Q & A with Matthew Kennedy on Joan Blondell & Edmund Goulding

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Re: Question for Matthiew Kennedy

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OScott wrote: As I am working on a biography on Ann Harding, I am curious as to how much of Goulding's own character is reflected in Harding's role of the psychiatrist? Scott O'Brien
OMG! Somebody is working on my biography!!!! :shock: :D :D Well, count me among your first customers!!! :wink:
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Matthew Kennedy wrote:I agree with you wholeheartedly about Cagney and Blondell. In fact, I'd call them one of the great screen teams of all time. No other actress ever held her own against him as well.
Far be it from me to disagree with our esteemed guest, but IMO the only actress who truly gave Cagney as good as he got was Ruth Donnelly in Hard to Handle. That said, Cagney was one of the few who could command attention when Joan was on screen. She stole scenes with aplomb, but never in a showy way.
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Post by Matthew Kennedy »

Yeah, I went out on a limb on that one. Doris Day really tears it up with Cagney in Love Me or Leave Me. I haven't seen Hard to Handle, so now you've got me suuuppper curious. I like your reversal of the usual equation, that Cagney held his own against Blondell, not vice-versa.

Matthew
jondaris wrote:
Matthew Kennedy wrote:I agree with you wholeheartedly about Cagney and Blondell. In fact, I'd call them one of the great screen teams of all time. No other actress ever held her own against him as well.
Far be it from me to disagree with our esteemed guest, but IMO the only actress who truly gave Cagney as good as he got was Ruth Donnelly in Hard to Handle. That said, Cagney was one of the few who could command attention when Joan was on screen. She stole scenes with aplomb, but never in a showy way.
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Post by Matthew Kennedy »

Hi Moira,
According to Coleen Gray, who I was fortunate enough to interview for the Goulding book, the set of Nightmare Alley was quite amicable. I've always imagined Blondell saying "that nut" with affection, but gone forever is her expression and intonation at that moment. :(

She spoke at more length about making A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, and of Kazan's directing style. It would seem she had more rapport with him than Goulding, though it's my steadfast opinion that BOTH directors guided her to two of her very best performances.

It's a bit of a mystery why Fox didn't push harder for a Blondell Oscar nomination. The reviews were glowing, and business was brisk. I'm wondering if she was taken for granted by 1945. She had set the standard of her performances so high, that audiences simply knew she would be good in just about everything she did. Here's a parlor game for the Oasis: who's consistently fine these days, but never gets award recognition?

Ian Keith is stunning in Nightmare Alley, isn't he? I didn't find anything that Goulding said about Keith, but how could he not have been thrilled with the performance Keith turned in? Joan's daughter, Ellen Powell, knew Keith when Joan and he were touring in the 1950s. She spoke fondly of him, and said his stage performances with her mother were similarly fantastic. How much I would love to time travel and see one of their live performances of Come Back, Little Sheba.

I think Goulding was fantastically talented at compartmentalizing. Or, put another way, it was as though he was at least six different people. For years, he kept his drinking, drug use, voyeurism, writing, directing, bisexuality, and heterosexual marriage separate. Eventually, of course, there was a huge price to be paid. So his great strengths as a director, his sensitive handling of actors in romantic stories, appeared as the reversal of his more tawdry private life. Given the times, his quick affairs with men must have left him with some degree of shame and/or regret that he lived in an era of secrecy and intolerance.

But you've really hit on something - his ongoing theme of transcendance through love and sacrifice. Nightmare Alley would seem to be a cautionary tale on the perils of thumbing one's nose at God. But given Nightmare Alley as a stylistic anomaly in his career, I'm wondering if the other movies you mention - White Banners, Dawn Patrol, The Constant Nymph, and Dark Victory - were idealizations of his own spiritual yearning. We can add to that list The Flame Within, We Are Not Alone, and The Old Maid. And then there's The Razor's Edge. I unapologetically love that movie, despite its corny moments. (Or maybe because of them.) Talk about spiritual yearning! And Eddie directs it with such commitment.

Thanks, Moira. You've helped me imagine a through-line in his work I hadn't seen quite like this before. (emoticon for epiphany?)

Matthew

moirafinnie wrote:Hi Matthew,
Thanks so much for spending a third day with us.

Re: Joan Blondell: A Life Between Takes & Edmund Goulding's Dark Victory:

In your book on Joan Blondell and your biography of Edmund Goulding you write that Joan described the director Goulding as "that nut" while making Nightmare Alley. Given the fact that the performance she gave in that movie is among my favorites, (next to her wonderfully compassionate Aunt Sissy in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn), do you think she lacked the rapport with Goulding that she clearly had with Elia Kazan on the Betty Smith adaptation?

Since A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was a critical and popular success, why didn't 20th Century Fox promote Joan Blondell for a Supporting Oscar Nomination? In your biography of Joan, I got the impression that the actress believed that her work went unrecognized because the part had been eviscerated by the Hays Office. Censored or not, she was so wonderful, I wondered why there was so little apparent recognition of her acting by her contemporaries.

Could you please talk a bit about Ian Keith and his extraordinary performance in Nightmare Alley? Did you find any background information about his relationship to Goulding during filming?

One of the fascinating aspects of Edmund Goulding's life and career is the divergence between what you called his "elegant romanticism" and his notoriously dark tastes in exploring the frontiers of human behavior. Do you think that his own experiences informed the powerful and tawdry story of Nightmare Alley?

I see a great deal of spiritual yearning in Goulding's movies. Perhaps not in a conventional way, but in the themes of kinship, as seen in White Banners and Dawn Patrol the longing for a lasting relationship with another human being, as in The Constant Nymph and Dark Victory, and a restless, inchoate desire to believe in something beyond one's temporal experience. Did these reflect any of the director's private concerns?

Thank you so much for writing your books. They are among the best I've read on their subjects. I really appreciate your taking the time to answer our queries, and hope that you're not too overwhelmed by this and your duties toward your students.
Thanks a million!
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Post by Ann Harding »

Hello Mr Kennedy!

I haven't read yet your books on Goulding and Blondell, but I am planning to very soon. :D
I saw recently a good number of Goulding pictures. Overall, I was more impressed by his Warner pictures like The Great Lie and The Old Maid than by his later XXth Century Fox pictures. These overblown melodramas have an innate coherence which makes them highly enjoyable. But Nightmare Alley disappointed me. I had the feeling that the film had been cut: its flow was discrete rather than continuous to me. Where they any Zanuck interference on this picture? Did he re-cut the film? I know he was a notoriously meddling producer, so it wouldn't surprise me.
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Re: Hi Mr. Kennedy, thank you for joining us!

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Matthew Kennedy wrote:Yeah, I went out on a limb on that one. Doris Day really tears it up with Cagney in Love Me or Leave Me. I haven't seen Hard to Handle, so now you've got me suuuppper curious. I like your reversal of the usual equation, that Cagney held his own against Blondell, not vice-versa.

Matthew
If you'll private message me an address I can copy the DVD for you. I recorded it off TCM a while back. Donnelly and Cagney are fantastic in it. This is way off-topic though.

As for the second part of your post, as much as I love Cagney I'll never have the emotional connection that I have with Blondell. Every time I see her it's like discovering a secret that no one else knows.
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Post by rudyfan »

Hello Matt

Let me first say, your book on Joan is one of the best bios I have read in years. It is SO well written and such a good read, it is a real keeper!

I don't really have any questions for you, but I do hope the sales are going well. You book seriously deserves some awards!

Donna Hill
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Post by moira finnie »

Matthew,
You'll love Hard to Handle (1933). You can see Cagney trying not to crack up when he's in a scene with Ruth Donnelly, who's seen below with her on-screen daughter Mary Brian in this funny movie about salesmanship, con artists and gold diggers, (Guess which Ruth is?).
Image

Re: Joan Blondell: A Life Between Takes

First of all, you absolutely brought Joan B. to life on the page. I can just hear her making some of the cracks you quote in the book and giving a little wink along with it. By the time I came to the end and read that they played "I Only Have Eyes For You" from the movie Dames at her memorial in NYC, I really got misty-eyed. She was the last of the swell broads. Thanks so much for doing such justice to her life in this clear-eyed yet warm biography.

A few more questions, please:

Do you think that the constant upheavals of Joan's early life as the child of Vaudevillians may have doomed her ability to maintain a sustainable marriage, despite her real interests in building a nest for her family?

Was Joan Blondell ever consciously looking for creative expression, or was she always inevitably preoccupied with paying the bills? Did she realize what a gifted actress she was when she got older or was she always struggling with her poor self-esteem?

Why do you think that Joan Blondell allowed her marriage to Dick Powell, (who may not have ever been Mr. Excitement, but at least he had a fairly stable personality), to fall apart once she went East to appear in that dreadful sounding play of Mike Todd's? Was this episode part of Joan's sometimes seemingly contradictory behavior?

Did you think that the touching story about a lonely Clark Gable asking Joan to marry him was true? I inferred from your book, that it was not something that could be verified, though I can see the emotional logic of it from Gable's viewpoint.

I honestly had never read much at all about Mike Todd prior to this book, though I was pretty shocked at his bizarre, almost insane behavior. His son, Mike Todd, Jr. sounds like a remarkably whole person, despite some of the horrendous events he witnessed as a youngster. Did you rely primarily on his account in trying to discern what happened to his mother, Bertha Freshman? Do you think the first Mrs. Todd died as a result of too many kinds of anesthesia when being treated for her knife wounds accidentally self-inflicted during an argument with her husband?

Re: Edmund Goulding's Dark Victory:

Did you ever find that the exceptional Helen Walker had said anything about her experience working with Goulding in Nightmare Alley? Did Walker get the role of the duplicitous psychiatrist Lilith because she was under contract at 20th Century Fox? Did Edmund Goulding choose her?

I also treasure the Somerset Maugham book and the movie, The Razor's Edge. Even though I see their flaws, this lovingly crafted film about someone looking for something beyond the material does not come along everyday--especially not in 1946 Hollywood! Actually, from the cinematography to the music to the direction to the heartfelt acting, particularly by Tyrone Power, Herbert Marshall, Clifton Webb, and (a bit surprisingly) John Payne, as well as a gem of a cameo by Elsa Lanchester--it is irresistible stuff.

I realize that the book of The Razor's Edge was condensed for the screen, but one of the characters in Maugham's story who I thought was most interesting was Suzanne Rouvier, the artist's model whom Larry meets in Europe. She was actually more appealing to me than either Isabelle or Sophie. In researching your book on Goulding, did you have a chance to see any of the preliminary scripts for this film?

If you were able to see these early drafts, did the character of the worldly Suzanne ever appear in the film script or was she believed to have been too risqué for the production code boys? I also wonder if her character disappeared since her role would have shifted the focus of the story away from the Americans, the audience the movie was being prepared to appeal to in 1945.

After the studio system started to fall apart, it seemed that Goulding's career did too. Was he anathema throughout the industry after Zanuck failed to support Nightmare Alley? Was it too late for him to learn to adapt to the changing times? Were his many indiscretions (physical & psychological) starting to take their toll on him by then or do you think he might have been artistically exhausted?

While Edmund Goulding's unconventional life wasn't subject to the same scrutiny as the lives of actors in Hollywood, some believe that his marriage to Marion Moss was largely a public display. Goulding's emotions seem much more complex than that of one more Hollywood hypocrite. Do you think he loved her? Did Goulding's sybaritic temperament prevent him from forming as close a bond with another person (male or female) after her death?

Several people in your book, among them cinematographer Lee Garmes, (who did great work on Nightmare Alley), commented how one minute Goulding would make a remark that "suggested genius" but ten minutes later he'd completely forget his idea. While his spontaneity & creativity certainly won him many jobs and allies, I wonder if he might have truly been affected with something like serious short term memory loss from the '20s on?

***************************

Finally, thank you so much for your generosity with your time by visiting here this week. If you ever wish to post here again at any time, that would truly be delightful. I hope that you'll let us help in promoting the next book you publish in the future. You are always welcome here, Matthew!
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Post by Matthew Kennedy »

Hello Birdy,
Interesting approach to reading biographies, and a good remedy against the predictable cradle-to-grave arc. Yes, biographies do tend to have the same ending. :cry:

Favorite of all Joan's characters? That's a hard one, but I guess they coincide with most of my favorite Blondell movies: <i>Blonde Crazy, Footlight Parade, The King and the Chorus Girl, Stand-In, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn</i> (of course), <i>Desk Set</i>, and <i>Opening Night</i>. And that's just the short list. It sounds like you're more than familiar with her movies. What are your favorites?

Pairings that didn't happen? Let's see, she worked with almost everybody. I wonder if a quiet, understated actor like Henry Fonda or Gary Cooper would have been a good balance for her, or would she have wiped him off the screen? How about Blondell and Crawford together? A couple of scrappy gals from the sticks using their wits and charm to snag rich husbands. Or better yet, Joan with Rosalind Russell. Imagine those two in a contest to see who could talk the fastest and still be understood!?

Matthew

Birdy wrote:Hello, and thank you for being here.

I just read Joan Blondell and found it to be a charming and endearing account of the work and life of one of my favorite actresses. I must confess, I usually do not like biographies (because of the ending) so I read from her Oscar to the end, then from the beginning to the Oscar! (I cried anyway, just at a different time). Although some incidents in her life were sordid, her life was not sordid, nor was your account of it.

I agree with Jon that I can't take my eyes off her when she's on screen. She said that if she had taken herself more seriously and fought for better roles she might have been a good dramatic actress, like Bette.

Well, you know what? I don't care much for Bette or Joan (except to enjoy hating their characters from time to time) and I don't have most of their movies recorded and back-up recorded like I do Joan's.

I particularly liked a quote from her in your book which referred to the state of mind of the country in the 30's depression. But if I edit that quote just a little, the sentiment is ageless, as is Joan's legacy of reliable smiles.
"...People needed to laugh, to be released from despair. They needed to forget fear even for even a few hours. They needed to sway, to hum..." And we still do, don't we?

Thank you for sharing what you learned about this marvelous actress. From the extensive notes, it must have been a huge undertaking. And now, for a question. Which is your favorite of all Joan's characters? Who would you like to have seen her paired with that she was not? (Male or female)
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Post by Matthew Kennedy »

Hi Donna,

Thanks, as ever, for your encouragement. I can't wait for a gorgeous Valentino book to grace my coffee table.

Funny thing about awards - I was just talking to the publicist about that. Neither of us know what awards are out there that suit this genre. Suggestions anyone??

Matthew

rudyfan wrote:Hello Matt

Let me first say, your book on Joan is one of the best bios I have read in years. It is SO well written and such a good read, it is a real keeper!

I don't really have any questions for you, but I do hope the sales are going well. You book seriously deserves some awards!

Donna Hill
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Post by catherine »

Matthew,

It's challenging to classify responsible biographers as a genre but the rewards are infinite as your books stand the test of time for new generations. To capture the spirit of a person and tell their story goes far beyond facts and timelines, to be sure. I'll work on getting your book on expat Dressler into the libraries here although they do have your other biographies and all the best with those term papers! It's been another interesting week at SSO and I'm looking for some Blondell pics now! Thanks again!

Cathy
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Post by mongoII »

Hi, Matthew,
It's Joe again, and I would just like to know how the association between Marie Dressler and actress Claire DuBrey actually was?

Thanks,
Joe
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Post by Matthew Kennedy »

Dear Ann Harding (!),
Goulding's Warner Bros. films form a lovely assortment of fine chocolates. His Fox films, in contast, are rather all over the place. <i>Razor's Edge</i> to <i>Nightmare Alley</i> to <i>Down Among the Sheltering Palms</i> to <i>Mardi Gras</i> (!?)

<i>Nightmare Alley</i> does not flow in any ordinary way. I was originally struck by all the odd places it went, leaving the carny world for something very unexpected. Zanuck never liked the project. He thought it was wrong for his Golden Boy Tyrone Power, who longed for a role that would challenge him as an actor. If you pick up the original novel of <i>Nightmare Alley</i>, you'll see how loose this adaptation had to be due to Code restrictions. Actually, it's rather amazing that anyone in 1947 conceived a film from such a tawdry source.

The discontinuity you feel is probably the result of all the concessions that had to be made to both clean up the novel and avoid discrediting Power and Fox. I've never heard that there was any late recutting.

Matthew
Ann Harding wrote:Hello Mr Kennedy!

I haven't read yet your books on Goulding and Blondell, but I am planning to very soon. :D
I saw recently a good number of Goulding pictures. Overall, I was more impressed by his Warner pictures like The Great Lie and The Old Maid than by his later XXth Century Fox pictures. These overblown melodramas have an innate coherence which makes them highly enjoyable. But Nightmare Alley disappointed me. I had the feeling that the film had been cut: its flow was discrete rather than continuous to me. Where they any Zanuck interference on this picture? Did he re-cut the film? I know he was a notoriously meddling producer, so it wouldn't surprise me.
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Post by Matthew Kennedy »

Hi Moira,

Yes, I absolutely believe that Joan's childhood in vaudeville impacted her later relationships, marriages, and motherhood. I can't imagine being constantly on the move while growing up, and how unprepared she was for a "normal" life. Her parents fought, there was no place to call home, and she was always performing - so it stands to reason she would romanticize a stable, stay-in-one-place marriage. It's classic "grass is always greener" stuff.

Joan did express some creative fulfillment and respect for the art of acting in interviews she gave in the 1950s. Her kids were grown or nearly so, her film career was off and on, she was doing summer stock and television, and - perhaps not coincidentally - her acting found new inspiration. She was getting some of the best reviews of her career at this time, but in live performances. Certain later projects excited her creatively - The Cincinnati Kid, Here Come the Brides, and Opening Night, at least once she got past Cassavetes' idiosyncratic ways.

I wonder how exactly the Powell marriage crumbled, too. Did her longed for security turn into a smothering, dull home life? Could she admit wanting the excitement of uncertainty again? I speak of contradictions in these biographical subjects, but I fear that is just a mask to cover my inability to know what moved them.

The Gable story has the ring of liklihood to me. But you bring up a good point of verifiability. The story is in multiple print sources, and was repeated to me by Joan's daughter. But maybe it was told often enough to become true. They were both lonely, Blondell had a casual resemblance physically and temperamentally to Lombard, so it makes sense.

I grew to really like Mike Todd Jr. during the writing of the book. As you say, he seemed so whole. Both of Joan's kids have very fond memories of him. His memoir (<i>A Valuable Property</i>) was extremely important in writing about the Todd years, including the Freshman death. I do think she died from too much anesthesia, but why was she given so much in the first place? I'm afraid we'll never know.

I have no information on how Walker came to play Lilith, or what she thought of working with Goulding. Goulding had input in casting, but the final decision was Zanuck's. And isn't she the very essence of beady-eyed malevolence?

<i>The Razor's Edge</i> is a long movie, but it never feels long. And that luscious Alfred Newman score! Unfortunately, the script drafts are either don't survive or are not available to folks like me. The UCLA Fox Collection has stills and contracts mostly, but not scripts.

I think Goulding's decline after <i>Nightmare Alley</i> can be attributed to all of the points you mention. He and Zanuck had a falling out, his style was retro, and his health was failing. Those final, minor films smack of mercy assignments. His standing as a respected but spent elder writer-director was confirmed to me in an interview with Curtis Harrington, who worked with Goulding at the end.

I do think Eddie loved Marjorie. To the degree that he maintained intimate emotional relationships, they were with women - his mother, sister, Marjorie, and lawyer-confidante Fanny Holtzmann. Men were either friends or sex toys. It goes back to Eddie the champion compartmentalizer. (Gosh, Moira, I wish I'd used "sybaritic" somewhere in the book to describe Eddie. Perfect.)

Yes, he may have had a diagnosable memory deficit. At the time, it was attributed to his overflowing creative imagination. There are reams of his raw notes, story ideas, etc. in the Goulding Collection at the AFI Library. I'd estimate that less than 3% of those ideas he wrote down ever got produced. With the ideas he didn't write down, the percentage would be infinitesimal.

Matthew
moirafinnie wrote:Matthew,
You'll love Hard to Handle (1933). You can see Cagney trying not to crack up when he's in a scene with Ruth Donnelly, who's seen below with her on-screen daughter Mary Brian in this funny movie about salesmanship, con artists and gold diggers, (Guess which Ruth is?).
Image

Re: Joan Blondell: A Life Between Takes

First of all, you absolutely brought Joan B. to life on the page. I can just hear her making some of the cracks you quote in the book and giving a little wink along with it. By the time I came to the end and read that they played "I Only Have Eyes For You" from the movie Dames at her memorial in NYC, I really got misty-eyed. She was the last of the swell broads. Thanks so much for doing such justice to her life in this clear-eyed yet warm biography.

A few more questions, please:

Do you think that the constant upheavals of Joan's early life as the child of Vaudevillians may have doomed her ability to maintain a sustainable marriage, despite her real interests in building a nest for her family?

Was Joan Blondell ever consciously looking for creative expression, or was she always inevitably preoccupied with paying the bills? Did she realize what a gifted actress she was when she got older or was she always struggling with her poor self-esteem?

Why do you think that Joan Blondell allowed her marriage to Dick Powell, (who may not have ever been Mr. Excitement, but at least he had a fairly stable personality), to fall apart once she went East to appear in that dreadful sounding play of Mike Todd's? Was this episode part of Joan's sometimes seemingly contradictory behavior?

Did you think that the touching story about a lonely Clark Gable asking Joan to marry him was true? I inferred from your book, that it was not something that could be verified, though I can see the emotional logic of it from Gable's viewpoint.

I honestly had never read much at all about Mike Todd prior to this book, though I was pretty shocked at his bizarre, almost insane behavior. His son, Mike Todd, Jr. sounds like a remarkably whole person, despite some of the horrendous events he witnessed as a youngster. Did you rely primarily on his account in trying to discern what happened to his mother, Bertha Freshman? Do you think the first Mrs. Todd died as a result of too many kinds of anesthesia when being treated for her knife wounds accidentally self-inflicted during an argument with her husband?

Re: Edmund Goulding's Dark Victory:

Did you ever find that the exceptional Helen Walker had said anything about her experience working with Goulding in Nightmare Alley? Did Walker get the role of the duplicitous psychiatrist Lilith because she was under contract at 20th Century Fox? Did Edmund Goulding choose her?

I also treasure the Somerset Maugham book and the movie, The Razor's Edge. Even though I see their flaws, this lovingly crafted film about someone looking for something beyond the material does not come along everyday--especially not in 1946 Hollywood! Actually, from the cinematography to the music to the direction to the heartfelt acting, particularly by Tyrone Power, Herbert Marshall, Clifton Webb, and (a bit surprisingly) John Payne, as well as a gem of a cameo by Elsa Lanchester--it is irresistible stuff.

I realize that the book of The Razor's Edge was condensed for the screen, but one of the characters in Maugham's story who I thought was most interesting was Suzanne Rouvier, the artist's model whom Larry meets in Europe. She was actually more appealing to me than either Isabelle or Sophie. In researching your book on Goulding, did you have a chance to see any of the preliminary scripts for this film?

If you were able to see these early drafts, did the character of the worldly Suzanne ever appear in the film script or was she believed to have been too risqué for the production code boys? I also wonder if her character disappeared since her role would have shifted the focus of the story away from the Americans, the audience the movie was being prepared to appeal to in 1945.

After the studio system started to fall apart, it seemed that Goulding's career did too. Was he anathema throughout the industry after Zanuck failed to support Nightmare Alley? Was it too late for him to learn to adapt to the changing times? Were his many indiscretions (physical & psychological) starting to take their toll on him by then or do you think he might have been artistically exhausted?

While Edmund Goulding's unconventional life wasn't subject to the same scrutiny as the lives of actors in Hollywood, some believe that his marriage to Marion Moss was largely a public display. Goulding's emotions seem much more complex than that of one more Hollywood hypocrite. Do you think he loved her? Did Goulding's sybaritic temperament prevent him from forming as close a bond with another person (male or female) after her death?

Several people in your book, among them cinematographer Lee Garmes, (who did great work on Nightmare Alley), commented how one minute Goulding would make a remark that "suggested genius" but ten minutes later he'd completely forget his idea. While his spontaneity & creativity certainly won him many jobs and allies, I wonder if he might have truly been affected with something like serious short term memory loss from the '20s on?

***************************

Finally, thank you so much for your generosity with your time by visiting here this week. If you ever wish to post here again at any time, that would truly be delightful. I hope that you'll let us help in promoting the next book you publish in the future. You are always welcome here, Matthew!
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Post by Matthew Kennedy »

Hi Joe,
Oh, we finish up with a trick question!

They became close when Claire was hired to be Marie's companion and nurse. Claire was much younger, and an aspiring actress. They were inseparable - they traveled and lived together. Claire kept a diary, but there is nothing that can be interpreted as sexual. She spends a good amount of time discussing Marie's cancer treatments, and vents her frustration at Marie's refusal to slow down her social schedule. She left Marie, and later sued her estate.

I imagine that Marie preferred the company of women both socially and sexually. The indirect evidence permeates her life - the fawning crush on Lillian Russell, the protective adoration of Frances Marion, the insight into what makes Garbo tick, and her many abiding friendships with dozens of lesser known women. Claire was among the very last of the close women in her life. Whether they were romantic I cannot say. But I would bet Marie's heart beat a little quicker whenever Claire was around.

Matthew


mongoII wrote:Hi, Matthew,
It's Joe again, and I would just like to know how the association between Marie Dressler and actress Claire DuBrey actually was?

Thanks,
Joe
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