by A Hundred or More Hidden Things: The Life;Films of Vincente Minnelli
“Two Weeks in Another Town was a disappointment,” Kirk Douglas admitted forty-five years after he made a valiant attempt to rescue the film from the butcher’s block:
I wrote to Vogel, even though I was just an actor in it… . I argued with him, told him that if he wanted to make a family picture, he should have never made Two Weeks in Another Town. I went to [editor] Margaret [Booth], pleaded with her. She agreed with me that what they were doing was wrong, but she worked for MGM and was frightened of losing her job. She burst into tears… . They cut most of the exciting scenes. I felt this was an injustice to Vincente Minnelli, who’d done a wonderful job with the film. And an injustice to the paying public, who could have the experience of watching a very dramatic, meaningful film. They released it that way … emasculated.5
Any positive assessments of the film tended to be drowned out by the vocal majority: “The whole thing is a lot of glib trade patter, ridiculous and unconvincing romantic snarls and a weird professional clash between actor and director that is like something out of a Hollywood cartoon,” Bosley Crowther wrote in the New York Times.6
Two Weeks in Another Town did find some important champions, including twenty-three-year-old future director Peter Bogdanovich, who reviewed it for Film Culture and saluted it as
a picture of perversion and glittering decay that in a few precise and strikingly effective strokes makes Fellini’s La Dolce Vita look pedestrian, arty and hopelessly socially-conscious… . It could be said that all the characters are two-dimensional, but it is such an obvious remark that only an idiot could imagine that Minnelli didn’t know exactly what he was doing: a grand melodrama, filled with passion, lust, hate, and venom, surely the ballsiest, most vibrant picture he has signed.7
32
Happy Problems
DENISE WAS IN. After only a few years of marriage to Minnelli, she was already being hailed as “Hollywood’s Josephine”—as in the guilelessly charming French empress. The comparison suited Beverly Hills’ busiest hostess just fine. “My favorite historical personage is Josephine,” Denise told Los Angeles Times reporter John Hallowell. “She was an elegant swinger, darling. Napoleon, he was ze general; Josephine was the influence. And she was not stuffy.”1 Neither was Denise, who could certainly swing with the best of them. She dished with Truman Capote, dined with Vanessa Redgrave, and got the guest room ready for the president’s daughter, Lynda Bird Johnson. Denise rubbed elbows with everyone—from Hollywood royalty, such as Jennifer Jones Selznick, to real royalty, such as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
The parties she threw were legendary, and the self-described “international nomad” proved to be as adept at assembling an all-star cast as her husband. “I am basically a frustrated David Merrick,” Denise admitted. “I don’t invite people. I cast people for my parties—the players, supporting players, chorus girls and boys, interesting character actors. Every party is like opening night.” And there was no mistaking who the headliner was. As columnist Joyce Haber once noted, the supersonic jet-setter was a walking cinematic event, who was “personally dressed by Donald Brooks and Jimmy Galanos, bejeweled by David Webb, arranged by Valerian Rybar, profiled by Rex Reed, photographed by Cecil Beaton and carefully bedecked by everyone who is anyone.”2
On the arm of an Oscar-winning husband, Denise was A-list all the way. And thanks to his wife, Minnelli was back on the map socially. All of the balls, black-tie events, and blowouts at the Bistro that he attended landed Vincente’s name—or at least “The Minnellis,” in the columns on an almost daily basis.
“That marriage was very important for both of them because it established her social position in Los Angeles and New York and the rest of the world, which is what she always wanted, and also, she had such an aggressive and powerful personality that she was able to really revive Vincente’s career,” says one who witnessed Denise’s meteoric ascent.3
It was Denise who was the driving force behind Venice Productions, the independent production company that she and Vincente founded in 1962 (“Venice” was an amalgam of their names). Three Minnelli movies would be produced under the Venice banner (The Courtship of Eddie’s Father, Goodbye, Charlie, and The Sandpiper). Although husband and wife were supposed to be equal partners in the venture, it soon became apparent that one of the participants seemed to have the upper hand where financial matters were concerned—and it was not the director of Meet Me in St. Louis.
“Denise demanded things from the studios and she pushed and pushed beyond anything that you can imagine,” says designer Luis Estevez. “Although they had a great house right on Sunset Boulevard, Denise knew from the beginning that Vincente was never going to make enough money for her.”4 Even those in Denise’s inner circle would blame her for the fact that Minnelli was passed over when Warner Brothers went shopping for a director for their film version of My Fair Lady. As the story goes, Denise pressured Vincente to ask for too much money and he ended up outpricing himself. Warners snapped up George Cukor for $300,000, and Minnelli lost his chance to direct what could have been one of the most important films of his career.
But the “hostess par none” wasn’t about to miss any opportunities. In the ’60s, Denise’s socializing hit a peak. As one of her former intimates recalls:
That’s when she started on her quest to meet all of the rich and powerful women of Hollywood—the ladies who lunch, shall we say. And Denise knew how to work them right around her finger. She had the fashionable clothes. She knew everybody. She threw these lavish parties and hosted these lunches. And all the while, she was fishing and scheming and turning herself into “Denise, Inc.” She had a good vehicle with Minnelli, and, of course, being married to him, she was living in the midst of the most powerful people in Hollywood—where he was very highly regarded and should have been. Later on, when Denise decided it was time to move on, she saw her chance and took it.5
AFTER THE FULL-BLOWN CATASTROPHE that was The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, it seemed like some sort of demented kamikaze mission for MGM to reunite the apocalyptic trio of Minnelli, Glenn Ford, and screenwriter John Gay for The Courtship of Eddie’s Father. Only this time, the forecast was far sunnier.
Whereas The Four Horsemen had been overpopulated and epically scaled, Eddie’s Father was an intimate comedy. The characters were the kind of up-scale Manhattanites that captured Vincente’s imagination in ways that Horsemen ’s underground radicals and resistance fighters had failed to. Also, for the first time, Minnelli was teamed with Joe Pasternak, a producer known for whipping up innocuous crowd-pleasers (Nancy Goes to Rio, Skirts Ahoy!) that always came in on time and under budget. If an Arthur Freed film was vintage champagne, a Pasternak production was more like strawberry milk.
John Gay’s screenplay was based on a bestselling autobiographical novel by Mark Toby (with an uncredited assist from Dorothy Wilson). It told the story of Tom Corbett, a widowed radio executive coming to terms with his wife’s untimely death while caring for his son Eddie, who even at the age of six proves to be an incredibly resourceful matchmaker.
“I really followed that thing. I mean, it was a beauty,” John Gay says of Toby’s novel. “I didn’t want to lose one line. Of course, I had to open up the story a little with New York and the talk show [subplot] and all of that but it was really a dream job, you know? And this time, it turned out to be a perfect part for Glenn Ford.”6 In Minnelli’s eyes, Ford would deliver a performance both “touching” and “true” as the Upper West Side’s most coveted bachelor father. The character of a single man balancing parenthood and professional obligations was one that Vincente could certainly relate to, having assumed that role in his own life.
There is a genuine tenderness and poignancy to the film’s father-son exchanges in school hallways, breakfast nooks, and summer camps. The bond between Tom (Glenn Ford) and his precocious Eddie (Ron Howard) could have been patterned after Vincente’s own relationship with Liza. Minnelli usually interacted with his eldest daughter as though she were a pint-sized
cocktail-party companion. “While other kids were hearing about Heidi and her goats, I was learning about Colette and her gentlemen,” Liza remembered.7
Like Meet Me in St. Louis, Minnelli’s latest effort boasted a bravura performance by a child performer. Eight-year-old Ronny Howard, best known as “Opie” on The Andy Griffith Show, would shoot Eddie’s Father while his hit series was on hiatus. “I was fascinated by Vincente Minnelli,” Howard would later recall. “I remember that he was photographing The Courtship of Eddie’s Father a lot differently than the way the Andy Griffith shows were done… . My first exposure to a crane was Vincente Minnelli up there. The way he could handle that thing—it was just incredible.”8 While Howard may have been fascinated by his director, the rest of the cast was fascinated by him.
The Courtship of Eddie’s Father featured two future television icons, Shirley Jones and Ron Howard. “I was fascinated by Vincente Minnelli,” recalled Howard, who went on to helm his own films. “My first exposure to a crane was Vincente Minnelli up there. The way he could handle that thing—it was just incredible.” PHOTO COURTESY OF PHOTOFEST
“Ron Howard was never a child,” says Stella Stevens, who played Dollye Daly, the wide-eyed masher magnet “picked up” by both father and son. “I think Ron Howard probably came out of the womb acting … Ta da! Here I am! I’m going to sing and dance and work. He was like an old man trapped in a boy’s body. He was great as a child and wonderful to work with. When I see him in that movie, he makes me cry every time, especially when his goldfish dies.”9
For a light family comedy, there are some unsettling emotions lurking in the shadows of the story. Minnelli’s knack for transforming such everyday occurrences as moving out of the neighborhood or the death of a pet into arias of childhood anguish is indelibly displayed in one sequence. Distraught over his mother’s death, Eddie loses it when he discovers one of his goldfish has also succumbed. While child actors in other films might shed glycerin tears or set their lower lips to quivering to indicate despair, Vincente encouraged his young performers to completely freak out. As essayist Carlos Losilla has observed, “[Minnelli] understands that one should film not only the body but the psychology of the infantile mind racked by pain.”10
Eddie’s fear of death (his mother has died only days before the story begins) is mirrored in all of the lonely grown-ups he encounters. Every adult in Eddie’s universe is attempting to step out of a self-protective shell and forge a meaningful connection with another person. In their search for a surrogate wife/mother, Tom and Eddie meet the Three Faces of Woman (according to the very narrow definition of 1962): saintly nurse (Shirley Jones), sweet sexpot (Stella Stevens), and steely fashionista (Dina Merrill). “We were very lucky. They all turned out to be very good casting,” John Gay says of the leading ladies who starred as Courtship’s blonde, brunette, and redhead. This talented trio of actresses not only had to contend with a natural scene-stealer in the form of their young costar but also a director who sometimes confused his actors with what Stevens described as “decor de Minnelli.”11
“He was not necessarily an actor’s director,” says Shirley Jones, who was cast in Courtship fresh from her Oscar-winning turn in Elmer Gantry. “He sort of moved you around like a piece of scenery. I found it more difficult to work with Vincente than I had with several other directors that I had worked with earlier. But the result of what he did was always extraordinary… . I felt that I needed more direction from him, but that’s not the way he worked.”12
Dina Merrill, cast as Eddie’s “skinny-eyed” adversary, Rita Behrens, also recalled that actors weren’t exactly a top priority for the scenically obsessed Minnelli. “He was more concerned, it seemed to me, with painting a picture than he was with the performances. You had to kind of go on your own for the performances.”13
Of the three, only Stella Stevens (singled out for praise in Minnelli’s memoir) was completely sold: “I’ve often said that Vincente was my favorite director… . You know, most directors don’t pay much attention to the women [in a film] but this man took a long time to talk to me about the part, so that we both understood what I was doing… . I would argue with a signpost. I would never argue with Vincente. He knew his stuff. He was a true genius.”14
Released in March 1963, Minnelli’s comedy garnered generally favorable reviews, though Cue noted: “The story is too, too familiar; Vincente Minnelli directed it in Panavision and high-glossy Metrocolor, and Joe Pasternak produced. Joe is always happiest when he is making happy pictures about happy people with happy problems. Everybody’s happy, except sometimes the audience.”
33
Identity Theft
AFTER VINCENTE LOST OUT on his opportunity to direct the highly anticipated screen version of My Fair Lady, many of his admirers found themselves playing the “What if? …” game. What if … he had directed Audrey Hepburn’s Eliza? Or what if Minnelli had helmed Gypsy instead of Mervyn LeRoy? What if his plans for a biopic of bisexual blues singer Bessie Smith had actually come off? In the latter half of Minnelli’s career, there seemed to be missed opportunities aplenty—such as Irving Berlin’s Say It with Music. MGM touted this “super spectacular” as though it were the greatest thing to happen to movies since the advent of sound.
“When you decide to go ahead on a big picture, go with the pros—and the .400 hitters,” said MGM’s vice president, Robert Weitman, at a studio press conference in April 1963.1 The heavy hitters Weitman had assembled included Arthur Freed, Vincente Minnelli, and Irving Berlin. They were joining forces to mount an ambitious, multimillion-dollar musical tentatively entitled Say It with Music. The score would include a cavalcade of Berlin standards and seven new songs by the celebrated composer of “God Bless America” and “White Christmas.” Arthur Laurents was tapped to write the screenplay. Jerome Robbins was lined up to choreograph a ragtime ballet. Robert Goulet would star as a globe-trotting lothario who romances beautiful women around the world, including Sophia Loren, Julie Andrews, and Ann-Margret.
With such a staggering array of talent involved, Say It with Music was shaping up as a surefire, can’t miss, good old-fashioned Arthur Freed extravaganza. Too bad it never got made. “Every time they were ready to shoot, the whole management of the studio changed,” says Barbara Freed Saltzman. “They would say, ‘Well, this is too expensive …’ or ‘We want to do something differently with this… .’ The people who made the decisions changed. They became much more business oriented and less artistic.”2
By 1968, Minnelli was out and Blake Edwards was in as director. After countless false starts and a ballooning budget, it looked as though Say It with Music was finally hitting the big screen. Edwards’s wife, Julie Andrews, was set to star in a 70-millimeter reserved-seat attraction. That is, until MGM was dismantled by its new studio chief, James Aubrey, who seemed far more interested in making real-estate deals than in making movies. Freed’s dream project died, and in essence, so did the studio where Vincente had spent more than two decades of his working life.
As the type of grand-scale musicals that Minnelli specialized in began to fall out of favor in the ’60s, the director was forced to turn his attention elsewhere and accept whatever projects were being offered to him. Sadly, several of Vincente’s later assignments didn’t seem well suited to his talents. Goodbye, Charlie, for example: George Axelrod’s comedy concerned Charlie Sorel, a chauvinistic screenwriter who is bumped off and then reincarnated as the kind of luscious little tomato he used to lust after (or, as the transformed Charlie puts it: “It’s as though I’ve been a gourmet all my life and now, suddenly, I’m a lamb chop”).
In 1959—the same year that Axelrod’s sex farce hit the Great White Way—moviegoers had lined up for Billy Wilder’s Some Like It Hot. Marilyn Monroe plus a gender-bending comedy added up to a mega-blockbuster. Hoping to duplicate the phenomenal success that United Artists had with the picture, 20th Century Fox snatched up the rights to Goodbye, Charlie with an eye toward developing the property for Monroe, the stud
io’s top star. Fox executives believed that Marilyn in the title role would result in an avalanche of box-office receipts. However, the actress didn’t see it that way at all: “The studio people want me to do Goodbye, Charlie for the movies, but I’m not going to do it. I don’t like the idea of playing a man in a woman’s body, you know? It just doesn’t seem feminine.”3
In 1961, Vincente Minnelli’s name had appeared on the short list of directors that Monroe had agreed to work with (George Cukor, Alfred Hitchcock, and John Huston were among the others). And it’s possible that Fox may have secured Minnelli’s services in an attempt to entice Monroe to appear in Goodbye, Charlie. But to no avail. The star could not be persuaded,av and in August 1962, she died of an overdose at the age of thirty-six. Nevertheless, Minnelli remained at the helm of the picture, and for the first time since his aborted stint at Paramount in the ’30s, he found himself working at a studio other than MGM.
