Wonderland Burlesque's Let's All Go To The Movies: Center Stage Divas

Wonderland Burlesque's
Let's All Go To The Movies:
Center Stage Divas

Today, the spotlight falls on center stage, where there stands a diva who has given her all for the art form she both loves and loathes. 

Yes, it's the biz - show biz! All the glitz, all the glamour, all the glory of a standing ovation as the star of the production takes a great big bow. 

So dust off the footlights, fellas. 

For we have more than a few behind the scene stories to tell. 

It's all delish, so let's take a look and dish on all that glitters, but doesn't necessarily lead to gold!

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Morning Glory

(1933)

Ada Love, who has renamed herself Eva Lovelace, is a would-be actress trying to crash the New York stage. A wildly optimistic chatterbox full of theatrical mannerisms, her looks, more than her talent, attract the interest of a paternal actor, a philandering producer, and an earnest playwright. Is she destined for stardom or the casting couch? Or will she fade after a brief blooming, like so many other 'morning glories'?

Adapted by Howard J. Green from a then-unproduced stage play of the same name by Zoë Akins, this Pre-Code drama was , and was directed by Lowell Sherman. and stars Katharine Hepburn, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., and Adolphe Menjou.

In pre-production, the script had been tailored to fit the talents of Constance Bennett, then RKO's biggest attraction. However, when newcomer Katharine Hepburn read the script, she convinced producer Pandro S. Berman that she was born to play the part, and she was given the role over the more popular Bennett, who was thereupon reassigned.

Katharine Hepburn would state that her performance as Eva Lovelace - which earned Hepburn her first Best Actress Academy Award - was inspired by Ruth Gordon, who had declined author Zoe Akins' invitation to create that screen role. The role was also reportedly inspired by Tallulah Bankhead.

The director Lowell Sherman managed to get the RKO bosses to agree that he was given a week of rehearsal with the actors before the shooting began, in return for promising a shooting schedule of only 18 days (April 21 - May 12, 1933). Unlike most feature films, Morning Glory was shot in the same sequence as the script.

Hepburn won her first Academy Award for Best Actress for this movie.

The screenplay was presented on the radio three separate times, with three different leading ladies: Barbara Stanwyck in 1938, Judy Garland in 1942, and Elizabeth Taylor in 1949.

Morning Glory was remade in 1958 under the title Stage Struck, starring Henry Fonda.

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and Katherine Hepburn

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All About Eve

(1950)

Eve Harrington is waiting backstage to meet her idol, talented but aging Broadway star Margo Channing. It seems innocent enough as Eve explains that she has seen Margo in every performance of her current play. Margo and her friends take Eve under their wing but only theatre critic Addison DeWitt sees through Eve's evil plan, which is to take Margo's roles and her fiancé, Bill Simpson, too.

Based on a story by Mary Orr, All About Eve is a drama written and directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz, and produced by Darryl F. Zanuck. It stars Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, Celeste Holm, Gary Merrill, and George Sanders.

The original story The Wisdom of Eve appeared in Cosmopolitan magazine in 1946, and was produced as a radio drama for NBC, but every studio rejected it as a film project. Eventually Fox bought the rights for $3500 with no credit stipulations. Joseph L. Mankiewicz combined The Wisdom of Eve with a story he had been developing about an actress who recalls her life when receiving an award.

Fox studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck's casting notes revealed he had wanted John Garfield for Bill Sampson and Barbara Stanwyck for Margo Channing. Celeste Holm, Hugh Marlowe and Thelma Ritter were the first choices for their roles. Stanwyck wasn't available.

Ingrid Bergman was another actress considered for the part of Margo Channing, but she had just fallen in love with Italian director Roberto Rossellini and didn't want to leave Italy.

Marlene Dietrich was considered for the role of Margo Channing. It was decided that she was 'too German' for the part.

Joan Crawford was considered for Margo Channing, but she was already working on The Damned Don't Cry (1950).

Joseph L. Mankiewicz offered Gertrude Lawrence the role of Margo Channing and sent her a copy of the script. She was enthusiastic, but she insisted on making two changes. She wanted all of Margo's drinking scenes taken out, and instead of Liebestraum at the party scene, he would play Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II's Bill, which she would sing. After all this, she turned the part down.

Darryl F. Zanuck suggested Susan Hayward for Margo Channing. Joseph L. Mankiewicz disagreed, saying she was too young to play the aging star.

Tallulah Bankhead, Marion Davies, Joan Bennett, Joan Fontaine, Greer Garson, Paulette Goddard, Katharine Hepburn, Hedy Lamarr, Vivien Leigh, Ginger Rogers, Rosalind Russell, Norma Shearer, Sylvia Sidney, Barbara Stanwyck, Gloria Swanson and Loretta Young were all considered for the role of Margo Channing.

Claudette Colbert was originally cast as Margo Channing, but suffered a ruptured disc during filming on Three Came Home (1950) and had to withdraw. Bette Davis stepped into the role, even though 20th Century-Fox studio chief Darryl F. Zanuck and Davis couldn't stand each other, going back to when Davis walked out from her post as president of the Motion Picture Academy in 1941.

June Allyson, Ann Blyth, Olivia de Havilland, Mona Freeman, Donna Reed and Elizabeth Taylor were all considered for the role of Eve Harrington.

Darryl F. Zanuck originally wanted Jeanne Crain as Eve Harrington. When Crain became pregnant, Joseph L. Mankiewicz's final choice for the Eve Harrington part was Anne Baxter because she displayed a "bitch virtuosity" that he believed Crain could not provide.

According to the casting director's list, future White House occupants Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan were considered for the roles of Bill Sampson and Eve Harrington.

Barbara Bel Geddes, Shirley Booth, Arlene Dahl, Joan Fontaine, Patricia Neal, Nancy Reagan, Alexis Smith, Ann Sothern, Margaret Sullavan, Jessica Tandy and Ruth Warrick were all considered for the role of Karen Richards, played by Celeste Holme. 

Angela Lansbury and Zsa Zsa Gabor were considered for the role of Miss Caswell that ultimately went to Marilyn Monroe. The inexperienced Monroe was cowed by Davis, and it took 11 takes to complete the scene in the theater lobby; when Davis barked at her, Monroe left the set to vomit.

Zsa Zsa Gabor kept arriving on the set because she was jealous of her husband George Sanders in his scenes with the young blonde ingénue Marilyn Monroe.

Darryl F. Zanuck originally wanted John Garfield to play Bill Sampson.

Montgomery Clift, Robert Cummings, Glenn Ford, William Holden, Edmond O'Brien, Zachary Scott and Robert Young were all considered for the role of Bill Sampson, played by Gary Merrill.

José Ferrer, Charles Laughton, Adolphe Menjou, Vincent Price, Claude Rains, Basil Rathbone and Clifton Webb were all considered for the role of Addison DeWitt, which eventually went to George Sanders.

Upon learning that he had cast Bette Davis, one of her former directors, Edmund Goulding, rang up Joseph L. Mankiewicz and warned him that she would grind him down into a fine powder. This was a reference to her on-set behavior, not the least of which was her habit of rewriting her dialogue. The warning proved to be unnecessary, however, since Davis knew better than to mess with Mankiewicz's finely tuned screenplay. In fact, Mankiewicz found her to be one of the most professional and agreeable actresses he'd ever worked with. Davis filmed all of her scenes in a mere 16 days.

Bette Davis admitted later on that Joseph L. Mankiewicz's casting her in this movie saved her career from oblivion. She said in a 1983 interview, "He resurrected me from the dead." She said in her autobiography, "I can think of no project that from the outset was as rewarding from the first day to the last. It is easy to understand why. It was a great script, had a great director, and was a cast of professionals all with parts they liked. It was a charmed production from the word go."

Davis' marriage to William Grant Sherry was on the rocks while she was making the film. Her raspy voice, put to excellent use in the film, was due to the fact that she had burst a blood vessel in her throat while screaming at her soon-to-be-ex-husband during one of their many rows. Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz liked the croaky quality so he didn't ask Davis to fix it.

A bit of Mankiewicz's direction which gave Davis a huge handle on her character was that Margo treated "a mink coat like it was a poncho".

In April of 1950, the cast and crew traveled to San Francisco to begin filming. Bette Davis traveled by train, while Gary Merrill, Hugh Marlowe and Celeste Holm all flew together on Darryl F. Zanuck's private seaplane. "I wonder what it's going to be like working with the Queen Bee," said Holm to Merrill during the flight, referring to Davis. "I know one thing," replied Merrill, "it'll all be over in eight weeks."

 

The night before shooting was to commence at the Curran Theatre, Gary Merrill invited everyone on the production to have drinks at the elegant Fairmont Hotel. Bette Davis agreed to attend. "Everybody was showing off," recalled Celeste Holm about that night in Ed Sikov's 2007 book Dark Victory: The Life of Bette Davis. "Bette had taken one look at Gary and Gary had taken one look at Bette, and something had happened. And from then on she didn't care whether the rest of us lived or died."

During the scene in the out-of-gas car, Margo tells Karen that she loves Bill, but she's afraid that Bill is actually in love with "Margo Channing", the stage persona, instead of Margo Channing the woman: "Bill's in love with Margo Channing. He's fought with her, worked with her, loved her... but ten years from now -Margo Channing will have ceased to exist. And what's left will be, what?" Bette Davis and Gary Merrill, who married after filming this movie together, did indeed divorce almost exactly ten years to the day after their wedding. Davis was quoted as saying that they had married their characters from the movie, rather than the actual people. Bette Davis fell in love with her co-star Gary Merrill during the shoot of this movie, and the two married in July 1950, a few weeks after filming was completed. They adopted a baby girl, whom they named Margot. 

Despite their characters' tense relationship on screen, Bette Davis and Anne Baxter got along very well during filming. "The studio tried to play that up all during the filming," recalled Baxter, "but I liked Bette very much. She'd come on the set and go 'Sssssss' at me, but it was just a joke between us." Davis liked Baxter, too, which was quite a compliment as Davis reportedly didn't often like her female co-stars. She felt that Baxter did an excellent job with her part as Eve, and publicly praised her for it.

Co-star Celeste Holm spoke about her experience with Bette Davis on the first day of shooting: "I walked onto the set... on the first day and said, 'Good morning,' and do you know her reply? She said, 'Oh shit, good manners.' I never spoke to her again - ever." Years later, Bette Davis said in an interview, "Filming All About Eve was a very happy experience... the only bitch in the cast was Celeste Holm."

Margo Channing's famous cocktail dress was an Edith Head creation. To Head's horror, just as they were about to go film the cocktail party, she found that the dress didn't quite fit Bette Davis in the shoulders. There was no time to fix the dress, but fortunately Davis hit on the bright idea of simply slipping the dress off her shoulders.

Bette Davis had just turned 42 as she undertook the role of Margo Channing, and Anne Baxter, still an up-and-comer, not only wowed audiences with her performance, but successfully pressured the powers that be for an Oscar nomination in the Best Actress category, rather than Best Supporting Actress. This is thought to have split the vote between herself and Davis. The winner for the 1950 Best Actress was Judy Holliday for her noticeable turn in Born Yesterday (1950), so Baxter's actions in effect blocked Davis' chances for a win.

Bette Davis

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Stage Fright

(1950)

Jonathan Cooper is wanted by the police who suspect him of killing his lover's husband. A friend of his, Eve Gill, an aspiring actress who is in love with him, offers to hide him. Jonathan explains to her that his real lover, actress Charlotte Inwood is, in fact, the actual murderer. Eve decides to investigate for herself, but when she meets the detective in charge of the case... she truly falls in love.

This British thriller film noir was directed and produced by Alfred Hitchcock and stars Jane Wyman, Marlene Dietrich, Michael Wilding and Richard Todd and features Alastair Sim, Sybil Thorndike, Kay Walsh. 

The novel upon which this movie was based, Man Running by Selwyn Jepson appeared in serialized form in Collier's Magazine from August 9, 1947 to September 13, 1947. Sir Alfred Hitchcock made his own adaptation for this movie with his wife Alma Reville and Screenwriter Whitfield Cook.

Hitchcock originally wanted to cast Tallulah Bankhead for the role of Charlotte Inwood, but the studio suggested casting Marlene Dietrich instead.

In an extraordinary move for the normally controlling director, Hitchcock allowed Dietrich an exceptional amount of creative control for this movie, particularly in how she chose to light her scenes. Hitchcock knew that Dietrich had learned a great deal of the art of cinematography from Josef von Sternberg and Günther Rittau, so he allowed her to work with Cinematographer Wilkie Cooper to light and set her scenes the way she wished.

Dietrich is quoted as saying, "I did one film for Alfred Hitchcock. Jane Wyman was in it. I heard she'd only wanted to do it if she were billed above me, and she got her wish. Hitchcock didn't think much of her. She looks too much like a victim to play a heroine, and God knows she couldn't play a woman of mystery, that was my part. Miss Wyman looks like a mystery nobody has bothered to solve."

According to Hitchcock, he ran into great difficulties with Jane Wyman who was required to appear frumpy and inelegant when incognito as a maid, but was reluctant to appear so plain when Marlene Dietrich appeared so glamorous. Hitchcock recounted that Wyman would cry when she would see Dietrich looking glamorous on-set and she was stuck in her maid disguise. Hitchcock said that she could not accept the idea of her character being frumpy or dowdy. Much to Hitchcock's chagrin, Wyman secretly put on make-up or otherwise tried to improve her appearance throughout filming, undermining the director's wishes.

Dietrich's costumes were designed by Christian Dior, who received no screen credit.

One of the songs that Marlene Dietrich sings in this movie is Édith Piaf's signature song, La Vie en Rose. Dietrich and Piaf were close personal friends, and Piaf granted Dietrich permission to use the song.

Cole Porter's song, The Laziest Gal in Town, ran afoul of censors for its sexual innuendo, and for being too risqué. Several lines from the song were reworded, with the tamer version appearing in this film.

According to Dietrich's autobiography, she began a heated love affair with co-star Michael Wilding while making this movie. Dietrich and Wilding never married, even though Dietrich had been estranged from her husband for many years and remained so until his death.

This movie is significant because it broke a long-established cinematic convention that flashbacks were always a true account of earlier events. In this movie, though, the opening flashback turns out to be a lie, a device which at first baffled then enraged cinemagoers who felt that they had in some way been cheated. The "false story" flashback at the beginning is thirteen minutes long and the only one in the movie. It begins and ends each time with Jonathan Cooper telling Eve "what happened" and a transitional dissolve. The flashback featured distinct visual techniques that appear artificial but still work within the realism of the movie. It is not made obvious that the character is lying.

Marlene Dietrich and Jane Wyman

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Opening Night

(1977)

When a young woman is killed in an accident while trying to meet her favorite actress after a play, the actress in question teeters on the edge of a breakdown as she counts down the days towards another a big Broadway opening. Feeling terribly responsible for the killing and overwhelmed by guilt, obsessive thoughts lead her down the road of an emotional crisis which interferes with her ability to perform.

This psychological drama was written and directed by John Cassavetes, and stars Gena Rowlands, Ben Gazzara, Joan Blondell, Paul Stewart, Zohra Lampert, and Cassavetes.

In a 1978 television interview, Cassavetes said this was the best film he had anything to do with.

Director John Cassavetes had major problems getting the picture distributed in the USA. When it did get released, showings were limited, with the film performing very poorly at the box office.

The film was virtually ignored in the US. However, it fared much better in Europe, with the Hollywood Foreign Press Association nominating Rowlands and Blondell for the Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress, respectively, at the 35th Golden Globe Awards.

The picture was also entered into competition at the 28th Berlin International Film Festival in 1978 where John Cassavetes was nominated for the Golden Bear. The movie won two awards at Berlin, Gena Rowlands won the Best Actress Silver Bear award while the picture won the Interfilm Award Otto Dibelius Film Award ex aequo.

After Cassavetes had passed away in early 1989, the film was acquired in 1991 by a major American distributor for re-release. It was screened out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival in 1992.

Gena Rowlands and John Cassavetes in real life were married. In this film they both worked as actors with the latter also being the writer-director.

One of eleven movies that John Cassavetes and Gena Rowlands made together. The other films are A Child Is Waiting (1963), Faces (1968), Machine Gun McCain (1969), Minnie and Moskowitz (1971), A Woman Under the Influence (1974), Two-Minute Warning (1976), Shadows (1978), Gloria (1980), Tempest (1982) and Love Streams (1984).

Third of three collaborations of actor Ben Gazzara and writer-director John Cassavetes, the others being Husbands (1970) and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie (1976), the latter being the only one that Cassavetes did not act in. The pair also both appeared in a non-Cassavetes written and directed movie, If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium (1969).

Peter Falk, Seymour Cassel, and Peter Bogdanovich all make cameos in the opening night scene.

Both of the mothers of Gena Rowlands and John Cassavetes appeared in the film in acting roles. These were Lady Rowlands and Katherine Cassavetes respectively.

Rufus Wainwright and Ivo van Hove have adapted the film into a musical set to premier at the Gielgud Theatre in London's West End in March of 2024

Gena Rowlands

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The Fan

(1981)

Douglas is a lonesome record salesman and a true fan of the actress Sally Ross. who is currently starring a smash Broadway show. Every day he writes her gleaming letters of love, but the only response he gets are formal letters. So, soon his love turns into hatred, and the clueless Sally Ross may never see another curtain rise.

With a screenplay by Priscilla Chapman and John Hartwell based on the 1977 novel by Bob Randall, this psychological thriller was directed by Edward Bianchi and stars Lauren Bacall, Michael Biehn, James Garner, and Maureen Stapleton.

The film went through a difficult birth. The film was originally intended as a straightforward thriller starring Elizabeth Taylor and directed by Jeff Lieberman. However, the project was delayed and both left the picture. It went through several major rewrites with the original director, Waris Hussein, dropping out over creative differences. Then filming was delayed because Lauren Bacall came down with a case of chickenpox. Rewrites continued throughout shooting. And, once the film was completed, Lauren Bacall and Michael Biehn, who played the obsessed fan, were "recalled to shoot a new ending" because the original ending had Bacall dying at the hands of her fan and was not testing well. By that point the  studio, Filmways, had run out of money and couldn't distribute the film, though it was eventually picked up for distribution by Paramount Pictures.

Producer Robert Stigwood initially considered Shirley MacLaine and Anne Bancroft for the lead before Bacall agreed to take the part.

The film was shot in New York City from April 1 to June 1980.

The film received a considerable amount of media attention due to being released a few months after the murder of John Lennon, who was shot to death by Mark David Chapman, a former fan, outside his apartment building The Dakota, a building where Bacall had been living for many years. However, it ended up being a critical and commercial failure. In an interview with People magazine at the time of the film's release, Bacall expressed disappointment over the film's violent content, saying, "The Fan is much more graphic and violent than when I read the script. The movie I wanted to make had more to do with what happens to the life of the woman–and less blood and gore." James Garner recalled in his 2011 memoir that The Fan was one of the worst pictures he ever made, and that "the only saving grace was working with Betty Bacall."

The musical numbers Bacall performs in the film were written by Tim Rice and Marvin Hamlisch. She had previously won a Tony for her performance in the Broadway musical Applause, a musical adaptation of All About Eve.

Lauren Bacall

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And that's all for now.

Tune in next time...

Same place, same channel.

Hearts Not Diamonds - Lauren Bacall

from the 1981 motion picture The Fan