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Films

Lauren Bacall – a dream come true

Lauren Bacall poses for John Engstead
Around 1943. Lauren Bacall poses for John Engstead. Read more.

Lauren Bacall’s incendiary debut on screen in To Have and Have Not brings to pulsating life a fantasy of legendary Hollywood director, Howard Hawks.

He has created a new kind of heroine – one who is every bit the equal of her leading man. At the same time he has launched the career of a movie legend and lit the touch paper to one of Hollywood’s most celebrated off-screen romances. But even as the chemistry between Bogart and Bacall begins to fizz, it threatens to derail Hawks’ ambitions for his new star.

After a slow start, Lauren Bacall’s life is careering along at breakneck speed.

Lauren Bacall, lost girl

Rewind the clock a couple of years to 1942, and Lauren Bacall (then Betty Joan Perske, 17 years old, ambitious and totally unknown) is sitting in a movie theatre with her Mother and an aunt:

One Saturday morning in 1942, Mother and Rosalie took me to the Capital Theatre to see a movie called Casablanca. We all loved it, and Rosalie [Lauren’s aunt] was mad about Humphrey Bogart. I thought he was good in it, but mad about him? Not at all. She thought he was sexy. I thought she was crazy. Mother liked him, though not as much as she liked Chester Morris, who she thought was really sexy – or Ricardo Cortez, her second favorite. I couldn’t understand Rosalie’s thinking at all. Bogart didn’t vaguely resemble Leslie Howard. Not in any way. So much for my judgment.

She’s determined to be an actress (she has the stage rather than the screen in mind though she worships Bette Davis) and has been doing some pretty unglamorous modeling for the garment trade to earn a few cents. She’s had little success but things are about to change…

This year she has been introduced to Diana Vreeland, the fashion editor at Harper’s Bazaar, who organized a test shoot with Louise Dahl-Wolfe, one of the leading fashion photographers of the day. It was the first of a series of sessions for Bazaar, including a tricky one with George Hoyningen-Huene.

The following year (1943) Lauren’s career ignites:

In January I posed in a blue suit with an off-the-face hat, standing before a window with “American Red Cross Blood Donor Service” lettered on it. It was a color picture and would be a full page.…

About mid-February Diana called my mother to tell her there were stacks of letters on her desk asking who I was and where I could be reached. She said, “Listen, Mrs. Bacall, I think Betty’s too young to make these decisions, so I’m sending it all on to you.” Diana was always terrific to me and about me. She was so smart, had such wisdom. Also it turned out that the Blood Donor picture was going to be on the March cover. The cover! I couldn’t believe it when I heard; there’d be no living with me now.

Inquiries flood in. Lauren is invited to meet the head of David O Selznick’s office in New York. Columbia Pictures want her to be the Harper’s Bazaar cover girl in Cover Girl – an offer enthusiastically endorsed by Diana and Carmel Snow (the editor at Bazaar). Howard Hughes expresses an interest (well, there’s a turn up for the books!). But it is an invitation from Howard Hawks that Lauren accepts on the advice of her uncle Jack. So, age 18, she boards the train with her mother and heads for the West Coast.

Lauren Bacall, dream girl

To prepare for her screen test, Howard Hawks takes Lauren Bacall to see Perc Westmore.

He walked me over to make-up so that Perc Westmore could have a look at me and said, “You know, Perc, the test is tomorrow morning, see what color Betty will need, and that’s all.” Westmore took me into his room, sat me before his make-up mirror, and examined my face. He said, “Umm-humm” and pushed my hair back. “We can pluck your eyebrows and shave your hairline, straighten your teeth.” I was terrified and very upset. I said I’d like to call Howard, which I did practically in tears and repeated it all. I said, “You don’t want that, do you?” He said absolutely not and spoke to Westmore, saying, “I want her exactly as she is, nothing changed, a light natural make-up for tomorrow.” Perc understood, he only thought some of those touches would be an improvement. But no, Howard had chosen me for my thick eyebrows and crooked teeth and that’s the way they would stay.

[As an aside, this is a perfect example of how the studios, even back in the 1940s, were geared up to manufacture identikit stars – Lauren Bacall’s graphic eyebrows are one of her most distinguishing features.]  Then there’s a portrait session with John Engstead, a photographer who works for the Hollywood studios and for various fashion magazines:

John Engstead arrived with cameras, and my first portrait sitting began. … He was marvelously easy to work with—not unlike Dahl-Wolfe. … The portraits were the best I’d ever had, and still are.

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Out of the unknown

Out of the unknown

1944. Lauren Bacall emerges from obscurity into the limelight. She's modelling the vermillion dress she wears in some of the posters for To Have and Have Not. Photo by John Engstead.

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Best foot forward

Best foot forward

1944. In this publicity shot for To Have qnd Have Not, both the tilt of her head and the spotlight are designed to highlight 'The Look' that will become Lauren Bacall's trademark. Photo by John Engstead.

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Sitting pretty

Sitting pretty

1946. The geometry of the lighting in this portrait of Lauren Bacall is quite superb. She's modelling the fabulous metallic jacket she wears in The Big Sleep.

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Full metal jacket

Full metal jacket

1946. Another shot portrait of Lauren Bacall modelling the fabulous metallic jacket she wears in The Big Sleep.

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The sleeve

The sleeve

Around 1945. Is it too far-fetched to conjecture that the photographer might have been inspired by Titian's portrait of a man with a quilted sleeve? Whatever. With the sleeve itself slightly out of focus, the eyes definitely have it. Photo by Eugene Robert Richee.

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Girl with a pearl earring

Girl with a pearl earring

Around 1945. Lauren Bacall is quite the classy dame pairing a pearl necklace and earrings with an off-the-shoulder black gown.

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Glossy image-making

Glossy image-making

Around 1944. The make-up team (headed perhaps by Perc Westmore) haven't stinted on the lip gloss for this portrait of Lauren Bacall. Photo by Bert Six.

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Returning the look

Returning the look

1946. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

RETURNING
Lauren Bacall, here demonstrating that “look” which made her famous, returns to the screen this September in Warner Bros.’ romantic mystery thriller, “The Big Sleep.” In it Humphrey Bogart portrays the man she’s after, just as in their original triumph, “To Have and Have Not.”

Howard can see Lauren’s potential to become his dream girl and offers her a personal contract.

I learned much later that he had always wanted to find a girl from nowhere, mold her into his dream girl, and make her a star—his creation. He was about to begin. … Howard’s idea was always that a woman should play a scene with a masculine approach—insolent. Give as good as she got, no capitulation, no helplessness. … A perfect example of Howard’s thinking was His Girl Friday, which was a remake of The Front Page, but changing the star reporter to a woman – Rosalind Russell. And it couldn’t have worked better.

Howard doesn’t go for shrinking violets. To complement the look and the attitude he has in mind, he tells Lauren to cultivate a lower, more throaty voice, which she does by finding a spot on Mulholland Drive where she can read The Robe aloud, keeping her voice lower and louder than normal (the smoking probably helps too). So Lauren’s voice becomes what Howard calls “a satisfactorily low guttural wheeze”. He insists that in future she should always speak naturally and softly. Above all, she should ignore suggestions for “cultivating” her voice.

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Hello, soldier

Hello, soldier

1944. Lauren Bacall and soldiers in a scene from To Have and Have Not.

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Chemistry lesson

Chemistry lesson

1944. Harry approaches "Slim" in a scene from To Have and Have Not. Photo by Max Julian.

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Taking the lead

Taking the lead

1944. Lauren Bacall acting as Howard Hawks' dream girl in the notorious whistle scene from To Have and Have Not. The caption on the back reads:

On your mark! Apparently, Lauren isn't afraid of Bogart, the Bogie Man.

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Making all the right moves

Making all the right moves

1944. Bogart and Bacall are totally in synch on the set of To Have And Have Not. The caption on the reverse reads:

STRONG ARM METHOD – If this picture is any indication, there's nothing very subtle about Humphrey Bogart's love making to Lauren Bacall in Warner Bros. "To Have and Have Not." The bewitching Bacall, former model, makes her film debut in the Bogart starrer.

It all comes together in her screen debut opposite Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not. In one of the movie’s most memorable scenes, Lauren’s character says to Bogart’s:

You know you don’t have to act with me, Steve, you don’t have to say anything, and you don’t have to do anything. Not a thing. Oh, maybe just whistle. You know how to whistle, don’t you, Steve? You just put your lips together and blow.

Her acting, with its insinuating sexuality and offhand independence, causes a sensation. For Howard, it’s a dream come true. The Big Sleep will follow.

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What to do with Carmen?

What to do with Carmen?

1946. Private detective, Philip Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) and his client's daughter, Vivian Rutledge (Lauren Bacall) confer about the antics of her nymphomaniac little sister (Martha Vickers) in this scene from The Big Sleep.

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Banter

Banter

1946. Vivian (Lauren Bacall) gives Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) a cheque in an attempt to get him off the case he's investigating. But business quickly turns to flirtation in this classic scene from The Big Sleep.

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Dénouement

Dénouement

1946. Marlowe (Humphrey Bogart) and Vivian (Lauren Bacall) prepare for the final showdown in this scene from The Big Sleep.

Lauren Bacall, gone girl

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall cut their wedding cake
21 May 1945. Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall cut their wedding cake. Read more.

Lauren’s first encounter with Bogie, set up by Howard, is unpromising.

He wanted to use Humphrey Bogart as the male lead. Bogart was making a film called Passage to Marseille at the time and Howard said, “Let’s go down on the set and see what’s going on.” Not a word about the possibility of my working. … He introduced us. There was no clap of thunder, no lightning bolt, just a simple how-do-you-do. Bogart was slighter than I imagined—five feet ten and a half, wearing his costume of no-shape trousers, cotton shirt, and scarf around neck. Nothing of import was said—we didn’t stay long—but he seemed a friendly man.

Perhaps that’s not surprising. Bogie is 25 years Lauren’s senior and married to Mayo Methot, a stage and screen actress but also an alcoholic and a depressive. Their relationship is, to put it mildly, stormy.

As filming gets underway for To Have and Have Not, Bogie and Bacall begin to fall for each other, they organize surreptitious rendezvous and they share private jokes in their scripted exchanges. Indeed their very real palpable mutual attraction is one of the factors that contribute to the film’s success with audiences.

Their happiness alternates with despair. Howard becomes increasingly jealous and warns Lauren not to risk ending her career just as it is taking off. He can see that Bogie does not want her to be actor first and wife second. Meanwhile, Bogie returns to Mayo several times, leaving Lauren in desperate suspense. All this is going on during the filming of The Big Sleep, with Bogie drunk, depressed and missing days on set.

Finally, he makes up his mind, and as his divorce edges forward, he sends Lauren a wire: “Please fence me in Baby – the world’s too big out here and I don’t like it without you.” The couple are married on 21 May, 1945 at Malabar Farm in Lucas, Ohio, the home of Bogie’s close friend, the writer Louis Bromfield.

Angry and resigned, Howard accepts that he’s lost his dream actress and sells Lauren’s contract to Warner Brothers.

Lauren Bacall on the silver screen

In To Have and Have Not and The Big Sleep, Bogie and Bacall played some of the greatest scenes of the era (and arguably in movie history). The atmosphere is electric, the dialogue sizzles. This is the stuff of Hollywood legend, as recognised at the time by Warner Brothers’ spoof, Bacall To Arms.

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bacall whistle scene

1. The whistle scene

In this notorious scene from her debut movie, To Have and Have Not, Bacall is all over Bogart. She's 100 percent vamp, totally in control and the realisation of a dream for director, Howard Hawks. Watch this and then the parody, Bacall To Arms.
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bacall to arms

2. Bacall To Arms

A re-edit of the 1946 Warner Bros cartoon Bacall To Arms, directed by Bob Clampett. This is just a superb parody of the "whistle" scene in To Have and Have Not.
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the big sleep

3. Restaurant repartee

If you want a quick insight into what made the Bogart-Bacall onscreen partnership so fantastic, take a look at this scene from The Big Sleep: 0:00–0:20 Bacall makes her entrance. 0:20–0:45 She greets Bogie and they make their way to a table. 0:45–1:45 They talk business – highlight at 1:14–1:20. 1:45–3:00 They flirt, with Bacall in the driving seat. 3:00–4:05 Bogie turns the tables. 4:05 Electric moment as she's knocked into his arms.

Postscript

Had she not married Bogart, Lauren told The New York Times in 1996, her career would probably have flourished, but she did not regret the marriage.

I would not have had a better life, but a better career. Howard Hawks was like a Svengali; he was molding me the way he wanted. I was his creation, and I would have had a great career had he been in control of it. But the minute Bogie was around, Hawks knew he couldn’t control me, so he sold my contract to Warner Bros. And that was the end.

It’s also worth noting that Lauren was not quite as confident filming as she appears on screen. In her autobiography, June Allyson, a close friend, remembered working with her in 1954:

I had seen the real Betty when we filmed Woman’s World together and we were doing a scene in which we each had to pick up champagne glasses and turn and survey the room. I looked at Betty’s glass and her had was shaking – I couldn’t believe it. She saw my look and whispered, off camera, “I am so nervous.” That was when I realized Lauren Bacall did not have the inner security she displayed to the world. Inside she was very vulnerable.

Want to know more?

The quotes are from Lauren’s autobiography, Lauren Bacall By Myself. For an overview and appreciation of her life and work, there are obituaries worth reading in The Guardian, The Telegraph, The New York Times and Variety. There’s also a fascinating article about The Big Sleep on Cinephilia & Beyond.

Other topics you may be interested in…

Ava Gardner – the journey to Hollywood
Martha Vickers, Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep
Martha Vickers – the starlet who dared to upstage Lauren Bacall
Movie stars of the 1940s – talent, savvy, looks and luck

Filed Under: Films, Stars Tagged With: Diana Vreeland, Harper's Bazaar, Howard Hawks, Humphrey Bogart, John Engstead, Lauren Bacall, Louise Dahl-Wolfe, Perc Westmore, The Big Sleep, To Have and Have Not

Jane Greer – the queen of film noir

It’s 1947. Out of the Past has just been released to huge critical acclaim. Its leading lady, Jane Greer, appears on the front cover of Life magazine. Time will rate her as one of Hollywood’s six most promising actresses alongside Ava Gardner and Elizabeth Taylor.

She’s attractive, intelligent and seriously talented. She has what it takes to make it big in Tinseltown. And she is about to see her career crash and burn. In just a few years’ time, she will have all but faded from public consciousness.

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Majorette

Majorette

Around 1946. RKO Radio Pictures publicity shot of Jane Greer by Ernest Bacharach.

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Changing nature’s black tresses to golden brown

Changing nature’s black tresses to golden brown

1947. Publicity portrait of Jane Greer for They Won’t Believe Me. Photo by Ernest Bacharach.

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In trouble

In trouble

1949. Jane Greer playing a woman on parole in The Wall Outside. Photo by Ernest Bacharach.

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Glamorous ex-convict

Glamorous ex-convict

1949. Jane Greer playing a woman on parole in The Wall Outside. Photo by Ernest Bacharach.

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Jane Greer looking forward

Jane Greer looking forward

1946. RKO Radio Pictures publicity portrait of Jane Greer by Ernest Bacharach.

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Exotic beauty

Exotic beauty

1947. Publicity shot for Two O’Clock Courage, Jane Greer's debut movie. Photo by Ernest Bacharach.

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Femme fatale

Femme fatale

1947. RKO Radio Pictures publicity portrait of Jane Greer by Ernest Bacharach.

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Disciplinarian

Disciplinarian

1947. Publicity shot for They Won't Believe Me. The caption on the back suggests that Jane Greer seems to be disciplining an off-screen dog. Photo by Ernest Bacharach.

Use the suggestions at the bottom of this page if you want to read a detailed biography. What follows is a drama in three acts that encompasses some big early turning points in Jane Greer’s life told as far as possible in her own words and those of her contemporaries.

Act 1 – Jane makes the most of an early setback

Born in 1924, by age 12 Bettejane Greer (she will drop the Bette in 1945 – “a sissy name … too Bo-Peepish, ingenueish for the type of role I’ve been playing”) is already a professional model.

Then one day in 1940 she is asked by her party date why she is pulling such a funny face. Checking in the mirror, she’s appalled to find that the muscles on the left side of her face have gone totally slack. She is diagnosed with Bell’s palsy, a form of facial paralysis. The doctors tell her she is unlikely to recover.

For a time she has to close her left eye with her hand when she goes to sleep and she has to push the left corner of her mouth up into a frozen smile before going off to school. Every day she has to do a series of painstaking exercises to maintain muscle tone and stimulate her facial nerve. Over time she manages to get back almost complete control of her face.

Later in her career, Jane will tell people how the experience helped her become an actress:

I’d always wanted to be an actress, and suddenly I knew that learning to control my facial muscles was one of the best assets I could have as a performer.

And nowhere are the lessons she learns put to better use than in arguably the greatest of all films noirs – Out of the Past.

Act 2 – Jane puts in a performance

Like many other films in the genre (The Big Sleep and The Lady from Shanghai spring to mind), Out of the Past has a pretty labyrinthine plot that’s not always easy to follow. When Bosley Crowther reviews it for The New York Times, he writes that its 97 minutes of back stabbing and double-dealing are such that they have to be “reckoned by logarithmic tables”.

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Kathie in a bar in Acapulco

Kathie in a bar in Acapulco

1947. Jane Greer as Kathie Moffat in Out of the Past soon after she appears for the first time – "out of the sunlight."

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Femme fatale

Femme fatale

1947. Drenched by the rain, Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer) is all set to make love for the first time to Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum) in this scene from Out of the Past.

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The mood darkens

The mood darkens

1947. The mood, the sets, the lighting, even the costumes get darker as the plot of Out of the Past moves inexorably toward its dénouement. Jane Greer's costume here is designed by Edward Stevenson.

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Preparing to shoot

Preparing to shoot

1947. Jacques Tourneur (director) makes a final adjustment to Jane Greer's hat as they prepare to shoot a scene for Out of the Past.

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Partners in crime

Partners in crime

1947. Robert Mitchum and Jane Greer in a scene from Out of the Past.

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Kathie and The Kid

Kathie and The Kid

1947. Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer) with “The Kid,” Jeff Bailey’s deaf-mute young assistant (Dickie Moore) in a scene from Out of the Past.

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Final instructions

Final instructions

1947. Jacques Tourneur (director) gives instructions to Jane Greer and Robert Mitchum on the set of Out of the Past. Cinematographer Nick Musuraca looks on.

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Kathie the killer

Kathie the killer

1947. Pistol in hand, Kathie Moffat prepares for the dénouement in Out of the Past. Kathie is played by Jane Greer.

Having said that, I’ve read another view that the plot is so simple a child can understand it. Everybody dies, and the story elegantly shows each character moving inexorably, often knowing and unable to halt the march, to his/her destiny. And there certainly is an air of inevitability and desperation about this film about an ex-private investigator, reluctantly dragged back to his old profession to track down a gambler’s girlfriend who has run off with $40,000. “I just want her back. When you see her, you’ll understand better.”

The girlfriend, Kathie Moffat, is played by Jane Greer; the private investigator, Jeff Bailey, by Robert Mitchum. And needless to say, he falls under her spell the moment she appears “coming out of the sun,” elusive but radiant. A few days later she reappears, this time “out of the moonlight,” and under that subtropical Acapulco moon they walk on the beach and then run to her bungalow when a sudden deluge drenches them to the skin and blows open the door to their passion.

The scenes in Acapulco have a lyrical, almost hallucinatory quality. Time seems to stand still. Whereas in the second half of the film, set mostly in a dark and sinister San Francisco, events career along at breakneck speed and out of control.

Kathie is a manipulative, duplicitous, scheming vixen. Or, to use another metaphor, a vamp who causes good men to make bad decisions while showing all the empathy and compassion of a preying mantis. “She can’t be all bad. No one is,” says Jeff’s nice girlfriend, Ann Miller. But he replies, “She comes closest.”

Elsewhere he likens Kathie to “a leaf that the wind blows from gutter to gutter”. She is victim just as much as predator, not just a conventional, hard-boiled femme fatale. We can empathize with her because, as we get to know her, we realize that her actions are motivated as much by fear as by greed or lust. Just like Bailey, she is trapped and trying desperately to find a way out.

Jane Greer manages to convey the complex thoughts and emotions that lie beneath the surface of her character. In the beginning, she appears quite warm, frightened and sincere. When she turns hardboiled, it’s subtle, with only a change in her eyes and voice. The way she alternates between domination and submission is just awesome and totally convincing.

It was a wonderful part, with a wonderful introduction for the character; this was a girl of which one man says, ‘She shot me, I want her back, go find her.’ People wanted to see what she looked like! And when I finally did show up twenty minutes later, people had heard so much about me that they thought, ‘She must be something!’ And they said, ‘My God, she’s stunning! Look at that hat!’ and all that. It was all contrived, you know.

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on-the-trail

1. On the trail

Jeff Bailey (Robert Mitchum) travels to Acapulco to track down Kathie Moffat (Jane Greer). He waits for her in a bar. "And then I saw her, coming out of the sun and I knew I didn’t care about that 40 grand."
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passion-rising

2. Passion rising

Jeff (Robert Mitchum) and Kathie (Jane Greer), caught in a tropical storm, run to her Acapulco hide-out. It’s torrential outside and it's steamy indoors.
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bang

3. Bang!

Jeff Bailey’s partner turns up looking for a fight. He gets more than he bargained for. Robert Mitchum is Jeff, Steve Brodie is his partner, Jack Fisher, Jane Greer is his partner-in-crime, Kathie Moffat.

Act 3 – Jane meets her nemesis

Jane Greer is brought to Hollywood by Howard Hughes, the eccentric billionaire and film producer.

Jane Greer in a leopard-print gown
It’s not difficult to see why Jane Greer caught the eye of Howard Hughes. Photo attributed to Ernest A Bachrach.

In 1945, while I was still living with my parents, we got along and I saw him quite a bit for a while. We often went to the Chi Chi bar on Hollywood Boulevard where he would eat the same things all the time: hamburgers, peas, mash potatoes, salad and a chocolate sundae. He would call me at odd hours, like at eleven o’clock in the evening, and ask me out to dinner. I would say, “Howard, I’ve gone to bed.” “But it’s not that far, and please don’t let me eat alone.” So I would get dressed.

He loved to talk on the phone; we were once at the Chi Chi and he got up. “I’m not going to make any phone calls,” he said, “I’m just going to the men’s room.” After a long time he came back and sat down. I said, “You made some phone calls, didn’t you?” “I didn’t, I swear, I didn’t.” But his shirt was all wet. I said, “What happened to your shirt?” “I just washed it, I took it off and washed it, there was some chocolate sauce on it.” That’s when I first noticed the washing syndrome, the compulsive washing hands syndrome that I had heard about. Years later he had a lot of problems with this compulsive behavior, but then I wasn’t around him anymore.

In another interview:

I found him rather endearing, like a child. His idea was to go to the amusement park. He won a large collection of Kewpie dolls for me.

Hughes signs Jane up to an exclusive contract only to keep her shelved with no screen test and no movies to make, just strict instructions not to get involved with anyone. “He wanted to own people – he collected them.” She sues, pays to end her contract, then joins RKO, where she makes Out of the Past… only to have Hughes buy the studio and make trouble for her.

Robert Mitchum's first encounter with Jane Greer in Out of the Past
1947. Fatal attraction. Robert Mitchum’s first encounter with Jane Greer in Out of the Past.

After I finished Out of the Past, Howard Hughes bought the studio. He had me come into his office which was at the Goldwyn Studios; he never came onto the RKO lot. He said to me, “I know you’re not happy.” I said, “What do you mean? I am happy, I have a baby now, and I hope to have more. I am happy!” He said, “You’re not happy with your husband, Edward Lasker.” I said, “Yes, I am!” He knew Edward and he didn’t like him. Then he said, “Well, I’ll tell you one thing, as long as I own the studio, you won’t work.” So I said, “This will kill my career!” He said, “Yes, it will.”

…When The Big Steal came along, Robert Mitchum had been arrested for possessing marijuana and his leading lady Lizabeth Scott already had her wardrobe. But when she found out he had to go to jail, she said, “I don’t want to do it.” So they were trying to find someone to work with him, because they wanted him to go to work in Mexico the next Tuesday. Several people were asked to do it, including Joan Bennett, but they all turned it down. I really wanted to do it, because I didn’t want Bob to be hurt by all this turning down. Finally, and I guess they got stuck, the head of the studio, Sid Rogell, came to my house and said. “Howard’s going to call you and he’s gonna try to trap you, so be careful.” “Trap me?!” He said, “Don’t tell him I was here!” I said, “I won’t!” Well, when the phone rang, it was Howard. “Bettejane – he always called me Bettejane – Bettejane, are you interested in doing this picture with Bob Mitchum?” I said, “I’d love to, Howard. I love Bob, you know that, I worked with him and I’d love to work with him again.” He said, “Well then, all right, but you’d have to wear Lisabeth Scott’s wardrobe. You leave next Tuesday.” “All right.” “You have anything else to tell me?” I said, “No, I don’t think so.” “You liar, you’re pregnant! You’re knocked up.” I said, “Am I?” “Yes!” I said, “I didn’t know, they haven’t called me yet. I did take a test, but I haven’t gotten the result of the test yet.” “Well I got it, and you’re knocked up.” “But I still can do the picture. If we start next Tuesday, I’ve still got some time ’cause it won’t show until the fourth or fifth month.”

Well, we went to Mexico and I realized that these costumes they had made were going to be tough, a tight short skirt, a bolero, things like that – no big hats, nothing to hide behind. Everybody thought that if Bob Mitchum is working, in Mexico especially, the judge will think, “Well, we’ll bring that guy back from Mexico, give him a light tap on the hand, send him back to Mexico and let him finish the picture.” No way! The judge sentenced him to sixty days. So Bob went to jail and regarding my pregnancy, it was a tight squeeze towards the end, ’cause we went back to Mexico and we worked another couple of months there. When we came back to America, we did most of the close-ups and the car chases; I could at least sit down.

Postscript – Jane gets her just deserts

It’s the early 1970s and one of Jane’s sons comes home from his film class at UCLA. “Mother,” he says, “You’re the queen of film noir.”. “What’s that?” It’s the first time Jane has heard the term for the genre in which she excelled.

Want to know more about Jane Greer?

There are excellent obituaries, which give an overview of Jane’s life and achievements, in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The Telegraph.

You can find extracts from interviews with her in Movies Were Always Magical: Interviews with 13 Actors, Directors and Producers from the Hollywood of the 1950s by Leo Verswijver and Ronnie Pede, and Ladies of the Western: Interviews With Fifty-one More Actresses from the Silent Era to the Television Westerns of the 1950s And 1960s
 by Michael G Fitzgerald, Boyd Magers and Kathryn Adams.

There are some great insights into Out of the Past at IMDb, hal0000 and Film Noir of the Week.

I sourced the account of Jane’s discovery that she had Bell’s palsy from an article (apparently no longer available) Hollywood.com. And you can watch Jane being interviewed by cable TV host, Skip Lowe, on YouTube (the interview runs from 1:05 to 12:30).

Other topics you may be interested in…

Ella Raines – out of the frying pan and into the fire
Gene Tierney – a sick rose
Hazel Brooks – the human heat wave

Filed Under: Films, Stars Tagged With: Howard Hughes, Jane Greer, Out of the Past, Robert Mitchum

Hazel Brooks – the human heat wave

Hazel Brooks, model, pin-up and Hollywood star of the 1940s is all but forgotten now. Except for here…

‘Known among the wags of Hollywood as “The Human Heat Wave”’, as the caption of one of her publicity stills puts it, she was lucky in love but not in her career. Or perhaps, when push came to shove, her marriage was more important to her than her career.

Hazel Brooks’ MGM years and before

The story starts in 1941 and Hazel, age 17, is working as a model for New York’s two leading agencies of the period – Walter Thornton and Harry Conover. With her red hair, green eyes, high cheekbones and svelte figure she certainly has what it takes.

Hazel Brooks – dream girl dreaming
1944. Hazel Brooks, ‘chosen by servicemen as the girl about whom they would like to dream’. Photo probably by Laszlo Willinger. Read more.

So it’s not surprising that she’s ‘discovered’ by Arthur Freed, who has recently become head of his own unit at MGM and has quite a track record as a talent spotter. He is in the process of helping establish MGM as the leading Hollywood studio for musicals and will go on to produce An American in Paris, Singin’ in the Rain and Gigi. A couple of years after her arrival in Hollywood, he will cast Hazel as one of the 14 ‘glorified girls’ in Ziegfeld Follies.

When she arrives at MGM, the studio goes to work on her, one of the first steps being to send her for a photo session at the stills studio. An early sitting for Laszlo Willinger uses dramatic lighting and props to create some truly moody images, aspects of which seem almost to foreshadow Guy Bourdin. The three shots by Clarence Sinclair Bull a year or so later seem to be experimenting with different personas.

As with Ava Gardner, MGM can’t decide what to do with Hazel and she ends up with a series of bit-parts. But Alberto Vargas, pin-up painter extraordinaire, has no such doubts. In 1942 he uses her legs as inspiration for the perfect MGM glamour girl. The other features are Inez Cooper’s hands, Mary Jane French’s hair, Thea Coffman’s feet, Ruth Ownbey’s hips, Aileen Haley’s bust, Eve Whitney’s’ waist, Kay Williams’ arms, Kay Aldridge’s profile, Natalie Draper’s lips, Marilyn Maxwell’s ankles, and Georgia Carroll’s eyes.

In the meanwhile, though, Hazel meets Cedric Gibbons, head of MGM’s art department and the designer of the Oscar statue. Is it a coincidence that that the year she arrives, he divorces Dolores del Rio? Anyway, Hazel has a thing about older men and on 4 February 1943 the couple announce their engagement in Los Angeles Superior Court, where her $150-a-week MGM contract has to be approved by Judge Joseph W Vickers because she’s under legal age. He stipulates that one-tenth of her earnings be in vested in war bonds. The following year they marry. He’s 49, she’s 19 and eyebrows are raised.

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God’s gift to the sweater industry

God’s gift to the sweater industry

New York, 1941. The term sweater girl was made popular in the 1940s to describe Hollywood actresses such as Lana Turner, who wore tight sweaters...

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Bedroom eyes

Bedroom eyes

Hollywood, 1944. The tilted camera angle, the bed-head with its exaggerated padding (Guy Bourdin would have loved it!) and the deep shadows combine to give...

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Ghostly apparition

Ghostly apparition

Hollywood, 1944. Three years on from her sessions with Clarence Sinclair Bull, here’s another shot that’s high on drama with exaggerated perspective, a rather sinister...

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Girl next door

Girl next door

Hollywood, 1945. Brought to Tinseltown age 17 by MGM, Hazel Brooks poses for Clarence Sinclair Bull, head of the Studio’s stills department. She’s no longer...

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Drama queen

Drama queen

Hollywood, 1945. Clarence Sinclair Bull, head of MGM’s stills studio, uses dramatic lighting, a striking pose and mysterious foreground sculpture to create a striking portrait...

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Glamour puss

Glamour puss

Hollywood 1945. The gold lamé dress, the textured background, the subtle lighting – a totally fabulous example of Hollywood image-making by Clarence Sinclair Bull. And...

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A bit of a mystery

A bit of a mystery

Hollywood, around 1944. This slightly old-fashioned but very romantic portrait with its soft focus is a bit of a mystery. It’s by Max Munn Autrey,...

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Relaxing at home

Relaxing at home

Around 1945. Hazel Brooks in a printed floral dress reclines on a banquette sofa as light filters through the the picture window behind her. A...

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Hazel Brooks, outdoors girl

Hazel Brooks, outdoors girl

Hollywood, around 1945. You can almost feel the heat of the California sun in the picture. Hazel poses, hands on hips, very much the mistress...

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Body and Soul – Hazel Brooks’ greatest movie

In 1945 Hazel Brooks obtains her release from MGM and tests for Selznick. 18 months or so later, she gets her big break – she will be groomed as a star by The Enterprise Studios, a new independent production company co-founded by actor John Garfield alongside producers David Loew and Charles Einfeld. You can read the story, including some comments from Hazel herself, in The million dollar gamble.

The studio goes into marketing overdrive for the release of Body and Soul. By way of illustration, here’s an extract from an article in Showmen’s Trade Review, November 22, 1947.

The News Post ran a contest on the question, “What Type of Girl Do You Prefer,” using portraits of Hazel Brooks as the “body” type and Lilli Palmer as representative of the “soul” type. Two radio stations also ran contests, with theatre tickets as prizes. The “Body and Soul” records were exploited through window displays in 23 music shops. Department stores also came through with fashion windows. The campaign was one of the most widespread Saxton has staged in some time, and the results at the box-office were ample proof of its effectiveness.

Body and Soul is one of the all-time-great boxing movies, with Hazel cast as Alice, a ‘gold-digging tramp’, as Bosley Crowther characterizes her in his New York Times review. Bud Graybill, the stills photographer for the movie, captures some great noir shots in which she seems to relish letting her hair down and vamping it up for the camera – her modelling background coming to the fore perhaps.

Regardless, it sounds like Hazel enjoys flaunting what she’s got. In May 1947, vacationing in Hawaii she…

Took with her for the edification of the islanders, all of the top-revealing dresses and swim-suits that the Johnston Office prevented her wearing in Body and Soul…

And the following year, Cobina Wright in an article for Modern Screen called Banned in Hollywood reports that…

Along the French Riviera, the ladies are wearing what they call “diaper suits” for swimming. The suit consists of a trifle of material on the top, a trifle of material on the bottom, and an almost unbelievable amount of girl in between.

Incidentally, just because I’ve said Hollywood’s pretty conservative, and we don’t go for the diaper suit, doesn’t mean we don’t have our own exotic fringe. Take Hazel Brooks (the Body and Soul menace). I saw her lounging near Mr. Kent’s pool, all covered by a flesh-colored clinging leotard covered with skin-tight black lace.

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Femme fatale

Femme fatale

1947. Hazel Brooks in full-on, femme-fatale mode with smouldering gaze and décolleté black dress decorated with an eye-popping baroque ornament. You just know there’s trouble...

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Centre of attention

Centre of attention

1947. The room is crowded, the lighting moody, the atmosphere hot and sultry, the stakes high. And there's no doubting the centre of attention: Hazel...

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Close up

Close up

1947. Another publicity shot for Body and Soul using natural rather than studio light. Hazel Brooks has a great complexion – there’s little sign of...

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Unfazed

Unfazed

1947. Hazel Brooks, as Alice in Body and Soul, recline behind an extraordinary piece of coral that looks all set to embrace her. The shadow...

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Hollywood’s latest heat wave

Hollywood’s latest heat wave

1947. This photo by Bud Graybill speaks for itself. But just in case you’re not getting the message, here’s what the caption on the back...

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Relaxing by the pool

Relaxing by the pool

1947. After a hard day's work filming Body and Soul, what better way to recuperate than lounge in front of the swimming pool in a...

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“Retouch as indicated”

1947. Stamped on the back of this photo is ‘APPROVED / ADVERTISING COUNCIL / SEP 24 1947 / HOLLYWOOD’ and ‘RETOUCH AS INDICATED’. The indications...

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Vital statistics

Vital statistics

1947. Everything we need to know about Hazel Brooks… But what are those strange lesions on her left forearm? They're traces of the potted palm...

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More body than soul

More body than soul

1947. Femmes don’t come more fatale than this. Smouldering in a fitted, black-satin dress and perched on a white-sheepskin rug, Hazel Brooks gives the camera...

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In the sunshine

In the sunshine

1947. As a femme fatale in Body and Soul, Hazel is of course a creature of the night and spends most of her time indoors....

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Most provocative still of 1947

Most provocative still of 1947

1947. Caressed by ostrich feathers, eyes half-closed in ecstasy, Hazel Brooks is in a world of her own. And who wouldn’t want to join her...

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After the shoot

After the shoot

1947. Hazel Brooks faces the camera, head in hands and with a spaced expression. And there to the right is that extraordinary piece of coral...

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Mixed messages

Mixed messages

1947. So here’s Hazel Brooks in the gown she wears as a nightclub singer in Body and Soul. If the lacy bodice says ‘Come and...

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Perfect housewife

Perfect housewife

1947. Hazel Brooks might have been typecast as a heartless vamp by Enterprise Studios, but that doesn't mean she's like that in real life. She's...

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Making a meal of it

Making a meal of it

1947. . Hazel Brooks looks all set to devour John Garfield. Here’s what the caption on the back of the photo has to say.

THE...

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Sleep, My Love – Hazel Brooks’ follow-up movie

In 1948 Hazel Brooks stars as Daphne in Sleep, My Love, a Douglas Sirk melodrama that in terms of plot is a bit of a Gaslight rip-off. It is her only other major starring role. As Daphne, she’s another scheming bitch and in this case she likes to parade around in diaphanous garments. MGM might have struggled to figure out how to cast her but Triangle have no such problems.

One of the aspects that makes Sleep, My Love interesting is the way in which it illustrates the Hollywood studios’ attempts to push the boundaries of what is acceptable in 1940s America. According to IMDb:

In 1947, an amendment was made to the Production Code that cleared the way for the production and release of films dealing with drugs, and Hollywood wasted no time driving through the “drug” door. (Drugs still couldn’t be smoked or used free-will or for recreation, though.) While not the first film to take advantage of the drugs-can-be-used-when-essential-to-the-plot loophole, this Mary Pickford production for Triangle Productions made certain the use of a drug was most essential to the story of “Sleep, My Love.”

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More of the same, please

More of the same, please

1948. Hazel Brooks' performance in Body and Soul goes down a treat. So for her next movie, Sleep, My Love, Triangle Productions want more of...

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Illicit lovers

Illicit lovers

1948. It's a hot night in every sense as eyes meet and hands clasp. But all is not well, as the caption on the back...

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Dreaming

Dreaming

1948. Hazel Brooks lies back on a slightly-rumpled bed, and there’s a suspicion that she’s not wearing anything under that fur. But what’s on her...

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Filming a scene

Filming a scene

1948. Hazel Brooks and crew filming a scene for Sleep, My Love. Note the chalk lines on the floor indicating where to stand.

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Preparing to shoot

Preparing to shoot

1948. Hazel Brooks and George Coulouris getting ready to film a scene for Sleep, My Love. He had been a member of Orson Welles’ famed...

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Take it from me…

Take it from me…

1948. On the set of Sleep, My Love, Hazel Brooks discusses the scene she’s about to film with director, Douglas Sirk. He is one of...

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Hazel Brooks smiles on set

Hazel Brooks smiles on set

1948. A rare shot of Hazel with a smile on her face. Her usual demeanour is a good deal less relaxed – a touch of...

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Mistress and slave

Mistress and slave

1948. It's not difficult to see who wears the trousers here. Hazel Brooks can scarcely be bothered to conceal her contempt as she looks down...

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Dressed to kill

Dressed to kill

1948. Hazel Brooks, dressed to kill in a diaphanous outfit, makes an eye-popping entrance. The angular staircase, raking light and deep shadows add to the...

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Haughty look

Haughty look

1948. Hazel Brooks casts a disdainful glance towards George Coulouris, which typifies her attitude towards his character in Sleep, My Love. He is taking instructions...

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And afterwards…

Hazel Brooks appears in a couple more films before leaving the movie industry.  So why does her career stall? One factor is that though she looks terrific and is a competent actress, she doesn’t have the on-screen electricity or charisma of the likes of Lauren Bacall and Ava Gardner. But it could also have been down to the politics of Hollywood, to personal motivation and to luck.

Cedric Gibbons, Hazel Brooks and Kathryn Grayson at the premiere of Showboat
1951. Cedric Gibbons, Hazel Brooks and Kathryn Grayson at the premiere of Showboat. Read more.

According to long-time friend Maria Cooper Janis, Gary Cooper’s daughter, in the years after her retirement from films Hazel becomes a skilled stills photographer and works actively for a number of children’s charities.

In 1960, Cedric Gibbons dies. In 1967 history repeats itself.  Hazel marries Rex Ross, Jr., a Beverly Hills surgeon and founder of the Non-invasive Vascular Clinic at Hollywood Hospital – he’s 58, she’s 40.

He will die in 1999, she in 2002 after a long illness.

Want to know more and Hazel Brooks?

Apart from the captions on the backs of some of the photos, my two main sources of information have been:

  • Oscars obituary page
  • Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen

Other topics you may be interested in…

Hazel Brooks swathed in ostrich feathers
Hazel Brooks – the million dollar gamble
Jinx Falkenburg poses outdoors
Jinx Falkenburg – all-American girl
Martha Vickers, Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep
Martha Vickers – the starlet who dared to upstage Lauren Bacall

Filed Under: Films, Stars, Studios Tagged With: Alberto Vargas, Bud Graybill, Cedric Gibbons, Clarence Sinclair Bull, Harry Conover, Hazel Brooks, Laszlo Willinger, MGM, Walter Thornton

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