...aka/'Ann Newton' of "Shadow of a Doubt"

Shadow of a Doubt, Wallace Ford, Edna May Wonacott, Macdonald Carey

Early in 2010 I was doing research for a post on Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt and in the process came upon an interesting piece by one of TCM's MovieMorlock bloggers, Medusa. Entitled "My Favorite Book Worm or: Where in the World is Edna May Wonacott?", it focused on the child actress who portrayed Ann Newton in Shadow of a Doubt. I was inspired to locate and contact Edna (now Edna Green) and asked her if she'd like to be interviewed. She agreed, and our conversation evolved into a blog that first appeared at The Classic Film & TV Cafe on her 78th birthday in February 2010, was later published as a Sunday feature in The Yuma Sun and, later still, as an article in Films of the Golden Age. Here is a slightly revised version:

Edna May was nine years old and living with her family in Santa Rosa, California, when she caught the eye of director Alfred Hitchcock while he was in town preparing to make Shadow of a Doubt (1943). The director cast her in the role of Ann Newton, younger sister of the protagonist, Charlie Newton (Teresa Wright) and niece of the villain, Charles Oakley (Joseph Cotten). Edna May made quite a splash in the part and appeared in small roles in other films over the next few years.

That Alfred Hitchcock happened upon Edna May and cast her in Shadow of a Doubt is a minor legend, but an imprecise one. In some versions of the story, Joseph Cotten was with the director when they met. Edna clearly recalls the circumstances of that fortuitous day when she and two cousins were on their way home from a shopping excursion:

"I was discovered in Santa Rosa, standing on a street corner waiting for a bus. Alfred Hitchcock and producer Jack Skirball were standing at the same corner looking over the town."

Hitchcock (right) in Santa Rosa, near the spot where he met Edna

That particular corner bus stop, in front of a Karl's shoe store, had a view of several prominent downtown locations including the courthouse, a circular green and the bank. Hitchcock and Skirball were looking and talking and jotting down notes on a clipboard. Edna May watched them and was curious. She edged away from her cousins to be closer to Hitchcock and Skirball so she could find out what was going on. The two men noticed her observing them and began to look her over.

"My older cousin made me move away from them and next to her, and the two men kept looking at me and finally walked over to us and introduced themselves and said they were making a movie in town and wanted to know if I wanted to be in it." They asked for her address and said they would be out to talk to her parents that afternoon.

Edna May ran all the way home to tell her mother that she was going to be in a movie. Her mother, well aware of her daughter's vivid imagination, thought she'd made it up until the cousins arrived and confirmed her story.

Edna's first scene as Ann Newton

The next day Edna May and her mother were on the night train to Los Angeles where the young girl would make her screen test. The following morning they taxied from the Glendale depot to Universal Studios, where they were met at the gate and escorted to the audition. Edna May was given a script for the phone scene, the first appearance of Ann Newton in Shadow of a Doubt. Hitchcock directed her, basically instructing her on the reactions and expressions he was after. Edna May wasn't nervous, she just followed Hitchcock's direction and aced the screen test. She said she didn't have to be coaxed into taking the part, adding: "What nine year old wouldn't want to be in a movie?"

The story goes - and it's true - that Edna May had no experience as a performer up to that point, not even in school plays or church pageants, "I hadn't had any acting experience and no interest in ever doing such a thing..."

Abbott & Costello

While at Universal, Edna May and her mother ate in the commissary and were entranced as they watched actors and actresses in costume eating lunch. Edna remembers meeting Abbott and Costello, Deanna Durbin and Shemp Howard of Three Stooges fame that day. In fact, she and her mother were offered an all-expenses-paid weekend in Hollywood, including a chauffeur-driven car to take them anywhere they'd like to go. Edna May wanted more than anything to visit the Disney studios, but her mother, unsettled at being away from home and on her own for the first time, didn't want to stay - and they were on the train headed back to Santa Rosa that night. 

Though she was a novice, Edna May didn't receive any special training for her performance. She gives credit to the director: "I had no coaching for the part and just took direction from Alfred Hitchcock." She worked well with him and had no trouble understanding what he wanted from her. She felt it was the same for the other actors in the cast (Joseph Cotten, Teresa Wright, Henry Travers, Patricia Collinge, Hume Cronyn, Macdonald Carey, Wallace Ford). She recalls Hitchcock as a very quiet man who kept to himself much of the time (she often saw him reading comic books on the set).

Ann Newton was a unique character, a confident, self-possessed little girl who loved books and didn't hesitate to speak up. She was an observant child, the only family member who took a dubious view of Uncle Charlie early on. I wondered if Edna May had been like Ann Newton as a child. In some ways, she doesn't think so ("I didn't like reading and would rather be outside riding my bike or playing."). On the other hand, she noted that she was "a very confident kid and never doubted I could do anything I wanted to do." And she was observant; it was her curiosity about Hitchcock and Skirball on that street corner that set her Hollywood adventure in motion.

Ann Newton is not impressed

Edna remembers filming Shadow of a Doubt fondly: "The cast and crew were like a happy family. No one was treated any differently than anyone else. I had no favorites on the set other than the fact that I was madly in love with Joseph Cotten and melted every time he talked to me. Everybody knew this and I got kidded a lot!" Her crush on the charismatic Mr. Cotten didn't get in the way of her performance, though. Hitchcock's instructions to Edna May regarding her scenes with Cotten were: "It doesn't matter how nice he is to you, always be suspicious of him and question why he's doing what he's doing." Ann's skepticism of him is reflected the moment Uncle Charlie hands her an ill-chosen teddy bear gift and Edna May screws up her face and gives him a withering sidelong glance.

Shadow of a Doubt's exterior scenes were shot on location in Santa Rosa, which was unusual for the time. The interiors were shot at the studio on a soundstage. When the time came to travel to Hollywood again, Edna May's mother and brother accompanied her. Her dad, who was a Santa Rosa grocer, stayed home and minded the store. It was her brother who helped her memorize her lines.

Edna's classmate, Sabu, 'the elephant boy'

Filming on Shadow of a Doubt began in August 1942 and took three months to complete. While in Hollywood during the school year, Edna May was tutored on the set on the days that she worked. On off-days, she attended classes at the studio's schoolhouse. She particularly remembers one fellow student, Sabu, who captivated the class with stories about the elephants of India. His stories gave Edna May the impression that in India elephants were as common as dogs in the U.S., and treated in much the same way.

Edna May became close to Pat Hitchcock, the director's daughter, and the two often played gin rummy on the set. Both girls had crushes on Joseph Cotten, and when he gave Edna May an autographed picture inscribed "with love," Edna remembers that Pat was a little disconcerted because Cotten hadn't signed his picture to her with the same sentiment.

Joseph Cotten

The Hitchcocks frequently took Edna May to Hollywood's famous Brown Derby restaurant with them, and she spent many weekends as Pat's guest at the Hitchcock home. On most days, their meals would be ordered from the kitchen and sent up to Pat's room via a "dumb-waiter" built into the wall. One day, though, Pat told her there would be a formal dinner that evening and to "wear something nice." Edna May was flustered, not being familiar with the forks, spoons, knives, dishes and glasses used at proper dinners. She hoped to sit next to Pat and follow her lead. But Pat told her they'd be sitting across the table from each other and, when it came to the silverware, "just start from the outside and work your way in." It turned out that the evening's guests were Joseph Cotten, his wife and step-daughter - and Edna was seated next to him. She remembers being so smitten that she was trembling. And she'll never forget that he talked with her all through dinner.

Like so many kids of that era, Edna May had an autograph book. When it was Alfred Hitchcock's turn to sign, he did it as one might expect - with a twist. He signed the last page in the book and with his left hand (he was right-handed): "By hook or by crook, I'll be the last one to sign in this book."

At the end of the shoot, there was a goodbye party in San Francisco. Edna May received many gifts that she still cherishes, including an inscribed bracelet from Teresa Wright, a scarf with a "pigtail" motif from Joseph Cotten and a golden bow from Hitchcock inscribed "to Ann Newton from Alfred Hitchcock." Edna recalls that Hitchcock never called her anything but Ann throughout the making of Shadow of a Doubt.

Edna May Wonacott, child actress

Edna May, of course, was a local celebrity in Santa Rosa (then with a population of 19,000). "There was a lot of publicity and women would come into dad's store and want to touch the father of a movie star! I have lots of scrapbooks of the publicity and had quite a write-up in Life magazine and was in movie magazines. Little girls with pigtails and glasses suddenly started showing up on the street corners in town."

When Shadow of a Doubt was released it premiered in Santa Rosa and Pat Hitchcock came up from Hollywood and attended with Edna May. There was quite a hubbub in town over the film and its release signaled a war bond drive, with Edna May kicking it off at the courthouse in Santa Rosa. She also took a trip to sell war bonds in Salinas when the movie opened there.

When she signed a five-year contract with producer Jack Skirball, Edna May and her parents moved to Glendale following the release of Shadow of a Doubt. Her older brother, then in college, stayed in Santa Rosa and ran the family store until he went into the military and served during World War II.

Her first assignment for Skirball was to be It's in the Bag with Fred Allen, and Edna May was to have equal billing. But Allen balked at this and refused to work with her. Ultimately, her contract was broken, but when the film was eventually made without her, Edna May was paid in full.

The Bells of St. Mary's, Ingrid Bergman, center, and Edna, right

At this point, she signed with an agent who handled child actors exclusively. Edna May won small roles in several more films, and she has warm memories of working on Leo McCarey's The Bells of Saint Mary's (1945), a film nominated for eight Oscars and winner of one. She played Delphine, a girl about to graduate from St. Mary's, the one who smacks a baseball through a window in Mr. Bogardus's (Henry Travers) new building. Edna recalls that, like Shadow of a Doubt, the atmosphere on the set was "just like family." Ingrid Bergman was "a real sweetheart who said hello to everyone from the janitor on up when she came on the set." Edna also remembers that a member of the crew would play a little tune on an ocarina whenever Miss Bergman arrived. She adds, "We had a lot of fun with Bing Crosby - since there was a schoolyard set, he was always playing basketball with the kids."

Edna continued playing bit parts for the next few years but left acting at the beginning of the 1950s. Though her movie career is now long ago, she remembers those days with pleasure, "I have nothing but good memories of working in Hollywood. It was a different era than it is now and, being as young as I was, I didn't feel like an actress...I was just a kid who did what she was told to do."

Along with her memories, Edna has a treasure-trove of Shadow of a Doubt memorabilia. From her scrapbooks, copies of Life magazine and the prized goodbye gifts, to her original script with its cover signed by Hitchcock and the entire cast.

Edna mused that some friends of hers recently watched Shadow of a Doubt after she told them she was in it. They were quick to tell her: "You are just exactly like you were in that movie." And I'll admit that at times during our conversation I could hear a little bit of Ann Newton as I spoke with Edna Green.

Edna on the set of Under Western Skies (1945) with one of her co-stars, a young mountain lion

Click here for MedusaMorlock's post about Edna; click here for an update on Edna's life a year after our first interview, click here to view publicity photos from Edna's personal collection. Click here to watch a 2012 TV interview with Edna (courtesy of KPIX TV, San Francisco).

Read More

Shadow of a Doubt Giveaway on Hitchcock's Birthday...the details

In celebration of Alfred Hitchcock's 112th birthday on August 13, Reel Life is giving away a DVD of one of his great masterpieces, Shadow of a Doubt (1943). The giveaway will be in the form of a random drawing to be held on the 13th at noon Pacific Time. To enter, send an email to ladyevesidwich@gmail.com and include your name and mailing address (U.S. residents only, please).

In addition to the DVD, the winner will also receive an 8 x 10 photograph (shown below) personally autographed to them by Edna May Wonacott (Green), who portrayed younger sister Ann Newton in Shadow of a Doubt. 

Update: The drawing has been held and Jeff in Ohio is the winner. Thanks to all who participated!
The Lady Eve

Edna and Hitch on the set of Shadow of a Doubt

Read More

Casablanca with the San Francisco Symphony

Last Friday night I attended a very special screening of "Casablanca with the San Francisco Symphony" at Davies Hall. Conductor Michael Francis led the orchestral accompaniment and a full house spent the evening in thrall to Warner Bros.' sublime 1942 film classic and composer Max Steiner's unforgettable score.

Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco

The sell-out audience of 2,800 or so was a mix of film and music lovers of every generation. Some of the young and old attended in full 1940's attire; most spent time sipping champagne and cocktails on the mezzanine before the program got underway...


When the lights flickered and muted tones chimed,  it was time for my friend and I to take an elevator to the second tier balcony. From blissfully comfortable seats we spied a huge screen at center stage surrounded by the symphony orchestra. Mr. Francis entered, stepped to the podium, picked up his baton, glanced into a small monitor next to his sheet music and in a moment the hall reverberated with those oh-so-familiar notes that herald the start of a Warner Bros. picture. Then came Max Steiner's almost as familiar score:

The San Francisco orchestra interpreted Steiner's music a bit more gently, with less bombast, than the original movie soundtrack. The experience of a live score lent both immediacy and charm to the viewing experience and it was interesting, from time to time, to steal a look at the musicians as they accompanied familiar scenes. The harpist was fascinating to watch and listen to during the Paris flashback sequence. The essence of magic that is new love seemed to float from her strings.

...at Rick's, Bogart, Madeleine Lebeau and Leonid Kinskey

I've loved and admired Casablanca for years but it wasn't until I sat watching from high in Davies Hall that a particular thought occurred and recurred in my mind..."this film is perfect." In every respect...direction, cinematography, set design, screenplay, dialogue, wardrobe, score, editing - and the cast. This is Bogart at his apex as a romantic lead, Bergman at her most beautiful and pure - along with a most eloquent supporting cast: Claude Rains, Paul Henreid, Conrad Veidt, Peter Lorre, Sydney Greenstreet, S.K. Sakall, Madeleine Lebeau (the last cast member still living), Dooley Wilson, Joy Page and Leonid Kinskey. It's no surprise that Casablanca was honored with eight Academy Award nominations and won for Best Picture, Best Director (Michael Curtiz) and Best Screenplay (brothers Julius and Philip Epstein and Howard Koch). Humphrey Bogart was nominated for Best Actor, Claude Rains for his supporting role, Max Steiner for his score, Arthur Edeson for cinematography and Owen Marks for editing. 
 
Perusing the program during intermission, I came upon Larry Rothe's insightful write-up on the picture and read of many things I knew and didn't know about Casablanca...

I found out that the timing of the film's release was auspicious. Casablanca premiered in New York in November 1942. The Allies had invaded North Africa earlier in the month - which was significant. Even more powerful was the fact that in January 1943 President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill met in Casablanca to discuss the terms of an Axis surrender. This became headline news at the end of discussions, on January 24. Casablanca had gone into national release the day before...a windfall for Warner's PR team.

Paris on the eve of the Nazi invasion

According to Rothe, Steiner wove four major musical themes through the film. The first, of course, is "As Time Goes By," a song that became immortal with Casablanca. The second is the romantic theme accompanying the flashback to Paris. The third theme is France's national anthem, the "Marseillaise," first played as part of the title sequence, but most memorably featured when Victor Laszlo leads the crowd at Rick's in a stirring rendition of the anthem. A conscience-stirring variation on the "Marseillaise," first heard when Ilsa tells Rick about her devotion to Laszlo and the Resistance, is the fourth theme.

The entire night was thrilling (and I hope the fact that it sold out will persuade the symphony to do this again), but there was one moment I don't ever want to forget...listening to the San Francisco symphony play "Perfidia" as Bogart and Bergman dance (and he presses his face to hers) ...exquisite!

Meanwhile, Max Steiner's day is not done in San Francisco. Friday, July 29, the Castro Theatre begins a seven-day, 13-picture program, "Legendary Composer: Max Steiner." Included in the series will be Mildred Pierce, The Letter, Casablanca, Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Gone with the Wind, Now, Voyager, Dark Victory, White Heat, Angels with Dirty Faces, The Big Sleep, Key Largo, King Kong and The Searchers. Click here to learn more.

Read More

Lyle Wheeler - Setting the Scene

Watercolor pre-production painting of Tara for Gone with the Wind (1939)

by guest author Captain Gregg  

The art director is one of the most important artists in the film industry for it is his talent and skill that bring a script to visual life. Lyle Wheeler was a master craftsman in this field of production design. In his career, he created the environments to over 350 films. From their initial sketches on paper to the purchasing of the props and furnishings, to the costumes of the characters, to the construction of the studio and outdoor sets, his eye oversaw each and every process.

Everything that surrounded the action in front of the camera, in the foreground as well as the background, was his responsibility and Lyle Wheeler knew how to interpret a script to set it to its best advantage.

Born on February 12, 1905 in Woburn, Massachusetts, Lyle Reynolds Wheeler began his career as a magazine illustrator and went on to become an industrial designer before joining MGM in 1931 as a layout artist. His skill in this new field was evident, and it was not long before he worked his way up to assistant art director under Cedric Gibbons (head of the MGM art department ).

In 1936 a new Technicolor dye transfer process was created and as his first assignment as a full-fledged art director Lyle worked with David O. Selznick in making The Garden of Allah, a visually stunning vehicle to showcase this new development in filmmaking. He worked on several more Technicolor films and acquired a skill in the medium that was later justly rewarded with a 1939 Academy Award for his work on “Gone with The Wind”, where – working with William Cameron Menzies – he created two of the most magnificent motion picture settings of all time - the beautiful plantation and surrounding grounds of Tara, and the burning of Atlanta.

Tara - Gone with the Wind

 Wheeler’s talent for creating historically accurate sets was exercised in many other period films of the 1940s and 50s including That Hamilton Woman (London, 1799 ), Anna and the King of Siam and its remake The King and I (Siam, 1870s ), The Foxes of Harrow (America, 1821), Dragonwyck (1844 ), Titanic (1915 ) and the numerous Biblical-era films he designed sets for, such as, The Robe, Demetrius and the Gladiators, David and Bathsheba and The Egyptian.

That Hamilton Woman (1941)

The entrance of Manderley in Rebecca (1940) - note impressive wood carvings

The Grand Room of Manderley in Rebecca...yes, it's quite graahnd

The quaint seaside cottage in Rebecca

A Lyle Wheeler setting is always characterized by its extreme clarity and sharpness of lines. Why, his scenes look so crisp and real you almost feel like you’re transported into the setting along with the characters! This is especially evident in his black-and-white productions. Through varying tones of shade and the accentuation of shadows, Manderley estate (Rebecca ) comes alive for us as much as it does for Mrs. de Winter. And in Laura we come to know the characters primarily through their personal environments. Decorated sweet and simply, Laura’s apartment reveals the kind and innocent girl behind the painting that Mark comes to love, whereas Waldo Lydecker’s place of abode is modern, aesthetic and although pleasing to the eye, it’s as cold as his marble bath.

Laura (1944)

 It was Wheeler’s decision to have Leave her to Heaven filmed in color. While all film noirs of the era were being shot in black-and-white ( to emphasis their dark storyline), this tale of deception is vividly contrasted against bright country lawns, sunny skies of New Mexico and peaceful blue waters of a private lake in Maine.

Traditional New England=style furniture in the Maine House in Leave Her to Heaven (1945)

Leave Her to Heaven included many sumptuous sets, but this is my favorite. What marvelous wood flooring and beams!

 In 1953 he created another masterpiece in color noir by effectively utilizing a carillon tower as a scene for murder in Otto Preminger’s Niagara.

From 1947-1960 Lyle Wheeler was head of 20^th Century Fox’s art department and during his tenure at the studio he worked on a broad range of productions which required sets of all sorts of different styles and themes. In The Diary of Anne Frank there is the confined quarters of a family in hiding; in Come to the Stable a songwriter’s Pennsylvanian country retreat; in The Best of Everything, the stylish living and working domains of a group of New York secretaries. The post-war buildings of Hong Kong were beautifully created for our eye’s entertainment in Love is a Many-Splendored Thing; the opulent interiors of a Parisian nightclub for Can-Can and with a giant leap into the future, we are given a glimpse of the sleek interior of an alien messenger’s private spaceship in The Day the Earth Stood Still.

The Royal Palace of Siam in The King and I (1956)

The Robe (1953) - Caligula's throne

One of my favorite of his settings is his highly imaginative creation of the center of the earth in Journey to the Center of the Earth. Luminescent cavern walls, pillars of salt, the lost city of Atlantis, rainbow colored waters, and giant mushrooms abound in this under-the-mantle world of adventure.

Professor Lindenbrook's library in Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959) - a heaven for book lovers!

Mushrooms galore are discovered beneath the earth in Journey to the Center of the Earth

After he left 20^th Century Fox, Wheeler worked for several years on Perry Mason. Here, the sets were made with the same attention to detail as on a feature film. Mason’s rich clients were surrounded with rare antiques, hand-carved furniture and priceless oil paintings in their posh apartment pads or elaborate Beverly Hills mansions – a very fitting setting for the high-end nail-biting drama that would take place within their walls.

In all, Lyle Wheeler was nominated for 29 Academy Awards (!) winning five which, unfortunately, were lost to him when they were accidently auctioned off in 1982.  He passed away in 1990 in Los Angeles. I wonder whatever became of his golden statuettes?

Guest author "Captain Gregg" is a young (early 20s) classic film enthusiast who is also a member of the Turner Classic Movies fan site, the Classic Film Union (CFU). She recently entered a giveaway here at "Eve's Reel Life" - and won the Errol Flynn Adventures boxed set from Warner Bros. Which is how we met.  Not long after, she posted this very fine piece on Lyle Wheeler at CFU and I asked if I could republish it here. She kindly agreed.

Read More

Jean Cocteau...born July 5, 1889...

Jean Cocteau, French filmmaker/poet/writer/artist and more (dramatist, boxing manager...), was born July on 5, 1889, into a prominent and bourgeois family in Maissones-Lafitte - a village not far from Paris. His father, an attorney and amateur artist, took his own life when the boy was just nine; young Cocteau was soon enrolled in a private school. After he was expelled in 1904, he ran off to Marseilles.

Pavlova and Nijinsky

In 1909, Cocteau met Sergei Diaghilev, the Russian impresario who launched the Ballets Russes, a company whose principal dancers then were Anna Pavlova and Vaslav Nijinsky. Diaghilev encouraged Cocteau to write for the ballet and it was he who famously challenged Cocteau, "Ettonne-moi!" (Astonish me!). Cocteau responded with the libretto for the ballet Le Dieu Bleu. Cocteau also first encountered Igor Stravinsky around this time. The composer was in the process of writing The Rite of Spring when the two met and, while visiting Stravinsky in Switzerland in 1914, Cocteau completed his first novel, Le Potomak.

In 1917 Cocteau met Pablo Picasso. Together they traveled to Rome and met with Diaghilev.  The two were soon involved in Diaghilev's production of the ballet Parade. Picasso designed its sets, Erik Satie wrote the music, Lèonide Massine (Ljubov in The Red Shoes) choreographed and Cocteau wrote the one-act scenario. Although the Paris opening was a disaster, the ballet went on to become successful.

In another post-World War I venture, Cocteau founded a publishing house, Editions de la Sirene. The company published Cocteau's own work as well as scores by Stravinsky, Satie and a group of composers known as Les Six.

Jean Cocteau's first film was the surrealistic Le Sang d'un poète (The Blood of a Poet). Released in 1930, it was an early experimental reflection of his personal mythology. Cocteau also wrote what some consider his greatest play, La Machine Infernal, in the early ‘30s.

In 1946, Cocteau directed his sublime and bewitching film adaptation of the fairytale, La Belle et la Bête (Beauty and the Beast) starring Jean Marais and Josette Day. Director Renè Clèment provided technical assistance, illustrator/designer Christian Bèrard served as costume and production designer (with the exteriors evoking the illustrations of Gustave Dorè and the interior of Belle's family home echoing Vermeer) and composer Georges Auric (Roman Holiday, John Huston's Moulin Rouge) created the Impressionistic score.

Marlene Dietrich reportedly was with Cocteau when the film was first screened at a studio in Paris and, at the end, after the beast had transformed into a prince, she called out to the screen, "Where is my beautiful beast?" (I felt the same the first time I saw La Belle et la Bête).
 
In 1950, Cocteau directed another of his great film works, Orphée (Orpheus). A contemporary reading of the myth of Orpheus imbued with Cocteau's pet motifs, Jean Marais starred as modern-day poet Orpheus who descends into the Underworld to retrieve his wife, Eurydice. No subtitles are necessary for the following scene...

1960 brought Cocteau's last film and the final installment in his 'Orphic Trilogy' (along with The Blood of a Poet and Orpheus): Le Testament d'Orphèe (The Testament of Orpheus). An intricate 'home movie,' the film starred Cocteau as an 18th-century poet seeking divine wisdom and included cameos by everyone from Pablo Picasso and Yul Brynner to Jean Marais, María Casares, Jean-Pierre Leaud and Françoise Sagan.

Cocteau led a high profile life all his adult years. Friend and collaborator of Picasso, Stravinsky, Satie and Diaghilev, he was also an intimate of French icons Collette and Édith Piaf. In 1940, Cocteau had written a hit play for Piaf, Le Bel Indiffèrent, and in the early '50s he wrote an article that was instrumental in reviving her career. It was Cocteau who, in 1948, introduced American wunderkind Truman Capote to Collette. Cocteau had told Collette about Capote, "Don't be fooled...he looks like a ten-year-old angel. But he's ageless, and has a very wicked mind." Collette and Capote bonded and he cherished the gift she gave him that day for the rest of his life.

Jean Cocteau died at age 74 at his chateau in Milly-la-Foret, France, on October 11, 1963 after learning of the death of Édith Piaf. Legend has it that Cocteau heard the news, remarked, "Ah, la Piaf est morte. Je peux mourir aussi..." (Ah, Piaf is dead. I can die, too) and suffered a fatal heart attack.

David Thomson has aptly described Cocteau as "a comet passing over French cinema, throwing a vivid light on the landscape..."

Le Testament d'Orphèe (1960)

Read More

Backstage Moments...

Allan 'Whitey' Snyder and Marilyn Monroe on The Seven Year Itch

I routinely scour the Internet for pictures to go along with my my blog posts here and, in the process, I've come upon many interesting photos that I haven't used. I thought it might be fun to post a few of those taken on movie sets along with a little bit of movie lore (and other "extras").

Wilder, Marilyn & a $4.6 mil. dress

Above, Marilyn Monroe's makeup artist, Allan 'Whitey' Snyder, prepares her for a famous scene in The Seven Year Itch (1955). Marilyn was basking in the early glow of international fame when she began work on the Billy Wilder comedy in 1954. Her popularity had been firmly established with her co-starring turns in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953) and How to Marry a Millionaire (1954) and, at the time she started on her first film with Wilder, she was newly married to baseball superstar Joe DiMaggio. Legend has it that Joe stood on the sidelines watching as Wilder shot - and re-shot - takes of Marilyn's famous subway grate scene. Filming took place on the streets of New York and a crowd had gathered to watch. The slugger reportedly stormed off the set, incensed by the cheers and whistles of onlookers that erupted each time Marilyn's skirt blew skyward.

Audrey Hepburn, Blake Edwards's back and George Peppard

Monroe's marriage to DiMaggio failed in nine months, but her star continued to rise with films like Josh Logan's critically acclaimed Bus Stop (1956) and Billy Wilder's über-classic Some Like it Hot (1959). In 1961, Blake Edwards took on the film adaptation of Truman Capote's novella, Breakfast at Tiffany's. The novelist wanted Marilyn Monroe to be cast as Holly Golightly, the heroine of his tale. But Monroe balked, she worried that the role of a freewheeling party girl might have a negative impact on her career.

Audrey taking guitar lessons on the set

Enter Audrey Hepburn, Oscar-winning star of Roman Holiday (1950) who took the part of Holly Golightly and went on to make it one of her signature roles. The film provided what has become the iconic vision of Audrey Hepburn - upswept 'do, Givenchy gowns, waif-in-Manhattan persona - with or without sunglasses. The film co-starred newcomer George Peppard as Holly's love interest - but many were considered for the part. It has been said that Steve McQueen was up for the role...to quote Holly, "the mind reels."

Breakfast at Tiffany's won Oscars for its score and theme song, "Moon River," a Henry Mancini/Johnny Mercer tune.

Tony Curtis, Mia Farrow, Roman Polanski

Polish auteur Roman Polanski was known mostly to fans of foreign film and art house patrons before he began making films in the U.S. in 1968. His first full-length feature, Knife in the Water (1962) was Oscar-nominated for Best Foreign Film and by year's end Polanski was on the cover of Time magazine. His next masterwork, Repulsion (1965), starred 21-year-old Catherine Deneuve. It was illustrious and infamous producer Robert Evans, head of Paramount at the time, who lured Polanski to Hollywood. Their first effort was the trend-setting horror sensation, Rosemary's Baby (1968).  But the film featured no big names in its cast. Mia Farrow (Rosemary) was known only for her role on the prime-time TV soap Peyton Place and as Frank Sinatra's much younger wife. Her co-star, John Cassavetes (Guy, Rosemary's husband) had starred on a TV detective series (Johnny Staccato), been a featured player in several films and was early in his own career as an auteur director. But neither was a star. The many old-timers in supporting roles (Ralph Bellamy, Patsy Kelly, Sidney Blackmer, Maurice Evans, Elisha Cook Jr.) were far past their prime. The biggest Hollywood name attached to the picture did not appear onscreen or receive a credit...he was a top star from the 1950s through the mid-'60s: Tony Curtis. In Rosemary's Baby he provided the voice of an off-camera character named Donald Baumgart, an actor whose sudden blindness is key in advancing Guy's career. Curtis's voice is heard in the scene in which Rosemary calls to ask about the circumstances surrounding his loss of sight. Farrow apparently didn't know it was Curtis, but his voice sounded familiar and this disconcerted her as she played the scene. It seems that was the effect Polanski was hoping for.

Katharine Hepburn, Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart in Africa

John Huston's The African Queen (1951) is legendary for many reasons. It was the film for which Humphrey Bogart won his only Best Actor Oscar. It is the one and only teaming of Bogart with co-star Katharine Hepburn, a memorable pairing. The film was shot on location in Africa at a time when such location shoots were relatively rare. The production itself became famous and notorious for what went on off-camera. Clint Eastwood's 1990 White Hunter, Black Heart was a veiled account by writer Peter Viertel (Deborah Kerr's husband) of his experience with Huston and company on that set decades earlier. Even Katharine Hepburn chimed in with her own account - in book form: The Making of the African Queen: Or, How I Went to Africa with Bogart, Bacall and Huston and Almost Lost My Mind.

William Wyler and Bette Davis in deep discussion on The Letter

Bette Davis proclaimed loud and 'til the end of her days that William Wyler was her favorite among the directors she'd worked with and the one she respected most...and...the man that got away. The two made three films together, beginning with Jezebel (1938). They'd had a less than meet-cute introduction years earlier when neither was well-known. But by 1938 each was on their way up and with Jezebel they meshed perfectly. Onscreen and off; it was during the making of Jezebel that the two were romantically involved. Their second collaboration was The Letter (1940), an adaptation of Somerset Maugham's play. I think it's the best of their three together (the third was The Little Foxes in 1941) and one of Davis's very best films.

Kim Novak takes direction from Hitchcock on Vertigo

In 1958, Alfred Hitchcock created what has been called his most personal film, Vertigo. It is certainly my favorite among his long list of brilliant, hypnotic films. Though not a critical or popular success in its day, Vertigo persevered and is now viewed by most as the director's masterpiece of masterpieces.

At the time, Hitchcock was grooming Vera Miles as a possible replacement for his muse, Grace Kelly, who had decamped to become Princess Grace of Monaco. But Miles was pregnant by the time Vertigo was ready go into production...and Hitchcock moved on to Kim Novak. Vertigo is the film for which Novak is best known and remembered. Her only regret? That she didn't ask for (as was often customary) the stunning Edith Head-designed white coat she wore in several key scenes...

For more on the set moments click here...

Read More

Location, Location, Location: Catalina Island

Norma Shearer, Paulette Goddard and Charlie Chaplin off Catalina, 1934

A Film Location and Celebrity Haunt Since the Early 20th Century

Santa Catalina, one of California's Channel Islands, is just 26 miles SSW of Los Angeles. Once called Pimu, it's been inhabited for more than 7,000 years and has weathered the Spanish conquest, an influx of otter hunters and infestation by smugglers over its long history. It is best known today as a playground for those with money and celebrity and was once a popular location for filming Hollywood movies.

22 miles from shore to isle

Back in 1891, Catalina was purchased by the Banning brothers who planned to develop the island as a resort. Avalon Harbor was their primary focus, but roads and hunting lodges were also built in the interior. A devastating fire and World War I eventually forced the Bannings to sell off the property. In 1919, William Wrigley, Jr., founder of the chewing gum company and owner of the Chicago Cubs, bought controlling interest in the island. He soon set about building a dance hall on Sugarloaf Point - the Sugarloaf Casino.

Not long after, in 1920, Al Jolson recorded "Avalon" and popularized the song about Catalina's resort town:

"Avalon" sheet music

I found my love in Avalon
Beside the bay.
I left my love in Avalon
and sail'd away.
I dream of her and Avalon
from dusk 'til dawn.
And so I think I'll travel on
to Avalon.

As it turned out, the song's tune was similar enough to an aria from Puccini's Tosca (1900) that the composer's music publisher filed and won a plagiarism lawsuit.

The Ten Commandments (1923)

From Hollywood's earliest days, Santa Catalina Island provided a shooting location for film crews. D.W. Griffith was one of the first to use the island for this purpose with Man's Genesis in 1912. Other filmmakers followed suit. Classic silents with a Catalina backdrop include Fox's Treasure Island (1918), directed by Sidney Franklin, DeMille's The Ten Commandments (1923) for Paramount, and Ben-Hur (1925), directed by Fred Niblo for MGM. The island portrayed locales as exotic as North Africa and Tahiti and three diverse island areas were most often used for filming - Avalon, Little Harbor and the Isthmus - which eventually became known as "the Movie Colony Isthmus." Some of Catalina's palm trees were originally planted by film companies, and the island's buffalo herd was the result of a movie production. Legend has it that the animals were imported for Famous Player-Lasky's Richard Dix vehicle, The Vanishing American (1925). Though this is unproven, it is true that the picture was filmed on the island at the same time the creatures first appeared.

The  Casino's Avalon Ballroom opened in May 1929

Throughout the 1920s the island grew more popular as a resort destination and William Wrigley decided to raze Sugarloaf Casino to make room for a newer, larger structure. Construction on the Catalina Casino, a ballroom and theater, began in 1928. Architects Sumner A. Spaulding and William Webber created a design described variously as Moorish Alhambra and Mediterranean Revival. Fixtures and furnishings and art were designed in the Art Deco style. John Gabriel Beckman, known for his work on Mann's Chinese Theatre in Hollywood, designed the murals.

The new ballroom opened in May 1929 with the Maurice Menge band providing dance music for 2,500 couples. The theater opened with The Iron Mask (1929), a silent film starring Douglas Fairbanks enhanced by the musical accompaniment of the theater's organ, the largest Page organ in the world. Click here to visit the interior of the Casino theater and ballroom and hear "Avalon" played on the Page organ.

The Avalon Theatre

In 1929 sound permanently took hold in motion pictures. One early talkie filmed on Catalina was Sam Goldwyn's Condemned (1929) starring Ronald Colman and Ann Harding. Critic Mordaunt Hall, writing for the New York Times in November 1929, referred to it as an 'audible film.' In Condemned, Catalina provided the French penal island locale.

The island went on to appear in several classics of the 1930s: The Island of Lost Souls (1932), Rain (1932), Victor Fleming's version of Treasure Island (1934), Captain Blood (1935), Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and Captains Courageous (1937).

Errol Flynn on the Sirocco just off the island

Filming on the island introduced movie casts and crews to the pleasures of Catalina, and those who could afford it sailed and vacationed there. Some of the biggest names in movies spent time on and around the island...Chaplin and Paulette Goddard (pictured above on Joe Schenck's yacht) reportedly enjoyed fishing for marlin in the nearby waters. And Errol Flynn, a devoted sailor and carouser, ended up on trial following one of his many sojourns to the island.

Beginning in 1934, the Casino Ballroom hosted legendary big bands that were broadcast nationwide as they played live. Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Harry James, the Dorseys, Woody Herman and other top bands played to ballroom crowds that, over 28 years, averaged 4,000 per night. A record crowd turned out 6,200 strong for Kay Kyser and his band in 1938. The Avalon Ballroom's live big band broadcasts lasted far into the 1950s.

In the mid-'30s MGM produced this 19-minute musical revue featuring Buddy Rogers and his band (the California Cavaliers), Chester Morris, Leon Errol and others. Filmed in beautiful 3-strip Technicolor, the short includes cameo appearances by Cary Grant, Errol Flynn, Mickey Rooney, Virginia Bruce, Lee Tracy, Randolph Scott, Marion Davies and Lili Damita. Avalon provides the sea- and sun-kissed setting.

Jaws 1975

When the United States entered World War II, the island was closed to tourism and decreed off-limits to film production for the duration. Following the war, domestic and international air travel boomed and studios began shooting on location in Africa, the South Pacific and around the world. This didn't end Catalina's life as a location site, however. The island and its surrounding waters have been featured many times since in films like Around the World in 80 Days (1956), The Glass Bottom Boat (1966), Rosemary's Baby (1968), Chinatown (1974), Jaws (1975), Dick Tracy (1989), The Hunt for Red October (1990), Apollo 13 (1995), and The Thin Red Line (1998). Beginning with the silent era, Catalina has appeared in more than 200 films. Of course, the island has been featured on TV many times, too...

Bacall and Bogart offshore

Once World War II ended, movie folk returned to the island. Bogart, Bacall and friends sailed often to and from Catalina on his beloved Santana. Elizabeth Taylor and Eddie Fisher spent part of their honeymoon on Catalina. Marlon Brando rented a house on the island while Morituri (1965) was shooting offshore. In 1972, Liza Minnelli threw a party in Avalon to celebrate her Oscar win for Cabaret. Celebrity couples from Warren Beatty and Julie Christie (dancing at the Chi Chi Club back in the day) to Steven Spielberg and Kate Capshaw to Barbra Streisand and James Brolin have been spotted on Catalina over the years.

On a sadder note, Natalie Wood and Robert Wagner were spending Thanksgiving weekend 1981 in the area on their yacht, the Splendour, and it was in the waters off Catalina that she drowned.

During William Wrigley's ownership of the Chicago Cubs, the team's spring training was held on the island - a tradition that went on for 30 years. But in addition to developing and making use of the island, Wrigley wanted to preserve it. In 1972, P.K. Wrigley fulfilled his late father's wishes when he established the Catalina Island Conservancy and transferred family ownership to it. Ever since, most of the island has been held in trust by the Conservancy...and buffalo still roam in the uplands (click here to watch them roam), schools of Garibaldi fish still swim in the coastal waters, gray whales continue to pass by during their annual migration and dolphins are often sighted not far from shore.

Avalon Harbor

Catalina Casino entrance

Casino entrance detail

Condemned 1929

Captain Blood 1935

Mutiny on the Bounty 1935

Rosemary's Baby 1968

Read More