Chapter One

BEGINNINGS:

WHAT PRICE HOLLYWOOD? (1932) AND A STAR IS BORN (1937)

SEVENTEEN YEARS BEFORE JUDY GARLAND MADE CINEMA HISTORY IN Warner Bros.’ A Star Is Born (1954), David O. Selznick produced the first film of that famed title. But the story doesn’t start there. The roots of the 1937 version lie in yet another film with a similar plot, an early pet project of Selznick’s titled What Price Hollywood? (1932). A tragic love story with the glamour of Hollywood as its backdrop, the film is a Depression-era Cinderella tale with a dark undercurrent that explores the emptiness of celebrity. As one Hollywood star ascends, another great talent declines, and the story climaxes with a suicide. It established the archetype for the classic Tinseltown rise-and-fall tale, and was the first truly noteworthy film by the esteemed director George Cukor.

What Price Hollywood? is the end result of a complicated evolutionary process. In 1932, Selznick purchased a juicy yarn by Hollywood journalist and screenwriter Adela Rogers St. Johns called The Truth About Hollywood. Playwright and screenwriter Jane Murfin further developed this original treatment, after which Ben Markson adapted it into a screenplay that was later revised by journalist and screenwriter Gene Fowler and Rowland Brown. Rewrites, and uncredited contributions from Robert Presnell Sr., Roger Stevens, and Allen Rivkin resulted in the screenplay that producer Pandro S. Berman and executive producer David O. Selznick approved, and George Cukor agreed to direct for RKO Pathé.

A succession of working titles for the script matched its string of writers: The Truth About Hollywood, Hollywood Madness, and Hollywood Merry-Go-Round were all considered but ultimately rejected. The film’s final, definitive title is a reference to the famous 1924 anti-war play What Price Glory? by Maxwell Anderson and Laurence Stallings that had been made into a popular film in 1926. Selznick selected glamorous blonde Constance Bennett for the lead role of Mary Evans, with actor-director Lowell Sherman playing opposite her as film director Max Carey. Neil Hamilton as romantic interest Lonny Borden and Gregory Ratoff as producer Julius Saxe (a character modeled after movie mogul Samuel Goldwyn) filled out the key supporting roles.

George Cukor, who had codirected his first film, Grumpy (1930), just two years earlier, was a veteran of the New York theater world and served an apprenticeship as “dialogue director” during the transition period from silent pictures to “talkies,” most notably for Lewis Milestone’s All Quiet on the Western Front (1930). His stage experience resulted in a well-deserved reputation as a superb director of actors. Cukor adored performers and performing. Telling stories about actors was to be a common thread in his work and would inform A Star Is Born. Though it was an integral launching pad for Cukor’s career, What Price Hollywood? was Selznick’s passion project. The producer guaranteed his film’s success not only with a fine cast and a sympathetic director, but also with rich black-and-white cinematography by the doyen of Hollywood cameramen, Charles Rosher, excellent settings imagined by art director Carroll Clark, and a striking musical score by composer Max Steiner.

What Price Hollywood? opens on Bennett’s Mary Evans primping for her evening shift as a waitress at the famous Brown Derby restaurant, where the Hollywood elite dine. A movie magazine has informed her which silk stockings to slide on, which dress to don, and which lipstick to select, and how to apply it. In a memorable visual introduction to Mary’s fantasy world, she holds up a page featuring an image of Greta Garbo and Clark Gable, and, imitating Garbo, plays a miniature love scene with her magazine idol Gable. Judy Garland, a few years later, would recall this scene by singing “You Made Me Love You” to a scrapbook full of Gable pictures in Broadway Melody of 1938 (1937), creating a pivotal moment in her early career.

Mary is a young, pretty Hollywood hopeful, but not an innocent. She trades on her guile and her beauty, wringing the most out of every opportunity to place herself squarely in the sights of the producers and directors who frequent the Brown Derby. Mary is ready to be discovered—curled, lashed, and peroxided—but unconcerned with the work and the commitment that must follow the superficial powder and polish. She sets her sights on director Max Carey, in top hat and tails, who stumbles into the restaurant one evening, inebriated but endearing. Mary sidles up to his table, stars in her eyes, schemes in her head, and charms the director.

Carey is momentarily taken with Mary; he invites her to leave her job at the bowler-shaped restaurant to attend the premiere of his latest celluloid triumph at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre in Hollywood. At the event, she matches him move for move, line for line, and while wearing just street clothes and arriving in a dilapidated Ford Model T, she affects the air and accent of British nobility to impress the crowd and the radio audience, then swans into the theater with a hearty laugh. The next morning, in his own bed and hung over, Carey remembers nothing of the night before, while Mary, who has slept on his sofa, is credited with getting him home safe and fairly sound. Carey admires Mary’s moxie. When she plainly states that all she needs is a break, he instructs her to be on his set the next day for a bit part in his current production.

Stage ten is a crush of snaking cables, stage-light floor lamps, and the buzz of cast and crew at work on a movie called Purple Flame. Carey snags Mary, positioning her on the grand staircase, and gives her an easy line of dialogue as the minor character of Rosemarie: “Hello, Buzzy. You haven’t proposed to me yet tonight.” However, Mary, untrained and nervous, is unexpectedly awkward in her delivery and unable to take direction, showing not a trace of the star quality and assurance she displayed when they first met. Carey instructs his assistant director to find a replacement. Apparently, there have been many such tryouts of his late night “discoveries,” as producer Julius Saxe (Gregory Ratoff) is all too aware. Max and Saxe are great friends as well as colleagues; the producer is also wise to the fact that his director is a barely functioning alcoholic.

But plucky Mary doesn’t give up. She rehearses on the stairs of her boardinghouse, up and down, speaking the line in every mode her inexperience will allow, until an inner light flashes. She uncovers the walk, the talk, and the manner of the character, and peppers Max with telephone calls pleading for another chance. Styled with Marcelled hair and a slinky gown, she is tested, and the footage is rushed to the screening room for Saxe to view. Mary steals a peek from the projection booth, then overhears dialogue uttered in countless subsequent show business tales: “Terrific!” “Who is that gorgeous creature?” “She’s a great discovery!” “Where is that girl? Find her and bring her back immediately!” She is offered a long-term contract and, encountering Max, cries, “Mr. Carey, I’m in pictures!”