by Donald Bogle
Briefly, Earl Dancer came back into her life with ambitious plans to do a million-dollar film on her life titled Am I Blue? Actress Suzette Harbin would portray Ethel up to the age of eighteen while Ethel would play herself from then on. Of course, there was no way the fifty-one-year-old Ethel could perform as herself as a woman in her twenties, and no such film was ever produced.
The one quality engagement that materialized was a concert tour with the Hall Johnson Choir. Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., still owned by the Daughters of the American Revolution, which refused to permit Marian Anderson to perform there in 1939, turned down Ethel and Johnson’s choir. But she toured successfully with the choir in other cities. Briefly, a new manager, Harold Jovien, tried to pick up the pieces of her career. She played Las Vegas, then an up-and-coming postwar town that would become a mecca for gamblers and folks out for glamorous high-style entertainment. But Ethel was an old-time blues singer. Vegas would prefer its Lenas and later its Dandridges. At every turn, she was viewed as something of an anachronism, a period piece of an entertainer from the postwar era, the post–World War I era, that is.
A tour was arranged that reunited her with Fletcher Henderson. Grateful as she was, she wondered if she were going backward. But it was work. Much to Henderson’s dismay, she still griped during rehearsals. Yet he understood and most likely respected the simple fact that Ethel Waters, struggling to keep a foothold in the business, was, come hell or high water, still an artist, demanding the best not only of those around her but of herself. Henderson must have understood something else: Ethel’s voice was not what it had once been. For the woman who never smoked and rarely drank—out of concern for her vocal instrument—Father Time was nonetheless creeping into her sound. Yet Ethel knew the tricks of the trade, how to use her voice, how to cover for those notes when the voice might sound frayed, scratchy, or worn.
A four-night engagement that proved important was LA’s Philharmonic Auditorium at the end of September 1948. Calling her show “Cavalcade of Hits,” in which she sang and did scenes from plays, she was in excellent form. With Henderson conducting, she seemed rejuvenated, performing moody numbers like “Sleepy Time Down South,” and romantic ballads like “Can’t Help Loving That Man of Mine.” Then she turned the tables with her wildly ribald renditions of some of the old stuff, songs like “Go Back Where You Stayed Last Night” and “Ain’t Gonna Sin No More.” She had the place rocking and laughing. When she sang “Summertime,” there were “many moist eyes, because of the sincerity and deep feeling on the part of the singer.” Yes, she was heavier than the town had remembered, and yes, the gray in her hair was showing. But she glowed, she swayed, she flirted, she danced with her voice, and she still knew how to reach her audience. During those nights at the Philharmonic she knew the old girl had a lot of life left in her. The Los Angeles Times had nothing but praise:
Popular music was raised510 to its highest level. Miss Waters, accompanied by Fletcher Henderson, gave a program which was liberally sprinkled with songs intimately associated with the singer herself, several from her Broadway successes. There are many singers more vocally gifted than Miss Waters who could give these same songs without arousing the slightest enthusiasm from an audience. But there is only one Ethel Waters and the delightful experience of hearing her songs, or rather her portrayals, is unique. There is nothing profound about the star’s appeal. The exuberance with which she greeted her audience last night set the stage and put her listeners in the right spirit for the many mood pictures created by living the songs instead of just singing them.
Though an ill wind had overtaken her, her faith still sustained her, but, as she knew, it was indeed an ill wind that blew no good. In the midst of her despair, Ethel had visited her mother in Philadelphia. At first, because of her weight, Ethel’s mother had not recognized her and even asked if she were pregnant. But her mother told her how happy she was that Ethel had come to see her. Aware of her daughter’s tough times, she encouraged her. “You really have took a beating,” Momweeze said. “But don’t you worry none, because you’re coming back.” For the first time, she said, she felt her mother had accepted her.
Perhaps, after all these troubles, something extraordinary might be right around the corner. Surprisingly, standing in her corner and helping to engineer a new phase in her career—and the beginning of one of the greatest comebacks in the history of American entertainment—was the man from Twentieth Century Fox who had first put her in the movies, Darryl F. Zanuck.
Chapter 22
Coming Back
IN HIS OFFICES AT TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX, Darryl F. Zanuck studied the production plans for his studio’s forthcoming films. Since his days at Warner Bros., Zanuck had become an even more powerful player. In 1933, he and Joseph M. Schenck had established Twentieth Century. Two years later, Twentieth Century had merged with Fox Film Corporation to form Twentieth Century Fox, with Schenck as president and Zanuck as vice president in charge of production. In the 1930s and 1940s, the studio, respected for the technical polish of its features, could boast of such directors as Joseph M. Mankiewicz, Otto Preminger, Henry Hathaway, and Elia Kazan. Like other Hollywood studio heads, Zanuck knew he had to have entertaining films that brought in big bucks at the box office, crowd pleasers that might be here today and forgotten tomorrow. But he also believed in quality films that addressed social or political issues in a provocative yet entertaining fashion. Having been behind the classic John Ford adaptation of John Steinbeck’s novel The Grapes of Wrath as well as such films as I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang, The Ox-Bow Incident, and The Snake Pit, Zanuck was attuned to the altered outlooks and attitudes of American audiences following World War II. Movie audiences had lost some of their innocence. Now they might be ready for more adult themes. In 1947, he had produced Gentleman’s Agreement, which, under the direction of Elia Kazan, had examined the theme of anti-Semitism in America. Gentleman’s Agreement walked off with Best Picture of the Year, and Kazan had won an Oscar as Best Director. Now Zanuck was ready to tackle the nation’s long-festering racial problems and divisions.
With that in mind, he set out to produce a film adaptation of a novel titled Quality by Cid Ricketts Sumner. To be titled Pinky with a script by Dudley Nichols and Philip Dunne, Fox’s film version would tell the story of a light-skinned young Negro woman called Pinky. After having studied nursing in the North, where she passed as white, she returns home to the South—and to her grandmother, a hard-working, uneducated laundress. Soon the young woman is faced with an emotional dilemma. Should she remain in the South where she will face repeated racial humiliations and frustrations? Or will she seek a new identity for herself—and a chance at professional, social, and emotional fulfillment and a marriage to a young white doctor—by heading north and again living as a free “white” woman? Her great tie to the South, and the cause of much emotional distress, is, of course, her grandmother—whom she calls Granny but is otherwise known as Dicey. The grandmother has repeatedly sacrificed so that Pinky can be educated. When Dicey learns that Pinky has crossed the color line, she is outraged. Ultimately, she insists that Pinky help an older white woman, Miss Em, now impoverished, ill, and in need of a nurse. Resentful and embittered because the woman represents the South’s old white aristocracy, she nonetheless does as her grandmother demands. Caring for the woman, Pinky comes to learn more about herself and her racial identity. Pinky ends with a court trial in which the young woman fights to hold onto the property that the now deceased Miss Em has bequeathed her. Throughout, the film dramatizes racial conflicts and tensions in the Deep South. It also heralds a new day for the American Negro.
Concerned with every aspect of the films released by his studio, even more so with those in which he was credited as producer, Zanuck hired John Ford to direct the film. The youngest of thirteen children of Irish immigrants who settled in Portland, Maine, Ford had arrived in Hollywood in 1913 where he joined his brother Francis, who acted, wrote, and directed at Universal Studios. Tak
ing jobs as a prop man, a stuntman, and even as an extra in The Birth of a Nation—he said he had been one of D. W. Griffith’s hooded Ku Klux Klan riders—Ford eventually directed such silent films as The Iron Horse and Four Sons. During the sound era, he emerged as a major director of such films as Stagecoach, Young Mr. Lincoln, The Grapes of Wrath, and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon. He was celebrated for his sweeping visual style and his depiction of the archetypal American hero—direct, honest, hardworking with no frills or pretensions.
Once Zanuck began casting, even before he selected the actress to play the light-skinned heroine, he decided the best choice—perhaps the only choice—for the role of the sacrificing grandmother was Ethel. Like other Americans, Zanuck had followed the trajectory of her now storied and stormy career. He well remembered the slender woman who had sung the blues and helped alter the sound of popular music; the same assured woman who, when he was at Warner, had entered his office and negotiated her own deal to appear in On with the Show. He had seen Ethel conquer Broadway, attaining the kind of success in mainstream white shows that no Negro woman before her had ever been able to do. He had been impressed and perhaps startled by her transformation into a stunning dramatic actress in Mamba’s Daughters. Stories of her temperament on and off the Cabin in the Sky set must have reached him, and he must also have known that this now heavy, middle-aged woman was down on her luck. What may have brought Ethel back on the radar screen for the rest of Hollywood—she must have always been on Zanuck’s—was that appearance at LA’s Philharmonic Auditorium.
Still, once Ethel’s management was contacted, she had to test for the role. “Everybody got screened before511 they picked me,” said Ethel. “Yes, sir, Ethel was the last one.” Of course, Ethel always enjoyed depicting herself as an underdog who would triumph over all adversities, all doubters. Going through the script pages sent to her, Ethel was able to draw on her personal experiences to develop the character. Just as Hagar had grown out of her fierce dream to tell Momweeze’s story, Ethel’s Dicey—a laundress who has probably never known much other than hard work—would be used to tell the story of her grandmother, Sally Anderson. It was that conviction that would give her character an emotional spine and an unexpected power.
On February 2, 1949, the New York Times announced that Waters had signed for the film. On March 6, 1949, the New York Times reported that Pinky was one of five Negro-themed films in production or about to go into production: the others were Home of the Brave, the story of a Black soldier enduring racism within the military; Lost Boundaries, a drama about a light-skinned Black couple forced by circumstances to pass for white; Intruder in the Dust, based on William Faulkner’s novel about a Black man falsely accused of having killed one of his white neighbors; and No Way Out, a stark drama about a young Black doctor at the center of a racial explosion in a big city. Even before filming, Pinky was being discussed and anticipated. Ethel’s contract stipulated that she was to receive $1,500 a week for—initially—two weeks of work.
News broke that white actress Jeanne Crain was cast in the title role. The fact that no Black actress had been seriously considered for the role drew criticism. Fredi Washington was deemed too old for the part. So was Nina Mae McKinney, who was cast in the film as an older woman resentful of Pinky. Such actresses as Ava Gardner and Cyd Charisse were apparently considered. So too was light-skinned African American actress Hilda Simms. One story was that Zanuck had even considered Dorothy Dandridge. Most likely Fox believed Crain, though not a major star, was well enough known to get people into theaters. She was also under contract to Fox. But the selection of white actress Crain also helped the studio navigate its way around the theme of interracial love. Pinky was in love with a white doctor, played by actor William Lundigan, she has met in the North. When the movie audience saw the two embrace and kiss, it could relax, knowing that there was no real interracial coupling on-screen.
Ethel Barrymore was to play the role of the aristocratic but impoverished Miss Em. Frederick O’Neal won the role of the disreputable Black character Jake who has cheated Granny out of money that was supposed to be sent to Pinky up north. Cast as a young Black Southern doctor, whom the script conveniently depicted as being married so there would be no thoughts that he and Pinky might become involved, was the handsome football player Kenny Washington.
Just before the film went into production, Ethel was still on the road with Fletcher Henderson. “I didn’t have the512 money to get to Hollywood to make the picture,” said Waters, “but I did have a car. I knew I had to get there, and my faith told me I would. When I started west with my accompanist Fletcher Henderson, there were awful snow storms in the West. Everyone advised me not to try to drive. But I had to. That was February, 1949. Sure enough, the snow was awful, and one town after another was closed to traffic just after we got through. In some places, we had to crawl through drifts ten feet high. But we got there. That was my faith helping me again.” She quickly settled into her home.
Ford began shooting with scenes between Ethel and Jeanne Crain. Almost immediately problems erupted on the set, and in this case, not necessarily caused by Ethel. True, the two clashed on the conception of her character. But Ford—a tough, gruff, grizzled filmmaker who wore a black eye patch that could make him look menacing—ran a tight ship. There usually was not much time for discussion about how a scene was to be played. Ford knew what he wanted, and he expected cast and crew to give it to him. Ford, however, apparently did not understand how Ethel had to be approached. Moreover, having directed Stepin Fetchit in such films as Judge Priest and Steamboat Round the Bend—in which the Black actor personified the lazy, dimwitted coon stereotype—Ford had set ideas, now dated, on the depiction of Black characters. He would be criticized later for his treatment not only of African Americans but also of Native Americans. Later in his career, Ford appeared to be making amends when he directed Sergeant Rutledge, the story of a Black man wrongly accused of raping a white woman, but that was yet to come.
Employing a technique that worked when he directed John Wayne and other actors, Ford barked and shouted at Waters on the set, trying to whip her into submission. She, in turn, angrily withdrew. “When he indicated the513 least disfavor with what she was doing,” said Elia Kazan, “her reaction was not fear but resentment and retreat.” For one of the few times in her career, she appeared stunned by the behavior of a director. Too much was on the line with the film. Deep in debt and unsure where her next job would be, she had to be a success here. She also was determined to bring Sally Anderson to the screen. Her nerves were frayed. Her stomach bothered her. Yet word reached Zanuck about the problems. As he viewed the dailies—footage of what had been shot the day before—Zanuck became alarmed. To him it was clear that Ford did not understand the character Ethel was trying to create. “Ford’s Negroes were like514 Aunt Jemimas. Caricatures. I thought, we’re going to get into trouble.” Zanuck met with Ford. “Jack said, I think you better put someone else on it. I said, finish out the day and I took Ford off the picture. Some directors are great in one field and totally helpless in another field.” The significant thing here was that powerful studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck dumped the A-list director John Ford, not Ethel Waters.
Zanuck had to act quickly. The picture could not fall behind schedule. He wanted it released before the year’s end. He contacted director Elia Kazan in New York. Having directed such major postwar Broadway productions as Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire and Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, Kazan was the hottest director in American theater. His direction of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn and his Oscar for Gentleman’s Agreement also meant that Kazan was hot in Hollywood too. But Kazan was scheduled to head abroad to stage the London version of Death of a Salesman. On the phone, Zanuck told Kazan that John Ford had an attack of shingles and could not continue Pinky. He wanted Kazan to come out immediately to take over the picture.
“I’ve never been higher515 in my profession than I was after I’d directed Salesman and Gentlem
an’s Agreement,” said Kazan. “I was now of a rank so secure that I could afford to do Darryl Zanuck a favor.” Because John Ford “was the American director I most admired,” said Kazan, “I thought it would be an honor to stand in his shoes on his set. What a romantic I was! I made up my mind to do the favor, but in the manner of a grand gesture. Darryl had offered to rush me the script by transcontinental messenger. I told him that wasn’t necessary. I’d do the job sight unseen, read the script when I arrived and be ready to shoot the next morning. What a fool!”
But Kazan did insist that he “not use any of Jack’s stuff, no matter how good it was.” For Zanuck, that would not be a problem. “Darryl was happy to junk Jack’s film, and when I saw it I understood why. Something must have been bothering the old man besides shingles. I soon found out why.”
Arriving early on the Fox lot, Kazan talked to the members of the crew, who filled him in on the details. Then Kazan met with Zanuck. “Jack’s not sick, is he?” said Kazan. “He just wanted out.”
To the press in later years, Zanuck said, “It was a professional516 difference of opinion.” To Kazan that day, Zanuck was blunt about Ford: “He hated that old517 nigger woman, and she sure as hell hated him. He scared her next to death.” Of course, he was referring to Ethel. The fact that Zanuck could speak of her in such a way remains shocking and ugly. Here, after all, was a man who believed in her talents, who was doing everything he could to keep her in the film. But Zanuck was a man of his generation, and he could be crude and vulgar. The kind of language he used might have hurt Ethel but not surprised her. Her whole life had been one in which, no matter how friendly she might be with whites professionally, she never felt she could trust them—and for good reason. Ford, so Kazan learned, had tyrannized the cast and appeared bewildered by Ethel, who he “didn’t know what to do with.” “He couldn’t curse her, as he did ‘Duke’ Wayne.” Right away, Kazan realized: “Handling Ethel would be half my battle.” The initial meeting between the two may have been awkward at first. But Kazan, born in Constantinople of Greek parents, had grown up something of an outsider, which Ethel may have detected right away. Not yet forty, he may also have struck her as a kid, and she must have liked the idea that a major talent had been brought in to work with her.
