How to Be a Movie Star
Page 46
[>] "people who wanted": Interview with Robert Shaw.
[>] "Gossip has become": Time, July 28, 1947.
[>] "x factor": Basinger, The Star Machine.
[>] "Remind me to be around": Secondary quote, no primary attribution, used in Ellis Amburn, The Most Beautiful Woman in the World: The Obsessions, Passions, and Courage of Elizabeth Taylor (Cliff Street Books, 2000).
[>] "Her eyes are too old": This is a quote that has been used in many accounts, including Walker, Elizabeth. There appears to be no primary source, however, so it may be apocryphal. But among many in Elizabeth's inner circle, it is accepted as the attitude Universal held toward the child actress.
[>] "accurate memory": Sheridan Morley, Elizabeth Taylor (Applause Books, 1999).
[>] "casting glances," "Being in films": ET, Elizabeth Taylor.
[>] "in a cocoon": Good Housekeeping, April 1974.
[>] with his family to Arkansas City: In 1910 the family had already left Illinois and was living in Cherokee City, Oklahoma (U.S. Census, 1910). In 1915 they were in Arkansas City, Kansas (Kansas State Census, 1915).
[>] the draft during World War I: No record of him exists in the very extensive draft registration files at the National Archives.
[>] Howard Young Galleries: Francis Taylor's uncle was a self-made man. Leaving home at age ten to set up a laundry business, he was selling lithographs throughout the Midwest by the time he was fifteen. By the age of eighteen, Young had amassed a fortune of $400,000, losing it all in the Panic of 1896. He started over with a get-rich-quick scheme. Watching the newspapers for obituaries of wealthy men, he'd hire a painter to render oil portraits from photographs, then sell the paintings to the grieving families for $2,000 each. In his early twenties he began investing in fine art; by 1919 he was one of New York's most prominent dealers. Young could be a miser, but he clearly had a soft spot for his nephew. Uncle Howard could always be counted on for a loan whenever Francis and his young family needed it most. Obituary, NYT, June 24, 1972.
[>] remembered her from Kansas: According to a note Howard Young filed with Francis's passport application on April 1, 1921: "This is to certify that Francis Taylor has been in the service of the Howard Young Galleries for a period of six years as a salesman of art objects" (U.S. passport applications, National Archives). Since Francis didn't arrive in Ark City until some point after 1910, then the most he and Sara overlapped would have been about four years.
61 "permanent retirement": LAT, November 4, 1926.
[>] "her present intention": NYT, December 26, 1926. Sara's marriage to Francis took place a little more than a week after she'd relinquished the part of Gypsy in The Little Spitfire; she'd been considered a disappointing successor to Sylvia Field, who'd originated the part. NYT, September 1 and 12, 1926; October 12, 1926; various newspaper accounts, NYPL.
[>] The Taylors settled in London: To consider the various ways in which Sara, Elizabeth, and others presented these years, see the Ladies' Home Journal, February-April 1954; ET, Elizabeth Taylor and Elizabeth Taylor's Nibbles and Me (Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1946); Thelma Cazalet-Keir, From the Wings (Bodley Head, 1967).
[>] a clandestine affair: C. David Heymann interviewed Kurt Stempler, who admitted to an affair with Francis. J. Randy Taraborrelli in his Elizabeth (Warner Books, 2006) interviewed Francis's friends Marshall Baldridge and Stefan Verkaufen, who did not acknowledge physical relationships with him but did disclose other details of their extraordinarily close friendships. In one anecdote relayed by Baldridge, it was clear that Sara resented the intimacy he shared with her husband.
[>] "all the girls thought": Letter from Mrs. Nona Smith to Hedda Hopper, January 27, 1964, HHC, AMPAS.
[>]–63 Sara sailed with her two children: U.S. Ship Passenger Lists, National Archive. This wasn't the first time Elizabeth had been to America. On July 26, 1934, at the age of two, she'd arrived with her parents and brother to visit her grandparents; they made a return visit on November 20, 1936, when Elizabeth was four.
[>] "In that inbred": ET, Elizabeth Taylor.
[>] "a lovely, sweet kind man": Draft of a column, dated March 20, 1965, HHC, AMPAS.
[>] a dinner in honor of Victor Cazalet: LAT, May 18, 1941. Two years later Cazalet would be killed in a plane crash with General Wladyslaw Sikorski, prime minister of the Polish government in exile. It was a shock that left both Francis and Sara grief-stricken for months.
[>] "[She] had absolutely": HCSBU.
[>] "You'd never have known": Look,, June 26, 1956.
[>] a wooden ruler across her knuckles: Elizabeth would recall this in several accounts, and a source close to her reported that she told him the same story.
65 to run the MGM schoolhouse in 1932: U.S. Census, 1920, 1930.
[>] "The Little Red Schoolhouse": LAT, October 17, 1926; July 18, 1934; September 12, 1937; September 9, 1948; MGM Collection, AMPAS.
[>] "Muzzie ... was someone": Jean Porter oral history, Southern Methodist University Oral History Collection (SMU).
[>] "She didn't teach me shit": Quoted in Dick Moore, Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star: And Don't Have Sex or Take the Car (HarperCollins, 1984).
[>] "Between camera takes": ET, Elizabeth Taylor.
[>] "kids ... out of place": Moore, Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star.
[>] "I paid the bills": Interview, February 2007.
[>] "I was in constant rebellion": ET, Elizabeth Taylor.
[>] Dorothy Mullen would remember Elizabeth: Walker, Elizabeth.
[>]–68 "I wouldn't put her": HCSBU.
[>] "to come out sounding": Kitty Kelley, Elizabeth Taylor: The Last Star (Simon & Schuster, 1981).
[>] "Americanese": Interview, February 2007.
[>] Pan Berman took over from Mervyn LeRoy: The NYT reported on June 26, 1943, that Berman had taken over from LeRoy.
[>] measured her against the wall: This was told in Sara Taylor's seminal article in Ladies' Home Journal, March 1954, where many of the legends of her daughter's career were first codified. Elizabeth repeated it in Elizabeth Taylor.
[>] "There was this place Tip's": ET, Elizabeth Taylor.
[>] "It was high time": Ladies' Home Journal, February 1954.
[>] "Something quite magical": HCSBU.
[>] She burst into tears: This description is culled from several sources, including the interview with Clarence Brown in HCSBU; Alexander Walker's interview with Pandro Berman, relayed in Walker, Elizabeth; and various accounts given by Elizabeth and Sara over the years.
[>] "rocket to stardom": Syndicated, see Hartford Courant, November 14, 1943.
[>] "the biggest kid part": NYT, October 10, 1943.
[>] "the bluest of blue": Photo caption, undated press release (1943), NYPL.
[>] "Mr. Strickling didn't pay": Emily Torchia oral history, SMU.
[>] The lifeblood of the publicity department: Various memos and other papers in the MGM Collection, AMPAS, painted a picture of the workings of the publicity department. I also consulted Peter Hay, MGM: When the Lion Roars (Turner Publishing, 1991) and Ronald L. Davis, The Glamour Factory: Inside Hollywood's Big Studio System (Southern Methodist University Press, 1993). For the distinction between East Coast and West Coast movie reporting, see Neal Gabler, Winchell: Gossip, Power and the Culture of Celebrity (Alfred A. Knopf, 1994).
72 "Young Elizabeth loves animals": MGM press release, carbon copy, no date [circa 1943–1944], NYPL.
[>] "absolutely native": Ladies' Home Journal, February 1954.
[>] CHILD LITERALLY GROWS: LAT, February 27, 1944. A press release with the same headline and virtually the same copy was found in the collections at NYPL.
[>] "The child puts a spell": Photoplay, December 1945.
[>]–74 Dick was thirty-five years old: U.S. Census 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930.
[>] "the iron lung," "stars were born," "He looked rather": ET, Elizabeth Taylor.
[>] Francis Taylor's brother: John Taylor was quoted in Heymann, Liz.
[>] "Big Daddy Maye
r": ET, Elizabeth Taylor.
[>] Guilaroff worked around the clock: Sydney Guilaroff, Crowning Glory: Reflections of Hollywood's Favorite Confidant (General Publishing Group, 1996). Guilaroff's claim, sometimes echoed by Elizabeth, that Brown was fooled by the wig might be discredited by a memo from the legal department quoted in Kelley, Elizabeth Taylor, that concluded the studio did not have a contractual right to order Elizabeth to alter her appearance. However, I could not locate this memo among the MGM Collection at AMPAS.
[>] "She was thirteen," Hirshberg said: Notes from the Jack Hirshberg Collection, AMPAS.
[>] "her charms to perfection": Hopper, The Whole Truth and Nothing But.
[>] "Oh, don't end it that way": HCSBU.
[>] "She never knew": Kelley, Elizabeth Taylor.
[>] the chipmunk leaped onto Hedda's arm: Hopper, The Whole Truth and Nothing But.
[>] "Aunt Hedda": This comes from an interview with Robert Shaw and is also referenced by Hopper herself in an article that she penned about Elizabeth in Photoplay, August 1951.
[>] "I haven't yet seen National Velvet": LAT, October 27, 1944.
[>] "Elizabeth gets a star rating": LAT, November 11, 1944.
[>] "plan into action": LAT, December 13, 1944.
[>] "face is alive": NYT, December 15, 1944.
[>] "one of the screen's most lovable characters": New York Sun, December 15, 1944.
[>] "as natural and excellent a little actress": New York Post, December 15, 1944.
79 among the top ten most profitable pictures of the year: Accurate earnings are difficult to come by before 1950. The National Board of Review calculated Velvet as one of the top ten most profitable films (NYT, December 22, 1945). The Gallup Poll also listed it as one of the top ten "most popular films" of 1945 (LAT, December 24, 1945). Although it was released in Los Angeles and New York in December 1944, it did not go into general release until January 1945.
[>] "Now if you can love a child": Sheilah Graham syndicated column, as in the Hartford Courant, January 30, 1945.
[>] posing with two puppies: These shots ran in various newspapers, including the Hartford Courant, September 30, 1945.
[>] Nibbles and Me: The book was published by Duell, Sloane & Pearce, Inc., in 1946, and reissued by Simon & Schuster in 2002.
[>] gave the story lots of ink: LAT, June 11, 1946.
[>] plus a $15,000 bonus: MGM studio ledgers, MGM Collection, AMPAS.
[>] "Oh, I'm quite comfortable here": Interview with Anne Francis.
[>] the studio's "chattel": ET, Elizabeth Taylor.
[>] "We were so surprised": ET, Elizabeth Taylor.
[>] "a china doll.": Photoplay, September 1951.
3. The Most Exciting Girl
[>] "The edge had gone off": Interview with Frank Capra by George Stevens, Jr., included in the George Stevens Collection (GSC), AMPAS.
[>] out of sync with his prewar films: I based much of this on Marilyn Ann Moss, Giant: George Stevens, A Life on Film (University of Wisconsin Press, 2004); various interviews collected in Paul Cronin, ed., George Stevens: Interviews (University Press of Mississippi, 2004); and various interviews and notes in the GSC, AMPAS.
[>]–84 "The kind of girl," "It might appear": George Stevens to William Meiklejohn, May 24, 1949, GSC, AMPAS.
[>] from $20.8 million to $6.6 million: These figures were taken from various sources, notably the Motion Picture Herald. Cobbett Steinberg, Reel Facts: The Movie Book of Records (Vintage, 1982) was also a helpful compendium of data and charts.
[>] "very male member of society": Transcript of an interview with Hepburn by George Stevens, Jr., notes for "George Stevens: A Filmmaker's Journey," GSC, AMPAS.
85 Stevens actually prepared two lawsuits: These are discussed in Moss, Giant.
[>] Dropping out of Wilder's Sunset Boulevard: Most accounts seem to have confused the timing of this. William Holden was announced as a replacement for Clift on Sunset Boulevard in the NYT, March 19, 1949. According to records in Stevens's files, Clift was signed for An American Tragedy just a few days later on March 23, 1949.
[>] So Stevens insisted they do everything: In a memo dated June 15, 1949, Stevens described a meeting with Henry Ginsberg of Paramount about the importance of obtaining Elizabeth and asked for assurances "that all had been done that was possible to bring this about." GCS, AMPAS.
[>] "She was this extraordinary child": Transcript of an unpublished interview with George Stevens by Ruth Waterbury, September 7, 1962 (hereafter Waterbury transcript), GSC, AMPAS.
[>] If she played this part: Memos dated May 23, 24, and June 15, 1949, GCS, AMPAS.
[>] Metro had turned down the request: Hedda Hopper reported in early July: "George Stevens still hopes to get Elizabeth Taylor for An American Tragedy. Her studio turned down a loan-out after they'd read the wrong part. Now they've got the right one, and George expects to have a yes within the week" (Hartford Courant, July 4, 1949). In fact, Elizabeth had already been signed by the time the item ran.
[>] "The big surprise": New York Herald Tribune, August 7, 1948.
[>] "You have bosoms!": Elizabeth Taylor, Elizabeth Takes Off: On Weight Gain, Weight Loss, Self-Image, and Self-Esteem (G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1987).
[>] "No longer do her worries": Photoplay, June 1948.
[>]–88 "I learned how to look sultry": ET, Elizabeth Takes Off.
[>] "Truly a most remarkable machine": ET, Elizabeth Taylor.
[>] "drifting out through the walls": Ann Rutherford oral history (SMU).
[>] paint her mouth "way over,": Cosmopolitan, September 1987.
[>] "No woman": Elizabeth, rather immodestly, tells this story herself in ET, Elizabeth Takes Off.
[>] Glenn was twenty-three and Elizabeth just sixteen: NYT, July 19, 1948; LAT, July 19, 1948; September 13, 1948; various articles, NYPL, AMPAS.
[>] "spontaneous combustion": Hartford Courant, October 7, 1948.
[>] "the romance was largely a studio directive": Hartford Courant, April 30, 1950.
[>] "It was so childish": ET, Elizabeth Taylor.
[>]–91 a live, supposedly authentic radio interview: This extraordinary document is dated July 13, 1947, and is part of the Louella Parsons Collection, USC.
91 "didn't need skates": LAT, April 25, 1949.
[>] "The luscious, long-lashed lass of love": Unsourced article, May 10, 1949, NYPL.
[>] "deep-set pools of blue": Hartford Courant, August 29, 1948.
[>]–92 "famous violet eyes": Ellen Gatti's short stories about Lily Thorndyke ran in the Los Angeles Times from 1946 through 1949. The first instance of Elizabeth's being described as having violet eyes that I could find was in the LAT, March 23, 1949.
[>] her lord and master: Much of my conception of Mayer, his times, and his place at MGM comes from Scott Eyman, Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer (Simon & Schuster, 2005). See also Charles Higham, Merchant of Dreams: Louis B. Mayer, MGM, and the Secret Hollywood (Dutton, 1993).
[>] "foaming at the mouth": Interview on Larry King Live, January 15, 2001, CNN transcripts. Elizabeth tried a bit of whitewashing in that interview, making herself appear more innocent than she was by saying that she had never heard such words before.
[>] "You and your studio can both go to hell": Elizabeth told the story of her contretemps with Mayer in both of her memoirs, in slightly different versions.
[>] "I began to see myself": ET, Elizabeth Takes Off.
[>] "A little red schoolhouse": Waterbury transcript, GSC, AMPAS.
[>] "I would get up early": Interview on Larry King Live, January 15, 2001, CNN transcripts.
[>] "no football games to go to": Interview on Larry King Live, February 3, 2003, CNN transcripts.
[>] Extramarital affairs were whispered about: Francis Taylor was rumored to have had an affair with MGM chief costumer Adrian. C. David Heymann heard this claimed by at least two sources, one of whom was the longtime Hollywood reporter Doris Lilly. See Heymann, Liz. Sara was said to have
had a fling with director Michael Curtiz while he directed Elizabeth in Life with Father; she would have been forty-nine years old at the time, Curtiz, fifty-nine. This was claimed by Irene Dunne in an interview with Heymann, HCSBU.
[>] "idyllic, happy little family": Interview, February 2007.
[>] "no special loss": These are the words of Look reporter Eleanor Harris, who interviewed ET for a three-part story beginning in the June 26, 1956, issue. They are not ET's words, as Kitty Kelley made them seem. Still, it can be assumed that ET said something similar in the course of her interview with Harris.
95 Benny Thau remained her surrogate father: Look,, June 26, 1956. ET would name Jules Goldstone, her agent, as another surrogate father. She didn't emotionally reconnect with her real father until later. She told Helen Gurley Brown that she didn't really become close to Francis until after she'd left home. Cosmopolitan, September 1987.
[>] "It didn't show up at the time": Look, July 10, 1956.
[>] "point of contention": HCSBU.
[>] Hopper, happy as ever to help: Hartford Courant (syndicated column), May 16, 1949.
[>] the happy couple's engagement: LAT, June 6, 1949.
[>] "to announce the," "Elizabeth saw the pattern": Ladies' Home Journal, April 1954.
[>] When profits began ticking upward: Various articles, Hollywood Reporter, Variety, January-June 1949; see also Hay, MGM, and Eyman, Lion of Hollywood.
[>] "She leaves a trail of broken hearts": Unsourced article, October 1, 1949, Elizabeth Taylor file, NYPL.
[>] "a series of resounding smacks": Sunday Pictorial, September 25, 1949.
[>] "Besides taking billions": LAT, September 28, 1949.
[>] "If I were the kind of person": LAT, September 28, 1949.
[>], [>] "We went well together," "an emotional child": ET, Elizabeth Taylor.
[>] "Elizabeth isn't just any little girl": Hedda Hopper syndicated column, as in Hartford Courant, April 30, 1950.
[>] "welfare worker": Memo in the George Stevens Collection, AMPAS, October 2, 1949. Elizabeth, in Elizabeth Taylor, would use the description "social worker."
[>] "noble sheet of blue water": From Twain's Roughing It and included in a travel piece on Lake Tahoe in the NYT, May 15, 1949. Might Stevens have read this as he planned the shoot?