moirafinnie wrote:Charles, one of the aspects of Fredric March's personality that you deal with frankly but discreetly in your book is his eye for the ladies, despite his deep love for Florence Eldridge for almost half a century.
1.) I was particularly amused in your book by your mentions of the interaction between F.M., "his twenty fingers" and leading ladies such as
Claudette Colbert, Veronica Lake, and
Evelyn Venable when the ladies' co-star got frisky. Despite the fact that he seems to have been relatively circumspect compared to others in Hollywood, did March have a reputation as a womanizer among his contemporaries?
2.) Despite his apparent yen for forbidden fruit, it often seems to me that March when in his prime, he was one of the actors of his generation (
William Powell and Spencer Tracy were others) who could relate to his co-stars on screen as people as well as women. This quality seems to come to the fore most poignantly in
Merrily We Go To Hell with the ravishing
Sylvia Sidney playing a young couple coping with alcohol; with the maturely beautiful
Myrna Loy in
The Best Years of Our Lives, and most affecting, at least for me, in his fantastic rapport with a very young and skittish
Kim Novak in
Middle of the Night (which features a favorite, often brutally honest March performance that still affects me whenever I've seen that film). Who, aside from Florence Eldridge, did Fredric March feel was a good actress among the ladies he was paired with on-screen?
3.) I have often felt that March was most convincingly believable in roles that showed a man, often a husband and father, who was superficially a success, as well as a bit of a stiff or straight arrow, but whose character strengths and flaws were revealed through the drama of the story [esp. in
An Act of Murder, The Desperate Hours, The Best Years of Our Lives]. He appeared to be very adept at showing the differences between appearances and reality in American life. Also, am I correct that most of his characters were capable of heroism as well as ignominious behavior, which most movie stars seem to have avoided? What do you think made March different from his contemporaries?
4.) One of the Fredric March films that few people seem to know is
An Act of Murder (1947), which may be because it seems to have fallen into copyright oblivion for several years. Despite this, it is a beautifully acted, downbeat, but ethically interesting movie about euthanasia and love. Given the fact that this film was released just after the disappointingly received
Another Part of the Forest, did this film, along with the changing tastes of film audiences and the studio system's demise, affect March's "bankability" at the box office?
Thank you for any reply to these questions in advance.
Hi again Moira,
Yes he did have such a reputation, but really it seems like it was an almost adolescent approach he seemed to take. The fanny pinching and the like, though Evelyn Keyes is much more explicit about what she says she experienced when she was invited into his dressing room during the making of
The Buccaneer. It was her first film and first day on a set and she had a difficult time with DeMille and March had tried to help her and he invited her into his dressing room for, what she thought, was to give her some tips. She admits she was breath taken by his looks and the tight white pants he was was wearing. He sat her down on the sofa next to her and looked deeply in her eyes and picked her hand up and placed it in an unmentionable area on himself. She believes she was saved by an assistant director knocking on the door calling March to the set--he removed her hand and got up and invited her to stay until he came back--she fled--fast. Colbert called him the "worst womanizer" she knew in Hollywood, because of his constant feeble attempts to seduce her. Eliza Kazan, who worked with him as a director on the stage and in the film
Man on a Tightrope recalls in his memoirs having to save March from a jealous husband over a maid he had seduced while shooting the film on location. Robert Wagner claimed in his autobiography that he had copped a feel of his then wife Marion Marshall's breast while pretending to admire some jewelry around her neck! But there are detractors. Sylvia Sidney said that March had this reputation but "Freddie was happily married--he'd tease me by saying, 'look at those boobs' or 'look at that toosh-but it was all for fun." I guess her final proof was because he never tried anything on her. Then Rose Hobart once said, "he had the worst reputation, but he was probably the most faithful husband in Hollywood--Oh, he'd kiss somebody behind the set--but that was as far as he went." So he seemed to be frisky and maybe a bit lecherous at times, but given most of the stories he wasn't very successful!
I believe you are correct about the ease with which he worked with many of his leading ladies and part of that may have been when he came to Hollywood he was paired with top female stars who he wasn't supposed to dominate but to help them make the transition from silent film to talkies and to introduce new female stars from the Broadway stage to film. So they had, on film, a more equal relationship especially if the woman was the star. Despite her spurning his lame attempts at seduction, he always admired Claudette Colbert as an actress. Carole Lombard was another favorite of his, not only for
Nothing Sacred, but also for a lesser known gem called
The Eagle and the Hawk. She also had the kind of bawdy sense of humor he liked. He felt he worked well with Mariam Hopkins, who almost steals
Jekyll & Hyde from him, but conceded she could be a pain in the ass trying to upstage people. Myrna Loy, he admired both as an actress and as a person who was as public minded as he and Florence were. He liked Garbo, too, but unlike so many of her leading men he was not overwhelmed by her beauty--he had already known her thru John Gilbert for many years and they were friendly but not close. He had relatively nice things to say about most of the actresses he worked with with the exceptions of Tallulah Bankhead and Veronica Lake, both of which are examined in the book. Of course his stock answer when asked his favorite leading lady was to say Florence.
A Star is Born is another example of a March character (Norman Maine) who is both noble & ignominious in his actions. He was a drunk who not only embarrassed himself but also his wife and associates thru his behavior and yet, he tried, he really tried to give up the booze and he was truly in love with the woman whose career he helped foster and in his own way Norman thought that by taking that final step that he was nobly giving his life so that Vicki could live hers free of the continual scandal and problems that he caused. March was a major male star who didn't mind showing the weaknesses in the men he played on screen.
In 1946 March was a star and got an Oscar for the biggest box office film since GWTW,
The Best Years of Our Lives. It was a revered film even then and still is today. Despite this he wouldn't have another box office success until 1954. First, yes, the changing tastes of the film industry. "Best Years" was March's first post-war film and while he was a star of it he was only one of the stars--it was a big ensemble picture, so he didn't carry it. He had made relatively few films during the war years, as the theater and a tour for the USO took up much of his time. New stars and new tastes were emerging and by the time of "Best Years" March was nearly 50 years old. Then there was the publicity about his alleged communist sympathies. This destroyed many careers, and while it didn't destroy March's it may have slowed things down as some studios may have decided not to risk hiring Fredric March. Universal-International wasn't one of those. They were a smaller studio who did a lot of programmers, but they also wanted to make a few prestigious pictures per year. They, surprisingly, out bid major studios for the rights to
Another Part of the Forest & hired March & Eldridge. The film is a prequel to the Bette Davis classic "The Little Foxes." It's a very good film in its own right--and March gives a very good unsympathetic performance. But the studio had to cut costs in other ways because the Broadway rights were expensive--and instead of a Willie Wyler to direct they got Michael Gordon, good & competent, but perhaps not overly imaginative. The film tanks at the box office. Then they put the Marches in the excellent
An Act of Murder which was a small picture and rightly so, it was still very powerful and very well done, but audiences were looking for relief from real life problems and stayed away from a film dealing with euthanasia. So now March has two big box office bombs and off he goes to England to a big scale production of
Christopher Columbus which while very pretty and colorful is not very exciting--it too bombs. So it could be said that a number of things slowed March's bankability down: 1) he was an aging actor at a time when new stars were emerging 2) Studios may have been reluctant for a time to hire him due to adverse publicity 3) his most recent films were not successful at the box office. I think all three have something to do with it. Even with a prestigious production like
Death of a Salesman for Columbia, he received an Oscar nomination but the film was not successful because it was considered too bleak. Also, reviewers were of two minds on his performance. Some felt he was wonderful and others thought he was over the top. When he did come back it was in two very successful films
The Bridges at Toko Ri &
Executive Suite in which he had two wonderful parts but he was not the lead. For the rest of his career he would alternate between some leading roles and big supporting roles in the pictures he made.