Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer,
Culver City, California
Fall 1931
Irving clamped his fingertips to his temples and massaged them in tiny circles. It had been a couple of years since his scalp had vibrated like this. So long, in fact, that he’d assumed he no longer needed to worry about it. Eyes now closed, he dug even harder and held his breath against the pain.
“I know you don’t smoke, but . . .” Goldie stood at the door of his office and waved a pack of Chesterfields. “They’re awfully good for relieving strain.”
A year after his rheumatic fever attack, the Thalberg family doctor had given him a full examination ahead of returning to school. Dr. Schoenberg had favored scare tactics. “Young man, nobody with a defective heart can fill his lungs with tobacco smoke. If anyone says otherwise, you tell them to take a long walk off a short plank.”
“Thank you, Goldie, but I’ll be fine.”
“Can I get you some coffee? Ginger ale? Nitroglycerin?”
Irving tapped the small tin of pills he kept in a pocket of his vest. “I never go anyplace without them.”
“Have you decided what to do about—” She used the Chesterfields to point to the Los Angeles Herald-Express spread out in front of him. “—that?”
He shook his head, but only slightly. Sudden movement hurt too much. Since turning thirty, he had convinced himself that he was invulnerable. But this throbbing head was reminder enough that he lacked the constitution of an ox, after all.
“Just so you know, what she said is the talk of the typing pool. And if they’re yapping about it, everyone else is, too. And the same goes for all the other studios.”
The vibration was intensifying. “Try and rustle up some Goody’s, will you?”
“I think the medical office keeps a supply. Does it need to be specifically Goody’s?”
“Any headache powders will do.” Just leave me alone.
“She’s filming on stage eight. Shall I swing by and tell her to come see you?”
“Yes, do that. And shut the door, please.”
Irving returned to Harrison Carroll’s column from that morning’s edition and reread the line that had roused his throbbing headache: “How can I compete with Norma when she’s sleeping with the boss?”
“Oh, Joan,” he murmured. “Did you have to go and make a comment like that? To him, of all people?”
Miss Crawford was nobody’s fool; she would have sought Carroll out. He’d probably soiled his BVDs when she launched that cannonball, especially seeing as how Irving had reneged on his promise to deliver Garbo to him at the release of Love.
After a while, he gave up massaging his temples; it wasn’t doing a lick of good. If he’d been at home, he would have crept into his bedroom and drawn the curtains. But a dozen people walked in and out of his office every day and it wouldn’t do for any of them to find him flat out on the tiles. So instead, he pushed his chair back from his desk and pressed his face between his knees. He breathed as deeply as he could.
In . . .
Out . . .
In . . .
Out . . .
His office door swung open and cracked against the wall. “I wondered how long it would take before you summoned me.”
Irving sat up. Dressed in a dramatic suit of green-and-white diagonal stripes, Joan strode into his office like she was The Other Woman in an Edna Ferber novel. “My Herald-Express interview. It’s why I’m here, right?”
“Now, come on, Joan.” Irving adopted the fatherly tone he’d found worked well with Junior. “Let’s leave the histrionics for the cameras. I’d much rather we have a civil discussion.”
She tossed her matching purse on one of Irving’s visitor chairs and dropped into the other. “Adult to adult? Is that what you want?” She’d hightailed it over from stage eight so fast that she could only have driven.
“You’re not doing yourself any favors by taking that attitude, Joan.”
“Are you upset over my comment about Miss Shearer?” She drenched Norma’s name with enough venom to fell Max Rosenbloom in the first round.
“It’s not the done thing. You’re not playing by the rules.”
She went to snap off a tart comeback, but stopped herself. Instead, she permitted a faint smile. Irving wasn’t convinced it was wholly real, but it was better than that drama-queen glare. “Listen,” she said, “we all know about how you resented working fourteen-hour days, six or seven times a week, doing all the work while Mayer’s getting all the glory. So you marched right into his office and got what you wanted. Isn’t that right?”
In early summer, Irving had petitioned Mayer with a litany of requests that he wouldn’t have had the nerve to make before he turned thirty. The confrontation had devolved into a brawl, which had intensified when Mayer called Nick Schenck in New York. Irving had refused to yield. An hour later, he had walked out with a raise, a five-and-a-half percent increase in ownership of the company, and a three-month yearly vacation, same as Mayer.
“Don’t get me wrong. I admire that.” Her smile widened a tad; a sliver of warmth shone through. “You weren’t happy with the situation so you took action. More power to you. But what irks me is that when you throw around demands like they’re shot puts, it’s called balls. When I do it, it’s called ‘not playing nice.’”
“Yes, but I didn’t hightail it to a snake charmer like Harrison Carroll and plead my case in the press. Nor did I publicly disparage my co-workers—”
“Norma and I have never appeared together in a movie.”
Irving steeled his voice to make his point. “Everybody here is your co-worker.”
She gave a slight shrug and crossed her legs. “My beef isn’t with any of the crew. Those people work long hours. They have my utmost respect.”
“Careful, Joan. You’re starting to sound like one of your characters.”
“Don’t make jokes,” she spat out. “I’m serious.”
“You think I’m not? What you did with Harrison Carroll was inexcusable.”
“And why is that?”
“You came across as sour grapes.”
“It didn’t read that way to me.”
“You implied I’m not able to do my job objectively, and that Norma hasn’t earned her place. Even worse, you made it sound as though we don’t run Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer along professional lines. My objective is to set the gold standard for the industry, but you and your big mouth rendered all my efforts a waste of time.”
An expertly groomed Crawford eyebrow shot up. “Got your attention, though, didn’t it?” Her voice was love-scene soft now.
“This isn’t junior high, Joan, so can we dispense with the playground games?”
She slapped the armrest. The sound spiked the pain throttling his scalp. “I’m getting pretty damned sick of making do with Norma Shearer cast-offs.”
So much for love-scene soft. “You’re talking about The Divorcée?”
“For instance, yes.”
Joan’s comment about balls versus playing nice wasn’t without merit. And he admired the way she was prepared to fight for roles she wanted. But he couldn’t let her get away with the crude tactic she’d used. “I told you that I’d find you a meaty role that you could sink your teeth into.”
She was sitting forward now, her hands clasped as though in prayer, the game-playing abandoned. “Your wife took my role all the way to the Academy award winners’ table. That little gold bastard should have been mine. Surely you can understand my frustration?”
She would have performed the role as written on the page, and she’d have done a serviceable job. But Norma had taken those same lines and had given them nuance and depth that would have eluded Joan. And that was why Norma had gone home with that little gold bastard.
“You don’t know that for sure,” he told her. “Voting for those awards is subject to too many unpredictable factors.”
“Okay, yes, that’s true, I’ll grant you.” She produced a pack of Lucky Strikes from her purse and ripped off the gold foil like it was the top of the last bottle of gin in the United States. “But you know what else is true? My last three pictures—Laughing Sinners, This Modern Age, and Possessed—they’ve made more money than Norma’s. That counts for something, doesn’t it?”
“It certainly does.”
She lit her cigarette with a lighter that matched her purse. “And Possessed brought in four times its budget, and why? Because me and Clark, we’ve got chemistry. We had it from the second we met. It sparks the screen so hot I’m surprised there hasn’t been a nationwide rash of theater fires.”
She had earned that trademark smug jeer of hers. Judging from the fan mail inundating the studio, audiences couldn’t get enough of the Crawford–Gable pairing. But she had opened up the opportunity Irving had been looking for.
Joan and Gable had been carrying on for weeks. Fiery love affairs between co-stars were hardly unheard of in Hollywood, but Paul Bern had come to him at the executive commissary and related how friends had spotted them in a passionate embrace behind the bandstand at the Cocoanut Grove. That was bad enough, but while they were canoodling in the shadow of those paper mâché palm trees, Joan’s husband, Douglas, and Clark’s wife, Ria, had been waiting at their table. And if Paul’s friends had seen them, it was likely others had, too.
Today’s meeting with Joan was part of Irving’s new compensation package. In return for his increased pay, points in the company, and vacation time, he had to undertake unpleasant tasks that Mayer didn’t want to do. After Madam Satan had lost nearly half a million and his remake of Squaw Man had flopped as well, Mayer had decided Cecil B. DeMille had to go. “But,” Mayer had added, “we play poker together, so you’ll have to drop the guillotine blade.”
“We must talk about you and Mr. Gable.”
Joan stubbed out her cigarette with wary deliberation. “What I do in my private life is my business.”
“Not when you’ve got a morals clause in your contract.”
She brought her right hand up closer to her face and inspected her nails. “Does Clark have one in his?”
“Of course he does.”
“Do you?”
“I’m not in the public eye. I’m not admired by millions of Americans. More to the point, I’m not having an affair behind my husband’s back with a man who’s also married. Good god, Joan, your wedding was only a couple of years ago.”
“Douglas is dull. Oh, he’s nice enough, I suppose, but we don’t have much in common. His parents loathe me, he’s jealous of my success, and he drinks too much. But Clark and me? Oh, brother! It’s like putting a naked flame next to gunpowder. Kapow! Right from the get-go.”
“Joan, it has to stop.”
“Again with the double standards?”
“Norma and I aren’t—”
“I’m talking about Garbo and Gilbert. You didn’t stop them from going at it.”
“They weren’t married.”
For as long as he had been running studios, Irving had encountered an endless torrent of ambitious actresses driven to pour their energies into their careers, and willing to sacrifice whatever was necessary to grasp that lucrative golden ring. But rare was the woman in whom that determination burned as fiercely as it did in Joan Crawford. The conflict of his ultimatum slugged it out on that photogenic face in twitches and tremors.
“First you give your wife the plum roles and now you take Clark away. What’s next? Burn me at the stake?”
It was time for Irving to throw down his trump card. He dropped a script onto the desk.
She read the title. “Is this your juicy carrot to get me to behave?”
“How would you like to appear in the very first all-star motion picture?”
“I already did. The Hollywood Revue of 1929, remember? You made me sing ‘Got a Feeling for You’—and not too well, as I recall.” She pushed the script away.
“Grand Hotel is a real movie, with a complex, interwoven plot.”
Ever since he had seen The Miracle at the Shrine Auditorium, Irving had been following Max Reinhardt’s career. After the director had scored a major success in Berlin directing the theatrical version of a popular novel by Vicki Baum, Irving had invested in the Broadway production with an eye to adapting it for the screen.
She narrowed her eyes. “An all-star cast, huh? Like who, for instance?”
Irving hadn’t yet signed anyone on his wish list. Convincing Joan was his test run. But she knew all too well that casting often changed before filming started—and sometimes after.
“John and Lionel Barrymore, Wallace Beery, Lewis Stone, Jean Hersholt.”
“I’m the only woman?”
“You and Garbo.”
Joan’s eyes lit up. “I’d get to be in a picture with Garbo? Do you know how much I adore her?”
He did. He also knew she’d find out soon enough that her secretary character and Garbo’s ballerina didn’t share a scene. “Garbo has an iron-clad clause in her contract that ensures she gets top billing, so I can’t offer you that. But I can make sure that yours is the biggest image in the poster. What do you say?”
Joan clasped her hands to her chest. “Need you even ask?”
“But only if you give up Gable. The two of you have palpable screen chemistry and we can harness it to further all our careers. I intend to cast you together in more pictures, but this hanky-panky has to stop.” Irving shunted the Grand Hotel script toward her with the guile of a lion stalking his prey. “Immediately. Today. Now.”
The breeze along Santa Monica Beach threatened to blow off Irving’s sailor cap. He caught it by the brim before it flew into the Pacific. “What’s with Marion’s obsession for costume parties?” he asked. “A tux would be better than this. Or better yet, a comfortable sweater.”
Norma adjusted the giant lavender bow pinned to the side of her head and hugged a teddy bear to protect her against the chill. “If you lived with William Randolph Hearst, you’d want some cheering up too.”
“But a kiddie theme? I feel ridiculous.”
“It’s a bit of fun, that’s all. I still think you should have gone with the little boy outfit.”
“And flash my knobby knees to everyone? No thanks.”
The final wisps of sunset faded on the horizon. Norma’s suggestion of walking along the beach to Marion’s New Year’s Eve party had sounded like a romantic idea, but now sand filled his shoes. The seaman recruit costume was handkerchief thin, which was fine under the broiling lights of a soundstage but furnished scant protection from a winter night.
Norma pulled his arm around her shoulder and snuggled in for warmth. Her frilly Victorian Girl outfit had short sleeves and stopped several inches above her own—decidedly more attractive—knees. “Everybody else will be dressed like children, so we’ll all be in the same boat.”
Irving grunted his reply.
“We could have stayed home,” she told him.
“On New Year’s Eve?”
“We never have a quiet evening together anymore.”
It wasn’t hard to miss the sting in her airily worded observation. Had Irving known what an Everestian project Grand Hotel would turn into, he might not have taken it on—at least, that’s what he had been telling himself in his darkest despair. But deep down he knew that tackling a problematic project like this was what lit the fire in him.
His recent demands for better compensation had been worth it in the long run: his salary package now matched his contribution to Metro’s success. But he felt compelled to show the big boys that he deserved it. He needed to come up with a wow of a movie, and Grand Hotel, he was convinced, would be that wow. Mayer hadn’t blinked when Irving had told him the projected budget would be three-quarters of a million dollars, which meant he agreed.
With Crawford as collateral, he’d pursued his ideal cast, and after hefty doses of sweet-talking flattery, they’d all signed on. Garbo had been apprehensive about playing a ballerina at twenty-seven until she learned that Edmund Goulding would be directing. He had directed her in Love and had figured out how to put her at ease.
They were now eleven days into production, and everything had been progressing according to Irving’s meticulously planned schedule—until yesterday. Despite her promise, Joan was still trysting with Gable. Paul Bern had met with Anita Loos at the Chateau Marmont Hotel bar to discuss Red-Headed Woman. Anita’s back had been to them, but Paul had spotted the pair in the foyer.
Irving had said yes to tonight’s New Year’s Eve party knowing that Marion had invited Joan and Clark. What Paul had witnessed at the Marmont was circumstantial; Irving needed to catch them himself before he cited her morals clause as a reason to fire her from the project. He had too much riding on this movie to let a tramp raze his hotel to the ground—even one as talented, appealing, and popular as Joan Crawford.
The Davies–Hearst beach house shone like a gargantuan birthday cake, slathered in white frosting and dusted with baby-pink fairy lights. A large orchestra, heavy on the brass, filled the night with “Rose of Washington Square.” A woman in a huge Bo Peep bonnet was dancing with the Three Blind Mice on top of a circular wooden picnic table.
As they headed for the house Irving said, “After we release Grand Hotel, how about you and me and Junior take a trip to Europe?”
Her smile wasn’t as wide as he’d hoped, but she made an effort. “I’d settle for a three-day weekend with you all to myself. No visits, no parties, no telephone calls, no script conferences, no drop-ins.”
“If you wanted a husband with a regular schedule, you should have married a bank teller.” His retort came out harsher than he’d intended, but it got the point across.
“Nobody in Hollywood carries the myriad responsibilities as imperturbably as you.” Her voice had softened. “So if I have to travel to Europe to be alone with you, then I’m all for it.”
As they drew closer to the house, Irving recognized Bo Peep: it was Joan. He didn’t care who her dancing blind mice were as long as none of them was Gable.
Marion had strung a twenty-foot canvas with WELCOME 1932! painted in barber-pole red along the banisters of the second floor overlooking the pool. Three women wearing identical green gingham pinafores stood like paper dolls at the end. He returned their friendly waves as he guided Norma into the main living room.
Garlands of gaily colored flowers were looped and strung over the antique European oil paintings. Down the center was a long table heaving with a sumptuous seafood buffet. Irving and Norma hadn’t taken ten steps before Marie Dressler, done up as Old Mother Hubbard, had plucked Norma from Irving’s side, tossed off the name “Elsa Maxwell” and disappeared behind a thicket of grown men in diapers and bibs with the words “FEED ME” scrawled across their chests.
Irving spotted Goulding standing at the fireplace with Gable. The coincidence of Joan’s director talking to Joan’s lover made Irving bite down on his lower lip. They were dressed in Boy Scout uniforms complete with short pants, utterly unselfconscious about their knees. Irving plucked a champagne coupe from a passing waiter and started for them, but Paul Bern headed him off.
Irving took in his pitch-black wooly romper. “What are you?”
“Baa Baa Black Sheep.”
“I suspect you’re a darned sight warmer than I am.”
“We need to talk.”
“About Little Bo Peep and her Boy Scout?”
“I think I’ve fixed that situation.”
Irving’s champagne was flat—a first for a Marion Davies party. “How did you manage that?”
“I took Edmund into one of the seven thousand empty rooms this place has and explained what’s been going on. He knows how much is at stake with Grand Hotel.”
Irving moved only his eyes to take a surreptitious peek. The two men wore amiable smiles as they loitered against the black-and-white mottled mantel that Hearst’s scouts had probably jimmied out of a French chateau. “He’s not exactly reading Clark the riot act.”
“They’re talking about a movie he’s about to direct for Paramount called No Man of Her Own. It’s a Wesley Ruggles picture.”
“Which means it’ll be a classy production.”
“It’s a con-man-on-the-run picture, which is perfect for him. And his co-star would be Carole Lombard.”
“I hear that girl’s got great comedic chops.”
“Edmund is telling Clark that Metro will loan him to Paramount if he stops carrying on with Joan.” Paul tilted his head toward the two men. “He’s lowering the boom right now.”
Clark’s mouth soured into a droop. He stiffened his spine and jammed his hands into the pockets of his Boy Scout pants. Irving had seen that same expression on other actors whom he’d counseled against thinking with the contents of their undershorts.
Irving didn’t need to see any more. “You, Mr. Bern, are a miracle worker. How I ever survived this snake pit without you is beyond me.” He set his glass on a table; his taste buds craved a fresh glass of bubbles.
“I’m glad you feel like that,” Paul said, “because we need to talk about Red-Headed Woman.”
This was a problematic picture now that Will Hays had mandated everyone submit their scripts to the Studio Relations Committee for approval.
After F. Scott Fitzgerald had failed to produce a filmable screenplay, Irving had instructed Anita Loos to rewrite Lil as a comedy character. She had done the job, but Clara Bow had turned him down. He didn’t feel like talking about it, but he couldn’t ignore the hope bleeding from the man who’d headed off a potential catastrophe.
They parked themselves on an overstuffed sofa upholstered in roses-and-ivy print chintz.
Paul said, “I think I’ve hit upon the perfect person for Lil.”
“Who?”
“Jean Harlow.”
“The platinum blonde? From Public Enemy?” The girl had a knack for filling the screen, but Irving wasn’t convinced. “Don’t we have anyone who can do it?”
“She has the right sass. I’m telling you, she’s ideal.”
“Ideal for Warners, perhaps.”
“And she’s available,” Paul persisted. “We could have her under contract as soon as Legal can draw up the papers. She’s got real screen presence, so it’s only a matter of time before the competition snaps her up.”
Paul now wore the same eager-puppy face that he’d worn when he’d taken an interest in Joan Crawford’s career. The jigsaw puzzle pieces were starting to fall into place. First it was Barbara La Marr. Then Mabel Normand. After that, Crawford. And now Harlow.
“I’m not saying Jean’s not right for the part,” Irving said.
“I knew you’d agree. She’s currently on a personal appearance tour for some Columbia picture. I told her that if she’s serious about getting the part, she needed to come back to L.A. over the holidays. I’ve been trying to get her in to see you, but you’ve been so preoccupied with Grand Hotel.”
“Okay, fine. Bring her to me next week—”
“She’s flying to Chicago in the morning.”
Mayer had a strong preference for classy women, like Norma and Garbo, so Jean Harlow, with her down-to-earth brassiness, would be a hard sell. “Well, it was a good thought, but—”
“She’s waiting for us in the room through there on the right.” He pointed to a set of double doors.
“You’ve got her hidden away?”
“Technically, she wasn’t supposed to leave the tour, so she doesn’t want Harry Cohn to know she was in town.”
Maybe the champagne was working its magic, but once, just once, Irving thought, it’d be nice to enjoy myself at a New Year’s Eve bash and not have to think about work. Everyone else gets to relax. But not Irving Thalberg. Not even on New Year’s Eve. And now I have to see that girl wearing this ridiculous sailor suit.
But, he reasoned, if the kid was game enough to risk the wrath of the bully that ran Columbia, the least he could do was walk a few hundred feet. And besides, he’d been wrong about Norma in The Divorcée and he’d been wrong about Gable, so maybe he was wrong about this Harlow girl, too.
Irving drained his glass. “I’ll give her five minutes.”
Paul led him into a room where an Edwardian lady might have written her letters, thank-you cards, and RSVPs. A white secrétaire with intricately carved legs and matching chair stood against the northern wall. Next to it was a seven-foot bookshelf chock-full of literary classics from Dickens, Trollop, and Thoreau, which Irving suspected neither Marion nor W.R. had ever bothered to crack open.
Jean stood at a pair of narrow French doors, watching the waves tumble and recede. She wore a long-sleeved dress of black jersey, snug but not provocative, with a white lace neckline that was low-cut but not revealing. “I was starting to wonder if you guys had forgotten about me.” She took in Irving’s sailor suit, and then said, “I was tempted to go looking for you, but—” she fidgeted with her dress “—when Paul told me it was a costume party, I figured I’d stick out too much.”
Calling him “Paul” and not “Mr. Bern” confirmed Irving’s theory. He stepped closer. “Hello, Miss Harlow. I’m Irving Thalberg.”
She shook his hand warmly. “Pleased to meetcha.”
Her hair was as pale as the moon over her shoulder, but looked brittle and stiff. Nobody came by that color naturally, and he wondered what she endured to keep it starched-linen white. But her complexion was alabaster, so it suited her. And her smile was less rehearsed than those of most actresses. In a mansion full of people dressed as children, Jean Harlow came across like the most mature person in the world.
“Paul tells me you’re interested in playing Lil in Red-Headed Woman. Is that true?”
“Oh, yeah—I mean yes. I am. Very.”
“Have you read the book?”
“Who hasn’t?”
“Did you enjoy it?”
“The gal breaks up a marriage, has a whole bunch of affairs, and tries to off a guy.” She let out a surprisingly girlish giggle. “What’s not to like? But I’ve got to say, I’m surprised you’re trying to make it into a movie. Lil has tons of sex, so don’t you think it’ll send the Hays Code into a conniption fit?”
“We’re adopting a more comedic tone.”
Her deep blue eyes wandered away from him as she mulled it over. “That could work. Clever! No wonder you’ve got the reputation you’ve got.”
“And so the actress we cast needs to handle comedy well. Tell me, do you think you can make an audience laugh?”
“With me or at me?”
“At you.”
“Why not?” She raised a shoulder. “People have been laughing at me all my life.”
“They have?”
“Sure. I mean, look how I’m built.” She ran her hands down her body. “I’ve been fighting off guys since I was thirteen. They think, ‘She’s only good for one thing.’ My mother taught me to play up to it, and I guess it’s worked to a degree. I’m standing here talking to Mr. Irving Thalberg, ain’t I? But most of the time, they see what they want to see. It doesn’t occur to them that there might be more to me than this.”
“Does that bother you?” Paul asked.
“It used to, but one day it dawned on me that I can’t control what other people think or believe. So my philosophy is ‘screw ’em all.’”
Irving had only taken this impromptu meeting so he could later advise Paul how best to step away from his latest case of unrequited compulsion. But this was not the Jean Harlow he had expected. As a man of slight build, pale complexion, and mild demeanor, he, too, knew what it was like to be sized up and dismissed in an instant. The perceptions of others had often tormented him, and yet here was this girl whom men had judged and scorned since puberty, but who didn’t give two hoots. And those were the traits he needed in an actress to play Lil Andrews.
“Miss Harlow,” he said, “how would you feel about changing your hair color?”
She slapped a hand to her cheek. “Mr. Thalberg, you don’t know the hell I go through to maintain this here coif. I’d be willing to dye it purple if it’d win me the role.”
“Would you settle for red?”
Another girlish giggle. “Would I ever.”
The opening strains of a Rudy Vallée song called “As Time Goes By” permeated the walls. “That’s one of my wife’s current favorites,” Irving said. “She’s now looking for a dance partner.” He turned to Paul. “When Miss Harlow returns from her personal appearance tour, arrange a screen test.” The gleam in Paul’s eye was unmistakable. He turned to Harlow. “I look forward to seeing you again soon.”
“Likewise.”
Irving withdrew from the room. Before he closed the door behind him, though, he dawdled for a moment.
Harlow exclaimed, “Oh, Paul!”
“What did I tell you?” Paul said. “Now do you trust me?”
“Yes! Oh, yes!”
Crawford was out and Harlow was in, but he couldn’t think about that now. Norma was bound to be searching him out.