MGM Stories Part Four: John Gilbert and Greta Garbo /October 5, 2015

Rising romantic lead John Gilbert signed with MGM in 1924 and the next year he starred in King Vidor’s The Big Parade, the studio’s biggest hit of the silent era. That same year, Louis B. Mayer brought his new discovery to Hollywood: an enigmatic Swedish actress named Greta Garbo. Garbo and Gilbert starred together in the romantic melodrama Flesh and the Devil, and began a relationship in real-life, which was eagerly exploited by the still-fledgling Hollywood publicity machine. Gilbert’s career suffered from his contentious relationship with Mayer, and his increasing alcoholism, while Garbo’s star continued to rise. In 1933, Garbo made it a condition of her MGM contract extension that the studio cast Gilbert as her love interest in Queen Christina. Within three years, Gilbert was dead. Within ten years, Garbo’s career had taken a turn, too

Special thanks to special guest star Craig Mazin, reprising his role as Louis B. Mayer.
This episode was edited by Henry Molofsky.
This episode included a clip from the John Gilbert film His Glorious Night, pulled from Kevin Brownlow's incredible silent era documentary Hollywood. Hollywood is watchable in several installments on YouTube.
We are proud to welcome our new sponsor, Audible.com! Get a free audiobook and a 30-day trial at Audible.com/remember
Sources:
Basinger, Jeanine. Silent Stars. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. 2012
Bret, David. Greta Garbo: The Divine Star. London: Robson Press, 2012.
Conway, Michael; McGregor, Dion & Ricci, Mark. The Complete Films of Greta Garbo. New York: Carol Publishing Group, 1991.
Eyman, Scott Lion of Hollywood: The Life and Legend of Louis B. Mayer . Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. 2008
Eyman, Scott The Speed of Sound: Hollywood and the Talkie Revolution 1926-1930 Simon & Schuster. Kindle Edition. 1998
Golden, Eve John Gilbert: The Last of the Silent Film Stars (Screen Classics) The University Press of Kentucky. Kindle Edition. 2013
Krützen, Michaela. The Most Beautiful Woman on the Screen: The Fabrication of the Star Greta Garbo. Berlin: Peter Lang, 1992.
"Garbo's Last Days" by Michael Gross. New York Magazine, May 21, 1990

 

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1936: A Hollywood Psychic Predicts Clark Gable and Carole Lombard’s Future

Featured in Screen Guide magazine in November 1936, here is one of those wacky articles that could only come from the 1930’s–a psychic tells you what will become of Hollywood’s great couples!

“The Future of Ten Hollywood Romances as Predicted by Wanda, One of Hollywood’s Most Famous Seers”
The ten blazingest Hollywood romances! How will the end? Marriage? Split up? This story tells.
In presenting this remarkable set of predictions, I have kept in mind that my readers’ interest in the stars is no fleeting thing. You will be amazed as time goes on, to note the accuracy of Wanda’s readings. She has built for herself a tremendous following among the Hollywood famous. I suggest that you keep this article–refer to it in the future and see how right she has been this time. It’ll be fun!

Yes, let’s see just how right this “remarkable” Wanda was, shall we?
Rose Joan Blondell and Richard Ewing Powell (Joan Blondell and Dick Powell)

There is no if, and or but about this romance. Joan and Dick (if they’re not married by the time you read this) will be married shortly after her divorce from George Barnes becomes final….[Dick] is a charming boy and he and Joan will get along beautifully…She and Dick have many tastes in common and she will always be interested in anything that Dick likes. They will have a child within a year or so after their marriage.

Well, she wasn’t totally wrong here. Joan and Dick were indeed married by the time this magazine hit news stands, tying the knot on September 19, 1936.  They did have a child in 1938, a daughter named Ellen.  Wanda couldn’t predict, I suppose, that in 1944 Dick’s head would be turned by a younger blonde actress, June Allyson, and he would subsequently leave Joan for her.
Arlington Brugh and Ruby Stevens (Robert Taylor and Barbara Stanwyck)

For his own good Robert Taylor should not marry for many years. I say this because he is an extremely restless personality. He likes action–lots of it–and hates monotony. He never sits still and never is. He is like a wild horse who hates a halter…He will come under a marriage aspect next year, but if he should marry then it will not last…As far as his “romance” with Barbara Stanwyck is concerned, this is really a glorified friendship. Barbara is very intuitive and psychic; she understands Bob’s spirit perfectly…She will have a proposal of marriage in 1937–and perhaps from Bob, but neither should she marry during that year. It would be what we call an “inevitable marriage”—one which she would have no control.

Her timeline is off, but she’s not completely wrong. Bob and Barbara were married on May 14, 1939, after three years of dating and being called out for “acting like they are married but they aren’t” in the same magazine article that called out Clark and Carole. Bob was indeed not a man who could be tamed, so to speak. After years of him cheating on her, Barbara finally filed for divorce in 1951. He went on to marry actress Ursula Theiss and have two children; Barbara never remarried and missed him the rest of her life.
William Powell and Harlean Carpentier (William Powell and Jean Harlow)

Jean Harlow is two distinct personalities, and she is another person who cannot be restricted. That is why she changed her hair to a brownish shade when she found that its platinum color interfered with her independence. Instead of being its slave she decided to let it be hers…Regardless of what people think, she is very timid and has a strong mother complex. She is also of a restless disposition and enjoys changes. 1937 will prove to be a better year for her than 1936. My advice to her would be to wait a little longer for another marriage.
William Powell was born a genius. He is very proud and disdainful person but loves children and dogs…Bill wants a great deal of love and affection and he wants a wife to be always at his beck and call. That’s why there will be a disturbing element in any marriage he enters into with a busy actress. A woman must role his home as well as his heart.

“1937 will be a better year for her than 1936″?? There is an appalling prediction! Jean Harlow died at the age of 26 in 1937.  Bill and Jean were still together at the time of her death and he was devastated. Married and divorced twice before the Jean romance (his second marriage being to Carole Lombard), Bill eventually married actress Diana “Mousie” Lewis in 1940 and they were married until his death in 1984.
Raymond Guion and Jeanette MacDonald (Gene Raymond and Jeanette MacDonald)

Because Jeanette MacDonald is a Gemini and Gemini women usually marry men of a different nationality or religion, I have long been expecting this Jeanette MacDonald-Gene Raymond engagement…The marriage aspects are better for her than for Gene. His best marriage year is really 1938. Still a partnership with Jeanette will turn out happily for him as well as for her so long as he is careful about disagreements and separations…Gene is almost as much wrapped up in music as Jeanette is, and you’ll hear a lot more about him as a composer as time goes on. But my advice to them is to wait awhile, until Gene passes through his present aspects. He had one big love affair last year–he’ll know whom I mean–from which he hasn’t yet recovered.

Jeanette and Gene were indeed married, although sooner than the great Wanda wanted–making it official on June 16, 1937. They remained married until her death in 1965, however revelations from friends and discoveries of personal letters and diaries in the past decade or so have provided clear evidence that this marriage of theirs was a cover-up because Gene was gay and Jeanette was being kept away from her ongoing love affair with Nelson Eddy.
James Stewart and Eleanor Powell

This is a nice friendship but has very little marriage possibilities. Eleanor will make a better friend than a marriage partner in this case…I doubt if either of them would learn the lesson of give and take. James Stewart will have two or more marriages.

Again she is kind of right. Jimmy and Eleanor starred in together in Born to Dance that year and were briefly coupled. Eleanor went on to marry actor Glenn Ford in 1943, her only marriage, which ended in divorce in 1959. Wanda is wrong about Jimmy though, he was one of the very few of the golden age of Hollywood’s leading men who held out for the right woman and stayed once he found her. He married Gloria Hatrick in 1949 and they were happily married until her death in 1994.
George Brent and Greta Gustafson (George Brent and Greta Garbo)

It is quite likely that this one will be at an end shortly. George Brent is the burnt child who dreads fire. The memory of his marriage to Ruth Chatterton has never been erased–its happiness and its grief both come back to haunt him…He likes to “putter” and as a matter of fact, he is very fussy and old-maidish. Greta, on the other hand, is just the opposite. An introvert who lives completely in herself. The state of things about her makes very little difference.

I don’t think this relationship was ever anything at all. Greta certainly never seemed ready for marriage–she left a brokenhearted John Gilbert at the altar in the late 1920’s and never married.  George was ultimately married five times. After this article, he married actress Constance Worth in 1937 and they were divorced less than a year later. He also had a short-lived marriage to actress Ann Sheridan. He had two children with his fifth wife, model Janet Michaels.
David Niven and Estelle Merle O’Brien Thompson (David Niven and Merle Oberon)

This romance is destined to follow a rocky path. Like “water” which is their symbol, they are too easily ruffled and changeable with the tide. Their sign is Pisces, which is two fish swimming in opposite directions. David likes to stand on his own two feet and doesn’t like to be bossed. And the compelling Merle Oberon has to be boss! …She is no back-seat driver.

Correct, Wanda. This one didn’t work out. Merle dated Clark before Carole was on the scene and one of the reasons Clark lost interest was apparently Merle’s tendency to be controlling and jealous.  Merle married British producer Alexander Korda in 1939, the first of four husbands. David married a British socialite named Primmie in 1940. She died tragically in an accident in 1946. He then married a Swedish fashion model in 1948 and although it was rather a tumultuous union, they stayed married until his death in 1983.
Cesar Romero and Virginia Briggs (Cesar Romero and Virginia Bruce)

These two are well suited to each other–both are “air” people and therefore could find happiness together. Virginia comes under a very strong marriage vibration after October of this year, and Cesar, too, begins a new cycle in February…Virginia will always attract men who will be constantly telling her how much they admire her, and any man who marries her will have to keep ahead of the others. Even when she is a very old lady there will always be a man waiting for her just around the corner–she can’t help it; hers is just that fatal attraction. But Cesar worships beauty as much as any man and will always respect and revere it. He also senses that she is an adorable mother and he has a strong inclination for a home and family. And if they marry the first of next year there will be a child before October, 1939.

No marriage for these two. Virginia, who was previously married to John Gilbert and had his daughter, married director J. Walter Ruben in 1937. They had one child before his death in 1942. Her third marriage lasted from 1946-1964, ending in divorce. Cesar, who dated Carole Lombard before Clark came on the scene, never married and was rumored to be gay.
And last but not least:
Clark Gable and Jane Peters (Clark Gable and Carole Lombard)

Clark Gable doesn’t come into another strong marriage vibration until the year 1938, and if he marries then, the only thing I can say to him is that he should keep his suitcase packed. I feel that this warning is necessary because he is individual and independent, and people of his type always marry on impulse. Yet in other respects, and a strange contradiction, he plays life like a game of chess, or like an actor who plays a part and watches himself go by. Few people “get this” about Gable, but it’s true. Another thing about him is that he can’t be bossed. This may have had something to do with the failure of his first two marriages. He is very aggressive and likes to do as he pleases. He will always want much more love and affection than he will give out.
There s little doubt about the fact that Clark Gable and Carole Lombard do get along beautifully, but because she doesn’t come under a strong marriage vibration until 1939 I cannot see a happy immediate marriage. There is, however, always that matter of Gable’s impulsiveness to be reckoned with. Many people point out that Clark and Carole have so much in common–that they both like sports, for example. However, they like them in a different way. Carole likes smart sports–smart tennis on a smart court in a smart pair of shorts. Clark likes backwoods “roughing it” sports. Their ideas are really quite far apart in this connection. Also Clark is content to live in plain, homey surroundings, while Carole’s artistic expression demands something more elaborate and “interior decorated.” She’s really amazingly artistic and when her film career over she can always find a lucrative livelihood as a painter, a landscape gardener, or an interior decorator. Also she is very rhythmic and if she would devote time and study to her voice, she might easily become a successful singer–even an opera singer. She is what we would call extravagant, yet her extravagances are really necessary to her. She hates miserliness in any form and there is nothing stingy about her, nor will she tolerate it in others around her. She has a very real humanitarian outlook and is abnormally patient with everything and everybody. She will put up with things for a long time, but, as is typical of such people, when she finally does get around to putting her foot down, she puts it down irrevocably. Carole is so interested in other people and other things that she neglects herself, and therefore I would advise her to marry someone who would take an interest in her…her health and her welfare–a physician or a surgeon preferably.

Well, well! There are a couple of things wrong about this: Carole did get into Clark’s kind of sport, and she wasn’t the type to scoff at wearing hunting gear and waders and getting dirty.  I don’t think Carole would have made much of an opera singer! Really! If you have seen her film Swing High, Swing Low, you can hear that Carole was not exactly an opera singer! Carole was more extravagant with Clark, but she wasn’t stupid with her money, and I don’t think she minded Clark’s tendency to be a penny pincher too much, as they both pretty much spent their own money as they pleased. I can’t see Carole being some surgeon’s wife…sounds like she’d get bored. I can’t argue that Clark was the type to marry on impulse—he’d done it before then and he’d do it again. Also he did like to do just what he pleased and I would say that him wanting more love and affection than he’d be willing to give out is fairly accurate. And of course, they did get married in 1939–when Carole was having a “strong marriage vibration.”

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Greta Garbo practiced a witchcraft beyond analysis

Through the crowded frenzy of an aristocratic ball, a man sees her and is transfixed. Rushing across the room, he throws himself at this vision and gasps, "Who are you?" Her reply says it all: "What does it matter?" What indeed.

The character's name in 1926's "Flesh and the Devil" turned out to be the tongue-twisting Felicitas von Rhaden, but no one then or now cared about that. Names come and go, but the beauty and presence of the actress who played the role, the actress under whose spell the world fell, are eternal.

So it was with Greta Lovisa Gustafsson, known simply as Garbo. If ever an actress created pure magic on the screen, managing to be of this earth and not, it was Garbo. She was simultaneously accessible and unfathomable, a mystery we couldn't hope to penetrate, a tantalizing promise just out of reach. Although the only Oscar Garbo ever received was an honorary one, with what director Clarence Brown called her infallible ability to make audiences "see thought," she is arguably the greatest screen actress of all time.

Bette Davis, hardly ungifted or egoless herself, agreed, calling Garbo's work "pure witchcraft. I cannot analyze this woman's acting. I only know that no one else so effectively worked in front of a camera." As critic Kenneth Tynan famously said, "What, when drunk, one sees in other women, one sees in Garbo sober."


With the 100th anniversary of Garbo's birth coming this year, the UCLA Film and Television Archive and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences are paying a centennial tribute to this icon. A Lena Olin-hosted evening at the Academy's Samuel Goldwyn Theater starts things off on Thursday, followed by a film series at UCLA's James Bridges Theater.

As a personal tribute to this great star, I recently spent several days revisiting Garbo's legendary roles. And while the UCLA series has its share of rarities, including a reel from 1928's "The Divine Woman" (a film once thought completely lost), this is one star whose classic roles pleasantly surprise you on a renewed viewing. No matter how familiar we may think we are with films such as "Queen Christina," "Camille" and "Ninotchka," seeing them again remains a moving experience.

When you see Garbo's films all in a rush, you're especially conscious of how much the experience is like spending a day with just one person, someone with a distinct emotional through-line. Her characters' names and their peripheral characteristics may change, but the core remains the same.

Always in the moment, always intoxicated with the now, Garbo seemed not to be acting but to be actually living out her roles. In this she puts one in mind of Isaiah Berlin's famous essay on human nature "The Hedgehog and the Fox," in which the British philosopher quoted a Greek poet to the effect that "the fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing." Garbo was clearly a hedgehog, and the one big thing she knew turned out to be central to the concerns of the cinema: how to convey the perils and joys of great romantic love.

Though her biographers say her private life was not driven by passion, Garbo specialized in playing women who wanted to live for love but were prevented from doing so by the cruel vagaries of the world. No one else, certainly no man, loved with her purity and commitment; she loved too deeply to be lastingly happy in this life.

When the Variety reviewer of 1935's "Anna Karenina" called her part "an uncompromisingly sad role," he couldn't help adding, "that is strawberry jam to Miss Garbo's toast."

Garbo conveyed her passion and numerous other emotions through a face that was universally considered a wonder of the cinematic age. Director G.W. Pabst said, "Such a face you see once in a century"; critic Tynan, forever enraptured, called it "the furthest stage to which the human face could progress, the nth degree of cultured refinement, complexity, mystery and strength."

No matter what it was expressing -- playfulness or displeasure, world-weary desperation or transporting happiness -- this was a face beyond mere words, a face to melt steel or haunt your dreams. No wonder so many of her films -- most famously "Queen Christina" but also "Anna Karenina," "The Torrent" and others -- end on an image of her face. No one dominated a close-up like her: She owned the screen and all adjacent territory. For directors who wanted to go with their strength, her face was the only possible choice.

"The Torrent," released in 1926, was Garbo's first American feature, done after she arrived from Sweden along with her mentor, the director Mauritz Stiller. If MGM was uncertain about her abilities when the studio signed her at Stiller's insistence, "The Torrent's" story of a poor Spanish peasant girl who became "La Brunna," the diva who thrilled Paris, erased all doubts.

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George Hurrell put glamour into the Hollywood portrait

'George Hurrell's Hollywood: Glamour Portraits 1925-1992' by Mark A. Vieira shows the work and mercurial personality of the groundbreaking photographer.

Stars had faces in the golden age of Hollywood. And for many years, photographer George Hurrell, the father of the Hollywood glamour portrait, captured their allure, glamour and indefinable charisma.

Known as the "Rembrandt of Hollywood," the groundbreaking photographer is the subject of "George Hurrell's Hollywood: Glamour Portraits 1925-1992," a biographical coffee-table book by writer-photographer Mark A. Vieira, who knew Hurrell for more than 15 years.

Using interviews, archival documents and 20 years' worth of his own diaries, Vieira creates a portrait of a brilliant, complicated artist who had a great working relationship with the stars and a mercurial personality with studio chiefs. "He told Louis B. Mayer to go to hell," Vieira said.

An outcast after a 1943 scandal — "he broke the rule, he got involved with a model" — Hurrell was working as a unit still photographer to pay off his debts when Vieira met him in 1975. Down but not out, Hurrell emerged from obscurity in the early 1980s.

There are 420 exquisite black-and-white and color images featured in the book, from the collections of Michael H. Epstein & Scott E. Schwimer, and Ben S. Carbonetto, of such Hollywood royalty as Joan Crawford, Jean Harlow, Clark Gable, Carole Lombard, James Cagney, Norma Shearer, Marlene Dietrich and Errol Flynn, as well as Hurrell's later portraits of Harrison Ford, Paul McCartney, Michael Douglas and Sharon Stone, who wrote the foreword to the book.
"This man was a trailblazer," said Vieira.

Before Hurrell, who died in 1992 at age 87, photographers used a soft focus lens, which gave the subjects an ethereal quality.

"Hurrell introduced a new look: sharp focus, high contrast, and seductive poses," Vieira writes in his book. "Using new lighting and retouching effects, he created spectacular, enticing images of Greta Garbo, Clark Gable, and Jean Harlow."

Hurrell also had the ability to eliminate a star's flaws. "These people owe so much to him," said Vieira. "He had this gift to make people look fantastic — the best they ever would look."

So there's little wonder the stars loved him. "He was fun to be around," said Vieira. "He would play music and sing with it and jump around to keep the mood up."

But Garbo just wanted to be left alone. "She was the one person who would not respond to that kind of direction," said Vieira. "Because she was used to directing herself."

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