So in Hollywood only Christians are allowed to portray Jews. Gertrude Berg was thrown out of A Majority of One to make room for Rosalind Russell—Gertrude read about the switch in the New York Times after she’d been promised the part by Dore Schary. Otto Preminger’s casting transformed Exodus into a Protestant epic. Anne Frank emerged as milk-and-watery Millie Perkins. A Catered Affair served Kellys instead of Cohens.
Sam stayed on speaking terms with me until Porgy and Bess came along, and he hired as director Rouben Mamoulian, who had performed the same task for DuBose Heyward’s Porgy as a straight play, before it was converted into a musical. During the following eight months Mamoulian had fresh arrangements orchestrated, persuaded a distinguished list of Negro players to forget their fears that the movie would be an “Uncle Tom” show.
Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge, Pearl Bailey, and others had turned down Goldwyn’s approaches. Only Sammy Davis, Jr., had agreed to perform. Mamoulian explained individually to each holdout how he would direct, with full recognition of the fact that humanity has come a long way since Porgy first saw the light of Catfish Row. Satisfied that there’d be no reflection on their race, they signed contracts with Sam—who decided to fire Mamoulian and hire in his place Otto Preminger, whose style is distinctly Prussian. He engaged Preminger before he told Mamoulian he was through.
Outraged, I let fly at Sam in a column. I admired this talented, foxy man from the days when he was Sam Goldfish, an immigrant from Poland. I knew him as Jesse Lasky’s partner when Geraldine Farrar came out from New York to make Joan of Arc in 1915. In fact, I made a couple of silent pictures for him. I helped get an honorary Oscar for Harold Russell, the miraculous, handless ex-GI in Sam’s Best Years of Our Lives. Harold also collected one as best supporting actor, thus squeezing out Clifton Webb, who was the favorite that year in that category.
Samuel was Mr. Charm himself then; we were friends, especially if he’d had a tiff with Louella. But a few lines in print ended our life-term friendship. He hasn’t spoken to me since. It’s gall to him that Porgy and Bess was one of his few failures, a dull, photographed opera with no heart, soul, or finesse, where Mamoulian could have made it a thing of beauty, like the original Porgy, which had me weeping tears of compassion as I first saw it in a New York theater.
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Beverly Hills is my home. I’ve lived in the same house there for twenty-two years. When I walk my gray French poodle, Beau Beau, a gift from Ann Sheridan, I pass the house of Ned Washington, who wrote such scintillating songs as “My Foolish Heart,” “I’ll Walk Alone,” “When You Wish Upon a Star.” Across from him resides Pete Smith, retired now, whose movie short subjects had audiences in gales of laughter for more than a generation.
Then there’s the home of Ann and Jack Warner, with its private golf course and tennis court. In the drawing room hangs her portrait by Salvador Dali, the finest he’s painted.... There’s the house of Mr. and Mrs. Bruno Pagliai. We knew her first as Merle Oberon, then as Lady Alexander Korda. After their divorce she married Lucien Ballard, one of our finest cinematographers. She longed for children but could have none, even after several operations. So after her marriage to Bruno, she adopted a boy and a girl.
Next to the Pagliais live Ketti and Kurt Frings. Ketti adapted for the stage Look Homeward, Angel, which boosted Tony Perkins to stardom. Kurt is the agent who got Elizabeth Taylor the first million-dollar picture salary in our history.
Turning into Roxbury Drive, I pass the home of Lucille Ball, who knew joy and sorrow there with Desi Arnaz and now is happy as a lark with her new husband, Gary Morton. Tallulah Bankhead and I were among the dinner guests in that house once, when Tallu was appearing the following day on “I Love Lucy.” Desi seated me on his right, a place which Tallu insisted should be hers. But Hopper can be stubborn as an Amish mule, and the brickbats started to fly. We couldn’t get her out of the house until 1:30 A.M. At the “Lucy” filming Lucille was nervous as a cat over the events of the previous night. She forgot her lines for the first time in her life. Tallulah, who’d been appalling during rehearsals, sailed through her performance like Eleanora Duse.