The Star Machine

by Jeanine Basinger

  † Dunne died on September 4, 1990, at the age of ninety-two.

  * Lillian Hellman once described Shearer as “a face unclouded by thought.” Nothing about Shearer’s private life suggests this to be true.

  * Since Shearer appeared in uncredited roles and bit parts in the silent era, it’s hard to be accurate about the total number of films she made. This number more or less represents the feature films in which she appeared and played significant, or leading, roles.

  * Some of her peers also under contract included Garbo and Crawford. Harlow would soon make her first important MGM film in 1931, The Secret Six, arriving on the lot to stay in early 1932 when the studio “bought” her from Howard Hughes for $60,000. When you were First Lady of MGM, you were royalty indeed. Better than real royalty, actually, because you had your choice of several good-looking kings.

  * Other actresses resented her for it. Joan Crawford continued to gripe: “How can anyone else get a good role when she sleeps with the boss?” (Crawford wanted roles that were given to Shearer—she had her own ambitions to be First Lady of MGM.) For Crawford, the enemy was always Norma Shearer, never Bette Davis.

  * In fact, Shearer was the movie Fontanne/Lawrence, since neither of them ever gained movie stardom.

  * It’s also true that while Dunne and Young received publicity for their charitable acts and generosity, Garson seldom did. She was, however, a major philanthropist, being especially supportive of education in the arts.

  † Such actresses could, of course, step out of “lady” roles and into comedy or unladylike behavior. Just as Garson had her Julia Misbehaves, Kerr rolled adulterously on the wet beach with Burt Lancaster in From Here to Eternity (1953) and Kelly vamped Cary Grant by offering him a “breast or a leg” out of her basket of chicken in To Catch a Thief (1955). When the “lady” Irene Dunne first took her step out of decorum into comedy, in Theodora Goes Wild, however, the results were sensational. She not only received huge acclaim, but it changed her into a comedienne as well as a star of “lady” roles. In Death Becomes Her (1992), Meryl Streep took on a hoot of a comedy role as an egomaniacal actress who’ll stop at nothing to remain young looking.

  DETACHMENT:

  CHARLES BOYER AND

  WILLIAM POWELL

  Although old Hollywood movies are often remembered as full of escapist plots, fairy-tale princesses in Ruritanian worlds, get-rich-quick dreams, perfect love affairs, and family circles, the truth is that the business made a lot of movies about grown-ups. Grown-ups with grown-up problems—movies like Dodsworth (1936), with Walter Huston and Ruth Chatterton; The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), with Fredric March and Myrna Loy; and The Grapes of Wrath (1940), with Henry Fonda. Of course, not all “adult” movies were The Grapes of Wrath. Some of them couldn’t be taken seriously. The grown-ups got amnesia, backed out of the driveway and ran over their sister’s kid (complicating family dinners) or became international opera stars overnight with no singing lessons. But whether movies were serious films that could be taken seriously or serious films that were silly, if they were about a mature person, a mature actor or actress was needed. Hollywood found out quickly that mature audiences would go to the movies when they saw something they could relate to on the screen, such as their own problems: financial pressures, failures of daily communication, general misunderstandings, unruly children, greedy relatives, adultery, and very bad furniture. These issues were often cleverly disguised, appearing in screwball comedies, musicals, murder mysteries, westerns, as well as melodramas and women’s films—but the star system was affected by the fact that Hollywood chose to make movies about grown-ups with grown-up problems that required grown-up stars. (It wasn’t all about youth the way it tends to be today.) As a result, Hollywood needed big-name headliners who seemed—or were—mature, and those grown-ups weren’t just kindly old Judge Hardys, hilarious old Ma and Pa Kettles, or cranky old Dr. Gillespies. The machine developed romantic leading stars out of actors who were already in their thirties (like Greer Garson) or who always looked as if they were in their forties (Walter Pidgeon). As a result, those who manipulated the star machine realized it was possible, just possible, to get incredibly lucky by finding actors who would not only age gracefully but also had a timeless, enduring quality. Finding such stars was like striking gold, because the stars and their fans could grow old together. If a property heavily invested in could pay off time and again over decades, that would be star heaven, the full triumph of the machine and the studio system. It was too rare to be a realistic goal, but it might happen by accident. And what an amazing concept it was. Longevity! Longevity was the blue ribbon of the system.

  Except for the legendary women who have already been discussed, the business usually found these bonuses only among the men. Male movie stars weren’t as fragile as their female counterparts. They could last for decades. As long as they avoided the booze, maintained a waistline smaller than Rhode Island, and could hold down a toupee in a stiff breeze, there was a chance of a long career. A man could hold ground on-screen, the idea being that the older he got, the better he got, the more romantic and desirable he appeared. These male actors were like Gibraltars. (Female stars must have wanted to open their veins over this.) If a male actor developed a viable type, he could keep going by presenting an older version of that type, because a “mature older man” could still be thought of as handsome, sexy, and viable at the box office. Older leading men could play opposite females young enough to be their daughters without an audience objecting, whereas a mature older woman was considered past her prime, an unsuitable lover for a younger male star unless that was the point of the plot and she died or went to prison as punishment for her pleasure. Furthermore, there were many “mature” types of leading roles: legendary heroes, senators, wise doctors, biographical figures, even cowpokes riding off into the sunset long after they should have. (Western heroes were never age specific.)

  Hollywood produced a solid lineup of such male stars: Clark Gable, Gary Cooper, Ronald Colman, James Cagney, Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart, Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea, Fred Astaire, and even Jimmy Stewart, whose all-American boyishness should have eliminated him but didn’t. The prime example is Cary Grant. As a young man, Grant could put on a woman’s negligee with maribou-trimmed sleeves or a WAC’s uniform or fall off his chair at a society soirée and never lose face. As an older man, he could shower with his suit on, drive drunk, and operate on José Ferrer’s brain without seeming ridiculous. (Cary Grant could always lose face without losing face.)

  In fact, it is Grant’s ability to be undignified that lifts him to the highest power of elite movie dignity. For any actor in American films, male or female, too much dignity is a problem. Stars had to be wary of becoming grand, or seeming to be too much of a lady or too much of a gentleman. (As he prepared to introduce a series of skits to an audience, Ed Gardner, playing the Brooklynite Duffy of Duffy’s Tavern in 1945, uttered the key words, “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and I hope youse don’t mind me calling you that.”) Grant succeeded in getting the mix of gravitas and goofiness just right.

  The records of the top ten ranks show clearly that it was easier for men to last for decades than for women. John Wayne was on top for nearly twenty-five years, Gary Cooper for eighteen, Gable for sixteen, and Bing Crosby for fifteen. It’s almost as if, once a male star arrived, longevity was available to him if he wanted it. At first glance, this looks like a great deal for the men, but longevity was tricky. If men could endure longer as stars, the machine could make fewer of them, and that made a successful male movie star a gold mine.

  Charles Boyer and William Powell were household names in the 1930s and 1940s, two gold mines who stayed the course. Boyer and Powell had longevity, stretching over the 1920s through the 1950s (and in Boyer’s case, into the 1960s). Their low-key stability and the longevity of their careers can be contrasted to the burnout of Errol Flynn, who could be thought of as their naughtier younger movie brother. Flynn had a career that, des
pite his dissipation and early death, nevertheless was top drawer for nearly twenty years. Had he not chosen to self-destruct and short-circuit his tenure, he could have had the same longevity. Boyer, Powell—and Flynn—are three dashing, handsome “gentleman” stars of the old Hollywood system. Boyer is the romantic one, Powell the sophisticated comic version, and Flynn the adventurous swashbuckler. All three seem to stand to the side of the action, projecting an amused, ironic distance, even when they’re playing at their most sincere and passionate. They enter their films already disillusioned, and thus are disconnected from any plot disappointments. This quality makes all three of them remarkably modern, and their movies date well. For Powell, no form of social embarrassment can bring him down; for Flynn, no fear, no physical danger or pain; and for Boyer, no loss of place or weighty world problems. And for all three, no woman. Each is unflappable, seeing the humor in daily life no matter what it brings. A strong undercurrent of mockery—clearly presented and clearly perceived by audiences—keeps the gentlemanliness they embody from stuffiness. They don’t take the established way of doing things and thinking about things all that seriously. They are always well behaved but never pompous. They are upper crust but low-down about it, which links them directly to an American movie icon, the beloved outlaw—even if in their cases, the outlaw is very well dressed and hanging out in a drawing room (or a bedroom). These three may have wit, wisdom, and wardrobes, and they may duel in love, dialogue, and swordsmanship, but moviegoers of their times saw them as fellow underdogs. Even when they were cast as nobility, they were swell fellows, loved by women and envied by men. Flynn lost it, but Boyer and Powell endured. They were assets for a business that had to grapple too often with star troubles, welcomed because they were both in the system and to the side of its general folderol. Boyer and Powell were detached, both on-screen and off, and it worked.

  Another gentlemanly type with career longevity was the ultra-suave and handsome Ronald Colman. A consummate leading man—and debonair to the max—Colman was one of the few male stars able to remain on top after the arrival of sound. Audiences were thrilled to find out that when he spoke, his voice was everything they had imagined it would be: mellifluous, echoing perfect British diction. Colman, who anchored beloved classics like The Prisoner of Zenda (1937), A Tale of Two Cities (1935), and Lost Horizon (1937), projected an aristocratic quality that, although it was a touch aloof, never seemed to separate him from ordinary moviegoers. American audiences accepted his screen presence as high-minded, well mannered, even noble, yet capable of the most decent sort of democracy. Men responded to his adventurous spirit, and female fans simply responded. They adored him. His romantic passions were elegantly calm and beautifully articulated. He was that imaginary male who exists only in the movies—the one who takes a woman in his arms to talk, to say what he feels, and to define all her charms and special qualities in words. As a lover, Colman was the perfect female fantasy figure. Ronald Colman is the amalgam of Boyer, Powell, and Flynn. He’s romantic, foreign, sophisticated, comic, dashing, and adventurous—the three of them rolled into one, and the only one of them to have won an Oscar. In fact, watching Colman is a lesson in what film acting really is. Despite his stage training, his melodious voice, and his ability to deliver dialogue theatrically, Colman is the consummate movie performer. He is understated and calm under the camera’s scrutiny. In repeated intense close-ups in A Tale of Two Cities, he conveys the pain and irony and despair of a seemingly casual drunkard, the self-sacrificing Sydney Carton, who does a far, far better thing than any one single human being ever would or could do. In a sense, Colman as Carton is an early antihero—the outsider, the loner, the man who doesn’t succeed, doesn’t get the girl, and doesn’t have a happy ending (unless you count beheading as a satisfying solution to life).

  CHARLES BOYER

  Charles Boyer

  Charles Boyer became a Hollywood star because he was French. Not French as in “born in France” (although he had been), but “French” like Pepé Le Pew. With his rich, low voice, his charming accent, his big bedroomy eyes, and his Continental swagger, he was every American moviegoer’s idea of Big-time French. He rose to fame on the basis of that stereotype, but he was so much more. Boyer was an exceptionally fine actor, with both depth and range. He achieved top stardom in three countries (France, Germany, and the United States) and was successful in three show business arenas (movies, stage, and television). From his earliest appearance in a French silent movie in 1920 to his last appearance opposite Liza Minnelli and Ingrid Bergman in A Matter of Time, in 1976, he gave fifty-six years of superb performances as hero, villain, lover, comedian, or stalwart old man. His image and his quality were stable. Audiences knew they could count on him. But the bottom line of his success—and of all his characters—was a simple one: Charles Boyer was French, always French. Even when he was Chinese, Boyer was French.

  Boyer’s career shows how clever Hollywood had to be. It had to not only recognize all forms of star potential but also manipulate them successfully. With Boyer, it wasn’t easy. A mature man with a solid performance record before he arrived in Hollywood, he never submitted to the workings of the star machine. He was never under long-range contract to any single studio. He was notoriously difficult to negotiate with, having intelligence, good taste in scripts, and a solid business sense. What’s more, he had other options: a return to the stage, filming in Europe, even retirement. Boyer was a challenge to the studio system in every way. He was a rather short, aging, slightly balding man with a heavy foreign accent, and he had to be made into an idealized romantic leading man, a real movie star. To accomplish this, Hollywood had to maneuver him into typecasting, and this it did. The horror of the star system—and its power—was that despite never giving himself over to it completely, Boyer was nevertheless defined by it. Hollywood guided him to type—French lover—and took the time to do it because it discovered that audiences liked him that way. The studios might just as easily have cast him differently. The very things that made him a desirable leading man—his Frenchness, his alluring accent—might have doomed him to only a few years in support of big-name female stars or, worse yet, a longer career as a second banana, the guy who doesn’t get the girl (a Gallic Ralph Bellamy). He might even have become no more than a stock villain (a Gallic Basil Rathbone). Instead, despite his independence, his ability to play both comedy and drama, his internationalism, his success in many areas, his brains, his firm intentions not to let it happen, Hollywood found and typecast him. They were clever, but Boyer was canny. Seemingly he gave a Gallic shrug, said, “C’est la vie,” and stabilized his career by accepting his fate. He was very wise about it. He brought humor to what might have been his limitation. He allowed his image to be typed, but because he had real acting talent, he varied and reversed it as his fame mounted. Boyer entered the game, accepted its rules, stayed at the table, and found a way to come out on top year after year. He accepted age. He accepted the collapse of the studio system that had made him a star. He accepted television. He accepted work in any country that offered it. He endured.

  Boyer had two major physical assets: his voice and his eyes. His voice seemed to croon, to soothe, to lure. Its lilting foreign accent carried the promise of something delicious, something forbidden. Boyer had what was possibly the sexiest male voice in the movies. His eyes looked sad, almost wounded. They gave audiences the sense that he had suffered deeply yet never lost his belief in some possibility of happiness. Nothing makes a man a star faster than women in the audience believing that they, and only they, can make him happy. Boyer projected “I need you” to female fans, with an added little soupçon of “and that means only you, baby, and nobody else.” He seemed not only deeply romantic and wildly sensual, but also like he’d be fun. He was a great lover with a touch of humor. He seemed to be a survivor of romantic Sturm und Drang, a man who understood that making a scene or threatening to die for love wasn’t necessary. Something sensibly sexy could be worked out, and even if it turn
ed out to be the grand passion of his/her life, it could be on a civilized basis. No other actor could quite work the deeply, sadly romantic side of the street and still come back down the comic other side the way Boyer could.

  How cleverly he could be both romantic and comic without compromising either is well illustrated by comparing his appearance in an I Love Lucy episode (1956) to his superb Oscar-nominated performance as Napoleon in Conquest (1937), opposite Garbo. In I Love Lucy, Lucy encounters Boyer during a trip to Paris, and he becomes her victim as everyone who encounters her inevitably does. (Lucy was a comedy serial killer.) When Boyer, playing himself, bumps into his old friend Ricky/Desi, he tells him that he’s just met Lucy for the first time. Smiling happily, Boyer begins to tell Ricky what happened: “Lucy asked me to—” Before he can even say what, Ricky cuts him right off: “No!” he yells. “No!” No matter what Lucy has requested, Ricky knows it’s going to be a disaster for Boyer.

  What Lucy has “requested” is a wonderful comedy premise. When she accidentally “met” Boyer, she didn’t believe it was really him. Wanting to pretend that she knows Charles Boyer (and not realizing that her husband really does know him), Lucy has hired Maurice DuBois (Boyer) to pretend to be Charles Boyer. She then sets about teaching DuBois how to act like Charles Boyer, constantly telling him he’s not doing it right and that he doesn’t understand the type. Boyer’s timing in response is impeccable. He’s as easy and natural in his exaggerated comic Boyer performance as Lucille Ball is in hers as Lucy. Most great actors, certainly most serious actors, can’t really play comedy well. Audiences applaud their efforts, but the applause is a form of pity, the good sport award for their being jolly good fellows who generously give their pants permission to fall down. Being willing to try comedy is considered a major accomplishment for an Olivier or a Richard Burton. For Boyer, no pity is required. He not only can play comedy, he can play silly comedy. He can even do slapstick. In I Love Lucy, Boyer proves he can ride right over the top and still be Charles Boyer.