![]() ![]() They claim it’s now too expensive to pair him up with the leading ladies on the lot he’s worked with before (Garbo, Crawford, Shearer) and give him some of the worst scripts known to man for his foray into talkies - Downstairs (which he wrote, partially) is pretty decent but the rest are horrific. So MGM wanted to tank him, or at least try to get him to walk out on his overly expensive contract. The singular person who claims to have witnessed this and spun the story? Boardman…what was she doing so that she was she privy to a private fight in the men’s room, there’s some good jokes there… Nobody knows why - it surely isn’t the (literal) wives tale about him punching Mayer in the men’s bathroom to defend the honor of his great love Greta Garbo (at absolute most a fling that got blown up by the MGM publicity department - good for sales and to hide their new female star’s lesbianism) at King Vidor and Eleanor Boardman’s house. He also seriously hated Charlie Chaplin and Samuel Goldwyn. The second reason is yes LB Mayer despised him more than almost anyone else. Anyway, sound technology was expensive and most studios were cleaning house because there was now a huge amount of stage trained actors or second string players with passable voices willing to work for pennies compared to the big name stars on their roster who would have had to adjust to the talkie style. He had one of the highest paid contracts on the lot and refused to exit it when his films did not become hits in the early talkie time period - this is more important later on rather than his initial decline. John Gilbert’s decline was for a couple of reasons - his voice, if you actually listen to it, was fine. They do not compute in my brain either - both such big stars for so long! by Anonymous Brent was MEANT to be a big zero opposite Hurricane Bette!Īgree with Alan Ladd and Robert Taylor. I think the image of him as an annoying Disney dad has tainted the reality of his actual quality career of the 30s-50s.Ī lot of the men being listed were never "A-List stars", just decent looking guys around to prop up the female star - George Brent and Dennis Morgan are good examples of this. Oh well, there's another one I don't get.įred MacMurray was very handsome when he was young and had a nice acting range as well - love him in anything with my favorite actress ever, Barbara Stanwyck. Could never stand Rudolph Valentino though. ![]() A lot of the matinee idol types were underrated for their talent stretching back to the silent days, more so than their leading women - men like Gable, Cooper, Tyrone Power, John Gilbert, Errol Flynn, etc. I've found that in everything I've seen him in (GWTW, his pairings with Joan Crawford and Jean Harlow, The Misfits, Night Nurse, It Happened One Night) he never reads as fake. I think Clark Gable is remarkably underrated as an actor - much better than he believed himself to be. Gary Cooper, Henry Fonda, Monty Clift and Frederic March - all fabulous actors, and Cooper was one of the most beautiful men and greatest screen presences in film history when he was in his prime. ![]()
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