by Donald Bogle
Her social life in Los Angeles remained as full as ever too. Automobiles glided up the wide boulevards and into the drives of the beautiful homes for evenings of lavish entertainment. The excitement was almost palpable as the maids, butlers, cooks, and guests who arrived early wondered what elegantly dressed person would emerge when the car doors opened. With the warm weather, the spacious back lawns, and the beautifully designed patios, hosts could entertain outdoors as well as in. Guests might stroll from the living rooms and dining areas outside for cocktails or buffets under lemon or fig trees. Sometimes tents were hoisted up. Sometimes guests might spot victory gardens in which celebrated Angelenos, like everyone else in a time of rationing, grew their own vegetables.
Hollywood personalities could be pretentious but not in the highly intellectualized manner of guests in the East. Here the emphasis was far more on conspicuous consumption. Often enough, the talk was about the latest acquisition, be it a car, a home, or some new gadget. Theater people in New York could be as materialistic as anyone out West, but the signs of money or wealth were far more subtle and less imposing. They certainly were not so openly discussed. Here also most conversations, in one way or another, centered around the film industry, what picture was about to go into production, who would direct, what parts were available for Black performers. Socially, Black and white Hollywood were separate entities. Some stars, like the Nicholas Brothers and their wives, were invited to the homes of white stars like Eleanor Powell or later Gene Kelly and his wife, Betsy Blair. Lena Horne would also be a guest at the home of Kelly and Blair and other major white players in the industry. Ethel was certainly in a position where she too might be invited to gatherings of white stars, but for her, integrated gatherings were nothing like those she had become accustomed to in New York, such as dinners and parties at the Van Vechtens’ or Georgette Harvey’s. For the most part in Hollywood, however, there was not much race mixing.
In August, she attended a huge party at the home of her neighbor McDaniel in honor of Count Basie. That evening it looked as if all of Black Hollywood’s top stars had turned out: the Nicholas Brothers—Harold and Fayard—along with wives Dorothy Dandridge and Geri Pate Nicholas and their mother, Viola Nicholas; Hall Johnson; Lena Horne; Clarence Muse; Ernest “Sunshine Sammy” Morrison; Black film producer William Alexander; bandleaders Cab Calloway and Les Hite; Lillian Randolph; Lennie Bluett; Nicodemus Stewart; Ben Carter; Black entertainment columnist Harry Levette; and countless others. Like everyone else in town, Ethel loved the big parties, the flashbulbs popping, the stunningly dressed stars greeting one another, and smiling through their teeth at people they could not otherwise stand: everyone eager to make contact and connections, often looking over their shoulders to see who was on the other side of the room who might be more important. During the war years, Black Hollywood was all the more cohesive, everyone eager to have fun and enjoy today or tonight because no one knew what tomorrow might bring.
Within the Negro press, there was talk and excitement about the forthcoming Cabin in the Sky, the first all-Black Hollywood movie since The Green Pastures. Those who remembered Hallelujah and Hearts in Dixie knew it was only the fourth such Black feature in the movie capital’s history. “Hollywood to Star More Race Artists: Ethel Waters Led Way with Superb Cabin in the Sky,” read the headline in the July 4, 1942, edition of the Philadelphia Tribune. But at the same time, the Black press appeared guarded in its enthusiasm. It did not want another naïve depiction of the Negro as had been the case with The Green Pastures. “To this day Negroes435 have never forgiven the slanderous misrepresentation of The Green Pastures,” said choral director Hall Johnson, “when after five successful years on the stage it was finally made into a picture, they do not hesitate to express their true feelings about it.”
Now the Black press was also calling for “Double V” or “Double Victory,” which meant a victory abroad against Nazism and fascism and a victory at home against racism and Jim Crow. That included, of course, a victory over Hollywood’s past depiction of African Americans. Black newspapers, especially the Los Angeles Sentinel and the Los Angeles Tribune, had grown increasingly critical of the stereotyped roles played by Blacks in the movies. In the California Eagle, Earl Dancer had written columns criticizing Hollywood’s Black movies of the past, and the stunning actress Theresa Harris had courageously spoken about the lack of significant parts offered her. In 1942, the NAACP’s executive secretary, Walter White, visited Hollywood, met with studio leaders, and asked for new treatment of the Negro as a normal human being. For White and many others, the movies’ comic servants, with their outlandish dialects and antics, had to go. There was a determination to “discourage the making of436 pictures which obviously [held] the Negro character up to ridicule and burlesque,” wrote the Chicago Defender.
Older established stars grew nervous, in some cases frantic, about their careers and their basic livelihoods. Hattie McDaniel may have won the Oscar, but her type of mammy character was starting to look like a relic from the past. So were the lazy-man characters of Willie Best and the bug-eyed shenanigans of Mantan Moreland. Already Stepin Fetchit was considered passé. Walter White and others saw Hollywood newcomer Lena Horne as a sign of progress, a ray of hope. He was determined that she not end up playing maid roles, that she be cast in dignified parts. Because of the support she had from White, Horne was viewed suspiciously by the older cadre of actors, though she said that an actress who offered support and wise counseling was McDaniel. Eddie “Rochester” Anderson also proved to be a friend.
For Ethel, one of the first signs of a backlash against the traditional way Blacks were depicted occurred when Tales of Manhattan opened to great criticism in August 1942. Black leaders and moviegoers were outraged by the concluding segment of the film in which the Black characters assumed that the tailcoat with all the money that had fallen out of an airplane had in fact been dropped from the Lord above. When Tales of Manhattan played the Loew’s State Theatre in Los Angeles, pickets stood outside, led by Leon Washington, the publisher of the Los Angeles Sentinel, and Almena Davis, editor of the Los Angeles Tribune. “No one here hardly understands what the picketing was all about,” reported Black columnist Lawrence LaMar, who at heart supported the Black Hollywood he covered. Though the protest was reported to have “fizzled down,” a point had been made. In New York’s Amsterdam News, Marian Freeman commented that the film “leaves much to be437 desired as entertainment.” She also wrote: “It is difficult to reconcile the Paul Robeson, who has almost single-handedly waged the battle for recognition of the Negro as a true artist, with the ‘Luke’ [Robeson’s character] of this film.” She added: “We have a battle to fight, and it’s not solely with producers. It’s with our Ethel Waters and Paul Robesons who, we believe, can lead the way by refusing roles like the ‘Luke’ and ‘Esther’ of ‘Tales of Manhattan.’ ” She took her criticism even further: “It is also with the progressive elements of theatre audiences, both white and black, who can effectively voice their objections to Negroes being ‘typed’ in menial roles, and stifled of any true art that may have emerged.”
The actors in Tales of Manhattan were stunned by the criticism. At his home, Eddie “Rochester” Anderson held a secret meeting with other Black performers to devise ways to prevent future picket lines at Black films. Apparently, neither Ethel nor Robeson attended the meeting. For his part, Robeson was angered not by the protests but by the film itself. He informed the Negro press that “only after he had438 signed the contract and commenced shooting on the picture did he fully realize the import of the scene. It was then that he approached producer Boris Morros and suggested that the script be changed. This was not done and the singer was forced to go through with his deal, since he was not able to buy himself out of the contract.” In the past, Robeson had been criticized for his roles in Sanders of the River and Song of Freedom, even Show Boat. One of the great contradictions of his career was that he made such appalling choices in film roles. But in September 1942,
Robeson made two statements that stunned Black Hollywood. “The criticism being leveled439 at me currently for my part in ‘Tales of Manhattan’ is justified and the film does reflect on my race,” he said. He also commented: “If they picket the440 picture when it opens in New York, I’ll join the picket line myself.” Later Robeson said he would never again act in a Hollywood feature. That statement proved to be true.
The criticism had to have stung Waters as much as earlier criticism against Rufus Jones for President. She had the utmost respect for Robeson, one of the few entertainment figures she truly looked up to. Never good at dealing with criticism, she appeared angry with the protesters. Now as she sought to make a new life for herself in Los Angeles, to find work in pictures and leave behind all those memories of Eddie in New York, she did not appear to fathom what was happening. For her, it was an assault on her aims and ambitions, her dreams of finding comfort after so much turmoil. Los Angeles—and movies—offered her the only chances for a new life. In this mood and state of mild confusion, she now had to focus on the movie version of Cabin in the Sky, which she hoped might bring her film stardom. Already she had voiced her objection to the treatment of religion in the play. Would she now be confronted with angry questions about its depiction of its Black characters? In time, her mood would turn foul, her paranoia would grow, and the making of Cabin in the Sky would prove difficult and eventually damaging to the life she sought in the film capital.
Chapter 18
The Making of Cabin
PRODUCTION ON CABIN IN THE SKY commenced on August 31. Because the play had ultimately lost $15,000, some MGM executives had questioned the decision to make the film, but the studio had paid $40,000 for the movie rights and was committed to it. The talents behind the scenes were part of the Freed unit, the creative staff of producer Arthur Freed, who would make some of the most celebrated musicals in film history, such movies as Meet Me in St. Louis, Singin’ in the Rain, An American in Paris, Gigi, and Silk Stockings. “I will spare nothing and will put everything behind it,” said Freed. “It will be a picture on a par with any major film under the M-G-M banner.” For Cabin in the Sky, the musical adaptation was by Roger Edens, the musical direction by George Stoll, the orchestrations by Conrad Salinger and George Bassman. Other talents were brought in, including Hall Johnson for musical choral arrangements and Harold Arlen, E. Y. Harburg, and Duke Ellington for new songs. The screenplay was by Joseph Schrank with some work also by Eustace Cockrell and Marc Connelly. The film would be shot with a sepia overlay. Its cinematographer was Sidney Wagner. “We made the picture441 for around $600,000,” said Freed. The actual amount was $662,141.82.
“If there were any442 reservations about the film,” said Minnelli, “they revolved around the story, which reinforced the naïve, childlike stereotype of blacks. But I knew there were such people as the deeply pious Petunia and Joe, her weak gambler of a husband.”
Taking precautions to avoid any controversy or protests, the studio had sent a copy of the script to Hall Johnson, who expressed his feelings in a letter to the movie’s associate producer, Albert Lewis:
You are to be443 commended for your desire to include nothing which might give offense to the Negro race—a consideration too often overlooked in this business of motion-picture making. I think my nose is particularly keen in that direction but, so far, I have been unable to detect anything in this script which could possibly offend anybody. . . .
At the moment, the dialect in your script is a weird but priceless conglomeration of pre-Civil War constructions mixed with up-to-the-minute Harlem slang and heavily sprinkled with a type of verb which Amos and Andy purloined from Miller and Lyles, the Negro comedians; all adding up to a lingo which has never been heard nor spoken on land or sea by any human being, and would most certainly be “more than Greek” to the ignorant Georgia Negroes in your play. The script will be immeasurably improved when this is translated into honest-to-goodness Negro dialect. . . .
If your director is as sympathetic and intelligent as your script writer you will turn out a picture which will delight everybody and offend no one without an inferiority complex—an affliction, by the way, which has almost completely died out among modern Negroes. We love nothing better than to laugh at ourselves on the stage—when it is ourselves we are laughing at. MGM could now breathe a sigh of relief, well, at least, for the time being.
At the outset, Minnelli was concerned about the set design. “I wanted Petunia and Joe to look as attractive as possible, for the audience to be aware of their simple goodness,” said Minnelli. “When the art department showed me sketches of a dirty cabin, they discovered a temper my bland exterior usually kept hidden. How could they have missed the point? These people were poor but not slovenly. Petunia would try to make her surroundings as pleasant as her limited funds would allow. At my suggestion, handsome but inexpensive wicker furniture was used to transform the cabin.” Minnelli also criticized the original designs for Lena Horne’s residence, which looked like “a prettied-up version of a slum.” It was redesigned.
With the design problems worked out, Minnelli had to concentrate on his actors. He had already helped Lena Horne maneuver her way around the studio, which had signed her to a seven-year contract, and took a keen interest in her development. He knew that MGM wanted to give Horne special treatment. Much time was spent deciding how best to light her and make her up. In the end, the makeup that was created to highlight her lush copper coloring, ultimately called Light Egyptian, proved all wrong for her and was used, so Horne said, only on white actresses cast as mulattoes or exotics. Her hairstyling also presented a problem for MGM. “No one wanted to touch her hair,” said the great hairstylist at the studio, Sydney Guilaroff, referring to the studio hairdressers, all of whom were white. Guilaroff created the hairstyles for Waters and Horne, but he could not be on the set every day. At his insistence, Black hairdressers were hired for both Horne and Ethel. Addie Baker was brought in as Ethel’s personal hairdresser.
A special bubble bath scene was also created for Horne in which she would sing the Harold Arlen song “Ain’t It de Truth”—and be as glamorous and sexy as Rita Hayworth or Betty Grable. In the end, because of objections from the Production Code Office, the scene was cut from the film, but the Arlen song was used by him years later for the Broadway musical Jamaica, which starred Horne. Clearly, though, the studio saw Lena Horne as a breakthrough in Black female images. She became the first African American woman fully glamorized and publicized by her studio. In her debut film, Panama Hattie, she appeared only in a musical segment. Cabin in the Sky was the first film in which Horne had a real role. The same year she would be lent to Twentieth Century Fox for a role in Stormy Weather, and years later she would appear in a dramatic role in Death of a Gunfighter. Otherwise, her entire movie career was spent in musical interludes of films starring white performers. Seeing Horne’s excitement about Cabin in the Sky, Minnelli wanted to groom her for stardom. “They dined together every night while Cabin was in preparation,” said Gail Buckley. “She was thrilled with Vincente’s Cabin concept. She thought he was a genius.” Of course, the attention that Minnelli paid to Horne was not lost on Ethel.
In Hollywood, as Ethel knew, talent meant something, but she also understood that the town prized youth and beauty. In New York theater circles, she was considered as glamorous as any Broadway leading lady. Out here she did not want to be regarded in the same manner as Hattie McDaniel or Louise Beavers. Off-screen, they retained a glamorous sheen with their fashionable clothes and beautiful homes, but the larger Hollywood culture tended to view them as likable frumps or mammy characters—the roles they played on-screen. Ethel no doubt had balked at an item that appeared in Hedda Hopper’s column, which commented that she had won the role in Cairo “because Woody Van Dyke444 said Lena Horne was so light she’d have to wear burnt cork, so it seemed easier on the makeup department to use Ethel.” Hopper, however, had added: “Tut, tut! Who else but Ethel could put over ‘Stormy Weather’
?” Still, the very idea that she might have been second choice for Cairo was enough to have her climbing the walls. She clearly understood the color caste system that the industry—and the United States—still operated on. In the end, her darker brown skin made her acceptable as a maid but could limit her in films as a glamour star.
Ethel steadily grew more resentful of Horne, who, ironically, was also represented by attorney Harold Gumm. He had negotiated Horne’s role in the race movie The Duke Is Tops and also in Lew Leslie’s Blackbirds of 1939. Now he was carefully supervising her Hollywood career. “Wise, astute Harold Gumm445 saw to it that her every move was circumspect,” said the writer Albert Anderson, “that her every action was studied. She remained in Hollywood for some time without working, waiting for her real opportunity. Unlike most colored girls and indeed the majority of whites who approach Hollywood, she did not venture out alone. Always accompanied by an aunt, a cultured woman of fine education, she lived in Hollywood rather than in colored Los Angeles, observing a secluded life with every contact planned.” Suspicious as ever, Waters may have believed that she had never received this kind of attention from Gumm. Of course, she never would have permitted him to dictate when and where she could go out. But his management of Horne may have been another factor in Ethel’s ultimate decision to drop Harold Gumm.
