Would you agree that the most bitchily ambitious group of women ever captured on film is the female characters at the heart of Stage Door? Or are you more of a The Women fan? Not knocking it, but I always enjoy watching this catty group of aspiring actresses try to climb to the top of the New York theatre scene, and it's got me asking myself a few questions...
So let's dive in to our latest installment of Five Questions with
Five Questions I Had Watching...Stage Door!1. Did Katharine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers get along?
In a word, no. In a longer series of words straight from their mouths...
Ginger (from Ginger Rogers: My Story): "I steered clear of her, not trusting what she might do if I in any way crossed her. I recognized she had little empathy for me.
"One day, I learned of her coming birthday. So I went to a jeweler and found a dear little platinum suit pin, set with about twenty small diamonds. I sent it to her, but never got a reply from her about it. Years later, I went backstage while she was doing a Broadway play. I asked her what she'd done with my little birthday gift. 'Oh, I don't really remember. I must have given it to someone.'"
Also, there's the supposed story of how Ginger was on the RKO lot in a fine mink coat when Katharine stuck her head out of a second-story window and then poured a glass of water all over Ginger because "if it's real mink, it won't shrink." No word from Ginger on whether her coat shrunk or not.
And then there's this brassy quip from Ginger, which I can almost hear her saying, in an interview with The Washington Post in 1991 about why Katharine Hepburn seemed to detest her so: "Maybe she wanted to dance with Mr. Astaire. How do I know?"
Katharine, for her part, doesn't really mention Ginger in her memoirs, Me: Stories of My Life, just talks about how Stage Door helped to turn her career around slightly, after the slump of pictures she'd been in. She is quoted in Charlotte Chandler's biography as saying, "Ginger and I didn't know each other all that well, but there was no bad feeling I ever noticed on her part, and I can guarantee there was none on mine."
2. Wait, Ann Miller was how old when she made Stage Door?!
Fourteen! She lied to the producers about how old she was, telling them that she was 18 years old when in fact she was so young. In Ginger's afore-mentioned memoirs, she says that Ann was 5'8" and too tall next to her for their dance numbers, but Ann was adamant that she'd dance in flats while Ginger danced in heels and a top hat if it meant that she could dance with her (and if you've seen the movie, you know she got her wish).
To get the role and prove that she was 18 though, Ann apparently secured a fake birth certificate that showed her birth year as 1919 and it wasn't until later in life that she admitted her birth year was in fact 1923. And guess who we have to thank for the sheer dancing genius of Ann Miller being discovered? Lucille Ball, who saw her performing in San Francisco and told RKO to sign her.
3. How did Lucille Ball wind up on television?
I always enjoy catching a movie with Lucille Ball in it, there's just something about her presence that's fun to watch, but before I truly started watching old movies I hadn't realized she'd had an entire film career before she ever stepped foot in front of the television camera and became a legend for I Love Lucy. So what happened to her film career?
It turns out that Lucille Ball had quite a long film career, beginning in the early '30s with bit parts before moving to RKO where she blossomed as a 'Queen of B-movies' and got her start in a few Fred-and-Ginger flicks. Success followed her when she left RKO for MGM in the early '40s, but she soon turned to a freelance career after the war and became one of the first Hollywood stars to read the writing on the wall: television was the wave of the future, and she was going to be in on the trend.
Though she made the transition to television in the early '50s, Lucille continued to sporadically make movies for the rest of her life. My favourite Lucille Ball movies?
Stage Door, obviously; but you can't go wrong with
The Long, Long Trailer, Five Came Back, Easy to Wed, Critic's Choice, or
Yours, Mine and Ours. Plus,
her segment in
Ziegfeld Follies is my favourite part of that movie.
4. Was the Footlight Club based on a real women's boarding house?
Yes! The movie's boarding house, the Footlight Club, was based on the Rehearsal Club in New York, which opened in 1913 in service of women hoping to launch theatrical careers. It was founded by Jean “Daisy” Greer and Jane Harriss Hall to be a safe haven for actresses and later inspired Stage Door.
Its most famous resident was Carol Burnett, who shared stories about her time there in her memoirs, and even launched a scholarship fund once she'd made it big. Other famous residents include Kim Cattrall, Diane Keaton, Sandy Duncan, and Blythe Danner. The Rehearsal Club closed in 1979 but relaunched in 2006 with the same mission from nearly a century earlier.
Read more about this fascinating part of New York stage history
here.
5. How many members of the main cast had real stage experience or credits to their names?
Theatre was a springboard to Hollywood in those days, so a lot of them had prior theatre experience, but many of them continued with the theatre long after Stage Door was released. Let's break down their theatre careers very quickly.
Katharine Hepburn—most famously, Katharine engineered her own Hollywood comeback with The Philadelphia Story, mounting a successful stage production and purchasing the rights for its film adaptation (which would garner her an Oscar nomination in 1940). Her other theatre credits include Without Love, As You Like It, The Millionairess, The Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coco.
Ginger Rogers—some of Ginger's theatre credits date back to her pre-film days but stretch into her post-film career as well. They include Girl Crazy, Annie Get Your Gun, Calamity Jane, The Unsinkable Molly Brown, Bell, Book and Candle, Mame, Hello Dolly!, Coco, No No Nanette, and Forty Carats.
Ann Miller—Ann turned to the stage later in her career, starring in productions of Mame, Hello Dolly!, Anything Goes, Blithe Spirit, and Cactus Flower.
Lucille Ball—I mean, when you're Lucille Ball, and you're a trailblazing icon of television and you can make movies at your leisure, do you need stage work? Because she only ever appeared on Broadway once: Wildcat, which debuted in 1960 and was bankrolled by her as well. It didn't get great reviews, which may lead to understand why Lucille never tried Broadway again.
Eve Arden—like most aging actresses of her ilk, Eve Arden starred in productions of Hello Dolly! and Auntie Mame in the '60s.
Andrea Leeds—the only one in the cast who was nominated for her performance (as Kay, the tragic starlet who searches in vain for her sophomore production), Andrea didn't come from the stage and she didn't go to the stage either. She married Robert Stewart Howard in 1939 and retired from acting permanently. Her last credit was the poorly-received Earthbound, released in 1940.
Gail Patrick—Gail really needs a limited series about her life. Not only was she an accomplished actress who starred in many classics of the time period, but she was a successful producer in her second act, and became the first female executive producer on primetime television. Back on track though, she wasn't a theatre actress, but she did radio serials when she wasn't making films.
I love Stage Door and I loved this post, Jess. I was fascinated by the Rogers-Hepburn non-friendship. Wow! And I enjoyed the info about the stage experience (or lack, thereof) that the players had. I wonder about Constance Collier, who seemed to be the most stage actress-y of them all! And I will never stop being amazed that Ann Miller was just 14 in this. What a gal!
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