The Star Machine

by Jeanine Basinger

  “Malfunction” means malfunction. It means the failure of the machine to sell an actor or actress that the studio had worked hard to turn into a movie star. It means the public just wouldn’t buy. Perhaps the single most famous example of the malfunction process is the case of Anna Sten, a beautiful European woman brought to Hollywood by Samuel Goldwyn to become a rival to Greta Garbo. No one ever thinks to ask why Greta Garbo became a star. When we see her on-screen, she’s mysterious and alluring, and no explanation seems necessary. On the other hand, why did she make it? She’s taller than almost all of her leading men. She refused to do publicity or cooperate with the star-making folderol. She couldn’t be cast as the little schoolmarm, and let’s not forget all those rumors about her big feet. (Actually, her feet were not big. They were right for her shape and her size and they look very good in high-heeled boots, ballet shoes, or exotic sandals.) But Garbo was unique and transcended all those issues. See one of her movies, silent or sound, and the explanation of her stardom is right in front of you. She is the very essence of the concept. No matter what nonsense is taking place around her—plagues in Asia, spies in Old Europe, double standards in ritzy households—Garbo shines. She’s awesome, unique, unusual, talented—whatever. She’s a movie star yardstick. And Anna Sten? She doesn’t measure up to Garbo.

  What was Anna Sten’s problem? She was a stunning blonde who arrived in America in 1933 surrounded by great hoopla. She made her Hollywood film debut in 1934 in an adaptation of Émile Zola’s novel Nana and was an immediate flop. Her follow-up movie, The Wedding Night (1935), paired her with Gary Cooper and was also deemed a failure. Sten soon gave up and went home. When we look at her movies today, it’s apparent that there’s nothing wrong with her. She’s exceptionally beautiful, and she’s talented. Her performances are sensitive and touching. Goldwyn was smart to select her for stardom, but not smart in promoting her as “the next Garbo.” He found out the public wanted the Garbo they had, not some fake one. Or, if they had to accept some other exotic European, they’d take Marlene Dietrich. Since fans didn’t want Sten to be their Garbo, could she have been their Sten, if handled differently? It’s possible. All around her, lesser talents and lesser beauties were being successfully turned into movie stars. It was trying to turn Sten into Garbo that was the problem.

  Malfunction was sometimes about such issues—selling a star by measuring her against an established rival—but mostly malfunction just means never becoming a star when everyone in the business thought you would. It means Anna Sten. It means Vera Zorina. Zorina, the famous Balanchine protegée, was also touted for stardom by Goldwyn. Seeing her on film is a dismal experience. She’s not that great a dancer, and although people who knew her always spoke of her great beauty, the camera refuses to validate it. She looks flat-faced. She can’t act. She has no physical presence, no spark of warmth. She’s a movie ice maiden but without the shellacked icy chill that can come off a hot property like Lana Turner in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), all in white as she lures John Garfield to help kill her husband, or Rita Hayworth, red locks shorn and hair dyed white blond in The Lady from Shanghai (1948). The stone-cold look made these two more erotic—they’re cold, and that’s hot! On Zorina, it’s just cold.*

  Vera Zorina, the famous Balanchine ballerina the camera revealed to have no on-screen magic.

  Malfunction is a mystery best solved in retrospect, and a good way to understand it is to compare a successful star to a failed one. For instance, why does Bing Crosby become a top movie star for decades and Perry Como doesn’t? Como is better looking than Crosby, and he, too, can sing beautifully. Like Crosby, Como was said to be laid-back, a relaxed guy you’d like to have around. But seen on a movie screen, trying to act out a role, Como is stiff and bland and offers no connection to the viewer. He’s not movie star material. Como did become a star on television, an entirely different medium, but as himself, not in performed roles. (In fact, TV is a medium that can’t absorb too much pizzazz in its actors. The screen is small. That’s why its heroes have been minimalists like Clint Eastwood, James Garner, and Tom Selleck.) Como being himself on television, the “living room medium,” is just fine. He’s suitable in a medium that’s part of a room’s furniture, because he himself is like a piece of furniture. Crosby, who is, of course, the greater singer and more original stylist, has something else that Como lacks: a mysterious edge. Crosby sails along through whatever material he has to deal with, giving it a light touch that robs it of its overly sentimental quality and shoring up its lack of depth. He easily tosses off amusing asides as if they’re ad libs, and these remarks often have a tinge of cruelty to them. There’s meanness in Crosby, and audiences liked him for it. There are demons floating behind his cow eyes. Moviegoers didn’t care if he was a bad drunk, an unsympathetic father, a meandering husband—they were with him all the way. Como is nice, but on film that’s all he seems to be. He’s too nice. It’s not enough.

  Crosby’s brand of warmth—friendly, casual despite that underlying edge—came across in anything: movies, radio, recordings, and television. In addition to his obvious musical talent, Crosby could act. (He was ranked among the top ten movie stars for fourteen years, number one from 1944 through 1948.) He could be cast comfortably with a variety of leading ladies, from Ingrid Bergman to Betty Hutton. In his career, he was a successful co-star for Mary Martin, Dorothy Lamour, Bergman, Joan Caulfield, Jane Wyman, Marion Davies, Joan Fontaine, Grace Kelly, Debbie Reynolds, Ann-Margret, Rhonda Fleming. Beautiful or not beautiful. Talented or not talented. Musical or dramatic. Whether he played opposite nuns, frowsy housewives, WAVEs, or movie stars, he paired easily and effectively with whomever he was assigned—a major asset in the studio system. Just as important, Crosby was easily adaptable to another leading man. His confidence inside the frame allowed him to adjust his attitude and manner to any male co-star without fear of being upstaged.* Everyone knows his amazingly successful partnership with Bob Hope, but Crosby was equally at ease with Sinatra in High Society (1956) as well as Robin and the Seven Hoods (1964), with Fred Astaire in Blue Skies (1946), with Danny Kaye in White Christmas (1954), with Donald O’Connor in Anything Goes (1956), as well as with that frightening old ham Barry Fitzgerald in Going My Way (1944). With Sinatra, Crosby was the consummate pro, on his toes but delighted to be alongside the other great male singer of his era. With Hope, he was all ad libs and banter, and with Kaye, a perfect foil for zaniness. With O’Connor he was paternal, having first starred with him when O’Connor was a kid, in Sing You Sinners (1938). In Astaire he found another master of self-confident charm, and the two of them show a mutual respect and a sense of joy as they swing out tapping together in Blue Skies, in the “A Couple of Song and Dance Men” number. Finally, confronted with the over-the-top Irishness and twinkle of the mugging Fitzgerald, Crosby nonchalantly lets Fitzgerald get on with it, watching with a touch of detached amusement that nevertheless borders on the judgmental. Crosby keeps Fitzgerald in place every step of the way.

  Crosby is what you can call a real movie star—so much so that he’s often not even thought of as one. He’s loose with it. David Thomson says Crosby “has a good case as the most popular American to appear in movies.” Crosby is the quintessential American man, our most comfortable vision of ourselves. (Jimmy Stewart is too neurotic in some of his roles for an ideal version of ourselves—he gets mad a lot.) Crosby is not the tallest, not the handsomest, not the sexiest or the biggest dreamboat, but he is calm, tolerant, funny, romantic, capable, honest—and he’s got that meanness, plus a touch of larceny and the ability to con anyone out of anything. That’s an American.

  The female version of the Crosby-Como comparison is the case of Doris Day and Rosemary Clooney, two blond singers who were signed by Hollywood and marked as potential stars. Day made her first movie, Romance on the High Seas, in 1948, and Clooney’s was The Stars Are Singing in 1953. Neither needed a long “buildup” process because she had already hit the top as a band singer. Day’s renditio
n of “Sentimental Journey” with Les Brown’s band was a standard, and Clooney, who had once sung with Tony Pastor, had the number-one song of 1952, “Come On-a My House.” She had become a household name.

  Warners, always cheap, decided to save themselves the time, money, and trouble needed to “groom” Day. They just presented her the way she was: a little bit bucktoothed, a little bit gangling, a little bit naïve and unsophisticated, but with a very big singing talent and a very likable personality. Although Day’s debut was in the trivial (but fun) Romance, she was given two great songs in it: “It’s Magic” and “Put ’Em in a Box,” both of which became hits for her. Warners wasn’t famous for developing singing stars, but they handled her perfectly. Day, who went on to become one of the all-time box office female stars as well as a major television and recording star, seemed as comfortable as an old shoe—America immediately fell in love with her. Michael Curtiz allegedly told her, “Whatever you do, don’t ever take acting lessons. Just stay the way you are.”

  Clooney arrived in Hollywood with high hopes and a strong sense that she was movie star material. She was—and remained to her death—a fantastic singer. She had been signed by Paramount Pictures, even though she was under contract to Columbia Records.* At the time, she was pretty and slender, and had all the required warmth. She seemed real, and had an easy, natural style. Right away, however, Paramount started “assessing” her negatively. Her nose was maybe too wide. Her face was maybe too long, or even a bit horsey. Her jaw seemed too prominent and she was a little hippy. Clooney balked at changes, and instead of showcasing her as she was and letting it rip, as Warners did with the toothy and long-waisted Doris Day, Paramount hedged and put Clooney into the weak Stars Are Singing. Her role was almost a supporting part even though she was billed above the title. Her songs didn’t become hits. (No one remembers “I Do, I Do” or “Haven’t Got a Worry to My Name” today.)

  Two blond singers—one who became a star ([above] Doris Day in her first movie, Romance on the High Seas)—and one who did not (Rosemary Clooney [below] on the set and in costume for her film debut, The Stars Are Singing).

  Paramount did make some effort to promote Clooney, and she received nice reviews for the movie. Waiting for her next film, she went on recording and performing in nightclubs, and she started dating a married actor, José Ferrer. This got her in trouble with the Paramount bosses. Even though she was on the cover of Time magazine in February 1953, she made only three more movies: Here Come the Girls (1953), with Bob Hope; Red Garters (1954), a musical western; and the movie by which she is best remembered, White Christmas (1954), a semi-remake of Holiday Inn (1942), with Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, and Vera-Ellen. Except for a guest appearance singing and dancing in a number called “Mr. and Mrs.” in Deep in My Heart (1954),* that was it for the movies and Rosemary Clooney.

  By virtue of talent and opportunity, Rosemary Clooney should have become a big movie star. Her movie failure is inexplicable. Paramount was excited by her work in White Christmas and announced that more pictures were being planned for her. But nothing happened. In the end she made only four movies, all between 1952 and 1955, although she went on to television, more recordings, and five children after she married Ferrer. She became a legendary singer, but for some reason the public didn’t fall in love with her, probably because Clooney holds herself back. She’ll give a song all she’s got, but she won’t share herself. When an audience looks at her, Clooney doesn’t generate the prerequisite sense that we know what she’s thinking and feeling. She gives out nothing, except, of course, when she sings, but her singing is better experienced by listening to recordings or attending her performances. Day generated involvement with the audience through her singing—she sang as if her character were talking to the audience through the lyrics. Clooney just sang her song. Paramount also never trusted Clooney with a movie, the way Warner Bros. did Doris Day. The studio treated Clooney as if she would fail if she were the only star of a movie. She was always accompanied by Bob Hope or Bing Crosby or overshadowed by generic satire and stylized sets as in Red Garters. Perhaps Paramount had it right—she wasn’t going to be a movie star, and she needed help. Or perhaps she didn’t become a movie star because Paramount wouldn’t give her the chance. No one can know for sure, but Rosemary Clooney is a clear case of stardom malfunction.

  Since so many musicals were made during the studio years, singers were in great demand for movies, and many of them were malfunction cases. Any good-looking musical guy or gal got a tryout, and many turned out to be excellent actors (Crosby, Sinatra, Day, Peggy Lee, Garland, and others). However, one of the best, Dinah Shore, despite loads of charm, never made it. (Her folksy manner was perfect for television, where she became one of the medium’s great figures.) In the 1940s and 1950s, good-looking male singers, such as Dick Haymes, Johnnie Johnston, and Gordon MacRae, had brief, sputtering careers. Pat Boone, who was a teen idol when the term really meant something, had some film success. His studio, 20th Century–Fox, tried to shape him into a major movie star, and as the leading man in April Love (1957), he was solid. But his movie career never really took off, partly because his style was eclipsed by a certain Paramount Pictures singer/star, who was already gyrating his career forward—Elvis Presley.

  Another great singer, Ruth Etting, whose life story was made into the Doris Day–James Cagney movie, Love Me or Leave Me (1955), also couldn’t be made into a movie star. She originally established herself on radio as America’s favorite torch singer. (It’s a toss-up as to whether Etting or Kate Smith was the greatest singing star of the radio era.) Florenz Ziegfeld used Etting in his Follies, and she played opposite Eddie Cantor on Broadway in Whoopee and Ed Wynn in Simple Simon. Ziegfeld said she was the greatest singer he had managed in all his years, quite an accolade from the man who had also promoted Fanny Brice. In 1928, Etting started making musical shorts for Paramount-Astoria, the first called simply Ruth Etting. She then moved to Vitaphone, where she became the queen of musical short subjects, making about thirteen Vitaphone Varieties and Broadway Brevities between 1931 and 1933, and about fourteen shorts for RKO from 1933 until 1936. In 1933 Samuel Goldwyn (again!) decided to capitalize on her success in shorts by putting her into a full-length feature, Roman Scandals, but problems resulted. Etting had never been really trained as an actress and wasn’t good at delivering lines. She was no longer a young girl, and although pretty, had never really been a beauty. In a short subject, and for ten minutes, she could be a movie star. If all she was going to do was swing out one of her trademark Depression hits, such as “Ten Cents a Dance” (in 1930’s Roseland for Vitaphone) or “If I Could Be with You One Hour Tonight” (One Good Turn, 1930) or “Don’t Blame Me” (A Torch Tango, 1934), everything would be fine. But when she was cast in a full-length feature, audiences expected more than a great song from her, and she didn’t have more to give. Etting had to settle for being the Queen of the Musical Short.

  Ginny Simms, a name that means nothing to anyone under the age of sixty, was a good band singer with beautiful skin, a sparkling smile, and a terrific figure. (If Ethel Merman had been a beauty, she would have been Ginny Simms.) She was truly glamorous, but she never made the grade in movies. Why? Not being able to act surely had never kept anyone from stardom. But in her appearances in such films as the 1940 Kay Kyser vehicle You’ll Find Out, Simms seemed to be just standing around, waiting for her number. She was given every possible chance at stardom. When she became the “protegée” of Louis B. Mayer, he pulled out all the stops to showcase her in the Technicolor musical Broadway Rhythm (1944). She has a closetful of costume changes, each outfit more spectacular than the last, and she’s beautifully made up, lit, and photographed. It’s said that Simms was happy with Mayer’s sponsorship to a point but had no interest in marrying him. The failure of her career is often blamed on his subsequently dumping her, but Ginny Simms would not have been a star no matter how much of Mayer’s chicken soup she might have accepted. Opposite Cary Grant in a secondary role i
n Night and Day (1946), she appears “on-stage” in a bright aqua fur-trimmed coat, an astonishing hat, and the obligatory chunky high heels of the era, and she really delivers on “Just One of Those Things.” But in the rest of the movie, whenever she enters and no matter what she says, she still seems to be waiting to twirl onstage and start singing. (“Is it my turn yet?”) Ginny Simms is always Ginny Simms, a singer who arrives in the frame only to do a musical number. The radiant young Simms seems to be the epitome of stardom, but that’s the problem. She looks like a patented trademark product. She’s practically embalmed. She poses and makes no real connection to anyone else in the frame—or in the audience.

  In the 1947 hit musical Good News, a talented young singer-dancer, Joan McCracken, was given the showcase role of Babe, a comedy sidekick. McCracken was a successful Broadway star who later became a major influence on (and girlfriend of) choreographer Bob Fosse. She had found lasting fame as the original “girl who fell down” in the opening “Many a New Day” number in Agnes de Mille’s choreography for Oklahoma!* McCracken had come to Hollywood in 1944 and was put under contract to Warner Bros. (the standard seven-year deal), but they really didn’t know what to do with her. She had only appeared in an extended dance number in the patriotic Hollywood Canteen (1944). Called “Ballet in Jive,” it was choreographed by LeRoy Prinz, and used the “girl who fell down” country girl concept that had brought McCracken to fame on Broadway. After being considered for other roles (such as in Meet Me in St. Louis) and returning to Broadway for Bloomer Girl, McCracken was finally assigned her showcase “supporting” role in MGM’s Good News (1947). She does the film’s big opening number (“Tate College”) and later brings down the house with her rousing “Pass That Peace Pipe” song and dance in the campus malt shop. Within a few years, another young girl named Debbie Reynolds was given a similar opportunity in a musical called Two Weeks with Love (1950). She also had two numbers: “Row, Row, Row” and what is now a famous musical moment, the “Abba Dabba Honeymoon” number with Carleton Carpenter. Like McCracken, Reynolds was playing the comedy sidekick. Also like McCracken, Reynolds was short, very physical, very exuberant, and presented as a boy chaser who delivered tart, zingy lines. Reynolds was a huge hit and became a star who is still a big name today. McCracken went back to New York to stay. Why Debbie Reynolds and not Joan McCracken?