Hollywood Madonna (38 page)

Of all the teleplays in the first season, “Forest Ranger” (18 April 1954) was the best. Loretta may have thought so, too. A stranger appears at the back door of a ranger’s home, offering to chop wood in exchange for breakfast. The wife agrees, unaware that he is an escaped convict with an animus toward her husband. As the tension mounts, the wife succeeds in talking him out of his revenge. Some of Florey’s compositions harked back to the tight framing of film noir. When the convict threatened the wife, Florey juxtaposed their faces: his menacing, hers apprehensive but not terrified. By flattening space, he created a depthless two-shot with the texture of a film still. Like so many teleplays in the first season, “Forest Ranger” undermined the myth of “woman’s intuition” by showing that there are women who can handle crises and solve problems because they have something far superior to intuition: ingenuity.

Once the series was launched, Loretta grew more secure in her choice of script, selecting stories that reflected her beliefs, such as maintaining family unity, triumphing over adversity, subordinating self-interest to the needs of others, and accepting the divine will. She hired a story editor, Ruth Roberts, to commission teleplays embodying those themes. Roberts was invaluable to Loretta, so much so that by 1959 she had become associate producer as well as story editor. Roberts, who had been Ingrid Bergman’s dialogue coach for
Arch of Triumph
(1948) and Hedy Lamarr’s for
The Conspirators
(1944), was also “dialogue director” of one of Loretta’s last films,
Because of You
(1952). Loretta sensed that Roberts understood the kind of material she wanted and could provide it—and Roberts did. Other members of the team included Harry Lubin, the music director until 1958; Norman Brodine, the cinematographer for most of the teleplays; and Frank Sylos, the art director, except for the first season. These were Loretta’s people or, as she preferred to call them, her family.

Robert Florey did not return for the second season, which made up in human interest what it lacked in stylish direction. Nor did the second season see the return of Marusia, who was replaced by two other designers: (Daniel) Werlé, whose line was showcased in major department stores like Saks Fifth Avenue and I. Mangin; and Helga, who also dressed Ava Gardner, Lily Pons, and Mamie Eisenhower. Harry Keller, another
addition to the team, directed most of the teleplays during the next two seasons. A former film editor turned director, first at Republic, then at Universal-International, where he was a regular from 1956 to 1968, Keller, unlike Florey, had no signature, only the ability to bring a script to the screen. All but two of Keller’s films were distinctive:
The Unguarded Moment
(1956), a total about-face for ex-swimming star Esther Williams as a high school teacher terrorized by an emotionally disturbed student; and
Voice in the Mirror
(1958), an uncompromising look at alcoholism, with Richard Egan as an artist whose drinking problem has spiraled out of control. Given a script that made little or no demands—especially one about everyday problems—Keller could deliver a no-frills product. It was only when film directors who could personalize their work were behind the camera—for example, Loretta’s brother-in-law, Norman Foster, who directed fifteen episodes; or Tay Garnett, who directed four
;
or Rudolph Maté, who directed sixteen—that an episode looked more like a film in miniature than a teleplay.

Once the letter opening was dropped, Loretta just introduced the play, typified by “The Lamp” (19 September 1954), with Loretta as a superstitious homemaker who believes that her husband’s walking under a ladder cost him a promotion. When a package arrives with a present from her uncle, a lamp with the trademark “Aladdin,” she instinctively rubs it, and immediately receives a designer dress from her grandmother. Then her husband gets a dream job in Arizona, but to her dismay the wife learns that “Aladdin” is the manufacturer’s brand name. At message time, Loretta adopted a sober expression and reminded viewers that superstition is pseudo religion, and that its replacements are the virtues, faith and hope.

“Something about Love” (21 November 1954) could have been a gooey confection about two people with disabilities. Instead, it took an unsentimental approach to a relationship between a dancer, whose legs had been broken, and an embittered vet, once a promising architect, whose injured hands caused him to abandon his profession. Refusing to succumb to self-pity, the dancer reinvents herself as a singer, and her optimism inspires the vet to return to his trade. The conclusion is not a plot sweetener, but flows naturally from the action, in which one person’s determination affects another. It may have been a bluebird ending, but there was no chirping.

By now, Loretta knew that crisis stories were ratings boosters, especially if they involved children. “The Flood” (9 January 1955) was formulaic: The dilemma of rising waters, life-threatening condition and
delay of doctor, was resolved by the doctor’s last-minute arrival and a successful surgery. A widowed nurse (Loretta), with a child in her care in need of an appendectomy, persuades a Korean vet, a former medic, to lay off the booze and help her perform the operation. Before they have a chance, the doctor arrives, the operation is a success, the vet embraces sobriety, and the nurse is on the verge of shedding her widow’s weeds. This time, one could almost hear the bluebird warbling.

“The Case of Mrs. Bannister” (6 February 1955) was atypical. A child has a doll that she has named “Mrs. Bannister.” When an actual Mrs. Bannister falls to her death from the terrace of the adjacent apartment, her death turns out to be the result of murder, not suicide. The child either had psychic powers or heard the name from conversations filtering in from the next apartment. For her adage of the evening, Loretta chose a quote from Seneca, more inspirational than apropos. A better one would have been “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, / Than are dreamt of in your philosophy” (
Hamlet
1.5).” Regardless, that was the point.

Loretta may have toyed with the idea of a television spin-off based on a character from her show. There were two possibilities: Inga, a farm worker; and Sister Ann, a hospital nun. In “Inga” (3 January 1954), Loretta appeared in the title role as a Norwegian woman who runs a farm almost single-handedly. Believing that farm work would be a way of rehabilitating convicts, Inga persuades a prison psychiatrist to release some inmates to her custody. This was the kind of Janus-faced scenario that could go in one direction (lustful convicts menace helpless woman) or another (convicts bond with Inga and become veteran farm hands). Having played her share of imperiled women, Loretta preferred something upbeat and sunny, like
The Farmer’s Daughter
—clearly the inspiration for “Inga,” which also allowed Loretta to revive her flawless Scandinavian accent.

Audiences reacted so favorably to “Inga” that Loretta brought her back for the second season (“Inga II,” 20 March 1955). Although the rehabilitation (which the politically correct psychiatrist has termed “experimental retention”) is successful, Inga runs into a problem when the son of a local real estate honcho totals one of her cars. The indomitable Inga persuades the father to have his pampered son pay off his debt by working on the farm. The son reluctantly agrees, then disappears, but redeems himself by saving the farm from foreclosure. Inga returned two more times in the third (8 January 1956) and fourth (18 November 1956) seasons, suggesting that the character’s audience appeal might warrant a
series of its own. An “Inga” series never materialized; if it had, it would have probably adhered to the timeworn crisis-resolution template, with either the convicts or Inga steering the narrative to a happy ending or a “to be continued” one. And how much drama could be extracted from a farm where the main concerns were crops and equipment? More to the point, Loretta was now in her early forties, not exactly the right age for a “farm girl.”

A more likely series (which also never came off) would have been the one about Sister Ann, the head nurse and trainer of nurses at an urban hospital. The first episode was “Three and Two, Please” (“Sister Ann’s Christmas,” 16 December 1956), the title referring to the emergency code used to summon Sister Ann. Loretta had a great affinity for the character. The three “Sister Ann’s”—the second and third being “Sister Ann” (11 January 1959) and “Faith, Hope and Mr. Flaherty” (8 May 1960)—revealed a different Loretta, an accomplished character actress who did not have to rely on makeup and wardrobe. “Sister Ann” was inspired by a nun, Sister Mary Rose, who was Loretta’s nurse in 1955 during her four-month hospitalization at St. John’s Hospital in Oxnard. The two became close friends. When Loretta’s television career ended, they joined forces to establish a home for delinquent boys in Phoenix, Arizona. Loretta even went so far as to purchase a mansion and have her mother decorate it. But what began as an act of charity backfired when the neighbors vehemently objected to the presence of a rehabilitation center on their block. If her show were still on television, Loretta might have commissioned a teleplay, in which an act of benevolence, such as hers and Sister Mary Rose’s, ran into opposition and triumphed over it. That was not the case in Phoenix, which was located in real life, not happy land. Still, Loretta and Sister Mary Rose remained close friends, and when Loretta last heard from the indomitable nun, she was running an orphanage in the former Yugoslavia.

If Sister Mary Rose were anything like St. Ann, it is no wonder that Loretta was attracted to her. In “Three and Two, Please,” the best of the Sister Ann’s, Loretta bustled about in her white habit, dealing with emergencies, consoling the sick, staging a Christmas pageant, arranging a wedding for a unmarried couple, and turning a curmudgeon into a humanitarian on whom she practices a bit of Christian trickery by cajoling him into paying for a bicycle that she bought as a Christmas present for a lonely young patient—and she accomplished everything in a single day. “I must be about my Father’s business” is her mantra, as she solves one problem after another, interspersing her good works with a visit to
the chapel. Bespectacled and wearing a costume that made her appear plumpish, she is the embodiment of benevolence, doing God’s will in her own way—which often required a bit of fabrication, but for a good cause.

A “Sister Ann” series could have been effective. If it had come off, it would have been the precursor of
The Nurses
, which debuted in 1962. An urban hospital offered more possibilities for a series than a Minnesota farm. However, a predominately Catholic series would have had limited appeal.
Going My Way
(1944) won an Oscar for Bing Crosby as Father O’Malley who, like Sister Ann, knew how to convert crusty millionaires into church benefactors. The television series, with Gene Kelly as Father O’Malley, only lasted a season (1962–63), while the movie is a television staple, especially at Christmas time. NBC’s
Sister Kate
fared somewhat better, airing from September 1989 to July 1990. But NBC could not find the right time slot for a series about a no-nonsense nun, moving it from Saturday to Sunday, and finally to Monday before it went off the air on 30 July. A Sister Ann, who was a sleuth like Father Dowling in the highly successful
Father Dowling Mysteries
(with Tom Bosley as the title character and the endearing Tracy Nelson as his sidekick-nun), might have worked. It certainly would have been a television “first.” But Loretta had done her share of sleuthing in the forgettable
A Night to Remember
and would have balked at the suggestion of reducing Sister Ann to Miss Marple in a habit. Sister Ann remained just one of the characters in her vast repertory.

As important as it was for Loretta to integrate message and story, it was just as necessary for her to show Hollywood the range of types she could have played on the big screen if moguls like Zanuck and Mayer had believed in her potential. The greater the challenge the role posed, the more eagerly she embraced it. In the movies, Loretta had only played non-whites twice: in
The Hatchet Man
, with lacquered face and eyes elongated into slits, and, more naturally, in
Ramona
, where dark makeup and a wig did the trick. On television, Loretta was in her element when she played Asians. She understood their quiet demeanor, often interpreted as subservience. But she would not take a role that reduced a woman to an inferior status. She found the tranquility in the character, realizing that such women do not flare up in anger or display embarrassing emotion. In “I Remember the Rani” (1 May 1955), a British journalist recalls a proto-feminist maharini, who, when told about Queen Victoria, wonders why she herself couldn’t be called “queen.” Wiser than her male advisors, she knows that irrigation alone provides the solution to
the lingering drought. Although the journalist and the maharani fall in love, an interracial marriage would have been unacceptable in India or on network TV. Instead, the maharani teaches him to say “I love you” so that it echoes through the palace halls. Unlike the lovers in
The King and I
, the two do not “kiss in a shadow,” but in an echo chamber. At least the maharini achieves her goal: Irrigation, and with it, the arrival of the twentieth century. “I Remember the Rani” is almost a chamber piece in its orchestrated simplicity and avoidance of dissonance or sudden changes of tempo.

Loretta was a Muslim in “Incident in India” (25 January 1959). Then, casting white actors as nonwhites was not denounced as racist, although it certainly was. The time of “Incident” is shortly after India received its independence from Britain in 1947, followed by the separation of India from Pakistan. The sectarian violence is never mentioned. The show was feminist but apolitical—unless a clever Pakistani woman (Loretta) is considered a political tool. Hardly, in 1959. The woman succeeds in outwitting the Indian slave traders who captured her and her attendant. Loretta may have modernized the character, but she looked and acted authentically Muslim, showing a police officer how he can capture a notorious bandit in exchange for allowing her to return to her husband. Naturally, the woman succeeds, and at the end, Loretta dispenses her weekly bromide: “Where love is, there is no fear.” It may have been an uplifting sentiment in 1959, but, in the twenty-first century, staying alive as a hostage in the Middle East requires much more than cleverness.