Today's birthday boy, who turns a youthful 131 today, is not in fact the glistening creature seen above; no, he is instead the director who gave birth to this and countless other memorable images and who, thanks in no small part to a movie in which he appeared but did
not direct, is best remembered as "Mr. DeMille (I'm Ready for My Close Up)."
Cecil B. DeMille's legacy in pop culture is a funny thing, reliant on his own late-in-life self-promoted image (all jodhpurs, monocle, and riding crop) and his last few pictures, which were bloated, pompous things in comparison to many that preceded them over his long career. Those who only know DeMille from his second go at
The Ten Commandments would be amazed at the slick, cosmopolitan melos that first made Gloria Swanson a top star, with racy titles like
Why Change Your Wife? and (the picture from which this still is taken)
Male and Female, as they would be even by his earlier epic pictures like
King of Kings or the first
Ten Commandments, which managed to combine solemnity and salaciousness in a very audience-pleasing sort of way.
When it comes to
Male and Female, there's no question - even in that Ziegfeldian headgear - on which side of that equation the gentleman pictured, leading man Thomas Meighan, stands, is there?
This high-toned lubriciousness was the kind of thing in which earlier DeMille excelled - giving moviegoers a touch of inspiration (from the Bible, often, or, as here a hit play by J.M. Barrie, of
Peter Pan fame) accompanied by a hefty dose of sex and other thrills - Mr. Meighan, above, or Miss Swanson menaced by a lion in
Male and Female; Claudette Colbert, in her alas too-brief exotic phase, eponymously as Cleopatra or as Poppaea in
Sign of the Cross; a decadent Dirigible Ball in
Madam Satan. By the time you get to Chuck Heston parting the Red Sea or the odd spectacle of the, shall we say,
disparate acting styles of Betty Hutton and Jimmy Stewart crossing paths in
The Greatest Show on Earth, that earlier DeMille seems very far away indeed.
Personally, I think it's no accident that the end of his more interesting phase coincides with his experience directing my least favorite of all the Hollywood ladies, Miss Loretta Young. Perhaps once he survived her Berengaria of Navarre in
The Crusades, to which role her blonde-banged wig brings more verve than the lady herself, he'd had enough, and decided it was easier to direct pyramids and herds of circus elephants than actors. You can hardly blame him.
No, not the latest Marvel superhero - just Loretta. Loathe her, even as a golden-haired Plantagenet-by-marriage. Loathe her.
...the disembodied torso of Loretta Young. Even in a ridiculous/fabulous hat, jacket clearly stolen from Wardrobe at MGM (with the "JC" label still stitched in the back), and a brooch the size of a small constellation -
Loretta Young, rocking a Little Edie look avant la lettre. Have I mentioned lately how much I dislike her?
Miss Loretta Young, intoxicated by her own very personal brand of cheap allure.
Drop the "in", and you've got a perfectly serviceable tag line for Loretta's greatest title role ever. As far as I'm concerned, she certainly was.
Well, she may not be my favorite (no surprise to those who follow things around here), but even I agree that after a point, personal preferences are irrelevent, and Attention Must Be Paid.
Loretta "Goldie" Young
Bette "Cookie" Davis
Joan "Jayne" Collins
Norma "Torchy" Shearer
Cherilyn Sarkisian Bono Allman*
Today marks the birth of one of Hollywood's Great Ladies, the versatile Miss Irene Dunne. She's seen above, for some reason, apparently doing an Olivia de Havilland impression in an outfit that's so '40s that it looks like a parody.
Dunne shone, almost equally, in weepie soapers like Back Street and the first Love Affair, in glam musicals like Roberta, and in heartwarmers like I Remember Mama. She brought a slightly off-kilter dignity to screwball in The Awful Truth and Theodora Goes Wild, and she did her share of Great Actress roles, even unto one of the better onscreen pre-Dench Queen Victorias in The Mudlark.
One day, Ann Blyth awoke in horror to realize that, during a prolonged binge, she had somehow managed to make a Loretta Young record while wearing Rhonda Fleming's wig, Joan Crawford's makeup, and a necklace of mothballs and breathmints. She had vague, uneasy memories of the after-party with the orchestra and chorus.
Simper, baby, simper!
