl who has absolutely nothing”: March, “Young Howard Hughes, Reminiscences by a Survivor of Hollywood’s Golden Era.”

  “Film still far from completed”: Lincoln Quarberg, telegram, June 19, 1929.

  “brown and lustrous and limpid”: March, “Young Howard Hughes.”

  “rare and mysterious quality”: Ibid.

  “so bad it was embarrassing”: Ibid.

  “a beautiful, upper-class slut”: Ibid.

  “Nothing on earth”: Stenn, Bombshell: The Life and Death of Jean Harlow, 44.

  “It’s breaking up my marriage”: Ibid., 29.

  terminated her pregnancy: Ibid., 30.

  “Chuck went away”: “Is Jean Harlow Dead? Her Mother Says No!”

  “I had to work or starve”: Stenn, Bombshell, 32.

  “My dear Miss Harlow”: March, “Young Howard Hughes.”

  cut the fabric: Faith Domergue, autobiographical manuscript.

  “we all held our breath”: March, “Young Howard Hughes.”

  “That’s better”: Ibid.

  “she had guts”: Ibid.

  “ducks flying over the street”: “A Texan with Ideas of His Own . . .”

  “more out of curiosity”: Marshall Neilan, handwritten autobiographical notes.

  The head shot of Harlow: Hell’s Angels program.

  “This picture is guilty”: Quirk, “Close-Ups and Long-Shots.”

  “You hate Jean Harlow”: “A Texan with Ideas of His Own . . .”

  “I hate Hollywood”: Lieber, “But I Can Unmask Jean Harlow!”

  “We sneaked in”: Ankerich, “Billie Dove,” 90.

  A local character named Eddie Brandstatter: Perry, “Brandstatter Brought the Party to Old Hollywood.”

  “struck me and knocked me down”: “Billie Dove Obtains Divorce.”

  Willat had never actually abused her: Ankerich, “Billie Dove,” 89.

  “I am free”: Whittaker, “Billie Dove ‘At Liberty.’”

  CHAPTER 6: A COCK VS. THE CODE

  “Miss Dove has no singing voice”: “The Painted Angel,” January 8, 1930.

  $29,000 in its first week: “Comparative Grosses for May.”

  “It won’t be long, Billie Dove”: “Lovely Billie Dove Faces Big Handicap.”

  “Billie Dove carried the story”: “Sweethearts and Wives,” July 9, 1930.

 

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