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Hazel Brooks

Shooting for the stars – insights from four leading Hollywood cinematographers

Four leading cinematographers talk about their work and the stars they’ve filmed in this article published in the February 1941 issue of Modern Screen.

Here, then, in their own words are some revealing insights into how they see their work, observations of some of the stars they’ve filmed and revelations of tricks of the trade. And an opportunity to showcase a series of behind-the-scenes images of various cinematographers and crew at work.

Jack Cardiff
1950. Jack Cardiff, one of the great 20th century cinematographers, on the set of Pandora and the Flying Dutchman.

But first a brief introduction to the cinematographers themselves:

  • Gregg Toland. Orson Welles once said that Gregg taught him everything he knew about the art of photography. Before filming Citizen Kane, Gregg spent a weekend giving him a crash course on lens and camera positions. Orson would never lose his admiration for Gregg, saying on many occasions, “Not only was he the greatest cameraman I ever worked with, he was also the fastest.” Gregg’s advice to aspiring cameramen was simple: “Forget the camera. The nature of the story determines the photographic style. Understand the story and make the most out of it. If the audience is conscious of tricks and effects, the cameraman’s genius, no matter how great it is, is wasted.”
  • James Wong Howe. In the 53 years he spent developing and perfecting his craft, “Jimmy” Howe was nominated for 16 Academy Awards and won two Oscars. In his ongoing quest for realism, he strove to make all his sources of light absolutely naturalistic and developed various filming techniques. For example, to get the audience as close as possible to John Garfield in a boxing scene in Body and Soul, he got up into the ring on roller skates and scooted about the fighters to capture the most evocative shots of their struggle.
  • Rudolph Maté. Rudy worked in Europe with Carl Theodor Dreyer on both The Passion of Joan of Arc and Vampyr before migrating to the US in 1934. During the 1940s he received five consecutive Academy Award nominations for Best Cinematography, the last of them for the Rita Hayworth vehicle, Cover Girl. He also worked with her on Gilda and (uncredited) The Lady from Shanghai. He went on to direct a series of movies including DOA.
  • Ernest Haller. Ernie is best known for his Oscar-winning work on Gone With The Wind (over the years he had six other Oscar nominations). He was admired within the industry for his expert location shooting and his ability to balance make-up and lighting to bring out actors’ best features. He shot 14 of Bette Davis’ movies and was her favourite lensman. During the 1930s and ’40s, he worked at Warner Bros. His later movies included Rebel Without a Cause and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?

Shooting for the Stars by William Roberts

They make fat stars thin and old stars young! Who? Those magnificent Merlins of Movietown – the unsung cameramen.

These fellows are pretty tough, believe me. They’re banded together in a secret organization called the ASC, and it’s not that they try to be secret but just that no one knows much about them outside of Hollywood. Movie stars dread them and, privately, call them super-assassins.

The leaders of the ASC have committed many drastic deeds. They have literally taken flesh off Myrna Loy’s legs. They have flattened Brenda Marshall’s nose. They have removed pieces of Madeleine Carroll’s cheeks They’ve reduced Priscilla Lane’s mouth, narrowed Zorina’s forehead and changed Vivien Leigh’s blue eyes to pure green. And for committing these atrocities they have been paid as much as $1,500 per week.

However, if truth will out, the secret organization referred to is actually a staid labor union, the American Society of Cinematographers. The members, merchants of mayhem, are the very expert and very well-paid cameramen of Movieland who, with thick ground glass and well-placed kliegs, have made ordinary faces beautiful and have converted terrible defects into gorgeous assets.

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Ava Gardner filming Singapore

John Brahm and Maury Gertsman shoot a scene for Singapore

1947. Perched above a courtyard entrance, director John Brahm and cinematographer Maury Gertsman prepare to shoot a scene for Singapore. The writing on the clapperboard reads

SINGAPORE
1540
DIRECTOR BRAHM
CAMERA GERTSMAN
SET DRESSER EMERT
PROP MAN BLACKIE
SET NO. 10 SCENE 29

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Rita Hayworth filming Affair in Trinidad

Rita Hayworth films a scene for Affair in Trinidad

1952. Cinematographers go flat out to get the right angle. Here the glamorous focus of attention is Rita Hayworth. A caption on the back of the photo reads:

RITA’S BACK – Rita Hayworth does a torrid dance in a night club scene on her first day before the cameras for Columbia’s “Affair in Trinidad,” a Beckworth Production in which she co-stars with Glenn Ford.

Photo by Irving Lippman.

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Ann Sheridan and Sidney Hickox on the set of Silver River

Sidney Hickox chats with Ann Sheridan on the set of Silver River

1948. Cinematographer Sidney Hickox was brilliant at shooting gritty, moody crime films and melodramas for Warner Bros. His movies included three Lauren Bacall vehicles – To Have and Have Not (1944), The Big Sleep (1946) and Dark Passage (1947). A caption on the back of the photo reads:

Ann Sheridan and cameraman Sid Hickox chat between scenes on the set of “SILVER RIVER,” Ann’s current picture with Errol Flynn for Warner Bros. Star is pictured here at the Warner Bros. ranch near Calabasas, California, where extensive exterior sets of Nevada’s sliver mining town were reproduced for the picture.

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Grace Kelly at ease

Grace Kelly at ease

1956. Aspiring cinematographer Grace Kelly strikes a pose, as the caption on the back of the photo points out:

ACTRESS AT EASE....It’s Grace Kelly perched on the camera boom between scenes on the set of M-G-M’s “The Swan”.

If any one class of worker in Hollywood does not get credit where credit is due, if any one class of laborer is hidden behind the star-bright glare of publicity, obscure, unsung, unknown – it is the cinema cameraman.

“It’s this way with us,” Gregg Toland told me. “They’ve got us wrong, entirely wrong, everywhere. They think cameramen are low-grade mechanical morons, wearing overalls and stupid grins, existing on starvation wages and merely grinding 35 mm. toys. Well, maybe. Only we don’t like that impression. Maybe we are technicians. Nothing wrong with that. But sakes alive, man, tell ’em we’re creative artists, too!”

And so, I’m telling you. They’re creative artists, too. They’re makers and breakers of thespians and pictures. They’re the Merlins behind the movies.

Take that fellow Gregg Toland who just had the floor. A lean little man in brown clothes – cultured, brilliant and active. Twenty-one years ago he obtained a job during a summer vacation as an office boy at the old Fox Studios. The film stars on the lot didn’t impress him, but the intent cameramen, cranking their black-sheathed boxes, hypnotized him. He decided to skip school and become a photographer. The result? Well, the last I heard, he had prepared for canning such products as “The Grapes of Wrath,” “The Long Voyage Home” and “Citizen Kane.”

I talked with Toland in the comfortable study of his sprawling Benedict Canyon home. He downed a long beer with a practiced gulp and explained the qualifications and duties of the cameraman.

“A first-rate cameraman must realize,” said Toland, “that while some scenes of a film might be shot much, much better, much more artistically, those scenes are worth neither the extra time nor extra cash investment. The cameraman must have a strain of the economist in him, and get speed into his picture without sacrificing quality. After all, time becomes a paramount item when you realize that a single day on a certain picture may run to $22,000 in expenses!

Merle Oberon and Turham Bey filming Night in Paradise
1945. William H Greene, director of color photography, does a last-minute check on the set of Night in Paradise prior to filming a scene starring Merle Oberon and Turham Bey.

“As photographer on a major movie, my first job is to manage my camera crew. I have a special crew of seven men. All specialists. I take them with me wherever I go. There’s an operator and two assistants. There’s a grip, a gaffer or electrician, a standby painter and a microphone boy. But that’s only the beginning of my job. I must see that there is efficiency. Speed, again. And, with things as they are, I must practice economy by being artistic with one eye on the production budget. These days a cameraman is actually a producer, director, photographer, actor and electrician. The out-and-out old-fashioned photographer who just had to maneuver a camera is as extinct as the dodo bird.”

With two decades behind a Hollywood camera, I wondered just which particular feminine face Gregg Toland considered the best he had ever brought into focus.

His answer, like his personality and his pictures, was direct.

“Anna Sten,” he replied. “She was by far the most photogenic woman I ever shot. She didn’t have an insipid baby doll face, you know the type. She had a face full of good bones and character. Her cheeks caught the lights well, and her nose was so tilted as to place attractive shadows beneath. Frances Farmer was another face I enjoyed working on and, of course, if you want to go way back into ancient history, there was no one like the incomparable Gloria Swanson.

“On the other hand, an actress like Merle Oberon gives the photographer a good deal of work. Her countenance can only be photographed from certain angles. And as to clothes, her body requires that she wear either fluffy dresses or evening gowns to show her up to advantage. Jean Arthur, a dear friend of mine, won’t mind my mentioning that her face is also a lighting job, but, when it comes to attire, she is perfectly photogenic in anything from a cowboy costume to a bathing suit.

Ingrid Bergman filming a scene for Arch of Triumph
1946. Ingrid Bergman filming a scene for Arch of Triumph.

“Thinking back on personalities, I recall that I had difficulties with Ingrid Bergman when I worked on ‘Intermezzo.’ Ingrid is really two persons. Shoot her from one side and she’s breath-takingly beautiful. Shoot her from the other, and she’s average.”

Toland paused for punctuation, then smiled.

“Of course,” he said cheerfully, “I’d rather photograph girls like June Lang and Arleen Whelan with their pretty little faces, than any. Because they’re no work at all. You set your camera and your lights anywhere, and they still look cute. If I shot them constantly, though, I’d become far too lazy.”

Now he spoke of the stronger sex.

“The most photogenic male is Gary Cooper. But he looks best when he isn’t photographed well! Here’s what I mean. If he’s shot casually and naturally, without frills or fuss, he has plenty of femme appeal. He doesn’t have to be dolled up like the juvenile leads. If you don’t believe me, just take a gander at him in ‘The Westerner.’ He’s grand in it and without special lighting or any make-up.

“Henry Fonda is another I enjoy working with. He also doesn’t require makeup. And he’s so damn intelligent. Understands props, stage business, electricity. You know, Fonda’s main hobby is photography, and on ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ he spent half his time looking through my camera, which, of course, gave him a better understanding of what I was after.”

I inquired about Toland’s most recent and celebrated patient, Orson Welles.

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.

“Shot ‘Citizen Kane’ in sixteen weeks,” explained Toland. “It’s an unusual picture. For example, we worked with no beams or parallels (to hold spots) for the first time in Hollywood history. All sets were given natural ceilings, which made bright lighting difficult but also made for realism.

“Orson Welles was an interesting type to shoot, especially his characterization, changing from a lad of twenty-five to an old man of seventy, and wearing, in old age, blood-shot glass-caps over his eyes.

“His problem, today, will depend on whether audiences prefer him as a character actor or as himself. I like one quality in his acting and direction. Stubbornness. He would bitterly fight every technical problem that came up. Never say die. Never.”

Gregg Toland confessed that the one defect he’d found in most actors and actresses was discoloration and lines or wrinkles under their eyes. “Were we to leave them natural, it would make them appear tired and haggard on the screen, especially since they are amplified so greatly. So, I place bright spotlights directly in their faces, which wash out these lines and make their faces smoother.”

Then Toland began discussing technical problems in a very untechnical manner. It was a liberal education in cinema craft. He spoke fondly of “The Grapes of Wrath.” Said he enjoyed much of it because he was able to shoot his favorite type of scene – building somber moods through shadowy low-keyed lighting, such as the opening candlelight scene in that classic of the soil. “We slaved, Jack Ford and I, to make that picture real,” Toland revealed. “We sent the cast out to acquire good healthy sunburns. We threw away soft diffusion lenses. We shot the whole thing candid-camera style, like a newsreel. That’s the trend today in Hollywood. Realism.”

“Of course,” he added, “sometimes realism is attained only through complete trickery. Remember the third or fourth shot in the beginning of ‘The Long Voyage Home?’ The scene of the ship floating and rocking on the water? Here’s how that was done. I had the studio build half a miniature boat, set it on a dry stage. Then I took a pan full of plain water, placed it on a level with my lens – and shot my scene over this pan of water, catching the boat and giving the perfect illusion of its being in the water. But I better not tell you too much of that. Trade secrets, you know. You better have another beer …”

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Mervyn Leroy and Harold Rosson filming a scene for Johnny Eager

Mervyn Leroy and Harold Rosson filming a scene for Johnny Eager

1941. Director Mervyn Leroy, crouching, oversees the shooting of a scene for Johnny Eager.

...
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Douglas Sirk conferring with Hazel Brooks

Douglas Sirk conferring with Hazel Brooks

1947. Director Douglas Sirk briefs Hazel Brooks prior to filming a scene for Sleep,...

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Ava Gardner filming The Angel Wore Red

Ava Gardner filming The Angel Wore Red

1960. Ava Gardner seems to enjoy being the centre of attention as she emerges...

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George Cukor filming Marilyn Monroe

George Cukor filming Marilyn Monroe

1962. A bird's eye view of George Cukor directing Marilyn on the set of...

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But, instead of another beer, I indulged in something equally stimulating. I saw another ace cameraman. I left Toland, drove out into the Valley north of Hollywood and halted before an intimate Oriental restaurant bearing a blinking neon that read “Ching How.”

This restaurant was the hobby and hide-out of the cherubic Chinese cameraman, James Wong Howe, the place where he came in the evening, to chat with old friends or supervise a steaming chow mein after a hard and tiresome day with Ann Sheridan, Rita Hayworth, Hedy Lamarr or Loretta Young!

Bette Davis as Margo Channing in All About Eve
1950. Bette Davis as Margo Channing in All About Eve.

Looking at Jimmy Howe, you’d never know what he’s been through and what his keen eyes have seen. Not because he has the “inscrutable” yellow man’s face of fiction, the traditional face that hides feelings and emotions, but because he is so cheerful, so friendly, so disarmingly sincere.

You wouldn’t know that he once fought gory battles in the fistic arena for ten bucks a knockout, or that he got his first job in Hollywood as a camera assistant at that same price. But you would know, immediately, that Jimmy Howe is as American as you or I, born in Pasco, Washington, of a farmer father; and you would know, too, immediately, that he understands more about Hollywood stars than any photographer alive.

I found Jimmy Howe a little interview shy when it came to discussing personalities. That was because he’d been burned once. Recently, a reporter asked him about Bette Davis, and Howe told the reporter that Bette’s enormous eyes were her finest feature, and that they must be emphasized by lighting, whereas her long thin neck must be shadowed. The reporter misquoted him as stating that Bette was badly pop-eyed. Ever since, Howe has been afraid to explain the truth to Bette – and if she reads this – well, hell, Bette, the guy thinks you’re the greatest actress on earth!

Over a delicious dish of aged Chinese eggs, bamboo shoots and other Far Eastern delicacies, in a nook of his popular eatery, Jimmy Howe softened sufficiently to discuss the women he had captured for celluloid.

He digressed on the subject of glamour gals.

“Hedy Lamarr has more glamour than anyone in Hollywood. Her jet black hair and fine light complexion, marvelously contrasting, requires no faking soft diffusion lens. But, like all glamour ladies, she must be aided by the cameraman. First of all, I took attention away from her lack of full breasts by playing up her eyes and lips. With a bright light I created a shadow to make you forget her weak chin. Then, I really went to town! I planted an arc on a level with her eyes, shadowing her forehead and blending it and her hair into a dark background. Now, all attention was focused on her eyes. Remember her first meeting with Boyer in ‘Algiers?’ Her eyes got away with lines that would never have passed Mr. Hays.

Portrait of Myrna Loy by Clarence Sinclair Bull
1936. Myrna Loy by Clarence Sinclair Bull.

“It’s an old glamour trick. The average girl should learn it. For example, when you wear a hat with a low brim, and then have to peer out from under the brim, it makes you more interesting, centers attention on your orbs. When you sport a half-veil, you have to look from behind it and thus become an exciting and intriguing person. There’s no question about it. The eyes certainly have it.

“Now Ann Sheridan. Her gorgeous throat and shoulders, and those lips. I light them up and disguise the fact that her nose is irregular and her cheeks overly plump. Incidentally, to correct her nose, which curves slightly to the left, I put kliegs full on the left side of her face, pushing her nose perfectly straight. Once, on ‘Torrid Zone,’ when Annie arrived on the set with a pimple on her chin, I had the make-up man convert it into a beauty mark, and then viewing her through the camera, realized that this concentrated attention on her full lips, which made her even more glamorous!

“Each actress, no matter how beautiful, becomes a problem. Madeleine Carroll has a good and bad side to her face, like so many others. I always shoot her threequarters, because it thins her out. A full face shot makes her too fleshy. With Myrna Loy, there must not be white around her neck, because it’s too contrasting to her complexion. Moreover, lights must be low, shooting upward, to reduce the size of her underpinnings.

“Zorina, off-screen, relaxing, is an ordinary woman, with a good-sized healthy body. But, the minute she dances before the camera, her true personality grows. Her face turns from good looking to gorgeous. Her body becomes smaller and willowy. She’s easy to work with, except that an enthusiastic uncle of hers, a doctor, gave her four vaccination marks when she was young, and we have to get rid of them with make-up and special lights.

Vera Zorina on the set of On Your Toes
1938. Vera Zorina on the set of On Your Toes. Photo by Madison Lacy

“But you want to know the most photogenic lady I ever set my lens upon? Priscilla Lane. An absolutely eye-soothing face, despite a generous mouth. A fine skin texture. A rounded facial structure. Mmm. Lovely to look at.

“There is no perfect camera face, Confucius say. Not even Loretta Young, who is reputed to have a camera-proof face. Why, she wouldn’t want a perfect face and neither would any other actress. A perfect face, without irregular features, would be monotonous and tiresome to observe. Of course, a well-balanced face is another thing. Oh, I’ve seen so-called perfect faces – those composite photographs showing Lamarr’s eyes, Leigh’s nose, Dietrich’s lips – but the result is always surprisingly vacant!

“Most women must be photographed with flat lights, shooting down from a forty-five degree angle, because this lighting washes out any defects. Whereas, a cross-lighting from either side, while it makes the face natural and round and real, also accentuates wrinkles, blemishes and bad lines. There are exceptions. Flat lighting would wash Joan Crawford’s face clean to the point of blankness. Crosslighting chisels her beautifully. But others can’t stand up as well.

“I’m not telling you these inside items on the stars to give you a sensational story. I’m trying to point out this – that while the Chinese author, Lin Yutang, wrote a book called ‘The Importance of Living,’ I should like to write one called, ‘The Importance of Lighting.’ It’s all-important. Take a look at the way celebrities appear in a newsreel, without careful kliegs adjusted to them. They seem messy.

“Why, the only newsreel personages I ever saw who looked decent without expert work on them, and who were, in fact, once offered a million dollars to come to Hollywood, were the Windsors. Now Wally Simpson is a bit too thin in the face and has some blemishes. But this could be corrected by shooting her three-quarters, the lights flat against her. She should never be shot in profile. As to the Duke, Edward himself, well, while he often appears a bit weary and haggard, he would have to be kept that way in Hollywood. It’s part of his adult charm. We wouldn’t want to wash that out with faked brightness.”

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Esther Williams filming Jupiter's Darling

Esther Williams filming Jupiter’s Darling

1955. Well, here's a different cinematographic challenge – underwater filming for Jupiter's Darling, a Roman...

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Dorothy Lamour on a location shoot

Dorothy Lamour on a location shoot

Around 1940. Most Hollywood movies made in the forties and fifties were shot in the...

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Shooting a scene for A Matter of Life and Death

Shooting a scene for A Matter of Life and Death

1946. A Matter of Life and Death, a Powell and Pressburger production, was shot primarily...

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Joseph Ruttenberg filming Ava Gardner

Joseph Ruttenberg filming Ava Gardner

1948. Joseph Ruttenberg homes in on Ava Gardner in this scene for The Bribe. Another...

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Now the little man expounded on picture-making. He told exactly the way pictures should be made. Here’s Howe:

“My theory of picture -making is that a movie must run true. It must be real. You must not feel that it is obviously a movie. A big fault is that photographers often try to make their photography stand out. That is bad. If you go away raving about the photography of certain scenes, you’ve seen a bad photographic job.

“When I was a beginner, way back, I had that common failing. I never gave a damn about the actor. All I wanted was to get those fat beautiful clouds in, so people would say, ‘Some shot. Some photographer.’ But now I know that’s not professional.”

There was one more thing. I had a hunch a lot of photographers, like producers, were repressed actors at heart. Did James Wong Howe ever aspire to histrionics?

“Oh, once I almost became an actor. The late Richard Boleslavsky wanted me to play with Greta Garbo in ‘The Painted Veil.’ Just a bit part. I refused. My place is behind the big machine, not in front of it. Besides I’d be scared stiff. Me, Wong Howe, an actor? Hell, the boys would rib the pants off me!”

To continue my scientific study of the lads behind the lenses, I went to a party of General Service Studios. There, on the lavish set of “Lady Hamilton,” Vivien Leigh was passing out cake to celebrate her birthday, and a stocky, dark-haired handsome man named Rudolph Mate was celebrating his first year as a full-fledged American citizen.

Rudolph Maté on the set of Gilda
1945. Rudolph Maté on the set of Gilda with Rita Hayworth and Russ Vincent.

Rudolph Mate, born in Poland, student of philosophy, lover of fine paintings, was the cameraman on the newest Leigh-Olivier vehicle. His previous pictures had been movie milestones – “Love Affair,” “Foreign Correspondent” and “Seven Sinners.”

I asked Mate about the ingredients that make a tip-top photographer, and he answered very slowly and very precisely. He spoke slowly to prevent becoming mixed in the languages he knows – French, German, Hungarian, Russian, Polish, English and pinochle – all of which he speaks fluently.

“To become a good photographer, one must have a complete knowledge of the technical end,” stated Mate. He pointed toward his $15,000 movable camera. “One must make everything about that instrument a habit, a second nature, as natural and uncomplicated as walking. This complete technical knowledge gives one time, on the set, to think in terms of the story being shot. A photographer must be creative, imaginative. Above all, he must have a talent for continuity.

“What do I mean by continuity? The celluloid mustn’t be scatterbrained. For example, every day a cameraman looks at the daily rushes of the footage he’s shot. Some photographers have excellent daily rushes, excellent separate scenes – but, when the film is cut, patched together, it’s mediocre and without full meaning because the cameraman had no feel of harmony, no sense of continuity. “A cameraman must be thorough. I study a script page by page and solve each problem as I study it. Also, on the side, I study oil paintings and works of art. In fact, I have a big collection of my own, because this study gives a cameraman knowledge of composition and color.”

Rudolph Mate was ecstatic about Vivien Leigh as Lady Hamilton.

“A marvelous subject. Cool. Positive. The certain beauty of a steel dagger. No bad facial angles. And an actress in her head and in her heart. Laurence Olivier is fine for me to shoot, too. His face is so expressive. It has so much character.”

Marlene Dietrich as Jamilla in Kismet
1944. Marlene Dietrich as Jamilla in Kismet.

Mate admitted that he had enjoyed toiling with Marlene Dietrich on “Seven Sinners,” and that he was scheduled to do her next opus at Universal.

“She has a wonderful head. I mean both brains and shape. Furthermore, like no other actress, she understands lighting problems and angles, and takes all suggestions without a fight. She is cooperative despite the nonsense you read. She will pose for fifty different takes if need be. The reason she knows so much is that she acquired her photographic education from Josef Von Sternberg, her first director, who still has the best pictorial mind in the cinema business.”

Mate, I understood, was a master magician at trickery. He could make anything real. In “Lady Hamilton,” you’ll see the Battle of Trafalgar, when Olivier as Lord Nelson is killed. It’ll be a terrific scene, realistic as war and death – but remember, it was made with miniature boats, only five feet tall, costing $1,000 each, and the cannon balls were tiny marbles shot into thin balsa wood.

Remember, too, that Mate can – and often has – made mob scenes involving thousands of people with just a half dozen extras. This he has accomplished with a special “button lens,” one with 220 separate openings for images, thus multiplying anything it is focused upon.

Rudolph Mate had a date with Vivien Leigh, in front of the camera, and I had one, at Warner Brothers Studio, with a gentleman named Ernie Haller, a studious architect who wound up by becoming the genius to put that little tidbit labeled “Gone With the Wind” on celluloid.

Good-natured, bespectacled Ernie Haller didn’t waste words. “The cameraman’s main duty is to tell a story with lighting. Next, he must have a thorough understanding or feeling for composition; you know, how to group and balance people and objects properly. It’s like salesmanship – you create a point of interest, and you try to sell the fans a star or an idea by subtly focusing attention on this point of interest.”

Haller referred to a few tangible points of interest.

Ann Sheridan filming Nora Prentiss
1946. Ann Sheridan filming Nora Prentiss.

“I’m not merely being loyal to Warners when I tell you Ann Sheridan is the most photogenic female in this town today. Her features are well proportioned and take lighting easily. The most photogenic man is Errol Flynn. His oval face stands up from any angle or under any lighting condition.

“But, as you know, we have our sticklers, too. There’s Clark Gable. I always shoot him three-quarters, so that you see only one of his ears. If you saw both at once, they’d look like mine do – stick out like the arms of a loving cup.

“Brenda Marshall, whom I’m working with at present, is a fine actress. Her only defects are a slightly crooked nose and eyes set too closely together. I light up one side of her face more fully to straighten the nose, and push inkies square into Brenda’s face to spread her eyes.

“When I shot GWTW, I found Vivien Leigh ideal for Technicolor. But I learned too much light was extremely bad for her. Her face was delicate and small, and full brightness would wash out her features and spoil the modeling of her countenance. Another thing. She has blue eyes. David Selznick wanted them green. So I set up a baby spot with amber gelatine, placed it under my lens, and Scarlett wound up with green eyes.

Franz Planer preparing to shoot a dancing scene starring Ava Gardner and Robert Walker
1948. A rare behind-the-scenes shot of cinematographer Franz Planer preparing to shoot a dancing scene starring Ava Gardner and Robert Walker. Director William A Seiter looks on.

“Listen, they all have handicaps that we have to correct. Most have square jaws, which must be softened and rounded. Some have prominent noses, which requires a low light set at the knees to push up their noses. Some actresses have thin legs. We plant spots right at their feet to fill ’em out.

“There’s no limit to what we have to do. We keep middle-aged actresses young by using special diffusing lenses that make faces mellow, hazy, soft, foggy, ethereal. We use these lenses on mood scenes, too, thus enabling us to create cold, crisp mornings on hot, sultry days.

“In my time, I’ve put them all in my black box. Some who were difficult and some who were easy, ranging from Mae Murray and Norma Talmadge to Dick Barthelmess and Bette Davis. I’ve never had trouble because I knew sculpturing, knew the basic foundation of the human face and was able to become, literally, a plastic surgeon with lights.”

Says Haller:

“Most trick stuff is in the hands of the Optical Printing Department of any studio. This is conducted by specialized cameramen and special effects men who manufacture 75% of the mechanical trick scenes. Most impossible scenes are done in miniature, caught by a camera that blows them eight times normal.”

Ernie Haller, with an eye for the unusual, summarized some of the crazy paradoxes he’d run into during his many semesters in the movie village. He said that big banquet scenes were always filmed right after lunch, because the extras weren’t so hungry then and wouldn’t eat so much expensive food! Moonlit night scenes were taken in the daytime with a filter, because real moonlight was not photogenic. Faked fights photographed better than real ones, because real ones appeared too silly. Sequences on an ocean liner had to be faked on dry land, because an honest-to-goodness boat pitched and heaved too much for the average camera. Blank cartridges recorded better on the sound track. Real ones were too high-pitched.

“In barroom sequences,” concluded Haller, “cold tea is better than whiskey, not because it photographs better but because actors have to drink a lot of it – and tea, sir, keeps them sober!”

So there. You’ve met some of the boys from the ASC. Now paste Gregg Toland’s classical outburst into your hat –

“Tell ’em we’re not low-grade mechanical morons, we cameramen. Tell ’em we’re creative artists, by God!”

And, by God, they certainly are!

Other topics you may be interested in…

George Hoyningen-Huene – from film to fashion and back again
Perc Westmore – makeup king of Hollywood
Barbara Stanwyck in The Two Mrs Carrolls
Unsafe sex – the starlet’s dilemma

Filed Under: Behind the scenes, Crew, Stars Tagged With: Ann Sheridan, Ava Gardner, Bette Davis, Carl Frank, Clarence Sinclair Bull, Douglas Sirk, Eddie Cronenweth, Ernest Haller, Franz Planer, G B Poletto, George Cukor, Giuseppe Rotunno, Grace Kelly, Gregg Toland, Harold Rosson, Hazel Brooks, Ingrid Bergman, Jack Cardiff, James Wong Howe, John Brahm, Joseph A Valentine, Joseph Ruttenberg, Lana Turner, Madison Lacy, Marlene Dietrich, Maury Gertsman, Merle Oberon, Mervyn Leroy, Myrna Loy, Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth, Robert Sterling, Robert Taylor, Rudolph Maté, Russ Vincent, Sidney Hickox, Turham Bey, Vera Zorina, William A Seiter, William H Greene

Hazel Brooks – the million dollar gamble

For an illustrated bio, take a look at Hazel Brooks – the human heatwave. The Million Dollar Gamble is the title of a newspaper article by Ralph Dighton that appeared in the summer of 1947. Read on… 

The Sky’s the Limit in Campaign to Make Hazel Brooks a Star

The man who made the world conscious of Ann Sheridan and Lauren Bacall is about to officiate at the birth of what he hopes will be another star-and he’s willing to pay anything up to a million dollars” for the privilege.

Hazel Brooks swathed in ostrich feathers
1947. Bud Graybill makes Hazel Brooks a star. Read more.

The “baby” is Hazel Brooks. 5 feet 7½ inches tall and inclined to be skinny except in the right places. The “obstetrician” is Charlie Einfeld, president of Enterprise Studios.

Hazel’s red hair and green eyes have a strangely invigorating effect. Her husband, 55 year old Cedric Gibbons. MGM art director, married her five years ago at a time when the studio was busy finding new ways of avoiding Hazel Brooks.

An ex-model. Hazel looks like a pin-up drawing come to life with very exaggerated curves – but doesn’t seem quite real. She’s intellectual, reads Berkely and Hume, and studied medicine before her youthful ideals gave way to a more mature realization that her body was worth more than her brain.

What young men think about her, however, doesn’t matter to Hazel. She considers them immature, un-poised and unambitious. She likes men who have already established themselves.

After grooming Miss Sheridan and Bacall to stardom, Einfeld (then vice-president in charge of advertising and publicity for Warner Brothers) swore he was through with glamor gals. When he organized his own studio, Charlie told his directors to hire only established actors, and those only on a one picture basis.

But habit is hard to break. Maybe Charlie figured his small independent studio ought to have at least one star to its financial credit.

So after meeting Hazel on the lot one day, Charlie signed, her to a long term contract – the only one his studio holds.

It looked at first like a tough job. Einfeld knew Hazel’s record at MGM. The only important test that studio saw fit to give her was a Noel Coward scene.

1948. Hazel Brooks publicity shot for Arch of Triumph. Read more.

“It was one of those phony drawing room things,” Hazel herself explains, “and I’m a realist. I gave a terrible performance which no one liked, including myself.”

After that Hazel gave up acting and married Gibbons. For four years she managed Gibbons’ oversized house-hold in Santa Monica canyon. Gibbons is a wealthy, important man in the movie industry, and “running a big place like that,” Hazel says, “is a full time job.”

Playing the young matron required so much time, in fact, that Hazel had to give that up, too, when she got her second break in the movies. She and Cedric sold their mansion to Keenan Wynn and moved into a small, luxurious two bedroom dream cottage in Bel-Air so she could spend more time at Einfeld’s studio.

When Hazel and Gibbons were married, Hollywood lifted its eye-brows. Few thought the marriage would last, but Hazel says, “He is the kindest man I have ever met.” Most of Hollywood agrees with her on that.

Einfeld, who gave Ann the title of “Oomph Girl,” has no catch phrase for Hazel. He turned her over to his exploitation crew with the instructions: “Here’s the raw material, boys. Go to work. Take two years if you have to, and you can spend anything up to a million dollars. But make Hazel Brooks a star.”

So Hazel Brooks, a sea captain’s daughter, born in Capetown, South Africa, and reared in New York, may some day become a star. Technically, she already is a star, with top billing in a new Einfeld movie.

How long she remains a star, however, depends to a certain extent on how well she has learned her lessons from Gibbons, and how far Einfeld is willing to back his investment.

Other topics you may be interested in…

Ella Raines with Shirley Brenden
Ella Raines – gal with a glint
Jane Greer during her early-Hollywood days
Jane Greer – the queen of film noir
Martha Vickers reclines in a lamé dress
Martha Vickers – a good bet for stardom

Filed Under: Stars Tagged With: Charlie Enfield, Enterprise Studios, Hazel Brooks

Hazel Brooks – the human heat wave

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

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

Hazel Brooks’ MGM years and before

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

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

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

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

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

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

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God’s gift to the sweater industry

God’s gift to the sweater industry

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

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Hazel Brooks by Laszlo Willinger

Bedroom eyes

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

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Ghostly apparition

Ghostly apparition

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

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Girl next door

Girl next door

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

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Drama queen

Drama queen

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

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Glamour puss

Glamour puss

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

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A bit of a mystery

A bit of a mystery

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

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Relaxing at home

Relaxing at home

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

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Hazel Brooks, outdoors girl

Hazel Brooks, outdoors girl

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

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Body and Soul – Hazel Brooks’ greatest movie

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Femme fatale

Femme fatale

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

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Centre of attention

Centre of attention

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

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Close up

Close up

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

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Unfazed

Unfazed

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

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Hollywood’s latest heat wave

Hollywood’s latest heat wave

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

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Relaxing by the pool

Relaxing by the pool

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

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“Retouch as indicated”

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

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Vital statistics

Vital statistics

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

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More body than soul

More body than soul

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

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In the sunshine

In the sunshine

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

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Most provocative still of 1947

Most provocative still of 1947

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

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After the shoot

After the shoot

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

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Mixed messages

Mixed messages

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

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Perfect housewife

Perfect housewife

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

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Making a meal of it

Making a meal of it

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

THE...

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

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

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

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

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More of the same, please

More of the same, please

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

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Illicit lovers

Illicit lovers

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

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Dreaming

Dreaming

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

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Filming a scene

Filming a scene

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

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Preparing to shoot

Preparing to shoot

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

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Take it from me…

Take it from me…

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

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Hazel Brooks smiles on set

Hazel Brooks smiles on set

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

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Mistress and slave

Mistress and slave

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

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Dressed to kill

Dressed to kill

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

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Haughty look

Haughty look

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

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And afterwards…

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

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

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

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

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

Want to know more and Hazel Brooks?

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

  • Wikipedia
  • IMDb
  • Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen

Other topics you may be interested in…

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

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

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