By Robert J. Wagner with Scott Eyman
With 65 years in show business, most spent acting in films, and almost as long an acknowledged man about town, Robert J. Wagner has socialized, romanced or worked with a tremendous number of Hollywood’s foremost actresses. Here he writes “about character and craft, talent and genius, respect and love.” We get an insider’s personal observations. There’s some criticism, but the actor is discreet. He’s also appreciative and perceptive.
A brief section on silent screen stars “when women dominated the box office” offers historical roots. As for meeting a few, Wagner went to school with Norma Shearer’s son and was introduced to her in her bed. She was gracious. He met Gloria Swanson while dating her daughter as a teenager. Swanson was apparently not bitter about faded stardom. “A woman like Norma Desmond is easy to play,” she told him, “’All pretense and mannerisms.”
“What Hollywood sold was not really the individual movie. The actual product marketed was the star… Contract players were shoved in front of the camera to sink or swim and learn on the job.” Most were aware they had a shelf life.
Actor Robert Wagner signs copies of his book “I Loved Her In The Movies” on November 15, 2016 at Book Revue in Huntington, New York. (Bigstock)
Ambitious Lucille LeSueur (Joan Crawford) accidentally/on purpose spilled a drink in the lap of a powerful studio executive, “then helped clean it up with gut vigor and thoroughness…Joan was open to the camera in a very touching way. It was her true love…We had a brief ships-in-the-night thing.” (There were many liaisons with older women.)
Raised Catholic, Loretta Young was infamous for her on set swear box. “Off screen, she was perfectly capable of dropping her rosary when the occasion demanded…We all knew about her illegitimate child with Clark Gable.” Betty Grable was brought to Fox in order to keep Alice Faye in line. She had a sunny personality and was beloved. The pin-up’s legs were insured for a million dollars. Head of studio Daryl Zanuck’s only complaint was that she’d close down a production to take in a particularly hot horse race.
In the 40s, women stars were more approachable, but Betty Hutton was apparently a prima donna. There was a large sandbag in the flies of the sound stage that had her face painted on it with an arrow pointing downward. Greer Garson was submissive to the studio, yet far from the genteel, conservative characters she successively played. Errol Flynn declared she was the first actress he worked with that was fun.
Irene Dunne and Claudette Colbert were ladylike but firm. (Colbert was cast as Eve Harrington in All About Eve, but threw her back out.) Joan Crawford often slept with directors for leverage. Bette Davis, who told make-up and wardrobe, “Go easy on the glamour, I’m not the type,” could be a holy terror. “Almost everything made her angry.” Katharine Hepburn was insulated from the vagaries of show business by money, but all in as an actress. “She loved being adored.” On screen self-possession was authentic. She deferred only to Spencer (Tracy).
Roz Russell, who lived down the block, brought joy to her work. “She had an incandescent gift for both slapstick and high style comedy.” Wagner lived several years with Barbara Stanwyck. “She made me appreciate the vulnerability of strong women and taught me all you can really ask for is your share at bat.” Doris Day could do anything. “When her husband left her broke, she rolled up her sleeves.”
“Joanne Woodward was a huge talent and in one of the greatest marriages (to Paul Newman) I was ever privileged to witness. They both understood careers are like smoke.” Every man she met was in love with Sophia Loren. Cary Grant proposed. She broke his heart. Loren came to set highly prepared, yet with her own ideas, treating everyone as a friend. “Honesty compels me to say Shelley Winters was a difficult woman on the best of days and a massive pain in the ass on her worst.”
Lana Turner, Elizabeth Taylor, Ida Lupino, June Allyson, Julie Andrews, Lucille Ball, Joan Collins (another relationship) Angie Dickinson, Ava Gardner, Susan Hayward,Thelma Ritter, Sonja Henie…and on and on. Wagner talks about the women’s professional and love lives, challenges, Achilles heels and success.
The author married Natalie Wood twice, but barely worked with her. “She was high strung and demanding, but rightfully so. And completely fulfilled by motherhood… When Natalie died my life was over.” Wagner would eventually wed old friend, Jill St. John.
His last long, professional relationship was with Stefanie Powers, starring on television in Hart to Hart. “Her timing complimented my own. Always a pro, she had a sense of humorous delicacy.” To this day people think they were married or should’ve been. The pair had great screen chemistry. (Powers was deeply invested in a relationship with William Holden.)
“To my mind there’s something profanely feminine about the movies. Not just because sexual attraction is often the magnet that pulls to one movie star and not another, but because there’s something about the nature of the movie going experience itself that approximates the reverie that overtakes you when you’re in love with a beautiful woman… with love, reality has little to do with the experience…So here I am at eighty-six, still adding to the contents of my treasure chest, still working and adding memories…It’s the way I am. It’s also the way the women I loved in movies were…and are.” Robert J. Wagner
Wagner’s choices are deftly profiled in more detail. My snippets are just that. His overview is thoughtful, accomplished, and gentlemanly. There are opinions, but very little about Wagner himself except between the lines- as undoubtedly was intended.
I Loved Her in the Movies
Robert J. Wagner with Scott Eyman
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