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Although
she is best remembered today as “The Queen
of Scream” for King Kong (1933),
Doctor X (1932) and The
Mystery Of The Wax Museum (1933),
Fay Wray was a versatile actress during
a career that spanned from the early Twenties
to her last appearance to date, the Henry
Fonda telefilm Gideon's Trumpet
(1980). That's right … “to date.” Miss
Wray is 92 years old (she was born in
Alberta, Canada on September 15, 1907),
and as of last year was still driving
her own car, according to a biographical
note at www.imdb.com
page.
In
1989, St. Martin's Press published her
autobiography On the Other Hand ,
and she was feted on February 24 th with
a screening at Lincoln Center of a restored
print of Mystery of the Wax Museum
, and a party atop (where else?)
the Empire State Building, where she was
presented with a trophy that read “Welcome
back to the top.” Miss Wray spoke to her
fans that evening:
“This
is a perfectly beautiful night for me.
I don't think I'm going to believe it
until two or three days pass by and I've
reflected on it. It's just an extraordinarily
happy feeling to have written something
that I've wanted to write for a long time
and now I've got it done, and to celebrate
it here is sort of an ideal situation,
you'll have to admit … Ideal is what it
is, and I'm delighted to be here. Oh,
shucks, I don't know what else to say!”
On
March 2, 1989, I interviewed Fay Wray
in her suite at Manhattan's Trump Tower.
She had worked with some of my favorite
directors – Eric Von Stroheim, The
Wedding March (1928); William Wellman,
The Legion of the Condemned
(1928); Josef von Sternberg, Thunderbolt
(1929); Michael Curtiz, Doctor
X (1932) and The Mystery of
the Wax Museum (1933); Raoul Walsh,
The Bowery (1933) – so
it was a special treat to speak with an
actress who had starred in some of their
best pictures.
JOHN
GALLAGHER: You write about Eric Von Stroheim
with such reverence in your book.
FAY
WRAY: I do? I'm glad. The Wedding
March was my first major film. I'm
glad because he was extraordinary. I never
had the good fortune to work with so strong
a talent as his again, so I treasure
that experience.
JG:
Why didn't Hollywood support a talent
like Von Stroheim? Was it the system or
was it him?
FW:
It was a combination, I think, because
it's true he would get so involved in
making a film and wanted it to be so good
and so great in all details that he usually
went far over budget, and I think a man
of his talents shouldn't have to worry
about money. But you do, it's a practical
business, I guess, and I guess that was
the problem as much as anything.
JG:
He must have been a very inspirational
person for you.
FW:
He was. Even before I was to do the picture
with him I had in the back of my mind,
in my heart, the wish to work with him
because I admired his films so much, so
when it happened it was really the most
beautiful gift to me. It's a lovely film,
isn't it?
JG:
It's available on homevideo with a music
score that uses many of the waltzes.
FW:
Delicious!
JG:
It also has the restored Technicolor sequence
of the Corpus Christi procession.
FW:
I might have seen that originally, but
not since.
JG:
Herman Weinberg's book reconstructing
The Wedding March was hailed
when it was published, since the picture
was considered something of a lost film
at the time.
FW:
His book is such a work of devotion. Like
so many of the last silent films, its
reputation has tapered off. It wasn't
a sound film, so that had left it behind,
I suppose. But I think the book did reawaken
some interest.
JG:
Did you actually shoot sequences for the
second half of the film, The Honeymoon
FW:
Yes we did, or at least to make another
feature. I never saw The Honeymoon
but certainly I know a lot about
what was filmed.
JG:
Would that have included scenes of Mitzi
(Fay Wray) going to the convent?
FW:
No, we never got that far in filming.
We went up into the mountains where Schani
(Matthew Betz) and his bride went, so
we photographed that, and said goodbye.
Mitzi said goodbye after the vigil of
the wife who'd expired during that night
and they came out of the little hunting
lodge and Mitzi and Prince Nikki (Eric
Von Stroheim) said goodbye. I didn't realize
at the time that I was really saying goodbye
to Von Stroheim. That was the last time
I saw him for fourteen years because production
was just arbitrarily stopped after that.
JG:
The Honeymoon is a lost film.
FW:
Yes. All the footage was lost in a fire.
Von Stroheim didn't want it shown because
he didn't like the way it had been edited.
Henri Langlois, the man who ran the Cinematheque
Francaise in Paris, who saved many films,
agreed to keep The Honeymoon
in reserve in a storage situation, and
it was burned in a fire. Langlois made
this wonderful statement that it committed
suicide out of embarrassment … ( laughter)
… something more poetic than that,
perhaps. He really respected Von Stroheim's
work very much.
JG:
What would you say was the most challenging
sequence for you to film in The Wedding
March?
FW:
I don't see it that way. It was just an
overall flow of relationship to the story.
I don't visualize it in that way. Perhaps
the most physically difficult was the
confession scene, because I had to be
on my knees for many, many hours. It was
lap dissolves from one thing to another
and it went on and on. I became almost
numb, so that was difficult.
JG:
The scenes you played with Matthew Betz
were physically violent at times.
FW:
It was all part of the performance, I
never thought of that being particularly
difficult or anything, it was just unpleasant
to have to do a scene of that nature,
him kissing my face, and I guess I showed
that too!
JG:
That's an amusing scene waiting for the
procession, with Schani spitting and eating
sausages, leering at you.
FW:
Yes, yanking away at a link of sausages
… ( laughter ) … he was very
crude, wasn't he? And effective.
JG:
In your book you mentioned that there
were two Von Stroheims in that scene,
the actor playing Prince Nikki, sitting
on his horse, and the director cajoling
the crowd.
FW:
He was revealingly different on that set.
He was just captivating in the flirtation,
just wonderful, with the light glimmering
off his little monocle, and his charm,
so he was really appealing, and then when
he got out there to direct the crowd,
he was a different person, really shouting
through the megaphone. But everyone liked
him. I felt no one resented anything he
said or did.
JG:
Of course he used many of the cast and
crew from his other pictures, actors like
Dale Fuller, Zasu Pitts, Cesare Gravina.
FW:
It was a stock company he'd created.
JG:
In the wine garden scene, did he use real
apple blossoms?
FW:
No, there were about 50,000 wax blossoms
tied on to those trees. I wondered how
they kept them cool. I've thought about
this sometimes. We worked only at night,
so they had the benefit of darkness to
keep them from melting. I never saw one
melt. The scenes took place at night because
of the time represented.
JG:
There is some beautiful soft-focus photography
in that scene.
FW:
Isn't it lovely? So romantic and soft,
delicate-looking, very very nice.
JG:
Did Von Stroheim have music played on
the set?
FW:
Yes, there was a little portable organ,
a cello, and a violin. The violin was
played by a man named Art Jell who was
sort of court jester on the set. He was
supposed to make Von Stroheim feel happy
if he was too tired, to pick up the spirit
of the atmosphere.
JG:
Were you signed for The Wedding March
by Von Stroheim or by Paramount?
FW:
I had been under contract to Universal
and was signed by Celebrity Pictures,
but essentially Von Stroheim, because
the company was established just to make
The Wedding March . I was able
to ask for and get a release from Universal
in order to sign the contract for the
film. I was very happy to do that, naturally,
but it was just for that film. When they
stopped production things were getting
difficult for Mr. Pat Powers, whose money
was in it. He didn't want to go much further
without some financial help and he turned
to Paramount for that help. They were
going to release it anyway, so they were
that much involved. It was really not
a studio picture, it was independent.
JG:
John Farrow (later the director of Wake
Island and The Big Clock ,
and the father of Mia Farrow) was a very
close friend of Von Stroheim's during
those years.
FW:
I think he was. I didn't see him around
the set at any time but I believe they
were very close. I think their Catholicism
might have brought them together, I don't
know.
JG:
Josef Von Sternberg was brought in later
to edit The Wedding March .
FW:
Von Stroheim did some editing on it
at Paramount, but Von Sternberg
was asked later to come in and reduce
its length. It was too long even before
Von Stroheim worked on the cutting.
JG:
Von Stroheim went on to do Queen Kelly
(1928), which was a very unfortunate
experience for him.
FW:
That was not a happy experience for anyone
concerned, and I say that because I at
least heard that from Gloria Swanson (star
and producer of Queen Kelly ),
whereas The Wedding March
had more affection around it from everybody
involved.
JG:
Did William Wellman deserve his nickname
“Wild Bill”?
FW:
I guess he did. It wasn't apparent on
the set of Legion of the Condemned
but there were rumors of his wild
behavior … ( laughter ) ... but
that made him kind of an exciting personality.
He was almost a belligerent director.
He would just battle his way through everything
to get what he wanted. He was going to
get this wonderful scene, you know, and
he was like a whole rooting section himself.
He was an enthusiastic, vital director
but he didn't ever have the delicacy or
the nuances that were possible for a director
like Von Stroheim to realize.
JG:
The Legion Of The Condemned
is another lost film.
FW:
Is that right? That's a shame! I'm just
guessing, but it seems that after they
would have a run with the film, that was
over and they'd just throw it out. Do
you believe that?
JG:
I think in many cases the films were tossed
in the vault and if the movie was deemed
not to have any re-release value, that
was that. Over the years the nitrate deteriorated
unless preservationists were able to get
to it on time.
FW:
I was in Washington a few years ago with
my husband, who was attending a medical
meeting, and I went to the Library of
Congress just because I wanted to touch
film again … ( laughter ) … and
they were computerizing their inventory,
storing prints in the Midwest, I think,
and up popped one of my old pictures,
Captain Thunder (1931). I never
did see that film.
JG:
The Mystery Of The Wax Museum was
thought lost in any form, let alone the
original two-strip Technicolor print,
and so was the Technicolor Doctor
X.
FW:
Where did they eventually find them? In
Jack Warner's house? I saw Mystery
of the Wax Museum at Lincoln Center
last week and the color was interesting.
I liked it very much.
JG:
Paramount teamed you with Gary Cooper
in four films, Legion Of The Condemned
, The First Kiss (1928),
The Texan (1930) and One
Sunday Afternoon (1933). Is it true
that he could fall asleep between takes?
FW:
Yes, he really and truly could. When I
say that I have no intention of diminishing
anything about Gary Cooper, but it's true.
He was extraordinary, but you couldn't
tell right away! You'd see him on the
set, and then you'd look at him on film
and there was this wonderful face making
the slightest change of expression seem
terribly important, so he had magic for
the camera. He certainly was adored for
many, many years. During the Watergate
problem, I remember seeing his picture
on the cover of Time magazine
with the headline, “Where Are You Now,
Gary Cooper, When We Need You?” We needed
a hero, and he was considered a hero.
JG:
You worked with Von Sternberg on Thunderbolt
. What was he like on the set?
FW:
I felt, strangely enough, that he was
not a man of great self-confidence, so
he took on airs, I have to say a pose,
almost, and that again is not against
him. If he wanted to do that and felt
comfortable with that, that was alright.
Certainly Von Stroheim was a poseur to
some degree, with his white gloves and
gold bracelets, a lot of things that you
might say fit an image of himself. But
Von Sternberg had an exquisite sense of
the camera, what it saw, composition.
When I worked with him he was under some
strain and stress because it was his first
sound film and he was not entirely comfortable
with the awkwardness that had developed
around the set. The cameras were all hooded
with parkas … (laughter ) … and
I'm sure he felt frustrated by that.
JG:
Roy Pomeroy, the sound engineer, was given
quite a bit of power at Paramount during
the transition from silence to sound.
FW:
Yes, I've read about that. I did not see
Roy Pomeroy in that way. I thought he
was a very cultured, gentlemanly human
being and I was very glad he sort of supervised
the tests I made to see if I could be
heard if I spoke. It was fairly exciting
to do that.
JG:
Were you tested with another actor?
FW:
No, as I remember I just said some verses
from Alice in Wonderland … ( laughter
) … and of course the recordings
then were rather thin and light so you
didn't sound as though you had much strength.
It was kind of tinny I thought, but little
by little that was improved. I went through
all of that at Paramount, and the changing
scene was really very apparent there,
as it was in all the studios I guess.
JG:
You mentioned in your book that Von Sternberg's
wife Riza was on the set.
FW:
Yes, she was always on the set sitting
beside him. She was a very beguiling lady,
a lot of enthusiasm and spark. She came
into the scene more than once just to
say “He wants you to do this or that”
He was sitting back there in the shadows
thinking some thoughts and didn't want
to be pulled out of his chair I guess!
JG:
It was also at Paramount that you worked
with Merian Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack
for the first time, prior to King
Kong , or The Four Feathers
(1929).
FW:
Cooper did not do any directing on The
Four Feathers , that is, in the studio.
Now, he might have done a good deal when
they were out on location at those distant
places in the desert with the army, but
my role in that was confined to the drawing
room back in England, which we filmed
on the Paramount lot. Schoedsack did some
directing on The Four Feathers
but Lothar Mendes, who was an all-purpose
director at the studio who would work
on this and that, directed a lot of those
drawing room scenes. But Cooper was on
the set quite a bit and I became aware
of him as a good friend at that time.
On The Most Dangerous Game (1932),
Schoedsack directed the scenes and another
man, Irving Pichel, did the dialogue.
In the early days of sound, they always
had two directors, one for action and
one for dialogue, until they found that
they really didn't need two directors.
It seemed that dialogue was a special
entity unto itself, so they would have
one person, usually
from the Broadway stage, to deal with
that.
JG:
On King Kong , Cooper and Schoedsack
share directing credit.
FW:
That's justified, because Merian directed
the special effects scenes, all the scenes
with me in the eight-foot Kong hand, the
scene where Kong put me down in the tree
in order to have that fight with the giant
something, and that was Cooper's work.
JG:
Is there anything that you haven't been
asked about King Kong over the
years?
FW:
( laughter ) … I don't know!
Let me see … I've been asked a very great
deal, that's true, because it's a film
that does captivate people's interest,
no doubt about it. It's just really is
a very intriguing piece of work. I really
respect that film a lot.
JG:
It must have had a stunning impact when
it was first released.
FW:
It did, absolutely. It was something totally
different.
JG:
Where did you see King Kong
for the first time?
FW:
At Grauman's Chinese Theatre, they had
a premiere there. I think that was after
the opening in New York at Radio City
and the Roxy.
JG:
When did you first set foot inside the
real Empire State Building?
FW:
A year later I was coming through New
York to go to England and do two films,
Bulldog Jack (1935) and The
Clairvoyant (1935). The public relations
people thought it would be nice for me
to go up, and it was. It was interesting
to be up there after having been on the
set.
JG:
David Selznick was a production executive
when you were at Paramount in the late
Twenties, and he was also RKO production
chief when you made King Kong there.
He has an executive producer credit on
Kong but he wasn't that involved,
was he?
FW:
No, he wasn't. He had good regard for
Merian Cooper and knew he wanted to do
Kong . He knew it was Cooper's
film and he didn't want to interfere or
get involved. I never saw him on the set.
But he said that himself, although he
got screen credit because he was executive
producer at RKO overall, so his name is
on it, but no, he didn't do any details.
JG:
Was The Most Dangerous Game shot
at the same time as King Kong ?
FW:
King Kong was shot over many,
many months, and The Most Dangerous
Game fell into that ten-month frame.
I did three other films during that ten
months. Some people when I tell them that
say, “I never heard of anyone doing five
films at the same time!” Well, I didn't
do five films at the same time, I did
one long film, Kong , and one
after another at the same time as Kong
. I did Doctor X, The Mystery
Of The Wax Museum, and one other
little one that was tucked in there.
JG:
What was Robert Armstrong like, your co-star
in King Kong and The Most
Dangerous Game?
FW:
He was a very quiet man, very reserved.
I mean that in a very nice sense. He seemed
to be a very controlled person. Many years
later I'd go occasionally to lunch with
him and Schoedsack and their wives, and
he was always very conservative, didn't
express himself a very great deal, but
there was a certain quality about him,
a strength that contributed a great deal
to that role in King Kong.
JG:
I suppose his part of Carl Denham was
patterned to some degree on Merian Cooper.
FW:
Well, perhaps so, I guess the concept
of someone so adventurous going out to
make a film in an unknown situation. That
applied to Cooper.
JG:
Michael Curtiz, for whom you made Doctor
X and Mystery Of The Wax Museum
, was well known for mangling the
English language.
FW:
Yes he did! He seemed to be a very technical
director, not very warm, but efficient.
I always felt like he was part of the
camera rather than separate from it. He
was a steely kind of person.
JG:
The set must have been very hot on those
films with the Technicolor cameras.
FW:
It was just burning hot. We all
felt as though we were melting at the
time.
JG:
Your vocal chords must have been strained
as well with all the screaming in Doctor
X, Wax Museum, The Vampire Bat (1933),
The Most Dangerous Game and King
Kong . Did you do any post sound
on those pictures or were your screams
just recorded while you were filming?
FW:
For Kong , yes, they asked me
to go to the sound room and scream and
make a lot of those desperate sounds.
I did that and they cut them in, although
of course I did a lot of screaming making
the scenes on the set. A lot of people
scream in films, I just seemed to do more
than my share! … ( laughter ).
JG:
What was Lionel Atwill like to work with?
You did three movies with him –
Doctor X, Wax Museum and The
Vampire Bat .
FW:
He had such a good style. I never got
to know him really well. The atmosphere
on sets usually was such that you did
your scenes and it was almost exceptional
that you have a personal kind of exchange.
That held true for Lionel Atwill. His
wife came on the set a few times. She
was an elegant looking lady. She had been
married to General Douglas MacArthur and
that gave her a little special niche in
my memory. She was a quite delightful
lady. But I never talked with him much.
He seemed to be the kind who didn't want
to make conversation and that was alright
with me, that was fine, but he was very
effective in those roles, he really was.
He had a nice strength.
JG:
In your book you tell the story about
breaking Atwill's mask in Mystery
Of The Wax Museum.
FW:
It was just a fearful thing to see that
gruesome makeup underneath when I struck
that face.
JG:
Curtiz didn't prepare you for that?
FW:
I knew there was going to be an ugliness
underneath the mask but somehow when I
did it and the mask fell away I just couldn't
move for a fraction of a second. Michael
Curtiz really got angry with me. He stopped
the camera and he said, “You should go
on hitting and hitting until we see all
of his face!” Well, I didn't want to go
on hitting and hitting, I wanted to run
away from that look … ( laughter)
…but then if that's what was needed
I could do it, so of course I had to keep
at Lionel Atwill until the face was all
revealed. But my first reaction was just
so terrible! “You fiend!,” I say to him
… what a choice of words. I wanted to
say, “Oh you poor fellow, what's happened
to you?” … laughter .
JG:
The Bowery is a boisterous movie
… what was Raoul Walsh like?
FW:
He wore an eye patch for one thing and
that made him seem almost mysterious.
He was a big, physically strong looking
person. With women he didn't do much directing,
it was kind of a feeling you got from
him without too many words. He was virile
but very laid back.
JG:
On Viva Villa! (1934), were
you directed by Howard Hawks or Jack Conway?
FW:
Conway. Did Howard Hawks start that picture
in Mexico?
JG:
Yes. He left with Lee Tracy (the star
of the film, who was fired by MGM for
allegedly urinating from his hotel balcony
onto a passing Mexican military parade
during a drunken respite from shooting).
FW:
Wasn't that a bizarre happening? Jack
Conway took it over. I didn't have a very
strong impression of Jack Conway. A pleasant
man, an efficient director.
(Note:
William Wellman also contributed uncredited
direction to Viva Villa !).
JG:
How do you feel overall about the old
studio system?
FW:
I know just a little bit about how things
operate today, not too much, but I feel
that the creative people perhaps have
to have too much responsibility to get
the money, to be involved with the packaging
and the cost of the project. It used to
be that in the studio system, the studio
was run by people who could do that pretty
well and the creative people were free
to not like them and go on doing what
they wanted to do! I thought that was
a good way to go, because the creative
people didn't have to be holding their
breath about how much the movie was costing
all the time. The good ones didn't care
a great deal about that. Sure, certain
directors might worry about what the front
office might say about coming in over
or under budget, but the good ones just
went ahead and did what they thought was
right to do and loved being a little bit
like that. I thought that was a better
way. Now it's all money, it seems to me.
If they get some money to make a movie
they have to start out thinking about
money. That's the aim. That's the first
condition instead of just being free to
make a story and let somebody else worry
about the money aspect.
A
NEW BOOK ABOUT HAL WALLIS : One
of the most important producers in film
history, Hal B. Wallis, finally gets a
well-researched, detailed biography in
Bernard Dick's Hal Wallis: Producer
to the Stars (University Press of
Kentucky). Wallis rose from publicist
to producer at Warner Brothers during
the transition from silents to sound;
when Darryl Zanuck left to form Twentieth
Century Pictures in 1933, Jack Warner
elevated Wallis to production chief. Pictures
like The Adventures of Robin Hood
(1938), Yankee Doodle Dandy
(1942) and Casablanca (1942)
– all three helmed by his favorite
director, Michael Curtiz -- were produced
under his aegis, but recurring conflicts
with Warner led Wallis to form his own
company, Wallis-Hazen, leaving for Paramount
in 1944.
As
the title suggests, Wallis had a special
eye for talent, launching actors like
Burt Lancaster, Kirk Douglas, Charton
Heston, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, and
Elvis Presley. He further balanced
an astonishing variety of films, from
Presley vehicles to Gunfight at the
O.K. Corral (1957) to Becket
(1964) to True Grit (1969).
Wallis' own autobiography, Starmaker
, published in 1980, was a major disappointment;
less than candid, Wallis didn't even mention
his parents' names. The author presents
a detailed portrait of a producer who
was wasn't as colorful or outspoken as
contemporaries like Goldwyn, Selznick
and Zanuck, but whose pictures were certainly
as important. The book also provides an
excellent context for Wallis' filmmaking
career from the Twenties through the Seventies,
and also benefits from the author's interviews
with Martha Hyer Wallis, who the producer
referred to as “my last girl.”
--JOHN GALLAGHER
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