My Local Joan Crawford Connection

About a year and a half ago, while I was reading Possessed: The Life of Joan Crawford, I discovered that I had a local connection to Joan Crawford.  I’d known that while Joan was trying to get started as a chorus girl, she had a brief stint dancing in a club in Detroit, but I didn’t know which one or where it was.  But thanks to that book, I not only found out the name, I realized I’d been right past it a hundred times.

This is the place. 3067 E. Grand Boulevard. (Picture found on the Library of Congress website)

When Joan danced there in the 1920s, the club was named Oriole Terrace, which was a pretty swanky jazz joint at the time.  It was located on East Grand Boulevard just off of Woodward Avenue (if you’re familiar with the area, it was across from the police station, next to Goodyear).  Joan didn’t dance there for long, but it was a pretty important stepping stone in her career.   While she was here, she met Broadway producer J.J. Shubert who asked her to come to New York to be part of his new show called Innocent Eyes.  When she finished with that show, she went into another Shubert show, which is where she was spotted by Harry Rapf.  Harry had her do a screen test, asked her to come work for MGM, and the rest is history.

The front of the theater in the 1940s, after a fire.

Aside from the Joan Crawford connection, this theater actually had a pretty interesting history.  It was built in 1915 and was originally one of the first duplex movie theaters.  The movie house closed in 1922, then it became Oriole Terrace.  As the years went by, it went through a series of name changes, but stayed active and performers such as Stevie Wonder, The Supremes, Lena Horne and Jimmy Durante graced its stage.  (Here’s what the interior of the club looked like in 1960.)  In its last incarnation as Grand Quarters during the 1980s and early 1990s, it was a pretty popular place for rock concerts.  Bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Sonic Youth, Nirvana and Nine Inch Nails all played there.

Unfortunately, after it closed down sometime in the mid-to-late 90s, it fell into a state of disrepair.  It was just demolished in January after having been slated for demolition since 2008.  It’s too bad that such a historic theater couldn’t be saved (I can’t help but be fascinated by any place where performers ranged from a pre-fame Joan Crawford to Diana Ross and Kurt Cobain), but I’m glad that I was at least able to find out where it was and get a glimpse of it while it was still standing.  Now I can’t help but think of Joan every time I’m at Woodward and East Grand Boulevard.

7×7

The 7×7 meme has been making its way around the blogosphere lately, and now that Brandie from True Classics has tagged me, it’s my turn to play!  Thanks, Brandie!  If you don’t know how this works, here are the rules:

• Tell everyone something that no one else knows about.
• Link to one of my posts that I personally think best fits the following categories: Most Beautiful Piece, Most Helpful Piece, Most Popular Piece, Most Controversial Piece, Most Surprisingly Successful Piece, Most Underrated Piece, and Most Pride-worthy Piece.
• Pass this award on to seven other bloggers.

Something No One Else Knows About:  When I publish new posts, they almost always go up at 12:05 AM.  I have no idea why I decided 12:05 AM specifically would be my official posting time, but since I’m a night owl, I like to give other night owls something to new to read.

Most Beautiful Piece:  You know, I really can’t think of a post I’ve done that I’d describe as beautiful.

Most Helpful Piece:  Probably the post I did comparing the movie Mildred Pierce with the book and the HBO miniseries.  When I wrote that one, I was hoping to lay it all out and answer any questions anyone might have.  And judging by the search engine traffic that one gets, it seems like I succeeded.

Most Popular Piece:  According to my stats, my review of Ziegfeld Follies holds that title. 

Most Controversial Piece:  I don’t think I do much on here that could be considered controversial.  I think the closest I’ve come is the time I wrote about why I don’t consider Citizen Kane to be the perfect movie.

Most Surprisingly Successful Piece:  Definitely the list of my ten favorite movie costumes.  That was a post I threw together at the last minute.  I had originally intended to do a Fashion in Film post on Our Dancing Daughters for that day.  But when I went to do screencaps for it, I quickly realized it’s impossible to get good stills of those fringed flapper dresses because they’re constantly moving.  So I scrapped that idea and decided to do the list instead.  I really didn’t expect it to be such a hit, but it’s currently my fifth most viewed post of all time.

Most Underrated Piece:  I’ve always been fond of the post I did on the documentary Marlene.  But that’s a post I did when I was very new to the blogging world, so I didn’t have much of a readership then.

Most Pride-Worthy Piece:  My second blogaversary post.  I loved working on that montage, despite the fact that the only program I had to make it with was Windows Movie Maker, which seems to go out of its way to offer as little control and precision as possible.  And since precision is a good thing when you’re doing montages, it was quite a challenge.  But I was very happy with the final result.

Since I really don’t know who all has been tagged already and who hasn’t, consider yourself tagged if you’d like to do this meme.  It’s interesting to see what bloggers think about some of their own posts.

The Death and Afterlife of Rudolph Valentino

In 1926, it looked like Rudolph Valentino was back on track to reclaiming his title as one of the top stars of the silent screen.  The last few years of his career had been riddled with studio contract disputes and box office disappointments.  But then he started a new contract with United Artists and things started to look up again.  His first film for United Artists, The Eagle, brought in good reviews and did decently at the box office.  Then in 1926, Valentino had the opportunity to do The Son of the Sheik, a sequel to his 1921 sensation, The Sheik.  Even though he hated being known for The Sheik, he was in no position to turn down something that he knew would be a smash hit.  He was right and when The Son of the Sheik was released in July of 1926, it was extremely well received.  Some even called it his best film.  A little over a month later, Valentino died at the age of 31.  However, he would prove to be just as notorious dead as he was alive.

The day of Valentino’s funeral has been called “The Day Hollywood Wept.”  It wasn’t the first time a big name star had died, but it was the first celebrity death that turned into a total spectacle.  Fans committed suicide.  Speculation swirled about how he died.  Surely a young man with Valentino’s reputation must have gone out in some fantastically scandalous way, right?  Perhaps a heartbroken lover was out for revenge.  (Of course the truth is far less exciting, he died from complications following surgery for a perforated ulcer.)  When his body was put out for viewing in New York, over a hundred thousand fans lined the streets for the chance to have one last look at their idol.  Rumors circulated that the staff of the funeral home was so worried about his body being damaged by fans throwing themselves on the coffin that they secretly replaced his body with a wax mannequin for the viewing.  (I highly doubt that rumor is true.)  Fans began to riot outside the funeral home and extra police had to be brought in to keep the crowd under control.  Pola Negri, who claimed to be engaged to Valentino at the time, repeatedly fainted during the funeral service.  The list of pallbearers read like a short list of who’s who in Hollywood and included names such as Douglas Fairbanks, Adolph Zukor, and Marcus Lowe.  And that’s just what happened while his body was still in New York.

After his east coast memorial services were over, he was put on a train for a five day trip back to Hollywood.  At every stop the train made, people came out to pay their respects.  Once he made it back to Hollywood, there was another star-studded funeral and once again, thousands upon thousands of fans were there.  Of course, there had to be a little behind the scenes drama as well.  Given that Valentino died so young and so unexpectedly, he hadn’t come up with a burial plan for himself.  Not only that, he was in quite a bit of debt at time of his death so not only did his estate not know where to put him, they didn’t have any money to do anything with him, either.  June Mathis, who had written some of his most memorable films, offered the use of a mausoleum crypt she owned to hold him temporarily until a proper memorial could be built elsewhere.  However, those memorial plans never panned out and the temporary solution became a permanent one and Valentino remains in that crypt to this day.

Now, you might think that all the hullabaloo surrounding his death would die down after a while, right?  Oh, no.  Legends surrounding his death just kept on being born.  On the first anniversary of his death, a mysterious woman dressed completely in black was spotted bringing flowers to his crypt and continued to do so every year after that.  People wanted to know who she was and what compelled her to do this.  Was she a devoted fan?  A former lover?  Or possibly just the creation of a press agent.  The most accepted story is that The Lady in Black had met Valentino once when she was very ill and he assured her that she would go on to outlive him.  All he asked is that she remember him when he was gone, so bringing him flowers was her way of honoring that request.  Over the years, there have been several Ladies in Black and to this day, Ladies in Black still bring flowers to his crypt.

This August will mark the 86th anniversary of Rudolph Valentino’s death and interest in Valentino’s death still hasn’t waned.  Hollywood Forever Cemetery has hosted a memorial event on the anniversary of his death every year since 1928.  He has also become a pretty popular target for paranormal investigators.  The first person to kick off this trend was actually Valentino’s second wife, Natacha Rambova, who wrote a book about her life with him and how she believed his spirit would contact her.  If you do a YouTube search for “Rudolph Valentino Ghost” you will find videos of ghost hunters trying to get EVPs of Valentino’s ghost.  I once watched a show called Haunted Hollywood that basically suggested half of Hollywood is haunted by Valentino.  Nearly nine decades later and people are still fascinated by the idea of making contact with The Great Lover.

This is my second contribution for the Gone Too Soon Blogathon hosted by Comet Over Hollywood. Please head on over there and check out some of the other wonderful contributions!

Judy Holliday: “Adam’s Rib” Scene Stealer

When you think of the movie Adam’s Rib, odds are the first people who will come to mind are Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy.  But as delightful as Tracy and Hepburn are, I think Adam’s Rib has one of my favorite supporting casts ever.  It’s got Jean Hagen in her film debut, Tom Ewell in what was a breakthrough role for him, and last, but certainly not least, there’s Judy Holliday as jilted wife Doris Attinger.

I always thought Judy shone the brightest out of all of Adam’s Rib’s supporting players.  Doris Attinger isn’t ditzy like Billie in Born Yesterday, but what I love about Judy’s performance in Adam’s Rib is how she so perfectly conveys a mixture of nerves, anger, and vulnerability, with just a touch of comedy.  And a lot of the time, she does this without actually saying much of anything.

Not only is her performance great, there’s also a good story behind how she got the part.  At the time, Judy was mostly known for her stage work.  Movie-wise, she had only done a few uncredited parts and one small role.  She had been a great success playing Billie in Born Yesterday on Broadway, but when Columbia bought the movie rights to the play, Judy wasn’t a top contender for the film version because she wasn’t known as a movie actress.  Knowing they couldn’t seriously make Born Yesterday without Judy Holliday, Katharine Hepburn, Spencer Tracy, George Cukor, and playwright Garson Kanin teamed up to get Judy noticed in films.  So they gave her the part of Doris Attinger and took every opportunity they could to put the spotlight on her.  The first few minutes of the movie are virtually all Judy.  For the scene where Amanda first interviews Doris, Katharine insisted that the camera stay on Judy the whole time and refused to do any reaction shots that could be used to cut away from Judy.  Katharine was even planting stories in the gossip columns that Judy had been stealing the show from her and Spencer.  Luckily, all their scheming paid off and when Judy got good reviews for her work in Adam’s Rib, she landed the lead in Born Yesterday and won an Oscar for it.

I’ve always thought it was too bad that Adam’s Rib wasn’t the beginning of a far more illustrious film career for Judy Holliday.  Her comedic timing was brilliant and I’m curious about how she would have done in a drama.  I really would have loved to have seen more from her.  Unfortunately, she made only a handful of films before dying of cancer at the age of 43.  But luckily the films she did make were all winners.  There isn’t a movie of hers that I haven’t truly enjoyed.

This is just one of many contributions for the Gone Too Soon Blogathon hosted by Comet Over Hollywood. To read more contributions, just click the picture!

What’s on TCM: March 2012

Happy March, everybody!  There are plenty of things I’m looking forward to on TCM this month!  First of all, there’s the tail end of 31 Days of Oscars.  The end of 31 Days of Oscars means the return of Silent Sunday Nights, and it’s back with some excellent silents.  Lovers of pre-codes should definitely keep an eye on the schedule this month because I noticed quite a few pre-codes mixed in there.  Starting this month, Drew Barrymore will take over Alec Baldwin’s co-hosting duties for The Essentials.  Karl Malden is the star of the month and I haven’t seen very many of his movies, so this is a good chance for me to see more of his work.  Every Monday night this month will feature films from the British new wave era, which is something I’m very eager to see.  So, let’s get on to all my highlights for the month:

Homer Simpson: Katharine Hepburn Fan

In Simpsons episode 1F02, “Homer Goes to College,” Homer is found to be grossly under-qualified for his job and is ordered to go to college and pass Nuclear Physics 101.  In this scene, Lisa tries to help Homer fill out his college applications:

Lisa: “Dad, don’t let these application essays throw you.  Let’s see… ‘List your three favorite books and how they’ve influenced your life.’”
Homer: “Is ‘TV Guide’ a book?”
Lisa: “No.”
Homer: “‘Son of Sniglet’?”
Lisa: “No.”
Homer: “Katharine Hepburn’s ‘Me’?”
Lisa: “No!”
Homer: “Oh, I suck!”

An Evening With Kerry Kelly Novick

Last night I had the absolute pleasure of attending a presentation on the life and career of Gene Kelly at the Detroit Opera House as part of a series they’re hosting about dance in film.  But this wasn’t just any ordinary presentation, it was given by someone very near and dear to Gene — his daughter Kerry Kelly Novick.  For about two hours, Kerry shared memories and stories about Gene, showed clips from some of his movies, and took questions from an enthusiastic audience.

The people in the audience came up with some excellent questions about Gene.  Questions ranged from how tall he was (5 feet, 8¾ inches, and he was serious about those three-quarters of an inch) to how his political activism influenced his work (the best example being how he refused to make The Pirate unless The Nicholas Brothers could be in it).  And then there was the eternal question of whether or not Gene had a favorite dance partner.  Gene was always very tactful about answering that question and Kerry was as well, saying that he always picked his dance partners based on the style of dance the scene called for.  And although she did mention that he particularly enjoyed working with highly trained dancers, she said that even they came with their own set of challenges.

Ever wonder what Gene did to stay in shape when he was in between movies?  Surprisingly, he didn’t have a set exercise routine.  He would play various sports for fun, but that was pretty much it.  According to Kerry, “he was blessed with the best metabolism in the world.”  He would gain a little bit of weight when he wasn’t working on a movie, but as soon as he went into rehearsals, it dropped right off again.

When asked about her father’s friendship with Fred Astaire, she pointed out something interesting that I didn’t know about the movie Easter Parade.  I knew that Gene was originally supposed to star in Easter Parade but then he broke his ankle so the part went to Fred instead.  What I didn’t know is that before Gene broke his ankle, he had choreographed the first dance number, “Drum Crazy”, and they kept his choreography for that scene.  So in Easter Parade, you can see Fred Astaire doing Gene Kelly’s choreography, which is something I’m going to have to watch for next time I see that movie.

Kerry also had plenty of childhood memories to discuss.  She talked about how after dinner every night, she would choose a topic and she and Gene would read about it together in the encyclopedia.  When asked if she ever considered getting into the film industry, she mentioned briefly wanting to be a set designer, but she knew pretty early on that she wanted to get into psychology.  Earlier in the evening, while introducing “The Mexican Hat Dance” scene from Anchors Aweigh, she said that she really wanted to play the little girl in that scene, but wasn’t allowed to because she couldn’t pass as a Mexican.  One person asked if she had a favorite memory of visiting her father’s sets and she said that during the production of Singin’ in the Rain, it was interesting for her to go to the set and see adults learning new things.  When you’re a kid, you tend to think that adults just know everything.  So by going to the set and seeing Debbie Reynolds working so hard to learn the dances, it showed her that nobody ever just knows everything and how important it is to keep learning new things.

If you were wondering what Kerry herself is up to these days, she is a psychoanalyst and has lived in Ann Arbor, Michigan since the 1970s.  Together with her husband, they have written several books about child psychology and have founded the Allen Creek Preschool.

Overall, the evening was truly wonderful.  Kerry was very nice, approachable, and witty and I’m thrilled to have had the opportunity to hear so much about Gene from someone who was so close to him.