Whatever Happend to Baby Jane? Bette of Course....

[danemodsandy]

Launderess!

I usually consider you a fount of reliable information, but I don't know where you're getting all this stuff about Norma Shearer. I write about film as well as architecture and design; Shearer is one of my favourite subjects.

First, Norma wasn't married to director George Cukor, who was rather openly gay. She was married to M-G-M Head of Production Irving Thalberg in 1927, a marriage that lasted until Thalberg's untimely death in 1937. Note that The Women was done in 1939- two years after Thalberg's death. Norma did the movie at Louis B. Mayer's specific request- he felt she'd been doing too many grand costume pictures, and that her career would benefit from a smart modern comedy. He was right.

Norma did have her makeup tricks (I've done an article about them), but she was not taped in The Women. Taping, invented by makeup artist Gene Hibbs, requires that the actress wear a wig to cover the tapes. Norma wears a hairstyle combed back off her forehead, and trust me, that's her own hair, styled by M-G-M's Sydney Guilaroff.

Shearer did three more films after The Women. They were: Escape (1940), We Were Dancing (1941), and Her Cardboard Lover (1942). Admittedly, the last two were financial failures, because Norma wanted to do drawing-room comedies again after a ten-year hiatus from them, and that kind of movie wasn't what people wanted on the eve of the U.S. involvement in WWII.

Louis B. Mayer again worked to resuscitate Norma's career: she was offered Mrs. Miniver, which she turned down. She was actually announced for the role of Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind in the New York Times (search the Times' archives if you doubt me). She turned that one down, too.

Also, Jack Warner had always admired Norma as an actress, and tried to get her to come over to Warner Bros. He had her in mind for Now, Voyager, but planned to start her out co-starring with Bette Davis in Old Acquaintance. Since the part that J.L. had in mind for Norma was somewhat secondary to Bette's, Norma passed, and Miriam Hopkins played the part. As Davis biographer Barbara Leaming states, Bette was actually dead last choice for Voyager, after Norma and Irene Dunne.

Last, Norma's illness in her final years seems not to have been Alzheimer's. I have checked her symptoms and history with several physician friends, and their differential diagnoses are unanimous: she was suffering from multi-infarct dementia brought on by atherosclerosis and a series of small strokes.

Norma Shearer is one of the most misunderstood stars of the Classic Era; her long, reclusive retirement meant that she didn't speak up for herself when misinformation began to spring up. She was active in the movie business even after she retired; she discovered Janet Leigh at a ski resort she patronised, and later discovered Robert Evans, who played Irving Thalberg in 1957's Man of a Thousand Faces. Evans' career as an actor was fairly brief, but he later became head of Paramount Pictures. As studio head, he was responsible for the creation of such movies as Rosemary's Baby, Love Story, The Godfather, Chinatown, and The Great Gatsby. Norma seems to have had an eye for talent!

Norma was, in the words of GWTW producer David O. Selznick, "a grand woman and a grand actress", and it's a crying shame that so few people know her films- or her life story- well. Her career lasted twenty years, fifteen of them as one of the top stars at M-G-M, second only to Garbo.

Her "feud" with Joan Crawford was well-known enough to get a story in "LIFE" Magazine, but the feud was much more Joan than Norma. Joan did, as you say, resent Norma's marriage to Irving Thalberg, saying whenever Norma got a part Joan had wanted, "She sleeps with the boss, you know." For Norma's part, she only answered a question about Joan directly once. When asked what she wanted to say about Joan, Norma took a genteel swipe at Joan's tendency to seek publicity: "She's said it all herself, hasn't she? I don't think I have anything to add." And in interviews with Ladies' Home Journal interviewer Roy Newquist (published as Conversations With Joan Crawford), Joan paid rueful tribute to Norma's ability to behave like a lady.

Norma was something else- she just wasn't what most people nowadays think she was. I like her. Watch more of her movies, and I think you'll like her, too.

 

[rp2813]

L, of course it's Stephen Haynes. George Haines was Mark Spitz's pre-Olympic swimming coach, a local figure in the news here over the years. I gotta cut back, I'm telling you . . .

I think you're right after all with Davis playing Crystal. But I suspect the opening credits would play out the same regardless.

 

[launderess]

Irving Thalberg

Yes, you are correct, sorry about the confusion regarding Miss. Shearer's husband. Don't know how one got the two confused.

As for the balance of my post, can only say one repeated various items one read. Which is the most anyone who was not born,around, nor had intimate knowledge of any historical person can do; thank you for setting things straight.

Only have seen two of NS's films, "The Women" and "Marie Antoinette", so will have to bow to your expertise on the subject.

Now Irene Dunne, is my kind of gal! Great body of work from a lady with a capital "L". Few actresses then, in the past or even now can or could match Miss. Dunne for acting ability, comedy timing, vocal skills and sheer absolute grace. Shame Miss. Dunne never received an Oscar for her films, though was given an honorary one later.

Miss. Dunne's acting skills ran such a breath and were that good, she could do more with a glance or a silence than many with an entire monologue. In "Penny Serenade" (a film not to be watched without a box of Kleenex), while in the hospital after a miscarriage, Miss. Dunne speaks of "the only thing I've ever wanted, .....", and the scene cuts to outside her room door where a nurse is wheeling a trolley of newborns to their mothers for feeding/visiting. As Miss. Dunne gives her lines the camera cuts to the door (which is a demi-type which one can see the hall clearly under), and we see the shadow of the infant trolley's wheels,and hear the sound of infants crying, but the trolley passes Miss. Dunne's room. We know in an instant, she lost the baby, and won't be able to have another; all this without Miss. Dunne having to say so! Great stuff!

 

[brettsomers]

its ok Sandy. im kinda a Shearer fan myself.

Shearer was already an established star when she met Thalberg.

She was one of the few silent stars to thrive when talkies came.

And she maintained a very youthful face into her middle years. Thanks to George Hurrell, she was known as a beauty in the 30s

 

[danemodsandy]

Hi Launderess!

"Only have seen two of NS's films, "The Women" and "Marie Antoinette", so will have to bow to your expertise on the subject."

Please understand, I'm not attacking anything you said- I just like to make sure that people have the straight dope on Norma. Her real story is one of the grandest- and ultimately most heartbreaking- in all Hollywood history.

The two Shearer movies you've seen are a little atypical of her work. Marie Antoinette suffered a bit when L.B. Mayer took away her favourite director, George Sidney, and replaced him with W.S. "Woody" Van Dyke III. Van Dyke was known in town as "One-Take Woody", because he favoured shooting scenes in only one take. L.B.'s motive here was to speed up the shooting of a very expensive movie. In my opinion, Marie Antoinette suffered a bit from this approach, though it was Shearer's personal favourite of her films.

The Women has Norma playing "straight man" to a host of actresses with comedic lines. It was a thankless task; Norma is fine in the role, but it's not as showy a part as those of Joan Crawford or Rosalind Russell. BTW, depending on which of her biographers you believe, Norma was either 37 or 39 here. Joan was 35. I personally credit the earlier, 1900 birthdate for Norma, making her 39 to Joan's 35.

To see Norma at her distinctive best, I'd suggest The Divorcee (Norma's Best Actress Oscar was won for this), her silent Lady of the Night (with Joan doubling for her in a dual role), A Free Soul, Riptide, or Let Us Be Gay, which meant happy then. She's great in all of them. If you want a real, honest-to-God tearjerker, try Smilin' Through. And for really fine acting, there's 1940's Escape. All of these turn up from time to time on Turner Classic Movies. And for a good look at how important Norma was in her time, I'd suggest trying to catch a showing of Complicated Women, a Turner documentary based on the book of the same name by the excellent Mick La Salle. It's about the naughty movies Hollywood made before the enactment of the Production Code in 1934. Norma was actually considered a threat to public morals, her movies of the time were so "hot". Joan wasn't far behind her. Great docu.

 

[rp2813]

I agree that Miss Shearer's role as Mary Haynes was among the weakest in "The Women"--in all contexts. I've heard on & off over the past couple of years that there is a remake of "The Women" in the works. I want to think it's somebody like Julia Roberts behind this effort but am not sure. A misguided venture to be sure, as no modern day remake could ever come close to the caliber of the original.

A small local theater here used to show only vintage films and that's where I first saw "The Women." The theater was family owned and before each double feature the proprietor would walk down to the front of the auditorium and give a little talk on what we were about to see--as well as advise that cracking your gum was not an acceptable practice. It was a great experience and I saw many classics in this setting. Eventually they either couldn't make a go of it or got an offer they couldn't refuse. The little 40's theater got pushed over and replaced by condo's back in the 80's.

Interesting how Miss Shearer has managed to hijack a thread that was focusing on a much more well known leading lady . . .

 

[danemodsandy]

Ralph:

"Interesting how Miss Shearer has managed to hijack a thread that was focusing on a much more well known leading lady . . ."

Well, there are Shearer/Davis connections, as I've already hinted. The reason Jack Warner wanted to bring Norma over to Warner Bros. was as a "threat" to Bette. As supremely talented as Davis was, she was getting more difficult by the year, becoming harder to handle and costing the studio more money. The situation was made even trickier by the fact that Davis was the only female mega-star at Warners. They had lesser female stars like Joan Blondell, Ida Lupino, Ann Sheridan, and Olivia de Havilland, but Bette was the only A-list draw. That meant Bette could pretty much do as she pleased.

By bringing a big star over from M-G-M, Jack Warner hoped that he'd be better able to control Bette; he could threaten Bette by telling her "if you don't behave, I'll give this part to Norma". Unfortunately for Warner's plans, he goofed when he proposed Norma's first Warner Bros. assignment, Old Acquaintance. At first, Norma thought she'd be playing the starring role, and was anxious to do it. But then she found out that Warner intended for her to do the secondary role, co-starred after Bette. Norma did not readily play second fiddle to anyone, so she declined the role, and a Warner Bros. contract.

Jack Warner, realising his mistake, was left with a bigger problem than before, because now Bette knew what he was up to, and Warner still had no viable "threat". It took Warner a while, but he found a solution: Joan Crawford. Finding that she wanted to leave M-G-M, he offered her a Warner's contract. She accepted. Jack Warner seems to have been careful not to repeat the mistake he made with Norma Shearer; he handled Crawford with kid gloves. She was allowed her pick of projects; it took her nearly two years to find the one she wanted. Crawford's search for a "comeback" movie took so long she asked Jack Warner to take her off salary until exactly the right part in the right movie was found. Finally, she found it- Mildred Pierce.

Mildred Pierce won Joan the 1945 Oscar for Best Actress. After that, she made the well-received Humoresque (the performance of her career, if you ask me), and then got another Oscar nomination for Possessed. All three of these movies were strong earners for Warner Bros. Such job performance on Joan's part gave Jack Warner exactly the control over Bette that he needed. Bette compounded her own problems by making 1948's Winter Meeting, her first real box-office failure since becoming a full-fledged star. She followed that up with June Bride, a shaky comedy that didn't do all that well, either.

Bette was finally fired from Warner Bros. in 1949, during a dispute that arose during the shooting of Beyond the Forest. She was chafing under the control of director King Vidor, and told Jack Warner in a meeting, "It's him or it's me!" Warner looked her in the eye and said, "O.K. Bette- it's you." To Davis's credit, she swallowed her pride and finished the film in a completely professional manner, leaving Warner Bros. after its completion. The following year, she was asked to replace the injured Claudette Colbert in All About Eve, a comedy and a huge hit. After that, she was struck down with bone disease in her jaw, which made it difficult to follow Eve up with more movies. Bette did eventually get well and got back to work, but her career began to decline.

Anyway, it's interesting to reflect that Norma Shearer was still viable enough in 1942 to be considered a threat to Bette Davis. Shearer was actually asked to do a movie for Enterprise Productions in 1946, and signed for it, but the independent company's financing fell through, and Norma went back to skiing, never appearing before the cameras again.

 

[launderess]

Not To Further Hihack This Thread

But..

Mary Haines as portrayed in the film is no where near as a good a role as in the original Broadway play. However the really juicy and in some ways politically incorrect (for that era anyway), play would never have made it past the censors, so changes were made.

In the film Mary Haines comes across as a doormat, pushed into divorce by her girlfriends and takes back her wandering husband in the end. While the play does have the same ending, MH has better lines in the play, well at least that is what I came away with after seeing the NYC revival of "The Women" a few years ago.

The Luce estate is VERY protective of the rights to TW, which is why so few stage productions are done, and very few film remakes have been made as well. IIRC there was one film attempt with Joan Collins that failed badly. Problem is the world "The Women" lived in is pretty much gone. While there are plenty of Park Avenue Matrons around, and cheating husbands, divorce for one is easier to get (well not that easy in New York State), and more common. Also far fewer women marry and spend their lives as "Mrs. Stephen Haines", shuttling between homes and spending their days shopping and or living the ladies who lunch lifestyle. Most married women simply aren't totally wrapped up in their husband's ID, the way the women in the film are. Even the Countess deLave with all her money (one of the reasons many women married in the first place), can't resist marrying again, and again for "love".

L.

 

[danemodsandy]

Launderess:

"The Luce estate is VERY protective of the rights to TW, which is why so few stage productions are done, and very few film remakes have been made as well. IIRC there was one film attempt with Joan Collins that failed badly."

That attempt with Joan Collins was done in 1956, and it was called The Opposite Sex. It's actually not terrible, it's just that most people have seen the far-superior original movie. Collins is one of the better elements in TOS; her Crystal Allen is properly insolent and hard-boiled. Unfortunately, Crystal's immortal exit line in the first movie ("There's a name for you ladies, but it isn't used in high society- outside of a kennel!") is changed, and not for the better.

And The Opposite Sex has one thing in it that is actually superior to the original movie- Dolores Gray as Sylvia. Dolores (who looked enough like Lana Turner to get Lana all upset) was one of the great singers of the 1950s, brassy, low and sweet all at the same time. She was also a howlingly funny comedienne. Gray plays the role much closer to Clare Boothe Luce's original stage directions- "glassy, feline, elegant". Again unfortunately, Fay Kanin's script for The Opposite Sex deviates from Luce's original, and the first movie as well, and makes Sylvia a little silly. Had Dolores been able to play Luce's lines instead of Kanin's, I think we'd have had a performance far exceeding that of Roz Russell in the first film.

The real problem with The Opposite Sex, however, is the actress chosen to follow in Norma Shearer's footsteps as Mary Haines. Some "mastermind" (thank you, Gloria Swanson) had the bright idea that frog-voiced June Allyson should play Mary, and play her as a retired singing star into the bargain. Allyson, for my money, was never a major talent (though she did have a very profitable fan following), and it's painful to watch her croak and stomp her way through "Now Baby Now", a musical number built around Allyson's limitations as a performer. A gaggle of notably under-rehearsed chorus boys tries to make Allyson look good with some unsteady lifts, but to little avail.

Worst of all is Allyson's moment when she cries, "I've had two years to grow claws- JUNGLE RED!" We all know how great Norma was with that line, but June just widens her little eyes and waggles her little fingers. Director David Miller holds the shot too long, mercilessly exposing the fact that Allyson can't sustain the moment.

BTW, Clare Boothe Luce herself wasn't quite so protective of The Women as her estate would become. During WWII, the comedy was allowed to be used- free of charge- as a play that could be performed by the military's entertainment divisions. That's right- Our Boys Over There played Mary, Sylvia, and Crystal in drag.

I have visions of some Bronx hunk in a sequined evening gown jamming a helmet over his wig and manning a machine gun to fight off an unanticipated attack during a performance!

 

[rp2813]

Laundress has captured why a contemporary remake of "The Women" wouldn't be plausible. Lifestyles have changed and the woman of today is infinitely more independent. I dare say the tables have turned to where the average modern woman is more like Crystal, a working girl fending for herself in the real world, married or not, or even already divorced! The entire train ride to Reno, and even the need to go and hang in Reno at all would have to be scrapped, to offer just one example. I don't see any point in trying to remake this classic in a way that will appeal to modern audiences. I don't think it's possible.

 

[danemodsandy]

Ralph:

You just said a mouthful. I know of a pastor here in Atlanta who almost lost his job because he didn't want to perform marriage ceremonies where brides wore white to their second or third marriages.