by Sid Luft
Ira Gershwin and Harold Arlen were not composers and writers of special revue material. Roger Edens was the master of the form. Ira and Harold had each been paid $40,000 by Transcona out of the film’s budget to write songs for the film. Since I couldn’t hire Roger I shot craps and paid Lenny. He signed a “quit claim” giving me all the rights, and I became the legal owner. Lenny was gifted and he may have made a contribution; however, Roger had years of experience: he’d been Ethel Merman’s accompanist, and he’d created Judy’s “Dear Mr. Gable” lead-in for “You Made Me Love You,” originally written by Al Jolson. He tailored everything to the individual artist. As far as we were concerned it was the “Edens touch.” Roger had written in less than a month a brilliant minibiography told through music that didn’t take away from the screenplay.
He was eager for Judy to hear what he’d done, so he came over to the house. Roger explained how I’d come to him, and then he swore Judy to secrecy. I thought, Good luck! Then he sat down at the Steinway and began to play what he’d put together.
Judy’s reaction was explosive. She was as excited as she’d been on the golf course when she heard Hal Arlen whistle “The Man That Got Away.” She knew it was great. Roger went back to work and completed the sequence. For once Judy kept her word and didn’t utter a sound about the project. A month later Roger returned with a shooting script.
Per my anticipation, when the rough cut was run, the collective response was “we need a big musical number.” Fortunately, I had “Born in a Trunk” ready to go. We were dependent on Warner’s financially, though, and this segment would cost somewhere between $200,000 and $300,000 to produce. Transcona was not part of this budget. We brought Jack down to one of the sound stages, along with Barstow, and he loved the sequence. Jack brought in Steve Trilling and other executives twice, and they agreed to go ahead. Roger had accompanied her on the piano. It was a marvelous performance—perhaps better, if that’s possible, than what we ultimately shot. Warner’s wanted to buy the rights to “Born in a Trunk,” but we wouldn’t sell. It was our souvenir.
I called Jack Warner by his first name from the outset of our relationship. My place in the green room, his private dining room, was on his left, and this space was kept reserved for me at all times. We’d meet daily at the stroke of 1:00 PM. Mervyn LeRoy, who had produced The Wizard of Oz so long ago, was among Jack’s inner circle and frequently joined us at the table. I listened and learned.
Jack and I seemed to share similar appetites. We were both social and had a taste for practical jokes and the high life and wealth—a lifestyle to which he was accustomed and to which I aspired. At lunch Jack held court, openly using me as a sounding board. He could clown and tell jokes. Sometimes Bill Orr, head of Warner Bros. television, would join us in the green room, but never Jack Warner Jr., my old pal from when I’d first arrived in Beverly Hills. Jack Jr. worked as the liaison between Transcona Enterprises and the studio.
Jack Sr. rewrote history in his memoir, My First Hundred Years in Hollywood. For example, he referred to Elsa Maxwell as a “hustler,” when in fact he depended on Elsa to organize his parties. In Europe he called her every day, for guests, introductions, dinners, whether his wife Ann was present or not (generally, she was not). As for me, I became a rogue and a criminal to his recollection.
Jack would refer to his wife as “my loving Ann,” but I rarely saw them together. There were mistresses, one in particular whom he dumped when he aged. She had been on call for years and then he just stopped taking care of her.
Jack’s aspirations were about power and class. He’d even been made an honorary colonel and occasionally he wore his uniform, until one day a professional army colonel visited the studio. Jack held out his hand to shake the colonel’s and announced, “I’m a colonel too.” The authentic one said, “You are? Then you should have saluted me.”
Jack never wore the uniform again.
Twice a week when Jack called me to his office, we previewed rough cuts. One day he said, “I want you to read this wire from Sam Goldwyn.” The wire stated that seeing the latest cut was one of the great moments in Goldwyn’s life and that he was certain the picture would make millions. “Jack, you could make $25 million.”
Jack said, “Sid, you’re going to make a lot of money.”
I said, “Great.”
Jack continued, “Now, I want you and Judy to join me for a holiday in the south of France.” I thought, not much of a holiday for Judy. She’d be expected to deal with the European press, promote the film. Nevertheless, I ran it by her. Per my expectations she was less than enthusiastic about going to Europe on a junket for Jack. Further, we decided we couldn’t afford such a trip. Our personal expenses were astronomical: the children, the staff, our lifestyle—all costly. We lived well, but we were not rich. Not yet.
The subject of traveling to France came up again at lunch one day. I explained to Jack how Judy hated to fly and that she preferred to relax at home. She had no desire to publicize the film as yet, or to be photographed. “It’s a lot of money anyway.”
Jack chimed, “Sid, it’ll cost you exactly $25,000. I’ll advance you the money.” To which I replied, “If Star is going to make $25 million as you say, I’d be happy to borrow the money. If I can get Judy to go.”
“Of course it’s going to be a big hit. You’ll make personally $5 or $6 million. It’s the biggest hit since Gone with the Wind.”
I asked Judy again, and this time it was “yes” and “no.” Later on in the week she said, “Darling, do you think we’d have some fun?” I told her we’d enjoy ourselves. We could take a train from Paris down to the south of France, where we hadn’t been in three years.
The next day Jack called: “So what does Judy want to do?”
“She’s weakening,” I reported.
“Let me know, I’ll write you a check.”
That night Judy surprised me. She said, “Let’s go.” She’d been talking with the photographer Richard Avedon, who was going to be in Paris. Dick had fed her ideas: the Tour Eiffel, the Champs-Élysées, going up the Seine, Dior, Café de Flore, supper with Chevalier.
Whatever he said appealed to her romantic nature. And his previous photos of her were stunning. Judy was eager for new sessions. What better setting than France? Summer in Paris. I rang Jack up and told him Judy had changed her mind. Within an hour he sent a $25,000 check to the house along with a note for me to sign. He called me and said, “When you get your share from the picture, you’ll pay me back.” He was casual. He then added, “Oh, Sid, I’ve got some buried francs in Paris. I’ll have $5,000 delivered to your hotel.”
Jack agreed to make all the necessary reservations in Paris. He assured me it would be wonderful, and added, “I’ve taken care of the champagne and caviar aboard the plane.” No mention of either his wife or a girlfriend. I had one problem: prepping Judy for the flight. She would have to be bombed to get aboard. “Darling, you know I’m terrified; get a case of whiskey for me.”
“We do have the plane to ourselves, darling, so you could relax just a little.” Howard Hughes was loaning Jack a plane for the flight over and back. I had met Hughes about town, and the one time we’d held a conversation at a party, at producer Sam Spiegel’s house, we’d discussed our respective airplane accidents as pilots. He wasn’t a talkative guy; he presented himself in a detached and unavailable manner, although he was on the party circuit for years.
The passengers included only Jack and his white-haired valet, our associate producer Vern Alves, Judy, and me. Vern was wonderful with Judy and the press. It was a large plane, with just a pilot, copilot, and hostess, a luxurious and comfortable flight. But Judy was still scared to death, and nothing I could do helped.
Fortunately, Jack was not exactly aware of the drama being played out. He had the plane stuffed with Greek delicacies—plus, we were given the superstar treatment from the hand of Jack Warner himself. But the calming effect of this privacy and luxury quickly wore off. The pills and the booze
kicked in and Judy became more and more panicked as the stimuli triggered phobic responses. She stopped eating and clutched my hand all the way to Paris Orly Airport. As soon as we landed, the first person she rang up from the airport was a friend who was married to a doctor. Judy was hysterical. She had probably taken uppers and was unable to relax or fall asleep aboard the plane.
When we arrived at the Hotel Raphael, a stone’s throw from the Arc de Triomphe, the good doctor knocked her out and she slept through the night till one o’clock the following afternoon, thereby missing her session with Avedon. Once again, the pattern of the star: she got sick, recovered, and everyone else was left for dead. And we had departed Hollywood with such high hopes. Word was out that A Star Is Born was a great film, being compared to Gone with the Wind.
Happily, for the rest of our time in Paris, Judy was fine. We spent a few days saying hello to friends, dined and danced, absorbed the Parisian atmosphere. We boarded the overnight for Cannes with a minimum of press dates behind us. Vern did an excellent job of fending everyone off. We enjoyed our privacy.
Once we were comfortably installed in our suite at the hotel Cap d’Antibes, Jack kept repeating the theme: “Sid, you’re going to make so much money.” It was his song. Unrequested. I began to believe him, and so did Judy. Meanwhile, he had called on Elsa Maxwell to arrange his dinner parties in Judy’s honor. There were extravagant evenings at Cap d’Antibes with the visiting dignitaries, cocktail parties and sit-down dinners expertly organized by Elsa.
Several nights Jack and I dined by ourselves at a favored restaurant, La Bonne Auberge in Antibes. There he’d take me in his confidence over bottles of superb wines and cognacs. In this setting I learned that he hated his daughter Barbara’s fiancé, having discovered he was a homosexual. Warner boasted how he arranged to have him busted in bed with another man, thus ending his daughter’s romance. I learned he hated Charlie Chaplin but liked his brother, Syd. Of course, Syd did not help form United Artists; Warner didn’t approve of competition. During these dinners, Jack professed a love for gambling, presenting himself as a true sportsman. I withheld my thoughts on this subject, as my one sporting experience with him was over a horse, and Jack seemed utterly naive about the racetrack.
A few weeks earlier Jack had given me $200 to put on my horse, Sienna II. (In his memoir he wrote that he’d given me $500—he upped the ante by $300—but by then he was looking for a scapegoat.) Eddie Alperson and I bought Sienna II from trainer Paddy Prendergast in Ireland. I’d bought horses in the past from Paddy, so when he’d called and said he was working with John Dewar, the whiskey mogul, and had a very nice filly to sell, I was tempted. “Sid, you should buy the horse,” Paddy said. Dewar was selling his stock to make a fresh start. The horse was beautifully bred and would cost $18,000. I was not about to pay that amount, but I thought Alperson might buy half. So Eddie and I became Sienna II’s owners. The horse was well cared for at Rainbow Farms by my trainer Bill Sergeant.
Jack had known I was going to the racetrack to watch my horse run, and he’d asked me if he could make a bet. Sienna II lost that race. When she ran again and I told Jack he should make another bet, this time he said, “I don’t bet on horses.” And this time Sienna II won. It was a huge win. I stopped at La Rue’s, one of my favorite restaurants, after the racetrack to celebrate by downing a couple of martinis. I was feeling real good. Bill Sergeant normally received 10 percent of the win, but this time he requested a car instead. I bought him a Cadillac Coupe de Ville, not a Chevy. I was immediately criticized for this gesture. Word got back to Jack, who was unable to understand my largesse.
Rainbow Farms was doing fine. I was lucky to know trainer Charlie Whittingham and to have had Charlie train several of my horses. Judy enjoyed Whittingham and his wife, Peg. They would visit us at Mapleton for parties and spend the night. Willie Shoemaker, the phenomenal jockey (and our one treasured friend shorter than Judy) who was already up to a thousand wins by 1953, would also visit us with his first wife, Babe. “Shoe” rode a number of my horses over the years. This was another world of royalty, and Judy was as flattered by Charlie and Peg and Shoe and Babe as she was by the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
On this particular night Judy had been feeling lousy and said she’d remain at the hotel. She knew I was available: if she was in any kind of trouble, without question, I’d come to her aid. As Jack and I dined at La Bonne Auberge, the balmy Riviera evening blasted the scent of gardenias and jasmine. The intense charm of the local eau-de-vie and a delicious dinner obscured any possible negative thought or impulse, including my observation that Jack dyed his hair and moustache and was wearing makeup. I’d assumed it was an attempt to look younger.
Jack finished unloading his last confession and we left La Bonne Auberge for the Palm Beach Casino in Cannes, where Jack played chemin de fer. Jack told me he’d loaned Darryl Zanuck $100,000 the other night at the casino. Stakes were always high at the Palm Beach Casino. Apparently Jack could win or lose up to $ 400,000 in one night. He loved to show off his money in this manner.
The casino was an extravagant environment where the guests were catered to, very much the sort of gambling establishment pictured in James Bond films. Jack had invited me to gamble, and I agreed to take 10 percent of his action, win or lose. That night he got lucky and won $300,000. I smiled, “Congratulations, you own me $30,000.” Jack’s reply: “That’s too much money for you.” I thought he was kidding. “Jack, we made a bet. I was prepared to win or lose.” He peeled off bills, “How about if I give you $3,000?” I thought, Christ, it was a typical bet and he’s refusing to honor it. I said, “I’ll take it on account.”
Jack didn’t know anything about the world of betting or the rules of sportsmanship. If he bet on a golf course he wouldn’t pay off—Because I’m Jack Warner, that’s how his mind worked. He dabbled where it suited him while presenting himself as a sportsman. He wasn’t in any sense an authentic gambler, someone who bets on baseball, football, horses, everything and anything. He preferred a casino surrounded by many people who would watch Jack Warner and Darryl Zanuck exhibit their finesse with “shimmy.” Should he lose, it would be a sizable sum, $200,000 or $300,000, enough to bring oohs and aahs from the spectators.
Jack was a gambler when everybody was looking; he never sat down and played poker with the boys. It was part of his aspiration to greatness and the upper classes. A gentleman who gambles and loses has the obligation to pay up before he pays his rent. The rules of the game. For Jack gambling was publicity, not sport.
There was a wonderful energy to the Côte d’Azur that season. Just enough tourists, a sensual atmosphere of relaxation and comfort, the smell of orange blossoms wafting through the night air off our patio. Our rooms opened out onto the Mediterranean. I looked forward to slipping into bed beside a dreaming wife, quietly sleeping. Instead I returned to an empty suite of rooms. I knocked on Vern’s door. He said they’d been playing gin, and over the course of the evening Judy had periodically expressed feelings of loneliness and would start to weep. The crying increased. Vern said she began to complain that she couldn’t move her head. “I’ve got a migraine. Please get a doctor.” Vern found a doctor who refused to sedate Judy unless she was admitted to the local clinic, where she was presently spending the night.
I was angry, not sympathetic. I felt she had let me down. After the initial wave of anger washed over me, I began to feel disappointed by her. It was as though she couldn’t survive a minute of stress—someone needed to be called in to knock her out. I couldn’t shake my unhappiness. We still had the additional “Born in a Trunk” sequence to shoot; she’d have to pull herself together. I kept thinking about the fact that she was asleep with assistance from yet another drug. Speed made her nuts, so why didn’t she use calming medication? I reminded myself that barbiturates zonked her out and could grant that temporary illusion of courage that speed seemed to provide. I wondered how this high/low pattern, too wired to eat or sleep, was ever going to disappear. I didn’t
rush over to the clinic. In the morning I asked Vern to bring Judy back to the hotel.
30
But it’s all in a game and the way you play it
And you’ve gotta play the game you know
When you’re born in a trunk at the Princess Theatre
In Pocatello, Idaho.
—“Born in a Trunk,” A Star Is Born
JUDY SURPRISED ME by telling me after we got back from France, “Darling, I’m kind of exhausted and I feel I really want to get off everything.” I was encouraged: she wasn’t ducking what happened. She was eager to be in the best shape possible for “Born in a Trunk.” We went up to Ojai for a long weekend. Judy rested and detoxed from all medication. She expressed a desire to investigate AA as soon as the film wrapped. I’d been so confident about her during the making of Star. I reasoned that flying had always presented obstacles, and there were many people who had a fear of flying and got besotted before they boarded a plane.
In Ojai, Judy told me she couldn’t have made this film without me. “You’re responsible for all of this, darling.” She was loving, sincere, and appreciative. Again I was committed to doing whatever was needed to bring permanent stability to her life. Judy went on: “I’ve worked for rather important producers, and I think you’re the best.”
“Come on, Judy.”
She said, “No, it’s true, your taste and ability to work with a script in all areas is perfect. You’ve come a long way, darling, and I’m proud of you.” I allowed myself to be flattered, even if it was from my wife. It was a hell of a seduction.
