Hollywood’s Forgotten Stars: Part 4

In the last of a series of four pieces I will be looking back on five more of Hollywood’s forgotten stars. This week it’s the actors numbered 5 - 1 in my countdown. Can you guess who will come out on top? I hope you enjoy it. As always your comments are more than welcome.

Are these men Hollywood's five most criminally forgotten actors?

N.B.: This list is not intended to be definitive. It is merely intended to highlight the talent of ten largely forgotten actors who played a significant role in Hollywood history, be it as a great box-office star, an Oscar winner, a pioneer or an unfulfilled talent that shone all too briefly. In deciding on my order, I have rated the actors on both their contribution to cinema and how little I perceive them to be remembered by the general public. The biggest star will not necessarily come out on top.

5 – Glenn Ford
In ‘Superman Returns’ (2006), after our hero returns from Krypton to visit his mother, there is a photograph of dear, departed Pa on the mantel piece. The photo is of Glenn Ford, a nod to his role as Jonathon Kent in ‘Superman’ (1978) but also a tribute to a great star and underrated actor who has been largely forgotten. Ford’s career spanned over fifty years, beginning in the late 1930s in a few largely undistinguished roles. The Second World War delayed his crack at stardom but when he was paired with Rita Hayworth in ‘Gilda’ (1946), their on-screen chemistry ensured that Ford became a very hot property. He starred with Hayworth in a further four movies but none of them recaptured ‘Gilda’s spark. Ford specialised in three types of role; weary anti-hero (‘The Secret of Convict Lake’ (1951), ‘The Big Heat’ (1953), ‘The Blackboard Jungle’ (1955)), heroic yet understated cowboy or soldier (‘The Fastest Gun Alive’ (1956), ‘3:10 to Yuma’ (1957), ‘Torpedo Run’ (1958)) and ordinary ‘Joe’ in awkward situation (‘Teahouse of the August Moon’ (1956), ‘Ransom’ (1956), ‘The Gazebo’ (1959)). Usually, though, the film makers would use Ford’s inherent likeability and an extreme situation to get the audience on-side. This is what made Ford a huge star throughout the 1950s and early 60s. Never conventionally good-looking, he was able to move into character parts smoothly but it may be that ‘ordinary guy’ charm that has allowed Ford to be overlooked whilst contemporaries like Humphrey Bogart and James Stewart remain hugely recognisable.
Watch Glenn Ford in: There are a lot to choose from but ‘The Blackboard Jungle’ just has the edge performance-wise over ‘The Big Heat’. It’s the now-clichéd story of a seemingly mild-mannered teacher taking a job in a rough inner-city school but this is the original and the best.

4 – Van Johnson
Having red hair has often been a problem for men in the pursuit of movie superstardom. Those who have made it were not normally seen as ginger on screen. Stan Laurel only appeared in colour once in a government information film; with a few exceptions, Spencer Tracy had gone white by the time he made the majority of his colour movies; Danny Kaye and Robert Redford both went blond; and, believe it or not, Harpo Marx’s hair was actually a wig! Van Johnson was the exception. He was unashamedly red and freckly in an era when that look was shunned for men on screen unless you were either 8 years old or you were the hero’s comedy side kick who dies in scene three. Johnson was a dancer on Broadway when MGM came calling. However it wasn’t his twinkle toes they wanted. It was the boy-next-door looks that MGM desired as they were casting plenty of war pictures and wanted all-American guys to play the parts of servicemen. After a couple of supporting parts Johnson got his big break with the second lead in ‘A Guy Named Joe’ (1943) alongside Tracy. More WWII dramas followed but Johnson’s biggest success of this era was ‘The Thrill of Romance’ (1945), a musical which marked the first of four pairings with Esther Williams. The movies success meant that Johnson topped the box-office chart for 1945. From supporting player to Hollywood’s most bankable star in less than three years, Johnson is an example of how the studio system worked. Stage stars, models or extras were spotted and then carefully groomed for stardom in a few well chosen support parts before being given the big launch in films with the studio’s big names. Johnson’s success continued through the 40s with the same mixture of war and musical pictures – 1949 being a particularly good year for both with ‘Battleground’ following ‘In the Good Old Summertime’. Never nominated for an Academy Award despite working in an era where stardom virtually guaranteed recognition, Johnson’s finest performance came in 1954 in the ensemble piece ‘The Caine Mutiny’. More challenging work followed such as his role as the blind man embroiled in a kidnap plot in ’23 Paces to Baker Street’ (1956). His career stalled in the 60s as his marriage break-up descended into a bitter divorce and never picked up again after just one big screen appearance between 1960 and 1967 but Johnson continued to work until the late 1980s. As an example of what the studio system could do and as a beacon for red headed actors everywhere Van Johnson deserves far more recognition then he is afforded.
Watch Van Johnson in: ‘The Caine Mutiny’ may be primarily remembered for Humphrey Bogart’s last great role but Johnson is a stand out in a powerful cast.

3 – Joseph Cotton
When your most prominent movie roles were opposite Orson Welles it shouldn’t be much of a surprise that very little of the limelight was afforded to you. Joseph Cotton would have been unlikely to complain as without roles in ‘Citizen Kane’ (1941) and ‘The Magnificent Ambersons’ (1942) he would never have been a Hollywood name. However, purely in terms of acting ability Cotton was easily the equal of Welles as proved by a string of excellent dramatic performances throughout the 1940s. Starting with his appearance as Jedidiah Leland, Kane’s right hand man, Cotton then made ‘The Magnificent Ambersons’ and the wartime thriller ‘Journey into Fear’ (1943) with Welles. All three are excellent movies in their own right with ‘Journey into Fear’ surely ranking as one of the great forgotten thrillers. He was stunning as Uncle Charlie in Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Shadow of a Doubt’ (1943) and then supported Charles Boyer and Ingrid Bergman in the remake of ‘Gaslight’ (1944). This was followed by a sympathetic role in another underrated movie ‘Love Letters’ (1945) as a soldier desperate to find some answers after the murder of his friend. Before the decade was out, Cotton had added a classic western (‘Duel in the Sun’ (1946)) and a classic fantasy (‘Portrait of Jeannie’ (1948)) to his CV and he then returned to thrillers with the seminal ‘The Third Man’ (1949). Cotton was the lead but, again, he was overshadowed by Welles as Harry Lime who doesn’t even appear until the movie is half gone. As a decade of work, Cotton’s output was consistently excellent, yet his great performances have fallen foul to either being forgotten or to the presence of a co-star who went on to bigger things. Is that a reflection on Cotton and indicates that maybe he wasn’t that good? Watch the films and see for yourself.
Watch Joseph Cotton in: A straight choice here between ‘Shadow of a Doubt’ and ‘The Third Man’ with Cotton’s performance in the Hitchcock thriller winning out. He is just so damn menacing. You will never invite your relatives to stay again.

2 – Paul Muni
During the 1940s, the cracks in Hollywood’s studio system were starting to show more than ever. One man’s contract dispute was another man’s big break. In 1941 Paul Muni was one of Warner Brothers’ biggest names with four Academy Award nominations (and one win) under his belt. He had made his name with highly popular and critically acclaimed crime dramas before undertaking a series of historical biopics that usually required him to hide his distinctive features beneath make-up and false beards. Given his status and popularity, the studio assigned him to the gangster picture ‘High Sierra’ (1941). Muni wasn’t having it though and, after effectively being put on suspension, the role went to up-and-coming Humphrey Bogart. Muni made fewer and fewer films from that point on and, from being fairly prolific in the 1930s, ended his life with just twenty-five screen credits to his name. A successful stage career brought him to Hollywood’s attention. In the early days of sound, actors with stage experience were sought after as they were used to speaking lines and being understood. His first movie ‘The Valiant’ (1929) was a death-row drama that set the tone for much of Muni’s early output. It was bleak, realistic and, for it’s time, dealt brutally with its themes. His next two movies, after a return to the stage, were ‘Scarface’ and ‘I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang’ (both 1932). More than any James Cagney picture of the period, these were the best examples of Warners’ gangster/crime output. ‘…Chain Gang’ in particular is a terrific piece of movie-making with Muni’s performance at its core. After another couple of dramas in a similar vein, Muni was cast in the title role in ‘The Story of Louis Pasteur’ (1936). This was quite a departure from Muni’s previous films but when he was awarded the Oscar for his performance it ensured that similar roles came his way, most notably in ‘The Life of Emile Zola’ (1937). After leaving Warners, Muni’s roles became far less frequent but that meant that he only picked quality such as ‘Angel on My Shoulder’ (1946) and his last role in ‘The Last Angry Man’ (1959).
Watch Paul Muni in: To convince you that Paul Muni didn’t need heavy accents, false beards or hours of make-up to electrify the screen watch ‘I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang’. Mercifully, they chose to remake ‘Scarface’ and not try to take this on as you cannot improve on perfection.

1 – Fredric March
Due to the era that most of the twenty stars I have written about in these posts worked in, I have again and again referred to Hollywood’s ‘studio system’. Put simply, Hollywood movies in the early sound era through to the 1950s were predominantly made by a handful of powerful studios (MGM, Paramount, Warner Bros., Columbia, Universal etc.) that signed up actors, directors, writers and whoever else they needed on long, virtually unbreakable contracts with a regular weekly wage. The omnipotent heads of the studio would then assign the talent on the books to whatever picture they saw fit. In return, the stars got the most efficient publicity machines ever created behind them to enhance and, when misdemeanour required, protect their image. For most actors the system worked well, but for a number it was a stifling environment that meant typecasting. Rebellion was biting the hand that fed you and could mean professional suicide if you were anything less than a huge star. My number one male star, Fredric March, was even rarer. He was almost unique in that he was a hugely successful actor, with the critics as well as the public, despite never signing a long-term studio contract. The sheer force of his star quality and the consistent excellence of his performances was all the publicity March needed to have the studio executives clamoring for this relative rebel to star in their prestige productions.

March, like Paul Muni, came to Hollywood in 1929 when established stage actors were in great demand as silent movies took their bow and exited. He had some minor success with his first few films but came to prominence playing Tony Cavendish in ‘The Royal Family of Broadway’ (1930), a play based on the legendary Barrymore family (grandparents and great-grandparents of Drew). The performance garnered an Oscar nomination for March and he went one better the following year with the definitive screen portrayal of ‘Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ (1931). Urbane as Jekyll, terrifying as Hyde, March was superb in the dual role and this helped him, as well as his refusal to sign up to a single studio, to avoid being pigeon holed. March was excellent in the melodrama ‘Smilin’ Through’ (1932) and the war movie ‘The Eagle and the Hawk’ (1933) but also showed he could handle comedy with ‘Design for Living’ (1933). His next truly great performance was as Death in ‘Death Takes a Holiday’ (1934), a movie inadvisably remade over sixty years later as ‘Meet Joe Black’ (1998) (Brad Pitt taking on a role played my Fredric March is the cinematic equivalent of The Cheeky Girls covering Ella Fitzgerald). Before the 1930s were out, March had starred in a series of movies based on great novels such as ‘Les Miserables’ and ‘Anna Karenina’ (both 1935) as well as pulling out a truly heart-breaking performance as Norman Maine in the original ‘A Star is Born’ (1937). The war years brought still more variety in March’s choice of movies but ‘The Best Years of Our Lives’ (1946) brought March his best role of the decade and a second Academy Award. The film’s plot concerns three men trying to piece their lives back together after returning to America after WW2 and March is the cast’s stand-out performer. He concentrated more on stage work in the ensuing years but when he did appear on the big screen he had lost none of his power. ‘Death of a Salesman’ (1951), ‘Executive Suite’ (1954) and ‘The Desperate Hours’ (1955) all contain brilliant, layered performances but if there was one last film performance for the ages left in Fredric March he delivered it in 1960’s ‘Inherit the Wind’. Based on the real-life 'Scopes Monkey Trial' of 1925, March plays a famous and fiercely Christian prosecuting lawyer in the trial of a school teacher who slipped Darwin’s theory of natural selection and evolution into the syllabus. His scenes with defence attorney Spencer Tracy are a tribute to two titanic talents of Hollywood’s golden age. March continued working until his death in 1975 but like so many whose careers were predominantly in black and white movies he seems destined to remain a star on in the minds of a the minority. For March more than anyone that is a tragedy.
Watch Fredric March in: More than any of the nineteen other actors I have written about, this is an impossible choice so I am going to cheat and go for ‘Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ for early March, ‘The Best Years of Our Lives’ for the middle of his career and ‘Inherit the Wind’ for March the elder.

Paul Newman vs. Steve McQueen

From the time I was born right up to the present day I have always been told that I am very similar to my sister. We have similar personalities, a similar sense of humour and we tend to like the same films, directors and actors. However when I was in my teens we realised that there was a pair of Hollywood rivals whom we couldn’t agree upon. My sister was Paul Newman’s biggest fan whilst I loved Steve McQueen. Each of us liked both actors but when it came to who was the bigger star or the better actor we stuck firmly in our chosen camp. When Paul Newman sadly passed away last week it made me think again of those conversations we shared and drove me to reconsider if I had been right all along.

Any discussion on the relative merits of McQueen and Newman will hang on the period between the two films that they appeared in together. The eighteen years between ‘Somebody Up There Likes Me’ and ‘The Towering Inferno’ cover the peak years of Newman’s career and pretty much the whole of McQueen’s. As a picture of how their standing in Hollywood changed, the movies couldn’t be more different.

‘Somebody Up There Likes Me’ (1956) was significant for both men. After the death of James Dean in 1955 the roles he would have played initially went to Newman and Marlon Brando. Newman had made one or two films by this stage but this was the film that launched him as a star. Among the bit part players was a Steve McQueen making his film debut before embarking on the successful television series ‘Wanted: Dead or Alive’. Given that two years later McQueen was till a TV star and was making ‘The Blob’ whilst Newman was picking up an Oscar nomination it was clear that the younger man had some serious catching up to do. He finally made his breakthrough in ‘The Magnificent Seven’ (1960) but by that time Newman had a string of hits and was about to make the movie that many consider to be the best of his career. For my money ‘The Hustler’ (1961) is up there with ‘E.T.’ as one of the most over-rated movies ever made but I cannot deny that the one reason I sat through it was because of Paul Newman’s performance.

McQueen did little to follow-up on ‘The Magnificent Seven’s success, making a couple of average war movies and one of his ill-fated ventures into the world of comedy. Newman said that once he saw himself in ‘The Secret War of Harry Frigg’ (1968) he knew he was finished with trying his hand at comedy but McQueen took longer to learn the lesson. ‘The Honeymooners’ (1961), ‘Soldier in the Rain’ (1963) and ‘The Reivers’ (1969) are three very painful watching experiences. After finally making another good film, ‘The Great Escape’ (1963), McQueen mostly stuck to what he did best. His films contained a number of tough, distant, almost unlovable characters that suited McQueen who in reality seemed fairly tough, distant and unlovable. One role in particular drew parallels with Newman. In 1965 McQueen played ‘The Cincinnati Kid’ which tried to do for poker what ‘The Hustler’ had done for pool. The reaction has generally been unfavourable to ‘The Cincinnati Kid’ when the movies are compared but I think it is the superior film. It is one of Steve McQueen’s best performances and he is helped enormously by a terrific supporting cast (much better than ‘The Hustler’), tight direction and the toning down of the obligatory romantic sub-plot. (The film would probably be one of my all time favourites if Spencer Tracy had been well enough to accept the part of Lancey Howard. In the end another great actor, Edward G. Robinson, took the role but despite the esteem I hold him in I can’t help wondering what the movie would have been like with Tracy and McQueen facing off.)

McQueen was by this point becoming obsessed with the idea of becoming a bigger star than Paul Newman. They played similar parts in similar movies and, whilst he was a big box-office draw, McQueen was desperate to be seen as Newman’s superior in terms of star quality and acting ability. Newman had built on his personal success in ‘The Hustler’ by taking on a number of memorable or, at least, interesting roles. Chance Wayne in ‘Sweet Bird of Youth’ (1962), ‘Hud’ (1963) and ‘Cool Hand Luke’ (1967) are the former whilst Ram Bowen in ‘Paris Blues’ (1961), Andrew Craig in the criminally under-rated ‘The Prize’ (1963) and Juan Carrasco in ‘The Outrage’ (1964) fall into the latter category. ‘The Prize’ is an example of the kind of film Newman made that McQueen could never have been successful in. What McQueen lacked was a sort of ‘lightness’ that allowed Newman not to take himself too seriously. McQueen also showed poor judgement in his choice of roles. Newman rarely made truly awful during the 1960’s but McQueen never seemed able to make more that two or three good films in succession. This is best illustrated by considering that in 1968 he made ‘The Thomas Crown Affair’ and ‘Bullitt’ which, for the first time, put him on top of the box-office money list. His next film was ‘The Reivers’. Newman saw out the 1960’s with ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ (1969) a film that should have starred McQueen as well but his other obsession – having top billing – prevented the pairing. The film is better than any western McQueen made before or subsequently. McQueen had a knack of turning down good parts in order to make dud films. ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’ (1961), ‘Two for the Road’ (1967), Jaws (1975) and ‘Apocalypse Now’ (1979) are four notable examples.

The 1970’s didn’t start auspiciously for either actor. McQueen’s long planned ‘Le Mans’ (1971) was not only a woefully boring film but was also the first box-office flop of his career. Newman appeared to have gone off the boil as well with films like ‘WUSA’ (1970) and ‘Pocket Money’ (1972), which were solid but unmemorable efforts. Then something significant happened. Steve McQueen met Sam Peckinpah and made two films that went someway to realising his twin ambitions. ‘The Getaway’ (1972) made him the highest paid actor in the world and ‘Junior Bonner’ (1972) shows McQueen acting ability like no other film he made. It is McQueen’s only real character driven piece of work and gives a glimpse of what might have been had he lived long enough to be offered the sort of roles Newman played from the 1980’s onwards. Of course Newman had been a character actor from the very beginning but he had the looks and charisma to make him a star as well. His transition from handsome movie star to distinguished supporting actor was a natural one. It is doubtful whether McQueen’s ego would have ever allowed him to make the same move but ‘Junior Bonner’ and the later ‘Tom Horn’ (1980) gave an indication that it would have been possible in purely acting terms.

If it weren’t so against what we know of Paul Newman’s personality it could be mischievously suggested that the decision to make ‘The Sting’ (1973) was solely influenced by his being knocked of his perch as Hollywood’s most expensive and bankable actor. Teaming up again with Robert Redford and director George Roy Hill after the phenomenal success of ‘Butch Cassidy…’ was as close to ensuring success as is possible. The movie didn’t disappoint. Not only was the film the number one box-office success of 1973 (bettering McQueen’s ‘Papillon') it is very possibly the best and most enjoyable movie made by either man. Robert Redford’s star was at it’s brightest at the time but he still played second fiddle to Newman’s Henry Gondorff. This was the perfect Paul Newman role – belligerent, ruthless, streetwise but likable - the anti-hero with a heart as well as a brain.

On the back of both men’s sustained success they were finally paired opposite one another in ‘The Towering Inferno’ (1974). The stories of McQueen counting lines in the script and going ballistic when he found out Newman had more, the staggered billing and his agonising over which of the main characters was cast in the best light by the film go to the very route of how seriously Steve McQueen felt about ‘beating’ Newman now that they were going head-to-head on screen. He was determined that it should be as equals so that any perceived victory would be incontestable. Newman probably didn’t care and that is probably why McQueen walks away with the film. Even in their few shared scenes it is McQueen who hold the attention. Many reasons have been given for this but I feel that McQueen was always the better action hero and this is what the film called for. McQueen may have won the battle but being declared the best actor in a disaster movie is a rather hollow victory. Nevertheless ‘The Towering Inferno’ was far and away the biggest moneymaker of 1974 and having, by general consensus, dominated the movie McQueen could by rights declare himself to be the biggest star in the world. The fact he had achieved this status by acting opposite Newman and giving a better performance should have made it all the sweeter. McQueen could, in terms of the movies, do anything he wanted and that is what he did. Remarkably, after finally getting where he wanted to be, he snubbed Hollywood. He went bike racing, dune buggy racing and car racing and didn’t make another film for three years. He only made three more films before he died in 1980. Newman, after some disastrous failures in the late 70’s, regained his standing after McQueen’s death with a number of excellent performances throughout the 1980’s and one or two choice roles in the ‘90’s and beyond.

Traditionally it has always been accepted that Paul Newman was the better actor and that he made better movies then Steve McQueen but it was whilst reading Newman’s obituary last week that I realised just how many misguided, imperfect and downright awful movies he had made. The number of genuine classics that McQueen made can be counted on one hand but you wouldn’t need to take your socks off to count the number of Newman films that have sit in that category. What we must realise is that for both actors on so many occasions it is their performances we remember, not the films that contained them. The characters created by Newman as the superior actor rise above some of the films he found himself acting in whilst McQueen is the more iconic. It is the Cooler King and Frank Bullitt who adorn bedroom walls to this day and given that Hollywood has a tradition of remembering its icons rather better then it remembers some of it’s finest acting talent McQueen may very well outlast Newman and their contemporaries in the same way that Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe are remembered better than William Powell and Lee Remick. If we accept that Newman was the enduring actor and McQueen the enduring star then each can claim to be remembered how they wanted.

Paul Newman: Must See
Cool Hand Luke (1967)
The Sting (1973)
The Verdict (1982)

Steve McQueen: Must See
The Great Escape (1963)
The Cincinnati Kid (1965)
The Getaway (1972)