and a strong constitution. She was born into a wealthy Texas family and it always showed. She had that air of aristocracy... she never left home without it. She also used it to great advantage in most of her film roles but I suspect she lost a few because of it, too.
There was never such a thing as a Martha Hyer movie. Not really. Precious few would have said I'm going to Martha's new film. I don't think she was ever top-billed and often she was the second female lead. I can think of at least a half dozen films where she was the girlfriend of the leading man when the film started and supplanted by someone a little warmer (and generally brunette... since Hyer was a blonde) by the end.
She did usually manage to have a few nasty tongue-lashing with the leading man, followed by a little pouting and then chants of needing space. She usually came back because she hadn't remembered to include horniness in the equation. But boy oh boy could she annihilate. When she occasionally got slapped for her imperiousness, I smiled. (Ok, hold on now...I've gone too far and
I'll get help.)
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| Before Clairol |
To see Hyer at her best, catch her doing battle with Laurence Harvey in 1962's A Girl Named Tamiko. I dearly loved ol' Larry but c'mon now, talk about an imperious pain in the ass. He had a lot of the high-brow notions she did and their sparring gives me the most satisfying smile... still. (Knowing I was going to mention this movie, I watched it again last night... so yes, still.)
She discovered movies very early in her life and knew then she wanted to be an actress. Born in 1924 Fort Worth, Texas, the middle of three daughters, she kept busy enjoying her many privileges. She determined that other than acting and college, she knew she would marry well or not at all. By her late teens she was quite the determined young woman in just about every area of her life.
In her late teens she attended Northwestern University and graduated with a degree in drama. She loved university life and being in a sorority was the berries. Patricia Neal was in the same sorority and they loved to talk about guys and being actresses. Neal preferred the stage but Hyer preferred movies because she was so photogenic. Their careers certainly took different paths.
Hyer then headed west to enroll for more classes at the Pasadena Playhouse. You know the drill by now... an agent spotted her and sent her to RKO. From 1946 to 1954 Hyer appeared in 20 films. The better ones were the three at the beginning but they were dinky roles and she received no credit. She also made a slew of C westerns... horrible things, really, for which she was wholly unsuited... her high-toned breeding in gingham just didn't work. There was also an Abbott & Costello flick and--- gulp!-- a Francis the Talking Mule.
In 1954 Hyer divorced the young producer, C. Ray Stahl, after three years together. She would not marry again for 12 years and then she would marry a huge and very famous and very wealthy producer. In the years she was single, she was a dating phenom. She could be found on the arms of Gene Kelly, Phil Silvers (!), Don Taylor, Sydney Chaplin, Sinatra, Prince Aly Khan and JFK. Any time a beau was not available for a night out, gay actors George Nader and Grant Williams were willing substitutes.
Finally, in 1954 things picked up and remained so for 10 years. She dyed her naturally brown hair to a dazzling blonde (often in her signature French twist) and started to do films for which she was ideally suited. When they needed a socialite... call Hyer. Beautiful but snooty? Call Hyer. You need a strong woman to take on an equally strong man? Call Hyer. She did it so well.
Attention came her way when she made a good noir, Down Three Dark Streets (1954), in which she played a gangster's girlfriend. Broderick Crawford stars as an FBI agent who investigates his partner's murder by looking into the three cases he was working on.
Sabrina (1954) with Bogart, Hepburn and Holden was a big box office hit despite the fact that it was an unhappy set. Hyer, as Holden's wealthy fiancée, stayed out of the fray.
She signed a contract with Universal and began filming Battle Hymn in 1957. It's the real-life story of a former bomber pilot, now a minister, who feels the calling to join in the Korean War. Hyer has a most unusual role (for her), a wife with little to do. She usually had some criticism for her leading men and she found Rock Hudson to be shallow and self-centered.
She said one of the most conceited actors she ever worked with was Tony Curtis. They made the noirish Mister Cory (1957) about a low-rent guy who has a great need to be wealthy and run with the movers and shakers. He runs into rich sisters and instead of returning the love of the tomboyish one, he picks the ice queen who is so hot and cold with her affections that she keeps him hopping. Hyer and Curtis filled their roles well and I still find it a fun flick.
She didn't do a lot of comedies but the 1957 remake of My Man Godfrey was another good fit for Hyer as the sister of June Allyson who brings David Niven home from the docks (where she thinks he's a bum) and has her family hire him as a butler. Hyer is most contentious throughout the proceedings and her scenes with Allyson crackle with energy.
After appearing as Cary Grant's sister-in-law in Houseboat (1958), Hyer made the best film of her career and received an Oscar nomination for her efforts. Some Came Running (1958) features Sinatra as a war vet who returns to his Indiana hometown rather down and out. Written by James (From Here to Eternity) Jones and directed by Vincente Minnelli, Hyer plays a schoolteacher from a wealthy family who remains unconvinced of her love for him.
She was to have been one of five women whose lives and careers are examined in the superior soaper, The Best of Everything (1959). But two of them had most of their work edited out of the film and Hyer was one of them. She had a costarring role in the large cast that made up an Alaskan sudser, Ice Palace (1960). She said it didn't take as much effort to make the film as it did warding off Richard Burton's advances.
Hyer had met or seen producer Hal Wallis at a Hollywood party and some other industry event several years before 1960 when she ran into him at an airport and romance blossomed. Wallis was most famous as the producer of Casablanca but he developed an intense dislike for Jack Warner and left the studio.
He then headed across town to Paramount Studios where he stayed for a number of years. Cutting a sweet deal he steered his own production company within the studio and put a number of actors under personal contract such as Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Lizabeth Scott and others. He also gained more fame through his association with John Wayne, Elvis Presley and Martin and Lewis.
Directed by Jack (Dragnet) Webb is The Last Time I Saw Archie (1961) in which he costarred with Robert Mitchum as two guys having their adventures in flying school toward the end of WWII. Hyer and France Nuyen play their women in this irreverent outing which Mitchum called the favorite of his many films.
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| With Laurence Harvey & France Nuyen |
Hyer and Nuyen flew to Japan to make A Girl Named Tamiko in 1962. Laurence Harvey stars as a Eurasian photographer, stuck in Japan, who uses women to get American nationality. In addition to their hateful scenes together, Hyer loathed him in real life, too. In her bio she said it took a strong stomach to do love scenes with him. Well then, hey, she was better than I thought she was. I was quite drawn to this one.
I suppose I enjoyed Wives and Lovers (1963) more than some simply because of the cast. A comedy about sex, fidelity and the like comes to life as a poor writer suddenly sells a book and because rich and famous which messes with his marriage. Janet Leigh thinks her husband, Van Johnson, is having affairs with his publisher, Hyer, and a neighbor, Shelley Winters.
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| The cast of Wives and Lovers |
The Carpetbaggers (1964) is Hyer's final big-time glamour role. She let her hair down literally and figuratively to play a trashy call girl who becomes a movie star because a weird, filthy rich entrepreneur wants it to be so. George Peppard didn't quite nail it as the Howard Hughes-inspired character. Unfortunately for Hyer, there was another blonde on board, Carroll Baker, who stole all of Hyer's thunder. She thought Peppard rivaled Tony Curtis on conceit.
She had been making a good salary for some time but she was also a profligate spender with a particular emphasis on paintings and other art work. Her home reflected her fine tastes. She had been dating like a madwoman and was high on several doctors but never wanted Hollywood or especially the press to know anything about it. She was always very private. I've been having too much fun looking for a husband to worry about catching one, she purred. Her name would come up occasionally during her Aly Khan period as she attended balls and other galas throughout Europe. She sensed her career was going nowhere and she didn't care.
Hyer played an inconsequential role in the testosterone-filled western, The Sons of Katie Elder (1965). Of course it was produced by her husband. It is a rousing but routine John Wayne shoot-'em-up and Hyer is barely remembered.
In 1966 she married Wallis and they became one of Hollywood's happening couples and their Holmby Hills parties were the place to be. A lot of her old dates and playmates were invited. The nicest thing anyone could ever call her was Mrs. Hal Wallis. This is what she'd always wanted... to love a rich husband. Wallis, though super wealthy, kept a tight fist on the dough and it was up to Hyer to finance their lavish lifestyle.
She is one of many in The Chase (1966) which stars Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda and Robert Redford. A small southern town gets all excited because one of their own has escaped from prison and rumored to be heading to town. Hyer had some good scenes as a lush.
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| Hugging Clint Walker |
She'd come a long way from her glamour days to play Clint Walker's frontier wife in The Night of the Grizzly (1966) but she delivered. Of course I liked it because I always liked Clint Walker movies. Come on. She appeared more frequently on television and made a few movies which even she said I'd rather not discuss.
In 1975, under the pen name of Martin Julien, she wrote the screenplay for her husband's film, Rooster Cogburn. This should be a trivia question at the next Hollywood party. She accompanied her husband to the Oregon film set as she did on all of Wallis' films.
In 1980 she probably wanted to die from the unsavory press she got for her wild spending and more so that she was in debt to loan sharks for millions of dollars. She had to sell some of her paintings which just about did her in. Wallis did loosen his wallet and helped her out. Boy, was he a keeper.
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| Mr. and Mrs. Hal Wallis |
She became the Widow Wallis in 1986 when her husband died of complications from diabetes. It was a bad time for her. She hired movers and hightailed it to Santa Fe, New Mexico. She fell in love with the city a few years earlier when her husband's production of Red Sky at Morning filmed there.
She craved peace and tranquility and knew that Santa Fe provided plenty of that. She loved the Spanish influence, the city's great art
exhibits and its ties to religion. She had been raised in a religious family. While her father was a judge, he was passionate about teaching Sunday School. Hyer admitted that she'd lost touch with religion during her Hollywood years and she planned on Santa Fe helping her restore it.
Most Santa Fe residents had no idea who she was. She was just Mrs. Wallis who attended religious services and appeared occasionally at art galleries and liked to paint and hike. She was quiet and pretty much kept to herself. She mused when you live with fame as a day-to-day reality, the allure of privacy and anonymity is as strong as the desire for fame for those who never had it.
Martha Hyer, who always fascinated me in the movies, died in Santa Fe in 2014 at age 89 from old age.
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a movie biography
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