Mark Griffin (65 page)

According to city directories, Lester Minnelli was still residing with his parents in Ohio as of 1922. He most likely moved to Chicago the following year.

Aunt Amy’s baptismal name was Marie Levina Le Beau.

Misidentified in Minnelli’s memoir and other sources as “Mr. Frazier.”

Although Minnelli’s enrollment at the Art Institute was short lived, his attendance would contradict later newspaper reports that insisted that “he never had an art lesson in his life.”

One of Stone’s subjects in later years was future Hollywood adonis Steve Reeves, whose god-like physique would earn him the title “Mr. Universe” and starring roles as Hercules in several sword-and-sandal epics.

Ina Claire, who would go on to star in such Hollywood classics as
The Awful Truth
and
Ninotchka
, was Minnelli’s first choice for the role of Aunt Alicia in his Oscar-winning musical
Gigi
. The actress turned down the role.

In later years, Minnelli and Marion Herwood Keyes occasionally corresponded. “I have thought about you many times and it is a joy to hear from you,” Vincente wrote to his former assistant in the early 1970s. Herwood Keyes was also one of dozens of Minnelli colleagues whom writer Joel Siegel interviewed for his exhaustively researched though ultimately aborted biography of the director.

When the
Dunkirk Evening Observer
profiled Minnelli in December 1936, it described Hara as “a soft-slippered, slant-eyed servitor” as well as Vincente’s “best friend and severest critic.” In
The Sewing Circle
, author Axel Madsen makes reference to “the rumors about [Minnelli] and his Japanese valet,” but little is known about Hara, and the suggestions that he was more than just a personal assistant to Minnelli aren’t accompanied by any substantial evidence. (“Valet Critical,”
Dunkirk Evening Observer
, December 31, 1936; Axel Madsen,
The Sewing Circle: Hollywood’s Greatest Secret. Female Stars Who Loved Other Women
[New York: Birch Lane Press, 1995].)

The original title was
Tickets for Two
.

It’s worth noting that despite Minnelli’s all-encompassing credit, Eddie Dowling was responsible for “stage direction,” Edward Clark Lilley is credited with directing the sketches, and Robert Alton handled the choreography.

It was Minnelli who suggested this title for the classic musical, which had originally been saddled with the name
Stepping Toes
.

Artists and Models
was a hit at the box office and even inspired a sequel, 1938’s
Artists and Models Abroad
, which featured Lester Gaba’s high-profile blonde mannequin “Cynthia.”

The musical was originally entitled
In Other Words
, after one of the songs in the show.

Years later, Minnelli became interested in mounting a revue entitled
The Black Follies
, a project that Alan Jay Lerner’s assistant, Stone Widney, proposed to him. The show was envisioned as an all-black Ziegfeld Follies. “We went out and talked to him about that,” remembers Widney. “He said, ‘This is a wonderful idea. . . . You have to go to Chicago and see all the people who are in the jazz scene. It should be big. Extravagant.’ When we came away from the meeting, I said, ‘I think this is going to be a little over budget.’”
The Black Follies
was never produced. (Stone Widney, interview with author.)

It’s been suggested that Minnelli may have been responsible for Horne’s “You’re So Indiff’rent” sequence in 1944’s
Swing Fever
, a wartime musical directed by Tim Whelan.

Russian-born Borros Morros served as the musical director on dozens of Hollywood films, including John Ford’s
Stagecoach
and the same version of
Artists and Models
that Minnelli had contributed to. (Almena Davis, “How ’Bout This?”
Los Angeles Tribune
, October 19, 1942, 9-10.)

Like the Kansas sequences in
Oz
, the original theatrical prints of
Cabin in the Sky
were enhanced by a warm sepia tone, though Minnelli’s musical is rarely, if ever, shown that way. Vincente told interviewer Henry Sheehan that the sepia enhancement was Arthur Freed’s idea.

McQueen’s sequence was no laughing matter to two lieutenants stationed at the Santa Ana Army Air Base. In September 1943, they wrote to Minnelli and expressed their outrage: “We were shocked by the scene in
I Dood It
in which Red Skelton mistakes the idiotic black dog for the negro girl. The slur on the colored people was one of the most vicious we have seen emanate from Hollywood for some time.” Decades later, Minnelli insisted that no racial insensitivity was intended: “I was surprised by such an interpretation. Like my general attitude to the picture, this was the farthest thing from my mind.” The letter to Minnelli, which was dated September 12, 1943, was from Lieutenants “Twinelmann” and “Darby,” stationed at the Santa Ana Army Air Base, and concludes with: “You directors have a personal responsibility to see that not even one scene, even in jest, encourages anti-democratic attitudes.” The letter is contained in the Margaret Herrick Library at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, California.

Although he ultimately shared screen credit with Fred Finklehoffe, Brecher would contend that he was solely responsible for the entire screenplay of
Meet Me in St. Louis
. Brecher’s assertion seems to be borne out by studio records, which reveal that after contributing to a rough continuity outline, Finklehoffe moved on to other assignments while Brecher carried on alone.

“George Folsey told me that he did not shoot ‘The Trolley Song,’” says film historian David Chierichetti. “Folsey was busy setting things up for the ‘Boys and Girls Like You and Me’ number that was cut, so Harold Rosson [who was the cinematographer on
The Wizard of Oz
] shot ‘The Trolley Song.’” (David Chierichetti, interview with author.)

Three sequences that George Sidney directed remain in the release print of
Ziegfeld Follies
, including Virginia O’Brien’s “Bring on Those Wonderful Men,” Red Skelton’s “When Television Comes,” and Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, and Lucille Ball in the eye-popping opener, “Here’s to the Girls.” A number of other sequences—including Fred Astaire’s “If Swing Goes, I Go, Too” and Avon Long serenading Lena Horne with “Liza”—would wind up on the cutting-room floor.

Bert May turns up in several Minnelli movies: In
The Clock
, he is the assistant to the judge who marries Judy Garland and Robert Walker. In
The Band Wagon
, he doubled for Cyd Charisse as “Mr. Big” in “The Girl Hunt Ballet.” The versatile May also appeared with Barbra Streisand and Larry Blyden in “Wait Till We’re Sixty-Five,” an elaborate production number ultimately deleted from the release print of
On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
. (Bert May, interview with author.)

The Clock
was a favorite of composer Stephen Sondheim’s: “I so wanted to make a musical out of it at one point. I persuaded one of the secretaries at MGM to sneak a script out of a vault for me over a weekend so that I could type a copy for myself.” But after writing an opening number, he gave up on the idea. Sondheim’s 1964 Broadway musical
Anyone Can Whistle
appeared to contain a clever homage to Minnelli in the form of the number “Me and My Town,” in which Angela Lansbury’s haughty mayoress meets the press in a manner reminiscent of Judy Garland’s “Interview” in
Ziegfeld Follies
.

Richard Whorf directed the narrative sequences in
Till the Clouds Roll By
. The musical numbers—except for those featuring Judy Garland—were helmed by Robert Alton.

Ironically, it was
Father’s Little Dividend
—one of Minnelli’s least inspired efforts—that won him some long-overdue industry recognition. Minnelli received the Director’s Guild of America Award for helming the comedy, which was also named the Best-Written American Comedy of 1951 by the Writers Guild of America.

In February 1953, Louella Parsons reported that a 3-D version of
Huckleberry Finn
(!) was going into production with Minnelli at the helm and Danny Kaye on board once again, but this version of the project never materialized either. In 1974, Hollywood finally got around to a musical version of
Huckleberry Finn
—this one directed by J. Lee Thompson with a score by Richard and Robert Sherman of
Mary Poppins
fame. “It transforms a great work of fiction into something bland, boring and tasteless,” said the
Illustrated London News
.

R. Monta of MGM’s legal department expressed concern that some of the thinly veiled characters weren’t cloaked quite enough. In an interoffice memo, Monta wondered if the character of George Lorrison—glimpsed only in photographs—resembled John Barrymore too closely. Monta cautioned: “The actor should wear the type of hat entirely unlike any kind of hats Barrymore was known to wear.” (MGM memo, n.d.)

In July 1949, MGM had announced that Minnelli would direct Lana Turner in
A Life of Her Own
. However, by the time the sudsy melodrama went before the cameras, George Cukor was at the helm.

Written for the 1932 musical revue
Clowns in Clover
, “Don’t Blame Me” was apparently a Minnelli favorite. After Peggy King’s performance in
The Bad and the Beautiful
, Minnelli had Leslie Uggams reprise the song in
Two Weeks in Another Town
. Minnelli also requested that Jack Nicholson croon the Dorothy Fields-Jimmy McHugh standard during his audition for
On a Clear Day You Can See Forever
.

In June 1952, Hedda Hopper reported that Fred Astaire, Cyd Charisse, and Nanette Fabray were set to star in Vincente Minnelli’s
Strategy of Love
, which, along with
I Love Louisa
, temporarily served as the title of Comden and Green’s script before it reverted back to
The Band Wagon
.

By the time
The Band Wagon
was in production, Minnelli and Garland were already divorced. (Nanette Fabray, interview with author.)

In their book
Film Noir: An Encyclopedic Reference to the American Style
(New York: Random House, 1984), authors Alain Silver and Elizabeth Ward wrote, “Minnelli asserted himself in an unexpected musical context with ‘The Girl Hunt Ballet,’ which says more about film noir in ten minutes than
Undercurrent
does in two hours.”

To make matters worse, the original one-sheet poster for
The Band Wagon
contained a legendary mix-up. Arthur Freed is credited as the director of the film while Minnelli is listed as the producer.

Regarding authorship, the final screen credit on
The Cobweb
reads: “Screenplay by John Paxton. Additional dialogue by William Gibson, based on the novel by Gibson.”

Letter from Joseph I. Breen to Columbia Pictures Chief Harry Cohn, October 20, 1953. Production Code representative Jack Vizzard met with
Tea and Sympathy
’s stage director, Elia Kazan, and author Robert Anderson to discuss the obstacles involved in transferring the play to film. As Vizzard reported, “We secured from Mr. Kazan a statement that, in his opinion, this play should never be made into a motion picture, and as far as he was concerned it would not be.” (Production Code memo by Jack Vizzard, October 29, 1953 [the meeting with Elia Kazan and Robert Anderson took place on October 28 at the Waldorf-Astoria], from “Hollywood and the Production Code—Primary Source Microfilm Series: Selected Files from the Motion Pictures Association of America Production Code Administration Collection.”)

Letter from Robert Anderson to Vincente Minnelli, June 24, 1956, archived in the Minnelli collection at the Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Beverly Hills, California. Robert Anderson revealed to Mike Wood, “I get letters all of the time from people saying, ‘Wasn’t [Tom Lee] at least bisexual?’ I say, ‘The whole point of the play was a false charge.’ It was the McCarthy period, you know.” (Robert Anderson, interview with Mike Wood, February 22, 1994, William Inge Center for the Arts, available at
http://www.ingecenter.org/interviews/robertandersontext.htm
.)

In 1963, Minnelli was approached about directing a film version of Colette’s
Cheri
, which would have starred Alain Delon and Simone Signoret. The project never got beyond the preliminary discussion stage. In 2009, Michelle Pfeiffer starred in a cooly received widescreen adaptation of
Cheri
. (Richard Schickel,
The Men Who Made the Movies
[New York: Atheneum, 1975].)

Minnelli was a great admirer of Chevalier’s 1932 musical
Love Me Tonight
, directed by Rouben Mamoulian: “I’m only interested in musical stories in which one can achieve a complete integration of dancing, singing, sound and vision,” he wrote. “I would often look at
Love Me Tonight
as it was such a perfect example of how to make a musical.” (John Kobal,
Gotta Sing, Gotta Dance: A History of Movie Musicals
[New York: Exeter Books, 1983].)

Lerner,
The Street Where I Live
. In this memoir, Lerner erroneously credits Marni Nixon as Caron’s voice double. Nixon provided the singing voice for Audrey Hepburn’s Eliza Doolittle in the 1964 film version of
My Fair Lady
, which may account for the confusion. Wand did Caron’s singing in
Gigi
(though that’s Caron herself handling the verse on “The Night They Invented Champagne”). Wand would later dub some of Rita Moreno’s Anita in the 1961 film of
West Side Story
.