One part of his legend was that he was gay and it was an open secret around town. While his career was never as threatened as an actor's would have been, he was still bound by his contract and its moral turpitude clauses. Many in those days married women but Cukor would have none of that. He was never very comfortable discussing his homosexuality but he never really particularly hid it either. Discretion was usually his answer to most issues. European gays visiting California usually stayed with Cukor and most of those he was closest with in the industry were gay.
Stepping just one foot inside his fabulous art deco mansion on Cordell Road in Beverly Hills (and my partner has done just that), one knew the owner was a gay man. It had that look. The art work was impressive but it was the pictures of coworkers and famous friends the world over that one found dazzling.
Part of the great Cukor legend is that he was a woman's director which, when decoded, meant that his stories were more about strong female characters. Cukor identified with women, certainly more than he did straight men. To say he was out of his element around hard-core straight men is an understatement. Many of his actress friends were lesbian and his parties that were gay-only were populated with many of the hot young gay actors of the day.
Legendary can also be applied to stories about him, the most famous of which concerns his dismissal from that little 1939 film.
He once said that he probably would have become an actor had he been better looking. In his youth and young adult years, his looks bothered him although not so much as he gathered fame. Still, beauty always impressed him. It could be glimpsed in his Romanesque pool and gardens, his home interior, the way he dressed, his manner and his films. Beauty was an obsession with him.
He was born in 1899 Manhattan to a father who worked in the district attorney's office. He always said he was completely bonkers over the Broadway stage and frequently cut school so he could attend as many plays as struck his considerable fancy.
As a child of seven, he took dance lessons, which he loved. It wasn't long before he took part in some recitals and also began appearing in several amateur plays. In his teen years he was a jack of all trades working at the Metropolitan Opera. As a young adult he managed stage productions at various venues, providing his first real taste of directing. Like all directors, he had a need to be the boss.
Then came opportunities to direct Broadway shows. For a number of years he alternated between doing that in the winter and doing regional stock in the summer. He belonged to a troupe that was as excited about the work as Cukor was. Up to the time of his last film, he never seemed to lose his enthusiasm.
As sound came to movies, doors were opened for a lot of people in various trades, including directors. Hollywood was looking for pedigrees and came after established Broadway folks and Cukor was among them. In 1928 he signed on with Paramount Pictures but left a few years later over credits/billing after he filed a lawsuit. He high-tailed it over to RKO where his old buddy from New York days, producer David O. Selznick, hired him.
He soon got a reputation for coaxing good performances out of temperamental actresses, chief among them Tallulah Bankhead and Jeanette MacDonald. There would be many more of them, the most famous of which was Katharine Hepburn. They would become lifelong friends and make a number of films together.
The first was A Bill of Divorcement (1932). It was her first film and he is credited with discovering her, although truthfully, if he hadn't, someone else would have. Then and always she was difficult, imperious and exacting but both agreed that his generally calm nature with her usually kept her histrionics at bay. He forgave her diva nature, he said, because she was wildly talented, generally right and terribly intelligent. John Barrymore played a man returning home from a long stay in a mental institution and to a daughter he hardly knows. The film attracted a great deal of attention but his next three got even more.
In addition to his aptitude for working with women, he was known for the elegant look of his projects, the sparkling dialogue and his ongoing quest for seeking good works, particularly those adapted from plays or classic novels. All of this was evident in Dinner at Eight (1933), to this day one of his signature pieces, a sublime piece of comedy along the lines of the more dramatic Grand Hotel. By now Cukor was happily installed at MGM, the studio that wanted to give films the same look that he did.
I don't know that there was much black comedy in 1933, if any, and the term was probably not used then, but Dinner at Eight is black comedy as I see it. Its attention is on various affluent dinner guests and their foibles. Though a large and talented cast, who would be surprised that it contains two powerhouse performances by actresses? Marie Dressler, a big, blustery bundle with a face that looked like a soccer game has just concluded on it, plays a lively retired actress and former lover of the married host. Her gift for comic timing is priceless. And Jean Harlow has arguably never given a better comedy performance than she did here as a trampy wife. Many consider it her best film.
Equally wonderful and immensely popular with the public was Little Women (1933) with Hepburn, Joan Bennett, Frances Dee and Jean Parker as the March sisters. Two years later he fulfilled a dream of making David Copperfield and it, too, was a top-grosser. The filming of the Dickens classic was helped immensely by Cukor's gentle steering of Freddie Bartholomew as the young David and W. C. Fields, in clearly his most disciplined performance, as Micawber.
Into every life some rain must fall and Cukor got soaked when Sylvia Scarlett came out in 1935. The result was some war hokum with Hepburn masquerading as a boy. If rumors of the actress' sexuality hadn't been bandied about Tinseltown already, it all certainly took a turn with this one. Cukor didn't get it quite right, nor did Hepburn, nor did costar Cary Grant. Ooops.
Sometime in the 1960s there was a Cukor retrospective I attended over several nights and one of the films presented was Romeo and Juliet which was released in 1936. While faithful to Shakespeare's writing, I presume, it featured the standard wan Leslie Howard performance along with a bland Norma Shearer and of course both of them were far too old. Ditto John Barrymore as Mercutio and Basil Rathbone as Tybalt. I thought the film was a super miss because of the cast.
I have never been particularly fond of Camille (1936) but I would certainly not deny its place in the Cukor canon. The story of a Parisian courtesan and her love triangle, it provided Greta Garbo with her most famous role and cemented with the public that this was the go-to director for romantic dramas. It also provided a young and impossibly handsome Robert Taylor with his ticket to stardom. He and Cukor would work together several times and of all the actors the director worked with, Taylor was his favorite. I have no doubt.
Two gay people being in the public glare and desperately wanting to remain anonymous while living as openly as possible probably sums up the long friendship of Garbo and Cukor. Both were rather shy, as well, but they grew close enough to finish one another's sentences.
 |
| With his muse and good friend, the great Kate |
Cukor, Hepburn and Grant were destined to reteam for Holiday (1938), another of those smart-alecky comedies that were such fun to watch. It was based on Philip Barry's play and the next time the four were connected would be for The Philadelphia Story. Holiday is rather like a comedy version of The Razor's Edge... a man has reservations about marrying his wealthy fiancée because he wants to instead discover the meaning of life. I thought it was a delicious look at the lives and mores of the filthy rich with Hepburn, Grant and the entire cast doing just what the master required.
Old friend Selznick hired him to direct Gone With the Wind (1939) before the novel had even been published. Cukor worked on it in one capacity or another before filming began and once it did, Cukor didn't last long. He was fired and replaced by Victor Fleming.
There have been so many stories spun over the years as to why Cukor was let go. One that has been pushed a great deal is that he and Selznick quarreled over the look, feel and projection the film was taking. Cukor apparently had even volunteered that maybe he wasn't the right one for it. Producer Selznick usually became too involved in his own films and didn't let many directors do their jobs and Cukor rebelled, some say. Cukor could be cranky but he was never known to be particularly rebellious.
Another version, in fact two other versions, both involve Clark Gable. One involves gay. It's been said that Cukor knew of early Gable indiscretions in his bid for stardom and that Gable didn't like working with him as a result of it, even though they had worked together briefly in 1934 on Manhattan Melodrama.
The other rumor is that Gable thought Cukor, the already-famous woman's director, was throwing the picture to Vivien Leigh. Though her part of Scarlett O'Hara is obviously the lead and Gable certainly knew it, he was still uncomfortable and irritable about it. Cukor worked more closely with Leigh and Olivia de Havilland (including at his home and on days off). He didn't give that kind of attention to Gable, causing the actor's already bubbling insecurities to overflow and he made it known that he wanted someone else directing the picture. Leigh would always credit Cukor, rather than Fleming, for her superb work as Scarlett. To be fair, I expect this is regarded as Gable's best performance and Fleming undoubtedly deserves credit for that.
 |
| The Women with their director |
Cukor rarely spoke of his dismissal and appeared to not much care. It did leave him available to make The Women (1939), a catty, chatty piece about the lives of a number of interconnected females. Directing the likes of Shearer, his good friend Joan Crawford, Paulette Goddard, Rosalind Russell and Joan Fontaine was certainly right up the master's alley. It was a comic lark of a movie that was nominated for Oscar's best picture but lost to GWTW.
Old buddy Hepburn owned the rights to The Philadelphia Story (1940) and sold them to MGM with the provisos that she could select her leading men and that Cukor direct it. Of course he was the perfect choice. Grant joined them for their third outing together and James Stewart would join in and win his only Oscar for doing so.
Cukor got a little extra press coverage for being the last man to direct Garbo in a movie, Two-Faced Woman (1941). Garbo fans, of course, loved it because they salivated over anything she did. But she was only known as a dramatic actress but MGM was ready to change her image and this was a comedy. The generally poor press she got for it apparently hastened her exit from the film capital.
Cukor first worked with Spencer Tracy in 1943 when they teamed with Hepburn for Keeper of the Flame. The acting couple would make nine films together and Cukor would steer three of them, the other two being the comedy, Adam's Rib,1949, where married attorneys battle it out on opposing sides of the same case, and the sports comedy Pat and Mike in 1952. Director and actor would find two more to do sans Hepburn... the not-so-good Edward, My Son, in 1949, and The Actress (1953) which contains one of the great actor's best performances (and that's saying a mouthful).
In the hands of another director, Gaslight (1944) might have been a routine story of a man trying to drive his wife crazy. With Cukor at the helm, this became a stylish, elegant mystery-drama, that not only feels decidedly noirish but is a film that seems more like something Hitchcock would direct. With his deft touch with actors in glaring display, he coaxed Charles Boyer into giving the best performance of his career and Ingrid Bergman into her first Oscar. Joseph Cotten and Angela Lansbury (Oscar-nominated for her first film) fleshed out the two best supporting roles.
In the late 30s, Cukor formed a professional alliance and friendships with writer-director Garson Kanin and writer-actress Ruth Gordon, who several years later would marry. The trio would work on a number of films together that began with A Double Life (1947). It won Ronald Colman an Oscar for playing a high-strung actor whose performance as Othello is complicating his life.
Born Yesterday (1950) was a happy occasion for Cukor. He was reunited with Judy Holliday, a gifted comedienne he first worked with on Adam's Rib. Here she was repeating her famous, long-running Broadway role as not-as-dumb-as-she-acts Billie Dawn. Columbia studio chief Harry Cohn didn't want her but Cukor fought hard for her. She would become another performer to win an Oscar under Cukor's direction (although, to be fair, she knew Billie far better than he did).
He was as crazy about her as she was about him. She got him to laugh long and hard, to come out from behind his protective shield, to be silly and less starchy. He couldn't wait to work with her again and that happened in 1952 with one of his favorite films, The Marrying Kind. Written by pals Kanin and Gordon, it concerns a young New York couple involved in a tumultuous marriage. It provided some genuine laughs and a fair amount of heartbreak and pal Holliday sparkled in her departure from all-comedy.
 |
| Two Cukor favorites... Judy Holliday and Aldo Ray |
Another who sparkled was the actor who played her husband, Aldo Ray. He was one of the reasons Cukor liked making this film and I know how he felt. Ray was a fresh face, newly under contract to Columbia and had worked for Cukor earlier in Pat and Mike. At the time he was big, blond, hairy and handsome and had a dazzling foghorn voice that Cukor and lots of screaming fans were attracted to.
Cukor took it a step further (and before you do, consider whether you want to know more personal details). A little of the backstory
is that he was an inveterate party-giver. There was always a party going on with most of them, themed in some manner. Sunday afternoons were usually reserved for men only. Many guests swam and drank and gossiped but there were also lots of hookups at his parties. Cukor would often arrange for pretty young men to be there as party favors for his gay friends and sometimes for himself.
For most of his life, Cukor paid for most of the sex he had... for many years that was likely because he was fat and homely and was limited in his sexual function. We might call him a serviceman since he was limited to one function which he usually performed coldly, quickly and efficiently... no talking, no kissing, no foreplay, no reciprocation and then get out (or back to the party). He was never in a relationship of any substance and in a few ways was homophobic all his life.
If he made exceptions to his payment policy, it was rare but could include actors in his films, particularly new ones looking to establish a career. Aldo Ray was apparently one of those men, at least during the two times they worked together. Reportedly Cukor had it pretty bad for the hunky actor but these things do pass. It wasn't, apparently, about unwanted sexual advances or sexual blackmail... Ray was apparently only too happy to comply.
It Should Happen to You (1954) was Cukor's final film with Holliday but it was overall not a great experience for him. Kanin wrote the screenplay but he had come to dislike Holliday because of her many complaints although Cukor was still in her corner. It turned out to be a pleasant little comedy with a young Jack Lemmon on board. But Cukor came to loathe Harry Cohn whom he felt was more of an obstructionist that a supportive studio head.
Many people would consider A Star Is Born (1954) to be Cukor's greatest achievement and if some disagreed, all certainly agreed it was Judy Garland's greatest performance, with some calling her performance one of the greatest ever by anyone. Many were apoplectic that she lost the Oscar to Grace Kelly for her performance in The Country Girl.
While Cukor thought they all made a very good film, it was one of his most sour working experiences ever. Some of it had to do with more studio head meddling (this time Jack Warner) who edited it without Cukor's approval and ruined the film, as far as its director was concerned. (It was not fully restored until years later.) Other than Warner's tinkering, Cukor's biggest headache, of course, was Garland whom he regarded as too over the top in temperament, emotions and unreliability. He was incensed with her drug use and walking out when she got angry or frustrated. He came to intensely dislike her and proclaimed he would never work with her again.
Bhowani Junction (1956) is one of those epic potboilers so popular in the 50s that brushed dramatic love stories into the fabric of a history lesson. It is 1947 and the Brits are preparing to leave India amidst much turmoil. Ava Gardner, looking exotically beautifully, plays a half-caste with neither the British nor the Indian people embracing her, and who is involved with two soldiers, Stewart Granger and Bill Travers. It seemed not to be the type of film Cukor would direct (he was apolitical) but he was offered a lot of money and had known Gardner around MGM for years. She was another of those insecure and temperamental actresses but perhaps Cukor tried harder with her than he did with Garland because he had her eating out of his hand.
Gene Kelly was as big a party-giver as Cukor and they lived near one another and often attended one another's soirees. I wonder if Kelly ever attended Cukor's all-boy parties. They always got along well, both also being MGM employees, until they signed on for Les Girls (1957).
It is the story of three ex-roommates, all showgirls, who end up in a vicious lawsuit when one writes a memoir and the others sue for libel. In a Rashomon style, they all have different versions of how the story came about. It was a beautiful film to gaze upon (thank you, George) and contained a superior comic performance from (died too young) Kay Kendall and expert dancing of Mitzi Gaynor. I tolerated Finnish ballerina, Taina Elg, trying a little too desperately to be a competent actress. Kelly is their director and was romantically involved with each character.
Cukor fussed because he thought Gaynor was too second-string and didn't want her. He objected to her loudly and often (now who's being temperamental?) but was ultimately over-ruled. So he started the film in a bad mood that was likely originated by the fact that he had just been fired from directing a Broadway production. A Star Is Born, oddly, is the only musical he'd directed and Kelly (a noted director and choreographer in addition to tapping it out) thought his neighbor was the wrong guy for the job.
I liked Les Girls (cute title but did America understand it?) but only in pieces. Ultimately there was something a bit unsatisfying about how it all played out and I've never been quite sure what that was.
I was totally fascinated with Wild Is the Wind (1957), at its core just a little black and white art house type of film but certainly masquerading as a big Hollywood production. The story concerns a widowed Nevadan sheep farmer who marries his Italian sister-in-law, a woman he's never met. She joins him in a most unhappy life which picks up some for her when she takes up with a horny worker on their farm. When the people filling those roles are Anna Magnani, Anthony Quinn and Anthony Franciosa, there's no doubt this was a combustible set.
Magnani and Quinn hated one another. By all accounts she was rude, contemptuous, vindictive and sour 24/7. She brought all her Italian neorealism to the Nevada desert, in only her second American film (although she won an Oscar for the first), for all to bear, and Quinn couldn't. He'd been around Hollywood for ages, a veteran of scores of films, but he had just been elevated to leading man status, so he thought he, too, was a big deal.
As for Franciosa, Italian-American meet Italian-Italian. In keeping with the script, he and Magnani became involved in a torrid affair, both before and after his marriage to Shelley Winters. Magnani certainly played the two Anthonys against one another. Cukor was happy when it was all over. It was likely all a little too pagan for his refined tastes.
He had replaced John Sturges as director on Wild Is the Wind and he had done that on a number of films. It's surprising he wasn't first choice. He also filled in for a number of directors (taking no credit) when they got sick or left the production early and sometimes he directed just a scene or two.
On the Franz Liszt biography, Song Without End (1960), he replaced Charles Vidor who died after just three weeks of filming. Cukor stepped in quickly because it's just what he did. One wonders whether a John Huston or John Ford did that. A cheerful note is that the gentlemanly Cukor insisted that Vidor get sole credit for the film.
Song Without End I also quite liked... it was, of course, very beautiful and especially opulent. Cukor's touch was everywhere. It was not an especially popular film. It dragged on some and was not always clear in its exposition. However, it introduced me to Capucine and for that I will always be happy. Cukor enjoyed an especially pleasant experience working with her and Dirk Bogarde... birds of a feather boa.
That couldn't be said for his experience of working with Marilyn Monroe and it happened twice. The first time came with
Let's Make Love (1960), a fairly dreadful piece with French heartthrob, Yves Montand, whose allure always escaped me. It didn't escape Monroe and their adulterous affair (she was married to playwright Arthur Miller and actress Simone Signoret was married to Montand) was daily gossip worldwide. About Monroe, Cukor said that he liked her but considered her to be absolutely mad.
The Chapman Report (1962) is another rare departure for Cukor and he was a bit out of his element with a plot that dealt with female sexuality. He wasn't especially well-versed in male sexuality, let alone female. There was a tawdry feel to the story about females telling their sexual life stories, a la the famous Kinsey Report. The finished product didn't seem to shine a light on his usual rapport with actresses. He had worked with Shelley Winters in A Double Life but never with Claire Bloom, Jane Fonda or Glynis Johns and it showed. Bloom was arguably the best as a nympho and Fonda the worst as the frigid one. It wasn't great but it had an appeal that was like peeking in windows. I mean I hear tell.
No matter what the headlines were for Monroe when she last worked with Cukor, they paled in comparison to her work on Something's Got to Give (1962) because it was her uncompleted last film due to her untimely death.
We know I love musicals but, sorry George, I just never much cottoned to My Fair Lady (1964). And while I'm glad he won his only Oscar for directing it, he's done better work. Much better. I remember it as an elephantine production with a very small story. I only liked a couple of songs. It would have been better with Julie Andrews (sorry Audrey... I feel terrible). It did have, when it needed to, a gorgeous look and aside from Cukor's own good taste, there was Cecil Beaton who designed just about everything we see. Here's a good place to haul out one of my favorite axioms... Mary, it takes a fairy to make something pretty. (Thank you, Mart Crowley.)
Cukor was getting older. Who wasn't? He always had something going on somewhere with a film but it wasn't quite the fun it once was. MFL the Behemoth and the bs at Warner Bros. just wore him out. Many of his friends had died and many more would before he did, but most upsetting for him was Spencer Tracy's death in 1966, mere weeks after he finished filming Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?
Cukor and Tracy were good buddies. When Tracy was desperately in need of a place to live in the 1950s, Cukor offered him a roomy guest cottage on his property, far away (and even on another street) from the main house. He could not only have privacy but he would be far enough away to not particularly even know about those all-boy gatherings. It's not likely he attended them although he knew they generally went on and he liked some of the gossip. Hepburn lived on and off with him in that cottage for years. It's also where Tracy died.
Hepburn and Cukor were looking forward to doing Travels With My Aunt in 1972 but she ended up not doing it. If I remember correctly, she was, in fact, fired. Apparently Cukor lost much enthusiasm for the project afterwards. He was at least big enough to admit that Maggie Smith was simply enchanting as his friend's replacement. The title just about covers it... it was one zany adventure after another... but one with a dramatic plot twist at the end.
The worst movie Cukor ever made, hands down, is the Russian co-production, The Blue Bird (1976). I'd like to hear from the person who liked it. Gardner, Fonda, Elizabeth Taylor and Cicely Tyson couldn't save this mess... and neither could Cukor.
Thankfully, the man's illustrious career did not end with The Blue Bird. But it did end with Rich and Famous (1981). Wouldn't you know it was about women? Cukor may have started with folks like Hepburn and Garbo... well, he moved with the times and finished it with Jacqueline Bisset and Candice Bergen... and that ain't bad. He had a few problems with co-producer Bisset but apparently handsome Matt Lattanzi caused heart palpitations.
It felt a great deal like a modern version of some great films from his past. More than anything it concerned female friendship but it managed to have something to say about jealousy, career v.s. personal life, marriage and infidelity, etc. Of course, it had something that Cukor knew a thing or two about... bitchiness, done with touches of drama and comedy.
He had gotten very tired in his last days and spent a lot of time in bed, although some of the faithful still came to visit. He and a caretaker watched The Graduate on the evening of January 24, 1983. At 10 o'clock, the great director died quietly of a heart attack. He was 83 years old.
Hollywood's Golden Era owes a great deal to George Cukor. He was considered an actor's director and so many shone brightly under his tutelage. He once said I choose my actors well and get to know the quirks of their personalities... and most of all, I share humor with them. Then I keep my eyes open when they rehearse and perform because you never know where the next stimulation comes from. Three men and two women won Oscars for work in his films. Additionally, so many of his glorious films were scrupulously crafted, distinguished by grace, style, sophistication and beauty. He knew everything about marrying comedy and drama. I have always been a huge fan.
No comments:
Post a Comment