"It Will Be a Grand New Year in Hollywood IF..."
Happy New Year!
In the first Photoplay of 1949, Sheilah Graham
posited that 1949 would be a “grand new year” if only some Hollywood stars
“will follow these bright new resolutions.”
screencap by me
With the benefit of 75 years of hindsight, I’m going to tell you now if these stars followed through on Graham’s resolutions for 1949.
If… Bette Davis cuts out the temperamental tantrums and
acts like a grand human being again, as well as a great movie star. Talk about Winter
Meeting—or shouldn’t we! Bette’s working weather cart was frosty plus and
it didn’t thaw too much in June Bride. Even Ernie Haller, a gentle
character and Bette’s once friend and favourite cameraman, told me that so far
as he is concerned, Bette was a 1948 negative. Here’s pleading there’ll be a
positive change for the better in 1949.
Ouch. I personally like June Bride but I know it’s a
divisive movie. Sadly for Bette, she only made one film in 1949: Beyond the
Forest, but happily for Sheilah, All About Eve—one of the best movies
ever—was a year away.
If… Olivia de Havilland says to sister Joan Fontaine,
“Let’s kiss and make up” and if Joan says to Livvy, “Okay, let’s!”
Welp.
If… Ronald Reagan finds happiness with another woman.
Jane Wyman divorced him in 1948 because she was bored by him. That seems a heck
of a wrong reason to shed the father of your children. Of course Ronnie did
give a lot of his time to different committees for this and that, but real love
is understanding. So I guess it wasn’t there.
It’s so fascinating to me that Reagan was once a Hollywood
actor. How many people back in the ‘40s and ‘50s really thought the White House
was possible for him? That’s a post for another day. Sheilah would be happy to
know that Ronnie was going to meet and start seeing Nancy Davis in 1949 and
that the two would marry in 1952 and remain so for 52 years.
If… Esther Williams announces that she is expecting a
baby. The pretty swimming-champ movie star doesn’t talk about it any more, but
the loss of her expected baby last year is a tragedy that can only be cured
when the stork comes calling again.
Esther’s first child, Benjamin Gage, was born on August 6,
1949. She would have two more children: Kimball, born in 1950; and Susan, born in
1953, with her first husband.
If… Burt Lancaster gives up his awful idea of retiring as
a movie actor to direct and produce pictures. Here a guy comes along who oozes
personality, an honest actor and a pleasure to watch and all he talks about is
“When I retire!”
Burt Lancaster hardly retired in 1949 (of all years)! But he
did continue producing and directing while also starring in a string of
successful movies, many of which are classics: From Here to Eternity, Come
Back, Little Sheba, The Rainmaker, Sweet Smell of Success, Separate Tables,
Elmer Gantry (for which he won the Best Actor Oscar), Judgement at
Nuremburg, Birdman of Alcatraz, Seven Days in May, The Swimmer (an odd
movie that I’m strangely fond of…), and Atlantic City. His final
film was 1989’s Field of Dreams.
And some of the movies he produced included Marty, Trapeze,
Sweet Smell of Success, Separate Tables, Elmer Gantry, and Birdman of
Alcatraz.
If… Janet Leigh changes her name to Mrs. Barry Nelson. Janet,
the most popular young actress in Hollywood, is madly in love with Barry, as of
this writing. Her radiance is almost blinding. She will not be free to marry, however,
until the late summer of 1949.
Janet Leigh never changed her name to Mrs. Barry Nelson, but
she was Mrs. Tony Curtis from 1951 to 1962 and Mrs. Robert Brandt from
1962 until her death in 2004…
If… Ingrid Bergman breaks down with the press. Ingrid is
a very intelligent, charming person and a swell interview—if you can get her.
If! And when you do, she’s usually in a desperate hurry to go somewhere else.
So, when she gets a bad picture like Arch of Triumph, the press is in a
hurry—to write the truth. How about a new resolution for 1949, Ingrid—to win
the Golden Apple as the most popular Hollywood actress in 1949.
Ingrid never won the Golden Apple in 1949, that honour went
to June Haver. She didn’t win the Sour Apple either, that went to Hedy Lamarr.
As for Ingrid’s popularity… she started work on Stromboli
in 1949 with Italian director Robert Rossellini and their affair became one of
the biggest Old Hollywood scandals when it was revealed to the world in 1950. The
couple were married to other people at the time, divorced, married each other,
and Ingrid lived in exile for most of the 1950s. She and Rossellini divorced in
1957 and returned to Hollywood.
If… Elizabeth Taylor gets the word, “Come to Korea.”
Lizzie’s heart lies in a little silver football she wears around her neck. It’s
inscribed with the name of Glenn Davis, the all-American Army football player.
When Elizabeth and her parents said goodbye to Glenn when he left for duty in
the Pacific, the sixteen-year-old star promised him solemnly that she would
wait for him—forever, if necessary. It will be grand if the wait has a 1949
ending.
Must I elaborate on this one? You all know she didn’t marry
Glenn Davis in 1949, nor William Pawley Jr., who she was engaged to
briefly in 1949. Furious Love is my favourite Elizabeth Taylor biography,
it’ll tell you everything you need to know in a dishy, informative way.
There were other predictions for Frank Sinatra, Joan Crawford,
Jennifer Jones, Judy Garland, and Lana Turner, but these were the most interesting
with hindsight.
Sheilah writes, “So goodbye to 1948. I don’t think it will be missed in Hollywood. WELCOME 1949!”
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