Most of the studio heads were not very nice people. Some had an artistic gene but most didn't. They had a business sense, an untethered ambition and an obvious ruthlessness. Some lied about their unsavory side, some masked it with crying crocodile tears, some thought they were simply the head of a wonderful family. Harry Cohn was the worst kind and to make matters worse, he reveled in his debauchery. He was known far and wide as King Cohn and expelling one from his once-grubby little kingdom gave him immense pleasure.
He was foul-mouthed, crude and uneducated. He kept a framed photograph of Benito Mussolini in his office. Power meant everything to him. To punctuate that, he walked around with a riding crop and would whack it on his desk to make a point. His nature was to belittle and he needed to put all people in their places. His abrasiveness took new employees' breath away but when his general mean-spiritedness got beyond the studio gates, some actors refused to work for him, even when their home studios wanted to loan them out to Columbia. Many times a troublesome actor would be loaned to Columbia as punishment.
 |
| Harry Cohn |
It took awhile for industry leaders to take Columbia seriously. It took years for it to be one of the Big 5. It was, in fact, located in Hollywood on what was called Gower Gulch, just off Sunset Blvd. The area became known as Poverty Row because of a series of dirty, dilapidated buildings, housing slipshod producers, agents and go-getters who hoped to make a killing in the movie business by putting out tacky products. Many never made it but Harry was convinced he had what it took to be the exception.
Before Hollywood there was New York where Harry joined his brother Jack in the entertainment business, which consisted of a music publishing and nickelodeons. At the dawning of the 1920's Harry and Jack and a friend, Joe Brandt, started up a film-producing business which they christened CBC Film Sales. The specialty was producing shorts. After a brief time, Harry decided to leave Jack and Joe in New York and start a west coast chapter of the business.
Harry began producing two-reelers (more shorts) and had much success. He got the bright idea that there would be far more money (and prestige) in making feature-length movies. By the time he changed the company name to Columbia Pictures in 1924, he had made some 10 features, all of which made money. The following year the company moved to a ritzier location on Sunset. Soon, after a lifetime of fighting, it was decided Jack would handle the money and other such matters in New York and Harry would handle the west coast operations. Brandt, who couldn't handle either brother, was bought out.
What really put Columbia on the map was director Frank Capra. He became disgruntled working for the Mack Sennett studios and thought Columbia was the answer. He'd already heard unpleasant things about Cohn, especially how miserly and controlling he was, but was sure he could overcome. To Cohn's credit he usually managed to stay out of Capra's way. Capra continually harangued Cohn about better scripts and larger budgets.
 |
| Frank Capra |
Frank Capra knew how to make a great movie. Then and today many of his works are considered classics. He specialized in stories of the everyday Joe, ordinary people living in extraordinary circumstances. Capra looked at the current social condition and let loose (in writing and directing) with his populist, humanist ideas. His stories could be sad, they could be very funny and there was always hope lurking in there somewhere.
The public, critics and Cohn were quite taken with Ladies of Leisure, The Miracle Woman, Platinum Blonde, Forbidden, Lady for a Day and many others. It wasn't until 1934 and a silly little romantic comedy that everyone wanted to pass on called It Happened One Night that put Capra and especially Columbia on the map.
Clark Gable (from MGM) and Claudette Colbert (from Paramount) came kicking and screaming all the way. But when the Oscars were handed out and Capra, Gable, Colbert and the film all won, it was a first for all such categories to win for a single film. History was made.
Capra would go on to make Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Lost Horizon, You Can't Take It with You and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington all at Columbia in the late 30's. Yes, the studio owes Capra an enormous debt of gratitude.
It could be said that It Happened One Night launched the screwball comedy. While all studios made them, Columbia was certainly a leader in the genre with such films as Twentieth Century, Theodora Goes Wild, The Awful Truth and Holiday.
Columbia's small roster of big stars in the 1930s included Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Rosalind Russell, Ann Sothern, Jean Harlow and cowboy Charles Starrett. The Three Stooges were Columbia employees throughout the decade and their 190 shorts were extremely popular.
In the early 30's Columbia distributed Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse cartoons. The studio also established Screen Gems which, among other things, had its own cartoons. In 1937 it got into the serial business with such entries as The Shadow, Terry and the Pirates, Captain Midnight, Batman and Superman. It also produced the very popular Screen Snapshots which showcased stars at home. The public lapped up that one. Boston Blackie, Ellery Queen and Blondie were three popular, long-running Columbia film series.
Cohn was the Harvey Weinstein of his day, about that there is no doubt. It's been stated that he slept with most actresses on his payroll. Jean Arthur said she never did but added that she left Columbia because she was tired of warding off his advances. Starlets who rebuffed him or who weren't good were gone that very day. More established B actresses had to sometimes sleep with him ahead of every job offer. Cohn's great pleasure in firing anyone on his staff was to do so on Christmas Eve.
Some of Columbia's good films of the 1940's are His Girl Friday, Arizona, Adam Had Four Sons, Penny Serenade, Here Comes Mr. Jordan, A Song to Remember, The Jolson Story, Johnny O'Clock, It Had to be You, The Lady from Shanghai, The Dark Past, Knock on Any Door, The Walking Hills and the Oscar-winning best picture, All the King's Men.
In 1948, a government anti-trust decision forced movie studios to divest themselves of their theater chains. It turned out to be a boon for Columbia because it didn't have its own theater chain so it suffered no financial losses while other studios did. Finally, Columbia could compete with the big boys and it replaced RKO as one of the Big Five.
Columbia never had the glittering array of contract players that MGM, 20th Century Fox, Paramount or Warner Bros. did but over the years it contracted with such actors as Glenn Ford, William Holden, Evelyn Keyes, Randolph Scott, Jack Lemmon, Judy Holliday, Adele Jergens, Penny Singleton, Arthur Lake, Janet Blair, Larry Parks, Gene Autry, Lucille Ball, Barbara Hale, Cleo Moore
and Broderick Crawford. By the way, it's been said that Crawford patterned his Harry Brock in Born Yesterday after Cohn. Now that's scary.
The biggest star Cohn would ever have is unquestionably Rita Hayworth. She was his biggest challenge as well because he likely was in love with her and she steadfastly refuse to sleep with him. Furthermore, sometimes when he would come on to one of her sets, she would grunt some wounded displeasure at seeing him. He probably plotted killing her, much less just hating her, but she had an ace in the hole and she knew it. And he knew that she knew it. And she knew that he knew that she knew it. You see, Hayworth made money for Columbia like no other. So Cohn put up with her as best he could. But there would come a day.
Cohn knew that Hayworth was primarily a dancer who worked at Fox, frequently with her father as part of a troupe. When she came to Columbia, he completely made her over and once he did, his obsession with her grew and grew. He had her dressing room bugged and had her followed. Every time she married, more of his brain cells closed down. The fact that she was ruled by each of her husbands aggravated him all the more.
She was always rather laissez faire when it came to acting and her roles. If she didn't want to do something, she didn't do it. If she didn't need money at the moment, she didn't care whether she took a suspension. But Cohn cared and often capitulated and then was meaner to her than ever because he did. But he also rewarded her with wonderful projects.
In the early 40's, she did two films with Fred Astaire, You'll Never Get Rich and You Were Never Lovelier. Astaire said she made him look young and later claimed she was his favorite partner. (Sorry Ginger, who was actually Rita's cousin.) These films were followed up with Cover Girl and I must say I thought her dancing with Gene Kelly was one of the best dance pairings I've ever seen.
If this weren't enough, she was dazzling in the 1946 film noir, Gilda, and her life was never the same. The Queen of Columbia became the Queen of Hollywood.
Cohn was relieved when Hayworth divorced Orson Welles who was always telling Cohn how things would be. But then she started dating playboy-prince Aly Khan and Cohn went ballistic. He ordered her to stop seeing Khan because he didn't approve of interracial alliances and was certain the moviegoing public didn't either. When he threatened his cash cow, she walked out on Cohn, the studio, her contract and Hollywood, and married Khan in 1949.
Khan probably wed Gilda rather than Rita and by 1953 their rancorous marriage was over. When she came crawling back to Columbia, broke as can be, Cohn exacted his revenge by mistreating her more than he ever had. He put her into An Affair in Trinidad, a Gilda knockoff (which I liked), again with Glenn Ford. While she had successes with Miss Sadie Thompson, Pal Joey and Separate Tables, Hayworth looked older, drank heavily and was under the thumb of has-been husband #4, singer Dick Haymes. He frequently tangled with Cohn, much to Hayworth's detriment.
Still smarting from his turmoils with Hayworth, Cohn set out to replace her with a new sex goddess. This time he wanted a blonde. Cohn was also still smarting from not seeing Marilyn Monroe's potential. He found her to be neither beautiful nor sexy. You see, the thing is that Columbia had her under a six-month contract back in 1948. That same year she had a breakout role in Ladies of the Chorus, really, her first starring role. But Cohn let the contract expire and when Monroe signed on with 20th Century Fox and became the biggest movie star in the history of Hollywood, he was apoplectic.
One day a Columbia talent scout had another blonde Marilyn walk through Cohn's office doors and he about fell off his chair. He thought she was a bit chubby but knew they could correct that. He was stunned by what a beautiful face she had. Her last name was Novak. They changed her first name to Kim. If only she could act. Unfortunately her first three Columbia films (Pushover, Phffft and Five Against the House, proved she couldn't.
To a degree, Cohn didn't care. They would teach her everything she needed to know to become a top star. He would hover over her, never let her out of his sight. While he never obsessed over her as he had Hayworth, it appeared to many to be on the same level. He was not only determined to have a blonde superstar but Novak would be his revenge on Hayworth (who yawned).
Novak turned in good work in when she was loaned out to Otto Preminger for The Man with the Golden Arm and then did more star turns at her home studio in Picnic, The Eddy Duchin Story and Pal Joey. Not that she wasn't the occasional problem on these sets but most wags have said over the years that it was due to her immense insecurity. Cohn liked keeping her insecure, too, by reminding her what a lack of talent she had.
Pal Joey was an interesting experiment in that Cohn had both Novak and Hayworth cast in the female leads opposite Frank Sinatra. Cohn was often on Novak's sets and he was determined to watch his superstars film a dance number. There they are, he said, my first star and my last star. (Did he know something?) He wanted fireworks and was disappointed when they never materialized. The big joke on Cohn was that Hayworth and Novak actually liked one another and were comrades-in-arms.
Like it had been with Hayworth, Cohn was never able to bed Novak. He made her skin crawl and she kept him in a constant state of agitation. He didn't like that she complained too much but when she took her salary disputes to the press, he was livid.
He loaned her to Paramount to make Vertigo with Hitchcock who was in a pinch after Vera Miles dropped out. Perhaps no one knew at the time that this film would provide Novak with the best (and most complex) role of her career. Cohn had ambivalent feelings because it was not a Columbia project.
Then all hell broke loose. Novak began seeing Sammy Davis Jr. and although both claimed to be just friends, the truth is they fell madly in love. Cohn went into overdrive. People were concerned about his health. He became obsessed, had her followed and was rightly concerned in 1957 that his commodity was dating a black man. Cohn got the mob involved and Davis was told to marry a black woman right away or else.
He did just that. But the stress was too much for Cohn and within a month or so of the Novak-Davis brouhaha, he died of a heart attack at the age of 66. Cohn's widow, who would go on to marry actor Laurence Harvey, blamed Novak's behavior for her husband's death. If the actress unwittingly helped finish him off, few were unhappy about it.
Cohn's funeral was on the Columbia lot. More than 2,000 people attended which prompted comedian Red Skelton to quip... like Harry always said, give the public something they want to see and they will come out for it.
Columbia made some truly wonderful films in the 1950's. Consider In a Lonely Place, From Here to Eternity (won Oscar), The Big Heat, The Wild One, The Caine Mutiny, On the Waterfront (won Oscar), The Long Gray Line, The Harder They Fall, 3:10 to Yuma, The Bridge on the River Kwai (won Oscar), Bonjour Tristesse, Bell, Book and Candle, Porgy and Bess, Anatomy of a Murder and Suddenly Last Summer. Randolph Scott's popular B westerns were filmed at Columbia and Humphrey Bogart brought his Santana Productions to the studio.
One thing Cohn could always be proud of is that year after year Columbia under his reign showed a profit. That could not always be said for future administrations.
It's been quite a wild ride since Cohn passed away and the studio was no longer the family corporation. By 1966 Columbia had so many box office failures that there were takeover rumors. Bankruptcy rumors swirled in the early 70's, the Sunset studios were sold and a new management team brought in. Columbia and Warner Bros. formed a partnership called The Burbank Studios and Columbia relocated to the WB lot.
In the mid 70's the studio revamped its music and television divisions. In 1978 the studio suffered through news stories that
studio head David Begelman had embezzled money. Actor Cliff Robertson brought the story to international attention.
From 1981 to the present, owners of the studio were Coca-Cola, then Tri-Star owned the entertainment division and finally the whole shebang was owned by Sony which continues to this day.
Whenever I saw that torch-bearing lady come up on the screen, I was pretty happy. Cohn was a monster and yet I have to credit him with having a good business sense and moving his studio forward. I loved Capra movies and Rita Hayworth and Kim Novak always got my attention.
Next posting:
Good 50's movies
(one mentioned here)
No comments:
Post a Comment