Letters
Vol. 28 No. 20 · 19 October 2006
From Aram Saroyan
Michael Newton’s review of Lee Server’s biography of Ava Gardner brought to mind an episode Artie Shaw spoke about in recordings I made with him during the late 1980s, on which I later based a play called Artie Shaw Talking (LRB, 7 September). In Shaw’s words:
‘Johnny Hyde was Ava’s agent, and I told him I didn’t think she was being treated properly at Metro. They’d given her a contract when she divorced Mickey Rooney, who was their biggest star, but she and her sister Bappie, who took care of her business, were very naive and they accepted one of those seven-year contracts with all the options on the studio’s side. She was making about $125 a week.
‘Bappie was a baby name for Beatrice, I think. She was much older than Ava, a sort of surrogate mother. She manoeuvered her into the marriage with Mickey, and she tried to get her married to Howard Hughes. I found out later Ava had been living in a house Hughes was paying for when I met her.
‘At 5.30 one morning after we were married she got her usual wake-up call. She had to be at the studio at six for make-up. We’d been up till about midnight.
‘“Oh my God,” she said. “I’ll have bags under my eyes all day.”
‘“Don’t go in,” I said. “You’re not doing anything over there.”
‘“What do you mean?”
‘“They put you in a bathing suit and give you a beach ball and take you down to the beach and take a picture and put a caption on it: ‘Ava Gardner, starlet, featured in a forthcoming Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film.’ You’re not doing anything. You’re a stooge.”
‘“Well, what am I supposed to do?”
‘“Stay in bed,” I said.
‘“I can’t,” she said. This is the girl who said she didn’t want to be in movies, who’d hang up the phone after talking to some producer and say: “Oh, for Christ’s sake!”
‘“What’re they going to do?” I said. “I’ll give you the hundred and twenty-five a week. I give you more than that now – what is this bullshit?”
‘“Really?” she said.
‘“Yeah, stay in bed.”
‘I picked up the phone and said: “OK, we got the call. Bye.” It was a studio call.
‘Then I lay there waiting. Sure enough, in a little while the phone rang, a casting call.
‘“Where’s our little girl?”
‘“She’s very sleepy,” I said. “She’s beat and she’s not coming in today.”
‘“What? What’s the matter? Is she sick?”
‘“No,” I said. “That’s all you know.”
‘I knew it was going to go up the ladder from there. The next call’s from Billy Grady in casting. “Artie, what happened?”
‘“Nothing,” I said. “She’s tired, man. You’re going to take her out to the beach and take pictures of her against a rock? Who cares.”
‘“Artie, what’s going on?”
‘“Nothing, Billy. That’s all.”
‘I knew it was going to go up from there. Next call probably from Joe Cohen, and on up to Eddie Mannix, then Benny Thaw, and finally the head man himself, L.B. [Mayer]. It didn’t get to him. I stopped at Benny Thaw, who was one of the upper crust.
‘“What’s going on, Artie? You know this is very serious.”
‘“What’s serious? A hundred a week? That’s not serious. That’s pin money.”
‘“What am I going to say?”
‘“Nothing, Benny.”
‘Now Johnny Hyde calls up. It’s rebellion in the ranks, right?
‘“Artie, what’s happening?”
‘“I think this is stupid. Ava is very tired – she hasn’t slept – and she’s not doing a goddam thing at Metro.”
‘“Artie, you know how this works. They’ll either pick up her option or they won’t.”
‘“I don’t give a goddam.”
‘“They’re going to put her on suspension.”
‘“Fine, we’ll do without the hundred and twenty-five. I’ll give her a cheque every week and she’ll go shopping. She’s going to spend more than that anyway, so what are we talking about?”
‘He laughed. “You’re right, but what do you want me to tell them?”
‘“Tell ’em that.”
‘In a little while he called again. “L.B. would like to meet with you.”
‘“Why me? Why doesn’t he meet with you?”
‘“You’re the one that’s running this rebellion. Come in and we’ll have a meeting.” This was before people “took” meetings.
‘We went to a meeting. Johnny and I; and L.B., the rajah, and his henchmen. He never had a meeting alone. He had to have witnesses to say, “He never said that,” in case anybody tried to sue him. He would have these guys there, Eddie Mannix, Benny Thaw, Arthur Freed.
‘He had this big white desk that he played like an organ. Buttons. If he pressed all the buttons, the whole studio would come dashing in. The whole joint would blow up. This is where he used to cry “ball-bearing tears”, as Judy Garland put it, when he pleaded with some star to behave right. “Don’t go out with that guy, sweetheart. Honey, please, I love you like a father.” And he’d cry. “He’ll do you harm; he’ll fuck you. You don’t want that.”
‘He ran a harem.
‘“How are you, Artie?” he said.
‘“Fine, L.B.,” I said, “nice to see you.”
‘I was the MGM nemesis. As Natalie Wood said once at the Academy Awards, “Those days when everybody was marrying Artie Shaw …”
‘“What’s going on?” he said.
‘“Nothing, L.B.,” I said. “It’s kind of silly. It isn’t really worthy of your attention. Ava’s getting $125 a week, and I don’t want her doing these stupid things she does. You’re treating her as bait to get you some press. She’s my wife. I’d rather give her the money to stay home and do what she wants.”
‘“What are you suggesting?” he said.
‘“Nothing. It’s your studio.”
‘“Are you asking us to redo her contract?”
‘“No, I’m not. But if you expect her to come to work you’ll have to make it serious.”
‘“What do you have in mind?”
‘“I don’t know. What would you have to pay her as a salary so you’d respect her?”
‘“A thousand?” he said.
‘“Would you really respect her at a thousand dollars, L.B.?” Gable was then getting around five.
‘“Well, fifteen. At 1500 I’d have to have some respect. At the end of 40 weeks that’s $60,000. We don’t throw that kind of money around. The kind of money she’s getting now, you’re right, it’s an errand boy.”
‘“At $1500 a week you would take her seriously enough to put her into something that makes sense? A movie?”
‘“Yes. I think so,” he said.
‘“Johnny?” I turned to him.
‘“I think that would be a fair figure, Artie,” he said.
‘So I said OK and they redrew the contract. That was that.
‘I came home and told Ava she had a deal as a $1500-a-week actress.
‘They put her into a movie called Whistle Stop with George Raft, who was a big star at that time. She was the co-star. Metro lent her to an independent producer for that movie. They got $60,000 for her, so that took care of her salary for the year.
‘Then she was in The Killers. They lent her to Warner’s. John Huston wrote the script under the name Tony Villiers. Bob Siodmak was the director. He did a hell of a job and that made her.’
Aram Saroyan
Los Angeles
Vol. 28 No. 23 · 30 November 2006
From Bill Sanderson
Aram Saroyan details Artie Shaw’s role in the starry rise of Ava Gardner (Letters, 19 October). For most ordinary chaps, it’s not his band nor his marriage to Ava Gardner, lovely though she was, that is the principal fascination, but his marrying so many beautiful women. P.G. Wodehouse, in The Mating Season, has movie star Cora (Corky) Pirbright give the following speech, referring to one of her fan’s in-depth knowledge of the 1940s Hollywood scene:
She even knows how many times Artie Shaw has been married which I’ll bet he couldn’t tell you himself. She asked if I had ever married Artie Shaw, and when I said No, seemed to think I was pulling her leg or must have done it without noticing. I tried to explain that when a girl goes to Hollywood she doesn’t have to marry Artie Shaw, it’s optional, but I don’t think I convinced her.
Bill Sanderson
Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire
