by David Bret
Because of Hearst’s formidable wealth, Marion Davies (1893- 1961) had always been exempted from the Hays Office moral turpitude clause. She had started out as a Ziegfeld girl and was a gifted slapstick comedienne who triumphed in King Vidor’s The Patsy. By the time she worked with Clark, getting smacked in the face with custard pies was starting to become old hat, so Hearst, 30 years her senior, had attempted to turn her into a dramatic actress. This was an exercise akin to transforming Sarah Bernhardt into a Keystone Cop and in doing so, Hearst prevented Davies from reaching her full potential as a screwball comedienne, which might have seen her rivalling Hepburn and Lombard.
Of one thing the quaintly stuttering Davies could now rest assured. Like its predecessors, Polly Of The Circus would be a box-office flop, though owing to the nature of his deal with MGM, the production would lose money only for Hearst. This he did not mind. So long as his mistress was happy and playing the kind of roles she liked, he too was content. And MGM would be in no position to complain about the latest Marion Davies’ turkey because any lost revenue would be more than compensated by their other films receiving free premium coverage in Hearst’s publications. Not only this, the reviews were always favourable even if some of the films were dire!
What Hearst and Mayer did not figure on was Clark’s reluctance to work with his latest leading lady, though the excuse he gave Mayer was that the script was not good enough. Mayer was furious: only Garbo was permitted to tell him he had made a mistake. Even so, he was willing to overlook Gable’s indiscretion just this once and ordered a rewrite, which Clark still disliked - walking off the set after the first day’s shooting.
Had Hearst not been involved with the production, eager to placate his distressed mistress by having her appear with Gable, no matter the cost, Clark would almost certainly have been suspended. Instead, Mayer applied his infamous ‘Machiavellian technique’. Hearst’s offer of the car was withdrawn but Mayer promised Clark an increase in salary if he went back to work - a new $1,500 contract would come into force on 22 January 1932. From this point on, Mayer secretly planned to look for the slightest excuse to fire him, something which would not happen because Clark always stayed one step ahead of the Hays Office. Not surprisingly, he also got to ‘defrost’ Marion Davies, as renowned as he was for sleeping with co-stars. Hearst may have had the wherewithal to provide his mistress with a regal lifestyle, but he is known not to have been upstanding in the bedroom department!
The film was an absolute stinker. Clark played a clergyman who loses his congregation when he marries a trapeze artiste - a profession regarded as common by the small-town gossips. She blames herself for this and prays she might plunge to her death while attempting a perilous triple somersault. When she fails to do this, encouraged by Clark and his bishop, his flock accept her and all ends well!
Half a century later, Clark’s ‘smugly gentle and saintly prelate’ - so described by the Chicago Tribune - would still be making audiences cringe. In their celebrated tome, The Golden Turkey Awards, Harry and Michael Medved nominated Gable in their Worst Performance By An Actor/Actress As A Clergyman/Nun category. ‘What a man of the cloth he makes,’ they observed. ‘He plays the minister as an overgrown altar boy. The beatific smile he affects for this part looks greasy and obsequious - as if Uriah Heep has taken Holy Orders.’
Polly Of The Circus bombed at the box-office - the first Gable vehicle to do so - and is thankfully mostly forgotten today.
Chapter Three
HARLOW
Clark is said to have been over the moon when Louis B. Mayer announced that his next film was to be Red Dust, based on the stage play by Wilson Collison, scripted by John Lee Mahin—and co-starring Jean Harlow. The production had originally been commissioned for John Gilbert, but his career was on the slide following a botched (we now know deliberately sabotaged) test which deemed his voice unsuitable for sound.
When one reads the account of Gable’s casting as Gilbert’s replacement - organised by Mahin, producer Hunt Stromberg and director Victor Fleming - one might be excused thinking that Lyn Tornabene, quoting from contemporary sources in her biography, attempts to conceal the fact that every male associated with the film was a screaming queen! Stromberg, Mahin and Clark are described as ‘men’s men and a half’, while Fleming as ‘a man’s man and three-quarters’. And John Lee Mahin, who did have a crush on Clark, recalled how he had told Stromberg, after watching one of his films, ‘There’s this guy - my God, he’s got the eyes of a woman and the build of a bull. He is really going to be something!’ Though Clark may have had the charisma and nerve to seduce even the most reluctant of men, like every other male involved with Red Dust he was interested only in winning the lottery - getting Jean Harlow into bed.
Without any doubt the sex goddess of the Thirties, she was born Harlean Carpenter on 3 March 1911 in Kansas City and brought to Hollywood in 1923 by her mother, whom everyone addressed as Mama Jean. At 16, she was already voluptuous and no longer a virgin for she had been allegedly raped by Mama Jean’s second husband Marino Bello. Sicilian by birth, schizophrenic and a generally all-round unsavoury character, Bello (1883-1953) had Mafia links and was a close friend of gangster Johnny Rosselli.
On account of his passion for hunting and shooting, Bello also became friendly with Clark, who may have been unaware of either his shady connections, or his violent interference in his step-daughter’s personal life after Harlow eloped with socialite Charles McGrew and set up home with him in Beverly Hills. In 1928, having adopted Mama Jean’s maiden name, Harlow appeared as an extra in Moran of the Marines, and later worked with Laurel and Hardy. From this point, Mama Jean had begun handling her career and by the end of 1929 she and Bello had forced ‘Baby’, as she would be affectionately known for the rest of her short life, to have an abortion and end her marriage to McGrew.
Harlow’s big break came with Howard Hughes’ 1930 Hell’s Angels, wherein she pronounced the immortal line, ‘Do you mind if I slip into something more comfortable?’ before donning the lowest-cut gown Hollywood had ever seen. While working with Clark in The Secret Six she had become involved with MGM executive Paul Bern. Known as ‘Little Father Confessor’ on account of his puny build and fondness for listening to other people’s problems - though not always helping them to resolve them or indeed facing up to his own troubles - German-born Bern (Paul Levy, 1889-1932) was Irving Thalberg’s right-hand man. It was with him that he produced Grand Hotel. Bern was also Joan Crawford’s best friend after William Haines. A talented scriptwriter, he had worked with Ernst Lubitsch and Josef von Sternberg.
Sophisticated, intellectual but unattractive, Bern’s powerful position permitted him to date some of the biggest names in Hollywood, female and male, including Clark. After his death, however, various inquests revealed that on account of grossly underdeveloped genitals he had been incapable of consummating any relationship and his always-younger conquests merely regarded him as a kindly father figure.
At 42, Bern was twice Harlow’s age, but the two got along like a house on fire despite the efforts of friends such as Joan Crawford - who could not stand Harlow - trying to dissuade him by telling him that he would only end up making a fool of himself. On behalf of MGM, Bern bought out Harlow’s contract from Howard Hughes for $60,000 and during the spring of 1932 assigned her to a $1,250 a week deal. Her first film under his tutelage had been Red-Headed Woman and she had shocked the entire set when, at the end of one scene when the director yelled ‘Cut!’ and told her to remove her coat, she was not wearing a stitch underneath!
This innate vulgarity came across well on screen. Harlow was never less than the platinum-haired, busty, fun-loving tart but everything she did was pure magic, perpetrated with such innocence that she could get away with anything. Off the screen, like Tallulah Bankhead and Carole Lombard, she was unrivalled for saucy anecdotes and killing one-liners. When reporter Ben Maddox once asked her what she saw in Paul Bern, she replied, ‘We listen to music and read books together. Paul lik
es me for my mind. He isn’t pawing me all the time and talking fuck, fuck, fuck! Our friendship goes beyond that.’
What many found astonishing, Clark included, is that such a bizarre little man should wish to marry this self-proclaimed nymphomaniac who never wore underwear, who bleached her pubic hair to match that on her head and who was not averse to flashing her ‘clitty bush’ to anyone who expressed interest. Yet marry they did on 2 July 1932, shortly before shooting began on Red Dust, at Bern’s Benedict Canyon home. The guests of honour were the Thalbergs and the Gables, with Ria making a rare public outing at her husband’s side.
In Red Dust, set in Indochina, Jean Harlow plays Vantine, the wise-cracking tart with a heart, who, on the run from the Saigon police, shows up at the rubber plantation managed by Denny Carson (Clark). He is ebullient, initially resentful of the siren who introduces herself as ‘Pollyanna The Glad Girl’, telling her she may stay only until the next boat docks. ‘It’s bad enough having to play around with them in Saigon, much less having one in your house,’ he drawls, of the other whores he has known, adding that he has been looking at her kind since his voice changed.
Denny is grumpy because production is down because of its being the ‘red dust’ season; a situation he hopes will be remedied when he gets his new surveyor, Willis, (Gary Raymond). Meanwhile, his lack of hospitality and Vantine’s coarse observations lead to attraction - he calls her Lily; she calls him Fred, nags about his drinking, hums ‘Home Sweet Home’ and never stops talking. Forever hitching up her skirt and flashing her thighs, she bathes in the outdoor vat containing the men’s drinking water and is surprised when Denny objects, avowing that any red-blooded male would want to drink the water all the more after she has been in it. Her language (for the day) is appalling and even the parrot is berated when she cleans out his cage - ‘What you been eating, cement?’ And when Denny threatens to hit her, Vantine responds, ‘You and what man’s army?’ Which of course leads to the obvious, as the scene fades.
Willis arrives, accompanied by his pretty but stand-offish wife Barbara (Mary Astor). He is mild-mannered, while she is in direct contrast to Harlow’s loveable slut, though Denny wants her just the same. Naturally, the two women in his world do not get along. ‘I wouldn’t touch her with your best pair of rubber gloves!’ Vantine tells him of her rival. When Willis takes a fever and Denny winds Barbara up the wrong way, she slaps him and this unleashes his animal instincts - when he kisses her she appears to be having an orgasm. And no sooner has Willis recovered than he is dispatched on a jungle mission so that Denny can finish what he has started.
Denny has never had a lady. Similarly, Barbara is not used to this sort of thing and feels she must come clean to her husband. Denny agrees then visits him in the jungle and on a tiger shoot the two bond. Hearing how much Willis loves his wife and of the plans they have made for the future, Denny cannot go through with it. He goes home and when Vantine sees him looking glum, she barks, ‘Is the burial private, or didn’t ya bring the body home with ya?’, to which he responds in equally deadpan style, ‘Where’d ya git that kimona?’ Then he realises he must do the honourable thing and give Barbara up and that the woman he really wants is Vantine because they are the same class and temperament. They are getting into a spot of friendly wrestling-foreplay when Barbara walks in. Furious, she bawls out Denny and realises he has been stringing her along. To the delight of thousands of female Gable fans he levels, ‘I’m not a one-woman man - I never have been, and never will be! If you want to take your turn, all right, if it makes you feel any better!’
Barbara draws a gun and plugs him - not fatally - just as Willis arrives and Vantine jumps to her defence. ‘You oughta be proud of her,’ she tells the upset husband. ‘This bozo’s been after her every minute, and tonight he breaks into her room and she shoots him. It’s the only way any virtuous woman would with a beast like that!’ Of course her quick thinking has assured Vantine of having Denny all to herself. Her rival and her husband eager to leave, Vantine cleans up Denny’s wound and as the credits roll, we see him domesticated and lounging on his sickbed while she reads him a child’s bedtime story!
Surprisingly, Gable’s and Harlow’s on-screen antics, even the bathing scene, bypassed the Hays Office censors. ‘I never wear panties, so why should I put them on to take a bath in a barrel when nobody can see me?’ she is said to have asked Victor Fleming, though he, the cameraman, Clark and every single technician ensured themselves an eyeful. Mary Astor’s ‘orgasm’ was discussed, but left in when John Lee Mahin claimed her character’s affection for Denny leaned more towards the maternal than the carnal - Astor was five years younger. The biggest fuss occurred in one scene when Clark removed his shirt and ripped it off in another, revealing not just his navel, but that he was not wearing an under vest. Whereas there is no evidence that women across America emulated Jean Harlow by shedding bras and panties - or rubbed their nipples with ice-cubes so that they would stand out under chiffon dresses - shops reported a decline in men’s under vests during the winter of 1932-3. Louis B. Mayer asked for both scenes to be shot again; though Clark’s navel remained covered on Howard Strickling’s insistence the under vest stayed off. Gable, he argued, was an outdoors type, and therefore tough enough not to need one. And MGM ultimately realised, as had happened when they teamed Clark with Joan Crawford, that they had discovered another winning combination to a box-office jackpot. There would be four more Gable-Harlow movies, each one as successful as this.
Despite the fun everyone appears to have had making it, Red Dust was blighted by a singular tragedy. Shooting was in full swing when, on 5 September 1932, Paul Bern’s naked body was discovered face down on his bathroom floor, drenched in Harlow’s favourite Mitsouko perfume, with a gunshot wound to the head and a .38 pistol in his hand. His butler made the grim discovery and, in accordance with Hollywood’s unwritten laws, he immediately contacted Louis B. Mayer’s office, enabling Mayer and MGM’s chief of police, Whitey Hendry, to check out the scenario and remove the suicide note. ‘Dearest dear,’ Bern had written, ‘Unfortunately this is the only way to make good the frightful wrong I have done you and to wipe out my abject humiliation. PS. You understand that last night was only a comedy.’
Whitey Hendry - the man responsible for sorting out anything from traffic fines to sex scandals - continued the hypocrisy by conveying Harlow to her mother’s house, where she had been briefed on how to react when the regular police arrived to inform her of her tragic loss. Stepfather Marino Bello, whom many believe would not have ruled out murdering Bern for taking his ‘Baby’ away from him, was ordered by Mayer - and doubtless paid for the privilege - to inform police he had been away on a hunting trip with Clark Gable at the time of Bern’s death. Clark was suspected of intimacy with Harlow, particularly as Joan Crawford had been removed from the scene before Red Dust went into production. Following Grand Hotel, she had been assigned to Somerset Maugham’s Rain, and pleaded with Mayer to give her Gable. Instead, she ended up with her dullest co-star ever: William Gargan.
Rain had been shot on Catalina Island - Mayer claimed to keep Clark at bay and allow Crawford and Douglas Fairbanks Jr to patch up their shaky marriage. Fairbanks added to the drama by embarking on a ‘boys only’ sailing trip and Joan had been taken ill during filming, resulting in her miscarrying a baby reputed to have been Clark’s - though with her track record, it could have been anybody’s. The Fairbanks, meanwhile, were reported to be in Europe enjoying a second honeymoon and happier than ever. In fact, sick of the charade, they curtailed the trip and returned to Los Angeles shortly after Paul Bern’s death. On the night in question, Clark had been with Joan, not Marino Bello. What the press were also never told was that, after Bern’s death, Mayer had taken Harlow off Red Dust - she had requested this, he planned announcing, out of respect for her late husband. In fact it was the Hayes Office, confusing the actress with the part (though in this instance they were not wrong) who deemed it inappropriate for a recently bereaved widow to be seen
portraying a woman of easy virtue, who enjoys open-air bathing.
In one of the more foolish moves of his career, Mayer decided it would be prudent to shoot all of Harlow’s scenes with another actress and offered the part to Tallulah Bankhead - ten times more scandalous than a dozen Harlows! Tallulah angrily informed The Messiah that even she had principles, rejected the offer and later wrote in her memoirs, ‘To damn the radiant Jean for the misfortune of others would be one of the shabbiest acts of all time’. Worse was to come, for when Mayer tried to force her hand by threatening to expose her as a ‘serial trollop who has seduced more Hollywood actors than most of us have had hot dinners’, she called his bluff, venturing to inform the press of the names of six MGM actresses with whom she claimed she had been intimate, including Garbo and Crawford!
It subsequently emerged that Paul Bern’s death had been more than a simple matter of suicide. He was unable to have sex because of the genital abnormality he hoped the sexually torrid Harlow would cure despite the fact that physically he was attracted only to men. But when he had failed to rise to the occasion he beat his bride black and blue with a walking cane on their wedding night. Additionally, it emerged during the inquest - hence the ‘comedy’ referred to in his suicide note - that on the evening of 4 September he had bought an ejaculating dildo, complete with testicles, which he had strapped on before walking into Harlow’s bedroom. Whether Bern had attempted to use this on her is not known, only that she had shrieked with laughter and, it would appear, left him feeling acutely humiliated - enough to make him want to kill himself, the inquest concluded. In fact, the case was not quite so clear-cut. Three days after Bern’s death, the body of a bit-part actress named Dorothy Millette was fished out of the Sacramento River. It transpired that she had been Bern’s common-law wife, who, after suffering a mental breakdown, had been committed by him to an asylum from which she had recently been discharged. Further evidence suggested Millette had been blackmailing him, threatening to expose him as a bigamist, and that this was the humiliation referred to in his suicide note, particularly as, unable to cope with her own shame, Millette had also chosen to take the easy way out.
