In 1956, Warner Bros. sold the rights to many of their films to television. They also developed several series for a new network known as ABC. Some of their early shows included westerns such as Maverick starring James Garner and dramas like 77 Sunset Strip with teen favorite Edd “Kookie” Byrnes.
It was about that time that brother Abe, now in his seventies, decided he’d had enough and wanted to retire. Harry, with no son to leave the business to, was more reluctant. It was Jack who ultimately talked his siblings into selling only to turn around, retrieve his shares and appoint himself as President. Jack’s underhanded strategy caused Harry’s collapse and a final rift between the brothers that never closed.
The last time the two men saw each other was at Harry and Rea’s golden wedding anniversary party. Suffering from the aftereffects of several strokes, Harry was unable to communicate and too ill to participate in the festivities. He simply sat in a chair watching. Jack, who made a boisterous entrance, downed a drink and went looking for his brother. Jack, Jr. described the final meeting between his father and uncle:
[Jack] stepped close to his brother and tried to say something of little consequence, hoping Harry would perhaps notice him. Harry did notice … and he did the only thing he could still do. He closed his eyes tightly, shutting his brother from sight—and two big tears slowly rolled down his sunken cheeks … Then, with his face suddenly gone bright red, my father turned and almost ran out of the silent room. I reached over to hold my uncle’s hand for a while until the tears stopped.
Harry Warner died the following summer while Jack was living the life on the French Riviera. He declined to attend his brother’s funeral. Four days later, after a late-night session of baccarat in Cannes, Jack collected his winnings and headed home. As he drove along the winding road in his sporty Alfa Romeo, it is believed that he fell asleep at the wheel. His car crossed the center line and collided with a parked coal truck. The car flipped, caught fire, and Jack was tossed forty feet.
He was picked up by a group of fellow gamblers who happened by in a Volkswagen. They literally shoved his broken body into the back seat and took him to a hospital in Cannes. As Jack hovered near death, Ann was notified. Jack, Jr. was not. He heard about his father’s accident on the radio. After four months of convalescence in France, Jack returned to the states. In late 1958, he made his way back to work, but not before he had his only son fired and banned from the premises. When the shocked Jack, Jr. asked for an explanation, he was simply told that he reminded his father too much of Irma. Jack Warner penned his autobiography, My First Hundred Years in Hollywood, in 1964. There was not one mention of his son or his first wife. He recorded that he was a single man when he met Ann.
By the end of 1966 even the seventy-two-year-old Jack was getting tired. He sold his shares of Warner Bros. for $32,000,000 and a promise that he could continue working as an independent producer. The following year, Brother Abe, struck by a stroke, died in his Miami home after a good day at the track on November 26, 1967. Jack was now the last surviving Warner brother.
It was another two years before he, too, left the company that he and his brothers had built. In 1973, not long after his eightieth birthday, Jack took a fall while playing tennis. His health declined and he grew disoriented. Four years later, he suffered a major stroke and was wheelchair-bound, leaving Ann to care for him. Another stroke later claimed his eyesight. Warner died of edema on September 9, 1978 at the age of 86—the final Warner and the last of Hollywood’s original movie moguls.
“America’s Sweetheart” Mary Pickford may not have been a movie mogul like the Warners, but she was a Hollywood powerhouse in her own right. When she received the call telling her that her beloved Douglas Fairbanks was dead, she claimed that she intuitively knew before she even picked up the phone. Even though she was now wed to her leading man in My Best Girl (1927), Charles “Buddy” Rogers, Pickford still mourned the loss of Fairbanks the rest of her days. My Best Girl had been her final silent film, not counting an uncredited role as the Virgin Mary in Fairbanks’ adventure film, The Gaucho (1927).
Pickford made a total of five talking pictures—the first, Coquette (1929), garnered her a Best Actress Academy Award. In her final film, Secrets (1933), she appeared opposite British actor Leslie Howard. Pick-ford had been making movies and playing children since 1909. At the age of forty-one and with over 200 films to her credit, she retired from filmmaking. She later explained:
I left the screen because I didn’t want what happened to Charlie Chaplin to happen to me. When he discarded the little tramp, the little tramp turned around and killed him. The little girl made me. I wasn’t waiting for the little girl to kill me.
Just as her moviemaking days were coming to a close, Pickford’s personal life unraveled. Breast cancer claimed her beloved mother, Charlotte, in 1928 ending a terrible three-year battle that Mary could only watch—terrified and helpless. Three months after Charlotte’s death, perhaps in a fit of rebellion, Pickford ordered her hairdresser to cut off her famous curls. Her new bob set off a national frenzy. For the first time in more than twenty years, “America’s Sweetheart” fell from favor. With her maternal anchor gone, her marriage to Fairbanks coming unglued and her career floundering, Pickford took comfort in the bottle—an unfortunate practice the Pickfords all shared.
By the time she married Rogers in 1937, she had experienced even more family loss. Brother Jack, who lived in a world of excess, fell ill and died in Paris on January 3, 1933 at the age of 37. On December 9, 1936, sister Lottie, 41, was felled instantly by a heart attack. The family Pickford had so dutifully cared for, supported and loved her entire life was gone.
After their marriage, Rogers and Pickford settled at Pickfair—Mary’s part of the divorce settlement. Despite their new spouses, Fairbanks and Pickford never lost their connection or the sadness they shared over their failed marriage. He often visited, and together they sat by the pool lamenting their past mistakes.
Despite her personal melancholia, Pickford remained duty-bound. In 1941, she was still a partner at UA and continued her charity work. She was also a decision maker on the board of the Motion Picture Relief Fund. Twenty years earlier, she helped establish the fund intending to provide assistance to filmmakers in need. She was also the force behind the “Payroll Pledge Program” whereby studio employees earning more than $200 each week could give one half of one percent to the fund. As a result, the group was able to purchase property in Woodland Hills, California where they built the Motion Picture Country House. It was Pickford who picked up a shovel and broke ground.
At the age of 51, the former actress gave in to a temporary maternal desire and adopted six-year-old Ronald Charles. The following year, she acted on a whim and brought home five-month-old Roxanne. As the children grew, the novelty of motherhood wore off and their care was mostly left to the servants or private boarding schools. As for Pickford, she continued drinking and was prone to outbursts that when sober she could not remember.
In 1955 Pickford penned her autobiography, Sunshine and Shadows, picking and choosing her own version of events. The following year, she sold all of her UA shares for $3,000,000—the last of Hollywood’s original big four to move on. Chaplin had already gotten out of the company, as well as the country, a few years earlier, while both Griffith and Fairbanks were long since dead.
Her marriage to Rogers was a lasting one, but she was not easy to live with. She often called him “Douglas” and took out her frustrations on him—whether she was in a drunken rage or a lucid moment of animosity. Not one to complain, Rogers took most of her abuse in stride—always ready to protect and defend her when he felt it was necessary. As the years passed, Mary grew more and more reclusive, rarely leaving Pickfair and some days not even getting out of bed. She took phone calls, but admitted fewer and fewer visitors to her inner sanctum.
Among those allowed inside were her stepson, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr., and old friends such as writer Adela Rogers St. Johns and actress Lillian G
ish. Pickford liked to reminisce about the early days of Hollywood and her marriage to Fairbanks. On one visit with St. Johns, a tearful Pickford asked her: “Will Douglas ever forgive me?” After all those years, her guilt over their unhappy ending still consumed her.
When she received an honorary Oscar in 1976, a film crew went to Pickfair where she said a few words of thanks in front of the camera. After that her mental and physical state declined to the point where she thought she was young again and still the Queen of Hollywood. Eighty-seven-year-old Pickford died on May 29, 1979 after suffering a stroke a few days earlier. Rogers, her loyal husband of more than four decades, was at her side.
Pickford’s petite frame and sausage-like curls belied the shrewd businesswoman that hid behind a façade of innocence. Her fans never accepted her any other way, but Mary had to eventually grow up and when she did her long Hollywood reign ended. Her influence, however, remains. With every Academy Award presented, along with each new resident welcomed at the Motion Picture and Television Country House and Hospital, the aura of Mary Pickford lingers on.
If the delicate Pickford represented the feminine face of Hollywood, director Raoul Walsh went for the macho. While he was busy establishing the Academy, Walsh also found time to marry his second wife, Lorraine Helen Walker, in Tijuana, Mexico. Following their nuptials, he got sidetracked with a rousing round of roulette. The gambling groom walked away with $18,000 in winnings on his wedding night.
He also directed his final silent film, Sadie Thompson (1928), which was based on author W. Somerset Maugham’s play Rain. Gloria Swanson was cast as lady of the night Sadie, with Lionel Barrymore as the self-righteous missionary who gives in to her dubious charms. Walsh himself took on a supporting role as a marine officer—his first in more than ten years. It was also his last, but he didn’t plan it that way.
With sound entering the pictures, Walsh didn’t want to be left behind. He agreed to direct and star in the talking western In Old Arizona (1929). Playing the Cisco Kid, Walsh sported a moustache and a Mexican accent. Filming took place on location in Utah until the company’s sound van broke down. Nearly done with their scenes, the group packed up and headed back to the studio where they planned to finish the job. Driving through the desert at night, a jackrabbit vaulted through the windshield smashing into Walsh. Severely cut by the shattered glass, he was taken by train to a Salt Lake City hospital. The cuts and scrapes eventually healed, but Walsh lost his right eye. When doctors offered him a glass one, he declined: “No, I’d get drunk and lose it.”
In Old Arizona was reshot with actor Warner Baxter taking Walsh’s role as the Cisco Kid under the direction of Irving Cummings. Baxter won an Academy Award for his performance and went on to play the Cisco Kid in several sequels. Walsh may have lost out on the movie, but he gained his most defining accessory—the black eye patch.
Nothing kept Walsh down for long—not even a missing eye. He returned to work and in 1930 directed a western called The Big Trail. The film featured former prop man Marion Morrison, in his first major role. Fox brass agreed that a feminine name like “Marion” was not manly enough for one of their rugged cowboys. At the same time, Walsh had taken a shine to Revolutionary War General “Mad” Anthony Wayne. Anthony or Tony Wayne didn’t cut it, but they all agreed on just plain “John.” It was all-American, masculine and perfectly fit the tall, strapping young man. Unfortunately, the movie flopped and John Wayne had to wait a bit before landing his breakout role.
Walsh directed mostly unmemorable films for the rest of the decade. Anyone else might have thought about retiring or at least changing their line of work. Not Walsh. At 52, he signed on with Warner Bros. and began a period of brilliance. Walsh’s first film for the Warners starred two heavy hitters, James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart. The Roaring Twenties (1939) was not only box office dynamite, it was a crowning achievement in the gritty gangster genre, allowing Walsh to reclaim his top director status.
That same year, the first Mrs. Walsh resurfaced. In their original divorce agreement, Miriam Cooper was to receive $500 worth of weekly alimony. In 1934, she agreed to a reduced payment of $325 with one stipulation—if her ex-husband missed three consecutive payments, she could come after him under the terms of the first agreement. Confused? Walsh must have been. He failed to make three payments in October resulting in Cooper’s claim that Walsh now owed her $46,650. She figured that under the original $500 agreement, she should have gotten a total of $130,500 over the years. Instead she only received $83,850—hence the difference. Who said high finance was easy?!
Their sons, John, now 25, and Robert, 17, had been living with their mother. Robert, still a minor, petitioned the court asking that his guardianship be given to his father. The court granted his request and in late 1941, the battling Walshes finally reached a settlement. Cooper collected $25,000 in cash, $225 per week for four years and then $200 a week for the rest of her life or until she remarried—something she never did.
With the court drama behind him, Walsh renewed his successful partnership with Bogart with They Drive by Night (1940) and High Sierra (1941). In a change of pace, he reteamed with Cagney for a sentimental look at the early 1900s in The Strawberry Blonde (1941)—Walsh’s personal favorite of all his sound pictures. His final film of 1941 starred Errol Flynn as General George Custer. They Died with Their Boots On was the first of several movies that Flynn and Walsh would make together.
Walsh went on to direct a variety of films during the forties. He helmed the biopic Gentleman Jim (1942) with Errol Flynn as boxer James J. Corbett, war drama Objective Burma! (1945) also with Flynn and The Horn Blows at Midnight (1945), a comedy featuring comedian Jack Benny as an angel.
His professional winning streak, however, didn’t extend to the home front. After a brief separation, wife Lorraine filed for divorce on the grounds of mental cruelty. She stated that: “For the last five years, Mr. Walsh has been very rude. He refuses to talk. When friends called at our home he refused to talk to them. His only explanation was that he wanted to live alone.” For her trouble, the second ex-Mrs. Walsh was awarded $200 a week in alimony for the rest of her life or until she married again—which she did.
In 1947, Walsh wed for the third time. His bride was Mary Edna Simpson, the daughter of a Kentucky horse-breeder whom the director met while visiting Lexington. He was 60; she was 23. The couple married in Mexico, but two years later decided to do it again in Tucson—just in case their south-of-the-border union wasn’t legal.
In 1949, Walsh once again reached another peak in his long career with White Heat. Back with James Cagney as the thoroughly contemptible mama’s boy, Cody Jarrett, Walsh directed one of his finest films and Cagney gave one his greatest performances. In the final climactic scene, as the despicable Jarrett reaches the top of a jumbo gas storage tank, he goes out in a fiery blaze, hollering: “Made it, Ma! Top of the world!”
Walsh spent the last twelve years of his career freelancing. He worked and played with many Hollywood greats: “They were all marvelous people. The sad part about it, I lost four of them—Bogey, Flynn, Gable and Cooper, all within four years.… One right after another—all great friends of mine. Between pictures we used to pal around. I used to go fishing and hunting with Cooper and I used to go hunting down in Utah and Arizona with Gable. And I used to go out drinking with Flynn.”
He even sold his three-bedroom home in Encino to Gable just before the actor married Carole Lombard. Later, the two men teamed up to bid on the Detroit Tigers baseball franchise. Their intention was to eventually move the team from Michigan to the west coast. That deal didn’t pan out, so Gable and Walsh continued making movies and the Tigers continued playing baseball in Motown.
After more than half a century, Walsh finally retired from films. His last movie was the western A Distant Trumpet (1964) featuring Troy Donahue and Suzanne Pleshette. The former director lived out his years with his wife, Mary, on his 1500-acre ranch north of Los Angeles where he tended his orange trees, cattle and rac
ehorses. In 1974, he published his autobiography, Each Man in His Time: The Life Story of a Director. Of course, he took the opportunity to do what he did best—embellish.
When glaucoma claimed the sight in his left eye leaving him blind, he never complained. He once told a visitor that he could still “… sit on my porch and enjoy the bird-calls and the aroma of the flowers and detect the footsteps of the approaching internal revenue agents.”
Walsh was a tough Irishman who could tell an enthusiastic tale—a dozen different ways—none of which would ever bore his listener. Luckily, he chose to tell many of his stories on the silver screen. Known best for his adventure films and action-packed gangster movies, Walsh was considered a man’s director. He worked hard, played even harder and wore his eye patch with panache. Walsh died of a heart attack on New Year’s Eve in 1980 at the age of 93. Mary, his wife of 35 years, was with him at Simi Valley Adventist Hospital. Not one to dwell on his many achievements, he once said: “I just did my job. I let others make up the theories.”
Like Walsh, Henry King was also a distinguished Hollywood director who had been involved in filmmaking almost from the beginning. While forming the Academy, King was busy making his final movie for Goldwyn, The Magic Flame (1927). The circus drama starred Ronald Colman as a clown and Vilma Banky as a daring trapeze artist. For King, the transition to sound posed little problem. His first all-talking picture was a pirate adventure with Lupe Velez called Hell Harbor (1930) and filmed on location in Florida.
King was also raising a family with his wife, Gypsy. His stepdaughter, Ruth, was now a teen while Henry, Jr., was just six and son John only three. Their daughter, Martha Ellen, arrived in 1930, shortly after King joined Fox.
Bringing Up Oscar: The Story of the Men and Women Who Founded the Academy Page 35
