On December 21, 1937, Hollywood actor, rogue and the creator of the Three Stooges, Ted Healy, went out on a night out on the town to celebrate the birth of his first child.

Just 36 hours later he would be found dead. What role did Albert “Cubby” Broccoli (creator of the Bond movie franchise) and his first cousin, Pasquale “Pat” DiCiccio, play on the night?

This episode of Hollywood Essays also features the mysterious death of actress Thelma Todd, the former wife of DiCiccio.

Read the whole story here and find me on Twitter @AliciaMayer – Enjoy!

In 1938, George Burns’ career was nearly crushed by incredible allegations that had Hollywood holding it’s breath and all of America in shock. Alicia Mayer, grand-niece of MGM studio boss, Louis B. Mayer, introduces you to the story, which she covers in full at http://www.HollywoodEssays.com. Read the forgotten stories about our most loved entertainment icons.

Mary Dees, who bore an uncanny resemblance to blond bombshell, Jean Harlow, shown in an undated MGM publicity shot.

“Backstage at the Shubert Theatre, the stage manager hesitates to pop his head into in the star dressing room. He’s not sure he can take looking at the young woman one more time. That’s not something he’s ever thought about a gorgeous woman before. His motto – You can look at a buffet all you want, so long as you eat at home – has worked for him and his missus for the 12 years he’s worked at the Shubert. In that time, he’s been witness to a miraculous, many would say enviable, stream of some of the world’s most beautiful women in and out of the star dressing room.”

July 27, 1937 – The Wisconsin Theatre, Milwaukee

As the mainly female audience streamed out of the packed Friday morning showing of Saratoga, starring Jean Harlow and Clark Gable, they were met by men in sleek suits. There were six of these suave individuals and one glance told you they weren’t from around these parts. The men had gleaming smiles, perfectly combed hair and an intensity that you just didn’t find among the men-folk of Milwaukee.

They had positioned themselves around the ornate Wisconsin Theatre lobby, but still, it didn’t take much for each man to collar a couple of women at a time and ask them to stop a moment, if they wouldn’t mind. Once the women did stop, and while they instantly appraised their appealing captors from head to foot, admiring their polished air, the suited men asked why they wanted to see Saratoga.

There were two answers most commonly received, enough so that the men eventually dismissed the others as unimportant. What they learned from the hundreds of women they spoke to over several sold out showings, over several days, was delivered with a guileless simplicity.

Women wanted to see how the replacement actress, Mary Dees, would get by stepping into the film at the last second to replace the dead star, Jean Harlow. They knew all about the spontaneous outcry from Harlow’s fans around America, who sent in letter after letter addressed directly to MGM boss, Louis B. Mayer, insisting that the right way to honor the platinum blond screen goddess after her sudden death was not to can the film but to do whatever it took to make sure it was released.

And, the women, sometimes sharing a meaningful glance with their girlfriend or mother or sister standing to their side, expressed that, naturally, they wanted to see what a star looked and acted like while dying.

One woman said, “Honey,” and she cast a glance across the crowd of women dressed in their best somberly heading toward the bank of glass doors, “we’re all here to see if we can make out when that poor girl was about to kick the bucket.”

When the six men gathered back at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in sunny Los Angeles, from where they had streamed out to middle America to sample why women were flocking to see the movie, they realized that female audiences could be as ghoulish as twelve-year-old boys. They simply had to know what the world’s sexiest woman would look like with death grinning over her shoulder. And now they knew.

As for Mary Dees,

when she was called in by Saratoga director, Jack Conway, who had already seen several young actresses, including the beautiful Rita Johnson, her striking resemblance to Harlow put everyone in the room that morning on edge. Mary had it all, the figure, the trademark platinum blond hair, broad face and even the cleft chin. By God – that chin, they all thought when she sat down to start the screen test.

Jack Conway had found his replacement for the unfinished scenes – only four crucial minutes were left to film when Jean Harlow begged him to call her boyfriend Bill Powell, who was himself filming nearby, and take her home. Despite Harlow’s strange comments to her makeup ladies about not coming back, no one thought for a minute that the star would never finish filming her scenes.

Conway, desperate to get it over with and deliver the film, and despite Mary Dees’ enthusiasm and perfect looks, made sure that only long shots were used. When that wasn’t possible, he had Dees put binoculars to her face (much of the movie takes place at the Saratoga race track) or he shot from the side so that she was mainly hidden by a huge floppy hat.

Dees did not pick up on any of this. As far as she was concerned, replacing dead Harlow was her break-out moment. Of course, she told herself, it wouldn’t be right to snatch stardom from Harlow’s last motion picture. No. But it would be perfectly understandable if her scenes in the movie, and her actual physical appearances to promote the film around the country, led to many, many wonderful opportunities.

And so, the young actress told herself, and her mother back home in Alabama over an excited telephone call back in early July when the studio decided to film the final scenes, that being Jean Harlow’s replacement was the best thing that could have happened to her career.

“Mama, this is it! This is it! You watch, I’ll get my own big picture next year,” Mary assured her mother while standing at the telephone in the Culver City boarding house where she stayed for $20 a week, bath not included. But for Mrs Dees, sitting in the telephone seat in the dark hallway in her home in Tuscaloosa, something did not feel right.

After the call, Mary went back to the huge scrapbook she had started. Laid out on her double bed, she had already artfully pasted in several full size newspaper clippings announcing Jean Harlow’s death on June 7, 1937 in huge copperplate headlines, most accompanied by glamorous, if grainy, publicity photographs of the gorgeous star. There were other clippings about her funeral on June 9, 1937 attended by her grief stricken mother, Jean Bello, and 250 of Hollywood’s motion picture stars, filmmakers, executives and technicians – the hair, makeup and wardrobe people who had adored working with the down-to-earth Jean “Baby” Harlow.

Mary had also pasted in newspaper photos of Clark Gable and the other men who were pallbearers grimly carrying Harlow’s copper casket on their shoulders. And of course, she was delighted to find a photograph of Bill Powell, Harlow’s last lover, utterly heartbroken.There were smaller clippings about the call to Mr Mayer to finish the film, and then those about the search for Harlow’s replacement. Mary had taken much delight in pasting in the snippets pronouncing Miss Rita Johnson as the replacement, followed by others proclaiming her as the rightful owner of the honor.

Meanwhile, for the studio, a Harlow replacement got the film finished. But no one, not even for a moment, entertained the notion that the remarkable Miss Harlow could be replaced. Not now, not ever. From the day the film was released to unprecedented sold out audiences across the country, Mary Dees would always be just Harlow’s stand-in. Her resemblance made her a dead woman walking; a trigger to audiences of what was lost, not what could be found.

Christmas Eve, 1937 – The Shubert Theatre, Broadway, New York City

Backstage at the Shubert Theatre, the stage manager hesitates to pop his head into in the star dressing room. He’s not sure he can take looking at the young woman one more time. That’s not something he’s ever thought about a gorgeous woman before. His motto – You can look at a buffet all you want, so long as you eat at home – has worked for him and his missus for the 12 years he’s worked at the Shubert. In that time, he’s been witness to a miraculous, many would say enviable, stream of some of the world’s most beautiful women in and out of the star dressing room.

The first time he popped his head in he saw Jean Harlow powdering her nose. His next thought was: that dame’s been dead and buried for six months now. Of course, he also knew that Miss Mary Dees would be making a special appearance tonight. The crowds kept coming for Saratoga despite its release being some weeks ago now. His head knew this, but his eyes said, Jean Harlow.

He told himself: stop acting like an old grandma spooked by a picture falling off the wall! Do your job, man!

After he double rapped his knuckles on the dressing room door, and the obligatory wait for a yes, which this time came in a soft, somewhat Southern accent, he opened the door and popped his head in. What he meant to say was, “One hour, Miss Dees,” what actually happened resembled when a fish is yanked onto the jetty and takes its first breath.

The stage manager stared grimly ahead, willing his mouth to work immediately. Mary Dees looked up from the Photoplay magazine she was reading. The man tried again and was greatly relieved when he managed to convey the message to the young actress.

“Thanks. I appreciate it greatly,” said Mary in return, tears swimming in her eyes.

Suddenly a coward, his job done, the stage manager pulled his head back in and went to knock on the door of veteran actor, Monte Blue, also appearing tonight.

But now it was just five minutes to showtime for Miss Dees and Mr Blue. The stage manager stood outside the dressing room door. He double rapped his knuckles one more time, and in the same instant that he heard “yes,” the door opened and there she was, Harlow again, right in front of him. Mary had fixed her makeup to cover up the tear streaks, gave her halo of platinum blond hair another brush and re-applied her best shade of red lipstick. The effect was breathtaking, overwhelming even. The stage manager shut his jaw with a snap, but stood for a beat too long staring at the young woman who stopped herself short so as not to collide with him on her way out of the dressing room.

“Thanks,” she said and the two locked eyes. “Uh, I’m sorry but I don’t know your name.”

“Dixon. Ronald Dixon, ma’am,” and he had the good sense to take one step back so Mary Dees could step through the door.

“Well, thank you Mr Dixon. Merry Christmas to you.”

“Miss Dee..ees,” Ronald stuttered, what the hell was wrong with him? “Have you got people here in New York City to spend Christmas with?”

Tears immediately welled up in Mary Dees’ eyes. Ronald Dixon instantly felt like the village idiot. Not trusting himself to speak, he resorted to universal gestures and held up a finger while stepping past the young woman. He made a swift lunge for a small pink hand towel from the basin in the corner of the dressing room and handed it to Mary, almost in the same movement.

“My apologies, ma’am. Certainly ain’t none of my business and I didn’t mean to make you upset,” he said as she carefully, precisely dabbed around her blue eyes.

“I don’t have people here. But my hotel room is very lovely. I’m sure I’ll be alright,” Mary said, handing the towel back. Ronald looked at his watch, shocked at the time. He said nothing more, but reached for Mary’s elbow and together they stopped in front of Monte Blue’s door.

Ronald did his swift double rap rap, and the door flung open, just as he yelled out “Two minutes, Mr Blue,” so that he ended up yelling it into Monte Blue’s face. Mary laughed.

The older actor tapped at his watch angrily. “Whatcha thinking young man! Never been late to anything in all my life. Not gonna start now at the Shubert!” and he grabbed Mary’s other elbow and together the three headed toward the glow from the stage.

Postscript: Mary Dees created two scrapbooks, which are held at the W.S. Hoole Special Collections Library of the University of Alabama.

Copyright Alicia Mayer 2013.

Mary Pickford and Buddy Rogers with adopted children Roxanne and Ron.

“Things didn’t work out that much, you know. But I’ll never forget her. I think that she was a good woman.” Ron Pickford Rogers. Mary Pickford was reportedly too self-absorbed to provide real maternal love.

THE PICKFORD FAMILY portrait, probably taken in 1945, was most likely Mary Pickford’s and Buddy Roger’s first official photo with their two adopted children, baby Roxanne and Ronald “Ronnie” Charles Rogers, who had only been adopted around a year earlier. Ronnie appears to be no more than five or six years old, and with his tentative smile, standing next to his instant infant sister, and new mother and father, it is hard to imagine what he is thinking. After all, the two children had joined one of America’s most famous households. In fact, when Pickford and Rogers confirmed their engagement in November of 1936, it was not only front page news, the headline, “Buddy Rogers to Marry Mary Pickford,” dwarfed another headline that 150 women and children had been killed by bombing in Madrid – casualties of the Spanish Civil War.

By the time this photo was taken – probably in Pickford’s mansion, “Pickfair,” one of the country’s most famous mansions and originally her home with her first husband, actor Douglas Fairbanks – Pickford and Rogers have known each other for nearly two decades having met on the set of Roger’s first film, My Best Girl in 1927 in which Pickford played the lead role.

Roxanne and Ron have come into a marriage that is not only well established, but the couple’s wealth and standing in Hollywood is beyond doubt.

From the family portrait, Pickford, still very youthful looking at 52, exudes confidence, and for good reason – she had achieved more than any other woman in the film business. Pickford had starred in over fifty films, appearing in over 200, was a founding members of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, was one of four founders of United Artists with Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffiths and Fairbanks, and even headed the studio’s production unit.

Not only is she worth

millions, Pickford has been extraordinarily wealthy for a very long time. Even back in 1918 it was reported that when Pickford filed her income tax return in person (as it was evidently done in those days) she did so with her lawyer present and her six figure earnings startled the cashier. I am sure it was a day he never forgot.

Pickford, originally born Gladys Marie Smith on April 8, 1892 in Toronto, Canada began her stage career at just five-years-old alongside her entire family – mother, Charlotte Hennessy, and sister Lottie and brother Jack Pickford. Together they crisscrossed America with the traveling theater troupes that were common at the turn of the last century and lasted until the film business transformed audiences’ taste and the many theater venues were renovated as cinema palaces. Just five feet tall, Pickford joined the motion picture business in its infancy and became so popular with audiences she was known as “America’s Sweetheart.” Her sweet face, long curly hair and slight figure became the nation’s young feminine ideal.

Paradoxically, Mary Pickford’s fame did not transfer to the ‘talkies’. Instead of fading into obscurity, though, she somehow made the leap from star to star-maker. There would be no other women with her status in the business end of Hollywood for at least 40-45 years.

Rogers, twelve years her junior, was originally from the small hamlet of Olathe, Kansas where his father was a probate judge and the family ran a 160 acre farm. Rogers was a talented musician and much-loved actor; thanks to his standard good looks and his film roles he had been dubbed “America’s boyfriend.” Yet, it was Rogers’ later career as a band leader of Hollywood orchestras and his marriage to Pickford that brought him the greatest recognition. When Buddy Rogers brought his bride-to-be to meet the family in Kansas, she caused the kind of sensation that can only occur when a mega star known to generations steps out of the screen and into real life.

Here is a news report from the day about her visit, one of the biggest events in the region’s history:

Kansas City was quick to learn of what was amiss and contributed a long stream of autos to the crowds of visitors who poured into Olathe all day. Many of them recognized the actress at Union Station and followed the Rogers’ auto. At the Methodist Church, Miss Pickford sat in a rear pew and heard BH, one of the three Rogers boys, sing in the choir. She was moved to tears by Rev. Eugene M. Frank’s Mother’s Day sermon and she accommodated practically the whole congregation that lined up outside after the services to shake her hand.

In the Rogers’ parlor, she arose to greet the constant stream of old and not so old friends of the Rogers who called. Judge Rogers took her to town to show her the courthouse and she stopped in the streets to sign autograph books. Later she went out to the Rogers’ 160-acre farm, where BH, the manager, showed her the wheat, corn and oat crops, newly planted, and the six new calves, a horse, mule and chickens.
Miss Pickford remarked that she had gathered eggs in her time and that the farm was ‘lovely’. She stopped in the chicken house to sign her autograph for Mrs. Sally Hiatt, who had followed her from Kansas City and pursued her to the farm.

It was a big day for Judge Rogers. ‘Yes sir, she shook hands with every single member of the congregation at church, and a lot of others. She never missed a one and she had something to say to everyone, too.’

Their marriage was Rogers’ first and Pickford’s third. Much was made of her refusal during their wedding to say “obey”. Instead, according to a report from the time, “In a low voice she said she would ‘love, honor and cherish until death do us part.’” The bride wore blue and their wedding – a small affair with just 17 of their closest friends and family – was held in the garden of a friend’s home, Louis Lighton, whose wife was her matron of honor. The church choir-singing BH Rogers was his brother’s best man.

Every angle of the event was covered in incredible depth by the newspapers, knowing that their readership was hungry for every last detail:

When Mary Pickford became Mrs Buddy Rogers today, she was wearing a sky blue crepe gown and dregs-of-wine shade accessories. The dress had a tubular skirt, a high waistline accentuated by front shirrings, short sleeves, empire length jacket. The sleeves of the jacket repeated the shirring motif of the skirt.

Her ‘going away’ gown was of sapphire and rust, threads of these colors running through the material. With it she wore a little turned-brimmed felt hat stitched in blue and rust leather. Gloves and shoes were of rust-shade suede.

Included in her trousseau also was the ice blue romaine crepe gown she had intended to be married in. A small veiled flared brim hat accompanied it. She also has a hunter’s green cable net evening gown with a coque feather bolero jacket. To wear with her collection of rubies, Mrs Rogers has a white chiffon evening gown of simple lines, to be augmented by a white chiffon cape.

Two day-time ensembles include a mist grey crepe, to be worn with an all-plaited chiffon coat, and a wine and white print crepe to be worn under an all-tuck chiffon coat. Included among her 30-odd honeymoon outfits was a red, green and white evening gown with a crisp print bolero jacket.

Journalists covering the news couldn’t resist mentioning Fairbanks and Pickfair, which was reportedly for sale and valued at $500,000. Most reports also mentioned her first husband, Irish-born actor, Owen Moore, who Pickford had married in 1911. Their divorce was finalized in 1920 and almost immediately Pickford had married Fairbanks. No one could say that Mary Pickford had picked Buddy Rogers to type – he was night and day to her previous husbands, especially the dashing Douglas Fairbanks, who, like Mary Pickford was very much a scion of Hollywood’s establishment and not afraid of multiple marriages.

Unfortunately for their relationship, as their movie careers foundered, Fairbanks became notoriously restless traveling overseas with or without his wife. The Pickford and Fairbanks relationship, which spanned 16 years, had become an indelible part of American life and a rising fandom centering around Hollywood actors and actresses. Though there were numerous columns in most newspapers about motion picture stars and well-known filmmakers, Fairbanks’ and Pickford’ were referred to as “Hollywood Royalty,” their union known as “the perfect marriage” and their every move reported alongside major national and world events.

Their castle, christened “Pickfair” by the newspapers, was a mansion high up in San Ysidro Canyon. Pickfair itself held legendary status and was somehow finessed into almost every article about the couple. It was like the mythical camelot for this modern-day ‘royal’ romance. The next couple and grand home to receive this treatment would be John F. Kennedy and his glamorous wife, the former Jacqueline Bouvier, whose life in the White House held the same interest for the American psyche.

But no marital home, no matter how hallowed or magical, can save a marriage. Pickford and Fairbanks separated in the early 1930s. A potential reunion and a “secret meeting” to patch up their marriage was, of course, covered as front page news. But it was not to be and when her divorce proceedings were heard in court, Mary Pickford claimed “mental cruelty.”

Fairbanks had already moved on and was overseas with his new lover, the former Lady Ashley. His divorce from Pickford was useful but he had other court troubles; Sylvia Ashley’s husband, Lord Ashley, named Fairbanks as co-respondent in a civil suit charging them both with infidelity. Released from his marriage to Pickford, and evidently none the worse for the other court matter, Fairbanks later married Ashley; but their marriage would only last three years.

Fairbanks never lived in Pickfair again, and despite its perennial association with the previous marriage, it became home to Pickford and Rogers and later to their children, Ron and Roxanne.

At some point in the 30s or 40s, Pickford became a dear friend of my great-grandmother, Ida Mayer Cummings and through her became one of the greatest supporters of Los Angeles’ Jewish Home for the Aged, a cause Ida was devoted to for decades. The family legend, and perhaps known by others, was that Mary Pickford was in fact an anti-semite. As the story goes, Ida transformed her views by appealing to her generally warm-hearted and fair nature. In her role as a primary JHA benefactor, Pickford went to endless luncheons and gala events. The family collection contains several of Mary Pickford, and in all she is impeccably dressed – almost regal.

Sadly, like many in her family before her, Pickford slipped into alcoholism. Pickfair went from opulent mansion to the island of her self-imposed exile. In the last ten years of her life Mary Pickford became a recluse and rarely left her bedroom, much less her home.

In 1976, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences recognized her with a special Oscar “in recognition of her unique contribution to the film industry.” She did not attend the ceremony in person but instead appeared briefly during the telecast. But even this fleeting glance of a woman who had once been America’s Sweetheart was enough to cause an out-pouring of affection from the public. Pickford reportedly received hundreds of letters from around America and the world. She was evidently stunned and delighted at the reaction. But it didn’t bring her out of seclusion.

Three years later, in 1979 at age 86, she died of a stroke. At her death, Pickford and Rogers had been married 42 years.

Buddy Rogers later sold Pickfair to Los Angeles Lakers owner, Dr. Jerry Buss, who sold it to entertainer, Pia Zadora and her husband. The couple demolished Pickfair and constructed a new home on the site. There was a huge outcry about the destruction of such an historical property, but Zadora claimed it had been left in great disrepair and was riddled with termites.

Buddy Rogers died in 1999 at age 94. He was honored by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences with the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award in 1986.

As for Ron and Roxanne, sadly the family portrait belies the truth. Though they had the trappings of a dream life, the reality was entirely different. Pickfair was a grand house but never a home. As Roxanne and Ron grew up and the cuteness and novelty wore off, Pickford’s relationship with her children has been described as “tense” and “turbulent.” Their adopted mother criticized them for their physical imperfections – Ronnie for his short stature and Roxanne for her crooked teeth, among other things.

Both married in their late teens and drifted into odd jobs. Roxanne married a boy Pickford did not approve of. She went on to have a daughter and died in her 50s from osteoporosis.

In a PBS “American Experience” documentary about her famous mother, Roxanne appears haggard and has clearly had very tough life. Ron fared no better. In 1958 his suicide attempt was widely reported.
Despite being the son of one of America’s wealthiest women, Ron’s occupation is listed as a machinist. What happened to his wife Lenore and their two children is unknown and Ron is reported to have ended up a toothless drifter. There were no further reports clarifying his life in later years that I could find.

The odd thing about parents – adopted or otherwise – flawed as they can be, is that children are hardwired to forgive.

When remembering his adopted mother, Mary Pickford, Ron is gracious, “Things didn’t work out that much, you know. But I’ll never forget her. I think that she was a good woman.”

Official photographs are a world unto themselves – everyone smiles, everyone looks hopeful. ♛

New Mary Pickford biography:
Mary Pickford: Queen of the Movies

Charlie Chaplin autobiography:
Charlie Chaplin: My Autobiography

Copyright Alicia Mayer 2013.

The ebook collection, created in iBooks Author, features expanded essays on the Mayer family of MGM and the legendary filmmakers and stars they worked with. Each essay has been enhanced with more rare photos (many not seen for 70 years or more), as well as footage, audio and special links.

A press release will be issued when the ebooks have gone live in iBooks – watch this space!

You can connect with me on Twitter via @AliciaMayer and a new Facebook page, Hollywood Essays, is being prepared.

My grandmother, Mitzi Cummings, interviews a very young Judy Garland, who in this photo looks like she may be promoting her first movie, musical short Every Sunday, which included fellow child actor, Deanna Durbin. Date unknown, however the location is most likely an MGM set.

Like any starry-eyed teenager, the young singer was ready to experience the glamorous world of the movie star. Instead, Garland was sent to MGM school where she met Mickey Rooney and the other kid talents of the time, most of whom were true beauties, like Ava Gardner and Elizabeth Taylor. She was not in their league, but then again, none of them could sing like her either.

The term child star has become so infused with meaning it is almost shorthand for a universal cautionary tale populated with archetypal characters – the pushy stage mother, the manipulative agent, the ruthless studio exec, the demanding director, the cadre of devoted, starry-eyed fans.

Of course, at the heart of this passion play is the changeling who transforms from kittenish talent to sexually aware woman whereupon discomfiting shock waves shoot through our cast, upending every role and adding a new one, the unstable stalker, who also does double-duty as Death and is disturbingly intent on his prize.

As the power base shifts from those who were in control – the parent, the agent, the exec, the director, the fans – the previously understood relationship (I am this and you are that) and the expected behavior (you do this and I will do that) is in tatters. The previously relied upon business formula of ‘box office – investment = ROI’ fails as the hits thin out and the problems grow. The baby face dissolves away to an awkward ‘other’ – not yet the woman, but no longer the sweet little girl.

Then come the headlines, the story’s Greek chorus, which sings of our hero’s demise and then the unexpected but hoped for triumph, quickly followed by yet another fall. Now our hero struggles to stand. But no… our chorus sings of the inevitable – the last stumble, the decline, the end, the mourning, the tears, the questions. Was it too much too soon? Was the pressure to succeed overwhelming? Is it normal to struggle with the demands of stardom at your most vulnerable?

But wait! Another child star arrives. Quick! Run! Let’s not miss the next drama, for we know how this story goes and we know when to cry, when to cheer, and, of course, when to turn away and stop watching…

_____________________

FOR OVER FORTY years Judy Garland performed her heart out but instead of transitioning from child star to solid adult success, her life went terribly off the rails in the 1940s and never quite recovered. We watched with one eye open afraid to open both as she lurched from stellar performances to tantrums and no-shows, from happy family times to alcoholism, drug use and suicide attempts, from gold records to near bankruptcy.

And then, in 1969 three months after her fifth marriage and 11 days after her 47th birthday, just as she was attempting to get on her feet again, Judy Garland died from an accidental overdose of barbiturates. The painfully vulnerable, profoundly talented performer finished the third and final act of her short and tumultuous life in a manner which we always knew was coming but crossed our fingers that it wouldn’t be so.

In a business where thick skin is a must, Garland appeared to have no armor; she just wanted to perform.

At just three years old Frances “Baby” Gumm, as she was known then, was so keen to sing, she dashed onto the stage naked. The toddler misunderstood her cue and left the wings before her mother, Ethel, could pull a babydoll dress over her head and pull up some undies.

Just a couple of years later, when the tiny performer and her two sisters were on the road with their mother as manager, wardrobe lady, pianist, voice coach and cook, they were thrilled to get billing on a big town marquee. When the excited little group arrived before showtime they were crestfallen to see that instead of “The Gumm Sisters” their name in lights was “The Glum Sisters”.

Garland apparently never got over the pain and humiliation of this. Though the young girls were glum indeed, George Jessel, the vaudeville legend who later became a Hollywood filmmaker, put little Frances on his knee and said she was “pretty as a garland of flowers” and suggested the group change their name. While they were at it, the littlest one piped up and said she also liked the name Judy. That night a name was born, but not the star – it would be a few more years of ups and downs until finally Garland’s two older sisters fell in love, got married and left performing.

This left the young singer with a big voice and no place to go. According to Hollywood reporter, Carleton Cheney in a 1940 syndicated serial about Judy’s young life so far, Garland was singing around a campfire while on a Lake Tahoe holiday when a talent scout heard the 12-year-old and invited her to come to Hollywood. An alternate story about this period is that my great-uncle, Louis B. Mayer, sent director and musical choreographer, Busby Berkeley, to go downtown to the Orpheum Theater to watch the Gumm Sisters perform.

Either way, in 1935 Garland’s father, vaudevillian and theater operator, Frank Gumm, took her to the casting office at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. At just 4′ 11″, a button nose and almost 13, no one was quite sure what to do with her until she began to sing. Someone sent word to LB’s office that he should see the kid in action. Judy Garland belted out another tune or two and evidently on this basis she was given a contract. This version of events sounds idealized but she was definitely signed on the strength of her voice alone. No screen tests were conducted. Sadly, Frank Gumm died just a few months after this, but Garland swore her father had been her lucky charm.

Like any starry-eyed teenager, the young singer was ready to experience the glamorous world of the movie star. Instead, Garland was sent to MGM school where she met Mickey Rooney and the other kid talents of the time, most of whom were true beauties, like Ava Gardner and Elizabeth Taylor. She was not in their league, but then again, none of them could sing like her either.

In 1937, Garland made her first film, Every Sunday, a musical short with fellow child actor and MGM schoolmate, Deanna Durbin. Several films followed, including parts in the Andy Hardy series. Audiences loved her as the cutest girl next door. Her image was accessible, whereas the other young ones were something to aspire to.

Charles Walters, who directed Garland in a number of films, said “Judy was the big money-maker at the time, a big success, but she was the ugly duckling… I think it had a very damaging effect on her emotionally for a long time. I think it lasted forever, really”.

It didn’t help that Uncle Louis evidently referred to Garland as his “little hunchback”, which, if you know Jewish humor, was most certainly a term of endearment. His own closest sibling, my great-grandmother, Ida, was the same height.

Like a lot of teenage girls, Garland’s weight fluctuated, but for a bankable star, this would not do. She was put on dieting regimes and pills to slim down. I have also read contemporary articles which claim that to keep up with the frantic pace of making one film after another, Garland, Rooney, and other young performers were regularly given amphetamines and barbiturates.

I don’t know if this true, but certainly the 30s and 40s were more innocent times. Doctors recommended smoking and ‘modern’ drugs were put on pedestals, considered to have almost magical qualities without known side effects. So if Garland’s drug use began as sanctioned ‘pep pills’ there was certainly context – rather than some evil plan.

What is known is that her weight troubles and demands from MGM execs to lose weight were reported in the papers, which would be crushing for any teenager, but even more so for one whose image goes hand in hand with her paycheck and her prospects. Then mix in goddess-like beauties, young and old, swanning around on every MGM sound-stage with Garland’s intense self-doubt, and you have one toxic cocktail.

In late 1938, Garland was announced as Dorothy in the upcoming Wizard of Oz, but only because 20th Century Fox would not release Shirley Temple and Deanna Durbin was not available. When the movie debuted in 1939 it was a tremendous critical success and it was clear the choice to cast her was inspired, if not intentional. At the 1940 Academy Awards, Garland received an Academy Juvenile Award for her performances the year before, including in The Wizard of Oz and Babes in Arms.

During the same week as the Oscars, the star is threatened by a 19-year-old stalker who plotted to kidnap her. Earlier in the week Ethel had found “I love you” scribbled on their mailbox in red. After the young man is swiftly arrested, he tells police Garland is his perfect girl.

So now comes the cusp from child star to teenager – Garland’s sights are set on a dangerous territory just over the horizon called womanhood. At 17 she has a romance with band leader, Artie Shaw but is heartbroken when he eloped with Lana Turner. Garland then falls hard for musician David Rose, and on her 18th birthday he asks her to marry him. As Rose was still married at the time to the actress and singer, Martha Raye, the couple waited a year for his divorce to be finalized. On July 27, 1941 they married, but it would last less than two years.

Tragically, Judy Garland’s life is already assembling into that tried and true Hollywood template of unstable people getting involved with other unstable people and to no one’s surprise whatsoever, having unstable relationships. It is during this time that Garland and her mother either become estranged or the power struggle ensues. Certainly daughters in their late teens can be challenging for any parents. But with a child star, now accustomed to adoration, making enormous amounts of money, running with a sophisticated, fast crowd – Ethel would not have had much in her court. Garland’s choices would have been painful to watch for any mother, regardless of her ambitions or plans. And evidently, Ethel Gumm had a lot of both.

In 1943, at 21 Garland is given a glamor role in Presenting Lily Mars and her look is transformed with blonde hair and beautiful gowns but audiences still want her to be the girl next door and are uncomfortable seeing her as a womanly love interest. She goes back to form in 1944 with one of her most successful films for MGM, Meet Me in St. Louis, directed by Vincent Minnelli. They began a relationship and in June of 1945, Garland and Minnelli married. Nine months later, their daughter Liza was born.

Meanwhile, Deanna Durbin, Garland’s old studio school buddy, had been let go from MGM. How many tiny songbirds does one studio need? Evidently, the execs did the numbers and decided there was only room for one. Durbin, who has already had two failed marriages, has a useless stint at Universal and flees Hollywood to live in France with her third husband.

The next year Garland suffered her first nervous breakdown and cut her wrists with broken glass. She became increasingly unreliable and was pulled from film after film, declared “unfit to work”, didn’t show up for rehearsals, and in the case of Annie Get Your Gun, Garland left for lunch and simply didn’t come back.

By now, MGM is the grandest studio in the land. According to New York Times bestselling author, Scott Eyman, in his amazing biography, Lion of Hollywood: the Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer, the studio covered 167 acres. “Lot 1 encompassed seventy-two acres, housed all the thirty sound-stages, office buildings, and dressing rooms, the seven warehouses crammed with furniture, props, and draperies. Lot 2 consisted of thirty-seven acres of permanent exterior sets, including the town of Carvel, home of the Hardy family, and the great Victorian street from Meet Me in St. Louis. Here was the house where David Copperfield lived, there the street where Marie Antoinette rolled to the guillotine.”

There were three lots for the outdoor settings, including jungles and rivers for Tarzan and Trader Horn. There were 13 miles of paved road, 6,000 employees and three entrances. There were 33 designated ‘stars’, 72 featured players and 25 directors under contract.

MGM had its own police force, dentist, chiropractor, foundry and electrical plant. It was an empire at the peak of its history and its yield was hit movies and stars.

It is in this context that we not only have to place MGM’s child stars, but also Garland and her significant personal problems. So often modern commentary about Louis B. Mayer regarding individual stars like Garland reads as if they were his only concern and that he exerted a total, Svengali-like focus on each individual’s life. But how could this be possible?

Certainly, he was fond of Garland, as he was of them all. LB tried to help her and paid for her many hospital visits and other medical care. But he, and the execs he employed, were running a massive multimillion dollar business with the Loew Corporation in New York to answer to. They were trying to make movies. While other studios were floundering, MGM was a powerhouse of talent from every discipline, major hits each year and money in the bank.

After her daughter’s second nervous breakdown, in 1949 Ethel Gumm has had enough, or realizes there is nothing she can do, or both. She takes up a position as a theater manager in Dallas, familiar ground for her as she too had been a vaudeville performer prior to rearing her daughters and focusing on Judy’s career.

A year later, during a meeting between Garland, her agent and studio execs, the troubled star leaves the room and attempts to slit her own throat. She was only mildly injured but clearly it was another cry for help. Reports from the time are front page news and understandably disbelieving.

Our Greek chorus asks, where has our little girl gone? But the child star was long gone.

In October 1951, Garland opened in a vaudeville-style show at the newly refurbished Palace Theatre on Broadway. Her twice a day, 19-week engagement smashed earlier records and was described as “one of the greatest personal triumphs in show business history”, by Jack Garver, an industry columnist at the time. For her contribution to the revival of vaudeville, Garland was presented with a Special Tony Award.

But by June of 1952, Garland has married again – this time to show business manager, Sidney Luft. Just five months later in November, their first child is born, Lorna Luft. Although the next few years would be highly productive for Garland, turmoil was always just under the surface. In 1953, Ethel Gumm is found dead between two cars in the parking lot of the aircraft factory where she worked as a $60/week clerk.

Claims of an estrangement were denied by Garland’s lawyer. But it is hard to view this ignominious end for the mother of one of America’s biggest stars of the time without their being a total rift between the two.

In 1954, Garland makes A Star is Born, which is so popular and critically well received that she is considered a shoo-in to win the Oscar. In fact, so much so that a camera crew is sent to her hospital bedside where she has just given birth to her son, Joseph Loft. But the Oscar gods have made Hollywood their plaything and any chance of hubris is struck down. The Academy Award goes to Grace Kelly in The Country Girl.

It must have felt like old times feeling overshadowed by the pretty girl again. Groucho Marx sent her a telegram after the awards ceremony, declaring her loss “the biggest robbery since Brinks”. Time magazine labeled her performance as “just about the greatest one-woman show in modern movie history”. It wasn’t a complete loss for the awards season as Garland was recognized at the Golden Globes with Best Actress in a Musical.

From here, now a fully-fledged woman, wife and mother, Garland would make just a few more films, including Judgment at Nuremberg (1961), for which she was Oscar- and Golden Globe-nominated for Best Supporting Actress, before turning her attention to Las Vegas, TV shows and performances at the Palladium in London. Her star seemed to be burning brightly. By 1956, she is on $55,000 a week – the highest paid performer in Vegas.

Garland’s final act begins in November of 1959, when she is hospitalized with acute hepatitis. Her prognosis is grim; she is given five years or less to live. Initially the singer says she felt “…greatly relieved. The pressure was off me for the first time in my life”. But by August of that year, Garland makes a triumphant return to the Palladium and is so warmly received, she announces her intention to move to London.

Our hero seems to be conquering many mountains: her concert appearance at Carnegie Hall on April 23, 1961, was called “the greatest night in show business history” and the two-record Judy at Carnegie Hall was certified gold, charting for 95 weeks on Billboard, including 13 weeks at number one. The album won four Grammy Awards including Album of the Year and Best Female Vocal of the Year. It has never been out of print.

But like an underground river, her personal life is not in step with her public appearances. Garland sues Luft for divorce in 1963, claiming “cruelty” and that he had repeatedly struck her while he was drinking. Her suit also states that Luft had attempted to take their children from her by force.

For Garland, the 60s are replete with huge ups and downs. There are command performances, including at the Palladium with an 18-year-old Liza Minnelli, and a much-loved TV show, as well as near fatal pleurisy, which hampers her Australian tour and leaves her Australian audiences disillusioned. In fact, for one show in Sydney, Garland is an hour late, forgets her own songs and after sustained booing, the singer flees the stage.

Her divorce from Sidney Luft, her third husband, becomes final on May 19, 1965, and shortly thereafter she marries her tour promoter, Mark Herron. This marriage lasts only six months.

In February 1967, Garland is cast as Helen Lawson in 20th Century Fox’s Valley of the Dolls but instead it’s Groundhog Day as she repeatedly misses rehearsals just as she had done so 20 years earlier at MGM. In April she is fired and replaced by Susan Hayward.

That July, Garland makes her last appearances at New York’s Palace Theatre with a 16-show run, performing with her children, Lorna and Joey Luft. Ironically, her wardrobe for this show is the sequined pantsuit which she would have worn in the Valley of the Dolls. Her last stage appearance is in Copenhagen in March, 1969. She marries her fifth husband, musician Mickey Deans, in the registry office in Chelsea, London on March 15.

On June 22, Deans finds Garland dead in the bathroom of their rented house. Her death is later ruled accidental by an “incautious self-overdose” of barbiturates.

Following Garland’s death, Deanna Durbin, gave one of only two interviews as a former child star and Hollywood refugee. In an honest and heartfelt interview with AP reporter and industry guru, Bob Thomas, she said that along with their strong voices, the two girls had other things in common, they “hated their lives as movie stars” and had “pushy, ambitious mothers”.

Durbin goes on to explain the fatal flaw in childhood stardom: “People put child stars on a pedestal. They expect them to be perfect little darlings; and to remain that way when they grow up. People criticize [them] when these stars grow up and prove themselves to be human beings with their own faults”.

When Garland last saw her old MGM schoolmate in Paris, she confided in her, “I didn’t like [the] publicity, [the] invasion of my private life. A person needs to have an identity of their own. When you’re a star, it’s virtually impossible”.

Deanna Durbin will be 93 in December. More than likely, she will celebrate her birthday surrounded by family and friends in the French village she has lived in for 70 years. Her legacy is not that of Judy Garland’s but then again, she lived.

Postscript: Judy Garland’s daughter, Lorna Luft, clarified her mother’s position on Louis B. Mayer. She wrote, “She loved L.B. Mayer to the end of her life. In the decade after she left Metro… she never blamed L.B. for what had happened to her. She always spoke lovingly of him to us as children and to my father. It was L.B. Mayer who paid for my mother’s hospitalizations when she became ill during her years at MGM, even when it was clear she might never be able to make another movie for him”.

Copyright Alicia Mayer 2013.

My grandmother, Mitzi Cummings, with actor Robert Montgomery who was secretary of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) during the big studio revolt of 1949. Actor Jean Hersholt was president, and together they fought to keep the Academy Awards from collapsing. Date unknown. Place unknown.

It would take just a week after the shocking awards ceremony for the response from the big studios to hit the headlines, as they did on the 1st of April, 1949 and read like April’s Fool Day jokes, including “Academy Awards May Be Stopped” and “Hollywood Oscars May Be On The Way Out”.

The first non-Hollywood production to win an Academy Award for Best Motion Picture was Hamlet, a B&W British film from the Rank Organisation and starring Laurence Olivier, who also directed. Hamlet premiered in London in May of 1948 and then in New York at the Astor Theater on August 18th. It was a big year for the Hollywood box office with several huge hits, notably John Huston’s The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (Warner Bros), The Three Musketeers (MGM), Johnny Belinda (Warner Bros), Billy Wilder’s A Foreign Affair (Paramount), Bogart’s and Bacall’s Key Largo (Warner Bros), The Naked City (Universal), director Victor Fleming’s Joan of Arc (RKO), Darryl F. Zanuck’s The Snake Pit starring Olivia de Havilland (20th Century Fox) and dozens of others.

I am fairly certain that at the time Hollywood’s reaction to Hamlet was ho-hum and business as usual. No one had any idea the winds of change had blown in – and it was not the usual Santa Ana winds which often leads to LA’s notorious fire season. This wind swirled through the ‘film colony’ – the source of 99% of America’s movie diet – ruffled a few feathers out east where many of the big studios’ money came from, and would ultimately start the perennial debate about merit over politics in the Academy Award race that continues to this very day.

It probably wasn’t until early 1949 when Hamlet was nominated for seven Oscars in the 21st Academy Awards, including Best Motion Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design and Best Score, that America’s motion picture business sat up and took notice. Fear and loathing would come later. At the time, the New York City money men and Hollywood studio moguls would have convinced themselves that American films Johnny Belinda nominated for 12 Oscars, Joan of Arc nominated for seven and The Snake Pit for six, would dominate at the awards ceremony scheduled for March 24.

The Oscar dice was loaded with plenty of American leading men and actresses, major directors and producers, and other talent across the craft spectrum. And by now the Academy Awards are over two decades old, the local industry is a well established money machine and it’s output – Hollywood films and their stars – is firmly ensconced in the hearts and minds of a massive local audience.

I can just hear the puzzled conversation in Loew’s New York City boardroom after the nominations were announced, “Hamlet is Shakespeare for crying out loud!” “Don’t worry! Shakespeare is as understandable in Fresno as Swahili is in Poughkeepsie!” “We’re fine, we’re fine. Sit down. Drink some water.”

What everyone missed, probably through arrogance more than anything else, was that Hamlet was the eye of the storm – impossible to see when you’re in it, but quite obvious after you’ve been spat out on the other side.

Although Laurence Olivier and his glamorous wife, Vivien Leigh, were much-loved in the UK and Leigh was a huge star in the US thanks to Gone with the Wind, Olivier did not have the same profile for American film goers. Major films like Spartacus (1960) would be more than ten years away. Women had swooned for him as Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights all the way back in ’39, and Rebecca and Pride and Prejudice did solid box office in 1940. But he wasn’t everywhere like American leading men of the time were, including Cary Grant, Spencer Tracey, Humphrey Bogart, James Stewart, Burt Lancaster, Gregory Peck and others who made at least two or more films every year.

So it would come as a great shock on the night of the 21st Academy Awards, the first year the ceremony was closed only to the film industry, to see Olivier delightedly head to the stage twice to collect Oscars – Hamlet won Best Motion Picture (a statuette also went to co-producer, J. Arthur Rank) and Olivier won Best Actor in a Leading Role. Gorgeous Vivien Leigh and Olivier beamed from their table as Roger Furse went up twice to collect more Oscars for the team – Best Costume Design and Best Set Direction with Carmen Dillon.

With Hamlet 4 from 6, Johnny Belinda a disastrous 1 from 12, Joan of Arc 2 from 7 and The Snake Pit 1 from 6, the wine served with dinner would have tasted quite sour. Only John Huston had managed the best odds of an American film that evening; The Treasure of the Sierra Madre struck gold and the production team was 3 from 4 with Oscars for Best Director and Best Screenplay to John Huston and Best Supporting Actor to his father, Walter Huston.

I am sure it was a subdued crowd that climbed into their limos that night. Along with being the first non-Hollywood production to win Best Picture, Hamlet’s win was a first on many fronts – it was the first time an actor in a Best Picture would direct himself in a leading role and win (Roberto Benigni would do this 50 years later with Life Is Beautiful); Olivier is also the only actor to win an Oscar for a Shakespearean role and Hamlet is the only film to have won both a Cannes Golden Lion and the Oscar for Best Picture.

It would take just a week after the shocking awards ceremony for the response from the big studios to hit the headlines, as they did on the 1st of April, 1949 and read like April’s Fools Day jokes, including “Academy Awards May Be Stopped” and “Hollywood Oscars May Be On The Way Out.” The big corporations behind America’s major studios were angry that their private party had been crashed – by hoity toity Shakespeare no less.

But this you don’t say in a press release. In a joint statement from Nicholas M. Schenk of Loew’s (MGM), Barney Balaban of Paramount, Spyros P. Skouras of 20th Century Fox, Major Albert Warner of Warner Bros and Ned Depinet of RKO, it was announced that contributions to the Academy Awards would cease effective immediately, and stated that their action was designed “to stop any suspicion of company influence,” and that they would continue their “moral support” of the awards, but only if they were based on “democratic selection.”

While this would have zipped right over movie-goer heads like light and shadow from a streaming projector, industry commentators like trusted straight-talking Hollywood reporter, Bob Thomas and AMPAS president, Jean Hersholt and Academy secretary, Robert Montgomery, got to the heart of the matter immediately.

Montgomery bravely countered the whiny democratic selection comment with, “I don’t know what they are talking about. The Academy Award process is completely democratic. And the Academy itself is as democratic as Grand Central Station…since the companies benefit from the Oscars, it is only fair that they should contribute to the awards ceremony.” This last comment seems to indicate that support was being withdrawn from the ceremony itself – clearly no one wanted to dress up in black tie only to look like fools again. Montgomery finished with, “The only thing I regret in this whole mess is the rumbling dissent over the British picture winning it [the Oscar]. I’d say it was bad sportsmanship.”

Jean Hersholt, who was resigning after several terms at the helm, pointed right at the elephant in the room by saying that the big corporations were withdrawing their support because they wanted to make commercial pictures “unhampered by artistic standards”. Hersholt’s lightening bolt had industry watchers agog and convinced that he was either very brave or a stark raving lunatic to bring the fight to so many of Hollywood’s most powerful men.

Despite insults flying like arrows from a John Wayne western, the real work – as always – was done behind closed doors and the next year, at the 22nd Academy Awards on March 23, 1950 the big guys were back in. Victorious Jean Hersholt was recognized with an Honorary Academy Award, “in recognition of his service to the Academy during four terms as president.” The next year my great-uncle, Louis B Mayer would win this very same Oscar “for distinguished service to the motion picture industry.”

With that succession of pats on the back – one to the statesman and another to the studio mogul – all was put right with the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences – for the time being. It would be several years before another foreign-produced film won again. The English would do it twice with The Bridge on the River Kwai in 1957 and Lawrence of Arabia in 1962.

The last word should go to legendary reporter, Bob Thomas who will be 91 on the 26th of January and who wrote about the film business for decades as a reporter for Associated Press (starting in 1944) and authored 30 books, including King Kohn, Joan Crawford, Howard – the Amazing Mr. Hughes (with Noah Dietrich), The Road to Hollywood (with Bob Hope), Bud & Lou: The Abbott and Costello Story and Walt Disney: An American Original.

Here’s Thomas’ frank and prescient take on the crazy events of 1949:

“Let’s face it – the Academy is an imperfect organization. Its original purpose is often clouded and ignored. It was founded 21 years ago to reward artistic and scientific achievements in the movies. This was important, since the industry was then almost devoid of prestige. Academy awards have added stature to this much-maligned industry. But they have often been handed out because of politics and sentiment, no matter how strongly the Academy denies it.

The Academy will probably survive, in some form at least. After 21 years of being shot at, Oscar is a tough guy to kill.”

Postscript: 1948, the year that would have had the most impact on the controversial announcement from the big studio corporations’ based in New York City, was a remarkable one in many ways. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was inaugurated and its purpose of free trade was a frightening backdrop for leaders trying to control the American market. Largely Republican, these same men would have watched with great concern as the Democrats won another term in office with incumbent Harry S Truman defeating Republican Thomas S. Dewey. Their blinkers would have included concern that just as America was finding its feet after WWII, overseas films would take vital profits out of the US.

Other notable events include:

• Mahatma Gandhi is assassinated
• the first monkey is sent into space (from White Sands, New Mexico) starting the space race in earnest
• McCollum v. Board of Education was fought in the United States Supreme Court which ruled that religious instruction in public schools violates the U.S. Constitution
• the World Health Organization is established
• Singapore holds its first elections
• Israel is established and the first president of Israel is elected
• The Berlin Blockade begins
• President Truman signs Executive Order 9981, ending racial segregation in the United States Armed Forces
• The World Council of Churches is established
• The Rand Corporation is established
• Ashgabat earthquake kills 110,000
• Costa Rica decommissions its entire army – the only country to do so.

Copyright Alicia Mayer 2013.

My grandmother, Mitzi Cummings with actor, Ted Healy. Date circa 1937.

Exactly what happened after the initial altercation with Albert “Cubby” Broccoli is not clear, but Healy would later be found at a Hollywood hotel where the hotel doctor sewed up a huge gash over his left eye. Along with this wound, Healy looked like he had been severely beaten. He was taken home but he soon after slipped into unconsciousness and began convulsing. Within hours he was dead.

This chummy photo of my grandmother, Mitzi Cummings with actor and notorious rogue, Ted Healy was taken shortly before his untimely death at 41 on December 21, 1937, just two days after the birth of his first child to former actress, and on again/off again wife, Betty Hickman.

Like so many of early Hollywood’s comedic actors, Ted Healy came to the motion picture business via the live or die world of vaudeville, a hugely popular form of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. On the one bill, a night out could include actors, musicians, dancers, impersonators, magicians, acrobats and comedians. In its dying days, hundreds of vaudevillians made the leap to motion pictures. For many, like Mae West, Chic Sale, Charles Bickford, and George Burns and Gracie Allen (who I’ve written about in previous posts), the transition from the stage to Hollywood was not only seamless, but with their inbuilt fan base, they literally become overnight stars in the new mediums of celluloid and radio.

Behind the scenes, the vaudeville biosphere of producers, stage managers and other technical personnel, also flowed into the movie business. My own great-uncle, Louis B. Mayer got his start from purchasing old vaudeville theaters and transforming them into film palaces. But an endless stream of content was needed and soon LB became a producer. Why own a handful of end destinations for a product, when you can create a product needed by thousands of cinemas? The saying, “content is king” may be relatively new, but it simply refers to supply and demand, and audiences, mesmerized by film, devoured as much as could be produced.

Ted Healy, born Ernest Lea Nash on October 1, 1896 in Houston, Texas was a scrappy performer who created his first vaudeville act as a teenager. It was a success so he expanded his role to comedian and master of ceremonies, took the stage name Ted Healy and added performers. His friend, Moses Harry Horwitz (later known as Moe Howard) joined him, and Healy gave him the role of ‘stooge’, a plant in the audience who is called onto the stage. Once on stage, all hell would break loose culminating in Healy losing his trousers. It’s not hard to see how vaudeville also gave birth to slapstick, a form of comedy that has evolved somewhat but is the nutty domain of modern comedians like Jim Carey (think Dumb and Dumber) and many old and new SNL stars.

Moe Howard’s brother Jerry, (later known as Curly), joined the act as a heckler in 1923 and Larry Fine joined in 1925 – and now we have the famous Larry, Curly and Moe, The Three Stooges. But in 1931, they broke from Healy after a dispute over a movie contract. Healy sued the Stooges for using his material, but the copyright was actually held by the Shubert Theatre Corporation, for which the routines had been produced. As the Stooges had the Shuberts’ permission to use it, Healy lost the suit.

There was an attempt to let bygones be bygones but a 1934 reunion didn’t last. Frankly, I find it hard to imagine The Three Stooges taking anything seriously; my visual is of someone calling a meeting and first on the agenda were eye pokes and head slaps.

With the loss of the law suit, his act, and vaudeville on life support, Healy focused on motion pictures. From 1930 to his death in December of 1937 he appeared in a succession of films for 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, and MGM, including Soup to Nuts, Hollywood on Parade, Hollywood Party, Meet the Baron, Mad Love, San Francisco, Fugitive Lovers, Hollywood Hotel, Bombshell, Love Is a Headache, The Casino Murder Case, Mad Holiday, Man of the People and The Band Plays On.

Despite his constant flow of roles, Healy was always broke; he lived large, drinking and gambling his money away and chasing women around movie sets and Hollywood. Looking at the photo above, with his worn out shoes, dirty pants and missing fly button, he looks like he’s one gig away from hobo status. But there is a natural charisma that many hardworking and popular performers have in spades, even if their wallet is all out of common sense. It helps to explain why Healy was never short of female company.

Healy’s ten year marriage to his first wife, Betty Brown officially ended in 1932, but he took up with Betty Hickman long before then. In fact, in the same year as the divorce, Hickman audaciously sued east coast socialite, Mary Brown Warburton, for $250,000 for “luring Healy with trysts and gifts”. Although Hickman came from a prominent Pasadena family, Warburton’s wealth was on another level entirely; her father was the publisher of the Philadelphia Evening Telegraph and her mother was an heir of the legendary John Wanamaker, merchant and civic leader, who left a $1 billion estate when he died in 1922. Both women were evidently unstable, but you would have to be to have any interest in a rapscallion like Healy. Warburton died in 1937 from a deliberate or accidental overdose of what was described as “reducing pills” but later reports speculate that it was more likely cocaine or heroin, and certainly diet pills from the day did often include cocaine.

Healy and his women were perennially at the center of dramas of every type. Along with Hickman’s suit against Warburton, Healy’s first wife who now went by Betty Nash, was involved in a head-on collision in 1934, which killed Harry Clarke, a Los Angeles salesman. In 1935, a Miss Marian Bonnell filed arson charges against Healy, according to a news article on December 27, 1935:

“Ted Healy, bald film comedian, has been given an extra day to work up an alibi to prove his absence from a jovial Christmas morning party at which he allegedly burned up the furniture of a girlfriend’s apartment. Healy’s attorney, Jerry Geisler, told Deputy District Attorney, George Johnson he could ‘prove Healy wasn’t there’. Johnson agreed to delay filing an arson complaint against the actor. Miss Marian Bonnell made the complaint before Captain Paul Wolfe of the Fire Department, charging Healy forced his way into her apartment after she locked the door, piled her clothes on the kitchen stove and set fire to them.”

Charming. And around the same time, while at a party and evidently sick and tired of hearing Barbara Stanwyck’s husband, Frank Fay, boast about his smile, Healy K-O’d him and knocked several of his teeth out.

Where Healy went, trouble soon followed.

So it came as no surprise that when his wife, Betty Hickman gave birth to their first child on December 19, 1937 Healy’s best idea was to hit the town and party. By 2.15am when he arrived at the Trocadero in West Hollywood – the Los Angeles celebrity watering hole in the 1930s and owned by William R. Wilkerson who owned several nightspots and the Hollywood Reporter – Healy was lit up and belligerent.

All reports agree that at the Trocadero he came into contact with Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, 29, described as “a scion of a wealthy Long Island family”, who was partying with his first cousin, Pasquale “Pat” DiCicco, a “Hollywood agent” with no clients but heir to his father’s 83 acre broccoli farm and his mother’s $10,000 estate. DiCicco is repeatedly in the news for nightclub altercations and rumors that he was involved in the mysterious 1935 death of his former wife, actress Thelma Todd. A few months after their divorce, Todd was found dead in her car in the garage of another actress, Jewel Carmen.

Although this was labeled death due to carbon monoxide poisoning, there were enough concerns to warrant a grand jury investigation, particularly as Todd and DicCicco had argued at the Trocadero the night before her death. DiCicco was cleared of any involvement, but rumors persisted that he was somehow responsible for the beautiful blonde’s death.

Amazingly, DiCicco then marries 17-year-old heiress Gloria Laura Vanderbilt, whose fortune was estimated at $4.5 million. Their marriage, like his earlier one to Todd, will become a living hell of domestic violence and shocking public scenes.

After Thelma Todd’s divorce from DiCicco she had a brief affair with Ted Healy, which may or may not be important to the events on the night of December 20, 1937. Their previous relationship may have meant something to DiCicco, but then again, Los Angeles was at that time (and may still be) a small town with an overabundance of maniacally egotistical and ambitious players of relationship musical chairs. Connecting the dots between who was in business, in a film and in bed with each other would drive you mad.

In a front page article on December 23, 1937, under the headline, “Wealthy Sportsman Confesses Fight with Ted Healy”, Broccoli’s description of events is quoted: “I was standing in the Trocadero when Healy entered,” Broccoli said. “I knew he had become a father a few days before, so I asked him to have a drink. He seemed quite unsteady, turned to an attendant, and asked: ‘Who is this fellow?’

“I laughed that off and extended my congratulations. He staggered toward me and struck me on the nose. My nose began to bleed. The next thing I knew he had hit me in the mouth and followed this with a blow to the chin that almost floored me. I shoved him away, because I didn’t want to hurt him, and attendants took Healy to an ante-room. Later the attendants came back and told me Healy wanted to see me. I went in and we shook hands. He got into a taxicab and that’s the last I saw of him.”

This tidy, somewhat self-serving explanation almost begs you to read between the lines. Although exactly what happened after the initial altercation with Broccoli is not clear, Healy would later be found at a Hollywood hotel where the hotel doctor sewed up a huge gash over his left eye. Along with this wound, Healy looked like he had been severely beaten. He was taken home but he soon after slipped into unconsciousness and began convulsing. Within hours Healy was dead.

There was enough uncertainty about whether or not Healy died as a result of the night’s violent events that the attending medical examiner, Dr Wyant Lamont would not sign his death certificate until further investigations were conducted by the police.

Again things get cloudy as Dr A. F. Wagner, autopsy surgeon pronounces Healy’s death as a result of “nephritis and alcoholism” and states that there was no injury to the skull or brain and no blood clots or evidence of cerebral hemorrhage. No mention is made of internal injuries and if DiCicco did become involved on the night, it is unlikely that he was in an understanding mood. This makes the mention of the ante-room conjure up a scene of a terrible, vicious beating. Did DiCicco, or his henchmen, have a ‘quiet word’ with Healy? Some papers also reported a violent fight in the Trocadero parking lot. Did Broccoli and DiCicco et al take their beef with Healy outside?

Tapping into the questions and swirling innuendo, Healy’s widow is unconvinced by the doctor’s findings and in an unusual action for the time, Hickman goes to the media herself calling for a deeper investigation. But instead of pointing the finger at Broccoli, she claims that Healy’s death is directly related to a beating but intimates that someone else was involved. Who, is not clear from the reports. But it comes to nothing – no charges are laid against anyone – and certainly everyone would agree that Healy was a candidate for kidney trouble and the ill effects of alcoholism.

Was MGM’s general manager, Eddie Mannix and PR man, Howard Strickling, involved in ‘fixing’ events in favor of Broccoli? This is hard to imagine, and I, unlike others, am not quick to jump to the conspiracy theories of suppression that others are fond of. And even if this approach was their modus operandi, Healy was no box office diamond like the leading men of the day, such as Clark Gable or Fred Astaire. He was a drunk, a trouble-maker and frankly, there were many more, far easier to manage, actors like Healy standing in a very long line. And as for Broccoli, unless Mannix and Strickling were also gypsy fortune tellers, no one on earth could have known how important Broccoli’s future Bond movie franchise would become to MGM in another era.

Mannix did, however, arrange the Ted Healy Benefit Show in January, 1938 which featured over 30 stars and raised $12,000 for Betty Hickman and her now fatherless son. Adding the usual dash of Healy drama, Betty Hickman was sued shortly thereafter by Dr Wyant Lamont for unpaid bills – $819 “for hospitalization” (read morgue?) and $980 due to the doctor himself.

As for Healy, his funeral, attended by 300 mourners including many “film notables”, was held in the same church where his son, John Jacob Nash, was baptized – St. Augustin’s, across the street from MGM.

Post Script: Ted Healy’s son would grow up to become a fine, upstanding and financially talented citizen far from Hollywood, in Atlanta, Georgia and change his name to Theodore John Healy. According to an obituary in the Atlanta Journal Constitution dated 19 July, 2011: “Because he grew up fatherless, Mr. Healy of Dunwoody devoted time to serving as a role-model for young folk. For years, he taught math at the DeKalb Regional Youth Detention Facilities. When he retired, the certified financial planner taught math in an area middle school and high school. He founded Financial Design Consultants, and ran the business nearly 20 years before retiring.”

In 1963, Vanderbilt would marry Wyatt Emory Cooper and in 1967 give birth to Anderson Cooper, now of CNN fame.

Copyright Alicia Mayer 2013.

My grandmother, Photoplay magazine columnist, Mitzi Cummings with comedians George Burns and his wife Gracie Allen (on the left) and actors, Joe E. Brown (top right), Raquel Torres (middle right) and George E. Stone (bottom right). Hollywood party, location unknown, 1935.

Three years after this photo, their perfect world came crashing down thanks to two diamond bangles from Paris, a shadowy “Nicaraguan diplomat” and the vengeful, Hitler-loving maid of a Supreme Court judge.

THIS IS MY favorite group photo from my family’s collection. One can only wonder what the photographer said to get these terrific reactions.

The occasion is the opening of the glamorous Mayfair Club in the Los Angeles Biltmore Hotel in 1935. When the ‘Biltmore,’ as it was simply known, opened in 1923, it was the largest hotel west of Chicago. Its architectural style and decor were deliberately grand and sumptuous, signaling that Los Angeles was truly the West Coast’s anchor for wealth, power and glamour.

By the time this gorgeous crowd rowdily assembled on a set of stairs in the hotel, the Biltmore’s relationship to Hollywood was well established. Although my great-uncle, MGM studio boss, Louis B. Mayer, had conceived of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) and shared the idea during dinner at his home with his three guests – actor Conrad Nagel, director Fred Niblo and producer Fred Beetson – after AMPAS was granted a charter as a non-profit organization, it’s first official banquet was held on May 11, 1927 in the Biltmore’s Crystal Ballroom. Of the 300 guests, 230 joined the Academy, paying $100 each. The first honorary membership was granted to Thomas Edison.

Even the iconic and much coveted Oscar statuette is said to have a connection to the hotel. Legend has it that MGM film art director, Cedric Gibbons, grabbed a Biltmore napkin and hastily sketched the design for an Oscar. Eight Academy Award ceremonies were held in the Biltmore Bowl during the early years, including from 1935 to 1940.

On this night, dozens of behemoth luxury cars would have streamed past the hotel’s grand entrance disgorging one glamorous couple after another. The women would have been dressed to the nines in sensational gowns and wearing their best jewels, and the men in no less than tuxedo and top hat with shoes shining like polished ebony.

Oh, those were the days!

Just for a moment, imagine you’re a 20-year-old valet and it’s your job to park the dozens of luxury vehicles and not get a scratch or a dent on any of them or you’re toast. The thrill of driving these gleaming behemoths would be far outweighed by the reality of parking a gigantic, mirror-polished, brand new Rolls Royce into a tight spot next to another hulking Rolls Royce. A night of this would take years off of my life.

But none of these practical matters were of concern to my grandmother, Mitzi, Photoplay magazine columnist, and her buddies, the cream of Hollywood’s entertainment colony.

George Burns is laughing out loud and embraced protectively and with deep affection by his wife Gracie Allen, the other half of the wildly popular comedy duo, “Burns and Allen,” which would span 35 years of live performances, radio, television and film. George – in love, wealthy and exuding the confidence that comes from being invited into thousands of American living rooms each night – drapes his arm over Gracie’s lap in such a wonderfully natural way.

And who knows if it’s just the champagne and cigars or there is a long-standing collegiate relationship, but much-loved character actor, Joe E. Brown (Pin Up Girl, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Some Like It Hot, Show Boat, It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World), is resting his hands on Gracie’s shoulders, gently and respectfully.

Nestled next to the “man of a thousand faces,” as Brown was also called, is the wife of comedian Chico Marx, Betty Karp, who looks as glamorous as a starlet on this terrific night.

Below Karp is George E. Stone (The Front Page, 42nd Street, The Robe, Some Like It Hot), who often played the tough guy, but in this photo looks the big softie and so self-deprecating he might also be ready to serve the hors d’oeuvres.

And finally, up at the top, taking part but also the perennial observer in her role as a Hollywood reporter and niece of Louis B. Mayer, is Mitzi who is smiling her trademark stunning smile and tickled pink by everyone’s antics.

In 1935, everyone sitting on those stairs in the Biltmore had a lot to smile about. They were all popular and busy, but of this group, the super stars are Burns and Allen.

By the time this photo was taken, George Burns and Gracie Allen had already had a lifetime of performing.

George, born Nathan Birnbaum in 1896 into an orthodox Jewish home, had five brothers and six sisters. His father was a butcher and part-time cantor (singer in the synagogue). George’ first performance was at the age of eight with the “Pee-wee Quartet” – four neighborhood boys whose stage was the humble street corners of the Lower East Side of Manhattan where they grew up.

When his father passed away, George helped support the family with odd jobs and left school in the fourth grade. By 14, he was performing full-time and smoking his trademark cigars.

Gracie, born in 1906, was named Grace Ethel Cecile Rosalie Allen and was the youngest of four sisters from an Irish-Catholic vaudeville family. She began performing with them at just three years old.

When Gracie was born, her father was contracted to work in San Francisco. I am sure they considered it a miracle that the family survived the catastrophic 1906 earthquake, which destroyed most of the city, killed over 3,000 residents and left 75% of the population homeless.

In 1923, George and Gracie met at a show in Union Hill, New Jersey where Burns and his then partner had top billing. But it was Gracie that George was crazy for. Shortly after, he convinced her to join him and they became a couple in work and in love. With a $17 wedding ring (marked down to $11), George Burns made Gracie Allen his wife on January 7, 1926.

The couple’s very first show had George as the funny guy and Gracie as the ‘straight man’, but something wasn’t working.

As Gracie recalled:

Of course, George had written the act for himself, with himself as the comedian and I as the straight man. But the funny thing – my straight lines got the laughs. People laughed twice as hard at my not being funny as they laughed at George’s being funny.

When we came off after the first show, he said, ‘we’re switching parts, Gracie’. He rewrote the act then and there.

The two played vaudeville shows for three years and eventually orbited toward the green fields of radio. After guest-starring on the Rudy Valle and Guy Lombardo shows, they began their own show on February, 15, 1932.

America fell in love with them and Burns and Allen quickly became household names and mega stars.

It’s hard to imagine that just three years after everyone posed on the stairs, the couple’s perfect world came crashing down thanks to two diamond bangles from Paris, a shadowy “Nicaraguan diplomat” and the vengeful, Hitler-loving maid of a Supreme Court judge.

The waves of intrigue started innocently enough in 1938 at a Park Avenue dinner party in Manhattan but would flow all the way to the sun-kissed mansions of Hollywood and hit comedians George Burns and Jack Benny like a tsunami. The indictments for smuggling would result in guilty pleas all around. Burns faced a $45,000 fine and 18 years in jail.

America was in shock, Hollywood held its breath and coverage was front page news for months.

Also in the news that year was Hitler’s brutal occupation of Czechoslovakia and disturbing reports from German exiles of men and women shot on the spot, or plucked off the streets and tortured then murdered.

It seemed Hitler was audaciously preparing to take on the might of Europe and Russia. Speculation about his frightening maneuvers were the subject of newspapers columns and dinner party conversations, including the fateful dinner party attended by New York City elite hosted by respected Supreme Court Justice Edgar J. Lauer and his wife, Elma, at their beautiful apartment.

Of the guests around the dinner table, mainly scions of powerful families, politicians and successful lawyers, Albert N. Chaperau was not of the same ilk.

Described by one of the news reports of the time as an “international adventurer,” Chaperau was a cross-border con man who claimed to be a “Nicaraguan diplomat,” but appeared to use the smuggling of expensive Parisian jewelry to ingratiate himself with the rich and powerful on both coasts.

As the beautiful and powerful took their seats around the Lauer’s dinner table, dinner was served. In no time talk turned to Hitler. What is this evil fellow doing? Mark my words, an ill wind is blowing and this ‘Fuhrer’ cannot be trusted!

Those who weren’t speaking were nodding – the concern was palpable. At that moment, unable to contain herself anymore, Rosa Weber, a German immigrant and one of the Lauer’s maids, cut dramatically into the conversation.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, I love the Fuhrer! He is a good man and Germany’s best leader!”

Forks and knives crashed onto fine porcelain plates. Someone knocked over a glass of red wine. The entire room sucked in their breath and everyone swiveled toward the dark corner where Weber stood defiantly, her eyes glowering and arms crossed tightly across her chest.

When Justice Lauer got his words back, he fired her on the spot. Weber was packed and out the door before the hour was out. Dinner carried on.

As she stood there on the dark and quiet street, one bag in each hand, Weber stared up at the glowing windows with their heavy swagged curtains. She may have surprised herself and shocked the Lauers and their guests, but she wasn’t finished. Rosa Weber knew Mrs Lauer’s secret.

The wife of the Supreme Court judge evidently had a taste for exclusive French gowns and fine jewelry. Mrs Lauer had used Chaperau’s gracious services on at least a couple of occasions to help her acquire the finery – without the expense and hassle of Customs tariffs.

While Justice Lauer and Mrs. Lauer were munching on their toast the morning after their unintentionally theatrical dinner, still a little shell-shocked from the whole fiasco, Rosa Weber was ratting on her former employers at US Customs.

This sparked a raid of the Lauer’s apartment on October 27, 1938 – you can imagine they were the talk of the town. The raid resulted in the seizure of significant evidence.

The lady of the house and Chaperau were charged with several counts of smuggling. Chaperau’s personal effects included correspondence with Burns and Benny and the US Custom’s net was thrown across the country to the west coast.

Evidently, both men had given their wives expensive, Customs-free, jewelry.

For two men accustomed to making Americans laugh until they cried, and sometimes struggling themselves to keep a straight face during their hilarious routines, it was safe to say no one was laughing now.

Gold plated reputations and careers worth millions were now on the line. With everyone pleading guilty, it appeared certain that an outraged maid and a polished rascal had finished them.

In reports from the time, Burns – who had to crisscross the country mainly by train to provide testimony – is described as being pale, drawn and glum. Gracie Allen also had to testify. Their colleagues, comedian Jack Pearl and motion picture director, Wallace Ford, were initially investigated but then called as witnesses.

Several months after charges were laid, everyone learned their fate. In late January 1939, George Burns was fined $8,000 and given a suspended sentence of one year and one day. In February, Jack Benny was fined $10,000 and also escaped jail.

On April 11, 1939, Elma Lauer fearing the worst, attended court with her husband, physician and nurse. Federal Judge Vincent Leibell denounced her as a woman of “insane vanity,” fined her $2,500 and sentenced her to three months jail. Despite pleas from her lawyer, Mrs. Lauer was required to begin her sentence immediately. She was close to collapse when she was taken into custody by two hefty court officers.

I can only imagine that a woman whose domain was her plush Park Avenue apartment and who had a lifestyle that included servants, fine dining and expensive clothes and jewelry, would have found stripping down and donning prison issue undergarments and a simple cotton shift, a staggering blow. I am sure those moments, and her entire three months behind bars, seemed more hideous nightmare than real life.

Two hours later in the same court but with a different judge, the man who everyone had the misfortune to meet, Chaperau was fined $5,000 and sentenced to five years in jail.

Weber’s vengeful actions took one more victim. With his wife now in prison, and the New York state legislature commencing an investigation into his involvement in the smuggling scandal, Supreme Court Justice Edgar J. Lauer resigned.

The man with the rock solid reputation built over decades was crushed by his wife’s conviction and rumors that he knew full well what she was doing but chose to turn a blind eye.

Less than ten years later, Justice Lauer would die on November, 1948 at just 61 years of age.
Ironically, despite her awful allegiance to Hitler, Rosa Weber had the law on her side. After everyone was successfully prosecuted, she received a United States government reward of $6,714, or 25% of the $26,816 penalty imposed on the smuggled articles.

Strangely enough, Chaperau’s sentence was later commuted by President Roosevelt to just two years. It appears he did have friends in high places after all.

Showing incredible chutzpah, the con man later attempted to sue George Burns and Jack Benny for the amount of his fines. The suit was not successful. In 1945 Chapperau turns up as a producer of a small play, and after this, his trail goes cold.

As for George Burns, according to an article in the Telegraph Herald on April 7, 1939, he was willing to fall on his sword:

Tired, worn and unshaven upon his return from New York, where he pleaded guilty to smuggling and was fined $8,000, Benny said he walked into the office of his radio sponsor and offered to cancel a contract worth several thousand dollars a week. ‘The offer was not accepted,’ Burns said. Concerning his future plans, he said he would continue his film and radio work while reporting to probation officers here in compliance with stipulations of his year-and-a-day suspended sentence.

George Burns not only survived the ignominious experience, he said he had “learned a terrible lesson.” The couple put the experience behind them, and Burns and Allen went on to even greater success.

After a stellar fifty year career in show business, Gracie Allen retired in 1958 to “become a housewife” and enjoy the couple’s two children, Ronnie and Sandra and their grandchildren.
Sadly, just six years later on August 27, 1964, Gracie Allen died of a heart attack. She was only 58 years old.

George Burns was heartbroken. America and the entertainment industry also mourned the loss of a woman who not only made them laugh, but whom they loved and deeply admired.

Of everyone in the main photo – Mitzi, Joe, Betty and George, and those involved in the smuggling case – George Burns outlived them all.

As he said, “I’m going to stay in show business until I’m the last one left.”

Indeed he did.

George Burns died at 100 years old in Beverly Hills on March 9, 1996. ♛

Copyright Alicia Mayer 2013.

Although I had this blog before 2012, I only blogged in earnest from May. As such, this report really covers May-December 2012 and I’m thrilled with what I have achieved in that short time.

Here’s an excerpt:

In 2012, this blog received 10,558 views from 89 countries. Click here to see the complete animated report which reveals my top 5 posts.