Month: July 2015

Survivor

Fireball: Carole Lombard and the Mystery of Flight 3 by Robert Matzen

The couple at their Encino ranch in spring 1939.

I’ve been thinking about Clark Gable lately, since he got all that attention for “date raping” Loretta Young on a train in 1935. Even though they weren’t on a date. Even though no evidence exists that there was any sort of rape at all. Mark Alan Vieira wrote an excellent open letter on the subject that I am hoping you will read and share. To my mind it stabilizes the poisonous atmosphere around the memory of Clark Gable.

All this got me to thinking about how Gable survived the loss of his wife of less than three years and companion for six, Carole Lombard. It’s a central theme in Fireball—you expect your partner home any minute but she doesn’t come home, ever, and how do you deal with that? How do you cope when the love of your life leaves you? No goodbye, no legal papers, no separation, no divorce. Just. Gone. Of course every partner in every relationship is unique, but what about if you’re married to vivacious, mile-a-minute, down-to-earth, beautiful, sexy, over-caffeinated and over-nicotined Carole Lombard? How do you survive the loss of that? Of a person you know is smarter than you? Of a force of nature, a dynamo with too much energy, a challenge and a handful every minute of the day? A person you loved body and soul and fought with like there was no tomorrow?

The irony and sadness of the story is captured in this photo and caption from the Indy Star. (Thank you, Marina Gray)

The fact is, he did survive it. He didn’t want to survive and tried not to but he did anyway. He endured that Las Vegas weekend and the funerals the next week. He endured life on the profoundly quiet ranch in Encino and on the Culver City MGM soundstages Lombard once visited to be near her husband.

He survived. What strikes me about his survival is the grace I saw at every turn looking back through first-person accounts of Clark Gable’s struggle to keep going. He never lashed out, never once that anyone saw. He just kept moving, for a long time as a facsimile of Gable the movie star, hollow-eyed and emaciated but ramrod straight, going through the motions, staring at nothing, not hearing what was said to him, and then he decided something in an agreement with himself, something that reconciled this with that. He seems to have accepted that she was gone and never coming back. After that, he reappeared as something resembling his old self and also as a prophet of Carole Lombard’s life and legacy, spreading the good word about her, telling stories about her antics, her good deeds, her studio smarts, the gags she pulled, the fights they had, most of these stories beginning with the words, “Remember the time…”

This Clark Gable, the one buried next to Carole Lombard at Forest Lawn Glendale, is not a predator. I can’t say one way or the other what he was in 1935, but I know what he was in 1942 and 1943, and that’s a guy struggling to survive and doing it with a dignity I admire. I’ve always said frankly that I didn’t start out liking Clark Gable but grew to admire him, and I stick by that because he did endure that weekend and went on to finish his career and his life without the girl, with other women in his life but most decidedly without the girl. It speaks to the character of a survivor, which also may explain his approach to that child he sired by Loretta Young: little Judy Lewis threatened his survival, and nothing must be allowed to do that. So there are the two sides of the sword, the dignity of a survivor and the ruthlessness of a survivor. Whatever you want to say about Clark Gable, he was human, complete with his fair share of human failings but also dignity among other qualities. And he survived.

On the eve of war

I came across this letter on a Facebook (posted by Brian Lee Anderson) Carole Lombard fan page. It’s written in Lombard’s own hand for Movie Mirror magazine in celebration of Thanksgiving 1939, and I find it evocative on a couple of levels. I don’t know how much prepping she did or who might have helped her with this piece. This was her RKO period so it’s not a Russell Birdwell/Selznick PR piece, and maybe it’s just Carole being Carole and winging it. The sentiment is beautiful, democratic, and gives a nod to the fact that, hey, worldly possessions are important. It’s better to have them than not to have them.

The handwriting itself shows an unusual amount of concentration and workmanship from someone who often scribbled like your average M.D. A handwriting analyst might say that the lack of slant in one direction or the other indicates a practical, down-to-earth person, which she certainly was, and the occasional backward slant reveals a rebellious streak that just couldn’t be contained.

Carole Lombard at about the time she wrote her Thanksgiving 1939 open letter in Movie Mirror magazine.

To me the allusion to world events hits closest to home because in working on my new manuscript, Mission: James Stewart and World War II, I am forced to confront human suffering that’s at the least uncomfortable and often devastating. She wrote her Thanksgiving message about a year after Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass symbolizing the beginning of the end for Jews in Nazi-occupied territories. She wrote it two months after the invasion of Poland that sent refugees streaming westward. She wrote it with the German war machine rising to strike against France and England and with Hitler rallying hundreds of thousands in Nuremberg. She wrote it as the conflict between Japan and China raged for its second year. She wrote it in anticipation of a war that would claim more than 400,000 American lives, including her own.

The Allies would prevail in what would become World War II, and their spoils included the writing of the history of it. I continue to struggle to uncover accounts of civilians under the rain of Eighth Air Force bombs because the losers in war don’t get to tell their stories. But if war is hell, then those unlucky enough to watch 200 B-24 Liberators fly over and unload their “cartons of eggs” truly knew what hell was all about. Before you say, “Well, they were the enemy, that’s what they deserved,” consider that the bombs fell on civilians who had learned that challenging Nazi authority meant death; on Jews hiding in Berlin basements for years; and on Dutch, French, and Polish nationals forced to work in German factories. Tens of thousands of these humans were blown back to their molecular components by the Americans of the Mighty Eighth.

And that’s what I see written between the lines of Carole Lombard’s Thanksgiving 1939 message. There’s a palpable sense of foreboding, that history was about to blow through in the form of a worldwide cyclone and no one, absolutely no one, would be spared.

What Loretta Said (or Didn’t Say)

The good news this week is that long-departed film legend Clark Gable is in the headlines. The bad news is that it’s because he’s been accused of date rape an astonishing 80 years after the fact. And he wasn’t accused directly but by hearsay. I’ll let you pick through the wire stories if you feel the need to catch up, but forgive me for being a Caucasian male film historian (and criticized for same after being quoted in Lou Lumenick’s piece in the New York Post) who dares say, show me the evidence. Any more, all one has to do is level a charge, no matter how nebulous, and it sticks. Newswires pick it up, special interests start wagging fingers, and a famous name is covered in goo.

Loretta and Clark in a publicity shot from Call of the Wild.

I grant you Gable invited scandal by denying what was so painfully obvious, that the child born to Loretta Young in 1935 was his child. The birth mother acknowledged it; the birth child did too. As one who, while writing Fireball: Carole Lombard and the Mystery of Flight 3, had to try to sort out the psyche of this guy who denied what everybody knew, there comes a point when I could only scratch my head. The best I can figure it, Clark Gable denied his involvement in the conception of Judy Lewis because either:

Like many of the big stars, he was protective of his image above all, and couldn’t acknowledge any blot (even a blot everyone knew about).
Gable was too cheap to let the money go it would have taken to raise the kid. He figured she was the daughter of Loretta Young, a successful movie star turned TV star, so money would never be an issue for his child.

Is it possible that he felt intense guilt because he forced his attentions on Loretta and a baby resulted? Sure, it’s possible. Old Hollywood skewed sexist, and women were anything but equal except at the highest levels of stardom. But in the case of this charge against Gable, let’s look at some facts:

Loretta was indeed a practicing Catholic all her adult life and would, in the 1950s, be recognized as a pillar of the Hollywood community. But Loretta was no naïve schoolgirl at the time of Call of the Wild in 1935. She had been married at 17 for almost two years (marriage annulled), and by age 20 was peddling her own flesh in naughty pre-code features including Play-Girl, Weekend Marriage, and They Call It Sin. A fourth, Employees’ Entrance, had the tag line, emblazoned over Loretta’s head in the ads, “Give me a job—at any price!” This was no naïve kid in 1935 at age 22 who didn’t know better than to innocently flirt with Hollywood’s most virile sex symbol. This was an already-around-the-block married woman.

A pal of mine has accessed the Fox production files due to a love of Call of the Wild and reports that the company first went on location to Mt. Baker, Washington, then reconvened for an extended stay in Feather River, California. It was here, according to my source, that the timeframe matches up with Judy Lewis’s birth nine months later.

The new allegation quotes Loretta as claiming that Gable forced himself on her on the train ride back from Washington, which predates the second round of location work in California. So did he come back and force himself on her again at Feather River? And then maybe again? She didn’t claim that.

Judy Lewis, all grown up and looking like Clark Gable.

Or is the director of the picture, William Wellman, to be believed when he wrote in his memoir decades ago that Gable and Young were engaging in “monkey business” on those location shoots. According to Wild Bill, theirs was far from the innocent flirtation Loretta allegedly described late in life when she was intent on legacy protection. Wellman recalled having to single Gable out in front of the company for their indiscretions.

Loretta Young sinks the family’s claim herself in a 1985 quote uncovered by Lou Lumenick. Of Clark Gable she said, “As rough and tough as he played many of his parts, you will notice that in all of those love scenes, particularly in Gone With the Wind, he is so gentle with women. And does treat them with such tenderness, such sweetness . . .”

You’re telling me she’s describing her date rapist here?

Lastly, Loretta worked with Gable again on a picture in 1950 when Judy was a teenager and neither mother nor father seemed put off by the experience.

Gable and Young, chummy making Key to the City in 1950.

The facts do not seem to align in this allegation against Gable. Were this a court of law, he would be innocent until proven guilty and walk for lack of evidence. No such rules seem to apply in the court of public opinion, where the charge itself constitutes a guilty verdict.

A Facebook Fourth

A couple months ago I mentioned that I was writing a film treatment of Fireball. It wasn’t my idea to create a movie version—it was suggested by my accountant, who’s a good man to keep happy. As I noted in my column about the idea of a Fireball film, the subject keeps coming up and I’ve been writing to satisfy what you might call popular demand.

Since mid-May I’ve had some conversations with Hollywood insiders and they’ve convinced me that I’m better off developing not just a treatment, which is the equivalent of an outline of the story of a film, but a complete screenplay. I got started working on the screenplay as time allows, basically when I’m not writing Mission: James Stewart and World War II. But a couple of Facebook conversations on the Carole Lombard page [login required for FB link] put spurs to my efforts and I’ve been working hours a day to get the screenplay done and out there.

On July 2, a member of the Carole Lombard group, Brian Lee Anderson, posted on the CL page, “I got asked today what actors I hope portray Carole and Clark in the film version of Fireball … Who would you like to see?” That question prompted 88 replies, many with photos of prospective Lombards and Gables. Vincent Paterno then picked up the conversation and moved it to his Carole & Co. website.

The next day, I mentioned on Facebook that I’m working on a screenplay of the story, which generated 79 replies on its own. I hesitated to post anything because, as I feared, a by-product of doing so is that now there are people out there counting the days until Fireball is released to screens nationwide.

It’s not quite that simple. Granted, a Hollywood management type and a Hollywood producer are interested in seeing the script when it’s done. Granted, I have a couple of other irons in the fire as to how to circulate the script, but make no mistake, this is a spec script. It’s not a work for hire at this point. There’s no guarantee Fireball will ever become a major motion picture, or a feisty indie for that matter. That said, I have never seen such a groundswell of interest, energy, and positive push for an idea before. It’s practically risen to the level of a grass-roots campaign to get this thing made.

To play along with Brian Lee Anderson’s July 2 question, a problem well beyond who’s going to option the Fireball screenplay and get a production in gear is who would play Carole Lombard? Who would play Clark Gable? They were true originals and we’re familiar with their faces, voices, and mannerisms because their movies are available today on DVD, TCM, Netflix, and any number of cable channels. Leo DiCaprio made a good Howard Hughes in The Aviator specifically because the audience didn’t know Howard Hughes that well. What did the shy, reclusive Howard look and sound like? Who the hell knows? Like Leo DiCaprio, I guess. But Gable and Lombard? We know them to a T and good luck with casting.

When you look at Henry Cavill, do you see Clark Gable?

At the same time, my brother-in-law Michael Rothhaar and nephew Will Rothhaar are Hollywood actors, really accomplished actors, and I’ve seen them do remarkable things with the characters they’re playing. I’ve directed actors giving performances that made my jaw drop—How do they do what they do? How do they become other people and recite pages of dialogue memorized the night before as that other person? There are enormously talented actors out there, and I can’t rule out the fact that the perfect Lombard and Gable exist—actors capable of playing these two from the inside out.

Casting today’s stars as Hollywood legends is the stuff of endless debate. For the sake of argument, here are the results of the Facebook threads of last week:

Lombards mentioned include Kate Hudson (most votes), Jennifer Lawrence, Carey Mulligan, Jennifer Garner, Cameron Diaz, Reese Witherspoon, Maggie Lawson, Amy Poehler, Kelly Rutherford, Amy Adams, Michelle Williams, Amber Velletta, Dakota Fanning, Melissa Joan Hart, Blake Lively, Kate Winslet, Melanie Laurent (who’s French), Kristin Chenoweth, Charlize Theron, and Naomi Watts.

For Gable, George Clooney ran away with the voting, and then came Henry Cavill (multiple votes); Leo DiCaprio (“Yes definitely!” and “Not in a million years!” votes), Robert Downey Jr., Colin Farrell, Anson Mount, Jeffrey Dean, Chris Pratt, Hugh Jackman, and Brad Pitt.

George Clooney during production of The Monuments Men. Pass the hair dye and let’s get this thing going.

I don’t like to wade into such frays, but I can’t resist. Personally I always thought Gable was George Clooney’s part to give away. He’s got the movie-star presence of a king of Hollywood, and as affected as Gable always played Gable, well, Clooney would be all over that. A growing problem is Clooney’s age, given that Gable was 41 at the time of the crash, and Clooney’s past that now. Still, I think he could do it if only because it was difficult to pin Gable’s age down back in the day and he was always playing younger and older. Blacken his hair and he’s 30; gray his temples and he’s 50.

I’m always looking at actresses to see if they’re Lombard candidates. Whoever it is better be funny by nature. Charming as hell. Jill Clayburgh (God rest her soul) was neither, and a lack of connection to who she was playing helped sink her rendition in Gable & Lombard, made way back in 1976. I could see Zooey Deschanel, Kate Hudson, or Anna Faris in the part and my dark horse—my literal dark horse because she’s part Brazilian with raven hair and dark eyes—is Jordana Brewster of D.E.B.S. and four of the Fast & Furious pictures. She’s capable of charming your pants off and she’s got the Lombard square jaw that could evoke CL to those in the know.

Jordana Brewster. Coloring’s wrong but personality’s right.

Most intriguing of all the casting opinions:

NC 1945 the restored TWA DC-3 in Kansas City to portray its sister ship, the doomed NC 1946, better known as Flight 3. They were on the assembly line at the Douglas plant in Santa Monica at the very same time in February 1941. Thank you, Michael McComb, for that idea.
Kate Hudson as Carole and Goldie Hawn as Carole’s mother Petey, as pitched by Brian Lee Anderson. Yes, Brian, that would be cool as hell.

Goldie and Kate as Petey and Carole?

So that’s how I spent my Fourth, writing like mad while keeping an entertained eye on Facebook.

The sister ship of the doomed Flight 3, now being refurbished in Kansas City and awaiting its big break in Hollywood.

More than Marian

In the category of, “You never know,” Olivia de Havilland turns 99 today. Happy Birthday, Livvie! I say you never know because the woman spent her first 40 years sickly. There’s no other way to put it. She was a delicate flower, driven to bed many times by various maladies and at least once by a nervous breakdown. She was also a smoker at various points, and we know what that does for a person’s longevity (right Errol? Clark? Joan? Bogie? Coop?).

Olivia de Havilland’s first book, published in 1962. Her second has been eagerly awaited for going on 40 years.

Livvie has resided since the 1950s in Paris after marrying a Frenchman and for a long time commuted to Hollywood occasionally to work in pictures and television. She wrote a terrific book about life in Paris called Every Frenchman Has One, published in 1962. She charmed the pants off me with that book, making me wish she had written a lot more besides, like the memoir she promised her publisher in 1979. I clipped an article out of the paper back then (I could only use safety scissors because I was in my playpen); in this page-6-or-whatever story, OdeH regretted that there would be a delay in completing her manuscript beyond the first of the year. As in, beyond the beginning of 1980.

As the crow flies, it’s now 35.5 years later and the publisher continues to wait. The woman has lived a fascinating life from her birth in the Far East as a member of the British Empire to her eventual migration to Hollywood in 1934. As noted in Errol & Olivia, OdeH had a toxic relationship with her stepfather that included sexual abuse. She was driven from her home in Saratoga, California, upon graduation from high school and joined the theater, ending up in Max Reinhardt’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. There, Warner Bros. spotted her and the rest is, well, you know. Legal victories (this little bulldog of five-three went toe-to-toe with the Hollywood moguls and beat them); Academy Award nominations and statuettes; national honors from the presidents of the United States and France.

Olivia de Havilland, just turned 18, sits on a prop cart at Warner Bros. with Errol Flynn in the summer of 1935.

You’d never know it to look at her because today she is a Grand Dame who has carefully crafted an image of Grand Dameitude, but Livvie in youth was a handful. She took a lot of anger with her from that tudor-inspired frame house at the end of that quiet dead-end street in Saratoga. Toxic relationships will do that to you. She grew up a loner with loads of self-discipline and has stayed that way all her life. When she moved to Hollywood after signing her Warner Bros. contract in 1934, her mother went with her and kept a watchful eye on young Livvie until 1938 when Mom moved back north and daughter, now age 21, stayed behind to sow some wild oats. That’s when things began to get interesting with Flynn, and with Jimmy Stewart, and with John Huston. There was nothing Grand Dameish about that last one when the movie star and the brash young writer-director embarked on a wild sexual adventure. All that self-discipline went flying out the window when she fell as hard for Huston as a girl could fall. Then he dumped her, and she carried a torch that I am sure still burns on Rue Benouville today.

OdeH could have written several books in the last 35 years. One about her day job, another about Huston, a third about Flynn, and, of course, a whole Harvard Five-Foot Bookshelf about her own sister, Joan Fontaine, the little girl born less than 18 months after Olivia. It’s no fluke that I chose the title Twisted Sisters for my section about the battling de Havillands in Errol & Olivia. These two went at it with only short respites for 96 years, until Joanie gave in and left us in 2013. Today, Olivia lives a life of quiet seclusion in her Paris townhouse. Last I heard she had hired someone to help her finish that memoir so long in the making, and on occasion she receives visitors, like Errol Flynn’s daughter Rory.

Livvie in recent times.

Let’s take a moment and raise our glasses to this great award-winning star of Hollywood’s Golden Era. Way back when she toiled in make-believe Sherwood Forest in northern California portraying Maid Marian, Olivia strived to be much more than Errol Flynn’s girl and she got her wish through hard work, attention to her craft, and when necessary, legal action. In her 40s she embraced exercise and healthy eating and brother has it paid off. Maybe we should convince her to take five from the memoir and write Olivia de Havilland’s Secrets to a Long, Successful Life.

The OdeH abode in the embassy section of Paris.