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Harry Cohn

Dusty Anderson – the life of a starlet

For a few brief years, dazzling, dusky, model-turned-starlet Dusty Anderson was up there in the public gaze – on magazine covers and the silver screen. But as a model her shelf-life was finite, while her acting talents were limited – she was never going to make it big as a movie star.

Her marriage to Jean Negulesco transformed her life and enabled her to pursue her interest in painting. It has also given us a window onto the life of a starlet who might otherwise have sunk into oblivion.

Dusty Anderson as Toni in Tonight and Every Night
1945. Dusty Anderson publicity shot for Tonight and Every Night. Photo by Ned Scott.

Dusty Anderson grows up

Like so many models and movie stars of the 1940s, “Dusty” is not Dusty Anderson’s real name. Born in 1918, she’s christened Ruth Anderson. Her mother is of Cherokee origin and has given up her career as an opera singer to marry a Swede who has settled in the US.

Dusty attends De-Vilbiss High School in Toledo, Ohio, where she becomes president of the dramatic association. She also studies for six years at the Museum of Art of Toledo. During her time at the University of Toledo and photography school, she scrimps and saves in order to buy a couple of expensive cameras. Unfortunately, during a canoe trip along the shores of Lake Erie, a sudden squall overturns her canoe, and the cameras sink to the bottom of the lake.

To earn the money she needs to replace her equipment, she does some part-time modelling for local artists and photographers. She proves so popular that she decides to make a career of it. When she wins a $400 jackpot on Bank Night at her local movie theatre, she heads for New York. There, she gets a contract with Harry Conover, who rechristens her Dusty and makes her a Conover cover girl. It’s in New York that she meets newspaperman Charles Mathieu, and in 1941 the couple get married.

In April 1943, with her husband overseas with the US Marines Corps, Dusty and 15 other models are cast in Columbia’s Cover Girl, one of Rita Hayworth’s triumphs. In Hollywood, Dusty goes on to land a contract with Columbia Pictures, and features in a handful of movies including Tonight and Every Night (another Rita Hayworth vehicle), A Thousand and One Nights (1945) and The Phantom Thief (1946). She also appears on the cover of the October 27 1944 and December 14 1945 issues of Yank, The Army Weekly.

Dusty Anderson becomes Dusty Negulesco

Dusty Anderson is doing okay if not spectacularly, but her career as an actress is about to take second place to her love life. In February I945, two months after her husband returns from the war with malaria, Dusty Anderson files for divorce. Apparently, in the course of an argument he’s given her a black eye.

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Dusty Anderson keeps fit

Dusty Anderson keeps fit

Around 1945. The angle at which this photo is taken makes it look like Dusty Anderson has freakishly short arms! Fortunately, she is in fact perfectly formed.

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Dusty Anderson with bicycle

Dusty Anderson with bicycle

1945. Love Dusty Anderson's bicycle with its cyclops headlight! This photo is reproduced at the Ned Scott Archive, where it is identified as a shot to promote Dusty in her role as Toni in Tonight and Every Night. Photo by Ned Scott.

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Dusty Anderson keeps fit

Dusty Anderson keeps fit

Around 1945. Looks like all that exercise pays off, judging by Dusty Anderson's awesomely flat tummy. But close inspection of the original print reveals traces of subtle retouching.

Soon after that, she finds herself at an auction in Beverly Hills. Attending the same auction is director Jean Negulesco, who spots:

…a tall shapely beauty, wearing a black hood, a black turtle-neck sweater, and black leather slacks. A tasteful blue turquoise Navajo necklace was dangling between her lovelies.

Dusty Anderson as Sandra in The Phantom Thief
1946. Dusty Anderson as Sandra in The Phantom Thief.

The girl in question is, you’ve guessed it, our Dusty. Her companion at the event, publicist Dorothy Campbell, obligingly makes an introduction. Dusty plays it cool and returns her attention to the auction to bid on an antique mirror. But she fails to win it because, you’ve guessed it again, she’s outbid by Jean, who plans to invite her round to his place for dinner and make a gift of it for her. But she’s vanished off the scene before he can make his move.

Jean is not the kind of guy who lets a small setback like that get in his way. He makes a few enquiries, discovers her phone number and asks her out. She says no, she’s in the middle of a divorce and her attorney has instructed her to keep a low profile so as not to complicate proceedings. But a few weeks later, she calls him back to accept his invitation.

What draws them to one another? Well, clearly she’s gorgeous and he fancies her – there’s no doubt he has an eye for the girls, as will become apparent. He, meanwhile, is arguably the most eligible bachelor director in Hollywood and therefore not without his attraction for any aspiring starlet. But perhaps there’s more to it than that simple, ages-old equation. They share a strong interest in fine art. Jean has come to Hollywood from Romania, where he was a successful painter. Dusty has studied for six years at the Museum of Art of Toledo and has tried her hand at both painting and photography.

Anyway, from that night on, the two become inseparable. The main obstacle blocking the path of true love at this point is Harry Cohn, head of Columbia Pictures, to which Dusty Anderson is contracted . He disapproves of the relationship and reminds her repeatedly of Jean’s playboy reputation. He even suggests to her that Jean is bisexual. Dusty is devastated and ready to leave, but discovery that she’s pregnant puts paid to that.

Dusty Anderson’s divorce becomes final in June 1946, and on 21 July the couple tie the knot. Their wedding is an informal affair held in the back garden of the West Los Angeles home of director Howard Hawks, Jean’s best man. Dusty’s attendants are Howard’s wife Slim, Joan Perry (Harry Cohn’s wife) and Dorothy Campbell. Pianist Jose Iturbi gives the bride away. Because of Jean’s commitments at Warner Bros, the couple go on just a brief honeymoon to Laguna Beach. The plan is to have a longer honeymoon in Europe the following year

Dusty Anderson with her personal collection of magazines
1944. Two shots of Dusty Anderson with her personal collection of magazines

Dusty Anderson has a family

Jean and Dusty badly want to have children but they are out of luck. After five months of pregnancy, Dusty has a miscarriage, which makes her very ill. They try again and the same thing happens. At this point, their doctors advise them to give up their efforts so as not to endanger Dusty’s health.

So the couple turn their parental yearnings elsewhere, supporting orphans under the Foster Parents for War Children plan. On a visit to Italy in August 1953, they invite nine-year-old war-orphan Adelina Peluso from Naples to Rome to meet them. They have supported her for three years and on this occasion Dusty buys her a whole new wardrobe. Four years later, while in Greece, they meet 12-year-old Chryssoula Yannidaki, a fatherless Greek girl whom they have been supporting for two years.

Then, in 1959 while Jean is away in Hong Kong, Dusty hears about illegitimate children born during the American occupation in Germany after the War and abandoned by their mothers. She finds out that there’s a three-month-old girl in a hospital in Stuttgart and, after consulting with Jean, takes the next plane to Germany to adopt Christina. While she’s at it, she discovers another little girl, Gabrielle, whom she adopts to be Christina’s “sister.”

It’s not until May 1961 that all the paperwork is completed. Jean and Dusty are reunited in Rome with “’Tina” and “Gaby.” Their arrival at Rome’s airport is captured by the local press and shown in Italian newsreels.

Dusty Anderson asserts herself

A news snippet in the September 1949 issue of Screenland magazine, reveals that:

Mrs Negulesco, who is Dusty Anderson, has given up acting for painting. Had her first art show and we understand Greta Garbo has bought one she did of a whole flock of cats.

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Dusty Anderson as a pretty kitty

Dusty Anderson as a pretty kitty

1946. Now that's what I call a catsuit! And that's Dusty Anderson larking about...

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Dusty Anderson as a pretty kitty

Dusty Anderson as a pretty kitty

1946. It looks as if the success of Dusty Anderson's Hallowe'en shoot last year...

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Dusty Anderson as a pretty kitty

Dusty Anderson as a pretty kitty

1946. Dusty Anderson is the subject of this typical mid-1940s kitschy cheesecake shot, with...

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Dusty Anderson as a broomstick-bearing witch

Dusty Anderson as a broomstick-bearing witch

1945. The first in a sequence of three pin-ups featuring Dusty Anderson as a...

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Dusty Anderson as a witch bestride her broomstick

Dusty Anderson as a witch bestride her broomstick

1945. The second in a sequence of three pin-ups featuring Dusty Anderson as a...

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Dusty Anderson as a broomstick-bearing witch

Dusty Anderson as a broomstick-bearing witch

1945. The third in a sequence of three pin-ups featuring Dusty Anderson as a...

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In October 1950, Dusty presents 15 of her latest paintings at a big show at the Drouant-David gallery in Paris. “Her pictures include scenes of London’s River Thames, conventional flowers and fruit, a study of her two Siamese cats, and a self-portrait.” She’s enjoying her new career as a painter and lets Jean know that she would like to go to Paris to study art and improve her technique. Jean is not in favour because he reckons it would require at least two years of study and practice.

This becomes a topic of ongoing friction between the couple. Another is Jean’s constant philandering. His bungalow on the 20th Century-Fox lot, where he invites stars and starlets for lunch, is known as “bangalow.” “Poor Dusty,” says producer Jerry Wald’s wife, Connie. “[She] had to put up with a lot.”

Dusty Anderson as a glamorous witch
1945. Dusty Anderson provides a touch of Hallowe’en glamour. Photo be Robert Coburn

The marriage goes downhill. In 1953, columnist Dorothy Kilgallen reports that the Negulescos “are writing the Unhappy Ending after all these years.” In May, Dusty Anderson ups and leaves for Paris with Dee Hartford, Howard Hawks’ latest wife.

In order to try to win back his Dusty, Jean persuades Darryl Zanuck, his boss at 20th Century-Fox, to give him an assignment in Europe and chooses to work in Italy on Three Coins in the Fountain. Before leaving, he confides in columnist Harrison Carroll:

I don’t pretend she went to Paris with my blessing, I thought it was a stupid expense. But Dusty wanted to study painting, and when one of those Cherokee Indian girls makes up her mind, nothing is going to stop her.

En route to Rome to scout for locations, he stops off in Paris to talk Dusty into a reconciliation. The couple make up and a few days later Dusty joins Jean in Rome.

Jean’s love affairs are something Dusty Anderson has to cope with throughout their marriage but she goes some way to getting her revenge. When she suspects that he has a crush on Sophia Loren while making Boy On a Dolphin, she travels around the world on his credit card, expense no object (or perhaps even THE object). Jean will later remark: “I am still paying the bills. My weakness for my stars cost me a fortune.”

But, to return to Dusty’s career as an artist, in August 1955 it is reported that “Dusty Negulesco has made much progress as a painter and her pictures have received good notices from the art critics.” And her paintings appear in at least two of Jean’s movies: Daddy Long Legs and The Best of Everything.

Dusty Anderson gets around

Dusty Anderson’s first trip abroad is in May 1948, accompanying her husband who’s off to research his next film, Britannia Mews. This is presumably the pretext for their extended honeymoon. With the job complete, Jean takes her to Paris for some sightseeing, not least to visit the most important museums and art galleries. On their itinerary is Galerie Drouant-David in the fashionable rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, where Jean buys all the paintings they have by then unknown expressionist painter Bernard Buffet.

In 1950, Jean gets a new, more lucrative contract with 20th Century-Fox, which means the couple can now afford a new home. After viewing a series of properties in and around Bel Air and Beverly Hills, they decide to buy the house that Greta Garbo has put on the market. Having lived there for 14 years, first with actor John Gilbert, then with conductor Leopold Stokowski, she’s decided to leave Hollywood and move to New York. Latterly, she’s been using only a part of the house, sharing it with a maid and a gardener, and leaving the remainder of the property empty. By the time the Negulescos get their hands on it, the huge, mostly abandoned living room is covered by such a thick layer of dried leaves that it takes seven people to clean it up. The house will be their home for 13 years.

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Dusty Anderson as Sandra in The Phantom Thief

Dusty Anderson as Sandra in The Phantom Thief

1946. Dramatically lit and wrapped in a cloak, Dusty Anderson is ready for the...

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Dusty Anderson as Sandra in The Phantom Thief

Dusty Anderson as Sandra in The Phantom Thief

1946. Dusty Anderson stars in The Phantom Thief (original title Boston Blackie's Private Ghost)...

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Dusty Anderson as Sandra in The Phantom Thief

Dusty Anderson as Sandra in The Phantom Thief

1946. The dramatic lighting, exaggerated eyelashes and exotic costume including two outré neck pieces,...

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In 1963, Jean and Dusty move to Madrid. It’s a joint decision, although partly the result of Jean’s desire to work in Europe, where there are opportunities to get involved with projects that are less commercially driven. Writing for the Chicago Tribune, Hedda Hopper reports that Dusty has told her that, having rented their Beverly Hills house:

We are traveling light to Madrid, with two small children, trunks full of photographs, records and paintings, one small Rolls, and a secretary with our casting files. The airplane couldn’t make it, and I am not sure we won’t sink the boat.

Jean brings his career to a close in 1970 with the release of Hello-Goodbye. It’s time to retire and enjoy the fruits of his efforts. At 71, he is a wealthy man with a fabulous art collection and a number of houses in different parts of the world as well as a beautiful wife. In the 1970s, the couple are living in Marbella, on the southern coast of Spain, in a house they have had built for themselves not far from the sea. The house is always full of friends visiting from all over the world.

Dusty Anderson’s last days

In 1993, Jean’s health suddenly deteriorates. On 18 July, three days before their 47th wedding anniversary, he dies at home of heart failure. Dusty is at his bedside. The last news we have of her comes in an email message from Malcolm Abbey to Michelangelo Capua, Jean’s biographer. He reports that she was “sent away” to a nursing home.

Last I heard, and this was 20 years ago, she was severely alcoholic and unable to remember from moment to moment who she was talking to. Very tragic.

But hold on. An article about Dusty Anderson’s 99th birthday published on Fabiosa in December 2017 suggests that she “is peacefully enjoying her advanced years.” Let’s hope so.

Want to know more about Dusty Anderson?

There’s not a whole lot of information about Dusty Anderson out there on the Internet. The most informative source is Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen. There are two books about Jean Negulesco though, which provide most of the material on which this piece is based:

  • Jean Negulesco: The Life and Films by Michelangelo Capua
  • Jean Negulesco’s autobiography – Things I Did … and Things I Think I Did – a good read but with disappointingly little about Dusty Anderson.

Other topics you may be interested in…

Hazel Brooks – the human heat wave
Dusty Anderson as a pretty kitty
Hollywood Hallowe’en cheesecake
Marguerite Chapman – a real trooper

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: Cover Girl, Darryl Zanuck, Dusty Anderson, Eddie Cronenweth, Halloween, Harry Cohn, Harry Conover, Howard Hawks, Jean Negulesco, Ned Scott, Robert Coburn, The Phantom Thief

The Lady from Shanghai – the weirdest great movie ever made

The Lady from Shanghai – hallucinatory, baffling, sinister, brilliant, twisted. All of those adjectives apply to this flawed masterpiece by one of cinema’s great magicians. Or, in the words of Dave Kehr, the weirdest great movie ever made.

The Lady from Shanghai has become something of a cult for movie buffs, particularly for connoisseurs of film noir. It’s full of originality, strangeness and atmosphere. But the film we see today is very different from the one that Orson Welles, its writer, director, producer and co-star, envisioned. And the story behind it has enough twists and turns to form the basis of a movie in its own right.

If you’ve never seen the movie, now’s the time to find out what you’ve been missing. If you have a blu-ray player, try to get hold of the Mill Creek Entertainment transfer.

Spoiler Alert!!! Let’s begin with the main characters and the plot of the film itself. So, stop reading now if you’ve never seen The Lady from Shanghai and want to watch it without knowing the plot in advance.

The Lady from Shanghai – characters, plot and things to look out for

Rita Hayworth as Elsa Bannister in The Lady from Shanghai
1947. Rita Hayworth as Elsa Bannister in The Lady from Shanghai. Photo by Robert Coburn.

There are five main protagonists in The Lady from Shanghai:

  • Michael O’Hara, an unemployed freelance sailor who acts as the film’s narrator. Orson Welles cast himself in the role, assuming a less-than-convincing Irish accent. For all that, his wistful voice-over imbues the film with a sense of overwhelming sadness, world-weariness and resignation.
  • Elsa Bannister, the drop-dead gorgeous lady from Shanghai with a murky past and a great deal on her mind. This role marked a radical departure from those previously played by Rita Hayworth.
  • Arthur Bannister, Elsa’s husband whose brilliant legal mind is in stark contrast with his pitiful, crippled body. He’s played with “hawk-like malevolence” by Mercury Player Everett Sloane, who made his screen debut in Citizen Kane. And indeed Arthur Bannister, like Charles Foster Kane, is full of despair despite his success.
  • George Grisby, Arthur Bannister’s sweaty, bulging-eyed, leering legal partner, obsessed with the atom bomb and the end of the world. He has a habit of calling people “fella,” presumably a reference to Nelson Rockefeller, who had recruited Welles to create It’s All True (a film comprising three stories about Latin America), only to terminate the project before it came to fruition. Glenn Anders’ performance in the role all but steals the show.
  • Sidney Broome, a private detective hired by Arthur Bannister to spy on Elsa. This marked Ted de Corsia’s screen debut and he went on to play a number of villains in movies including Jules Dassin’s terrific The Naked City (1948).

The Lady from Shanghai has a tortuous, labyrinthine storyline. At the beginning, it’s easy to follow. But as the film moves towards its shattering (literally!) climax, the intrigue careers out of control, piling plot-twist on plot-twist. Perhaps things would have been spelled out more clearly had the film not been cut by an hour and subjected to numerous retakes and edits. But even before that happened… after the preview showing, Harry Cohn, Columbia’s president, offered to pay anyone in the room US$1,000 if they could explain the storyline. So perhaps it was always Welles’ intention to take his audience for a ride.

The following sequence of stills should help you to make sense of the plot. The synopsis in the captions draws on a much longer and rather brilliant one at Filmsite.org.

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Michael O’Hara meets Elsa Bannister

1. Michael O’Hara meets Elsa Bannister

Michael O’Hara meets and is captivated by Elsa Bannister as she is riding in a horse-drawn carriage through Central Park in New York. After they part, he hears her scream and rescues her from muggers. He learns about her past and talks about his. She offers him a job as a crew member on board her yacht. Later he meets George Grisby and Sidney Broome, from whom he learns that Elsa is married to Arthur Bannister, a renowned San Francisco lawyer.

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Arthur Bannister comes to find Michael O'Hara

2. Arthur Bannister comes to find Michael

The next day, Arthur Bannister, crippled and by implication impotent, comes looking for Michael at the seamen’s hiring hall. He reiterates the job offer.

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Arthur Bannister takes Michael O'Hara for a drink

3. Bannister takes Michael for a drink

Bannister takes Michael and two of his mates to a bar for a drink. When he gets legless, Michael takes him home.

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Elsa Bannister and Bessie, her maid

4. Bessie is concerned for her mistress

The Bannisters’ maidservant Bessie is concerned for her mistress and urges Michael to help the vulnerable “child” – “She needs you bad, you stay”.

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Elsa Bannister flirts with Michael O’Hara

5. All at sea

The cruise is sultry and fraught. A strange sense of doom and a malicious torpor hangs over the yacht like an albatross. At sea, Grisby, who has joined the party, asks Michael if he would be prepared to commit a murder. The conversation is interrupted by Elsa calling Michael, with whom she has begun to flirt. Grisby sees them embrace.

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A picnic in the jungle

6. A picnic in the jungle

Bannister organizes a picnic that requires the whole crew to make their way through a dangerous jungle on the Mexican coast. He tells Broome, the yacht’s steward, that he (Bannister) will be the victim of a murder plot. Elsa tells Michael that Broome is actually a private detective whose remit is to spy on her so that in the event of a divorce she would be left with nothing. At the picnic, the Bannisters bait each other about Michael’s role as her “big, strong bodyguard.” When they call him to join them, he likens them to a pack of blood-seeking sharks.

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George Grisby makes Michael O'Hara a strange proposition

7. Grisby makes Michael a strange proposition

Docked in Acapulco, Grisby offers Michael $5,000 to murder him.

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Michael O'Hara promises to take care of Elsa Bannister

8. Michael promises to take care of Elsa

The following night, when Elsa comes to find him on one of the city’s streets, Michael tells her about Grisby’s weird proposal. When Broome appears in the shadows, Michael knocks him out. Elsa runs away from the scene but Michael catches up and promises to take care of her.

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Elsa Bannister at the San Francisco aquarium

9. The plot thickens

The cruise ends in San Francisco, where Michael proposes to Elsa that he accept Grisby’s offer and use the money to elope with her. She declines his offer.

Grisby reveals that his plan is for an insurance scam: if either of the partners in the firm of Bannister & Grisby dies, the other stands to get a lucrative pay-out.

Next morning, in Grisby’s office Michael listens to part of the typed statement he must sign, admitting to killing Grisby. Grisby persuades him to go ahead on the basis that he, Grisby, will disappear and that in California a murderer cannot be convicted without a corpse.

The following day, Michael has a clandestine meeting with Elsa at the San Francisco aquarium, where he convinces her to go along with his plan. On reading a copy of the statement he has signed, she warns him that her husband is behind Grisby’s proposal and that it’s some kind of trap.

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George Grisby takes Michael O'Hara for a ride

10. Grisby takes Michael for a ride

At the Bannisters’ house on the night of the fake murder, Broome reveals that he’s rumbled Grisby’s plan, which is in fact to kill Bannister, pin the murder on Michael and run off with Elsa. When he tries to blackmail Grisby, the latter shoots him, then goes out and hands the gun to the unsuspecting Michael to use for the fake murder.

While Grisby and Michael make for the Sausalito dock, Elsa, who has heard the gunshot, finds Broome dying on the kitchen floor and listens unmoved as he tells her about the plot to murder her husband.

At the dock, Grisby smears some of his blood (he’s been cut when the car windscreen was smashed on the way) onto Michael’s clothes and then sails off in a speedboat. Only when he phones the Bannisters’ house and hears Broome’s dying words does Michael realize he’s been taken for a ride:

Get down to the office, Montgomery Street. You was framed. Grisby didn’t want to disappear. He just wanted an alibi – and you’re it. You’re the fall guy. Grisby’s gone down there to kill Bannister now.

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Michael O'Hara is arrested and charged

11. Michael is arrested and charged

Michael rushes into the city to prevent Bannister’s murder but his car is stopped by police, who surround the law office. They discover blood, a written confession and a fired gun. And Michael discovers that Bannister is alive but Grisby is dead.

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The Bannisters discuss Michael O'Hara

12. The Bannisters discuss Michael

Bannister is to act as Michael’s lawyer in the upcoming murder trial. He’d be happy for Michael to be found guilty but doesn’t want Elsa to see him as a martyr.

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Elsa Bannister visits Michael O'Hara in jail

13. Elsa visits Michael in jail

Elsa visits Michael in jail and encourages him to trust Bannister. He tells her what transpired between him and Grisby.

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The courtroom scene in The Lady from Shanghai

14. In court

The courtroom scene is pure farce, with preposterous proceedings (including Bannister making to question himself), an undisciplined jury and disruptive observers.

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Elsa Bannister is called as a witness

15. Elsa is called as a witness

Elsa is called as a witness and questioned about Broome and her feelings for Michael.

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16. Michael tries to commit suicide

16. Michael tries to commit suicide

Just before the jury announce their verdict, Elsa motions Michael to take an overdose of her husband’s painkillers, which are within his reach. He does so and is seized by his guards.

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Michael escapes

17. Michael escapes

In the confusion that follows, Michael overpowers his guards, flees the building and makes for San Fransisco’s Chinatown district. Hiding in a theatre, he is found by Elsa and discovers the gun used to kill Grisby in her handbag.

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Michael O'Hara in the Crazy House

18. The plot revealed

Michael is kidnapped by Elsa’s servants and taken to the Crazy House at an amusement park that’s closed for the season. He realizes that Elsa had plotted with Grisby to kill her husband so that Grisby could get the insurance money. But that her ultimate aim was to kill Grisby once he had served his purpose. When things didn’t go to plan and Grisby shot Broome, she murdered Grisby to ensure he wouldn’t confess their plan to the police. And Michael was always going to be the stooge.

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Michael O'Hara on the Crazy House slide

19. Into the abyss

As he wanders around the Crazy House, Michael trips a mechanism that pitches him down a long, zigzag slide.

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Michael O'Hara and Elsa Bannister in the Hall of Mirrors

20. The dénouement

Michael emerges into the Hall of Mirrors. Elsa appears in a doorway and confesses her guilt while claiming to love Michael. Bannister arrives and threatens Elsa with a letter he has written to the district attorney explaining her guilt and Michael’s innocence. The couple draw guns and begin to fire at the multiple reflections of each other in the mirrors. Once the panes have been shot to smithereens, it is clear that Bannister and Elsa are both fatally wounded.

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Michael O'Hara leaves Elsa Bannister to die

21 The end

Elsa stumbles with Michael into another room where she begs for his sympathy. But he’s having none of it and leaves her dying on the floor. He walks across the street to call the police, reflecting that he will be exonerated by Bannister’s letter.

Note: stills 5 and 8 have been cropped from portrait to landscape format so as not to disrupt the grid.

One of The Lady from Shanghai’s most striking aspects is its cinematography – in particular its use of wide-angle lenses to caricature faces, notably those of Grisby and Bannister; startling camera angles (such as the vertiginous vantage point along the coast from which we see Grisby explain his plot to Michael); and deep focus, which disorients the viewer by giving equal weight to foregrounds and backgrounds. There are also many virtuoso passages. Five of the most remarkable are:

  • The cruise with its sweltering, claustrophobic, voyeuristic atmosphere and the allusions to Elsa’s siren character via the name of the yacht (Circe) and the shots of her reclining on the rocks and singing.
  • The picnic in the jungle with its air of doom, desire and venom, culminating in Michael’s extraordinary speech:

Do you know, once off the hump of Brazil, I saw the ocean so darkened with blood it was black, and the sun fadin’ away over the lip of the sky. We put in at Fortaleza. A few of us had lines out for a bit of idle fishin’. It was me had the first strike. A shark it was, and then there was another and another shark again, till all about the sea was made of sharks, and more sharks still, and the water tall. My shark had torn himself away from the hook, and the scent, or maybe the stain it was, and him bleedin’ his life away, drove the rest of them mad. Then the beasts took to eatin’ each other; in their frenzy, they ate at themselves. You could feel the lust of murder like a wind stingin’ your eyes, and you could smell the death, reekin’ up out of the sea. I never saw anything worse, until this little picnic tonight. And you know, there wasn’t one of them sharks in the whole crazy pack that survived.

  • The aquarium, which provides such a disconcerting setting for Michael’s clandestine meeting with Elsa.
  • The outrageous court scene, which makes a hilarious mockery of the legal system.
  • The Fun House and Hall of Mirrors that Welles created for the film’s dénoement.

The Lady from Shanghai – how it came about

In 1945 Welles found himself in a predicament:

I was working on Around the World in 80 Days [a stage musical based on the Jules Verne novel] and we found ourselves in Boston on the day of the premiere, unable to get the costumes from the station because $50,000 was due and our producer, Mr. Todd, had gone broke. Without that money we couldn’t open. I called Harry Cohn [head of Columbia Studios] in Hollywood…”


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Orson Welles in The Lady from Shanghai

Orson Welles in The Lady from Shanghai

A caption on the back of the photo reads:

ENDANGERED .. Orson Welles in a dramatic scene from Columbia’s “The Lady from Shanghai,” in which he stars with Rita Hayworth.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Orson Welles in The Lady from Shanghai by Robert Coburn

Orson Welles in The Lady from Shanghai

Orson Welles as Michael O'Hara in The Lady from Shanghai. Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Orson Welles in the Lady from Shanghai by Eddie Cronenweth

Orson Welles in The Lady from Shanghai

A caption on the back of the photo reads:

ENDANGERED .. Orson Welles in a dramatic scene from Columbia’s “The Lady from Shanghai,” in which he stars with Rita Hayworth.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

According to Welles, he made the call from a drugstore and when Cohn asked him what the film would be about, he grabbed a novel from a nearby shelf and read out the synopsis on the back. However, Welles was a master of creating his own mythology and the truth is a bit more prosaic. The film is based on Sherwood King’s novel, If I Die Before I Wake. Years earlier, producer William Castle had sold the movie rights to Columbia on the condition that he would be involved should a film be made. He subsequently produced a treatment and set it to Welles, who responded:

About If I Should Die – I love it … I have been searching for an idea for a film, but none presented itself until If I Should Die and I could play the lead and Rita Hayworth could play the girl. I won’t present it to anybody without your OK. The script should be written immediately. Can you start working on it at night?

But why did Harry Cohn go along with the idea, given that at the time Welles was pretty much persona non-grata in Hollywood. Citizen Kane (1941) had done a pretty effective character assassination job on newspaper magnate, William Randolph Hearst, setting Welles up as a threat to the establishment. The Magnificent Ambersons (1942) had gone over budget and failed to recoup its investment. It’s All True was terminated before completion and never saw the light of day. Welles went some way to redeeming his credibility with The Stranger (1946), which came in under budget and proved a modest commercial success.

Perhaps Cohn felt that for the money Welles wanted it was a risk worth taking. Or perhaps he didn’t want to upset Hayworth, his biggest star, by turning down her husband even though the marriage was on the rocks. Besides, the pairing of Welles and Hayworth as the leads could be an intriguing prospect for audiences.

The Lady from Shanghai – Welles’ ambition

Rita Hayworth's million dollar haircut for The Lady from Shanghai
1947. Rita Hayworth’s million dollar haircut for The Lady from Shanghai. Read more.

The first thing Welles did was have Hayworth’s trademark long red hair bobbed and dyed “topaz blonde.” And he made it into a media event, inviting the press to come along and witness the makeover for themselves. It was not what Harry Cohn had in mind for his biggest star and he was furious. In spite of that, the studio released a whole series of shots of the event to the press.

Gossip columnist Louella Parsons (who had it in for Welles ever since he parodied her boss, William Randolph Hearst, in Citizen Kane) claimed that with The Lady from Shanghai he had deliberately and maliciously set out to destroy Rita Hayworth’s career. She then asserted that Welles was “washed up.”

It’s difficult to know what impelled Welles to such a controversial move. He may well have felt ambivalent, even vindictive, about his marriage, and there’s certainly a case to be made for seeing the whole movie as a misogynistic, not to say toxic, farewell to Hayworth. And yet… Is Elsa nothing more than a cold-blooded, scheming femme fatale? It’s tempting to jump to that conclusion. But it’s also possible to see her, like Gilda, as a victim – a woman in a man’s world who’s been exploited her whole life and who is now so desperate she’s prepared to take matters into her own hands.

Back to the haircut and it’s likely that, however he felt about his marriage, with his director’s hat on Welles saw the need for a completely new look that would disassociate Hayworth in audiences’ minds from her previous roles. It was an early symptom of the way in which Cohn’s and Welles’ ambitions for the movie diverged. Cohn was looking for a box-office hit. Welles wanted to produce “something off-center, queer, strange,” according to a memo he sent Cohn, by giving the film a nightmarish feel and striving for performances that were “original, or at least oblique

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Orson Welles with Rita Hayworth just before she has her million dollar haircut for The Lady from Shanghai

Orson Welles with Rita Hayworth before her million dollar haircut for The Lady from Shanghai

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

MILLION DOLLAR HAIRCUT .. Rita Hayworth is shown here with husband Orson Welles just before having her tresses shorn for her starring role in “The Lady from Shanghai,” in which Welles will co-star with her as well as produce and direct it for Columbia Pictures.

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Helen Hunt about to embark on Rita Hayworth's million dollar haircut for The Lady from Shanghai

Helen Hunt about to embark on Rita Hayworth’s million dollar haircut for The Lady from Shanghai

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

MILLION DOLLAR HAIRCUT .. Rita Hayworth is shown here with Columbia’s chief hair stylist, Helen Hunt, just before having her tresses shorn for her starring role in “The Lady from Shanghai,” in which Rita’s husband, Orson Welles, will co-star as well as produce and direct it for Columbia Pictures.

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Helen Hunt giving Rita Hayworth a million dollar haircut for The Lady from Shanghai

Helen Hunt giving Rita Hayworth a million dollar haircut for The Lady from Shanghai

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

MILLION DOLLAR HAIRCUT .. Rita Hayworth is shown here with locks of hair in her hands while Columbia’s chief hair-stylist, Helen Hunt, continues to cut away Rita’s tresses for her role in “The Lady from Shanghai,” in which she has her husband, Orson Welles, as co-star. He is also producer and director of the Columbia picture.

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Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth admiring her million dollar haircut for The Lady from Shanghai

Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth admiring her million dollar haircut for The Lady from Shanghai

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

MILLION DOLLAR HAIRCUT .. Rita Hayworth and husband, Orson Welles, seem pleased with Rita’s new hair style. Rita had her long tresses shorn for her starring role in “The Lady from Shanghai,” in which Welles is her co-star. He is also producer and director of the Columbia picture.

Photo by Homer Van Pelt.

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Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth admiring her million dollar haircut for The Lady from Shanghai

Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth admiring her million dollar haircut for The Lady from Shanghai

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

MILLION DOLLAR HAIRCUT .. Rita Hayworth and husband, Orson Welles, seem pleased with Rita’s new hair style. Rita had her long tresses shorn for her starring role in “The Lady from Shanghai,” in which Welles is her co-star. He is also producer and director of the Columbia picture.

Photo by Homer Van Pelt.

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Rita Hayworth's million dollar haircut for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth’s million dollar haircut for The Lady from Shanghai

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

THE WORLD’S FIRST TOPAZ BLONDE! Glamorous Rita Hayworth, as this photo shows, has submitted to the ministrations of Columbia Studio’s chief hair stylist, Helen Hunt, to acquire a new coiffure for her forthcoming starring picture, “The Lady From Shanghai.” With 18 inches snipped from her crowning glory, and her titian locks changed to a new blonde called topaz blonde, it is a new and vibrant Rita who faces the cameras these days. “I just didn’t want to stay ‘Gilda’ forever,” Rita explains when asked the reason for the change in her hairdo.

Characteristically, Welles was hugely ambitious for the film. For the opening scene, set in Central Park, he planned the longest dolly shot ever filmed. involving huge arc lights, a sound boom and a 20-foot camera crane, which followed Elsa Bannister’s carriage for nearly a mile. That was just the beginning. He also planned to shoot most of the film on location, something pretty much unheard of in Hollywood at the time since seemingly every cinematic need could be catered for by the vast studio lots and soundstages. For Welles that would have been just too obvious and easy. Plus, shooting on location would have been a great way of escaping Cohn’s surveillance – the mogul bugged Welles’ office at Columbia, as he had Glenn Ford’s dressing room when Gilda was being filmed.

And then there were the sets and set pieces, the two most celebrated being the Fun House (a great set for a fashion shoot – Rita’s wardrobe is by Jean Louis) and the Hall of Mirrors. The inspiration for the former were the expressionist images of the German silent movie, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920). According to Rob Nixon:

Stephen Goosson designed an elaborate set with sliding doors, distorting mirrors and a 125-foot zigzag slide from the roof of a studio sound stage down into a pit that was 80 feet long, 40 feet wide and 20 feet deep. For one shot simulating Welles’ point of view as he hurtled down the slide, Lawton and camera operator Irving Klein slid the entire length of it on their stomachs with the camera on a mat. The director himself spent more than a week from 10:30 at night until 5 in the morning painting the set.

The Hall of Mirrors was designed with the help of special effects wizard Lawrence Butler and contained almost 3,000 square feet of glass. Some of the mirrors were two-way, others had holes through which the camera crew could shoot

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Rita Hayworth fashion shot, The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth fashion shot, The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

PLEATS ARE NEW … Rita Hayworth, in her next Columbia picture, “The Lady From Shanghai,” wears this black dinner dress featuring the new pleated skirt, which is embroidered in amber beads. The dress may be worn with the accompanying V scarf as a tie-on sash or as a head covering.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Rita Hayworth fashion shot, The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth fashion shot, The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

WHITE FOR EVENING … Rita Hayworth, co-starring with Orson Welles in Columbia's "The Lady From Shanghai" wears this lovely white marquisette creation by designer Jean Louis against the background of an amusement park "fun house." It is there that one of the most dramatic sequences of the picture takes place.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Rita Hayworth fashion shot, The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth fashion shot, The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

PLEATS ARE NEW … Rita Hayworth, in her next Columbia picture, “The Lady From Shanghai,” wears this black dinner dress featuring the new pleated skirt, which is embroidered in amber beads. The dress may be worn with the accompanying V scarf as a tie-on sash or as a head covering.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Rita Hayworth fashion shot, The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth fashion shot, The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

PLEATS ARE NEW … Rita Hayworth, in her next Columbia picture, “The Lady From Shanghai,” wears this black dinner dress featuring the new pleated skirt, which is embroidered in amber beads. The dress may be worn with the accompanying V scarf as a tie-on sash or as a head covering.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Rita Hayworth fashion shot, The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth fashion shot, The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

DRESSY BLACK … Rita Hayworth, in her next Columbia picture, “The Lady From Shanghai,” wears this smart black wool suit designed by Jean Louis. The fashion interest in this lies in the contrast between the dull of the fabric and the shiny satin trim. This shot was taken on the “fun house” set, where one of the most dramatic moments of the picture takes place.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Rita Hayworth fashion shot, The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth fashion shot, The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

DRESSY BLACK … Rita Hayworth, in her next Columbia picture, “The Lady From Shanghai,” wears this smart black wool suit designed by Jean Louis. The fashion interest in this lies in the contrast between the dull of the fabric and the shiny satin trim. This shot was taken on the “fun house” set, where one of the most dramatic moments of the picture takes place.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

When it came to cinematography, Welles and his director of photography, Charles Lawton Jr, decided to use low-key interior lighting and natural light wherever possible. For outdoor skies and transitions between outdoor and indoor scenes they employed filters. And they exploited wide-angle lenses to lend distortion to close-ups. Shooting on board a yacht was always going to be a challenge – the sort of thing Welles loved. So he and Lawton did a series of experimental test shoots to determine how to deal with the problem of over-exposure – the light meters struggled to cope with the glare of the sea and sky. They also turned the lack of space on the yacht to their advantage by creating cramped, claustrophobic compositions. And for the aquarium scene they got seriously tricksy. First they shot the fish-tanks separately. Then they enlarged the resulting film and used it as the background for the close-ups of Michael and Elsa, making the sea creatures appear super-size and super-sinister.

The Lady from Shanghai – a disaster in the making

Rita Hayworth takes time to relax during the filming of The Lady from Shanghai
1947. Rita Hayworth relaxes at home after a day at the studios. Photo by Ned Scott. Read more.

Shooting began in autumn 1946 in locations including Acapulco, San Francisco and New York as well as Columbia Studios – for details and photos take a look at Reel SF. For the Acapulco shoot, which took more than 35 days, Welles rented Errol Flynn’s yacht, and Columbia sent 40 technicians and more than six tons of equipment.

Even under the most favourable circumstances, the location shoot was never going to be straightforward. The jungle picnic scenes were filmed close to a crocodile-infested river. Poisonous barnacles had to be scraped off the rock from which Elsa dives into the ocean. A spear-wielding Mexican swimming champion had to be employed to swim off-camera to protect Hayworth from deadly barracuda.

But it was as if the shoot was cursed. In Mexico, the cast and crew were plagued by problems, many of them detailed by producer William Castle in his diary. During the day, the temperature was sweltering. At night, clouds of poisonous insects swarmed around the arc lights, sometimes rendering them useless. Histamine poisoning from an insect bite caused such swelling to one of Welles’ eyes that he couldn’t open it. And half the crew went down with dysentery. Meanwhile, Hayworth was sick throughout the shoot, collapsing both In Mexico and in San Francisco, and halting production for a month.

Worst of all, on the first day of shooting, assistant cameraman Donald Ray Cory, working bareheaded in the blazing sun, had a heart attack and died. Rumour has it that Errol Flynn, who insisted on captaining his boat and was regularly drunk and abusive, wanted the body dumped into the ocean in a duffle bag. The crew ignored him, discreetly put the corpse ashore and hushed the incident up.

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Rita Hayworth dines in her dressing room between scenes while filming The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth dines in her dressing room while filming The Lady from Shanghai

A caption on the back of the photo reads:

HOLLYWOOD CHOW TIME .. Glamorous Rita Hayworth, in her new topaz blonde coiffure, is so busy filming “The Lady from Shanghai” with her husband and co-star, Orson Welles, that she doesn’t have time to leave her portable dressing room at Columbia Studio for lunch. So she dines on her makeup table, and seems to be really enjoying it.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles off to Mexico to film The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles off to Mexico for The Lady from Shanghai

A caption on the back of the photo reads:

OFF TO MEXICO: Glamour star Rita Hayworth and husband Orson Welles are shown here as they boarded a special plane at Lockheed Air Terminal, Los Angeles, en route to Acapulco, Mexico, for location scenes for the Columbia picture, “The Lady From Shanghai,” in which the pair co-star. Welles is also writer-director-producer of the film.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Joseph Cotton and his wife with Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth backstage on The Lady from Shanghai

Joseph Cotton and his wife backstage on The Lady from Shanghai

A caption on the back of the photo reads:

VISITORS .. Joseph Cotten (with straw hat) and Mrs. Cotten (far right) visit Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles on the Columbia soundstage where Rita and Orson are filming “The Lady from Shanghai.” And the straw hat on Cotten is no gag! When Orson saw Joe on the set, he immediately ordered a wardrobe man to bring Joe a hat and bandanna, and put Cotten to work doing a walk-through in a brief street scene in “The Lady from Shanghai.”

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Rita Hayworth poses for Eddie Cronenweth

Rita Hayworth photo shoot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

LOOK PRETTY, PLEASE .. Lovely Rita Hayworth, in a fetching shorts outfit, poses for still photographer Eddie Cronenweth, in the patio of the Hotel Casablanca at Acapulco, Mexico, where Rita and Orson Welles took their Columbia Studio crew and supporting cast on location to film scenes for 'The Lady from Shanghai."

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Rita Hayworth poses for Eddie Cronenweth

Rita Hayworth photo shoot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

LOOK AT THE BIRDIE .. Lovely Rita Hayworth poses for still photographer Eddie Cronenweth in the patio of the Hotel Casablanca, in Acapulco, Mexico, where Rita and Orson Welles took the Columbia Studio crew and supporting cast to film location scenes for "The Lady from Shanghai."

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Rita Hayworth poses for Eddie Cronenweth

Rita Hayworth photo shoot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

GLAMOROUS .. Lovely Rita Hayworth poses for still photographer Eddie Cronenweth on the terrace of the Hotel Casablanca at Acapulco, Mexico, where Rita and Orson Welles took their Columbia Studio crew and supporting cast on location to film scenes for “The Lady from Shanghai."

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Orson Welles gets a quick trim from makeup expert Bob Schiffer between scenes of The Lady from Shanghai

Orson Welles and Bob Schiffer between scenes of The Lady from Shanghai

A caption on the back of the photo reads:

NEXT!! .. Orson Welles gets a quick trim from makeup expert Bob Schiffer between location scenes of Columbia’s “The Lady from Shanghai,” on a beach near Acapulco in tropical Mexico. “The Lady from Shanghai,” thrilling story of love and crime, stars Rita Hayworth and Welles.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Orson Welles prepares to film a location scene for The Lady from Shanghai

Orson Welles prepares to film a location scene for The Lady from Shanghai

A caption on the back of the photo reads:

ON LOCATION .. Orson Welles (on platform) prepares to film a location scene in tropical Mexico for Columbia’s “The Lady from Shanghai,” in which he is starred with Rita Hayworth.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Orson Welles prepares to film a location scene for The Lady from Shanghai

Orson Welles prepares to film a location scene for The Lady from Shanghai

A caption on the back of the photo reads:

ON LOCATION .. Orson Welles (on platform) prepares to film a location scene in tropical Mexico for Columbia’s “The Lady from Shanghai,” in which he is starred with Rita Hayworth.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Rita Hayworth with Robert Coburn between scenes during the filming of The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth with Robert Coburn while filming The Lady from Shanghai

A caption on the back of the photo reads:

LOOK AT THE BIRDIE .. Lovely Rita Hayworth poses for Columbia’s chief still photographer, Robert Coburn, between scenes of “The Lady from Shanghai,” in which she and Orson Welles are co-starred.

Photo by Ned Scott.

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Rita Hayworth shopping in Acapulco while filming The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth shopping in Acapulco while filming The Lady from Shanghai

A caption on the back of the photo reads:

SHOPPING IN OLD MEXICO .. Rita Hayworth buys a colorful native bare-midriff beach outfit from Julia Polin during the lovely star’s 6-week stay in Acapulco with Orson Welles to film location scenes in a Mexican background for Columbia’s “The Lady from Shanghai.”

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Orson Welles directing Carl Frank and Rita Hayworth in The Lady from Shanghai

Orson Welles directing Carl Frank and Rita Hayworth in The Lady from Shanghai

A caption on the back of the photo reads:

MENACE .. This is the picture you won’t see on the screen. It shows Orson Welles, his usual mug of steaming coffee in hand, directing Carl Frank and Rita Hayworth in a dramatic courtroom cross-examination scene for Columbia Pictures’ “The Lady from Shanghai.” Orson is producer, writer, director and co-star with Rita in “The Lady from Shanghai.” Frank plays the role of a tough district attorney.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

And then there were problems Welles brought on himself by his way of working. He would rewrite the script from day to day so everyone ended up confused. And as a director he would give his actors a hard time. Sometimes he deliberately upset them to get nervous, edgy performances. Other times he would cause them to forget their lines and improvise on the spot. By all accounts, it was not a happy project.

Welles never viewed the rushes; he just shipped them straight off to Columbia. There they were reviewed by Viola Lawrence, the studio’s chief editor. As a firm advocate of using close-ups and highlighting actors’ eyes to convey drama and emotion, she was horrified to discover that the rushes contained no close-up shots of Hayworth. She reported this to Cohn, who sent orders to rectify this. On location, Welles refused to do so. Back on the studio lot, he caved in. On Cohn’s orders, he also added the scene of Elsa singing on the yacht.

The Lady from Shanghai – from bad to worse

The rough cut of the film was based on an editing concept outlined by Welles. It ran approximately 155 minutes. But Welles’ contract with Columbia left it up to the studio to decide who would edit the final cut. Their choice was Lawrence, who had previously worked on Rita Hayworth vehicles Cover Girl and Tonight and Every Night, and would go on to work on Down to Earth, Affair in Trinidad, Salome, Miss Sadie Thompson and Pal Joey.

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Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth wears a sexy black evening gown in The Lady from Shanghai. Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth wears a sexy black evening gown in The Lady from Shanghai. Photo by Homer Van Pelt.

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Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth wears a sexy black evening gown in The Lady from Shanghai. Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth wears a sexy black evening gown in The Lady from Shanghai. Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth wears a sexy black evening gown in The Lady from Shanghai. Photo by Homer Van Pelt.

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Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

GLAMOUR – Rita Hayworth wears a revealing black evening gown in Columbia’s “The Lady from Shanghai,” in which she and Orson Welles are co-starred.

Photo by Homer Van Pelt.

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Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth wears a sexy black evening gown in The Lady from Shanghai. Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

TOPAZ BLONDE – Glamorous Rita Hayworth, who appears as a topaz blonde in her latest Columbia picture, “The Lady from Shanghai,” in which Orson Welles is her co-star.

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Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth wears a sexy black evening gown in The Lady from Shanghai. Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth wears a sexy black evening gown in The Lady from Shanghai. Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth wears a sexy black evening gown in The Lady from Shanghai.

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Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth, publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth wears a sexy black evening gown in The Lady from Shanghai. Photo by Homer Van Pelt.

Taking her orders from Cohn, she cut about 55 minutes from the movie, including the opening dolly shot in Central Park, much of the Chinese opera sequence and most of the Fun House scene – all highlights of the original concept; the fashion shoot above shows just how weird and wonderful the set was). Quite apart from the damage done to the storyline, the continuity of Welles’ long takes was disrupted by the insertion of close-ups, and the result is a bewildering hotchpotch. Welles accepted some responsibility for the fiasco but pushed most of the blame onto Lawrence’s editing.

Rita Hayworth filming a location scene off the coast of Mexico for The Lady from Shanghai
1947. Rita Hayworth films a location scene off the coast of Mexico for The Lady from Shanghai. Photo by Eddie Cronenweth. Read more.

What he was most upset about was what became of the soundtrack. He’d wanted to use sound to unsettle the audience – for example by fading in voices so quietly that viewers would have to strain to make out what was being said. Traces of what he intended are evident in the grating voices of Bannister and Grisby and the final dialogue in the Hall of Mirrors.

After the success of the songs, Amado Mio and Put the Blame on Mame in Gilda, Cohn insisted on retrofitting a song into The Lady from Shanghai. The result was Please Don’t Kiss Me, commissioned from the same team – Alan Roberts and Doris Fisher (with Hayworth’s singing voice once again dubbed by Anita Ellis). The song itself is a class act. What absolutely isn’t is the way in which it is exploited as the background track for pretty much the entire movie, replacing the original score by George Antheil. Welles was incensed:

The only idea which seems to have occurred to this present composer is the rather weary one of using a popular song – the “theme – in as many arrangements as possible. Throughout we have musical references to “Please Don’t Kiss Me” for almost every bridge and also for a great deal of the background material. The tune is pleasing, it may do very well on the Hit Parade — but Lady from Shanghai is not a musical comedy.

The Lady from Shanghai – from box office failure to cult

When The Lady from Shanghai was completed in 1946 Columbia got cold feet. They were worried that it would bomb at the box office and anxious to protect Hayworth’s image. So they chose to hold it until after they’d released Down To Earth (1947) – a much more commercial movie. The Lady from Shanghai ran first in Europe (1947), where it was generally well received, before finally opening in the US in 1948, seven months after Welles and Hayworth were divorced. The studio did nothing to push the film, allowing it to be shown as the bottom half of double bills.

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Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth, as Elsa Bannister in The Lady from Shanghai, chats on the phone. Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

TOPAZ BLONDE .. Glamorous Rita Hayworth, who appears as a topaz blonde in her latest Columbia picture, "The Lady from Shanghai," in which she and Orson Welles co-star.

Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth poses in a killer, black-satin gown by Jean Louis for a publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai. Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

TOPAZ BLONDE .. Glamorous Rita Hayworth, who appears as a topaz blonde in her latest Columbia picture, "The Lady from Shanghai," in which she and Orson Welles co-star.

Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth as Elsa Bannister, dressed by Jean Louis to kill in The Lady from Shanghai.

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Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

TOPAZ BLONDE .. Glamorous Rita Hayworth, who appears as a topaz blonde in her latest Columbia picture, "The Lady from Shanghai," in which she and Orson Welles co-star.

Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth sports her dramatic new haircut in this publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai. Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

JACKETS FOR MOTORISTS … Lovely Rita Hayworth, who is currently working in Columbia’s “The Lady From Shanghai,” has found the ideal coat. Made of broadtail, it is designed after the Navy “P” jackets, its length and fullness allowing complete freedom.

Photo by Ned Scott.

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Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth publicity shot for The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

TOPAZ BLONDE .. Glamorous Rita Hayworth, who appears as a topaz blonde in her latest Columbia picture, "The Lady from Shanghai," in which she and Orson Welles co-star.

Photo by Robert Coburn.

Contemporary critics were pretty disparaging. Bosley Crowther opened his review for The New York Times with:

For a fellow who has as much talent with a camera as Orson Welles and whose powers of pictorial invention are as fluid and as forcible as his, this gentleman certainly has a strange way of marring his films with sloppiness which he seems to assume that his dazzling exhibitions of skill will camouflage.

John Carter’s review for The New Yorker was in a similar vein: “The penny-dreadful aspects of The Lady from Shanghai are obvious, but the film is nevertheless often remarkable.” While William Brogden, in Variety wrote:

The Lady from Shanghai is okay boxoffice [sic]. It’s exploitable and has Rita Hayworth’s name for the marquees. Entertainment value suffered from the striving for effect that features Orson Welles’ production, direction and scripting. Script is wordy and full of holes which need the plug of taut story telling and more forthright action.

So The Lady from Shanghai sank without trace and for many years was regarded as one of Welles’ great failures. In an interview with Peter Bogdanovich, he remembered how:

Friends avoided me. Whenever it was mentioned, people would clear their throats and change the subject very quickly out of consideration for my feelings. I only found out that it was considered a good picture when I got to Europe. The first nice thing I ever heard about it from an American was from Truman Capote.

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Rita Hayworth autographs fan photos between takes of The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth autographs fan photos between takes of The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

FAN PICTURES…Whenever Rita Hayworth has a few minutes between scenes she autographs pictures for her fans in her roomy studio apartment. Rita has departed for an extended European tour after completing her latest Columbia picture, “The Lady from Shanghai."

Photo attributed to Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth autographs fan photos between takes of The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth autographs fan photos between takes of The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

FAN PICTURES…Whenever Rita Hayworth has a few minutes between scenes she autographs pictures for her fans in her roomy studio apartment. Rita has departed for an extended European tour after completing her latest Columbia picture, “The Lady from Shanghai."

Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth in her boudoir during the filming of The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth in her boudoir during the filming of The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

MIRROR, MIRROR, ON THE WALL … Lovely Rita Hayworth pauses a minute from brushing her new coiffure. Her hair was cut short and lightened to a topaz blonde for her role in Columbia’s, “The Lady From Shanghai.”

Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth about to go on tour after completing The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth about to go on tour after completing The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

RITA’S BEDROOM .. Rita Hayworth’s bedroom in her Santa Monica home is done in a soft blue grey with accents of color in the lamps and other furnishings. It will be months before Rita sleeps in it again, as she left for an extensive European tour after she completed her latest Columbia picture, “The Lady from Shanghai.”

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Rita Hayworth relaxes after completing The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth relaxes after completing The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

RITA RELAXING .. Rita Hayworth, after completing her Columbia picture, “The Lady from Shanghai,” enjoyed a fortnight of relaxation in her own back yard before departing on an extensive European tour.

Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth relaxes after completing The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth relaxes after completing The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

RITA RELAXING .. Rita Hayworth, after completing her Columbia picture, “The Lady from Shanghai,” enjoyed a fortnight of relaxation in her own back yard before departing on an extensive European tour.

Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth about to go on tour after completing The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth about to go on tour after completing The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

HAYWORTH AT HOME .. Rita Hayworth, who recently completed “The Lady from Shanghai," at Columbia, enjoyed a fortnight of relaxation at her Santa Monica home before departing for an extended tour of Europe.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

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Rita Hayworth about to go on tour after completing The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth about to go on tour after completing The Lady from Shanghai

1947. Rita Hayworth relaxes in the garden of her Santa Monica home before leaving for an extended tour of Europe. Photo attributed to Eddie Cronenweth.

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Rita Hayworth smiles off set during the filming of The Lady from Shanghai

Rita Hayworth smiles off set during the filming of The Lady from Shanghai

1947. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

TOPAZ BLONDE .. Glamorous Rita Hayworth, who appears as a topaz blonde in her latest Columbia picture, “The Lady from Shanghai,” in which Orson Welles is her co-star.

Photo by Eddie Cronenweth.

More recently, though, not least thanks to the advocacy of François Truffaut, critical opinion has swung behind The Lady from Shanghai, with Dave Kehr in his review for the Chicago Reader dubbing it “the weirdest great movie ever made.” Flawed masterpiece is probably the best description of the film, which in many respects makes it a whole lot more interesting than a perfect masterpiece (if such a thing even exists).

Want to know more about The Lady from Shanghai?

Ava Gardner and Orson Welles on the set of The Lady from Shanghai
1947. The pixie looks like he belongs to the Fun House – hence the suggestion that this photo was taken on the set of The Lady from Shanghai, supported by Welles’ suit and haircut. This is an incredibly rare image – apparently sthe only photo of the two stars together.

There are some brilliant analyses and critiques of The Lady from Shanghai available online.

  • Filmsite Movie Review has some good background and an excellent, detailed plot synopsis.
  • Brian Phillips provided a combination of background fact and insightful observations in his piece, Through a Glass, Darkly: ‘The Lady From Shanghai’ and the Legend of Orson Welles for Grantland (unfortunately now defunct).
  • Chris Justice offers a similar combination of background and analysis, well worth reading at senses of cinema.
  • Among a series of articles at TCM (apparently not accessible outside the US), Why The Lady from Shanghai is Essential by James Steffen & Rob Nixon and Behind the Camera on The Lady from Shanghai by Rob Nixon stand out.
  • Stories Behind The Screen has some great anecdotes about the making of the film.
  • Reel SF covers the locations with then and now shots together with interactive maps of Acapulco and San Fransisco.

Other pieces worth reading are at:

  • Film Noir of the Week
  • Film Court
  • Parallax View.

If you’d like to know more about Orson Welles, then Rosebud: The Story of Orson Welles by David Thomson is a terrific read.

Other topics you may be interested in…

Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth at loggerheads
Celebrity break-up – why Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth split
Cover girl Rita Hayworth with magazines
Cover Girl – fashion goes to the movies
Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford in a passionate embrace
Gilda – the movie that made Rita Hayworth into a bombshell

Filed Under: Films, Stars Tagged With: Alan Roberts, Anita Ellis, Doris Fisher, Everett Sloane, George Antheil, Glenn Anders, Harry Cohn, Jean Louis, Louella Parsons, Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth, Ted de Corsia, The Lady from Shanghai, Viola Lawrence

Cover Girl – fashion goes to the movies

Cover Girl is a 1944 movie in which Hollywood embraces the business of fashion. It offers an opportunity to take a look at the modeling businesps, then burgeoning but still in its infancy. And it provides a showcase for the fashions of the day and the talents of Rita Hayworth and a bevy of models.

It’s a bright spectacle with songs by Jerome Kern and Ira Gershwin, costumes by Travis Banton, Muriel King and Gwen Wakeling, choreography by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, and that special early-Technicolor lushness. Donen would go on to direct Funny Face, another musical about the world of fashion, with Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn as its stars. Funny Face would help to cement the reputation of Paris after World War II as the world capital of fashion.

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Anita Colby

Anita Colby

1943. Anita Colby – "the most beautiful face this side of heaven and the sharpest tongue this side of hell," according to Valdemar Vetlugen, editor...

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Cecilia Meagher

Cecilia Meagher

1943. Cecilia Meagher began modeling in 1936 when she was barely 17 years old. In the early 1940s she signed with Conover models. In 1942,...

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Leslie Brooks

Leslie Brooks

1943. Leslie Brooks started her career around 1940 as a model. In 1941 she signed with Columbia and had a makeover: she changed her name...

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Peggy Lloyd

Peggy Lloyd

1943. Peggy was adopted age five by Harold Lloyd, a famous comedian, a shrewd investor and the richest man in Hollywood. Despite the family’s wealth,...

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Eileen McClory

Eileen McClory

1943. Eileen McClory is a vivacious, cute, girl-next-door type, so has just the kind of looks and personality that Harry Conover likes. So when she...

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Betty Jane Hess

Betty Jane Hess

1943. Betty Jane Hess began modeling in 1938, when she was barely 17 years old. Like many aspiring models, she competed in various pageants and...

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Dusty Anderson

Dusty Anderson

1943. Dusty started out as Ruth Anderson from Toledo, Ohio. Harry Conover spotted her in New York “doing some designing”, decided that the name Ruth...

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Jinx Falkenburg

Jinx Falkenburg

1943. With her hazel eyes and lithe figure, Jinx Falkenburg is one of America’s highest-paid cover-girl models during World War II and, with her...

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The plot of Cover Girl is both pure fantasy and pretty banal. A Brooklyn nightclub owner loves his principal dancing girl. The dancing girl loves the nightclub owner. But the dancing girl has a driving ambition to become a famous cover girl… Bear in mind that while the world of Cover Girl might feel like it has nothing to do with reality, former Vogue editor Rosamond Bernier would recall:

Vogue was something in those days. I came in my first morning and saw all the editors at the typewriters wearing hats with veils and big rhinestone chokers and earrings. I looked with absolute wonder!

To give you a flavour, here are three extracts from the movie

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put me to the test

1. Put Me To The Test

Set to Jerome Kern and Ira Gershwin’s Put Me To The Test, this number is one of the movie’s highlights: two phenomenally athletic and graceful dancers, a treacherous set (different levels, stairs, a ramp) and no quick cutting to mask mistakes. The supporting girls and the costumes are the icing on the cake.

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the shoot

2. The shoot

So they’ve hammed it up for the movie, but this scene offers a light-hearted insight into the art behind the stills photography that is such a focus for aenigma. We see the make-up artist (remember Perc Westmore – the makeup king of Hollywood?), the hairdresser, the dapper photographer and his assistant, and the final product – the magazine itself.

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the cover girls

3. The cover girls and round the mountain

We’re in the Wheaton Theatre. The curtain goes up and an enormous lens is lowered onto a podium in the middle of the stage. Through the lens we see each cover girl in turn enter from the left and watch her pose full-length and close-up. Her session ends with a glimpse of the magazine cover on which she appears. The whole thing has a nice pace and wit.

It's followed by the wonderful "round the mountain" scene in which Rita Hayworth dances down and back up a cloud-shrouded Art Deco mountain peak. In this version, the original soundtrack has been replaced by a Madonna mash-up with Victor Cheng.

Cover Girl – the business of modeling

In 1944, the modeling business in the US is dominated by two agencies.

Andrea Johnson, John Robert Powers model.
Mid-1940s. Andrea Johnson, John Robert Powers model. Read more.

John Robert Powers has blazed the trail. In the 1920s as an out-of-work actor he finds himself using his network to help photographers find models. He spots a business opportunity and sets up shop. As he later recalls, he:

…had their pictures taken, made up a catalogue containing their descriptions and measurements, and sent it to anyone in New York who might be a prospective client – commercial photographers, advertisers, department stores, artists.

The depression that follows the 1929 stock market crash enables him to broaden his talent pool by attracting debutantes whose families are on their uppers. At the same time he works hard to make the business respectable. His success changes the social status of models. Society hostess extaordinaire Elsa Maxwell says that she might give a party without debutantes but she wouldn’t dream of doing so without inviting a few Powers Girls.

The 1940s see Powers basking in the light of success and publicity and expanding his business portfolio. He has a radio show and writes a regular syndicated newspaper column, Secrets of Charm. Warner Bros release The Powers Girl (1943), a movie about two sisters living in New York and aspiring to become high-profile models. And Powers Girls are hired by the Hollywood studios and go out with and marry the rich and famous.

In 1941 Powers publishes the first of many books, The Powers Girls. Promising “The story of models and modeling and the natural steps by which attractive girls are created,” it’s partly a behind-the-scenes look at the agency, partly a beauty and grooming guide, and partly a marketing piece. In 1943 he launches a correspondence course, including “practical hints about what men really do and don’t like.” Meanwhile, his wife begins teaching charm courses covering grooming, diction and coiffure, the first step along the road to a nationwide chain of John Robert Powers Schools. But Powers has taken his eye off his core modeling business and this provides an opening for a new competitor.

Anita Colby
Mid-1940s. Anita Colby, model, agent and businesswoman extraordinaire. Read more.

Harry Conover begins his career in the modeling business as a model and works for John Robert Powers before deciding to set up in competition. He’s handsome, suave and unscrupulous, taking with him models Anita Colby, Phyllis Brown and her boyfriend, who agrees to invest in the start-up. The boyfriend is Gerald Ford and in 1974 he will become President of the US.

Harry differentiates his agency from that of his erstwhile employer by promoting a different kind of model. He mocks the Powers Girls as “Adenoid Annies, rattling bundles of skin and bones.” Focusing on preppies and campus queens, he pioneers a new type of model – “the windblown outdoor girl”, in the words of Bob Fertig his head of promotion. Conover calls these recruits Conover Coeds, then Cover Girls – and that’s where Columbia’s Cover Girl gets it inspiration and title. While, taking his cue from Hollywood, Conover develops a habit of rechristening his models – including his future wife.

In 1941, the winner of a Miss Atlantic City contest turns up at the agency. She introduces herself to Conover: “I’m Jessica Wilcox.” “You’re Candy Johnson,” he replies. “And your rate is $5 an hour.” He later shortens her name from Johnson to Jones because she has trouble remembering the longer version. By 1943, thanks to her looks and his promotion – including candy-striped outfits and calling cards – she is a top model. And in 1946 Conover marries her.

But the marriage is fated from the start. Conover is always chasing skirt – seemingly out with a different model night after night. He is also less concerned than Powers about respectability – he has a much more laissez-faire attitude when playboys approach him for dates with his models. “Right in my own office we have the very thing that every man looks for, works for, fights for and dies for,” Conover says, just before being excommunicated by the Catholic Church.

In 1952, having dropped out of the agency business and franchised his schools, Powers will move to Beverly Hills, where he will settle until he dies, age 84. Conover, by contrast, will die age 53, having succumbed to a classic combo of booze, lechery and profligacy. The modeling business, like the movie business, is unforgiving. It has a habit of chewing up its practitioners and spitting them out.

Cover Girl – behind the scenes

Rita Hayworth and co-stars on the set of Cover Girl
1943. Filming a scene for Cover Girl. Photo by Ned Scott. Read more.

Cover Girl has more in common with Gilda than their very different plots and styles might lead you to expect. Both are Columbia productions commissioned by Harry Cohn. Both are directed by Charles Vidor with cinematography by Rudolph Maté. And both have scripts by Virginia Van Upp.

Cohn is known to be tightfisted but he makes an exception for Cover Girl. He sets aside no less than a million dollars for the production and accepts it going US $600,000 over budget, with the lavish dance numbers devised by Kelly in no small part to blame for the overspend.

The movie is quite a coup for the Conover agency – a massive riposte to (and possibly inspired by) The Powers Girl, released the previous year. Harry Conover and Anita Colby are both employed by the studio as “technical consultants”. The latter is in charge of a troupe of Conover models who travel west from New York in a special railway carriage – a great publicity stunt that’s lapped up by the press.

The girls are all excited about what lies in store for them in Tinseltown but they’re in for a nasty surprise. Harry Cohn has made arrangements to ensure that they stay out of trouble. Francine Counihan, one of the models and also Anita Colby’s sister remembers:

Cover Girl was produced by Harry Cohn. Oh, he was a monster. He decided to put us all in one house together where he could see that nobody could get out. So we stayed in Marion Davies’ home in California. He only let us out to go shopping.

And there they stay for months while Harry Cohn apparently searches for an actress to play the lead role. Surely he’s known all along that this is to be a vehicle for his studio’s leading star, Rita Hayworth? Perhaps he just likes the feeling of power over the girls.

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Rita and the gang

Rita and the gang

1943. On a lawn, presumably outside the studio, Rita Hayworth poses with the cover girls. It looks like the photographer must be perched in a...

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Lucky man!

Lucky man!

1943. Some people have all the luck. Rita Hayworth gives Tech Sergeant Gordon L Smith a peck on the cheek. A caption on the back...

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Tea time

Tea time

1943. The stars relax in the hot California sunshine during a break in filming. The maid (as usual) is uncredited. A caption on the back...

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Susann Shaw and Jinx Falkenburg, cover girls

Susann Shaw and Jinx Falkenburg, cover girls

1944. Two of the era's supermodels pose on the set of Cover Girl. Susann Shaw is taken with the fashion sketch she's holding, while Jinx...

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Anyway, whatever the reason, there’s a great story about how all the girls sneak out one night to go to a party. They have to return at intervals, one by one, to get past the security guards. To the guards’ growing consternation, each in turn announces herself as Anita Colby, who is the only member of the troupe allowed out. Inevitably, the last one back is the real Anita Colby.

Meanwhile, Anita Colby, who also acts as the girls’ agent, makes the most of the stay by managing to book three magazine covers each for the girls. Her success with the press doesn’t go unnoticed and she’s appointed “Feminine Director” of the David O Selznick studio.

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Rita Hayworth – promotional shot for Cover Girl

Rita Hayworth – promotional shot for Cover Girl

1943. Photo probably by Ned Scott.

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Rita Hayworth – promotional shot for Cover Girl

Rita Hayworth – promotional shot for Cover Girl

1943. Photo by Robert Coburn.

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Rita Hayworth in a scene from Cover Girl

Rita Hayworth in a scene from Cover Girl

1943. Photo by Ned Scott.

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Rita Hayworth in a scene from Cover Girl

Rita Hayworth in a scene from Cover Girl

1943. Photo by Ned Scott.

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Rita Hayworth in a scene from Cover Girl

Rita Hayworth in a scene from Cover Girl

1943. Photo by Ned Scott.

One of those most closely involved with the way Rita looks in Cover Girl is Robert Coburn, head of Columbia’s Photo Gallery. In John Kobal’s biography of Rita Hayworth, Coburn talks about photographing Columbia’s biggest star:

The contract I signed put me in complete charge of the studio’s stills department. Mind you, if I ever relaxed and let a bad picture of Hayworth or any other star out, Cohn would call me on the carpet immediately.

In those days we had the Johnson Office, and if we had any cleavage showing the pictures would be sent back. The Code was very strict. Any sign of breasts, even the shadow between, had to disappear. A woman wasn’t supposed to have any. We spent all our time touching photos up.

Hayworth didn’t need touching up. She didn’t treat herself badly, she wasn’t an all-night carouser, although naturally we had to watch for wrinkles under the eyes and around the neck. Of course, any skin marks, small pimples, we would take them out. I don’t remember Hayworth ever looking at a picture, I don’t think she ever cared how she looked in a picture. She’d come in once in a while and ask how they looked but she didn’t bother checking or approving them. That’s rare for women. Whereas Cohn was interested in her every minute of the day. He’d call whenever he knew from the call sheet that I was shooting her. They fought a lot. I told Cohn a million times that if he stopped picking on her I’d get what I wanted but he kept needling her and fitting in more hours.

I’d usually talk to her all the time when I was photographing her, getting her in the mood. Then, I’d catch her at her peak. She had the famous Hayworth look, looking over the shoulder, and after doing three of those she’d had it. She’d say, “What do you want that for? Get something else.” She didn’t realize that she didn’t have that come-and-get-me look except in that one pose.

Cover girl Rita Hayworth with magazines
1941. Rita Hayworth contemplates her cover girl status. Photo by George Hurrell. Read more.

Cover Girl – Rita learns new role

“Cover Girl” – Rita learns new role is the title of an article that appears in the 18 January 1943 issue of LIFE magazine.

Rita Hayworth is just a little bit bigger in the bust and in the hips than the average top-notch photographer’s model. The movie star is 35 in. around bust and hips whereas the average model is, at best. only 34.

These extra inches, which look fine on Rita Hayworth, did not worry Columbia Pictures at all when they cast her for the lead part in their forthcoming movie, The Cover Girl. The movie, which goes into production soon, will tell about photographers’ models who appear on the covers of national magazines. In it Miss Hayworth will combine her looks, figure and talents with Technicolor, some songs and a complicated story about two cover girls, one of 30 years ago and the other of today. The second cover girl will be the first one’s daughter. Miss Hayworth will play both of them.

When Miss Hayworth was in New York City recently, it occurred to Columbia Pictures that she ought to go through a model’s routine to see how a photographer’s model really worked. Miss Hayworth, who is a game girl, spent a full day working out of Harry Conover’s model agency, making believe she was a real cover girl. She learned that beauty is not enough.

For $3 an hour – $10 an hour if in great demand – models work exhausting hours in front of hot lights and fussy photographers, always trying to be charming and intelligent. To get work they have to be on time for appointments, be well-groomed and sweet-tempered. They spend days tramping around from client to client just to keep up their contacts. They are on their feet so much, in fact, that after being a model for a few months a girl’s feet invariably grow a whole shoe-size bigger.

The girls with Rita are Conover models, each chosen by a national magazine to play its cover girl in The Cover Girl. Being the star, Miss Hayworth will not represent any single magazine. This week, however, she is LIFE’s own cover girl.

Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth get hitched
9 September 1943. Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth get hitched. Read more.

In fact during the shooting of Cover Girl it turns out that Rita has two new roles. The second is as the wife of Orson Welles. It’s no secret that the couple have been dating. Even so, when it happens on 7 September 1943 their marriage takes everyone by surprise. According to Lee Bowman, the day the teams are shooting the film’s wedding scene, Rita arrives on the set.

She looked very lovely sitting there in her wedding dress [for the movie] while the crew were setting up. Rita sat there with her hands in her lap, her eyes very big and a lovely big pussy smile on her face. When any of us asked, “What is it, Rita?” she’d just shake her head and say, “Mmm, I’ve got a secret.” Wouldn’t say anything else. The first we knew what it was came during the lunch break when somebody brought us the papers with the headlines.”

While Rita is on cloud nine, director Charles Vidor is anything but. According to the film’s producer, Arthur Schwartz:

And you know who was terribly jealous and unhappy? The director. He had fallen in love with her. He came and cried on my shoulder and didn’t want to go on. He had to continue shooting every day and she was now married and looking more radiant all the time. She had a tremendous empathy, tremendous sex appeal. All those fifteen or so Cover Girls together didn’t have what she had.

Cover Girl – just a piece of fluff?

Cover Girl wins the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ annual award for Scoring of a Musical Picture. It is also nominated for Color Cinematography, Color Art Direction, Sound Recording and Best Song.

Bosley Crowther, the influential film critic of The New York Times from 1940 to 1967, says in his review:

The script is so frankly familiar that it must have come from the public domain. And the characters are as sleekly mechanical as only musical comedy characters dare to be. But it rainbows the screen with dazzling décor. It has Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth to sing and dance. And virtually every nook and corner is draped with beautiful girls. Further, this gaudy obeisance to divine femininity has some rather nice music in it from the tune-shop of Jerome Kern.

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Rita Hayworth – promotional shot for Cover Girl

Rita Hayworth – promotional shot for Cover Girl

1943. Photographer unknown.

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Rita Hayworth – promotional shot for Cover Girl

Rita Hayworth – promotional shot for Cover Girl

1943. Photographer unknown.

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Rita Hayworth – promotional shot for Cover Girl

Rita Hayworth – promotional shot for Cover Girl

1943. Photographer unknown.

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At the office

At the office

1943. Rita Hayworth and models pose at the offices of Vanity magazine. This is just the epitome of mid-1940s chic in terms of both the...

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Heavenly sight

Heavenly sight

1943. In this ravishing fantasy sequence, Rita Hayworth appears at the top of a stylized Art Deco mountain down which she dances into the arms...

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Round the mountain

Round the mountain

1943. Having indulged her admirers, Rita Hayworth dances back up to the mountain peak in a rain of golden snowflakes. The caption on the back...

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Later on, Arthur Schwartz, whom Harry Cohn brought in to produce Cover Girl, recalls:

In spite of everything people have said about Harry Cohn, his vulgarity, his lack of education, neither of which was a unique characteristic among the men in his position – he had an instinct for quality. Cover Girl, as I made it, couldn’t have been made at WB: Jack Warner wouldn’t have had the taste somehow, while at Metro they would have overproduced it – too many girls and too many of everything.

Cover Girl magazines and models
The magazines and models: Cosmopolitan, Betty Jane Hess; McCall’s, Betty Jane Graham; Vogue, Susann Shaw; Harper’s Bazaar, Cornelia B Von Hessert; Woman’s Home Companion, Rose May Robson; The American Home, Francine Counihan (Anita Colby’s sister); Mademoiselle, Peggy Lloyd; Glamour, Eileen McClory; Coronet, Cecilia Meagher; Liberty, Karen Gaylord; Redbook, Martha Outlaw; The American, Jean Colleran; Farm Journal, Dusty Anderson; Look, Cheryl (Archibald) Archer; Collier’s, Helen Mueller; Rita Hayworth. Collage copyright and courtesy of Blonde at the Film.

In his programme notes for the BFI, director Karel Reisz observes:

In Cover Girl we can see the transition from the old to the new taking place. Though its story has the usual backstage background, many of its numbers are staged in the open air and characters dance in it for the joy of dancing and as an expression of mood, not simply as professional performers. The design of costumes and sets moreover, is notably above the usual standard of the routine product. Cover Girl also saw the emergence of Gene Kelly as a choreographer playing the role which he has since played many times: he dances pieces of the ‘plot’ instead of interpolating numbers, and his style is that of a ballet dancer, not a ‘hoofer’.

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Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

1943. Photographer unknown.

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Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

1943. Photographer unknown.

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Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

1943. Photographer unknown.

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Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

1943. Photographer unknown.

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Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

1943. Photographer unknown.

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Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

1943. Photographer unknown.

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Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

1943. Photographer unknown.

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Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

Gene Kelly and Rita Hayworth in Put Me To The Test

1943. Photographer unknown.

Cover Girl – want to know more?

Apart from the LIFE article, key sources are Michael Gross’ book, Model – the ugly business of beautiful women, and John Kobal’s biography of Rita Hayworth. You can find my favourite online article at Blonde at the Film. Other articles worth reading are at The Vintage Cameo and moviediva. And there’s also Caren Roberts-Frenzel’s beautifully illustrated Rita Hayworth: A Photographic Retrospective. For biographies of some of the cover girls, take a look at Those obscure objects of desire.

Cecilia Meagher
1944. Cecilia Meagher by George Hurrell. Read more.

Other topics you may be interested in…

Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford in a passionate embrace
Gilda – the movie that made Rita Hayworth into a bombshell
Ludmilla Tchérina – a throbbing, pulsating dynamo
The Lady from Shanghai – the weirdest great movie ever made

Filed Under: Fashion, Films, Stars Tagged With: Andrea Johnson, Anita Colby, Arthur Schwartz, Betty Jane Hess, Bosley Crowther, Candy Jones, Cecilia Meagher, Charles Vidor, Columbia Pictures, Cover Girl, Dusty Anderson, Eileen McClory, Francine Counihan, Gene Kelly, George Hurrell, Gwen Wakeling, Harry Cohn, Harry Conover, Jinx Falkenburg, John Robert Powers, Karel Reisz, Leslie Brooks, Muriel King, Orson Welles, Peggy Lloyd, Rita Hayworth, Robert Coburn, Rosamond Bernier, Rudolph Maté, Stanley Donen, The Powers Girl, Travis Banton

Unsafe sex – the starlet’s dilemma

A photo inscribed to Dr Irving Ress by Janis Paige.
Around 1950. A photo inscribed to Dr Irving Ress by Janis Paige. Read more.

In the aftermath of World War II, unmarried women faced a hard dilemma when it came to sex. Damned if they did, and damned if they didn’t.

In the words of a 16-year-old girl quoted by Michael Phillips in his article Women and the Sexual Double Standard of the 1950s:

How are you supposed to know what they want? You hold out for a long time and then when you give in to them and give your body they laugh at you afterwards and say they would never marry a slut, and that they didn’t love you but were testing because they only plan to marry a virgin and wanted to see if you would go all the way.

The pressures could be especially intense in the torrid and ultra-competitive world of the Hollywood studios, where the casting couch cast a long shadow and having a flexible attitude to sex could be the route to stardom or the road to perdition.

The inspiration for this piece is a collection of photos given to Dr Irving Ress by his clients. Dr Ress was an obstetrician who worked in Hollywood. Among the women who came to him for advice on pregnancy and childbirth were a number of movie stars and actresses. Perhaps they dedicated their photos to him spontaneously. More likely he was susceptible to their charms and asked them to contribute to his collection. Flattered by the request, they were happy to do so.

The predicaments and concerns they confided in him we can only imagine. But that’s not difficult in the context both the time (the 1940s and early ’50s) and the place (Hollywood).

Betty Grable by Frank Powolny
1943. Weapons of mass seduction. The image that made Betty Grable the number one pin-up girl of the World War II era. Read more.

Unsafe sex – the sexual revolution of the 1940s

20 years before the permissive society of the 1960s, a sexual revolution is taking place in the US in the 1940s.

The war years have already seen the flowering of the pin-up, perfected by the Hollywood studios and designed both to market their product and to boost morale by presenting an all-American view of the sweetheart waiting back home for the soldiers and sailors — the girls worth fighting for. As the GIs return, they also bring with them pornography from Europe and Asia.

In the late-1940s “camera clubs” are formed to get around laws restricting the production of nude photos. The clubs claim they exist to promote “artistic photography”, but in reality… The years 1952 through 1957 see Bettie Page posing for Irving Klaw, who distributes his pin-up and bondage shots by mail-order. And in 1953 Hugh Heffner publishes the first issue of Playboy.

At the same time, researchers are taking a new, more scientific interest in sex and sexuality. In 1948 the Kinsey Report, Sexual Behaviors in the Human Male and Sexual Behaviors in the Human Female, is published, shining a light on topics that have hitherto been taboo. Around this time, courses on human sexuality begin to appear on college campuses.

Sex is in the air. And in this context and after 15 years of depression and war, it’s hardly surprising that young people are less inclined than their parents to defer to traditional restraints on their behavior. Between 1941 and 1953, the overall rate of single motherhood more than doubles. But it’s not a straightforward matter of celebration, liberation and hedonism holding sway.

The post-World War II years bring with them a new period of economic and sexual anxiety. The US faces a major housing crisis. Juvenile delinquency supposedly reaches epic proportions. Both Republicans and Democrats go after Alfred Kinsey and comic books (Batman and Wonder Woman are accused of promoting homosexuality and lesbianism). The mood is one of pride and depression, valour and self-doubt, stoicism and vulnerability. Welcome to the heyday of film noir.

Unsafe sex – damned if she does, damned if she doesn’t

Barbara Stanwyck in The Two Mrs Carrolls
1947. In The Two Mrs Carrolls, Barbara Stanwyck is a victim of her husband. But his portrait of her seems to reflect the period’s underlying ambivalence and paranoia about women.

Meanwhile, women face a tricky dilemma. Leaving aside social attitudes to women having sex outside marriage (boys will be boys so that’s okay), contraceptive techniques are crude and unreliable. So women in relationships are playing with fire – always susceptible to getting pregnant or picking up a sexually transmitted disease.

It’s no wonder that women are strongly motivated to get married at the first opportunity (during the 1950s, the average age of women at marriage is 20). But there’s always the chance that they’ll make a bad choice and end up with a violent and abusive partner. And guess what? Domestic violence is rarely punished and there are no laws against rape in marriage. Which is hardly surprising given that police forces have no special domestic-violence units or policies.

The alternative – walking out – is unlikely to be a bed of roses. Single mothers and divorcees don’t have the same rights to state aid as widows with children so money is a problem. If they can get a job, it’s likely to be menial and low-paid. In other words, there’s a good chance those women end up ostracized and impoverished.

Marilyn Monroe
1950. Like most Hollywood actresses, Marilyn Monroe is a manufactured product. Read more. Photo by Frank Powolny.

Unsafe sex – the honey trap

Pretty girls are drawn to Hollywood like gazelles to a watering hole, where the lions and hyenas lie in wait. Some wannabes, such as Judy Garland, arrive under the influence of ambitious and domineering parents. Most are talent-spotted – Ava Gardner via a portrait photo in a New York photographer’s studio window, Lana Turner at a soda fountain – or so the story goes. Models (like Hazel Brooks) and theatre actresses (like Ella Raines) are popular prey.When they arrive in Tinseltown, they are young and innocent. And, like lambs to slaughter, onto the production conveyor-belt they go. Each is given a name (Frances Ethel Gumm becomes Judy Garland, Betty Joan Perske is rechristened Lauren Bacall ), a more or less fanciful back-story, a makeover and a contract.

What next for our aspiring starlet? A series of photo sessions with plenty of cheesecake shots and, if she’s lucky, a few bit parts. Her fate is down to a combination of factors, not the least of which is the relationships she manages to establish. Which brings us, or rather her, to the casting couch. Three of Hollywood’s foremost lechers in the 1940s are Harry Cohn, Darryl F Zanuck and Howard Hughes.

Harry Cohn, head of Columbia Pictures, is a blustering, foul-mouthed, abrasive taskmaster and acts like a tyrant. His office contains an enormous desk for him, and small seats for his visitors, enabling him to tower over them. On his desk is a photo of Benito Mussolini, whom he greatly admires. He also has ties to organized crime and is friendly with mobsters such as Chicago gangster John Roselli. Cohn enjoys using concealed microphones to eavesdrop on employees’ conversations, such as those of Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth during the filming of Gilda. Rita, Joan Crawford and Kim Novak are three of the better-known actresses who manage to build careers for themselves in spite of rejecting his advances.

Bette Davis and Howard Hughes
1938. Bette Davis with predator Howard Hughes. Read more.

Darryl F Zanuck, Cohn’s counterpart at 20th Century-Fox, is widely credited with inventing the “casting couch”. In Zanuck: The Rise and Fall of Hollywood’s Last Tycoon, Leonard Mosley quotes a startling recollection of the mogul’s long-term associate Milton Sperling:

You know that Darryl was mad about women. Everybody talked about it in Hollywood and the rumor was that his prowess as a cocksman was just unbelievable. I don’t know whether it was true or not. I was a shy young man, a bit backward in that regard. I guess, but even I knew that every day at four o’clock in the afternoon some girl on the lot would visit Zanuck in his office. The doors would be locked after she went in, no calls were taken, and for the next half hour nothing happened – headquarters shut down. Around the office work came to a halt for the sex siesta. It was an understood thing. While the girl was with Zanuck, everything stopped, and anyone who had the same proclivities as Zanuck, and had the girl to do it with, would go off somewhere and do what he was doing. I honestly think that from four to four-thirty every day at Fox, if you could have harnessed the power from all the fucking that was going on, you could have turned the tides at Malibu. It was an incredible thing, but a girl went in through that door every day.

Howard Hughes is not just a film producer and the owner of RKO Pictures; he is a business tycoon, engineer and pioneering aviator. He has a “secret” house near his LA home where he “interviews” would-be starlets. Rumour has it that he’s had affairs with a host of young actresses including Bette Davis, Jean Harlow, Ava Gardner, Carole Lombard and Ginger Rogers. Jane Greer’s career hits the buffers when she rejects his advances.

It’s not just the studio heads and producers who are in on the act. Agents, actors, publicists and others are all circling.

But back to our aspiring starlet… Assuming she makes it onto the big screen, the studio, fan magazines and gossip columnists work together to paint an attractive picture of her. By providing details of her domestic life, the studio enables fans to feel as if they can get close to the real person. Articles and photos of her home, her clothes, the events and parties she attends and so on, add grist to the mill. As does the slightest suggestion of romance – but only if our starlet is single.

It’s essential that there’s no hint of scandal. To that end, the studio enlists “fixers” to clean up potential embarrassments such as a drug addiction or an extra-marital affair. That is why it’s important for our starlet to tow the line and keep on the right side of her bosses. Otherwise they could hang her out to dry.

Jane Greer by Ernest A Bachrach
1945. Jane Greer, a talented actress as well as a beautiful woman, has her career wrecked by Howard Hughes, whose advances she rejects. Photo by Ernest A Bachrach.

The trouble is that temptation is everywhere. If you want to get a sense of the corrupt and corrupting forces that are rife, just read the novels of Raymond Chandler. Carmen Sternwood, for example, Lauren Bacall’s wild, drug-addicted younger sister exploited by pornographers and blackmailers in The Big Sleep, is an object lesson in what can become of a girl who gets in with the wrong crowd. In My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars, Scotty Bowers, an ex-Marine who works as a bartender at Hollywood parties, paints a picture of the LAPD vice squad prowling the hills in their patrol cars, looking for parties and opportunities to arrest the participants.

Even big stars are vulnerable to scandal. Ingrid Bergman is one of the most-loved stars in America but all that changes overnight when, in spite of having a husband and a daughter, she gets pregnant by Italian director Roberto Rossellini. Colorado Senator Edwin C Johnson takes to the floor of the Senate to denounce her as “a powerful influence for evil.”

And if our starlet fails to make the grade? She might be relegated to the stock character pool, kept around to “pleasure” visiting executives, or just spat out.

Unsafe sex –and what of Dr Ress and his clients?

It is in this glittering and sleazy environment laced with opportunity and danger that some at least of Dr Ress’s clients seek to make their way.

Of the twelve young women who dedicate photos to Dr Ress, seven taste a modicum of success, meet and romance a few of the ‘beautiful people’ and come through (relatively) unscathed, as far as we can tell. “Tommye” Adams crashes and burns – hers is a cautionary tale if ever there was one. Virginia Walker dies tragically young. The other three are mysteries.

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Angela Greene

Angela Greene

Mid-1940s. Inscribed "For Doctor Ress With sincere thanks and appreciation – Always, Angela."

Angela Greene is born in 1921, grows up in Flushing, New York,...

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Constance Dowling

Constance Dowling

Mid-1940s. Inscribed "To Dear Dr. Ress – I hope this was worth waiting for – Love, Connie Dowling".

Constance Dowling has come to Hollywood via...

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Doris Dowling

Doris Dowling

Mid-1940s. Inscribed "To Dr. Ress. With great affection and appreciation. Doris Dowling (yr. new daughter)".

Doris Dowling has followed her sister, Constance, from Broadway to...

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Kay Aldridge

Kay Aldridge

1947. Inscribed “Irving Ress, With great appreciation, Kay Aldridge, 1947”.

Kay inscribes this photo two years after retiring. Her career began 13 years earlier –...

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Janis Paige

Janis Paige

1945. Inscribed "To Dr. Ress, My dearest thanks and appreciation for being such a wonderful friend to me. With love, “The Brat” Janis Paige"

Janis...

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Lynn Merrick

Lynn Merrick

Mid-1940s. Inscribed "If there’s a doctor in the house, I hope it’s DR. RESS! Best Always, Lynn Merrick"

Lynn, blonde and blue-eyed, dedicates this photo...

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Charmaine du Rois

Charmaine du Rois

Mid-1940s. Inscribed "To my favorite Doctor and friend, sincerely always, Charmaine Du Rois".

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Diane

Diane

Mid-1940s. Inscribed "For my beloved doctor – the best in the world and a dear friend – Thank you for my beautiful little girl –...

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Abigail

Abigail “Tommye” Adams

8 March 1944. Inscribed "To Dr. Ress:– All my deepest affection. Tommye".

In May 1944, three months after inscribing this photo to Dr Ress, Tommye...

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Marta Linden

Marta Linden

Mid-1940s. Inscribed "To Irving. On account you’re such a love! Marta".

Marta Linden doesn’t hang around for long in Hollywood. Between 1942 and 1945 she...

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Liliana Chanel

Liliana Chanel

Around 1950. Inscribed "A Irving, sperando di conservare per sempre la sua meravigliosa amicizia. Liliana".

A label on the back of the photo identifies the...

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Virginia Walker

Virginia Walker

1945. Inscribed "For my very favorite doctor. Virginia".

This photo is issued by 20th Century-Fox to promote A Royal Scandal (1945), a film about the...

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Information about the doctor himself is thin on the ground, apart from a brief entry in Wikipedia. But we do catch a tantalizing glimpse of him in Universal Horrors: The Studio’s Classic Films, 1931-1946 by Tom Weaver and Michael Brunas. They recount an incident involving Australian actress Betty Bryant, cast by Universal as the female lead in The Jungle Captive (1945).

Around 1948. A photo inscribed to Dr Irving Ress by Betty Bryant. Read more.

Australian actress Betty Bryant, recently signed by Universal to a term contract, was originally chosen to play the female lead in The Jungle Captive (1945).

On August 30, 1944, one day before production began, she appeared in the office of associate producer Morgan B. Cox and informed him that she didn’t know whether she could find a babysitter to stay with her two year old on certain nights she was scheduled to work. On the first day of shooting she was unprepared, and on the second day she arrived 40 minutes late, just in time for a reprimand from director Harold Young.

To quiet the actress’ maternal apprehensions, her physician Dr Irving L. Ress, Hollywood’s “obstetrician to the stars,” was summoned. In private, Dr. Ress emphatically told Cox that there was nothing about motion pictures or motion picture people that he could admire. According to Ress, all the men in the movie business were concerned primarily with “making” any and all women in any way connected with the industry. Bryant was drawn into the argument and Ress nearly succeeded in creating a scene.

Over the next several days this embarrassing situation continued, with Ress hanging around the set, creating disturbances, careening around the darkened lot in his car and, in the words of Cox in a 16-page September 12 memo), “acting more like a thwarted lover than a reputable doctor.” Cox concluded in his memo that Bryant, slightly ill throughout much of this ordeal and genuinely apologetic for the entire situation, was a victim of circumstances over which she had little control. Of course the boom was inevitably lowered on the hapless actress, and she was bumped. (In his September 9 Los Angeles Times column, Edwin Schallert sugar-coated the incident, reporting that Bryant had gotten ill and “has to go in the hospital for observation and treatment.”) Amelita Ward replaced her in the picture, which ran two days over schedule (wrapping on September 16), probably as the result of the turmoil created by the mysterious Dr. Ress.

Clearly the good doctor has a jaundiced view of the industry. And who, other than the studios and their stooges, could really blame him?

Want to know more?

Two important sources for this piece are a blog about Women and the Sexual Double Standard of the 1950s (apparently no longer available online) and “Silent” Sexual Revolution Began In 1940’s and ’50s, an article by Alan Petigny.

For the lowdown on Hollywood, Scandals of Classic Hollywood: Sex, Deviance, and Drama from the Golden Age of American Cinema by Anne Helen Petersen is a great read. Or you could take a look at Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars by Scotty Bowers. For an online article, there’s a Daily Express article on Hollywood’s dirty little secret.

For more about the individual actresses, Wikipedia, IMDb and Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen are excellent starting points.

Other topics you may be interested in…

Carole Landis publicity photo for Secret Command
Carole Landis – die young, stay pretty
Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford in a passionate embrace
Gilda – the movie that made Rita Hayworth into a bombshell
Sex and power – Nazism in 1970s cinema

Filed Under: Behind the scenes, Stars, Studios Tagged With: Abigail Adams, Alfred Kinsey, Angela Greene, Barbara Stanwyck, Bette Davis, Bettie Page, Betty Bryant, Betty Grable, Charmaine du Rois, Constance Dowling, Darryl Zanuck, Doris Dowling, Dr Irving Ress, Harry Cohn, Howard Hughes, Ingrid Bergman, Irving Klaw, Janis Paige, Kay Aldridge, Liliana Chanel, Lynn Merrick, Marilyn Monroe, Marta Linden, pin-up, Playboy, sex, starlet, Virginia Walker

Gilda – the movie that made Rita Hayworth into a bombshell

Gilda is a landmark 1940s movie. It was one of the first to capture the angst that would infuse post-World War II film noir, and it gave Rita Hayworth her most famous role, transforming her image overnight from dancing queen to femme fatale.

In the movie’s most celebrated scene, she does an impossibly seductive striptease that involves the removal of just two long, black-satin gloves. It’s a performance charged with eroticism, desperation and tragedy and it cemented Rita’s status as Hollywood’s reigning love goddess of the 1940s. Movie posters screamed “There NEVER was a woman like Gilda!”, and Rita is reported to have said, “Every man I knew had fallen in love with Gilda and wakened with me.”

Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford in a passionate embrace
1945. Gilda (Rita Hayworth) and Johnny (Glenn Ford) in a passionate embrace. Photo by Robert Coburn. Read more.

If you’ve never seen the movie, now’s the time to find out what you’ve been missing. If you have a blu-ray player, make sure you get the Criterion transfer.

Spoiler Alert!!! Stop reading now if you want to watch Gilda without knowing the plot in advance.

Gilda – the story in a nutshell

Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) is a down-at-heel, card-sharp and gambling cheat whom we meet taking advantage of a group of sailors in Buenos Aires. Threatened by one of them as he leaves the docks, he is rescued by Ballin Mundson (George Macready), who invites him to his casino, where he becomes manager.

The arrangement is disrupted by the arrival of Gilda (Rita Hayworth), Johnny’s old flame but now Ballin’s wife. And, like Johnny, she jumps from opportunity to opportunity, looking for the next path to fortune. Gilda and Johnny are two of a kind and take every opportunity to wind each other up. A bad situation is made worse by Ballin ordering Johnny to look after Gilda. Their secret festers and the erotic tension escalates. The pair seem to delight in hurting and humiliating each other.

Meanwhile, we discover that the casino is merely a front for a cartel run by Ballin and a group of ex-Nazis to control the international tungsten market. As the police close in, Ballin fakes his death, and Johnny marries Gilda – not, as it turns out, because he loves her but in order to punish her for being unfaithful to Ballin.

Ballin returns to exact revenge but gets his come-uppance, leaving Johnny and Gilda to walk out into the sunset.

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are-you-decent

1. Are you decent, Gilda?

On his return from a business trip, Ballin leads Johnny to the master bedroom. We’ve been waiting for Rita’s entrance for over quarter of an hour.

First we hear her singing to herself off-camera. Then she detonates onto the screen in a pose that would have reminded contemporary audiences of Bob Landry’s famous 1941 photo of her for Life magazine.

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hate-is-a-very-exciting-emotion

2. Hate is a very exciting emotion

The carnival is in full swing as Johnny picks up Gilda. Later they return to Ballin’s empty mansion. Rudolph Maté's lighting and cinematography for the bedroom scene is wonderfully moody and the electricity between the pair is palpable.

Ballin returns unexpectedly en route to the airport to escape the police, throwing Johnny into a fit of confusion and angst.

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amado-mio

3. Amado Mio

Suffocated by her sham marriage to Johnny, Gilda flees to Montevideo and gets a job singing in a nightclub.

Amado Mio is a gorgeous number set to a pulsating rhumba beat. The choreography is wonderfully sensuous but we don’t know who was the man behind the moves. Surely it must have been Jack Cole, who masterminded Put the Blame on Mame?

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put-the-blame-on-mame

4. Put the Blame on Mame

Known as the "Father of Theatrical Jazz Dance," Jack Cole worked with the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable and Mitzi Gaynor as well as Rita Hayworth. Before Gilda, they collaborated on Cover Girl (1944) and Tonight and Every Night (1945). Of the Put the Blame on Mame sequence in Gilda, he said:

I must say of all the things I ever did for movies, that’s one of the few I can really look at on the screen right now and say: If you want to see a beautiful, erotic woman, this is it. It still remains first class, it could be done right now. A lot of old things make you go wow! And you have to remember a lot about the period to explain why you did what you did, and make allowances. But every time I see "Put the Blame on Mame" I feel it’s absolutely great.

Gilda – just-in-time production

The making of Gilda turns out to be a pretty haphazard affair. There’s friction behind the scenes (more of that later) between studio boss, Harry Cohn, director, Charles Vidor and various members of the cast and crew. What’s more, the producer, Virginia Van Upp, whom Cohn has assigned to fashion a sexy new film for Rita Hayworth, has too much on her plate (she almost certainly has a hand in the screenplay by Marion Parsonnet). An article in the July 1946 issue of Screenland reports that:

Even today, when perhaps she should be resting on her laurels, she is still doing a double job. For one thing, her pictures are too close together to allow time to write them in advance. Instead, she stays on the set all day to see that each scene is photographed as she intended and then goes home and writes all night. She writes the script as she goes along, about five days in advance of the shooting schedule.

Charles Vidor recalls:

We didn’t have a finished script, we never knew what was coming next and we even started the picture without a leading man. Every night as we quit we got the next day’s scenes. Rita had to study at night, so did I, so did Jean Louis the dress designer, but somehow he kept one leap ahead of us all. So that particular ‘Mame’ morning, none of us knew how Rita was going to look. She sauntered on the stage holding her head up high, in that magnificent way she does, stepping along like a sleek young tiger cub and the whistles that sounded would have shamed a canary’s convention. She enjoyed every second of it. Then she did that elaborate difficult ‘Mame’ number in two takes.

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Conference

Conference

1945. There seems to be some amusing banter going on between Rita Hayworth and Glenn Ford as Harold Clifton looks on. A caption on the...

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Conference

Conference

1945. With Virginia Van Upp delivering scripts day by day, there's little time for preparation and rehearsal so Rita Hayworth needs all the help she...

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Gilda-ing the Rita

Gilda-ing the Rita

1945. Seated in her director's chair, Rita Hayworth is prepared for her Amado Mio scene in Gilda. A caption on the back of the photo...

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A touch of the tresses

A touch of the tresses

1945. Helen Hunt, Columbia’s chief hair stylist, is one of Rita’s closest friends. She has worked with Rita since her early days at the studio....

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Finishing touches

Finishing touches

1945. That movie camera is a monster! It's almost as if Rita Hayworth is being prepared as a ritual sacrifice. But don't worry, a caption...

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Make-up test

Make-up test

1945. Rudolph Maté, exposure meter in hand, has a pretty impressive CV. He has worked on several of Carl Theodor Dreyer's films, including The Passion...

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Gilda – the two songs

An article in Modern Screen (May 1946, page 8), announces that:

Rita Hayworth turns dramatic in “Gilda.” The studio’s announcement that the glamor girl was saying goodbye to musicals brought a storm of protest from GIs all over the world. In answer to the flood of requests that Rita continue showing her legs and swinging her hips, the studio wrote two songs into the script. “Put the Blame on Mame, Boys” is a torchy lament, and “Amado Mio” comes out in the middle of a samba sequence.

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Amado Mio

Amado Mio

1945. Gilda (Rita Hayworth) performs Amado Mio at a nightclub in Montevideo.

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Put the Blame on Mame

Put the Blame on Mame

1945. Rita sings Put the Blame on Mame on screen, but behind the scenes her voice is dubbed by Anita Ellis. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

DANCE, LITTLE LADY – Rita Hayworth, although she plays a dramatic role in Columbia’s “Gilda,” takes time out from histrionics to do a torrid dance specialty to the tune of “Put the Blame on Mame, Boys.”

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Put the Blame on Mame

Put the Blame on Mame

1945. Gilda (Rita Hayworth) performs her infamous striptease at the casino.

And it’s true – the songs are in fact retrofitted, not integral to the movie from the outset. It’s another example of the apparently chaotic way in which the film is put together. Both songs are written by Doris Fisher and Allan Roberts, whose work will be recorded by a string of stars including Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Marilyn Monroe. According to Doris Fisher:

Though we weren’t supposed to work yet, they gave us a script the next day, told us they wanted a couple of songs and where they wanted them to come. At about 3 a.m. we went into a publisher’s office on Vine Street since we had no office of our own, sat down by a piano and, I don’t know, it just happened. Al came up with that title Put the Blame on Mame because of the script. We’d already been playing around with that feeling for a song so it just worked. We wrote that in a couple of hours. A day or two later we wrote Amado Mio because we had to have something with a South American flavour there. We had no idea where it was going to be, how it was going to be done or what it would look like. We only wrote those two songs. Then they had to shoot those scenes after the film was finished and inject them into the story.

Gilda – Rita’s wardrobe

Columbia certainly goes to town on Rita’s wardrobe, designed by Jean Louis, Columbia’s head of costume. According to the article in Modern Screen:

The star wears twenty-nine different outfits in the picture, including a chinchilla evening wrap worth $65,000 and a sleev