A Life of Barbara Stanwyck: Steel-True 1907-1940

by Victoria Wilson

  Other studios, aware of the working conditions on Stella Dallas, wanted to make sure their stars wouldn’t go through a similar near collapse. The Metro director Dorothy Arzner and the producer Joe Mankiewicz were careful with Joan Crawford during The Bride Wore Red.

  In the picture, originally intended for Luise Rainer, from the Ferenc Molnár play The Girl from Trieste, Crawford was to wear a beaded gown by Adrian that cost $10,000 and weighed thirty pounds. Crawford’s moods were reflected in the choice of English, German, and French opera recordings she played daily in her portable colonial dressing room as she prepared for the day she would sing onstage in concert. During rehearsals for the scenes with the beaded gown, Crawford wore regular clothes. The sequences were shot the following day and were broken up by frequent rest periods.

  • • •

  Barbara played tennis regularly at the Beverly Hills Tennis Club. She was a strong player and played with Marion and Zeppo and Groucho. The eight-year-old club had reinforced-concrete courts as well as two Davis Cup En-Tout-Cas courts from England. Behind the courts was a view of the mountains to the north. Capra belonged, as did Janet Gaynor and Edmund Goulding, who’d designed the locker rooms with David Burton and Robert Riskin. Mervyn LeRoy, Fredric March, and Florence Eldridge were members, as were Pandro Berman, Howard Dietz, Helen Hayes, Norman Krasna, Ernest Vajda, and Charles Lederer.

  • • •

  This Is My Affair opened on Memorial Day weekend in Los Angeles at Grauman’s Chinese and Loew’s State Theatres. The picture opened in New York at Radio City Music Hall on a program that included a Donald Duck cartoon and performances on the stage by the Music Hall Symphony, the Music Hall Glee Club, the Music Hall Corps de Ballet, and the Music Hall Rockettes.

  Reviewers were captivated by the picture’s history and by what they saw as a “smart hard-paced colorful entertainment.” The pairing of Stanwyck and Taylor, “Hollywood’s No. 1 romantic team,” was 20th Century–Fox’s “boxoffice bonanza,” although some called the love scenes between Barbara and Bob not as “palpitating as might be expected”; others said it “some of their best work.” Howard Barnes aptly described the problem for Barbara when he said there was “almost no mobility in her performance.” Dorothy Manners described Barbara as “nothing short of beautiful; a sheer optical and dramatic delight.” Variety thought the picture “slow and weak,” the production, directing, casting, and photography “near perfect,” and Barbara’s work “the most flattering spot in the film.” But the picture achieved its goal for Bob; he was seen for the first time as a “tough guy,” a man among men instead of an irresistible face for women to swoon over.

  • • •

  There were rumors that Jean Harlow was sick; she’d complained of severe abdominal pain and left the set of Saratoga to go home. Her doctor diagnosed her condition as cholecystitis and attended to her throughout the week, administering dextrose injections and sulfa drugs. Private nurses tended to her as well.

  Harlow’s last-released picture had been Personal Property with Bob Taylor. “She was so full of life and such a good sport,” he said of her.

  The press was assured Jean was improving. The opposite was true. She was under the care of a doctor, though her mother refused to send her daughter to the hospital, claiming they were Christian Scientists.

  William Powell, second from left, with his mother at the funeral service of Jean Harlow, his fiancée, at Wee Kirk o’ the Heather, Forest Lawn Memorial Park. The organ played “None but the Lonely Heart”; words were spoken from the Gospel of John and Book of Revelation. Jeanette MacDonald sang “Indian Love Call” and Nelson Eddy, “Ah, Sweet Mystery of Life,” June 1937.

  Louis B. Mayer went to the house and suggested that his own personal physician be called in. Mrs. Bello refused the offer. When Mayer returned to the studio, he was furious and described Harlow’s condition as “nothing but legalized murder.”

  Finally, Mrs. Bello called in another doctor. By the time he examined Harlow, he was helpless to do anything; it was too late to treat her. She’d been misdiagnosed. She was suffering from acute nephritis, originally brought on by scarlet fever when Harlow was fifteen, and not cholecystitis. Nephritis had developed into uremia. Dextrose injections had only exacerbated the kidney failure; diuretics would not have helped. With her kidneys completely gone, Harlow was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital, put in an oxygen tent, and given two blood transfusions. Three days later, on June 7, she slipped into a coma and died.

  Clark Gable and Lionel Barrymore were filming scenes for Saratoga, with Harlow as the lead, when word came that she had died. The studio went into mourning. The MGM commissary, newly redesigned by Cedric Gibbons, was deathly quiet. “It wasn’t a star passing away,” said Mickey Rooney. “It wasn’t ‘Jean Harlow.’ It was one of our family.”

  “She was gay and humorous, always,” said Bob. “Her vivacity and sincerity remain to inspire those of us who knew her and admired her as one of the most truly beautiful of all Hollywood’s beauties.”

  Her funeral was held two days later at Forest Lawn Memorial Park. Harlow’s casket was covered with fifteen hundred lilies of the valley and five hundred gardenias paid for by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Two hundred and fifty stars, producers, directors, screenwriters, designers, cameramen, agents, bankers, musicians, and hairdressers came to pay tribute to the twenty-six-year-old beloved actress, thought of as “one of the dearest, sweetest, most adorable human beings ever.”

  One of the honorary pallbearers said, “It was the first big Hollywood funeral. Thalberg wasn’t a public figure and Valentino had died in New York. It was quite a scene.”

  • • •

  The day of Harlow’s funeral, Barbara’s brother, By Stevens, was starting his first picture as an extra. Stevens, at thirty-two, was about to become a father and had to earn some money. Barbara adored her brother and thought he could do anything. She thought he might be able to teach. Acting wasn’t By’s calling. He didn’t take it seriously, but this was the best way he knew how to make a living.

  By was to appear in Stage Door, shooting at RKO, Barbara’s studio of the moment. Gregory La Cava was directing the adaptation of the Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman play that had opened on Broadway eight months before. La Cava, who liked to drink heavily but never while working, was an inspired director who didn’t give much direction. He often started a picture with only a few pages of a script, never planned out anything, but knew exactly what he wanted and made his actors feel as if they could play any part.

  The Broadway production of Stage Door had starred Margaret Sullavan and Phyllis Brooks as the two aspiring actresses from opposite ends of the social spectrum who share a room in a theatrical boardinghouse and who have nothing but contempt for each other and vie for the same man.

  The picture was to star the equally rivalrous actresses of the RKO lot, the imperious Katharine Hepburn, whose last few pictures, including Mary of Scotland, were box-office failures and who was nothing if not dismissive of her counterpart, Ginger Rogers. Rogers, who was flying high with one Astaire-Rogers hit after another—Follow the Fleet, Swing Time, and Shall We Dance—was desperate to do a picture without Astaire and one in which she could show that she could act.

  Barbara’s brother had a bit role in the picture, as did Florence Reed and the choreographer and Ballets Russes dancer Theodore Kosloff.

  • • •

  The construction of Marwyck was almost completed. Harry Hart was involved in every detail of its design. Marwyck was designed and built to be one of the premier breeding and stud farms in the country and to surpass even the old bluegrass farms.

  Marwyck Ranch, 1937. (COURTESY TONY FAY)

  Gone were the weeds and overgrown vines of the original landscape. Five miles of winding macadam drives took their place and made their way between twenty-two buildings: broodmare barns for twenty horses, training stable, manager’s cottage, tool and machine shed, quarters for the stable help, and a six-furlong training track. The fencing s
urrounding the property was put in before construction on the buildings was started. Barbara, Bob, and Marion invited Carole Lombard and Clark Gable to see the land. A decent interval of time went by during the day, and Barbara and Marion took out paintbrushes and paint cans and started to paint the redwood fences. “There’s something hypnotic about painting,” said Barbara. “You see someone waving a brush, and pretty soon you want to be painting too.”

  Bob offered to help Barbara, as did Uncle Buck and Dion and his nanny. Paintbrushes and paint cans appeared. Soon Clark and Carole offered to help. Barbara placed each painter a half mile away from the next so serious attention could be paid to the task at hand.

  In the end, though not solely by those who attended the mad paddock party, miles of white fencing, made of redwood planks—each post set in cement—enclosed the fields and paddocks. Beyond the cross fencing was an eleven-gauge link wire-steel fence with steel posts set every ten feet.

  With Dion on the six-furlong training track at Marwyck, Northridge, 1937.

  Each paddock was double fenced to make sure the horses or colts didn’t get into adjacent paddocks. Marwyck’s training stables were large and roomy with heavily planked boundary floors; each stall had a cabinet for grooming tools so pitchforks, rakes, and brooms could be put away instead of hung on posts. The tack and feed rooms were combined with rows of saddles, bridles, and martingales carefully hung. The feed bins, conveniently placed, were vermin-proof. The shed row was high and wide to prevent horses from damaging themselves; the loft was screened with galvanized wire netting. Every second stall had a new device called an electric fly killer. A veterinary surgeon was on duty full-time with a room devoted entirely to veterinary supplies. The entire stable was treated for termite control and had a modern automatic fire sprinkler system. In addition, every building was earthquake-proof, with steel-reinforced foundations sunk deep into the ground and girders and beams and uprights of bolted oak.

  The quarters for the stable help were close to the training stable. The building had all of the modern conveniences, including electric lights, shower baths, and steel lockers, as well as a recreation room containing a card table, pool table, and library. An oil painting of the Four Marx Brothers, from I’ll Say She Is, greeted those who entered the building.

  With Marion Marx (left), Marwyck, 1937. (CULVER PICTURES)

  The office, a bungalow, was done in knotty pine and had overstuffed chairs and divans. Built-in bookcases, filled with books about horses, stood on either side of a fireplace.

  The ranch was designed to be irrigated at any location to keep the grass and alfalfa green for grazing. Barbara and Marion hoped to bring in 130 acres of hay at the end of each season.

  The training track was to be of a loam that would not “cup out from under.” Its stretches were fifty-five feet wide and its turns ten feet wider. A chute stood at the head of each stretch; each chute had regulation starting stalls. The center field was planted with alfalfa but at any time could be turned into a polo field.

  There were utility horses and pleasure horses for Barbara and Marion and a pony for Dion, called Beauty. Horses could be boarded there for breeding. Barbara and Dion rode their horses from Marwyck into Van Nuys with nothing along the way but dirt paths.

  Josef von Sternberg and Paul Kelly owned houses close by. Bob Taylor and Clark Gable were thinking of buying farms in the vicinity. Bob was living at 510 North Roxbury Drive down the road from Jack and Mary Benny and Benita Hume and Ronald Colman and was making plans to buy land (thirty acres) six miles from Barbara’s. Bob’s idea was to build a modest Early American farmhouse of four rooms. Gable was thinking of boarding his horse there. Raoul Walsh had a breeding stable in the valley, as did Winnie Sheehan. Charles Bickford owned a hog ranch there. Barbara was impressed with Bickford’s real estate ventures. He’d owned garages and a women’s wear shop, and he bought what he called “corners” all over the city. It took her a while to figure out that “corners” were gas stations.

  Barbara and the Marxes sent out invitations for an all-day opening to officially inaugurate Marwyck Ranch. On the Sunday of the opening, Marwyck’s first filly foal was dropped, its first Thoroughbred, of Sun Beau.

  Barbara said, describing the event, “I don’t know that the birth of the Quintuplets [four years before] was any more exciting to the Dionnes than Marwyck’s first foaling was to me.”

  SIX

  Well, Who Am I?

  1937

  Brian Stanwyck Stevens. This is what I want his name to be,” said Barbara to her brother, By, of his newborn son.

  Barbara didn’t have a child of her own blood; she wanted to be a part of By’s. Barbara had become friends with Brian Donlevy on This Is My Affair and admired him. They were both loners who stayed away from Hollywood. Donlevy was a shy man who liked to retreat to his Brentwood farm, take off his toupee, and write poetry. He was an adventurer as well. In between pictures, he mined for gold in the Panamint Mountains of Death Valley. As a young man, he’d run away from school and joined the army. He was a bugler in General Pershing’s 1916 campaign against Pancho Villa and a pilot in the Lafayette Escadrille in the Great War and was awarded the Croix de Guerre.

  Barbara liked the name Brian, as did By. And she wanted her name—though invented—to be part of her nephew’s. It was. He was called Brian Stanwyck Stevens.

  By’s wife, Caryl, was afraid to hold her new son. Her baby from her first marriage had died at two months. She was terrified it might happen again. Nannies were hired to take care of Brian. Caryl wasn’t easy to work for; nannies came and went, but By patiently, steadily waited on his wife, cooking, cleaning, shopping, doing the laundry.

  • • •

  Barbara was living at 615 North Bedford Drive. The foundation for her permanent home at Marwyck was excavated in April. Her classic English manor house was almost completed, as was Marion and Zeppo’s white pillared southern plantation. Each house cost about $30,000 to build.

  Barbara’s house was designed by the Southern California architect Paul Williams, winner of the Beaux-Arts Medal. Williams was changing the look of Los Angeles through his designs of apartment houses (the Sunset Plaza Apartments); hotels (the Knickerbocker in Hollywood); movie theaters (the Fox in Huntington); churches (Pleasant Hill Baptist Church and the Second Baptist Church, both in Los Angeles); car showrooms (Packard of Beverly Hills); schools and fire and police stations.

  With Dion; Barbara’s sister-in-law, Caryl Stevens; and her nephew, Brian Stevens, 1937. (COURTESY TONY FAY)

  Williams’s style was defined by dramatic spaces and shapes: sweeping open-air foyers, coffered ceilings, curved staircases, massive windows with garden views—Hollywood’s idea of English aristocratic country living. It was a style gleaned from the Virginia plantation houses of Nancy Lancaster’s youth—bold, elegant, unpretentious—a style Lancaster transposed to the Palladian Kelmarsh Hall in Northamptonshire, England, and the eighteenth-century Ditchley Park of Oxfordshire. Lancaster’s ability to make a grand house seem less grand and her sunny disregard for the preservation of “important furniture” were exactly what Barbara wanted for Marwyck.

  Williams, like Barbara, had been orphaned at four and was raised separated from his brother. Williams had managed to triumph over the issue of race and prejudice. His instructor at Polytechnic High School had said to him, “Whoever heard of a Negro architect?”

  By the time Williams was thirty, he’d designed an estate for the horse breeder Jack Atkin and a thirty-two-thousand-square-foot home (Cordhaven) for Errett Lobban Cord, head of the Auburn Automobile Company, introducer of the Model J Duesenberg and the Cord L-29, the first American car made with front-wheel drive. The openness and sweeping grandeur of Williams’s design were hallmarks of the stage sets of the celebrated theatrical scenic designer Jo Mielziner, with their signature double-storied windows.

  Barbara and Marion Marx in 1937 with Harry Hart, Marwyck’s manager, who chose the location of the ranch because its air currents helped t
he horses to flourish throughout the year. (CULVER PICTURES)

  Bob’s proposed new house—a rambling Early American farmhouse—was to be built up the road from Marwyck. In the meantime, he was living at 510 North Roxbury. Barbara planned to supervise the furnishing of Bob’s house when he was in England making a new picture. Helping her would be the former silent star Jetta Goudal, who, after her lawsuit against Cecil B. DeMille for breach of contract, became an interior decorator with her husband, the art director Harold Grieve. Bob wanted the furniture to be modern. Barbara’s own house, except for the few rooms in which she, Dion, Nellie, and Uncle Buck were to live, was barely furnished.

  • • •

  Barbara hadn’t moved into the house, but Marwyck was officially open for business. The stables were up, and the training track was finished. Marwyck had one stallion, a bay called the Nut, a son of Mad Hatter from Afternoon by Prince Palatine. The Nut had won the Latonia Championship.

  Bing Crosby as official ticket taker, opening day of his Del Mar Race Track with its first patron, July 5, 1937. (DEL MAR THOROUGHBRED CLUB)

  Marwyck had twenty broodmares, each selected by Harry Hart, including Granny’s Trade, daughter of Axenstein; Jane Packard, by the stallion Spanish Prince 2d, out of Lamplight, who’d won twenty-five races; and Maylite, half sister of Chase Me. Among the two-year-olds, yearlings, and weanlings were Sun Beau, Sunador, Ladkin, Tick On, Distraction, Golden Broom, and Reveille Boy. The ranch had already sold a number of yearlings.

  Barbara was thrilled when Bing Crosby opened his $1,000,0000 Del Mar track. (Crosby’s slogan: “Where the turf meets the surf.”) The Del Mar track was a hundred miles from Los Angeles, twenty miles from San Diego, with a landing strip for planes and a harbor for yachts. Del Mar’s purses were $5,000 a day with eight races daily and a grandstand that sat four thousand people.