When he left, she told Helen Rose, “Spence has really aged. I doubt if he’ll live out the 1950s.”
Despite his failing health, Tracy would go on to live until 1967, when he died after making his last film, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner with his co-star and long-time companion, Katharine Hepburn.
About halfway through the shooting of The Merry Widow, MGM announced that both Lana and Lamas would co-star together in an upcoming movie, Latin Lovers. Around the same time, another announcement was made: The U.S. Marines had voted Lana the number one star of “Orality”—that is, a woman desiring to be kissed often and thoroughly.
Runner-up was Jane Russell, with Faye Emerson coming in third. In fourth place was Ava Gardner, trailed by the stripper, Lili St. Cyr.
Lana rebounded from her two recent failures with a hit. The Merry Widowplayed from Lima, Peru to Edinburgh, Scotland, from Buenos Aires to Rome. The romantic combination of Lana with Lamas, on screen and off, was combustible.
Though praised for its production values, The Merry Widow received some nasty comments from critics. One of them defined it as “more fizzle than fizz.”
Newsweek praised the performances of both Lana and Lamas, as well as the baroque scenery of Marshovia. “Lana Turner is a well turned and glowing widow.”
Bosley Crowther, of The New York Times, wrote, “The Merry Widow has never had it so good.”
***
When Lana met Lamas, he had been married twice, the first time in 1940 to Perla Mux, an Argentinian film star. After his divorce from her, in 1946, he married Lydia Barache, the daughter of a Uruguayan real estate tycoon. Joining the cast of The Merry Widow, Lamas was in the final throes of his second divorce.
He had gotten his start as a movie star in his home country of Argentina, appearing in On the Last Floor in 1942. In America, he’d made such films as Rich, Young, and Pretty in 1951, and The Law and the Lady the same year.
He was not as good an actor as Ricardo Montalban, but he could sing fairly well, and Bern-hardt decided to use his own voice in the final cut of the song “Vilia,” where Lana’s voice had to be dubbed.
“When Lana Turner met Lamas for the first time, the birds burst into song, the bells rang in the church tower, the roses burst into sudden bloom, and the vines produced tender grapes,” said director Curtis Bernhardt. “It was love at first sight. And no wonder. He was a very sexy guy in tight pants that revealed his manly powers.”
Helen Young said, “Lana was ripe for a new romance now that she didn’t kill herself and had dumped Bob Topping. It was about time.”
Many reviewers commented on the tight trousers Lamas wore in the film. A reporter asked him who his tailor was. He didn’t answer, but said, “I believe it pays to advertise. Soon, Ava Gardner will be knocking on my door.”
He was right.
***
Lamas was already thirty-six when he met Lana. He boasted, “I’d had a lot of loving under my belt, which I unbuckled a lot to give the gals a thrill, even Miss Perón herself. She told me, ‘If only Juan could make love like you do.’”
[She was referring, of course, to Juan Perón, president (aka Military Dictator) of Argentina.]
Lana sounded like a love-sick schoolgirl during her ravings about Lamas to Virginia Grey. “Fernando is so gorgeous he should be arrested for causing a gal’s heart to flutter dangerously,” she gushed. “As you know, I’ve seduced the best-looking men on MGM’s roster of stars, everyone from Clark Gable to Robert Taylor. But Fernando is the best. He has a bronze tan, pearly whites, and always wears a silk scarf around his neck…each day, a different color, perhaps marigold, perhaps pink rose.”
Grey responded, “It’s called ‘gaucho charisma.’”
Esther Williams, who occupied the dressing room next to Lana’s, was among the first to witness the budding romance between Lana and Lamas. She saw him walking by in a “skin-tight brown dancer’s leotard, which made no secret of his masculine charm,” she wrote in her memoirs.
She related how she was even a witness to the first time Lana seduced Lamas. She heard Lana shout, after opening the door to her dressing room, “Fernando Lamas! Get your Argentinean ass in here!”
Williams confessed to putting a glass to the wall to hear what was going on. “The first movement began with gentle strings and sighing woodwinds. The second movement brought in the whole brass section with trumpets and tuba blowing like crazy. The third movement was filled with pounding kettledrums and marimbas which reached a wild and ecstatic crescendo.”
Then she heard Lana moan, “Oh, Fernando! OH FERNANDO!”
“One of my goals in deserting the film colony of Argentina and coming to Hollywood was to seduce both Ava Gardner (left) and Lana Turner.
“I succeeded both times beyond my wildest dreams.”
“When word got out about me, my phone didn’t stop ringing all night. But I was always too busy to answer it.”
During the filming of The Merry Widow, the press was quick to pounce on gossip about the romance of the film’s co-stars. Although neither of Cupid’s afflicted delivered any extended details about their love affair, Lamas, at least, made some quotable quotes:
“It is a known fact that Latin men prefer blondes. There is a difference between Latin men and American men. Latins give you more of everything: More headaches, more temper, and more tenderness. I am a handsome Latin and a wonderful lover. I got into movies because it was a great way to meet broads.”
Lana gave Lamas the key to her home. One afternoon, when he got off from work several hours before Lana was finished at the studio for the day, he came to her house to swim in her pool. Cheryl was already there, playing beside its edge.
Rumors about Lamas’ genitalia made the rounds of Hollywood. In 1969, when he married Esther Williams, he said, “I’m hung very high. Somehow, my genitalia have been placed high on my pelvic bone. So it looks like this thing of mine goes on forever. It’s really quite normal, but, of course, it’s very grand when erect.”
Williams also claimed that Lamas never wore underwear. “He had a way of thrusting his hips forward that made it very obvious what was inside those pants,” she said. “And what was there was very substantial. It was his way of letting people know that he had a tremendous package.”
He came out onto the patio wearing a terrycloth robe. He asked her, “Have you ever seen a nude man before?” She shook her head no, later writing, “All I knew was that men had short hair and wore a fig leaf over their thing.”
He dropped his robe and exposed himself, revealing to Lana’s daughter what men are made of.
After that visit, he often appeared in the afternoon, each time going skinny dipping. He warned her not to tell her mother about his exposing himself to her.
Lana took Cheryl and retreated to Lake Tahoe in Nevada for six weeks to establish residency in that state so that she could file for divorce from Topping. Lamas was a frequent visitor. However, when word reached her of some of the comments he was making to the press, she exploded in anger.
One remark in particular had infuriated her. Lamas explained to reporters how Latin men make love. “We grab a gal around the neck, grasp her arms until they are black and blue, and then rip off her dress, saving the panties for last.”
When Lamas’ divorce from Lydia Barachi came through, it was assumed by reporters that he would immediately propose marriage to Lana. He did not, announcing instead, “I have no plans to marry anyone again.”
After her own divorce was finalized, Lana, too, announced to the press, “I’ll never marry again.” However, she told “gal pal,” Ava Gardner, “Fernando Lamas is going to be my next husband.”
Preparing himself for any gala event invariably became a major ordeal for Lamas. “He spent more time getting dressed than I did,” Lana said. “He didn’t want any wrinkles or lines showing in his tight pants. He explained that he couldn’t wear jockey shorts because a ‘panty line’ would show where his ass and legs cametogether. Before getting into
the car to go somewhere, he’d take off his pants and drive with it all hanging out. At some place along a street with bushes, he and his pants would get out of the car and he’d change behind the screening of the bushes. That way he could arrive at the party without any wrinkles in his pants.”
One night, when Lana and Lamas had gone nightclubbing at Mocambo, an angry-looking Lucille Ball approached their table. She was furious at Lamas’ comments about Latin lovers. “You’re the god damn reason Desi is chasing after every woman in skirts. He’s trying to live up to the reputation you’ve set for Latin men. You’re a horrible role model, you son of a bitch.” Then she stormed away.
One night, Lana hosted a dinner party, inviting eight of her friends, including Virginia Grey. Before the party, Lamas told her that he would not attend, complaining about one of his recurring migraines.
After the meal, Lana invited her guests into her living room, where she switched on the music. There was much drinking and loud talking.
Suddenly, with a burst of anger, Lamas was seen bounding down the steps from the bedroom upstairs. He was entirely nude, shouting for the guests to leave the house at once. Then he stormed back up the stairs.
With embarrassed apologies, Lana escorted her friends to the door. Then she went upstairs, where she found him lying nude on the bed, glaring at her.
“Do you know, sir, that when you yell and you’re jaybird naked, you produce an erection?”
“I’m not angry now, and look what I’m producing for you.”
Eager to sample it, she headed toward the bed.
***
Lana feared that her career would nosedive if she made another flop. The big Technicolor musical, The Merry Widow, had done well at the box office, but as a follow-up, she wanted a non-musical role since, “I view myself as a modern woman who can pull off a contemporary drama minus the lavish costume period pieces where I look like some mannequin.”
She thought she’d found it in a proposed script in the Hollywood-on-Hollywood genre like Judy Garland’s remake of A Star Is Born or like Gloria Swanson as the delusional silent screen has-been in Sunset Blvd.
The plot of Lana’s newest film dates back to 1949 when it was published in the Ladies’ Home Journal as a short story, Of Good and Evil, by George Bradshaw. It was later expanded and renamed Memorial to a Bad Man (later retitled as A Tribute to a Bad Man).
When the project was assigned to producer John Houseman, he wanted to change the venue from Broadway to Hollywood.
Bradshaw had based the lead character (producer Jonathan Shields) on the notorious Jed Harris, “the Terror of the Great White Way.”
Houseman didn’t want to make another movie about Broadway because of the recent success of All About Eve, in which its co-stars, Bette Davis and Anne Baxter, had each been cast as Broadway stars, generating performances that earned Oscar nominations for each of them.
When Lana was signed, with the provision that she would receive top billing, Dore Schary, the new head honcho at MGM, wanted the film’s title changed to reflect Lana’s character. The revised title was The Bad and the Beautiful. At first, House-man objected, but later, he came to like it.
Vincente Minnelli, as director, and Houseman each wanted to bring it to the screen, with Lana cast into the female lead of Georgia Lorrison. But the studio chief, Dore Schary, who had replaced Louis B. Mayer, needed to be convinced. He felt that even at best, the picture would be a “B,” and consequently allocated it a modest budget of a million dollars. Contractually, he approved of Lana’s services for only four weeks of shooting, because he wanted to cast her as a follow up in another Technicolor musical, Latin Lovers, alongside her current lover, Fernando Lamas, typecast.
Lana felt that her role of Georgia might be the equal of her portrayal of Cora in The Postman Always Rings Twice. “I didn’t get the Oscar for that, but here’s a second chance for me,” she told Minnelli, who at the time was somewhat depressed, coming down from his divorce from Judy Garland.
“Many of my friends wondered why I wanted to make such an anti-Hollywood movie,” Minnelli said. “I told them I didn’t see the character of Jonathan Shields as an unregenerate heel—first, because we find out that he has a weakness, which makes him human, and second, because he’s as tough on himself as he is on everyone else, which makes him honest. That’s the complex, wonderful thing about human beings—whether they’re in Hollywood or in the automobile business or in neckties.”
In a nutshell, the plot of The Bad and the Beautiful centered around producer Jonathan Shields and how he used and abused his star, Georgia, his writer, James Lee Bartlow, and his director, Fred Amiel.
Minnelli originally offered the role of Shields to Clark Gable, hoping for another Gable/Turner co-starring package. But the King of Hollywood, whose box office allure was slipping, turned it down. Minnelli then presented it to Spencer Tracy, Lana’s former co-star, but he, too, rejected it. But Kirk Douglas, when it was offered to him, accepted immediately. (“I can be ruthless.”)
When Lana first heard a layout of the plot, and learned about her character, Georgia Lorrison, she said, “I play a soggy mess, the daughter of a world-famous actor, who is sinking into oblivion, until I am rescued by anunscrupulous producer who propels me into stardom. I make the big mistake of falling in love with him, the story of my life. I believe in Georgia. Besides, she’s a better character than those in the other turkeys presented to me.”
Minnelli told her that her character was clearly based on the alcoholic Diana Barrymore, daughter of “The Great Profile,” John Barrymore.
But the buzz in Hollywood suggested that Georgia might be based on any number of stars, former and present. At one point, Jennifer Jones believed that the role was based on her because the part of Jonathan Shields was clearly identified as inspired by her husband, David O. Selznick. Many scenes taken from his own life were inserted into the script.
The producer of Gone With the Wind was not the only inspiration for the character of Shields. The Russian American producer and screenwriter, Val Lewton, was also an inspiration. He was known for making a string of low-budget horror films for RKO Pictures, and also notorious for his cost-cutting techniques, and his abuse of his low-paid actors. His biggest hits had been Cat People (1942), The Curse of the Cat People (1944), and The Body Snatcher (1945), based on a short story by Robert Louis Stevenson.
In The Bad and the Beautiful, Shields and his director, Fred Amiel, are depicted making a low budget quickie employing “cat people.”
Charles Schnee was assigned, as a scriptwriter, to adapt Bradshaw’s short story—hence, he had to remain within the Hollywood (as opposed to the Broadway) genre. He had been a former partner in New York’s experimental Mercury Theatre, working with both Houseman and Orson Welles. Although primarily a film producer and production executive, he had nonetheless developed a few screen-writing credits, including Red River (1948), a hit Western starring John Wayne and Montgomery Clift.
In the development of her character, Minnelli told Lana that he had ordered Schnee to use some of the characteristics of his ex-wife, Judy Garland.
Dick Powell’s role as the writer was said to have been inspired by Paul Elliot Green, an academic turned screen writer whose main credit had been Cabin in the Cotton (1932), starring a very young Bette Davis [“I’d kiss ya, but I’ve just washed my hair.”]
Leo G. Carroll played director Henry Whitfield, modeling his character on Alfred Hitchcock, with whom he’d worked in several pictures, including Rebecca (1940) with Joan Fontaine and Laurence Olivier.
***
In his capacity as author of the short story that had inspired it, George Bradshaw had wanted to write the screenplay for The Bad and the Beautiful too, but Minnelli had turned him down. He was hired, however, to produce a fifty-page scenario of his original story with amplifications. Minnelli hoped to cull from the scenario some additional material to add to the screenplay already in production by Charles Schnee.
Bradshaw was gay,
as was his closest friend, the TV producer, Rogers Brackett, who at the time had a live-in lover, the then-unknown James Dean. Brackett had been supporting him, and procuring minor jobs for him in TV. Before that, Dean had been a street hustler.
Although Bradshaw did not like Dean personally, feeling that he was exploiting Brackett, he ultimately relented to his friend’s plea, “Please write in a small part for Jimmy.”
Bradshaw followed through and created a small but pivotal role for Dean.
It was inserted into one of the key moments in the film: After a triumphant win at the Oscars, Lana’s character of Georgia Lorrison arrives, uninvited and unannounced at the mansion of Jonathan Shields. There, to her horror, she encounters his new lover. According to Bradshaw’s early vision of the scene, as tailor-made for James Dean, it is not a sultry female brunette who emerges from his bedroom at the top of the stairs, as was depicted in the film’s final cut.
Lana had a distaste for the emerging young actors of the 1950s. Many of them were from the Method school of acting. However, there was something about James Dean, perhaps the wicked gleam in his eyes, that caught her attention. “Don’t tell me,” she said. “Are you a Marlon Brando clone?”
“Hell, no!” he said. “I have my own style and technique. I can act rings around Brando. And I can make an audience actually understand my mumbling. Besides, my dick is bigger than Brando’s.
“Good for you, dear boy,” she answered. “Modesty, I see is not one of your virtues. To get ahead in Hollywood, you can never be modest about your attributes.”
Instead, the culprit was obviously a gay male: James Dean, provocatively dressed only in a snug pair of white boxer shorts.
Bradshaw invited Dean and Brackett to his apartment for a presentation of the then-scenario of the movie, as he had composed it to that point. He justified the homoerotic aspect of Dean’s brief insertion into the script as follows: “To pull off Lana’s later hysterical breakdown in the moving car, I felt that the script needed something more startling than just a beautiful, seductive tart at the top of the stairs. A producer who’s fucking a starlet…that’s nothing but a big, boring cliché. Come on, guys…it’s about time we started defying the Production Code. Let’s face it: It’s 1951, not 1934.”
Lana Turner Page 57
