Jeanne Eagels 1890 – 1929

 

If actors are born and not made, then Jeanne Eagels was living proof. She did Hamlet at 7, joined a traveling stock company at 12 and danced in repertory theater before she was 14. But Jeanne was dead before her 40 th birthday and there is still some mystery as to the real cause for her death.

Noel Coward once said of her: “Of all the actresses I have ever seen, there was no one quite like Jeanne Eagels.” She was born Amelia Jean Eagles on June 26 th, 1890 in Kansas City , Missouri (she would change the spelling later to look better on a marquee). Her family rarely had enough to feed all of the 8 children and so they had to go out to work early. Jeanne knew she wanted to act as soon as she set foot on a stage. That happened when she was 7 and played the grave digger in “Hamlet” in a school play. But she left school at 11, a year later joined the Dubinsky traveling stock company and before she was out of her teens had married their son, Morris.

It is rumored that Jeanne and Morris had a child but nothing positive has come from those stories and by 1911 Jeanne had left Morris, dyed her hair blonde and found her way to New York .

Jeanne worked her way up until her name was known on the Great White Way then left for Paris for professional study. She came back to take up the role of the prostitute-turned-faith healer in the road company of “The Outcast” with such success that she was asked to do the film version. Then in 1922, she gave Broadway a performance that has never been forgotten…her electrifying Sadie Thompson in Somerset Maugham’s “Rain”.

Jeanne in "Rain"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jeanne and O.P. Heggie in "The Letter"

But offstage, the strain was begining to show and Jeanne began using alcohol to relax after performances. After her marriage to football star-turned-stockbroker Ed Coy the drinking increased and soon she was self-medicating with chloral hydrate and heroin. They divorced in 1925 after she accused him of breaking her jaw. But by then she was skipping performances and dodging personal appearances and Actors Equity suspended her. In 1929 she made a screen comeback with a sensational performance in “The Letter” for Paramount and signed a contract for two more pictures. But after she finished the first, “Jealousy” she asked to get out of her contract and Paramount agreed.

Jeanne and Frederic March in "Jealousy".

 

 

In September, 1929 Jeanne had successful eye surgery for ulcers caused by sinusitis but two weeks later, she was rushed to a hospital where she suffered a convulsion and died. The death certificate listed the cause of death as a drug overdose. Did Jeanne have drinks after dinner and then self medicate one last time? Three drugs were supposedly found in her body …chloral hydrate, heroin and alcohol. But was it Jeanne who caused that overdose or, as many believed, the two doctors who treated her, each administering sedatives without consulting one another? It is widely suspected to be the latter.

Jeanne Eagels became the first to ever be nominated posthumously for a Best Actress Award for her role in “The Letter” (Mary Pickford won for “Coquette). In 1957 Kim Novak portrayed her in “The Jeanne Eagels Story”. Jeanne is buried in Forest Hill Calvary Cemetery in Kansas City , Missouri .

 

Her gravestone bears the original spelling "Eagles"

A little mouse told me….

 

Joan Crawford always disliked the movie “Rain” and the role of Sadie Thompson that she did on loan to United Artists in 1932. The ghost of Jeanne Eagels hung over the role and no one believed she could do it half as well. Even at the cast welcome dinner on Catalina Island where they were filming the picture, she was getting no respect. Walter Catlett, who was playing Quartermaster Bates in the picture and very drunk on bootleg whiskey, told her” Listen, fishcake, when Jeanne Eagels died, “Rain” died with her.” The film bombed and Joan was devastated. She would never talk about that movie even years later.

 

Joan Crawford as Sadie

 

Mary Pickford made “Violin Maker of Cremona” in 1910 when she was 18. One day, she decided to see the film in a local theater. She was still amazed at the large picture of herself gracing the outside entrance and proudly walked over to the ticket window and plunked down her dime. Waiting to be recognized, she was crestfallen when the man behind the window growled at her. “What’s your age, Goldilocks? You gotta be 16 to get in here!”. She argued that she was old enough but he turned a deaf ear. It seems Mary Pickford was old enough to make that movie, but not old enough to watch it.

Mary Pickfo

 

Frank Capra was so unsure of the final scene in ‘Meet John Doe” that he made four and sent them around the country to get audience reaction. The decision he made was based on one fan letter who signed himself....John Doe! It read “I have seen your film with many different endings…all bad!…The only thing that can keep John Doe from jumping to his death is the John Does themselves…if they ask him”. So that is just what Capra did. He called back the cast and shot ending #5! The people know best!

Gary Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck in Capra's "Meet John Doe"