You’re right Jeff, I was definitely ecstatic when you told me about this screening. Out of the handful of Gary’s movies I haven’t seen that I know are still in print, Children of Divorce is the one I want to see the most. Like you said, it has three of my faves all in one film!! Unfortunately I’m gonna have to save my money and miss this one. I think it’s wonderful though that it is getting shown and hopefully this movie will see the light of day one of these years in a dvd release.
This was either Gary’s first or second go at being a leading man.
Arizona Bound (a Western) was made around the same time as this one but that was a B movie and
Children of Divorce was definitely an A movie. It was also Clara Bow’s first film after It so I can imagine there was a lot of hype around this one. By all accounts, Gary was incredibly nervous to make this film. It was completely different from the small roles he had had so far in mostly Westerns and war pictures. His character was a rich playboy and there was one scene where he was supposed to come into a party with a glass of champagne and kind of saunter through the room. They had to do about 30 takes b/c he kept spilling his drink all over Clara
. I’ve also read that they shot quite a few of his scenes with him sitting down b/c he was so nervous that his legs were noticeably shaking. Poor guy
.
One of my favorite stories from this one is when he was supposed to kiss Esther Ralston during a scene and he was terrified. I don’t think he had done any love scenes yet (well, at least on camera anyways). He thought it was indecent to kiss a woman he barely knew in front of everybody. He was dating Clara during the production and the director told Gary that he hoped his kissing scenes with her later in the film would go better
.
Another good story involves Clara and Esther. One day as they were sitting on the set Clara asked Esther if she liked Gary. Esther replied that she did and she thought he was one of the nicest people she had worked with. Clara said she liked him too and that he let her dogs get in the tub with her when gave her her morning baths
. That Clara, what a character!
From what I’ve read this movie isn’t as bad as some people have made it out to be. Gary may seem a little rough around the edges but Clara and Esther were old pro’s at this point and Clara’s death scene is supposed to be very well done.
“I never really thought of myself as an actor. But I’d learned to ride on my dad’s ranch and I could do some roping stunts and working as an extra was better than starving as an artist nobody wanted on the West Coast.” - Gary Cooper