Victor Fleming: An American Movie Master (Screen Classics) (89 page)

Everyone involved in this enterprise felt the adventure of Fleming’s life and the thrill of retracing its bold trajectory from the orange orchards of Pasadena to the top of the entertainment world. Everything of quality in this book owes a huge debt to the people mentioned or listed here, and many others. Responsibility for inaccuracies and shortcomings lies with me alone.

Additional thanks go to: Dennis Aig, Paula Allen, Kathryn Ashe, Pat Atkinson, Lutz Bacher, Sarah Baker, Frank D. Balzer, Joseph Bender-sky, Stella Bendoris, Betty Birk, Alice Birney, Gregory D. Black,
Olivier
Bouzy, Connie Breedlove, Roy M. Brewer Jr., James Breyley, Richard Brody, Faith Brook, John Burrud, James E. Butler, Ben Campanale, Larry Ceplair, John Christensen, Ian Christie, Gerry Chudleigh, Judy Colgrove, Ralph Cooper, Greg Cumming, James Curtis, Ron Cuskelly, James D’Arc, Ron DeFore, William Drew, Dana Driskel, K. O. Eckland, Jan Edwards, Karren Elsbernd, Ann Evans, Christopher Falzon, Harry Forbes, Alexa Foreman, Leatrice Gilbert Fountain, Jeannine Wagner Gallardo, Lynn Gamma, Cara Gilgenbach, Leo Gorcey Jr., Luther Greene, Rick J. Gunter, Rosemary Hanes, Stacey Hann-Ruff, Barbara Hartley, Dorinda Hartmann, Karen L. Hathaway, Bob Heald, Daniel Hobbins, Abraham Hoffman, Richard Hutson, Maria Cooper Janis, Latane Jones, Chris Kaltenbach, Chiaki Kawajiri, David Kessler, Dickran Kouymjian, John Lahr, Margarita Landazuri, Ludwig Lauerhass Jr., Lee Lawrence, Richard LeComte, Laura Leff, Judy Lewis, John Lindner, Anne Lockhart, Patrick Loughney, Lloyd MacFadyen, Tim Mahin, Madeline Matz, Stan McClain, Hamilton Meserve, Dwight Miller, Ted Mills, Langdon Morrill, Robert Morris, Kirk Myers, Victor Navasky, Harold Osmer, Erin Overbey, Sam Ratcliffe, Maria Reachi, Michael Redmon, Eric Rentschler, Bill Robie, Elizabeth Robnett, Carole Sampeck, Rodney Sauer, Hans-Joachim Schlegel, Sandy Slater, David Smit, Victoria Sturtevant, Lawrence Suid, Glenn Taranto, Russ Taylor, Ned Thanhouser, Sandra M. Thomas, Pat Tone, Dan Van Neste, John Waxman, and Eileen Whitfield.

Archival and research resources: Air Force Historical Research Agency; American Museum of Natural History; Arizona State Archives; Brigham Young University (Bosley Crowther Papers); British Film Institute; Catholic University of America (National Catholic Welfare Conference Papers; Archbishop John Timothy McNicholas correspondence); Centre Jeanne d’Arc, Orléans, France; Columbia University (Oral History Research Office and University Archives); the Walt Disney Archives; Federal Aviation Administration; Federal Bureau of Investigation; Filson Historical Society, Louisville, Kentucky (Cleves Kinkead Papers); Georgetown University (Martin J. Quigley Papers, Lawrence Suid Papers); Harry Ransom Center for the Humanities, University of Texas, Austin (Maxwell Anderson Papers, David O. Selznick Archive); the Henry Ford Museum and Research Center; Herbert Hoover Presidential Library (Westbrook Pegler Papers); Kent State University (Lois Wilson Collection); Library of
Congress
Manuscript Division (Maxwell Anderson Papers, H. H. “Hap” Arnold Papers, Ray Stannard Baker Papers, Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin Papers, Cary Grayson Papers, MacKinlay Kantor Papers, Rouben Mamoulian Collection, Groucho Marx Papers, Harold Sintzenich diaries, Woodrow Wilson Papers, Owen Wister Papers); Library of Congress Motion Picture Reading Room (preservation copies of many of Victor Fleming’s silent films, including fragments of
The Rough Riders
); Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Reading Room (
Look
photo collection,
New York Journal American
photo collection); Library of Congress Performing Arts Reading Room (Irving Berlin Papers); Library of Congress Recorded Sound Reference Center (Bob Hope scripts); Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder’s Office; Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (Anthony Slide Collection, Herrick Library Oral History Collection, Paramount Script Collection, Production Code file, SMU Oral History Collection (Greer Garson Collection), Turner/MGM Script Collection, Victor Fleming clipping file); Museum of Modern Art, New York (Sergei Eisenstein Collection, special screenings of
When the Clouds Roll By,
and fragments of
The Rough Riders
); National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland (Records of the U.S. Army Military Intelligence Division, Records of the Bureau of Motion Pictures, Records of the War Department Bureau of Public Relations, U.S. Army Signal Corps films); National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C. (Civil War military records); Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Birthplace (Lee Bowman file); Newberry Library, Chicago (Ben Hecht Papers); San Diego Natural History Museum; San Diego Zoological Park; Stanford University ( John Steinbeck Collection); Stein-hart Aquarium; Supreme Court of California; University of Arkansas, Fayetteville (Lighton Family Papers); University of California, Berkeley (Sidney Howard Papers); University of California, Los Angeles (Betty Bronson Papers, Hedda Hopper Papers, Oral History Project, UCLA Film Archive for special screenings of
Common Clay
and
American Aristocracy
); University of Florida, Gainesville (Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Papers); University of Indiana, Bloomington (Upton Sinclair Papers); University of North Dakota (Maxwell Anderson Papers); University of South Carolina ( Jules Furthman scripts); University of Southern California (Constance McCormick Collection, Cinema and Television Library Archives); University of Virginia (Booton Herndon
Papers);
Wisconsin Center for Film and Theater Research (Dalton Trumbo Papers, Walter Wanger Collection); U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops; Film and Broadcasting Office (National Legion of Decency files); Columbia County (Pa.) Historical Society; Culver City Historical Society; Harold Bell Wright Society; Hoboken Historical Society; Institute of Texan Cultures, San Antonio; Jerome (Ariz.) Historical Society; Pasadena Historical Society and Museum; Pasadena Public Library; San Dimas Historical Society; Santa Barbara Historical Society; Sedona (Ariz.) Historical Society; Seneca County (Ohio) Historical and Genealogical Society; Texas County (Mo.) Historical Society; Wood County (Ohio) Historical Center and Museum.

For permissions to quote confidential or copyrighted material, thanks go to Roger L. Mayer of Turner Entertainment (MGM files); Daniel Selznick of Selznick Properties, Ltd. (Selznick Archive); Dixon Adair (the diary of A. D. Adair Jr.); Christy Kelso (Fleming letters); and Maria Cooper Janis (“Well, It Was This Way: Gary Cooper Tells His Story”).

Notes

Direct quotations in the text that do not have a corresponding note identifying the source are drawn from interviews or correspondence with the author or his research associate. The names of such sources are provided in the acknowledgments.

Introduction

3
“A composite between”: Paramount publicity, 1928; the screenwriter cited is Louise Long (
Rough House Rosie,
1927;
Interference,
1928), who never worked on any of Fleming’s pictures.

3
“the Lincoln type of melancholia”:
Lion’s Roar,
Jan. 1944.

3
an appreciation of her father:
The New York Times,
Nov. 15, 1998.

4
“a man like Fleming”: Carle to Grover Jones, May 1, 1939, Victor Fleming file, Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

5
When the author of: Schulberg,
Moving Pictures.

5
“Clark Gable on the screen is Fleming”: Henry Hathaway’s description of Fleming as Gable is from his interview in the Ronald L. Davis Oral History Collection, DeGolyer Library, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, collection number A1980.0154; viewed at Margaret Herrick Library.

5
“Every man that ever worked”: Interview in
Focus on Film,
No. 7, 1991.

6
“Nice legs, sister!”: From a letter written by Eleanor Saville to her husband after the U.S. Olympic swimming team, escorted by Johnny Weissmuller, visited MGM that July, shortly before the Summer Olympics began in Los Angeles. The team met Fleming and other movie directors at a reception at the Ambassador Hotel. Letter held by Roger van Oosten.

6
he wired back, simply: The telegram is recalled by Louis Lighton’s sister Betty.

6
“He is probably the only guy”:
Lion’s Roar,
Jan. 1944.

6
“Fleming was quite inarticulate”: Kaplan to David Stenn.

7
“Every dame he ever worked with”: Kobal,
People Will Talk.

7
“Victor Fleming knew as much”: Maltin,
Behind the Camera.

7
“Fleming was the realist”: Hathaway, SMU oral history.

8
“he had an inner power”: Lewis,
The Creative Producer.

8
“Eddie Sutherland, the gay sophisticate”: Brooks to Kevin Brownlow, Jan. 6, 1971.

9
“he was part Indian”: Interview with John Lee Mahin in McGilligan,
Backstory.

9
“He was always the biggest star”: Torchia made this comment to Selden West when the latter was researching the life of Spencer Tracy. Katharine Hepburn told West that when she first entered MGM to make
The Philadelphia Story,
she saw Gable and Tracy flanking an imposing figure and asked her group, “Who’s the one in the middle?” It was Fleming.

10
When Hathaway, Tracy, Gable: For example, Hedda Hopper devotes her entire column of January 23, 1944, to the comparison of Rhett Butler to Fleming, and begins with Tracy calling him “the Clark Gable of directors.”

1 Born in a Tent

11
February 20, 1888: The date is indicated in an autograph book signed by friends and neighbors of the Flemings the day before they left Missouri.

11
tornado: The date of that tornado is in the 1889
History of Laclede, Camden, Dallas, Webster, Wright, Texas, Pulaski, Phelps & Dent Counties, Missouri, from Earliest Times to the Present.

12
“publicity, settlement agents”: McWilliams,
Southern California Country.

12
“half an acre in lemons”: Dumke,
Boom of the Eighties.

12
claims of Cherokee blood: According to a Bledsoe County historian Elizabeth Robnett, the earliest traced Fleming ancestor is Samuel Fleming, born in 1795. In 1850, he, his wife, and nine children lived south of Pikeville, Tennessee. Since in that Census his place of birth is given as “Unknown,” the family roots beyond him are open to speculation.

14
pig roasts and brass bands: Dumke,
Boom of the Eighties.
Irving Stone memorialized the period in
Men to Match My Mountains:

It was said that the boom did not burst, it gradually shriveled up. By April 1, 1888 a few harsh facts began to emerge: tourists simply had not settled in anything like the numbers expected.
The
banks, nervous about the paper boom, had cut down on credit involved in real estate. Many who had made large profits buying and selling land realized that their gains amounted to soft signatures by people who had been speculating precisely as they had. Those who had property left to sell saw that they had to sell their land quickly and get out some cash, or they would be left empty-handed.

15
February 23, 1889: Since his death, for reasons unknown, Fleming’s birth year has often been reported as 1883. It seldom was recorded or reported correctly during his lifetime, either. Among the accurate records: the 1900 census, the 1910 census, and Fleming’s Army record. The volume for births registered for February 1889 is missing from the Los Angeles County Registrar Recorder’s Office, as is the 1891 volume recording his sister Arletta’s birth. However, his sister Ruth’s birth in 1893
is
recorded. Fleming sometimes fudged his age. His 1909 marriage license application records his birth year as 1887 because, at twenty, he was not legally an adult. Starting at age thirty-nine, he occasionally recorded his birth year as 1890. It’s written that way on applications for his pilot license and on his 1933 marriage license application.

17
“There is little room in my life”: Fleming,
Action.

19
spacious three-bedroom bungalow: The house is still there, with the kitchen window Fleming’s aunt Mamie had lowered. One of the oddities of Fleming’s history—especially for someone who grew up in Southern California—is that nearly every dwelling in which he lived still exists.

19
Chinese peddler: San Dimas Historical Society.

19
“an old postcard”: Robert Towne, preface and postscript to
Chinatown,
included in Ulin,
Writing Los Angeles.

21
put their faith in dowsing: Wyman,
Witching for Water, Oil, Pipes, and Precious Minerals.

2 Cars, Cameras, Action!

25
in 1903: Oldfield’s first Los Angeles appearance was that November; he returned the following December.

25
Charles Soules and Joe Nikrent . . . Ted “Terrible Teddy” Tetzlaff: Soules, one of five racing brothers, was a journeyman racer with a brief career. Along with his brother George, Charles is believed to have won
the
first twenty-four-hour race, in Columbus, Ohio, in 1905. Nikrent was, like Soules, part of a family of racing brothers, and finished first in the 1909 endurance race from Los Angeles to Phoenix known as the Cactus Derby. It is likely Fleming had more racing experiences with Tetzlaff, a prominent early racer with twenty-two races between 1909 and 1915. Five of those were in Santa Monica, including the first Santa Monica road race on July 10, 1909. Because Fleming, in 1911, raced on the Santa Monica road course used for the 1914 Vanderbilt Cup, this became distorted into the often-published claim that he had been a Vanderbilt Cup racer. It is possible Fleming was Soules’s ride-along mechanic, or “mechanician,” in a race at Santa Monica on August 9, 1913. Soules, driving a Cadillac, finished sixth. There are no newspaper mentions of Fleming as anyone’s mechanician. Except for George Hill, who worked for both Tetzlaff and Oldfield, mechanicians seldom were mentioned in newspaper accounts of races. Mechanicians often had to do hand pumping to maintain gas and oil pressure, and made repairs during the course of the race. In the notes used to compose
Action Is the Word,
Fleming mentioned that he had begun racing at Agricultural Park in 1907.