Thanks for that reminder… I have Richard Burton’s diaries, but only searched keywords. I need to stop collecting e-books and finish reading them!
Those two stories about “Missie” were actually composite-character stories. The first was sort of a composite of the kind of life many sex-symbol actresses had to put up with (“Missie” is a former teenage star turned sex symbol), especially as they aged and lost value in the eyes of their (male) producers and directors. The second is largely based on Niven’s own experience trying to mind Vivien Leigh during her own nervous breakdown.
I like both books, but there are parts of Empty Horses that ring a little uncomfortable these days. His chapter on Errol Flynn seems to pass off Errol’s lechery for underage girls as “oh, that Errol.” From what I understand, there is evidence that the accusations in Flynn’s statutory-rape trial were a set-up from mobsters who were leaning on Jack Warner–according to this theory, Warner didn’t play ball with them, so they set out to ruin his top star. But still, it’s a little jarring to read Niv dismissing the girls’ case with “they weren’t even virgins.”
There’s also a story about a practical joke played on Flynn courtesy of Niven and a couple of pals, setting up a madam and her young “protege” as relatives of a mutual pal of Niven and Flynn. They set up a friendly visit at Niven’s home and the friend, another actor (I don’t have the book on me so I can’t remember the name) told Flynn he was to keep his hands off the “niece” (whom they’d made up to look even younger, like a very young teenager, apparently “just the age Errol likes”). They chatted among themselves, then they left the room for a while and concealed themselves, leaving Errol alone with the young prostitute. The girl was supposed to start coming on to Errol…but she never got the chance. The friends were barely out of earshot before he jumped on her and hoisted up her skirts. She put on a show of “maidenly resistance”, but Errol kept at it until the other three came back and busted him…the madam, the “aunt”, sent her “daughter” to safety, then jumped on Errol herself after they were left alone together. Then it was all revealed as a prank.
Now, I grinned at that story when I first read it…but now, it leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. Of course, the whole thing was a prank and the girl’s resistance was all for show…but what if it hadn’t been? And for all Flynn knew, it WASN’T. And such matters as the girl’s consent and his promise to his friend apparently meant nothing at all where his prick was concerned. And remember…this was supposed to be a very underage girl. Niv may have thought he was relating the story of an amusing prank, but today it reads more like a portrait of the kind of injustices actors in Old Hollywood got away with all the time. And it does seem to be a little dissonant with the compassion Niven showed towards mistreated actresses in the “Missie” chapters.
Oh well, there are some nice antidotes in that book to the rather uncomfortable chapter on Flynn. My favorite is his chapter on “Prince Michael Romanoff”, aka Harry Gerguson, who passed himself off as a relative of the former Russian royal family and made good on that on the East Coast. Once people got wise to him, he took off for Hollywood. By the time he’d made a legitimate and successful career for himself as the restaurateur of Romanoff’s, everyone knew he was a fraud and HE knew everyone knew he was a fraud, but he kept up the charade for the fun of it and everyone else played along for the same reason. Despite his con-man past, he never really harmed anyone and didn’t have a mean bone in his body.
Case in point: Niven’s first wife had tragically died due to a fall down a staircase at a friend’s party and he had to leave his two young sons in the care of others while he worked. He came home from filming one day and the boys excitedly ran up to him shouting that Mr. Romanoff had stopped by to take them on a treasure hunt on the beach and they’d found pirate treasure (fake, of course). Romanoff had been hours setting it all up, with a map and everything, just for the sake of giving the boys a fun day. He brushed off Niven’s thanks with, “Children are nature’s gentlemen. I prefer their company to most adults’.” Just, y’know, awwww.
Another favorite behind-the-scenes story of mine may or may not be true, but would be great if it was.
Zero Mostel had originated the role of Tevye in the stage version of Fiddler On The Roof and it was iconic. However, his style of acting in general, and for Tevye in particular, was broad, stagey, and very American. More to the point, he’d been infamous for improvising and adding all kinds of schtick to the role that made it less about Tevye and more about Zero-as-Tevye, to director Jerome Robbins’ frustration.
When Norman Jewison took on the film version of Fiddler, Zero wanted very much to reprise the role. However, Jewison’s vision for the film was much more restrained and naturalistic, and Zero’s broad style wouldn’t have fit. So he cast Israeli actor Chaim Topol, who’d played Tevye onstage in London, and Topol did a phenomenal job.
Zero reacted to this snub with his usual amount of quiet, understated dignity and grace. /s
A couple years later, Jewison was adapting Jesus Christ Superstar for the screen and cast Zero’s son Josh Mostel as King Herod, who only had one song but it was a doozy.
The story goes that when Josh called up his old man to tell him the news, Zero yelled:
“You should have told that sonofabitch to hire TOPOL’S son!!!”
There is the probably apocryphal story that one of the attendees of Bela Lugosi’s funeral asked if they should drive a stake through his heart “just to be sure”.
Now that my dad is in his 90’s and experiencing a loosening of his facilities, we’ve been “treated” with his memoirs, including some seamier tales from our grandmother’s Hollywood extra times.
The late Kenneth Anger had 1980’s Hollywood Babylon, full of sex lore; mostly apocryphal and worth more for salaciousness than accuracy. Another resource was “The People’s Almanac” Wallace/Wallechinsky’s Sex Lives of Famous People from 1981.
Besides sex, there’s the other Hollywood mainstay: violence. Like many men of the era, Errol Flynn had some measure of boxing skills. During a brawl with John Huston at a party, while not among history’s dirtiest fighters, Flynn did use his Robin Hood acrobatics to stomp on Huston’s feet with every punch.
Huston seems to have been an ire-magnet to all types. John Wayne knocked him out when making The Barbarian and the Geisha. Wayne, conditioned to the exacting demands and verbal abuse of John Ford, was on unsteady ground with Huston, who left his actors with more leeway. Wayne took this to mean he could throw his weight around, and he did.
A Huston adjacent incident occurred on the location shooting of Beat the Devil. Bogart was a mean drunk, and took the opportunity to needle on-set script doctor Truman Capote. He’d selected his victim unwisely, since Capote proved capable of throwing an effective punch.
All of which was just school kid scuffling compared to the extracurricular career of Lawrence Tierney. A freaking psycho.
Speaking of that fight, he and John Huston got into it after John didn’t like how he talked about Olivia de Havilland
There was an episode of “Seinfeld” where Lawrence Tierney played Elaine’s father. He was originally planned to be a semi-recurring character like Jerry and George’s parents, but while filming the episode he stole a kitchen knife out of the knife block in Jerry’s kitchen set and was terrorizing the cast and crew with it. Nobody wanted him back.
He was on Star Trek twice, too: Lawrence Tierney | Memory Alpha | Fandom
And yet, he kept getting work.
I don’t understand Hollywood.
In that you are not alone.
I’ve wondered if Stellan Skarsgard’s Baron Harkonnen in the recent Dune movies was inspired at all by Tierney. That’s who he reminded me of, anyway.
I have posted this before, but it does give the true flavor of Mr. Tierney.
TV star Joe E. Ross (Phil Silvers Show, Car 54 Where Are You?. It’s About Time) engendered many stories, all of which made him look like the most disgusting man in history. Here’s a bunch:
TV Urban Legends site has a great list… do not click on the link if you need to get things done in the next hour or two (same disclaimer as TVTropes).
One of my favorite recent stories (that I heard) regarding James Garner.
Gerald McRaney Shares a Great Story about ‘Rockford Files’ Star James Garner | The Rich Eisen Show
Wes Studi asking Daniel Day-Lewis for an autograph always makes me laugh, during the making of The Last of the Mohicans he asked Daniel Day-Lewis if he could have his signature…signed by his left foot!
Wes Studi got the autograph
Clever. I always loved Wes Studi in that movie - hands down, one of the scariest movie villains ever IMHO.
But also great at comedy. He’s very underrated.
Victor Mature once applied to join a country club. When told that the club did not admit actors, he replied, “I’m not an actor — and I’ve got 64 films to prove it!”
That might have been the Los Angeles Country Club, which refused membership to all show business people, any Jews, and any others deemed unrespectable (Hugh Hefner was thus denied)
The only movie person granted membership was Randolph Scott, due to his family connections to the Southern gentry. (LA’s 16th mayor, Cameron Erskine Thom, had been a Confederate officer and tried to keep the Mexican-American population to the absolute minimum. LA was largely a Sundown town until wartime industry made that impractical.)