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In the spotlight…..
Melvyn Douglas |
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In producer David Belasco’s office, a Broadway actress sat awaiting the last of the actors vying for male lead. She had already dismissed the rest of them as unsuitable knowing that this play depended heavily on the chemistry between the leading actors. “Tonight or Never” was the story of a great singer who couldn’t sing at the Met because her voice lacked “heart”. Then she met a man, fell in love, lost her virginity and gained her full voice. Only a special leading man could help her pull that off. Then he walked in “tall, broad-shouldered, exceedingly handsome with a cultured voice and a magnetic personality” and took her breath away. The play was a huge success and so was her leading man, Melvyn Douglas. Samuel Goldwyn bought the screen rights and gave Melvyn a 5-year contract. But the Broadway actress, Helen Gahagan won the biggest prize of all. She married him!
 "Tonight or Never" |
Melvin Edouard Hesselberg was born in Macon Georgia on April 5, 1901. He would later take Douglas as his surname (borrowed from his grandmother) to save wear and tear on marquees. His father, concert pianist Edouard Hesselberg, was a child prodigy in Riga, Russia playing his first concert at age 7 but, when he reached his teens, he was smuggled out of Russia to avoid mandatory service in the Czarist army. Melvyn’s mother, Lena was born in Kentucky to Scottish-Irish parents. A divorcee with a young son, Lena was teaching kindergarten in Denver when she met and married Hesselberg.
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Edouard’s teaching posts took him all over the country and even to Canada and Germany giving both Melvyn and his younger brother George the benefits of exceptional schooling. But Melvyn hated it. His friends always came from the other side of the tracks...the “have-nots” instead of the wealthier kids in school. He was never close to his parents. Edouard had a quick temper and a firm belief that sparing the rod spoiled the child. Even the slightest lapse in good behavior brought on a beating. Lena, on the other hand, espoused many evangelical causes and. when she found time, felt nightly readings of the Bible was the answer to childish pranks. She tried on several religions but finally settled on becoming a Christian Scientist. Lena always referred to her husband as a “foreigner” when asked about his religious beliefs and it wasn’t until years later when Melvin was in his teens that he learned from a favorite aunt about his Jewish heritage.
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While the family was living for a time in Toronto, Melvyn ran away from home to join the army but his parents found him and took him back home. When they moved to Nebraska, Melvyn enlisted again and this time he succeeded only to find the war ended before it was time to go overseas. By the time he returned home (now Chicago) his parents were failing financially and the young boy who never finished high school had to give up his dreams of college to support the family.
He sold hats at Marshall Field’s (later acquired by Macy’s) and began making friends with people in the arts, one of them theater director William Owen. Melvyn became Owens’ assistant and learned acting by the apprenticeship method. In his spare time, he sought out intellectually stimulating people to talk with and literally got his education in a kind of apprentice method, too. Since most of these new-found friends were liberal thinkers, they cemented Melvyn’s already formed convictions. He made his stage debut in Chicago in 1919 and got his experience on the stock circuit. He also met and married Rosalind Hightower and they had a son, Gregory in 1920. When the marriage broke-up, Melvyn gave his meager savings to his parents and sailed for France “to study French” and didn’t return until 1925.
 The bride! |
In 1928 he made his Broadway debut playing a gangster in “A Free Soul” (a role later played by Clark Gable in the 1931 film). Other roles followed but he remained a virtual unknown until his breakthrough role in David Belasco’s “Tonight or Never” in 1930. That show ran for 232 performances from November 18, 1930 until January 1931. But on Melvyn’s 30th birthday, Sunday, April 5, 1930 Helen Gahagan and Melvyn Douglas were married in her home before leaving for the evening performance. The audience, aware of their marriage, went wild during the love scene.
 Melvyn and Helen sail around the world in 1932 |
The move to California was traumatic for Melvyn and Helen who were both emotionally tied to the Broadway stage. Helen was unhappy with the length of Melvyn’s contract with Goldwyn but realized he still had support his parents and Gregory. It also meant separations while Helen pursued her career even though she now chose plays done in San Francisco over New York. Melvyn found out that his contract also stipulated he could be loaned out to other studios sometimes for less than prestigious films. By 1932 with 7 films on his resume, he asked Goldwyn to be let out of his contract and was surprised when Sam agreed….with the stipulation that when he came back to films, Goldwyn had first option. The exhausted Douglas duo took off on a trip around the world that lasted nine months until it was interrupted by Melvyn’s bout with malaria and Helen’s pregnancy.
 Melvyn, Peter and Mary Helen. |
A son, Gahagan Douglas was born in October, 1933 but didn’t get his first name Peter until he was 16 months old because his parents couldn’t decide on one. He was also about to be very pampered because both parents refused to spank him and when he did anything naughty, it was his parents who cried thinking they were at fault. Melvyn left for New York after the baby was born and began the “gypsy” cycle that would define his career….New York when there were good roles to play and Hollywood when the movie offerings were to his liking.
 The Nazi Boycott Petition. |
In 1935, despite their nomad existence, Melvyn and Helen decided to build a permanent home in California on 3 acres in the hills above the Hollywood Bowl. A daughter, Mary Helen, came along in August, 1938. But outside their private lives, the world was changing. The war in Europe was knocking on the door. Many in Hollywood were joining one political group or another. In 1939 soon after the Munich Pact, Melvyn was one of a group of industry people who signed a petition to boycott goods from Nazi Germany. It was the beginning of the political activities that would later propel Helen into a new career but seriously damage Melvyn’s ability to get work in Hollywood.
 A letter to a soldier |
In 1942 Melvyn went to Washington as the Director of the Arts Council of the Office of Civilian Defense. The next year on the 1st anniversary of Pearl Harbor, he enlisted in the army. While he was gone, Helen was elected to Congress. A seat she would hold for three terms. But another crisis was on the horizon. By the time Melvyn mustered out in late 1945, the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was already making Hollywood see “red”. By 1950 when Helen ran for a seat in the Senate against Richard Nixon, the California republican called her a “pinko” (soft on Communism) telling his audiences “she is pink right down to her underwear”. Helen was defeated but not before she gave Nixon a nickname that stuck….”Tricky Dick”.
 "The Best Man" 1960 |
While Melvyn was never included on the “infamous blacklist” that scourged so many of his peers, he was “graylisted” along with actors like Henry Fonda, Edward G. Robinson, Albert Dekker and many others who never knew why the phone never rang anymore and the studios gave them little or no work at all. Their sin was being “liberal” in a town where that was lately synonymous with “communist”. The famous actor who liberated Irene Dunne’s body and spirit in “Theodora Goes Wild” (1936) and made Garbo laugh in “Ninotchka” (1942) was now persona non grata in Hollywood. So he went back to Broadway for almost a decade and won a Tony Award in 1960 for playing the leading role as a presidential hopeful in “The Best Man”.
 "Hud" 1963 |
With the election of President John F. Kennedy the black and gray lists faded. Helen Gahagan Douglas became U.S. Treasurer and Melvyn went back to work becoming one of the finest character actors of the era. His years in exile didn’t tarnish his luster. In 1963 Melvyn won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for “Hud”, in 1967 the Best Actor Emmy for his performance in the CBS Playhouse movie “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”, and in 1979 another BSA Oscar for “Being There”.
Helen Gahagan Douglas died on June 28, 1980 after a long bout with cancer. Melvyn followed her a year later in New York City. His body was cremated and the ashes given to his family in Vermont.
