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RAYMOND MASSEY
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Massey, the great Canadian character actor at his best
of TheColumnists.com
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he interviewed, giving them a fresh look in his new role as a member of TheColumnists.com. |
I aways enjoyed my afternoons
with Raymond Massey. As the scion of one of Toronto’s most
prominent families, he kept coming back to his home town in the
1970s. I met him three times over the years. Once he decided
to take me to lunch at the Bombay Bicycle Club, which was situated
in the former Massey mansion on Jarvis Street. But, at the last
moment, he backed off and we lunched instead via room service
at his hotel. He said there were "too many ghosts of the
past" for him in the family manse.
On another occasion, Massey stopped the
taxi to show me the facade of Massey Hall, which the family had
donated to the city of Toronto. Massey pointed up to one blank
stone and said it had been sandblasted to remove the title “Massey
Music Hall” because his Victorian grandfather had been
told what music halls were like nd was aghast.
Born in Toronto in 1896 to one of Canada’s most prominent
families. His older brother, Vincent, was Canada’s first
Canadian-born Governor General, He studied at the University
of Toronto and at Oxford University in England. He served four
years in the Canadian Army before a brief stint at the family’s
agricultural implements factory. In 1924 he left for the London
stage where he thrived for the next 15 years. Massey died in
1983 in Beverly Hills, by then a famous movie star in America
as well as England and his native Canada.
Here are some excerpts from my interviews with Massey:
BAWDEN:
Your first movie role was Sherlock Holmes in the 1931 British
film "The Speckled Band"?
MASSEY:
I got the job because Sir Gerald Du Maurier recommended me. He
was the first choice but said, “I’m feeling rather
tired, Old chap, so you try it on, will you?” I had
done an unsuccessful screen test for a 1928 British effort called
"The Constant Nymph." Very disappointing. Filled my
mouth with cotton wool because I looked too thin in the face.
I did the picture "The Speckled Band" because I needed
the work. Worst ever Holmes. Awful. The film was shot very quickly,
but over seven weeks--as the money became available. In our version
all the Victorian bric-a-brac was tossed out and Holmes resided
in a modern apartment with a secretary and Dictaphone! The girlie
in jeopardy was Angela Badderly–that’s right, Mrs.
Bridges in "Upstairs, Downstairs" 40 years later!
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in "The Speckled Band" (1931), his first film. |
Almost a year later, there I was in L.A.
in "The Old Dark House" with a Universal contract in
my pocket. Turns out the Holmes movie was a big hit in the U.S.
BAWDEN:
"The Old Dark House" is now considered a classic.
MASSEY:
Never saw the thing. Thought it was a crazy plot–based on
a J.B. Priestley play, you know. ("Benighted.") What
a cast of unknowns! Charles Laughton was in it. I’d directed
him in 1929 in "The Silver Tassie" and he could get
temperamental. He positively loathed Boris Karloff, who was rumored
to be part Indian. Charles was a white supremacist. Melvyn Douglas,
Gloria Stuart, Lillian Bond–a real fine cast. The director
Jimmy (James) Whale was just plain strange. (Whale had just done
"Frankenstein," one of Universal's biggest hits.) The
film didn’t appeal to many, but now, all these years later,
is considered a classic. I was being screwed around by Junior
Laemmele (studio head Carl Laemmle Jr.), who never used me again,
just let me stew on the lot. I played golf on the studio golf
course most days. Nothing to do. I just cut and ran–right
back to Broadway and a new Kit (Katherine) Cornell play called
"Alien Corn."
BAWDEN:
It was almost three years before your next film, "The Scarlet
Pimpernel" (1935).
MASSEY:
I was very busy on the stage, both on Broadway and the West End
(London). Then producer Alex Korda saw me and offered a short
run contract. He thought I’d be good as the scowling French
revolutionary Chauvelin. Leslie Howard was the star, Merle Oberon
(played) his wife and Nigel Bruce was the Prince of Wales. It
was shot at Alex’s Elstree studios an hour from the West
End by subway. So Alex gave a limo and a driver, so I’d
get an hour’s sleep before I stepped on stage. I asked Gladys
Cooper for permission--we were then doing "The Shining Hour"
(on stage)--and she was also the manager. Just as I was about
to ask, she told me she’d signed for a George Arliss picture,
so she then had to grant my request.
I learned so much working with Leslie Howard. He’d whisper
between takes, “Tone it back a bit, old chap.”
To me he never seemed to do much. Then I watched the rushes and
he’d effortlessly stolen the scene. Most British films at
the time were truly rotten--we called them “quota quickies”
because a certain quota of every cinema’s fare had to be
British product. So the theaters played the quickies all day...to
no audiences... and at night people turned out to see the latest
American imports.
Alex topped all that with his lavish films--well mounted, beautifully
photographed with big casts. On "Pimpernel," Roland
Brown was our director and he walked out after one day of enduring
Alex’s insults. So Alex directed some scenes and so did
Harold Young, who got the credit. The cameraman was another American,
Hal Rosson, who created such beautiful scenes the audiences would
whisper “Aaaaaaah!” Leslie added humor to what was
essentially a chase tale--with my character forever two steps
behind the elusive Pimpernel.
BAWDEN: Then
came what you’ve told me you consider your biggest, if not
best, film.
MASSEY:
"The Shape of Things To Come." Alex plowed all his
financial resources into that one. I immediately read the H.G.
Wells novel and was eager to make it until the script arrived
and all the humor was left out and great gobs of socialism substituted.
But Wells’ contract said he had complete control of content
and what he chose to do was use the film as a great educational
experiment. He was always on set. We had great talks. The sets
were huge. And H.G. started making script changes, so the cinematic
possibilities of the story would shine through. Ned Martin did
the special effects, George Perinal was the cameraman. I ask
you to look at the launching to the moon part and you’ll
see how closely it anticipates NASA’s mission. I had two
parts –the First World War airman and his grandson 30 years
later. But three years later we were all at war again, despite
all of H.G.’s admonitions.
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Raymond Massey, at left, in the second of the two roles he played in the 1936 science
fiction masterpiece "Things to Come." At right, the original poster for the film.
BAWDEN:
How did you manage to wind up back in Hollywood five years after
vowing never to return.
MASSEY:
It was all Leslie Howard’s fault. He talked me up something
fierce to David O. Selznick, who got interested enough to offer
me the plum part of Prince Michael in his new version of "The
Prisoner of Zenda" (1937). And the money was very nice,
too, although I’d just had a big Broadway hit in "Ethan
Frome" with Ruth Gordon.
David’s cast was starry enough: Ronnie Colman, who was just
as much a minimalist actor as Leslie; Madeleine Carroll as our
beautiful Flavia; Mary Astor as Antoinettte; Doug Fairbanks Jr.
as Prince Rupert. It was a busy production, David was always
ordering retakes and after our wonderful director John Cromwell
left, W.S. Van Dyke shot even more retakes. Sidney Howard was
writing "Gone With the Wind" at the time for David
and made the mistake of venturing onto the set one afternoon
and David immediately ordered him to rewrite the mammoth engagement
party scene. The photography by Jimmy Wong Howe was very opulent.
It made you believe you were in that mythical kingdom. And there’s
nothing wrong about being in such a big hit.
BAWDEN:
Then you went to Sam Goldwyn for "The Hurricane." How
did that happen?
MASSEY:
My agent had insisted on a one picture deal with David and then
Sam Goldwyn bit and took a one picture option. He tried to expand
it into a full contract, but I figured it was more profitable
to freelance, which made Sam mad as blazes. He spent the entire
picture yelling at (director) Jack Ford, who had a real Irish
temper and yelled back. Jack told me he’d only taken the
job for the trip to Hawaii. Instead Sam built his South Pacific
island on the backlot–the trees were papier mache and one
day under the intense heat from the arc lights one of the trees
crumpled and hit Mary Astor on the noggin.
I got the part because the first choice,
Basil Rathbone, decided he’d played enough villains and
was on the lookout for leading man roles. I wanted to stay nasty
as I certainly was here as Governor De Laarge. Mary was my wife
and the native kids were played by Dorothy Lamour and Jon Hall,
who became big stars off of this one.
BAWDEN:
You immediately hustled back to England for "Drums."
MASSEY:
Another great, snarling villain. It was a Sabu picture. He had
become all the rage after being discovered by Robert Flaherty
for "Elephant Boy." A beautiful, strangely serene young
lad and for a few years a box office sensation. Alex Korda did
this one, my third in a row for United Artists producers. I put
on the dark pancake (makeup) and did my thing. The fact it was
all very racist never entered my mind at the time, although there
were ominous stirrings in India where the film was not popular.
But it reinforced our British stereotypes that we were training
a new generation of progressive Indian leaders. Nobody could
have known a decade later India would be free of the British
for good. So "Drums" these days seems like dated propaganda
for an Empire that no longer exists.
BAWDEN: Then
you had huge successes, first on the London stage, in "Idiot’s
Delight" and then on Broadway in "Abe Lincoln in Illinois."
Then came the film version as Lincoln.
MASSEY:
Only Henry Fonda and Jack Ford beat us to it. (Fonda starred
in John Ford's "Young Mr. Lincoln" in 1939, a year
before Massey's Lincoln film came out.) So a second Lincoln film
in a year was a predictable failure at the box office. Ford took
huge liberties with the material, particularly by making Lincoln
so young and handsome. Ours was more prosaic and faithful to
history–and I admit it's a tad dull after the Ford theatrics.
When we opened (the stage version) at the Plymouth theater in
October, 1938, I was still having trouble finding my Lincoln.
He came to me that first night and I never had stage jitters
as I usually did on opening nights. Playwright Bob Sherwood said
he was positive Honest Abe would have been wowed.
(NOTE: Massey would not discuss his divorce and subsequent
remarriage to Dorothy Luddington Whitney. His ex-wife, Adrianne
Allan, subsequently married Dorothy’s ex, William Whitney,
and Massey’s two younger children, Anna and Daniel, remained
with her. Older son Geoffrey moved into the new Massey household
in Los Angeles.)
BAWDEN: But you were upset by the cutting of a scene from
the movie version--the one in which a prayer is said for the
sick prairie boy.
MASSEY:
I couldn’t understand it. It was central to understanding
Lincoln’s character. I phoned Bob Sherwood (who wrote the
play) and he couldn’t explain it. Then I phoned producer
Max Gordon and he yelled back to mind my own business. Most of
the rest of the picture was OK. I always get a chuckle out of
the presence of four Canadian actors doing the Lincoln-Douglas
debates: Me, Gene Lockhart, Doug Dumbrille, John Qualen. But
nobody noticed it at the time.
But I’ll tell you about the premiere in Washington. First
I absolutely refused to arrive in costume as the RKO publicity
department had suggested. Then I told Mrs. (First Lady Eleanor)
Roosevelt how disappointed we all were that it was running in
segregated cinemas. Washington had Jim Crow laws everywhere.
She went to the event as planned although there were pickets
outside protesting black people were barred from the event. I
wonder how Lincoln would have thought of all of this.
BAWDEN:
How did you get to Warners for a 15-year run as the studio’s
top character star?
MASSEY:
I got a script called "Santa Fe Trail." Loved doing
westerns because everything was outdoors. And there was sheer
fun in moving from Lincoln to John Brown. How strange is that
anyway? I also played John Brown on stage in the Benet play "John
Brown’s Body" and again in the movie "Seven Angry
Men." What a great roaring part. Mike Curtiz was the director,
amazing with action and one day he really did roar, “Aim
the empty horses the other way.”
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"Santa Fe Trail." |
I then did a play revival–"The Doctor’s Dilemma" with Kit (Katharine) Cornell—and signed with WB for security. I’d do one movie or two but for six consecutive months only. Then I could do a play until the next year. My wife, Dorothy, was convinced I’d made a big mistake.
BAWDEN: But first you returned to Canada for your only Canadian movie, "The 49th Parallel" (aka The Invaders). How did that come about?
MASSEY: My brother Vincent, Canada’s High Commissioner in London, sent me a wire to meet (producer-director) Michael Powell, then in L.A. He was about to begin this amazing odyssey–a film shot right across Canada. It concerned a bunch of Nazi saboteurs (headed by Eric Portman) who land in Hudson Bay. First they attack trappers (Laurence Olivier and Finlay Currie). Then they meet a Hutterite girl in Manitoba (Elisabeth Bergner). Then it’s a pacifist in the Rockies (Leslie Howard). Just as the last Nazi alive gets over the Peace bridge at Niagara Falls, I appear–a draft deserter who finally does the right thing.
I only had five days to do my part, which was shot in a real railroad car. Stationed right beside the Falls. For other scenes Mike shot the exteriors and medium shots on actual locations with the interiors to be finished in England. That’s Elisabeth (Bergner) you see in long shots, but she absolutely refused to return to London because she was on the Nazi’s Most Wanted list. So Glynis Johns stepped in and finished those scenes. She’s in all the interiors and the long range exteriors are still Elisabeth. Glynis was 27 years Elisabeth’s junior! Larry and Leslie also did their scenes in England. With stand- ins for the long shots filmed in Canada. But no matter, the film was a huge hit. It was the first time Canadians had seen themselves on the screen and not in some blithering Rose Marie caricature.
BAWDEN: Your first picture under contract to WB was "Dangerously They Live" (1941)?
MASSEY: A terrible film. My wife kept telling me I’d made a mistake. Then came "Arsenic and Old Lace." I know you’re going to ask me why it took three years to be released. So here’s the story: (Director) Frank Capra was going into the U.S. Army so he only had the summer of ’41 to make it. WB took many of the cast members from the play still running on Broadway. But the producers refused to free Boris Karloff, who was playing the nasty brother Jonathan because he was the big box office attraction. I tested for Capra and won this wonderful role (Karloff's part) and Warners added Cary Grant as Mortimer Brewster plus Priscilla Lane as his fiancee, Elaine Harper. Everybody was convinced it would be a huge hit and we had such fun making it. I’d already played a disturbed man in my worst ever play performance, "The Black Ace." So as Jonathan Brewster I simply played Randolph Calthorpe. I did not imitate Boris Karloff as some people charged (but never to my face).
WB had a deal the play had to close before the movie could be released. The Armed services watched this one in 1942 and then came 1943 and still the movie was dormant. The play kept packing them in for two years after our film version was made and when it was released in 1944 it didn’t have the impact it might have had three years earlier. Cary Grant claimed he’d physically changed. Priscilla Lane had left Warners two years earlier and Jack Carson, in a small role, had since become a big star. But I still enjoy watching it on TV because it’s one of my few comedies.
BAWDEN: You also made two movies with Humphrey Bogart.
MASSEY: "Action in the North Atlantic" (1943) was where we met. Adored the man. Best movie actor of all time. He’d served a 20-year apprenticeship on the stage and in movies as the second lead. Not a tough guy at all but came from a socialite family. The entire effort was studio bound. We never went near a real ship. Bogey made every gesture seem so damned easy that we were overacting in the same scene. Two ships were built on separate Warners sound stages. Two fully functioning ships! Every action was done against back projection. There were miniatures for some battle scenes and a shot could take forever to set up. One day Bogey was bored and bet me his stunt double was more courageous than mine. So we had the guys diving into the studio tank until both were exhausted. They got paid extra for it out of our own pockets I might add. We made another, a very boring thing called "Chain Lightning" (1950).
BAWDEN: You were very busy in those days. Take me through the titles from this list.
MASSEY: "Reap the Wild Wind"? I was on loan out to Paramount and loved (the film's director ) Cecil B. DeMille, who was a devotee of ham acting. I really put it on in that one. It was sheer fun to be so nasty. "The Woman In the Window"? I discovered just how great a movie actor Edward G. Robinson was, the way he could get the audience’s attention by fondling objects, the way he rat-tat-tatted out the lines. Amazing. "Hotel Berlin"? It was in general release as the war ended but I liked my sadistic Nazi general and the picture really was a redoing of "Grand Hotel."
BAWDEN: One of your best ever performances was as the American patriot in "Stairway To Heaven."
MASSEY: One of my favorite movies, actually. The realization was superb. David Niven was an RAF pilot who bails out, gets washed ashore, is attended by a doctor played by Roger Livesy and romances Kim Hunter. During the operation a Heavenly jury debates his fate. Heaven was in dye-monochrome while the real world was Technicolored. I played the first colonialist killed in the Revolutionary war, fiercely anti-American, a wonderful part to glower, great speeches. People still ask me about it. Michael had one more part for me--1961’s "The Queen’s Guard," which I did to act opposite my son Daniel.
BAWDEN: Then it was back to Warners.
MASSEY: I always pleaded off working with Bette Davis with her temperament. Joan Crawford was something else again. The movie was "Possessed" (1947) and I discovered the secret of Joan’s longevity--she was the best technician I’d ever met. Could match close-ups and long shots flawlessly. Knew everything about lighting, camera lenses, and dressed for the camera and not the other actors. Her face photographed superbly, captured and held the light. She was playing a schizophrenic nurse tending my terminally ill wife. Curtis Bernhardt directed and he wisely refused to go the melodrama route. The wife is never shown, only heard through half closed doors. First scenes were shot on downtown L.A. streets as dawn breaks and we see a mentally confused Joan leaving a streetcar, walking to early morning confession. Joan loved to talk about one day tackling the theatre, but I knew she never would. For one thing, she had an innate fear of people. And she did have a sense of humor.When Kurt addressed her as “Bette” during one scene, she threw the glass of champagne she was holding at him. One more thing: during the big party scene she insisted all the crew dress up, too, so she’d be in the right mood and then when we were waltzing she insisted she lead. After all she was the star.
BAWDEN: Your opinion of "The Fountainhead" (1949) please!
MASSEY: Claptrap. Didn’t work. Gary Cooper had signed for the lead and he wanted his girl Pat Neal in. This meant Barbara Stanwyck was eased out by director King Vidor and she walked out of the studio in rage. But Coop was 20 years too old and he wasn’t smart enough. This part wasn’t for a Mr. Deeds but a cold, calculating adventurer and Gary was always pure on the screen. Young Pat didn’t have the right kind of sex appeal.. It just didn’t work, and Ayn Rand's philosophy was frankly gibberish as far as I’m concerned.
BAWDEN: You told me you liked doing westerns at Warners. Why?
MASSEY: Because it got me out of the back lot and into the great outdoors. Well, actually we shot at the Warners ranch. "Barricade" (1950) was a reworking of "The Sea Wolf." "Dallas" with Coop was OK, "Sugarfoot" (1951) and "Carson City" (1952) were with Randy Scott, who was a big box office draw around that time. One of his oaters would be made easily in four weeks at the most. WB lent me out for "David and Bathsheba" (1952) and I could rant as an Old Testament prophet.
BAWDEN: How often do people ask you about James Dean?
MASSEY: In every interview! At every party! That movie ("East Of Eden,": in which Massey played Dean's father) has a life of its own but Jimmy was dead by the time it went into release. Did he give a coherent performance? No! He was studying The Method, which might have left him as mixed up as Monty Clift if he’d lived longer. The success of that film is due to (director) Elia Kazan. He’d add some bit of unrehearsed business to a take to surprise Jimmy and presto we’d have our scene. Jimmy couldn’t do the same take twice because he had no training, There is a great performance buried in it: Jo Van Fleet as the mother. She’s a force unto herself and in scenes with Jimmy she just blows him away. (Van Fleet won the 1955 Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her performance.)
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the emotion for a big scene with Massey in Elia Kazan's "East of Eden." |
In that scene where he rushed into the train car to toss down the lettuce? Jimmy went up and we just stood there for the longest time. Then Burl (Ives) turned to me and said “Guess Jimmy’s got to hate that ice.” I’m not discounting the truly amazing reception of the movie. But it was all due to Kazan’s methodically gathering snippet after snippet of usable film. Jimmy couldn’t give a sustained performance, you see.
BAWDEN: Why did you turn to television and "Dr. Kildare" (1961-1966)?
MASSEY: I’d loved live TV. I did the Lincoln play live on CBS in 1949. We did it from CBS studios atop Grand Central Station. Remember it was live and as the train in the last scene is pulling out of the station with me and Ruth Gordon all the well wishers were supposed to shout “Goodbye Mr. Lincoln!” Except one old doll who shouted “And you, too, Mr. Massey! Goodbye Mr. Massey” Got me so mad when the red light was out I chased her right up the street.
By 1961 we’d moved permanently to Beverly Hills and the movie pickings became thinner as the years went on. Always said I wouldn’t do a series. But Dr. Gillespie was a great role. I wasn’t on call all week, I’d have days off. My job would be to rush into a scene and argue ethics with Dick Chamberlain as Dr. Kildare. I got recognized on the street by people who’d never been to the theatre and only vaguely remembered me from movies. One more thing: MGM made this one with real care.
I’ve got a Dick Chamberlain story for you. Included him in some of our posh parties. And one night Cedric Hardwicke had a couple and started berating Dick with the best career advice he ever got. He said, “Young man you are a star but you do not yet know how to act.” So when the show folded Dick went into English repertory for several years, played all sorts of parts, and became a very credible actor as well as romantic lead.
BAWDEN: You tell an interesting story about why you retired from acting.
MASSEY: It was 1975. I’d virtually retired when the invitation came forth to co-star in a revival of "The Night of the Iguana" opposite Dorothy McGuire and Dick Chamberlain and Eleanor Parker at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in L.A. On the second preview I froze, couldn’t remember a damned thing. Was it because (the playwright) Tennessee Williams was sitting in the audience? I thought he’d tear me apart afterwards, but he came to my dressing room and was very sweet. I was taking medication for migraines and that night I came up blank. Had to make up a lot of verse and with the author right there! But I was 79 and I thought to myself that this really is it. My working days as an actor were just about over. I finished the run, never again blanked out. But it was time to go, to drop back into the black hole of being simply an eager devotee of other people’s acting.
©2009 by Jim Bawden. This column first posted Dec. 21, 2009.
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