Fever City, Rock and Roll Fever: Buddy Holly

If you took James Ellroy at his most imaginative and Oliver Stone at his most conspiratorial, and mixed them up in a supersized martini shaker, you would produce the vivid writing, explosive events, and irresistible entertainment of Fever City.

The story kicks off in 1960 Los Angeles, with the daring kidnapping of the child of one of America's richest men. It then darts back and forth between a private detective's urgent search for the child, the saga of a notorious hit man in the days leading to JFK's assasination, and the modern-day story of a skeptical journalist researching the still-active conspiracy theories of the 50s and 60s, with the aim of debunking them. Just as the detective discovers that the kidnapping is a crime much larger than he imagined, and the hit man finds himself caught in a web that is astonighingly complex, the journalist discovers -to his horror, dismay, and even his jeopardy- that the conspiracy theories might well be true. Source: www.amazon.com

The plane crash that claimed the lives of three rock 'n' roll stars, including Buddy Holly, could be investigated afresh by US transport safety experts. According to the Mason City Globe Gazette, the NTSB received the request from a pilot from New England called LJ Coon. Source: www.bbc.com

Clear Lake, Iowa (May 1, 2015): The National Transportation Safety Board will not reopen the investigation of the plane crash in February 1959 that killed Lubbock-born rock pioneer Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and "Big Bopper" J.P. Richardson. The NTSB said Coon did not present enough evidence to back up his assertions. Source: www.kwtx.com

Gary W. Moore (author of Hey Buddy, 2011) discounted conspiracy theories alleging a gunshot from a handgun owned by Holly brought down the plane. Barb Dwyer, wife of Jerry Dwyer, who was the fixed base operator at the airport and owner of the plane, declined to comment on Coon's attempts to reopen the crash investigation. Source: globegazette.com

Rolling Stone critic Johnathan Cott eloquently singled out "Peggy Sue" as a masterpiece: "With Peggy Sue, he created the first rock and roll folk heroine. In Peggy Sue Got Married, Peggy Sue vanishes, like Lolita, into the mythology of American Romance." About this mythic Peggy Sue, the words revealed nothing other than that she made her moody paramour feel ‘blue’, yet still love her ‘with a love so rare ’n’ true’. Where she came to life was in the ever-changing shades and shifts of Buddy’s voice, her name repeated over and over like a mantra – now murmured in tongue-tied bashfulness, now stretched to a six-syllable schoolyard taunt (‘Sue-oo-oooo-oo-oo’), now hiccuped, now sighed in rapture, now transmuted into a ringing four-chord eulogy, perhaps the most infallibly nerve-tingling solo in all rock ’n’ roll.

The Real Buddy Holly: In truth, Lubbock always went on with or without Buddy Holly, the city’s only world-famous native son. Two decades passed before city officials, in the wake of a Hollywood film depicting Buddy’s life, saw fit to erect a statue of the great musician. This seeming apathy has been a matter of consid­erable outrage among Holly fans, but one acquaintance of Buddy’s suggests that Buddy would have had no hard feelings. “There’s a stubbornness in Lubbock, which Buddy himself had,” says Peggy Sue Rackham, the woman immortalized in two Buddy Holly songs.

Understanding Buddy Holly is a different matter. He could be numbingly shy or obnoxiously self-confident depending on whether he was holding a guitar at the time. Even his musical genius is hard to nail down. As a lyricist, he was disarmingly cavalier. He was a stealth rocker, that hayseed grin and those im­possibly daft glasses making the world safe for the audacious overtures suggested in “Rave On,” “Oh Boy!” and especially “Not Fade Away”: “I’m gonna tell you how it’s gonna be/You’re gonna give your love to me.” While Elvis’ gyrations were inducing panic in the world, Buddy was slipping hedonism through the front door like a bouquet proffered by a happy-faced delivery boy.

His was a triumph of subver­sion; but how such a feat grew out of a per­fectly ordinary boyhood in Lubbock is an astounding mystery, one that no one has ever come close to solving. Amburn’s primary source for Buddy’s teenage antics is a Lubbock musician named Tin­ker Carlen. If only there had been loose Lub­bock women in the fifties to have had one’s way with, several of Buddy’s male pals lamented to me, adding that Buddy was every bit as unlucky as they were. Similarly, several of Amburn’s sources scoff at the author’s theory that Buddy had a drinking problem, “He wasn’t even a moderate drinker,” Sonny Curtis told me. Leaden with errors, Buddy Holly: A Bi­ography would be merely an embarrassment if it weren’t fundamentally mean-spirited.

Buddy Holly was on a roll. In June, while visiting his music publisher in New York, he laid eyes on the company’s rav­ishing Puerto Rican secretary, Maria Elena Santiago, asked her out that night, and proposed to her over dinner. In August the couple were married in the Holley home. They returned to Manhattan and moved into a Greenwich Village apartment. Despite his multitude of hit singles, Buddy was broke: The royalty money was tied up in the account of his manager, Norman Petty. Buddy convinced the Crickets that they needed to wash their hands of Petty and move permanently to New York, where they could get better representa­tion. After a tour in late October, they converged on Petty’s studio in Clovis. But Buddy and Maria arrived to find that the Crickets were already there, and that Petty had talked the boys into staying with him. “I want my money,” Buddy said. According to Maria, Petty replied, “I’d rather see you starve to death first.” Source: www.texasmonthly.com

In order to allow J.I. Allison to impress the real Peggy Sue, Buddy gave him the songwriting credit on the record. For his own reasons, Norman Petty added his name. Buddy could take someone else’s song and make it his own with a vastly superior rendition. By contrast, nobody, not even the Beatles, ever took a Buddy Holly song and improved upon his own recording of it.

Exactly why ‘That’ll Be The Day’ took so long to get into the charts never has been satisfactorily explained. For most rock ’n’ roll classics, success has appeared soaringly effortless with the frenetic pace at which America’s record business operated in the rock ’n’ roll fever of early 1957. The blend of sounds, which has seemed unimprovably right to modern ears, was an unusual, even eccentric one in mid-1957. And the voice sounded unlike that of a potential teenage idol, being totally lacking in sexual suggestiveness, self-pitying angst or any other clue that its owner belonged to the same generation as Elvis, Ricky Nelson or Eddie Cochran.

June Clark was a highly attractive woman, slim and wavy-blonde, with snub, big-eyed features glancingly like those of Brigitte Bardot, the French ‘sex kitten’. Her job on the cosmetics counter at Hull’s drugstore gave her an aura of glossy, nylon-crisp untouchability. But she found herself increasingly drawn to Buddy for his charm, his kindliness, his singleminded ambition and the dark, lonely depths in him which now and then revealed themselves. ‘I knew he liked me because he was a normal young guy,’ June says: ‘But the thing he always wanted to do most when we were together was just talk to me.’ June had been prepared for a superficial flirtation. But the intensity of Buddy’s feelings began to alarm her. Forgetting the need for discretion, he phoned her constantly, and also took to hanging around the Hull drugstore. ‘He’d just stand there staring at me while I waited on customers, till it got to be really embarrassing and unnerving.’

Since groupies and drugs still were almost nonexistent pleasures of ‘the road’, having fun meant one thing only. ‘We’d sometimes be drunk in the morning,’ J.I. has since admitted, ‘and stay drunk all day.’ This slackness and unprofessionalism infuriated Buddy. Lubbock may have been slow to recognize his enormous fame, but at least that has prevented any hint of the tacky opportunism with which Elvis Presley is memorialized at Graceland. In death, as in his brief life, Buddy remains untainted by vulgarity. On a basis of simply counting heads, rock music surpasses even film as the most influential art form of the twentieth century. By that reckoning, there is a case for calling Buddy Holly the 20th century’s most influential musician. Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly are the two seminal figures of fifties rock ’n’ roll.—"Rave On: The Biography of Buddy Holly" (2014) by Philip Norman

In The Buddy Holly Story (1978), the legend from Lubbock, Texas, is reassessed in a thoroughly entertaining musical biography that mixes fact and fiction in equal parts, a practice Hollywood is unable to resist despite the potential for distortion and false allegations. Luckily, the film captures Holly's charm and stubborn individuality through Gary Busey's chameleon-like performance in the title role. As the story progresses from Holly's formation of his band, the Crickets, to his departure for a recording career in New York City, it also charts the evolution of some of the musician's most famous tunes. The Buddy Holly Story also took dramatic liberties with biographical details (the scene in the church where Holly's pastor attacks his music was fabricated - the two men were close friends in real life) and completely omitted Norman Petty, Holly's producer, from the story line.

For the actors, however, The Buddy Holly Story was a dream come true. Gary Busey, who was once a drummer with Leon Russell's band, threw himself into the lead role with such intensity that he began to resemble Holly, the result of heavy dieting and the makeup department's influence (horn-rimmed glasses and curled hair). He also got a charge out of performing Holly's music with co-stars Charles Martin Smith and Don Stroud.

Audiences and critics were into The Buddy Holly Story as well, and typical of the reviews was this assessment by Film Quarterly: "Director Steve Rash and Gary Busey have interpreted The Buddy Holly Story with an unpolished beauty that remains faithful both to the spirit of the man and to his music." The film went on to receive three Oscar nominations in 1978. Busey was nominated for Best Actor. He would later say he won the role of the late singer because "they finally realized I have the same-sized teeth." Source: www.tcm.com

Rare Songs by Frank Sinatra, Chairman of the Board Film Collection

A rare recording from his 1945 radio program, Songs by Sinatra. Had he survived the cold, music legend Frank Sinatra would have celebrated his 100th birthday this year. But there's still some of his stuff almost no one in the world has heard—so all of that is coming out in a new compilation this month. Sinatra had a long history of performing the American classic Ol’ Man River by Jerome Kern & Oscar Hammerstein II. The song was one of his go-to tunes for nearly three decades. He sang it during his Man and His Music TV special and even included a stripped-down rendition during his 1962 world tour. The version below is taken from one of his early performances, from a radio show in 1945. At just 30 years old, a young Sinatra sings what will become a lifelong favorite for one of the first times. Source: www.thedailybeast.com

To celebrate “The Chairman of the Board’s” centennial, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment (WBHE) release Frank Sinatra: 3 Film Collection DVD & Blu-ray on November 16th and we have a Blu-ray up for grabs! This collection includes newly re-mastered releases of Anchors Aweigh, On the Town and Robin and the 7 Hoods for the first time on Blu-ray and is packed full of new special features!

Throughout his six-decade career, Frank Sinatra performed on more than 1,400 recordings and was awarded 31 gold, nine platinum, three double platinum and one triple platinum album by the Recording Industry Association of America. Sinatra demonstrated a remarkable ability to appeal to every generation and continues to do so; his artistry still influences many of today’s music superstars. He also appeared in more than 60 films and produced eight motion pictures. Source: www.nerdly.co.uk

Sinatra had been growing steadily more impatient with Capitol Records, with which his contract would expire in November 1962. He had been agitating for many things—a greater share of the profits, a producer of his own, control of his master recordings—but it’s hard to escape the impression that what he wanted most of all was out. When one listens to the recordings Frank made on the night of May 14 —and especially to his new “I’ll Never Smile Again”— it’s hard to escape the impression that, consciously or not, he already had one foot out the door. Singing over Jenkins’s sad strings, Sinatra sounds tender and vulnerable and middle-aged; there’s a slight quaver to his voice that’s not at all unattractive. Yet as he sings the first chorus —I’ll never smile again, until I smile at you, I’ll never laugh again, what good would it do— something quite strange happens. His pitch is uncertain from the first syllable, and—after weirdly mispronouncing the word “laugh” as “luff”—he hits an unmistakable clam on the word “do.” Frank’s ear was exquisitely tuned: he was famous for bringing a take to a grinding halt if, say, the third violin was a half note off, fixing the offender with an ice-blue glare and saying, “Where you working next week?” He would do multiple takes of a song if anything about his vocal or the accompaniment displeased him. Why did he not rerecord this “Smile”? –SINATRA: THE CHAIRMAN (2015) by JAMES KAPLAN

Next projects: Buster’s Mal Heart (Rami Malek) & Mute (Duncan Jones)

Rami Malek, leading star of the so-hot-right-now cyber-thriller Mr. Robot, has today landed his first major role. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the up-and-comer has agreed a deal to topline Sarah Adina Smith’s mystery drama Buster’s Mal Heart. Malek will spearhead the drama as an eccentric recluse who lives out his days in the mountains, breaking into one vacation home after another in order to survive through the harsh winters.

During his illicit escapades – which ought to be right in Malek’s wheelhouse after Mr. Robot – our protagonist is plagued by a series of vivid and indeed recurring dreams; dreams that cast him astray at sea without a hope. As the narrative unfolds, Malek’s character learns that the dreams are in fact real, and that his conscious is inexplicably split across two bodies in two very different locations. It’s this mind-bending plot that will underpin Buster’s Mal Heart. Source: wegotthiscovered.com

EXCLUSIVE: Duncan Jones’ long-cherished Mute, about a mute bartender who goes up against his city’s gangsters in an effort to find out what happened to his missing partner, may be coming a step nearer to fruition with the news that Paul Rudd and Alexander Skarsgard have boarded the project. Also joining Mute is Lotus Entertainment, which will handle international sales and finance the ambitious film in time for AFM.

The film is set in Berlin, 40 years from today. A roiling city of immigrants, where East crashes against West in a science-fiction Casablanca. Leo Beiler (Skarsgard), a mute bartender, has one reason and one reason only for living here, and she’s disappeared. But when Leo’s search takes him deeper into the city’s underbelly, an odd pair of American surgeons (led by Rudd) seem to be the only recurring clue, and Leo can’t tell if they can help, or who he should fear most.

“I’ve been working towards making Mute for 12 years now. I cannot tell you how thrilled I am that we’re finally going to shoot this utterly unique film,” said Jones. “Mute is a film that will last. It is unlike any other science fiction being made today.” Source: deadline.com

R.I.P. Maureen O'Hara (The Queen of Technicolor)

The actor Maureen O’Hara has died, her manager said on Saturday. She was 95.

O’Hara, who was born Maureen FitzSimons in Dublin in 1920, starred in John Ford’s 1941 Oscar-winning drama How Green Was My Valley, set in Wales, and The Quiet Man, Ford’s Irish-set 1952 film that starred John Wayne.

She starred with Wayne in a number of films, including the western Rio Grande, also directed by Ford.

She also had notable successes working with Charles Laughton (Jamaica Inn, The Hunchback of Notre Dame) and Andrew V McLaglen (McLintock!), and starred in the perennial Christmas hit Miracle on 34th Street, in 1947, and the Disney children’s hit The Parent Trap in 1961. She was never nominated for an Oscar, instead being given an honorary award in 2014. After accepting her statuette, presented by Liam Neeson and Clint Eastwood, from a wheelchair, the then 94-year-old star protested when her speech of thanks was cut short.

On Saturday the Irish arts minister, Heather Humphreys, said O’Hara was “the quintessential Irish success story”. “Maureen O’Hara left Ireland to carve a successful life in America,” Humphreys said, “but in the hearts and minds of every Irish person Maureen was the quintessential Irish success story.

She went on to become one of the icons of Hollywood’s Golden Age at the height of her career.”

Humphreys said O’Hara would be “best remembered for her fiercely passionate roles in classic films and in particular the films she made with her great friend John Wayne”. Wayne once famously said he preferred to work with men, “except for Maureen O’Hara. She’s a great guy”. In 1991, O’Hara said of Wayne: “We met through Ford, and we hit it right off. I adored him, and he loved me. But we were never sweethearts. Never, ever.”

Humphreys added: “It was in [O’Hara’s] role as Mary Kate Danaher in The Quiet Man, the iconic film made over 60 years ago and still very much celebrated in Ireland and abroad, that we were first alerted to her natural beauty and talent. In later life, O’Hara married her third husband, Brigadier General Charles Blair. He died in a plane crash in 1978 and O’Hara took over management of the airline, which she eventually sold. “Being married to Charlie Blair and traveling all over the world with him, believe me, was enough for any woman,” she said in 1995. “It was the best time of my life.”

“My first ambition was to be the No1 actress in the world,” she said in 1999. “And when the whole world bowed at my feet, I would retire in glory and never do anything again.” In 1957 her career was threatened by scandal, when the tabloid Confidential magazine claimed she and a man had engaged in “the hottest show in town” in the back row of Hollywood’s Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. However, as she later told the Associated Press, at the time she “was making a movie in Spain, and I had the passport to prove it”.

O’Hara most often played strong and willful women. In 1991, she was asked if she was the same off screen. “I do like to get my own way,” she said. “But don’t think I’m not acting when I’m up there. And don’t think I always get my own way. There have been crushing disappointments. But when that happens, I say, ‘Find another hill to climb.’”

 “Her characters were feisty and fearless, just as she was in real life,” the O’Hara family said in a statement. “She was also proudly Irish and spent her entire lifetime sharing her heritage and the wonderful culture of the Emerald Isle with the world.” Source: www.theguardian.com

Mr. Robot Season 1 on Blu-Ray

As cinema and television increasingly converge, TV shows are looking more and more like film – and Mr. Robot is arguably the best current example of that. The show’s all odd angles and characters edged into the corner of frames, like chess pieces on engulfing tableaux; not only that, but it looks at New York City in a completely new way, turning the shiny tourist-magnet into a cold, tech-y future metropolis.

Even though you can probably see the twist coming a mile away, it doesn’t stop the moment of revelation being heart-breakingly powerful.

And in those scenes, when the twist comes, Malek is absolutely devastating. Slater’s is the biggest name in the cast, but it’s Malek who emerges as the star of Mr Robot: approaching Elliot’s at-times difficult nature with a radiant mix of easy charisma and vulnerability, Malek is awards-worthy in the main role. He’ll likely go onto even bigger stardom on the silver screen after this, but it’s hard to imagine – as with Jon Hamm and Don Draper, Bryan Cranston and Walter White – that he’ll find anything so worthy of his talents.

Mr. Robot, which actually has meaty roles for its female characters, features two of the more interesting, conflicted women in TV, in Carly Chaikin’s Darlene and Portia Doubleday’s Angela. Angela gradually shows herself to be a quietly complex figure throughout the first season, a corporate lackey looking for revenge that also secretly seeks approval from the same powers-that-be that she despises. Source: wegotthiscovered.com

Universal Studios Home Entertainment has announced that it will release on Blu-ray Mr. Robot: Season 1. The release will be available for purchase on January 12, 2016.

Synopsis: Enter the "completely captivating" world of Mr. Robot. Cyber-security engineer by day and vigilante hacker by night, Elliot (Rami Malek, The Pacific) finds himself at a crossroads when the mysterious leader (Christian Slater, Very Bad Things) of an underground hacker group recruits him to destroy the firm he is paid to protect. Compelled by his personal beliefs, Elliot struggles to resist the chance to take down the multinational CEOs he believes are running (and ruining) the world. Now, watch all 10 Season One episodes back-to-back and uninterrupted of the psychological thriller that critics rave is "damn near perfect" (Jessica Rawden, Cinemablend). Special Features: Deleted Scenes, Gag Reel, M4k1ng_0f_Mr_R0b0t.mov Source: www.blu-ray.com

Pre-Code rarities on TCM, Friday 23rd October

Promotional still of Edward G. Robinson as Jim 'Buck' Turner and Glenda Farrell as Valerie 'Val' Wilson in "Dark Hazard" (1934).


Dark Hazard (1934). Director: Alfred E. Green. Stars: Edward G. Robinson, Genevieve Tobin, Glenda Farrell, Robert Barrat, Sidney Toler. Plot: Jim is a compulsive gambler. He meets Marge at a boarding house and they get married. His gambling causes problems. When he runs into old flame Valerie Marge leaves him. After a few years he returns, but she is now in love with old flame Pres. Jim buys racing dog Dark Hazard and makes a fortune which he loses on roulette. On TCM at 12:30 PM

Promotional portrait of Mary Astor and Adolphe Menjou in "Easy to Love" (1934)


Easy to Love (1934). Director: William Keighley. Stars: Mary Astor, Genevieve Tobin, Adolphe Menjou, Patricia Ellis. Plot: When Carol thinks her husband John has been unfaithful, she hires a private detective; having long been pursued by Eric, she apparently accedes and accompanies him to an apartment and enter the wrong one. There, they find Carol's best friend, Charlotte, and John hiding in a closet. On TCM at 1:45 PM.

Promotional still of Kay Francis and George Brent in "The Goose and The Gander" (1935).


The Goose and the Gander (1935). A divorcee can't stop meddling in her ex-husband's affairs. Director: Alfred E. Green Cast: Kay Francis, George Brent, Genevieve Tobin, John Eldredge, Claire Dodd, Ralph Forbes, Helen Lowell. On TCM at 4:15 PM Source: www.tcm.com

The Chairman: New biography of Frank Sinatra

Frank Sinatra's flaming obsession with Ava Gardner never waned, but there were other headline-making women in his life — most notably Marilyn Monroe, Mia Farrow and Barbara Marx.

A new, in-depth biography, “Sinatra: The Chairman,” provides an intimate glimpse into Ol’ Blue Eyes’ relationships with each of these significant others. James Kaplan’s first door-stopping tome, “Frank: The Voice,” brought the singer up to the glorious moment in 1954 when he won the Oscar for “From Here to Eternity.” It was the comeback of all comebacks.

Back on top of the heap, Sinatra was busy with the ladies. In 1961, he finally got around to Marilyn Monroe. The two had brushed against each other through the years, but now it seemed something serious was afoot. Or, seriously sexual, at least. Shortly after Monroe’s divorce from Joe DiMaggio, Sinatra and the Yankee Clipper got drunk and ended up breaking down a door, five henchmen in tow, expecting to find Marilyn Monroe in bed with another man. Eight years later, in 1962, DiMaggio had Sinatra turned away from Monroe’s funeral. They had become rivals of sorts, each believing he was the man to save the goddess in her final downward spiral.

During Sinatra’s dalliance with Monroe, there are conflicting reports as to who wanted it more. Kaplan sides with Milt Ebbins, a talent manager, who claimed, “There was no doubt that Frank was in love with Marilyn.” Sinatra even considered marrying Monroe to save her from herself. Kaplan quotes sources that told an earlier biographer, Randy Taraborelli, that Sinatra believed being his wife would protect her from the vultures.

“Yeah, Frank wanted to marry the broad,” Jilly Rizzo, Sinatra’s chief henchman, said. “He asked her and she said no.” Source: www.nydailynews.com

R.I.P. Joan Leslie - The Girl Next Door

R.I.P. Joan Leslie (January 26, 1925 - October 12, 2015)

Joan Leslie, who made an impact in such classic films as “High Sierra” (1941) with Humphrey Bogart and “Yankee Doodle Dandy” (1942) with James Cagney, has died. She was 90 years old. Her death was first reported on October 15, 2015, but she passed on October 12. Born Joan Brodel, the actress was discovered by a talent scout while performing on stage with her two sisters. She was first signed to MGM, but later signed with Warner Brothers. Joan was only in her teens when she appeared in “High Sierra” and then “Sergeant York” with Gary Cooper. In fact, she celebrated her 17th birthday during the filming of “Yankee Doodle Dandy.”

Her other films include “The Sky’s The Limit” (1943) with Fred Astaire, and the all star films “Thank Your Lucky Stars” (1943) and “Hollywood Canteen” (1944). In 1946, Joan Leslie had become dissatisfied with the limited supporting roles she was being placed in by Warners, and sued to get out of her contract. Jack Warner was influential enough to keep her from obtaining work at the other major studios, so she worked in low budget films at Eagle-Lion and Republic Pictures. Many of her films for these studios were westerns, so she remains popular with western movie fans.

Joan married William G. Caldwell, a physician, in 1950, and her roles in movies became less frequent, as she chose to spend more time at home raising her twin daughters. Along with her acting career, Joan was also involved in a business designing clothes, and did extensive charity work for the St Anne’s Maternity Home. When her husband died in 2000, she founded the Dr. William G. and Joan L. Caldwell Chair in Gynecologic Oncology for the University of Louisville. Joan died of natural causes in Los Angeles. Source: www.examiner.com

Joan Leslie: “The Girl Next Door”: Joan Leslie was Warners’ ingenue in residence, a pretty and perky actress with a pleasant demeanor who photographed well, could sing and dance when called for, and could emote effectively against the likes of Ida Lupino and Humphrey Bogart.

Every studio had at least one actress under contract who personified the wholesome, all–American girl next door, Jeanne Crain at Fox or Anne Shirley at RKO. As far as Jack Warner was concerned,
he expected Joan’s private life to be just as sweet and squeaky clean as her screen persona. And then when she had the nerve to defy him, he, in effect, grounded her—by making sure that no other studio would hire her. Joan ultimately got the last laugh by leaving show business in the 1950s and enjoying a successful marriage.

After "High Sierra," Joan’s next appearance was in a rarely seen short subject called "Alice in Movieland" (1941), produced by Jack Warner, Jr., and directed by Jean Negulesco. Joan played a starry-eyed miss on her way to Hollywood. When an assistant director berates her, she gives him a solid tongue lashing, which the director sees as the emotional fire of a great actress. She then gets a starring role and wins an Academy Award before waking up from her dream. Joan remembered it as a delightful story that she had fun performing.

Prior to leaving for New York on a publicity tour, Jack Warner advised her, “I don’t want to see you smoking or drinking.” At a lavish studio party honoring visiting Army dignitaries, she was accidentally put next to Hollywood’s leading womanizer, Errol Flynn. “How do you do, Joan?” he asked. “I’m afraid we never met.” In the room, which was brimming with photographers, it was only a matter of time before someone took notice of Joan’s encounter with Flynn. “Cameras went off and flashed pictures of us smiling at each other in a most cordial, but rather formal way,” Joan recalled. “And in no time at all, a publicity man, of which there were an enormous number at that time, came in and separated us, and pulled Flynn off one way and pulled me off another way. Then I heard that the pictures were killed.”


Joan’s hard work paid off with her first leading lady role in "The Great Mr. Nobody" (1941), an amusing B co-starring Eddie Albert as an accident-prone reporter. Warners thought they worked so well together that they were paired up two more times, in "The Wagons Roll at Night" (1941) and "Thieves Fall Out" (1941).

"The Wagons Roll at Night" also is interesting for its subliminal incestuous themes that seem to be evident in Bogart’s character. His jealousy over the relationship between his sister (Joan Leslie) and the lion tamer smacks more of the spurned lover than the protective older sibling.

Then Warner finally saw to it that Joan appeared in a production of the level of "High Sierra." She was chosen to appear opposite Gary Cooper in "Sergeant York" (1941), director Howard Hawks’ stirring biography of World War I hero Alvin York. The movie, in which York served as technical advisor, began with a look at his early years as a Tennessee farm boy before moving on to his military service career. Joan played Gracie, the backwoods girl he romances and later marries. Their original script was penned with Hawks’ original choice, Jane Russell, in mind, and depicted Gracie as something of a sexpot.


Also successful was "The Male Animal" (1942), the film version of James Thurber’s topical stage comedy that used football and campus politics to parody government. Joan played Olivia de Havilland’s kid sister whose biggest concern is keeping a hulking quarterback (Don DeFore) away from the campus vamp, nicknamed “Hot Garters.” Joan’s role was small and undemanding.

As Mary Cohan in "Yankee Doodle Dandy" (1942), Warners’ flag-waving musical, Joan was required to age roughly thirty years over the course of one hundred and twenty-six minutes. "Yankee Doodle Dandy" was essentially the typical Hollywood musical biography of the ’40s. The difference in this case was James Cagney’s exuberant performance, the high point of his career. The movie opened with Cohan meeting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, a device that opened the door for a flashback tour of Cohan’s life. The movie was Warners’ first attempt to do a big-budget musical since its Busby Berkeley extravaganzas of the early to mid–1930s. Joan was nicely spotlighted in several numbers, including “She’s the Warmest Baby in the Bunch” and “Mary.” Bosley Crowther raved that Joan was “excellent as Mrs. George M. Cohan” in The New York Times.

Publicists generally found Joan to be unusual among the crop of starlets and glamour girls that populated Hollywood at the time. Joan still lived with her parents and her sisters in their Toluca Lake home, and as such seemed uncorrupted by the many temptations of Hollywood. Her off hours were spent palling around with Jeanne Cagney, whom she met on the set of "Yankee Doodle Dandy," and Jane Withers. In keeping with her wholesome image, Joan was not prone to hitting the night spots frequently or wearing a lot of makeup. On-screen, though, she yearned for the glamour girl treatment her contemporaries, like Alexis Smith and Faye Emerson, were receiving. —"The Women of Warner Brothers: The Lives and Careers of 15 Leading Ladies" (2001) by Daniel Bubbeo