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ANNE BAXTER
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By JIM BAWDEN
of TheColumnists.com
“I want to go on
until they have to shoot me” laughed Anne Baxter during
one of our interview sessions.
And the versatile actress sort of got her wish: She died of a
brain aneuryism in December, 1985, aged 62, at the top of her
game in a starring role in the hit TV series "Hotel."
The obituaries were predictably filled with "All About Eve"
anecdotes but it wasn’t her only great movie.
After all, by the age of 19 she’d acted with John Barrymore
and been directed by Orson Welles and Jean Renoir.
Hers is a case study of survival: I once saw her as a compelling
Gertrude in "Hamlet" on the stage in Edmonton, Alberta,
Canada, of all places.
From movies to made-for-TV movies to game shows to one night
stands, she never stopped working.
And every Easter audiences still enjoy her slinky appearance
as Nefrititi in DeMille's "The Ten Commandments."
I first interviewed Anne Baxter during a long afternoon in 1974
in the Garden Room restaurant of the Century Plaza hotel in Southern
California's Century City.
Then I interviewed her again in the late 1970s when she was making
a TV movie "Nero Wolfe" that took years to actually
get on the network schedule. (The film's star, Thayer David,
had died).
When she was promoting her book "Intermission" in Toronto,
we met again. And I visited her on the set of "Hotel"
a year before her unexpected death.
Here are some highlights from our various chats:
Jim Bawden: Let’s go back to your first film "Twenty
Mule Team" (1940).
Anne Baxter: Oh, let’s not. I’d been on the stage since
I was 15 in New York. My teacher was that old sourpuss Maria
Ouspenskaya. Then in 1938 David Selznick asked me out along with
Montgomery Clift to read for "Tom Sawyer." Monty had
bad acne right then. David had me open my mouth and examined
my teeth like I was a prize horse. And both of us flunked our
tests. Two years later David asked me again to come out and read
for "Rebecca" and (the film's director) Alfred
Hitchcock said I had made the best test but the lead at that
time was going to be Ronald Colman and he was 31 years older.
That would make the story seem to be one of robbing the cradle,
so I lost again.
But the test went the rounds and I had definite offers from MGM
and Fox. I simply chose Fox because it was for more money. My
parents were worried until it was arranged I’d room with
a family friend, Nigel Bruce, and his wife. They were very strict,
which is what I needed. Then MGM asked to borrow me for "Twenty
Mule Team," a Wally Beery western after Ann Rutherford was
too busy and I made my debut there. Wally Beery had very busy
hands and Marjorie Rambeau said she’d protect me and she
did very nicely. Stepped right in and would snort “Back
off, you old sea horse!” Acting with him was impossible.
He’d paraphrase everything and told me to “Jump
right in when I stop talking.”
JB:
Back at Fox you were in John Barrymore’s last film "The
Great Profile" (1941).
AB:
I was the stock ingénue. Did my first take with him and
I was flailing away and Barrymore turned to director Gregory
Ratoff and said, “Does she have to swim?” He
was in terrible shape. In the morning he was so wasted that his
man would have to carry him in and set him down in an easy chair.
Then he’d pour Barrymore a Coke. No response. Then he’d
shake in some rum flavoring and this great actor would suddenly
spring to life. Amazing. Once we were waiting for a take and
I asked him why he read his lines from chalk boards. Couldn’t
he remember his lines? And he stood up and recited a Hamlet soliloquy.
He never made a pass at me but it was hard going for our resident
vamp Mary Beth Hughes. She bent over once to fix her stockings
and he instantly leapt up to pinch her behind. If you’d
asked the public of the day the greatest actor they would have
instantly responded “John Barrymore.”
JB:
How did you get the lead in "Swamp Water"(1941)?
AB:
I read for Jean Renoir, the great French director, and he had
to choose a studio girl, so he chose me. Adored him but he was
a lost soul. Kept saying, “They don’t make films
here like we do in France, n’est-ce pas?" For one
thing he had a pesty producer in Irving Pichel, who usually directed.
He reported back to Zanuck every day on the number of minutes
Jean had gotten, the number of takes, the constant tea and coffee
breaks. The movie may have been set in the Okefenokee swamp but
all the second unit had already been done. We filmed indoors
on a studio stage with a recreated swamp. Jean could only clasp
his arms and look horrified. He was limited in camera angles
because of the transparency screens--a movement of inches and
the screens would be exposed. And his English was learned from
books. In conversations, he was terrible. One day he told a little
girl extra to “Make some water”. He meant get
her dress damp because she’d just been pulled from the swamp.
Her mother was horrified, thinking he’d asked her to tinkle
and slapped his face. I mean he had Walter Brennan and Walter
Huston running loose and just daring him to try and tone down
their outrageous mugging. Then Ward Bond and Guinn Williams would
wrestle to break the tension. I was on my own, frantically overdoing
it and I got bad notices that stung me.
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cast in Orson Welles' 1942 follow-up to "Citizen Kane," Booth Tarkington's "The Magnificent Ambersons." |
JB: When did you know you’d been loaned to RKO for "The Magnificent Ambersons?"
AB: When it went out as a press release. It was a straight trade, Fox got Vic Mature, I think, and he subsequently joined the studio full time. I’d talked and tested for Orson Welles but he said his heart was set on Jeanne Crain who he’d met in the RKO commissary. Jeanne was prettier than I was but hadn’t acted as yet. RKO studio head George Schaefer made the call much to Orson’s displeasure –his days as the studio golden boy ended when "Citizen Kane" failed to return a profit. By the time I arrived those huge sets were up--the main house was a fully functioning house built on a soundstage--everything worked including the gas lighting. But the walls couldn’t be moved to accommodate cinematographer Stanley Cortez. No wonder he stormed around all the time.
It was a reunion with Joe Cotten who played my father and was perfectly cast. We’d been in the tryouts of "The Philadelphia Story" in 1939 when Kate Hepburn had me fired because she charged I was getting big laughs. Joe had made it a point to come to my dressing room and assure me I had a future. Dolores Costello was so motherly to me. I couldn’t believe she’d once been married to John Barrymore, she was so demure. And I had Tim Holt as my suitor, George, cast right to type. He was that way off stage. For a guy who spent most of his career in "B" westerns, he sure had a lot of great pictures to call his own. He later made "Treasure of the Sierra Madre."
I was 19 at the time, new to this game. I remember we shot scenes in an ice house so our breath would be visible. That impressed me.
I wasn’t around when Agnes Moorehead
tried the scene on the staircase five different ways and each
way worked. To his credit Orson always asked us for acting solutions,
to try something a different way. And, yes, he did make the obligatory
pass at me and I made the obligatory refusal.
I saw a print in a screening room at RKO that was very long--maybe
almost two hours--and it seemed draggy to me. But Orson had left
on his next film adventure to Brazil when the studio head ordered
Bob Wise to cut it down to 88 minutes and ship it out. I think
it’s a great film but how it would have run at 120 minutes,
I’m not sure, that was too long for most features in those
days.
JB:
In the war years you always seemed to play the girl left behind.
AB:
Over and over. I did get to Paramount again on loan for "Five
Graves To Cairo" (1943) where Erich von Stroheim up and
told me I’d be perfect for a sound remake of "Greed"!
Sounds crazy--and it was--but I believed everything he said.
Once he was in bed for a scene and he asked me: ”How
are my little babies doing?” He meant his protuberant
tummy and breasts and that just broke me up. But back at Fox
I did "Crash Dive" (1943), "Sunday Dinner For
A Soldier" (1944), "The Sullivans" (1944). I was
getting almost as much mail as Betty Grable. I was our boys’
idealized girl next door.
JB:
Then you won the supporting Oscar at 23 for "The Razor’s
Edge" (1946).
AB:
I read in the trades Bonita Granville was up for Sophie and I
went into Zanuck’s office and complained. I never did that
before and. boy, he was surprised. I appealed to him purely in
terms of economics. I was under contract, (so) he’d have
to pay me anyway. Bonita was freelance; she’d be expensive.
Finally, he said go over and see the director, Eddie Goulding.
(Zanuck said) "If he OKs it, then I’ll agree."
It was late at night when I went to Goulding’s
Beverly Wilshire penthouse suite. What luxury! A manservant led
me into the library. I read a scene and the worldly weary Goulding
said I sounded fine. He told me he’d get me an Oscar. “I
did it for Mary Astor and 'The Great Lie' was junk. This is great
literature.” On the studio floor Eddie would act out
all the parts much to the disgust of Herbert Marshall, who snorted
and sneered.
I wasn’t on the set much. My part was truly supporting.
I only had a few scenes to hit that mark. When I come out as
drugged and boozy in France I wanted the audience to be in complete
shock. I thnk I got a compensation Oscar. Ty Power, the lead,
wasn’t even nominated. Clifton Webb was nominated in support
and he was superb but he lost to a non-actor, Harold Russell
(the armless veteran from "The Best Years of Our Lives.").
So I figured the voters felt they had to give this film something.
And so I got it. But I’d already won a Golden Globe so I
wasn’t surprised at all.
JB:
I noticed in Film Daily Yearbook (1948) that Paulette Goddard
is heralded as Greg Peck’s co-star in "Yellow Sky."
When was the change made?
AB:
The day after shooting started on the outskirts of Death Valley.
Paulette did her costume fittings at the studio, arrived on location
with the temperature 119 in the shade and left on the next plane.
Couldn’t take it. Sometimes I wonder if our director, Wild
Bill Wellman, had secretly planned her departure all along. I
happened to be free, so I was sent over and the costumes fit
me. The heat was a problem. All the makeup would run and end
up as a big ball of goo on the end of my chin.
I loved that one because Greg Peck usually
was so stolid in his pictures. Billy made him relax more than
usual. He was playing an outlaw and I was shacked up in this
ghost town with my pa and the outlaws are trying to smoke us
out. Well, there’s one line where I remark about his body
odor and Greg tried to get it removed, saying it might undermine
his box office appeal among girls. And Billy just chuckled and
kept right on shooting
JB:
Wasn’t it embarrassing making "Homecoming" (1948)?
AB:
You mean because I was married to John Hodiak in real life by
then yet in Clark Gable’s arms during that picture as his
wife? John stayed away during those scenes of domesticity. The
film just was not believable. Gable and Lana Turner are doctor
and nurse on the front lines and each night repair to separate
tents? I think not. But the censor would not permit any hints
of adultery. That was the Code in effect. And I was stuck on
the home front and never wavered? Blah. It would have been far
more realistic to confront the actual situations that had arisen.
So the picture flopped. Big time.
JB:
Then came two with Dan Dailey.
AB: Zanuck
was trying to split up the Betty Grable-Dan Dailey partnership
and get two big stars whereas the tandem had gotten very expensive.
And Dan told me he wanted to break free, become his own star.
But "You’re My Everything" (1949) just didn’t
make it. It spoofed vaudeville and silent movies but people couldn’t
have cared less. They did it so much better in "Singin’
In the Rain," I’m afraid. Then we did "A Ticket
To Tomahawk" (1950), again not much business and Dan was
shipped back to Betty. On that one I very well remember Marilyn
Monroe as one of the chorus girls. She had dirty fingernails
and always seemed so unkempt and then she just exploded in "Asphalt
Jungle" and "All About Eve." But here? Didn’t
even get billing.
JB:
How did you get attached with "All About Eve?"
AB:
Well, it started with "A Letter To Four Wives." I see
that smile on your face. There was no such movie, right? Well,
there was in (writer-director) Joe Mankiewicz’s first draft
and I was the fourth wife. And Zanuck read the script and said,
“Drop the last wife,” which was my part. I vaguely
remember I was a young mother concerned about getting her son
into the right military college. (The film was released as "A
Letter to Three Wives.") And Joe came to me and was very
apologetic and said he owed me one.
And that one was his next script, which was originally titled
"Command Performance." First cast was Claudette Colbert
as Margo and then Zanuck insisted on Jeanne Crain as Eve because
she had just had a huge hit in "Pinky" and got an Oscar
nomination. Jeanne later withdrew because she found she was pregnant
–again! And Joe then asked me. In the back of his mind he
said Eve and Margo should resemble each other and Claudette and
I both had these square faces. Next it was Claudette’s turn
to leave. She was filming the final scenes of the war drama "Three
Came Home" and broke her back the last day of filming. So
she needed three months of bed rest and we were starting rehearsals
the next week.
Zanuck got on the blower and asked Bette Davis, late at night
I’m told. She was ready and she brought a different texture
to Margo. At the beginning of the shoot she had laryngitis, hence
her hoarse voice which she had to continue throughout shooting,
but people assumed she was imitating Talullah Bankhead. Another
thing: Joe wanted Ann Sothern as the playwright’s wife,
Karen, but "Letter" had made her hot again and she
was back at MGM on a new two-picture deal, so Celeste Holm got
it.
JB: Describe
the shoot.
AB:
Not a single word was changed. The script was that beautifully
written. And Bette and Gary Merrill really did fall in love,
so they were usually off by themselves. We shot the San Francisco
scenes first in Frisco so the ending of the film was done before
the beginning. I can report George Sanders was twice as acerbic
in person than on camera as Addison DeWitt. He was just plain
nasty to poor Marilyn Monroe, who was always quaking in her boots.
He’d pat her on her rump and say, "You almost got
through that two-line speech, my dear. Shall we try again?”
That confrontation between Eve and Addison in her hotel suite?
We really went at each other, just as Eve says “Champion
to champion.” And George did win the only acting Oscar
after all, so he had to be terrific.
JB:
Didn’t Zanuck want you to be nominated as best supporting
actress?
AB:
Oh, yes, and he asked me thinking I’d be tinkled pink. He
said he could guarantee a win. But could he? Celeste Holm and
Thelma Ritter both got nominations and split the vote so Josephine
Hull won. So, how would I have won as the third nominee? I told
him the movie was titled after my character. It wasn’t called
"All About Margo," was it? So I refused. I got nominated
and so did Bette as best actress and we split the vote and Judy
Holliday got it. Bette was more than mildly upset, Zanuck more
so. My career at Fox was over although it took me awhile to realize
that.
JB:
Later Eve became Margo.
AB:
When the stage musical came along I was asked to play Margo to
replace Betty Bacall and I first thought it was gimmicky. But
I can sing, or rather croak and I wanted to do Broadway and it
turned out just fine. One matinee day Bette Davis phoned and
said she was coming to check me out and we got a chair placed
for her right behind the curtain so she could watch without the
audience watching her. After the curtain came down she said,
“Baxter, you can still astonish me.” And she
left. Just like that. On another occasion, she was in Chicago
to receive the real Sarah Siddons award and I popped out to give
it to her. Get it? Eve giving Margo the award she’d first
won. She looked hesitant when she saw me and then roared with
laughter. She got it, she really got it.
JB:
But you were always being announced for big parts and others
would get them.
AB:
I definitely was up for "David and Bathsheba" and the
press ran with that story but in the end Henry King picked Susan
Hayward. Henry told me he couldn’t see me as a Biblical
queen, which is what I became in "The Ten Commandments."
At one time I was up for "How To Marry A Millionaire"
until Nunnally Johnson picked Marilyn Monroe, as he should have.
She had zoomed in popularity after "All About Eve."
But I turned blonde for a screen test for him and I stayed blonde
for a bit. My Agent, Henry Wilson, even had me smoking cigars
for the sake of publicity!
JB: After
"Eve" you never got that career bounce at Fox.
AB:
I finally made "Follow the Sun" (1952), which was the
story of golfer Ben Hogan, with Glenn Ford. I was the ever loving
wife. It was not popular. I also had a baby in there, remember.
Then in 1953 I made a pretty poor Dale Robertson western "The
Outcasts of Poker Flat." I’m getting my clothes selected
in rehearsals and Miriam Hopkins comes up and pats me on the
shoulder, saying “My dear, both of us have survived Bette
Davis!” And then I did a horrible so-called comedy with
Macdonald Carey and Zachary Scott called "My Wife’s
Best Friend." and, after one (segment) in "O’Henry’s
Full House," I voluntarily ended my 12 years at Fox. I simply
asked for my walking papers and I got them in record time.
JB:
You were once again a last minute substitution in Alfred Hitchcock's
"I Confess"?
AB:
Hitch had hired a Norwegian star, Anita Bjork, but when she arrived
in Hollywood she confided in Jack Warner she was expecting. And
Jack freaked out because that would have made her an illegitimate
mother. So he fired her and told me to fly to Quebec City where
shooting had already commenced. Hitch was seething but there
was nothing he could do and I was never able to warm him up.
But he had bigger problems all rolled into Montgomery Clift.
It had been 15 years since we’d been in L.A. together and
Monty was now a fully fledged star. But he was also a Method
actor and resisted most of Hitch’s directions.
In one bit as the priest he has to come out of the Chateau Frontenac
hotel and walk across a courtyard. He’s about to be arrested.
And then he has to look up at the crowd looking down from the
various windows. And Monty refused, saying “My character
wouldn’t look up.” Just plain refused and the normally
placid Hitch went crazy, just lost it. He finally ordered him
and Monty did it “under duress” and it’s
in the movie. And then there was the Russian dialogue coach Monty
planted behind pillars in the church scenes and after a take
he’d look at her and not Hitch and Hitch finally banished
her from the set. And after all that turmoil I think the film
only half works. Something got lost along the way. Was it Hitch’s
sanity?
JB:
Are you surprised your other Warner film of the time--"The
Blue Gardenia" (1953)-- is now considered a great film
noir.
AB:
We only thought of it as a programmer. Ann Sothern quit movies
after that for two TV series because she hated working with Fritz
Lang. But he could get a lot out of the material and also he
shot all over L.A. so the movie looks more expensive than it
was.We made it in 16 days. I think Ray(mond) Burr had a great
heavy part. I mentioned that film to him decades later when I
did an "Ironside" and he just growled, just growled.
JB:
Then it was over to Universal for two pictures in 1955.
AB:
Universal-International was the kiss of death in those days.
I took on "One Desire" (1955), which Lana Turner refused
to do, but we made it right after "Magnificent Obsession"
(1954), which turned Rock Hudson into a big star. He was going
up and I was going down. Then I did a pretty bad remake of "The
Spoilers" and that was that for me at Universal.
JB: How
did you get the part of Nefritiri in "The Ten Commandments"
(1956)?
AB:
DeMille asked me to come in. His office at Paramount was bursting
with books, props, rolls of linens. I told him I’d have
to wear an Egyptian false nose and he pounded the table. “No.
Baxter, your Irish nose stays in this picture.” He acted
out my part and I kept nodding and I walked out with the part.
The soundstage sets were magnificent. It was all corny, sure,
but DeMille knew it was corny, that’s what he wanted, what
he loved. I loved slinking around, really this was silent film
acting but with dialogue. No shading was permitted. “Louder!
Better!" That’s what DeMille roared at everybody.
It was all too much for him, I’m afraid, and directing the
desert scenes in the Sinai was so strenuous he had a heart attack.
This one was the last film he directed. It’s on TV every
Easter. I advise sitting down with a big box of chocolates, a
jug of white wine and a loaf of freshly baked bread. I do it
that way and I still love this last gasp of old Hollywood excessiveness.
JB:
Again there was little bounce for your career.
AB:
Paramount thought it would be great to reunite Charlton Heston
and me immediately in a fine western, "Three Violent People"
(1957). Then I did a British thriller "Chase A Crooked Shadow"
(1958) which Doug Fairbanks Jr. produced but few people in North
America saw it. By 1959 I was living in Australia and I did "Season
of Passion" which had been the play "Summer of the
Seventeenth Doll." John Mills, Angela Lansbury, Ernie Borgnine
were the co-stars and it wasn’t very Australian at all,
I guess.
JB:
You lived in Australia in the early Sixties but still got back
every year to L.A. for a film.
AB:
"Cimarron" (1960) was this huge remake and Glenn Ford
and Maria Schell were ahead of me in the cast but it tanked at
the box office. Then I had fourth billing in "Walk on the
Wild Side" (1962)–the bigger stars were Jane Fonda
and Laurence Harvey--who positively loathed each other. I was
39 by then–considered an older woman type! Barbara Stanwyck
was also in it as a whorehouse madam. To show she was playing
a lesbian she wore a suit! One day our leading man Harvey kept
everybody waiting for hours after lunch and then lurched in quite
inebriated. Barbara turned all guns on him, denouncing him for
his unprofessionalism and he burst into tears and ran to his
dressing room. And he wouldn’t come out for the rest of
the afternoon. Don’t blame him. Barbara would have socked
it to him again if he dared appear.
JB: You
gradually shifted to TV.
AB:
We all did. Had to. Movie work dried up. I did one of the first
TV movies, "Stranger on the Run" (1967). Hank Fonda
was also in it--and we got that one done in 19 days. Then came
"Companions in Nightmare" (1968). That one was 20 days–what
a luxury! All the actors--Melvyn Douglas, Patrick Neal, Leslie
Nielsen, Gig Young--were all veterans. We could handle this sort
of schedule. Universal hired me as a stock company of one to
“brighten up the schedule” as I was told and
I did all those Universal series: "Marcus Welby," "The
Challengers," "Ironside," "Columbo."
It was my busiest ever period. But I absolutely refused to do
a weekly series, I was asked to join "Marcus Welby"
at the beginning, but I said no.
JB:
Why not?
AB:
I was proud. I wanted to do theatre, movies. I lived off TV movies
as income. It was reunion month on "The Moneychangers"
(1976). I was back working with Kirk Douglas and Jean Peters
from my Fox days. I replaced Lana Turner on one day’s notice
on one of them, "Little Mo" (1978. Lana got pneumonia.
You interviewed me on "Nero Wolfe," which was released
to TV in 1978, but wasn’t it at least four years in the
can? It was a TV movie pilot–they all were, really–but
the star, Thayer David, died right after and Paramount then tried
to recast with Orson Welles, but he couldn’t remember so
many lines. Then I was in "East of Eden" (1981), which
I liked.
JB:
Now we come to "Hotel" (1983-86).
AB: I
know what you’re saying: Once again Eve was replacing Margo!
Bette (Davis) did the pilot, had a stroke and mastectomy and
here we go again. At first it was only temporary until she got
better, then the schedule was just too much for her to contemplate.
She left but later said with all the sex scenes the title should
be changed to "Motel." So I did them and I love doing
them because some weeks I’ll be in only one scene so I can
fly home to my new home in Connecticut. I had a reunion with
Ralph Bellamy. We last acted in "Guest in the House"
(1944). And Stewart Granger said he finally had me as leading
lady. The one where Jane Wyatt plays an old school friend, that
came out fine. We’d never met until our first scene together.
©2010 by Jim Bawden.This
column first posted Sept. 20, 2010.
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