Dining with Hollywood Royalty

two excerpts from the book

As the clock strikes nine the waiters refill the golden chalices of the twenty-four guests with aged wine from the San Simeon cellar. After the dinner plates are removed a mammoth salad is placed in front of each of them, who by now are growing very accustomed to the fabulous surroundings in this remote castle high above the sea. It is apparent that their host is not going to join them for dinner, but they seem not to mind, as a serenade from a string quartet wafts from some unseen room into the stately Refectory. Continuing the portrait of Duke Wayne, Jimmy Stewart again raises the memory of director John Ford, under whom they both worked. Evidently, one good director calls to mind another, for the train of thought quickly moves on to Howard Hawks, and then to John Huston, whose direction of Katharine Hepburn in ‘The African Queen’ and Gregory Peck in ‘Moby Dick’ provides more colorful anecdotes


Hor D’Oeuvres to Dessert
Unbelievable story

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

Everyone had problems with L.B. Mayer, as far as I can figure out. He threatened everyone with ruination if he or she didn’t do exactly as he said. He tried in many cases, and in John Gilbert’s case he succeeded in ruining a very important career. He tried also to ruin Bill Powell and Myrna Loy and a few others, but he didn’t quite succeed with them.

Greta Garbo often said that she thought that Mayer was trying to ruin her career, but I don’t really know. Probably her decision to stop after ‘Two-Faced Woman’ was due to trouble she had in dealing with Mayer. I worked for him once indirectly, and he was pretty rough stuff, let me tell you. I knew him socially, too, but he was always very nice in those situations. I had gone to kindergarten with his daughters, by the way, Irene and Anita, but my relationship with him was pretty remote.

 

Hor D’Oeuvres

I was only about nineteen when I married Joan Crawford back in 1928, and I remember only very nice things about her. She was very hardworking, and terribly conscientious, even to the point of people making fun of her, since she was always trying so hard, studying voice and singing even though she did not have a fine singing voice.  But she was determined, and wanted to know the technique of it. She devoted herself entirely to whatever she was doing, going into all kinds of preparation for whatever part she was trying to learn.

I have never seen anyone who worked so hard to do her best. She had no sense of humor about it, either. Ifr you told her something was funny she would laugh in a forced way, even though it might have been a terribly amusing joke. She wouldn’t really think it was funny, though, because she was just so serious about her work.

I remember that I was appearing in a play in the late twenties, and she came to the opening night, after which she wrote  me a fan letter, asking me to give her a ring sometime. We had friends in common, so I did, and that’s how we met. She was three years older than I, but everyone thought that I was older than she, since I used to make myself up to look older in order to get jobs. When I was sixteen I would say that I was twenty-one, and they would believe me.

Her real name was Lucille LeSueur, and our marriage lasted about five years, though we were together perhaps only three. That was simply because I, as a young fellow, had one idea about how to live with a wife, and she had a completely different idea. I had an appetite for all kinds of things in life, many of them away from film work, such as traveling and living around the world. Movies simply were not the whole world to me. I worked hard as an actor, but Hollywood just wasn’t everything to me. Joan wasn’t even interested in the theater. All she cared about was her job at MGM.

When we went abroad, which was her first time out of the country, she absolutely hated every minute of it, and couldn’t wait to get back in front of the cameras in Culver City. She was very frank about it, and didn’t pretend to feel otherwise. It was like going back to the womb for her, the only place where she felt secure and confident in herself. It was where all of her hopes and ambitions were centered. Her life was right there, and all of her values, too. I was simply not so dedicated to making movies and being a star, and that’s what the difference in us was, as well as why our marriage didn’t last.

As for the character depicted in ‘Mommie Dearest,’  I’m not sure that what the daughter had to say was so accurate. But then, I didn’t know Joan at that point in her life, since we had been divorced for years; and although I would see her in restaurants and say hello we were no longer close. I do know that her secretary was with her for thirty-five years, and she says that she doesn’t remember ever seeing anything like that at all.

Now even allowing for loyalty and devotion, and that she might be stretching the truth just a bit, which wouldn’t surprise me at all, too many other people knew Joan very well, and none of them ever saw this dominating kind of character described in the book and in the film. When I knew her she didn’t drink at all, and she wouldn’t even sip wine. My father never had a drink in his life, and Joan and he used to tease each other about being teetotalers. If the booze happened at all, it was much later. And I don’t recall ever seeing her in a temper, even though we had disagreements, albeit civilized ones. I surely would remember if we ever had any big rows, but I don’t recall one.

 

Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Humanitarian and Famed Actor
Evolved Into A TV Producer, Social Lion After World War II

More Hollywood Royalty

 

Hollywood Royalty

Dessert

Katharine Hepburn

What a disgusting thing for Joan Crawford’s daughter to do! What a profound betrayal! And Bette Davis’ daughter, too! No matter what the situation, it’s family business that should never be discussed. And to sell it is cheap and revolting! Shame, shame, no matter what!

But then it sells, since everyone wants to know about the private life behind the screen image. If it smells, it sells, it seems. It’s like watching a street accident. You are horrified and appalled, and yet you simply can’t take your eyes off it. A perfectly ghastly state of affairs! Just sensational filth, but then you can’t put it down. You can’t wait to find out what’s around the corner. Well I’m as culpable as anyone else, I guess.
 


Things certainly didn’t used to be the way they are now, though. Mary Pickford and the others back then led their lives with discretion and restraint. You know, the rules of living with one another have been thrown away. Rules were made for practical reasons, so be easy to follow. But when we give them up, the truth doesn’t matter any longer. And so you find yourself believing in nothing.


Personally, I’ve never found it difficult to tell the difference between right and wrong. But today we are living in an age when anything goes. I don’t see how we became so obsessed with money, and with selling. I think all of this emphasis on the commercial value of this or that promotes a dangerous attitude. In my view, we’re far too concerned with the material [   ] today. And everyone is struggling to be noticed. I think that’s one reason for all of this terrorism. You can do almost anything these days and get away with it, so who really knows who is right or wrong any longer? When the truth goes out of style, life become[s] extremely difficult. We just don’t know what the truth is any longer, and that goes for everything.

 Floating Island Dessert will be reposted - please check
 back 


Click Katharine Hepburn for Early Heraldry:   Katharine Hepburn as Eleanor of Aquitaine in, The Lion in Winter [comparison w/Hillary Clinton]
opposite Peter O'Toole as Henry II of England.

 

 

Silence is Golden suggestion for cocktail hour!

Mary Pickford Cocktail:
1 and a half measures white rum
1 teaspoon maraschino
1 and a half measures pineapple juice
1 teaspoon grenadine

Place all the ingredients in a shaker and shake well. Strain into a large cocktail glass filled with crushed ice. Add the cherry on a stick and serve with short straws.


 

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