Mel Ferrer

It's kind of sad when a Hollywood actor-producer-writer-director's greatest claim to fame is the superstar actress he was married to.  He was the one with more fame when they met but neither of them was prepared for her blinding success.  He took over her career and her life.  She liked the protection, security and devotion.  But as he  protects her from the bad guys, who protects her from him?

I always liked him on the big screen.  I would forever associate him with the character he played the first time I saw him... non-chalant, perhaps even a bit distant, quick on the uptake, taking no prisoners when the situation warranted.  His looks were striking, too... tall and thin and his deep-set dark eyes, high cheekbones and chiseled jawline gave him a handsome enough look to make him movie star material.

I used to confuse Mel Ferrer with Jose Ferrer.  I know I'm not alone.  I imagined he was born into Spanish aristocracy on some gorgeous island somewhere.  I detected some high-mindedness.  He could be abrupt and dismissive and yet oh so charming.  He was a skilled swordsman and put it to good use in one of my favorite childhood adventure flicks.  I'd have to admit, however, that after he married her, I paid far more attention to his comings and goings.  That would have been bittersweet for him.

He was born in New Jersey which I admit took me back a little.  (I'll have to wear a full face mask when I next visit there.)  You've already gathered I had something more exotic in mind.  He drew a first breath in 1917 to a Cuban-born surgeon and a Manhattan socialite.  Okay, so I was wrong on the birthplace but opportunity for high-mindedness wasn't so far off.

Obviously he went to prep school and attended Princeton.  Two of his siblings were doctors and another wrote a religious column for a New York newspaper.  He knew early on that he wanted to be in theater and perhaps movies... he wasn't always so certain if he wanted to act or direct or maybe both.  By age 15 he was in summer stock doing everything that was asked of him.

While at Princeton he met the woman who would become his first (and third) wife.. the first time he was 20 years old.  He got a couple of chorus boy gigs on Broadway and he wrote a children's book, Tito's Hats, while working as an editor at a small Vermont newspaper.  After a turn as a radio DJ, he became a producer-director on some top shows.  

In 1939 he divorced his first wife after two years.  He married his second wife in 1940, had a child with her and they were also divorced after two years.  Then he married his first wife again and while they were married he had a second child with his second wife.  The year he had the child he also had another child with his third wife.  It's hard to digest... sit back, close your eyes, rest.

In the late 40s Columbia Pictures hired Ferrer and a few others to apply their directing skills in a few low-budget flicks.  In 1946, he worked as an assistant to director John Ford on his film The Fugitive (1947).  The following year he co-founded the La Jolla Playhouse in Southern California with his pals Dorothy McGuire and Gregory Peck.  La Jolla was Peck's birthplace.  All three got their actor friends to help turn it into a success.

Ferrer was never idle.  There was always something he wanted to do or could do.   In 1949 he starred in his first film, Lost Boundaries, playing a black man trying to pass as white.  It made a lot of news due chiefly to its controversy.

Surrounded by Joan Fontaine & Robert Ryan

The year 1950 was a good one for Ferrer... he finally got the shot at fame he was looking for... an acting gig and a directing one.  Born to Be Bad (1950) featured a conniving Joan Fontaine in the center of things as she tries to work her way into others' wealth.  I always thought she was playing herself.  Robert Ryan, Joan Leslie, Zachary Scott and Ferrer are some of those in her orbit.  Ferrer's participation is incidental to the main story but he sure nails it down and is the character who ends the film.  

He directed Ryan and Claudette Colbert in a film noir, The Secret Fury (1950), about a woman's wedding when a man stands up and says to all those gathered that she's already married.  It is a rare melodramatic role for Colbert, a usual top turn by Ryan and Ferrer handled his director chores as though he were a longtime pro.

Ferrer has the lead role in The Brave Bulls (1951), a decent offering as a matador who, after an accident, deals with fear in the ring, and Anthony Quinn as his manager who tries to rehabilitate him.  I generally agree with most reviews that said Ferrer had the air sucked out of him in all scenes in which he appeared with Quinn.  Gregory Peck once said you had to be on your toes in scenes with Quinn, and Ferrer obviously was not.

I liked a very unusual western called Rancho Notorious (1952) that had noir written all over it.  At a hidden sanctuary deep in the desert called Chuck-a-luck, where outlaws and other wastrels hang out, two of them (Ferrer and Arthur Kennedy) battle for the attentions of the tough owner, Marlene Dietrich.  This saga, played deadly serious, is just such a hoot.  For western fans it should be mandatory viewing. 

And then... and then came Scaramouche (1952).  Filled with rich color and derring-do as only MGM could provide, it concerns a man in 18th Century France who sets out to avenge the death of his father at the hands of a master swordsman (Ferrer) and learns more than he bargained for.  Ferrer and Stewart Granger are the capable dashing males leads with gorgeous Eleanor Parker seldom this fiery and Janet Leigh endearing and never so blonde.  The swordfight between the two men at the end of the film, at eight minutes long, is more exciting than I can convey.  A glorious film. 

Lili (1953), about an orphaned teenager who becomes part of a puppet act and forms a romantic relationship with an ill-tempered puppeteer, was a certifiable hit for MGM and propelled Leslie Caron into the type of career she was hoping for.  In the leading male role, Ferrer got some of the adulation that was important to him.

With Leslie Caron as Lili

Several of the actors from a number of his films have carped that he was moody, insensitive, a bit of a prima donna.  On this film he offended director Chuck Walters so much with his antics and demands that Walters took him aside but others could hear the shouting.  From the time the two came out of the room until the finish, Ferrer was the complete professional.  He loved the film.

In the summer of 1953, at a premier party for the film Roman Holiday, Peck introduced his friend Ferrer to the film's leading lady, Audrey Hepburn.  There was an immediate attraction from each of them.  He loved her elfin beauty and her strength and humor and she loved that he was tall (as she was) and felt that he was more intelligent than most actors.  Within a short time of dating she also found him to be restless, fragmented, headstrong and volatile.  Trouble is she found him to be a wounded bird and it was her favorite kind of bird.  She had a need to help.

Mel and Audrey 

At the time of their meeting, Hepburn was not famous.  That would change almost immediately but by no means was she ready for the glittering, mind-numbing fame that would come.  People would later say that they had a serious Svengali-type relationship and they certainly did.  He liked directing so he was the one in charge... he told others what to do, not the other way around.  This would work in their relationship for several years.  He loved her looks and her style and wanted her to become a big movie star almost as much as she wanted it.  

After he appeared as King Arthur in Knights of the Round Table  (1953) opposite Ava Gardner and Robert Taylor, Ferrer and Hepburn appeared on Broadway in Ondine in 1954.  The same year they also married.  Her mother was distraught... she never learned to like her son-in-law.

Tolstoy's War and Peace (1956) was brought to the screen with both Mr. and Mrs. Ferrer along with Henry Fonda, Vittorio Gassman and Anita Ekberg.  There are certainly those who sing its praises but it is largely considered to have fallen short of its epic ambitions.  The Vintage (1957) about two brothers on the lam in Europe was not a success for Ferrer, Pier Angeli or John Kerr.

I loved The Sun Also Rises (1957), based on Hemingway's first novel, which he loathed except for Ava Gardner.  The story of American expatriate writers loving the good life in 1920's Spain and France was something the author knew well.  I thought Gardner and Errol Flynn were very good, Tyrone Power okay and Ferrer and Eddie Albert so-so.  I loved the film despite some obvious shortcomings and it does have its loyal following but critics savaged it.

Ferrer with Ava Gardner, Tyrone Power and Darryl Zanuck

Fräulein (1958) feels like a batch of cookies retrieved from the oven and not quite done.  Ferrer and Dana Wynter are lovers caught up in the war in Germany and while they are attractive to behold, there's just not a lot of substance.  Hepburn accompanied Ferrer to the locations as she almost always did.

The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1959) stars Ferrer, Harry Belafonte and Inger Stevens as survivors of a nuclear holocaust.  This type of story has been done countless times but few are as good as this one.  All three stars excel in their roles... Ferrer, of course, brings the tension because he doesn't like Belafonte's color.  

Many directors have that one film they obsess over and for Ferrer it was Green Mansions (1959).  It took him awhile to get the screen adaptation of Henry Hudson's off the ground and when it was all said and done, it was a mess.  The story of the bird girl Rima who is brought up in the jungle and her relationship with a government fugitive asks too much of audiences.  Hepburn and Anthony Perkins look, sound and feel like twins.  While they have their moments, particularly her, they're both adrift in this almost cartoon-like story.  Ferrer does, however, merit some credit for the film's stunning look.  

So far in the Ferrer-Hepburn marriage, she clung to him like a Titanic passenger clinging to ice chunks in the icy water and of course nothing suited him more.  He always claimed he was attempting to make her strong, wise and independent but many saw it as little more than controlling.  The elephant in the room, of course, was completely obvious... their relationship was A Star Is Born come to life.  

Sometime after the birth of their son in 1960, romance left the Ferrer marriage and they became friends who argued a great deal.  Ferrer may have left the marriage bed but he certainly found time to climb in many other beds.

He had spent so much time managing his wife's career that he had largely ignored his own.  His body of work in the 60s ranges from largely unknown to dreadful.   Much was European projects, often dubbed and not always released in the U.S.  One of the worst of this period is the American-grown Sex and the Single Girl (1964)... he, Natalie Wood, Henry Fonda, Lauren Bacall and Tony Curtis should have had their SAG membership cards taken away from them.

He had a small role in 1962's war epic, The Longest Day, but who didn't?  He had nine lines and was billed ninth in the all-star spectacle, The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964).  On the other hand, he received generally good notices for playing the title role in El Greco (1966).

Despite the state of his marriage and his own proclivities, he couldn't have been happy about the public exposure of his wife's romance with her Two for the Road costar, Albert Finney.  It may have been mostly a location romance but it was blistering hot.  There were rumors as far back as 1961 that Hepburn had a few quickies with George Peppard while they worked on Breakfast at Tiffany's and a dalliance with Peter O'Toole on How to Steal a Million (1966) but nothing was as public as the Finney romp.

Two for the Road was a happy experience for Hepburn but her other 1967 film, Wait Until Dark, was not.   With Ferrer producing it was a little too much togetherness for a couple on the brink of divorce.  She also had to play a blind person which kept her on edge.  There was a big fight over who would direct... Hepburn, Ferrer and Warner Bros all donned their battle gear and the lady won.  

She had become the true steel magnolia if there ever was one.  She was a tough one to be sure.  Trying to crawl out from under subservience to Ferrer was her teacher.  O'Toole said he was apprehensive about working with her because he'd heard rumors of her iron will.  Of course that would became more and more evident as she and Ferrer grew further apart.  She no longer sat on the floor before him and cooed Daddy, what film should I make next?

They were divorced in 1968.  It was not a pleasant experience (is it ever?) but while he was given to fits of rage and yelling and rudeness, he thought twice.  This was Audrey Hepburn, by this time one of the most beloved screen icons ever, and for a man with an iffy career in the same business where she was royalty, he knew to keep mum.  He knew who would be the villain of the piece should it go public.  Still, his self-image did not permit being the villain of any piece.

I scarcely know what to say about the remainder of his big screen presence except it was undistinguished, mostly in Italian productions and less work than ever.  At the same time he showed up pretty consistently on television and there his name gathered a little more momentum.  He was part of a number of TV movies and also a series guest star and did some directing.  One of his sons said he didn't think the old man's heart was ever really in acting.  I was always glad to see him.  From 1981-84 he joined the cast of the popular nighttime soap Falcon Crest... for a spell as Jane Wyman's husband.  Ferrer in wine country... perfecto.  After not one but two appearances on Murder, She Wrote, one knew the career was petering out.

It's a shame.  I thought he was most attractive and a good actor.  I especially liked him in his pre-Hepburn films.  I preferred him as the dapper villain... he was very good at being elegantly on the wrong side of things.  Who's to say what kind of a career he would have had had he not married her?  

In 1971 he married a Belgian woman who moved in with him in his home in Lausanne, Switzerland, a city where he lived for years with Hepburn.  He retired at age 80.  He had four sons and two daughters and a gaggle of grandkids and being the old, still attractive gentleman greatly appealed to him.  At some point the Ferrers moved to Carpinteria, California.  He would die of a heart attack at age 90 in 2008 in neighboring Santa Barbara.

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Scary, 50s style