The Reader's Page

Arabella Speaks out..

The Lion Is Dead…

…...MGM is gone and the roar is no more despite.. Sony’s protests to the contrary. It has been slowly dying for over 50 years!

The death rattle for Leo began in the 1950s; a faint murmur perceptible only to a few…some of its brightest stars felt the studio slipping away and left MGM before the studio left them. Others were lost in the cost-cutting of Nicholas Schenck, MGM’s principal stockholder in 1950 and went off to pursue their careers elsewhere. Gable left and so did Greer Garson. Judy Garland was released from her contract when she bowed out of “Annie Get Your Gun”. Dore Schary was brought in to tighten the reins and add realistic, rugged and more gritty films to Louis B. Mayer’s “big, beautiful” musicals and epics that were successful but caused costly budget overruns. Mayer resigned in protest in 1951

The HUAC (House Un-American Activities Committee) was nipping at the heels of the industry at the time claming (but never quite proving) that the studios were a hotbed of communist radicals that threatened the very fabric of American life. Many talented actors, directors, and scriptwriters were put out of work or forced to work under assumed names.

Carl Foreman, actor/director/screenwriter 1914-1984  "Bridge on the River Kwai"

Dalton Trumbo, screenwriter/novelist   1905-1976        "The Brave One" (1956)

Ring Lardner, Jr., screenwriter     1915-2000     "Woman of the Year"       "M.A.S.H."

By the end of the 1960s, Movies were being made on locations outside the USA and local employees were being let go. In 1969, a takeover bid put the MGM studios in the hands of financier Kirk Kerkorian who had no background in filmmaking. Kerkorian assigned the running of the studio to James T. Aubrey, former president of CBS and father of actress Skye Aubrey. But Aubrey was no Louis B. Mayer and the slide downward continued.

 

Kirk Kerkorian

James T. Aubrey

In May 1970, MGM had an auction to sell of most of its props, costumes, and set furnishings. It was called the largest rummage sale in history. Many of its famous alumni came out to redeem articles from their films, items that were woven into the tapestry of their lives. After that, it was the famous “back lots”, home to the classic films of yesteryear and now just high priced real estate for land developers.

By the 1980s MGM was renting out studio facilities for independent production companies acting as a distributor in most cases and in 1981, Kerkorian merged the studio with his acquisition United Artists. As MGM-UA it was then sold to Ted Turner who kept it only 74 days and then sold UA and the MGM trademark back to Kerkorian. Ted sold the MGM lot to Lorimar who then sold it to Warner Brothers and they sold it off to Columbia Studios, a round robin that sealed the studio’s fate. It would never again become the sum total of its parts.

In 1997 MGM was sold back to Kerkorian and had a few movie successes (including the later James Bond films) and made money by selling its library of films to home video. But, on September 13, 2004 Sony made an offer Kerkorian couldn’t refuse and MGM fell to the $5 billion bid. It was the last independent major US studio to be sold. Only Dreamworks remains a power unto it’s own as a truly major independent studio.

Yes, the mighty lion is dead and buried with it is the last vestige of film’s golden age.

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A little mouse told me...

. On the “Gunga Din” set in 1939, Cary Grant cautioned cast mate Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. against doing a scheduled scene. Doug was supposed to pick up one of the “Arabs” and throw him from the rooftop. But Cary told him ”You really shouldn’t do this. You might kill him and ruin your image. And you know your father would have never done it”. Taking his friend’s advice, Doug bowed out of the scene. Cary promptly rushed to the director and offered to do the scene himself, wisely realizing it was probably the best scene in the picture. He was right!

. Breaking up is hard to do? Apparently not where a Hollywood divorce is concerned. In 1932, there were 102 divorces in Hollywood. Here are just a few of the reasons given for “irreconciliable differences”…

Mary Poulson wanted a divorce from actor Bull Montana because he made faces at her.

Agnes Miller divorced actor Tim McCoy because he had “gone Hollywood”.

Actress Bobbe Arnst could no longer stayed married to actor/swimmer Johnny Weissmuller because he let his brother live with them.

And

Actress Vivian Duncan was splitting from actor Nils Asther because he talked to his mother in Swedish!

 

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Ask Arabella...

 

From Jane Marciak in Portland, Oregon…. “What can you tell me about Anthony Steel these days? He made the tabloids a lot in the 1950s when I was in high school. He was married to Anita Ekberg and I had a big crush on him.”

Unfortunately, Jane, that marriage did nothing to further Tony’s career and even though it lasted only 3 years, the bad press lasted even longer. Born Anthony Maitland-Steel in Cumberland, England, Tony was a career military officer with a command of 3 European languages (he seldom needed dubbing!) and left the army as a major after WWII, only accidentally getting into acting. He felt his first really important role was as John in “The Wooden Horse” (1950). He married Ekberg in 1956 and the marathon was on! Art Buchwald wrote an entire column on their spats and the brawls Tony got into over the blonde bombshell titled “Bodyguard Husband”. After they divorced in 1959, Steel lived and worked primarily in Europe with an apartment in London and a house in the Austrian Alps. He also married again in 1964. Sadly, he passed away on March 21 st, 2001 at the age of 80. P.S. He was still gorgeous with that beautiful head of wavy silver hair! Arabella

From Donna T., Beechview, Pittsburgh, PA. “We just lost a favorite actor from my hometown, Frank Gorshin. There is another hometown actor, Arthur Kennedy, who died a few years ago. I read that he was blind before he died. What happened?

First of all, Donna, Arthur Kennedy wasn’t born in your hometown but did go to college there. He was born in Worchester, Massachusetts but after high school there, studied drama at Carnegie Tech (now Carnegie Mellon) in Pittsburgh until 1936. Born John Arthur Kennedy, this actor had a very distinguished career on both stage and screen but suffered tragedy in his personal life. His son had to be institutionalized for a mental disorder. He and his wife, Mary also had a daughter, Laurie. Mary died in 1975. As for blindness, I do remember that Arthur had cornea transplants in the 1970s but, to my knowledge, never actually lost his sight. He worked continuously until he passed away from a brain tumor on January 5 th, 1990 at the age of 75. Arabella