BAWDEN: What was it like to start your
film career working at Columbia Pictures, in their "B-movie
unit" in 1943?
 |
Though
Nina Foch played a lot
of classy roles in her long career,
she began in horror movies at
Columbia, like this one in 1944,
in which she played the leading role. |
FOCH: The whole damned studio was a B unit. The only first class
star they had was Jean Arthur and she left in 1943, shouting
“I’m free! Free!” as she raced through the parking
lot. The next big star was Rita Hayworth and she was only beginning
to come into her own–with "Cover Girl" (1944)
she was a superstar. Me? I started out with Bela Lugosi in "Return
of The Vampire" (1943). He just couldn’t learn lines
by then. And why bother? The lines were so terrible anyway. "Cry
of The Werewolf"? People still ask me about that one because
it was so bad. (Studio Chief) Harry Cohn kept telling me I wasn’t
sexy. That can ruin a 21-year-old’s confidence right away.
See these stills you are showing me? They painted out my lips.
Those eyelashes were heavy, that heavy makeup, it was all so
unreal. But I worked all the time. I felt things could only get
better.
BAWDEN: In 1944, you made "Shadows In The Night," one
of the long "Crime Doctor" series of mystery movies
starring Warner Baxter, a former Oscar winner. How was that?
FOCH: Just another "B." The rumor
was Mr. Baxter had suffered a nervous breakdown when Fox ordered
him to play Ty Power’s father (in "Johnny Apollo."
Edward Arnold was cast in Baxter's place.). He simply could not
face up to his change in status as a lead and left 20th and did
not work much for several years.
Well, it happens to all of us--this thing called aging. Male
stars handle it far worse than women, I have found out. Mr. Baxter
retained the grandeur of a great star even in "B's".
He limped badly from arthritis, but in these “Crime Doctor”
movies he was in his element. He really was the most elegant
actor. But there was no nostalgia in Hollywood in those days.
Here was a grand talent, now over 55, and this was all he could
get. But he had to act. I know that feeling. I liked him personally,
doing those pictures. We’d turn one out in under three weeks.
(Foch said the same thing was happening
at Columbia with another one-time "A" picture leading
man, Chester Morris.)
With Chester Morris, all he could do by that stage was stuff
like "Boston Blackie’s Rendezvous" (1945). But
he truly enjoyed the character of Blackie so he gave it his all.
BAWDEN: Then came "A Song To Remember" (1945), the
story of the composer Chopin. What do you remember about that
experience?
FOCH: I was a fiery Polish nationalist. It was my first "A"
and I had a ball. The way Paul Muni (who played Chopin's mentor)
mangled his character was wondrous. Paul’s idea of great
acting was a bushy white hairdo, thick accent, rolling eyes.
It always worked for him. Then one day I saw him sans makeup.
He was a handsome guy. The whole picture was marvelously kitschy.
Cornel Wilde (who played Chopin) was very embarrassed by everything.
Merle Oberon (as George Sand) wore those tailored suits. What
a marvelous batch of hokum!
BAWDEN: Then came a film that earned you
some of your best reviews to date--"My Name is Julia Ross"
(1945). Any thoughts about that one?
FOCH: A three week wonder. I was back in "B" pictures
but I treated it as an "A." Everybody worked on making
the script really purr. Dane May Whitty, as she insisted on being
called, loved doing it. She told me those Greer Garson epics
(at MGM) took 80 days to film and it was very boring. But here
we had nobody bothering us. The front office couldn’t have
cared less. Joe Lewis (Joseph H. Lewis) directed it and was told
it couldn’t go over 65 minutes, so that’s how he made
it--so very taut, on sets already standing. I mean the thought
of (Dame) May having George Macready as a son is hysterically
funny in a bizarre sort of way. The novel was by Anthony Gilbert,
It was very provocative. I wondered what Hitchcock would have
done with the material. The real writer was Lucy Malleson, who
wrote under many pseudonyms, I seem to recall.
("My Name is Julia Ross" was lavishly remade in 1986
as "Dead of Winter" and was a big commercial flop.)
BAWDEN: It was about that time that you
graduated from "B" movies to "A" films. How
did that feel?
FOCH: None of them interested ne: "The
Dark Past," "Johnny Allegro"--I still looked freakish
with my mouth overly painted. In 1949 I jumped to live TV, still
under contract to Columbia, but it was OK because Harry (Cohn)
insisted I give him half of every salary I was making. Then I
went to Broadway ("John Loves Mary"). I never went
back to Columbia once I left. Nobody did.
BAWDEN: You were part of that huge, star-spangled cast–Fredric
March, Barbara Stanwyck, Bill Holden, June Allyson, Walter Pidgeon,
etc.—in 1954’s "Executive Suite" and you
earned an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. How did
you get that part?
FOCH: I had a non-exclusive deal at MGM. So, John Houseman, who
was a producer in those days, gave me the script. I went home,
read it, and next day threw it in his face. I played executive
secretary Erica Martin but I barely had any dialogue…just
tense sentences here and there. And John said “That’s
exactly the way she behaves. She is the keeper of the flame.
She waits and studies every face and is determined to maintain
the Integrity of the furniture empire. So, that’s how I
played her, with my face registering every emotion.
Oh, Barbara Stanwyck screamed her head
off (and) Freddie March used every trick in the book. He’d
take his hankie out and furiously wipe his brow every time Paul
Douglas tried to speak. Me, I arranged files, I just sat there
and looked, and audiences noticed that lady because she was so
quiet. It was quite a movie—there’s no background music,
for one thing, and it takes place mostly in a boardroom. And
nobody in the audience got at all antsy with all those big names
doing turns.
BAWDEN: Does it bother you that many people know you most for
being in DeMille's "The Ten Commandments" (1956)?
FOCH: It used to. But it’s on TV every year. And people
are still watching it, although they can rent a copy anytime.
I got in because C.B. was screeming a dreadful MGMer called "Sombrero,"
which he was using as Yvonne De Carlo’s screen test. He
saw me and offered me the part of Bithniah, who was Moses’
stepmom. She discovers the baby (Moses) in the bull rushes. Claudette
Colbert, I think, was originally offered it and said no. I wanted
to see what made him (DeMille) tick. He simply believed. And
his visual sense was magnificent. He’s telling a story in
the Victorian way, meaning everything was tossed into the pot.
He wanted E.G. (Edward G. Robinson) to overact. That was a part
of it. You never under-acted in a C.B. epic. He’d tell you
to flare those nostrils and get on with it.
BAWDEN: You made another picture with Robinson,
"Illegal" (1955), at Warners. What do you remember
about that?
FOCH: Warners saw it as a programmer. E.G. was a charismatic
actor. He certainly never got so far, based on his looks. He
was short and very ugly. It was the remake of an old Warren William
movie. E.G. was the best ever actor at using props. He’d
take something from a mantelpiece and caress it–say a hunk
of glass. He’d move it among his hands as he spoke and it
often threw me. I’d stop acting and just watch this master
scene stealer at play. Then he’d deny ever doing anything
wrong!
BAWDEN: All those years you were doing live TV. How was that?
FOCH: It was like opening and closing in a play, all in one night.
We’d meet, cast and crew, about eight days before the performance
and we were expected to know our lines from then on. We were
in rehearsal halls because the sets were already up at the TV
studios for the play the week before we were on. CBS’s studio
space was on top of Grand Central Station, NBC was at Rockefeller
Center. The cameras they used were the same ones used for the
afternoon soaps and the evening news at that time. I think there
were four and only one or two sets. Cameras would malfunction.
For one live drama we were down to one camera at the end of the
hour.
Next day I’d walk around Nnew York and people would come
up and comment on the show. A week later they’d have forgotten
it and it was on to another hour. I never saw them, of course,
unless I was back in L.A., where the kinescope (a film photographed
off the TV screen) would play the very next week.
One of the strangest experiences was the live TV version of "State
of the Union." I took the Angela Lansbury role and the stars
were a very nervous Margaret Sullavan and Joe Cotten. She (Sullavan)
turned us into wrecks. She couldn’t remember pieces of business,
(so) she’d stop and ask for a retake and (director) Johnny
Frankenheimer would say, ‘But Maggie, dear, we’ll be
doing this live.’ I drank an ocean of black coffee, while
Joe Cotten’s amiable nature cracked into a thousand pierces.
But when that red light went on Maggie was perfect in every way
whereas I was about to come apart at the seams and Joe shook
visibly. That was live TV.
BAWDEN: In order to prove yourself capable
of better work to Harry Cohn, you went to Broadway and starred
in "John Loves Mary," which was a big hit. But you
did not do the movie. Why?
FOCH: I have a story for you about that. For one thing, Harry
wouldn’t lend me to Warners (where the movie was being made.)
Pat Neal got it–she’d been wonderful on Broadway in
"Another Part of The Forest" and Jack Warner was grooming
her for better things. We met on the plane going back to L.A.
from New York and Pat could not have been nicer. We had such
a heartfelt talk. But Pat never told he she was going to L.A.
to do MY part! I never learned until I read it in the trades
a few days later. But as I say she could not have been nicer.
BAWDEN: I have a theory about "An American In Paris"
(1951), which you played in a sly, sexy style. I think it was
your character who would have wound up with Gene Kelly--not Leslie
Caron.
FOCH: I told him, “Gene, dance all you want with her. The
kid can barely speak English! What are you going to do at night?
Read her the comics? You’ll come home to Mama because I’m
the sexy one and my character is paying the bills.” And
Gene agreed with me.
I love that line when I’m modeling
a dress and I say "only modesty is holding that thing up."
MGM dressed me to the hilt in that one. The studio was still
functioning in 1951. I did all my scenes on the backlot, though.
Never got to Paris for that one. Ten years later all of Hollywood
was in tatters.
BAWDEN: Is that why there’s a 10-year or more gap in your
filmography after "Spartacus" (1960)?
FOCH: I got good notices for that. I figured with all these big
name stars I had better be as nasty as possible—I was Helena
Glabrus, married to John Dall, so no wonder I was bad. (Dall
was widely known to be gay.) But I was 39, which is old age in
L.A. And the movie business all went over to TV. I was doing
a TV movie titled *Female Artillery (1973) and I thought, “I’m
back in 'B' pictures, only they’re making them even faster
than ever.” Also, I wanted to direct. I got hired by George
Stevens for "The Diary Of Anne Frank" (1959) as assistant
director. We called them dialogue directors in my day. Well,
it was an unexceptional picture, firstly because George opened
up the play. He went outside the attic and that robbed the story
of the claustrophobia of the original theater piece. I suppose
I shouldn’t say this but the company wanted the Jewishness
of the characters played down so the universal themes could be
stressed. And I think this was a shame, too. Millie Perkins was
a very sweet girl, totally untrained, just a cipher really. To
get her to cry at one point I had to threaten to destroy her
mother’s compact that she kept in her dressing room. Was
I evil? Yes! But we got her crying and crying.
BAWDEN: But you came back to pictures and worked with one of
the most autocratic of directors, Otto Preminger.
FOCH: With "Such Good Friends" (1971). I told (producer/director)
Otto Preminger, “Yell at me once and I’ll kick you
in the shins.” But he went after others who were weaker.
I just felt I liked TV more, although I never lucked into a successful
series, although God knows I certainly tried. I started coaching
and teaching at UCLA and it’s been a whole new world. That’s
my life story. Your two hours are up. Now let me get back to
work.
But she did sign a still photo from "Cry
of the Werewolf" before I left. A few years later, we talked
on the phone and she was promoting the ABC Easter screening of
"The Ten Commandments."
“It will outlast us all," she told me, "although
I never thought I’d outlast all those others (in the cast).
I’ll watch a few minutes and be back in time 50 years. I
can still hear CB shouting at the assistant ditrector: 'Tell
those Egyptian villagers to start villaging!'"
