Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood (123 page)

Director, writer, and interviewer: Hans C. Blumenberg. Cinematographer: Bodo Kessler. Editor: Inge Gielow. TV Editor: Silvia Koller. Sound: Pat Shea. Production coordinator: Juergen Hellwig. Running time: 58 minutes.
First shown: March 2, Berlin Film Festival.

Howard Hawks, American Artist
(British Film Institute)

Producer: Paula Jalfond. Director, writer, and interviewer: Kevin Macdonald. Running time: 58 minutes. First shown: January 27, National Film Theatre, London.

Even though it only began to take shape years later, this book was truly born at the Directors Guild of America’s Weekend with Howard Hawks in Laguna Beach, California in October 1977. This outstandingly in-depth tribute was organized by David Shepard, then head of special projects for the guild, and moderated by Joseph McBride. It was the intensity of seeing so many Hawks films
in the presence of their maker, and then having the opportunity to talk to him immediately and at length, that ignited my excitement for the man and his work that endured throughout the long period of research and writing. Joe McBride, who had edited
Focus on Howard Hawks
and would eventually edit his numerous interviews with the director into
Hawks on Hawks
, put the challenge to me to write a
biography, and I thank him for all his insight, enthusiasm, and assistance.

Hawks on Hawks
and Peter Bogdanovich’s unpublished full-length career interview with the director, now published in condensed form in
Who The Devil Made It
, were the sources for the majority of Hawks quotes used in the text, and I thank Joe and Peter, who generously provided me with original, unedited copies of their
manuscripts.

At the same time, many other Hawks interviews, most of which are listed in the bibliography, have been consulted. Among these, the most useful were the text stemming from the Directors Guild of America’s weekend with Hawks; Kevin Brownlow’s unpublished investigation into Hawks’s silent movie career, and John Kobal’s Q & A in his anthology of show-business interviews,
People Will
Talk
.

The one centralized collection of Hawks-related material is the “stuff” Hawks himself gave to the Archives and Manuscripts Division of the Harold B. Lee Library at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. Hawks maintained his personal papers in haphazard fashion, and only a fraction of what he once possessed was still in his garage when he donated his holdings to BYU shortly before his
death. But archivist James V. D’Arc did an immaculate inventory job, and his register of the collection, “The Papers of Howard W. Hawks,” itemizes every piece available for study, from a list of Hawks family doctors in the mid-1940s to William Faulkner’s personal script copy of
Dreadful Hollow
.

Almost equally valuable is the Charles K. Feldman Collection at the Louis B. Mayer Library at the American
Film Institute in Los Angeles. Inventoried and maintained by Alan Braun, the collection represents a treasure trove of inside Hollywood history
in general and of Feldman and Hawks’s activities in particular. The papers provide ample evidence that one of the great unwritten Hollywood biographies is that of Feldman.

The Hollywood motion picture studios have proved highly variable in their accessibility
and their cooperation with scholarly inquiry into Hawks’s filming activities. Full information on the director’s abundant work at Warner Bros. is available at the Doheny Library at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Leith Adams, who admirably oversaw the collection for years, is now at Warners, and the material is presently under the knowledgeable purview of Ned Comstock,
as is some archival material from the old Fox Film Corporation and 20th Century– Fox, as well as Universal. The late Peter Knecht generously permitted further access to corporate and legal files at Warner Bros.

The late John Hall opened wide the RKO Pictures files before they were deposited with Special Collections at the University of California, Los Angeles. At UCLA, Brigitte Kueppers meticulously
oversees the holdings donated by Fox, which were vital in connection with Hawks’s silent career. Samuel Goldwyn Jr. was exceedingly generous in arranging special access to his father’s massive collection, which provided a full account of Hawks’s work for Goldwyn.

Gaining access to Columbia Pictures files, now that the company is owned by Sony, is not a simple matter for scholars, but Su Lesser
and longtime archivist Dennis Wilson proved extraordinarily helpful in permitting a look at the invaluable records pertaining to Hawks’s significant work at Columbia. Sherry Lansing, Howard W. Koch, and A. C. Lyles similarly were of great assistance in securing information regarding Hawks’s work at Paramount Pictures, but even they could not turn up records from the studio’s early years, which have
apparently been destroyed.

With the exception of the limited amount of material on file at USC, Universal remains as impenetrable to the film scholar as the image of its famous Black Tower would suggest, and the records of MGM are now, for all intents and purposes, off-limits by policy of the owner of its library, Ted Turner.

The archives of United Artists, especially helpful in regard to
Red
River
, are maintained at the Wisconsin State Historical Society in Madison. The Howard Hughes Collection at the Texas State Archives in Austin provided unexpected insight into the long relationship between Hughes and Hawks, although the production, story, and legal files of Hughes’s motion picture operation, the Caddo Company, remain buried somewhere within the inaccessible Hughes empire. The
reporting of
Variety
over the decades provides an unmatched source of information on the ebb and flow of the film business, as well as of increasingly precise information on the commercial fortunes of individual pictures. Wherever possible, however, budget and box-office figures have been drawn from internal studio records. Many other trade journals, especially more obscure ones from the industry’s
early days, have been consulted as well, notably
Motion Picture News, Kinematograph Weekly
, and
Bioscope
.

Also important was the Archives Department of Los Angeles District Court, where microfilm copies can be found of all the many lawsuits in which Hawks played a part.
Censorship-related correspondence from the Motion Picture Association of America is on file at the Margaret Herrick Library
of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills.

I would like to greatly thank Hawks’s two eldest children, David Hawks and Barbara Hawks McCampell, who, with their respective spouses Ginger and Donald, opened their homes to me on numerous occasions and generously answered any and all questions I posed to them. Gregg Hawks and his wife, Penny, also had me to their home and
guided me through several fascinating scrapbooks of old clippings and personal and professional photographs.

Many dozens of individuals who knew Hawks and/or worked with him were interviewed for this book. I conducted most of them myself, but several additional interviews were done by Ari Bass, Jonathan Benair, Joan Cohen, Philip Kemp, Kevin Macdonald, and Stephen O’Shea, and I thank them very
much for their outstanding help.

By the late 1990s, those with firsthand knowledge of Hollywood’s silent era and the golden age of filmmaking are members of an increasingly rare breed. The same project begun today would be impossible to duplicate in its present form simply because so many of the participants have passed away. Among those no longer with us who were particularly helpful were Meta
Carpenter Wilde, Hawks’s on-and-off secretary and scriptgirl and the epitome of Southern hospitality and graciousness, and Allan Dwan, whose early friendship and collaboration with Hawks provided unique insights into both Howard and Kenneth Hawks. Others now departed who gave interviews or were helpful in other ways were Max Bercutt, Pandro S. Berman, Rafe Blasi, Niven Busch, Stuart Byron, Frank
Capra, Hoagy Carmichael, William Clothier, J. J. Cohen, Marcel Dalio, Carl Foreman, John Houseman, Noël Howard, John Huston, Don Hutter, Alfred S. Keller, John Kobal, Hans Koenekamp, Sheldon Leonard, May McAvoy, John Lee Mahin, Sam Marx, Gerald Mast, Earl Miller, Christian Nyby, L. W. O’Connell, Michael Powell, George Raft, Ella Raines, Wells Root, John Russell, Dan Seymour, Alexandre Trauner, Francois
Truffaut, King Vidor, and Joseph Walker.

I also want to thank the following people for their important contributions to my work: Mark Adams of the British Film Institute, Norman Alden, Georg Alexander, Army Archerd, Lauren Bacall, Mary Lea Bandy at the Museum of Modern Art, Jeanine Basinger, Hercules Belville, Edward L. Bernds, Barbara Bione, Gerard Blain, Harold Jack Bloom, Peter Bogdanovich,
Budd Boetticher, Ken Bowser, Bud Brill, Meredith Brody, Pat H. Broeske, Josh Bryant, Red Buttons, Paul Byrnes, Harry Carey Jr., Al Clark, Robert Cornthwaite, Johnny Crawford, Constance Cummings, Sondra Currie, Jon Davison, Edouard L. Desrochers at Phillips Exeter Academy, Bill Dewhurst, Angie Dickinson, Robert Donner, Clint Eastwood, David Ehrenstein, Bernard Eisenschitz, Ken Eisner, Derek Elley,
Patricia Evans, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Rudi Fehr, Michael Fisher, Sally Fleming, Charles Flynn, William Friedkin, Sam and Christa Fuller, Jack Friend, Michael Friend at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Doug Galloway, Sam Gill at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Bob Gitt, Arnold Glassman, Celise Goldman
at the Directors Guild of America, Gary Graver, Jane Greer,
Lawrence Grobel, Curtis Harrington, Virginia Hawks, Paul Helmick, Mark Horowitz, Jean Howard, Keline Howard, Joe Hyams, Sam Jaffe, Paula Jalfond, Peter Jason, Martin Jurow, Greg Kachel, Richard Keinen, Bruce Kessler, Leonid Kinsky, George Kirgo, Leonard Klady, Erle Krasna, Bill Krohn, Miles Krueger, Edward Lasker, Larry Lasker, Emanuel Levy, Lorraine LoBianco, Serge Losique, Glenn Lovell, Tom Luddy,
Don McGlynn, Leonard Maltin, Pat Marlowe, Andy Marx, Arthur Marx, Dick May, Virginia Mayo, Myron Meisel, Robin Mencken, Clive Miller, Robert Mitchum, Dick Moore, D’Arcy O’Brien, Jeannie Olander, Pierre Rissient, Jonathan Rosenbaum, Jane Russell, Gary Salt, Andrew Sarris, Velvet Sheckler, Pierre Schoendorffer, Ben Schwartz, David Schwartz of the Museum of the Moving Image, William Self, David Shepard,
Eric Sherman, Vincent Sherman, Lorrie Sherwood, George Sidney, Tony Slide, Dennis Sullivan, Jeffrey Sweet, Bertrand Tavernier, Elaine Thielstrom, David Thompson, Ken Tobey, Andre de Toth, Leonardo Garcia Tsao, Valentin de Vargas, Gwen Verdon, Catherine Verret, Juanita Walker, Cissy Wellman, Chance de Widstedt, Arthur Wilde, Billy Wilder, John Woodcock, Adrian Wootten of the British Film Institute,
Fay Wray, Deborah Young, and the staff of the Polytechnic School in Pasadena.

Several people have provided a combination of long-term support and prodding, and I especially thank Florence Dauman, Charles Higham, David Thomson, Patrick McGilligan, and Luc Nemeth on this score. Michael Hamilberg was an early believer and was of great assistance in the early stages of the project.

Sustained encouragement
and confidence also came from my parents, Daniel and Barbara McCarthy. My sister Kerry McCarthy Stilwell and her husband Richard Stilwell provided me with a place to work in their home in Virginia during a crucial period, and my wife’s parents, Burton and Barbara Alpert, generously made available their home in Santa Fe for a long period of sustained writing.

My editor at
Variety
, Peter Bart,
was incredibly understanding, as perhaps only another author can be, of the demands of writing a book, and I thank him for giving me such tremendous latitude at the paper during my stretches of intensive work.

My agent Harvey Klinger applied the cattle prod with an acute sense of timing; Bonnie Thompson was an exacting and exemplary copy editor; and Grove Press’s Amy Hundley attended to countless
details, large and small, with unfailing scrupulousness. I am deeply indebted to my editor, James Moser. How Jim forged his unique combination of patience, tact, enthusiasm, intelligence, and good humor I may never know, but they were all essential in seeing me through the job to completion.

I will never be able to properly thank my wife, Sasha Alpert, for being so exceedingly tolerant of the
demanding rival for my attention that this book has represented, and I hope that our daughter, Madeleine, will excuse her father’s bringing up another baby during the first two years of her life.

Robert Capa’s view of Hawks’s mythomania was related by Noël Howard.

Hawks’s unusual ability to manipulate the big studio bosses was especially stressed to the author by the former Famous Artists agent Martin Jurow.

Truffaut made his remark about Hawks’s intelligence and intellectual qualities in numerous interviews, as well as repeatedly in conversation
with the author.

Molly Haskell’s quote comes from her entry on Hawks in
Cinema: A Critical Dictionary
, volume 1, edited by Richard Roud.

Paul Helmick’s remark was made in conversation with the author.

Much background information on the Hawks family and local Indiana history comes from the following sources: Virginia Hawks, the widow of John Hawks, the only surviving member of the
Hawks family in Goshen; “History of Waterford,” by Harriet Yoder, English Department, Goshen College, January 1934; Elkhart County, Indiana, Index of Names of Persons and of Firms, compiled by the Works Progress Administration of Indiana, Work Project No. 6-20205, volume 1, sponsored by the Indiana State Library, Indianapolis, 1939;
Pioneer History of Elkhart County, Indiana, with Sketches and
Stories
, by Henry S. K. Bartholomew, President, Elkhart County Historical Society, Goshen Printery, 1930.
A Twentieth Century History and Biographical Record of Elkhart County, Indiana
, edited by Anthony Deahl, Chicago and New York, Lewis Publishing Co., 1905;
A Standard History of Elkhart County Indiana
, under the editorial supervision of Abraham E. Weaver, 2 vols., Chicago and New York, American
Historical Society, 1916; Violett Cemetery, Waterford, Indiana;
Index to Marriage Records Elkhart County, Indiana 1850–1920 Inclusive
, vol. 2, Letters F–K, compiled by Indiana Public Works Administration, 1940; Archives of the
News-Times
, Goshen;
News-Times Goshen City Directory
,1912;
Goshen City Directory
, 1885–86;
Moore’s Standard Directory of Goshen,
Indiana, 1908–09; Manual of Goshen
, Butler
& Knox, 1889;
Goshen Sesquicentennial Edition, 1831–1981
, Goshen, News Printing Co.;
History of Neenah
, by G. A. Cunningham, Gazette Printing Establishment, 1878, reprinted by Neenah Historical Society, 1948;
Factories in the Valley—Neenah-Menasha, 1870–1915
, by Charles N. Glaab and Lawrence H. Larsen, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1969;
A History of Neenah
, compiled by S. F. Shattuck,
in collaboration with the Neenah Historical Society, Neenah, Wisconsin, published privately, 1958;
History of the Fox River Valley, Lake Winnebago and the Green Bay Region
, vols. 1–3, edited by Hon. William A. Titus, Chicago, S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1930;
Family Letters: A Personal Selection from Theda Clark’s Life
, edited by Suzanne Hart O’Regan, Neenah, Wisconsin, Palmer Publications, 1983;
Ghosts in Sunlight: A Remembrance of Things Past
, by Suzanne Hart O’Regan, Neenah, Wisconsin, Neenah Historical Society, 1985;
Bunn’s Winnebago County Directory
, John V. Bunn, publisher, Oshkosh, Globe Printing Co., September 1, 1900;
Bunn’s Directory of Winnebago County
, John V. Bunn, publisher, Oshkosh, Globe Printing Co., June 15, 1905;
Dictionary of Wisconsin Biography
, Madison, State Historical
Society of Wisconsin, 1960; Hall of Records, Oshkosh, Winnebago County, Wisconsin; Edward Sherry Papers, State Historical Society, Madison, Wisconsin; Neenah Historical Society.