Stanwyck

by Axel Madsen

  The Trial of Mary Dugan was a hit, and Rex signed on for the season. He agreed to consider producer Sam H. Harris’s offer to go on tour with the play in the fall. Rex turned thirty during the summer of 1928, when illness forced him to skip a few performances of Mary Dugan. Doctors said he needed complete rest and recommended a sea voyage. He settled on a quick trip to Paris. Barbara went to see Hopkins about getting time off after Harris gave Rex a three-week vacation and Rex signed on to resume his role in Chicago on August 31.

  Barbara accompanied Rex to the French Line pier. He was suffering a cold, but decided to sail aboard the S.S. De Grasse as planned. See you in Paris, they said as they hugged. Rex ran up the gangplank, and Barbara waved as the huge ocean liner slid into the Hudson River.

  Rex died aboard the De Grasse August 10, shortly before the ship docked at Le Havre. Septic poisoning was ruled the cause of death.

  One hundred and ninety-seven times she had declared her love for

  Rex and begged the Governor to be allowed to bury the man she loved. There was no repeat of The Noose. Cherryman’s manager, A. H. Woods, had his European representative carry out Rex’s wish to be cremated. Internment would be in France. Cast members of Burlesque rallied around Barbara, told her it was tough luck.

  She screwed on her other face, the one that said she could handle it, that she was in charge, dammit. She overcame her shock by doing what she had always done—rely on herself. She riveted her concentration on the one thing that soothed and made her forget—work. Finding deliverance by digging deeper into her career was to become a lifelong characteristic when adversity struck.

  5

  FAYSIE

  BRING STANWYCK,” SAID FRANK FAY. “I’LL LEAVE TWO SEATS AT the door.” Oscar Levant grinned. The two of them might be friends of sorts, but Oscar only knew Fay as a tightwad. Fay was Irish Catholic. He ritualistically crossed himself whenever he spent any money or passed a church. Levant was Jewish and irreverent to the point of saying Judaism had its lamentable sides. Fay disliked Jewish comedians.

  The Great Faysie, as he styled himself, was a cocky, conceited, and outstanding wit of vaudeville. A week at New York’s Palace Theatre was every vaudevillian’s dream, two weeks an accomplishment. Fay was the only song-and-dance man to play ten successive weeks at the Palace, at $17,500 a week in 1925 dollars. Fay had an acute sense of people and developed the role of master of ceremonies into an art of repartee and humor. His specialty was the studied insult, the raised eyebrow followed by a suggestive double entendre or a cutting quip. His parody of the song “Tea for Two” (who wants to bake a cake at three in the morning) was a classic.

  Levant and Fay had met in London in 1926 when Frank had a monthlong engagement at the Palladium and Oscar appeared in Fay’s act, accompanying his songs on the piano. At the end of the engagement, Frank and Oscar flew to Paris. This was one year before Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight—and Frank, according to Oscar, had crossed himself all the way across the English Channel. Some thirty thousand Americans were living in Paris, painters, writers, composers, and plain loafers. Obligatory stops on the American-in-Paris circuit included Harry’s Bar in the Rue Daunou, the Ritz, the elegant and aristocratic dance hall owned by Harry Piker where Josephine Baker performed as a favor to the new American manager, Elsa Maxwell, and the Café du Dôme, where Oscar wanted to meet George Antheil, the most avant-garde of the American expatriate composers. Fay had Levant pay for every theater they attended, although one night Oscar outfoxed Frank and treated himself to a performance of Die Walküre at the Opéra. Oscar loved the racy Left Bank Bohemia and called Frank a Babbitt for being hopelessly motherhood and apple pie despite his bluster. “There was an aura of shabby worldliness about Frank,” Levant would write. “Frank was so strictured, both in his devotion to Catholicism and right-wing political beliefs, that even in later years the mention of Helen Hayes—an arch-Republican herself—brought forth a contumacious volley of: ‘She’s a Red … she’s a Pink.’” When Oscar ran out of money, they had sailed home—Frank, with money remaining, in first class on a fast ocean liner, Oscar on a slower ship.

  LEVANT BROUGHT STANWYCK TO FAY’S SHOW. THE PIANIST WOULD remember the performance as being one of Fay’s Palace shows; Barbara would say Oscar took her to Texas Guinan’s newest supper club, where Fay was the headliner.

  After the show, Oscar took Barbara backstage.

  It was, on Stanwyck’s part, infatuation, if not love, at first sight. She felt so utterly lost, so totally alone in the world that, to the amazement of Levant, she threw herself at Fay. “Barbara fell madly in love with him,” Levant would write in his memoirs. “She went for Fay in such a complete way—I never saw anything to equal it.”

  What vulnerable twenty-one-year-old Barbara saw in the thirty-one-year-old Frank she saw without misgivings. What she saw was a natural take-charge temperament, a mesmerizing, complicated guy who never missed a beat. Frank was fun to be with. He was a guy who could bolster her, who might care for her, support her. What overwhelmed her was his cocksure grin, his barbs, and his loud humor. What he saw was a flattering mirror soaking him up, a lovely chorine sharp enough to match his gab, hungry enough for love to be swept off her feet.

  It was “Hi there, Frankie” and “Hello, Mr. Fay!” from every corner on Broadway. Frank saw something to laugh at in everything and never let anyone close enough to criticize him. And he was a charmer. He had two marriages behind him—to Frances White, a popular torch singer, and Gladys Lee Buchanan, an actress. His romances and escapades were part of the gossip of the day, as was his Irish gab.

  BORN NOVEMBER 17, 1897, IN SAN FRANCISCO, FRANCIS ANTHONY Donner was the son of a vaudeville couple. He had been in show business from the age of four, and, like Buster Keaton and John Huston, his first stage appearance was as a prop in his parents’ act. He had played a potato bug, an elf, or a teddy bear—he claimed he couldn’t remember which—in Victor Herbert’s Babes in Toyland. Joe Frisco, a little dancer and comic, taught him step routines. Fay did road shows in the Midwest and made his Broadway debut in The Passing Show of 1918, in which he starred with Fred and Adele Astaire, Charles Ruggles, and Nita Naldi.

  Fay married torch singer and Ziegfeld Follies headliner Frances White. The wedding took place while he starred with Joe E. Brown in Jim Jam Jems and she was a gorgeous, short-haired flapper in The Hotel Mouse. She was famous for “knocking down a grand a week” singing “Mississippi.” They divorced in 1919. Her name made a blip in the press in 1930 when she was arrested for not having $3.50 to pay a New York cabdriver. Fay married his second wife, Gladys Lee Buchanan, on the road. He claimed he attended mass every day, wore a Saint Christopher’s medal, and always tipped his hat when he passed a church, which didn’t prevent him from divorcing three wives and fathering at least one illegitimate child. As a young man Fred Astaire was mad about the famous Follies girl Eleanor Holm. “Lay off that one,” Fay admonished the dancer, “she’s Faysie’s.” Astaire was so scared he never went near Holm again.

  Drinking and gambling were part of Fay’s bravado. Being either flush or dead broke went with the persona. In 1921, he had filed a voluntary petition for bankruptcy, declaring his only asset to be $100 worth of clothes. Two years later, he bounced back in the Shuberts’ Artists and Models.

  Frank gloried in praise and was resentful of criticism, which he considered carping or enviousness. He wasn’t much liked by other comedians. “Fay’s friends could be counted on the missing arm of a one-armed man,” said Milton Berle. But they admired his gall and told the story of his day in court on a business matter. His attorney coached him to answer only what was asked of him, not to volunteer anything.

  When the opposing attorney had Fay on the stand and asked for his profession, Frank answered, “I’m the greatest comedian in the world.”

  Later, Fay’s attorney said, “Frank, I told you to answer simply. The other lawyer asked, ‘What’s your profession?’ How could you answer, ‘I’m the greatest comedian in
the world’?”

  Said Fay, “I was under oath, wasn’t I?”

  Anything for a laugh. Comedy came first for Faysie, ahead of friends, family, or peace of mind.

  BARBARA WOULD ADMIT SHE TRAILED AFTER FRANK FAY LIKE A stray pup after the news of Rex’s death—and got about as much attention. He took her to lunch at Sardi’s. Frank took bows, Frank said howdy all around, and Frank held court. He was everything she imagined her father would have been. In Frank’s company her lack of education didn’t matter. Before Burlesque closed on Broadway and went on the road, Levant realized Fay had enough ascendancy over her to dictate her career moves.

  Hollywood scouts were combing stage doors and the offices of actors’ agents. The switch to talkies had Hollywood studio executives coming to New York to scout for actors with voices for dialogue who were willing to sign lush contracts and come to California. Everybody heard stories of soundmen with earphones plugged into black magic boxes lording over the talkie movie sets and of film stars from Gloria Swanson to Greta Garbo hesitating to face the new microphones. But everybody also heard the money being offered promising young players with stage-trained voices. Stanwyck’s fellow actors of the 1928 Broadway season about to head west included Ann Harding and her husband, Harry Bannister, Claudette Colbert, Clark Gable, Spencer Tracy, Archie Leach (Cary Grant), Muni Weisenfreund (Paul Muni), Miriam Hopkins, Lee Tracy, Chester Morris, Mae West, and Aline MacMahon.

  After seeing Burlesque one night Louis B. Mayer, the big boss at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, decided Stanwyck had picture potential. As Mayer’s wife, Margaret, was related to Levant’s mother and the Mayers were staying with Oscar’s aunt and uncle, Levant took them to Texas Guinan’s supper club, where, after the last Burlesque curtain call, Barbara could be found every night.

  When the pianist introduced the movie mogul to Stanwyck, Fay became irate. Sensing that the physical Mayer had a terrible temper when provoked, Frank waited until Mayer left before threatening to punch Oscar’s nose for even introducing Barbara to the MGM boss. Stanwyck’s introduction to movie acting in Broadway Nights had not been the most thrilling experience. She told Levant to tell his distant relative she wasn’t interested.

  Famous Players-Lasky Paramount Pictures bought the rights to Burlesque and invited Stanwyck, Skelly, and Levant to test for the screen version. Hal and Oscar jumped at the chance to go to Hollywood. Barbara said no. She didn’t want to be three thousand miles from Frank. His whirlwind courtship of her was flattering and persistent, and she wanted to make a big sacrifice for him. She was ready to give up what she loved most—acting. He left New York for an engagement in St. Louis as emcee at the Missouri Theatre at the same time Burlesque went on the road.

  By telegram, he proposed.

  Frank’s allure and intuition would turn into dangerous attributes, but Barbara got on a train to St. Louis. Frank was what she wanted—family, home, security, someone who would take care of her. Less than four weeks after she had waved au revoir to Rex at New York’s French Line pier, she married Frank in St. Louis. The August 26, 1928, wedding took place in the early afternoon at the home of the St. Louis recorder of deeds, William Tamme. At 5:00 P.M., Mrs. Frank Fay boarded a train taking her back to Newark, New Jersey, to begin the Burlesque tour. Frank stayed with his St. Louis engagement.

  Six months later they were on their way to Hollywood.

  “PRETTY LITTLE BARBARA STANWYCK, WHO WALKED RIGHT OUT OF a night club into a spectacular stage success in ‘Burlesque,’ has been signed by United Artists,” the New York Times reported on February 28, 1929. “Miss Stanwyck first came into notice when Burlesque was hailed as a sensational hit. At the time Famous Players-Lasky bought Burlesque. Hundreds of people suggested Little Miss Stanwyck for the role that she created on the stage, but Famous Players had its own rising star, Nancy Carroll, so why import a new face?”

  Joseph Schenck had seen Barbara in Burlesque and had come backstage to say, “If you ever want to do a movie part, just telephone me.” The new Mrs. Frank Fay did because now her husband was also being courted by Hollywood. Schenck signed her for The Locked Door; the film adaptation of Channing Pollock’s popular 1919 play The Sign on the Door: With the advent of sound, Hollywood scouts also combed Broadway for filmable properties. Pollock was a prolific playwright and critic, librettist, and comedy writer. The role was a stock character Barbara would impersonate many times—a woman with a past.

  She was to play Anne, a young secretary who accepts the invitation of her boss’s son Frank to dine with him. Police are watching the private supper club he chooses, and before the dessert the place is raided.

  A flash photo catches Anne and Frank as they are arrested. Eventually, they jump bail. Five years later Anne is married to a widower with an attractive eighteen-year-old daughter. Frank reappears, in pursuit this time, of Anne’s stepdaughter. Hearing the girl in danger alone in her room with Frank, Anne barges in. As the daughter flees, Anne’s husband is announced. Anne hides and overhears her husband storm in, already incensed at Frank for having seduced the wife of a friend. The men scuffle and Frank is killed.

  Placing the gun in the dead man’s hand, the husband hangs a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the door and leaves. He locks the door from the outside, inadvertently locking his wife in with the dead man. Police arrive. Anne is arrested and exposure seems imminent, when, by a lucky twist, she is saved.

  BARBARA AND FRANK TRAVELED WEST WITH THE PLAIN, OAFISH-looking Schenck, who insisted his surname was pronounced “Skenk.” The four-and-a-half-day train ride allowed her to promote Frank with the United Artists boss. Fay undermined her efforts, however, playing the smart-ass know-it-all. “We’re not exactly broke coming out,” he grinned in an oft-repeated joke of his. “In fact, I have $8 or $9 in my wallet.” Turning serious, he said he was going to take Hollywood by storm. If the talkies needed people with stage presence, how could the studios afford not to hire Broadway’s favorite son? Yes, he would be negotiating with the studios from a position of strength. We have no record of what Schenck answered to Fay’s braggadocio. If only Fay had shut up, he might have learned something about the picture business he was sure he would conquer.

  D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford, and her husband, Douglas Fairbanks, and the two newest investors, Gloria Swanson and Samuel Goldwyn, were the artist-owners of United Artists. As head of UA, Schenck was the real power, just as his brother Nicholas was the ultimate authority behind MGM’s corporate parent, Loews Inc. The Schenck brothers had come from Russia at the age of twelve and ten and climbed from drugstore clerks to drugstore owners to controlling partners of an amusement park and aides to Marcus Loew. In 1917, they had gone separate ways—Nick to become Loews heir apparent, Joe to produce Fatty Arbuckle slapsticks. Like Irving Thalberg and Samuel Goldwyn, Joe had married an actress—Norma Talmadge.

  Joe and Norma were the first mogul-star couple, the first to build on the Santa Monica beach. They now had Jesse and Bess Lasky, he the monocled studio boss of Famous Players-Lasky Paramount Pictures, as neighbors. William R. Hearst and Margaret and Louis B. Mayer lived further down the road near Irving Thalberg and Norma Shearer. Joe casually invited the great and the raffish, his wife asked whomever she pleased, and neither cared about the mix.

  It was Fairbanks who had convinced Schenck to become the administrative head of UA. Fairbanks was the only one of the “united artists” besides Goldwyn to know anything about cost, distribution deals, options, loan guarantees, film rentals. The talkies demanded actors with stage experience, and the coming of sound was shaking up the industry, but the fundamentals were the same. Low-budget westerns, action pictures, and stunt thrillers were still the bread and butter of the picture business. Movies had a life expectancy of half a week, as most theater owners changed their playbills on Mondays and Fridays. More interesting from a financial point of view were two other classifications: “Rialto specials,” films that ran as long as the public wanted them, and the several annual “road-show” pictures that lent p
restige and goodwill to the industry.

  Moviegoing had become a worldwide obsession in the mid-twenties, when almost every one of the 740 films made each year in Hollywood earned fat profits in the world’s fifty thousand movie theaters (nearly a third of the cinemas were in the United States and Canada). Two years after the sensational debut of The Jazz Singer; sound was both a fact of life and a frightfully expensive upgrade of technology and talent. The April issue of Photoplay counted 1,600 theaters wired for sound, and its poll of moviegoers showed 90 percent favored talkies. If exhibitors faced huge expenditures—installing sound cost as much as $20,000 per cinema—the studios faced even bigger outlays, from soundproofing stages to retraining technicians and on-screen talent.

  Barbara thought Schenck was returning from a yearlong absence when the welcoming throng at Union Station included, besides his wife and the press, Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, and Irving Thalberg. When one of the VIPs asked Schenck if he had enjoyed his trip and he replied, “Three weeks is a short time to enjoy New York,” Barbara realized she was in a land of new rituals. Here, the natives paid tribute to a returning king even if he had been gone only three weeks.

  6

  HOLLYWOOD

  THE FAYS ARRIVED IN LOS ANGELES IN EARLY MARCH 1929. A United Artists publicist met them at Union Station and piled them into a studio car that took them up long straight streets lined with shady trees. Hollywood was sparkling and sunny. Between private residences, the first office buildings were lining Hollywood Boulevard. Frank and Barbara came down with a severe case of longing for mid-town Manhattan. He felt California was the end of the world. She was ready to take the first train back.