On top of the heap sat the Mayers, Schencks, Warners, Goldwyn, most of them ruling like pharaohs, unapproachable by underlings except by invitation. At the next level down, among the producers and directors, came the real pros who kept the wheels aturning. A man like Byrnie Foy, the “Keeper of the B’s” at Warners, could look at a script for a Western, rip out a page after a single glance, and order: “Don’t have them cross a bridge, or you’ll have to build it. Have them cross a gulch and save $20,000.”
That’s a far cry from Something’s Got to Give, where Fox watched $2,000,000 disappear down the gutter and all they got for it was some footage of Marilyn Monroe slipping into a swimming pool naked. Most of the old-time professional producers are dead. Our town needs the likes of them the way a burning house needs firemen.
We had directors whom actors and actresses gave their eyeteeth to work for; it was the cracker-jack directors who made the stars. Beginners in grease paint slogged their way up through bit parts in “B” pictures until they’d picked up enough experience for bigger things and better contracts. Sometimes the lightning would strike an actor like Bob Mitchum, glimpsed by Bill Wellman as he strode down Hollywood Boulevard. Bill had G.I. Joe to make, didn’t fancy Gary Cooper for it because he needed a man with a look of sweat on his skin and the devil inside him. Bill tapped Bob Mitchum for stardom on the spot. Bob, after more than his share of headlines, ranks now as one of our more solid citizens.
Like a ride on a roller coaster, Hollywood reached peak prosperity just before the final dive began. World War II brought in profits that overflowed the tills and burst the bank vaults. It also brought on the first of the catastrophic decisions that wrecked the industry.
A soldier with a precious pass or an off-duty hour to spare, a war worker on the swing shift—the whole world flocked to the movies to escape reality for a few moments. You couldn’t produce a picture, any picture, without it turning a handsome profit. So we promptly made the worst claptrap and flung it on the screens.
By way of gratitude toward the men who fought the war, our town let them wander by the thousands around the streets when they drifted in on leave, craning their necks to see a famous face or ready to settle for a pretty one. Aside from limited efforts like the much-publicized Hollywood Canteen, our hospitality was mostly private. Many towns put cots down for GI’s to sleep on in town halls and firehouses if they were caught without accommodations for the night. Not us. I campaigned for vacant sound stages to be converted into temporary quarters for our visitors in uniform. For all I achieved, I was talking to myself.
The catastrophe that the studios invited was the death of glamour, which had filled the air we breathed. The stars were asked to stop wearing the golden glow of gods and goddesses and look like plain folks, as homey as apple pie and lawn mowers. You couldn’t pick up a magazine without coming across publicity shots of Betty Grable out marketing, Bette Davis washing dishes, or Alice Faye changing diapers. Nobody had ever seen a picture of Dietrich hanging out wet wash or Jack Barrymore in a life-with-father layout. We were busy bringing stars down out of the sky, lousing up the act, cutting our own throats.
Realism strangled the dream stuff, and it’s slowly slaughtering Hollywood. I see very little hope unless glamour is given its rightful place again. I believe that audiences wanted it then and want it now. More and more people share that point of view. Jerry Lewis is one of them.
“It wasn’t good to take the soft lights off the tinsel,” said Jerry. “The days of the stars must return. There’s been too much haphazard mingling with the public by the stars. It killed a beautiful illusion, the illusion that helped make Hollywood and picture stars important to the public.”
When the GI’s came back from the war, the lean years set in for our industry. They’d seen strange sights and found new dreams. They were a restless generation, looking for fresh excitements. They turned to bowling alleys, night baseball, the race tracks. Suddenly there were a whole lot of other things to do besides going to the movies. The money that went for new pastimes used to go into movie-house tills.