Anita Page: Q&A with Allan Ellenberger Part II
Anita Page: Q&A with Author Allan Ellenberger – Part I
Anita Page and Bessie Love play two sisters who try their luck on Broadway — and who, while at it, fall in love with the same man.
Anita Page and Bessie Love played singing-and-dancing sisters in the blockbuster "The Broadway Melody," the first sound film and first musical to win a best picture Academy Award — and only the second film to win that award. What did Page have to say about the making of "The Broadway Melody"?
The major difference with Broadway Melody in the beginning is that the film was intended as a part-talkie. With the coming of sound, actors who had worked in Hollywood for years soon found themselves out on the streets. Studios were sending representatives to New York to hire seasoned stage actors trained in voice.
Whether her voice would make the grade also concerned Anita. Determined to iron out any flaws in her voice, she attended a class at the University of Southern California where she made a test on the school’s new "voice dissector." This clever machine could find small faults in a person’s voice.
Each evening after leaving the studio, Anita attended a two-hour class for voice culture to study pronouncing difficult words. For the first time, she had to memorize lines, which she found came easily to her. At home she would go through the dialogue script with the help of her mother, father, and younger brother.
Because MGM only had one operable soundstage, Broadway Melody shared space with the studio’s first all-talking dramatic film, The Trial of Mary Dugan (1929), starring Norma Shearer. During the morning and early afternoon, the Trial of Mary Dugan company would use the studio, and in the evening, the Broadway Melody cast and crew moved in.
Sometime after 5 p.m., Anita would arrive at the studio and would work into the early morning hours. The rushes of the film so impressed Thalberg that he decided to make it the studio’s first all-sound picture. "Thalberg quickly noticed that something special was being made," Anita recalled, "so he put the picture on higher priority. I remember he visited the set every day; something he never did with other pictures." This created added pressure for director Harry Beaumont.
The change to sound was revolutionary. During filming, all conventional moviemaking techniques were discarded. The camera was soundproofed in its own little room so the microphone could not pick up the whir of the motor. This meant the camera was now stationary and could not move around.
Years later, director Harry Beaumont explained how they overcame this obstacle. "Fortunately, cameraman John Arnold solved the problem by mounting a large soundproofed box on a movable truck, with camera and camera operator inside," Beaumont explained. "The microphones were carried by two men who padded about the set in stocking feet."
Anita remembered several problems because a microphone now dominated the set. "That microphone heard everything," she recalled. "In one scene, I was wearing a taffeta skirt with petticoats, and every time I walked there was a terrible rustling noise on the sound track. So I had to take off the petticoats before we could go ahead with the scene."
In another scene, Anita was filing her nails but the microphones picked up a tapping noise. "We searched all over and couldn’t find it," Anita said. "At last someone noticed that it was me! As I filed my nails I was tapping my foot without even thinking of it. In a silent picture, no one would have noticed."
Even though the change to sound was exciting, Anita preferred working in silents. "In silent pictures, it was all face and expression," she said. "The camera could follow you around, and you had to be able to get yourself over on the screen without talking. Silent pictures were much easier for me. If you didn’t get your lines right, it didn’t make much difference."
The work on Broadway Melody was exhausting. To complicate matters, it was flu season and many of the cast and crew were suffering. Harry Beaumont became ill and directed several scenes from a couch so the production would not fall behind. "At least that picture cured my mike fright," Anita said. "I was so tired and so glad to just be able to keep on my feet that I forgot to be afraid of the mike."
Even though Broadway Melody was a big hit, Anita admitted she wasn’t a big fan of the film at first. "I hated saying things like ‘gee, ain’t it elegant?’" she recalled. "Besides, Broadway Melody was Bessie Love’s picture. Bessie had hopes that she would make quite a bit out of it, spent a lot of time taking dancing lessons, and she gave a beautiful performance. At first I didn’t like it at all, but I do like it now."
Following "Our Dancing Daughters" and "Our Modern Maidens," Joan Crawford went on to become a huge star. Why didn’t the same happen to Anita Page?
Many people have wondered this same thing over the years. In a 1932 issue of Movie Mirror, Harriet Parsons (Louella Parsons‘ daughter) asked, "What’s the Matter with Anita Page?" Parsons speculated why Anita’s career had seemingly stalled and was in the same place as it was just a few years earlier.
"Anita has had four years in which to crash through," Parsons wrote, "yet she never seems quite able to make the grade. A few times, as in Our Dancing Daughters, Broadway Melody, and even in the atrocious War Nurse [1930], she revealed flashes of decided potential ability — but somehow she never seemed to follow through."
Anita’s family was a hindrance to her growth in motion pictures. According to Parsons it was a detriment that her father could continue to take care of her if she no longer had a contract. "Poverty is often an incentive," she wrote.
Anita places much of the blame on her agent at the time, Harvey Pugh, who insisted to [MGM mogul Louis B.] Mayer that she be paid more money after the success of Broadway Melody. Mayer was a man of much power and she had, he thought, stabbed him in the back. He threatened to never help her again — and he didn’t.
The end came shortly before her contract expired in 1933. During a meeting with Anita and her mother, Mayer implied that he would be willing to help her career again if she would be "nice" to him. "What he meant was," Anita recalled, "if I slept with him, he would make me big." When neither responded, Mayer continued.
"I can make you the biggest star on the lot in three pictures; and I can kill [Greta] Garbo’s career just like that," Mayer said, snapping his fingers three times. "Things can be handled discreetly." Horrified, Anita stood up without saying a word and ran from the office, followed by her mother. The subject was never mentioned again.
From that point, Anita’s roles were mere window dressing. After finishing [the Marie Dressler-Polly Moran comedy] Prosperity (1932), the studio loaned her out to [Poverty Row] Monogram Pictures. Anita saw the handwriting on the wall. "Monogram was the last gas station on the way to the desert," Anita recalled. When a studio such as MGM loaned you to a low-rate studio such as Monogram, it meant they no longer had any use for you. Since Anita was still under contract, she had no say in the matter and reported to Monogram to star in Jungle Bride (1933).
Anita made three more films on loan-out before her contract expired. She decided not to have it renewed. "Metro never said they didn’t want me," she recalled. "I decided to move on. I got an offer from Billy Rose to appear on Broadway and on the road in a revival of Crazy Quilts, a show he did a few years earlier."
Few people knew Anita was leaving. That’s the way she wanted it. On her last day at the studio, her mother drove them both out of the studio gate — no parties and no farewells. Twenty-two-year-old Anita Page had been at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for five years.
What was working with Marie Dressler and Polly Moran like? Anita Page had supporting roles in the Dressler-Moran comedies "Caught Short" (1930), "Reducing" (1931), and "Prosperity" (1932).
Prosperity was Anita’s third film with Dressler and Moran [additionally, all three actresses had guest roles in The Hollywood Revue of 1929] and another vehicle where she was used as window dressing. By now, Marie Dressler was getting older and would have less than two years to live. She was forgetting her lines, but was more concerned about her costars. "I’m so sorry," she would say, "I thought maybe Polly was trying to get that line." Through it all, Anita had nothing but admiration for Dressler.
"Marie set the standard for older women who hoped they could make it in the movies," Anita said. "She inspired older women to think, well, Marie Dressler could do it, maybe I can too."
There is a story that Benito Mussolini was infatuated with her. Is that true?
Amazingly it is true. The Italian dictator saw Broadway Melody and declared Anita to be his favorite actress. "He requested Metro to give him a signed picture of me but they wouldn’t do it," Anita said. "When … I made a film at Columbia [Soldiers of the Storm (1933)], the Italian Embassy — after four years of frustrated effort — was able to get a picture."
Also, Anita briefly dated Prince Louis Ferdinand, the second son of Germany’s former Crown Prince. While visiting Hollywood, the prince announced that he wanted to escort Anita to the Los Angeles premiere of the Broadway musical Show Boat. When the official request came, Louis B. Mayer, knowing how protective Anita’s parents were, told the prince’s representatives, "Please, we can get you anyone else. Anyone but Anita Page." Prince Ferdinand would not relent. "I do not want anyone else," he told him.
So Mayer relayed the Prince’s request to Mr. Pomares, whose concern was that the Prince had just ended a well-publicized affair with the French beauty Lili Damita. He was not about to have a scandal involving his daughter. However, after much persuasion and cajoling from Mayer, Mr. Pomares agreed — with one stipulation. "We will allow it," he told Mayer. "Provided the prince comes over to our house and we meet him." The prince agreed and met Anita’s parents before escorting her to that evening’s performance of Show Boat. But the night was not without its mishaps.
"I was wearing a Spanish shawl," Anita recalled, "when Stepin Fetchit happened to be walking in front of me and my fringe caught on one of his buttons. There stood the prince and all his entourage, waiting for me, and here I am entangled with Stepin Fetchit."
The following day Louella Parsons noted in her column how rarely Anita attended public functions. "Anita Page finally got out — but it took a Prince to do it," the gossip columnist wrote. Louella noted that in the audience she spied Mr. and Mrs. Pomares several rows behind her daughter and the prince. She noted that they were there to make sure their daughter arrived home, properly chaperoned. "Anita will never be queen now," Louella added.
Anita Page and the Alternative Film Guide’s André Soares in Page’s living room, 1998.
What did Anita Page do after retiring from films in the early 1930s? How has her life been since?
Anita made her last film under her MGM contract in a loan-out to [Poverty Row studio] Chesterfield in the film, I Have Lived (1933). After leaving the studio, Anita toured with the Broadway play Crazy Quilt, produced by Billy Rose. By this time, Anita was dating composer Nacio Herb Brown, who wrote such hits as "Singin’ in the Rain," "You Are My Lucky Star," and "Pagan Love Song." He also wrote the popular "You Were Meant for Me" from Broadway Melody and dedicated it to her.
Brown had asked Anita to marry him on several occasions, but she had always declined the offer. One evening they were dancing at the Coconut Grove and after several glasses of champagne Brown once again proposed marriage. Possibly influenced by the alcohol, she replied "I might." After a little coaxing, he convinced her and they decided to go to Tijuana.
"I really didn’t want to go," she recalled. "But there wasn’t anybody else I wanted to marry and our families got along so well." They stopped in Manhattan Beach and picked up Anita’s parents who were to witness the ceremony. "My dad was very happy over the whole thing," she recalled. "But mother wasn’t so happy."
All was not rosy from the beginning. Anita refused to live in the same house with Brown until they were married in the Catholic Church — something she kept postponing. After nine months, Anita decided she couldn’t continue the way things were. "I don’t love him and I can’t make myself," she told her mother.
In April of 1935, nine months after saying "I do," Anita had the marriage annulled when she discovered that Brown’s divorce from his previous wife was not final at the time they married. "Herb was wonderful to me and he was charming," Anita would always say, "but it just was not meant to be."
After the break-up from Brown, Marion Davies, one of Anita’s best friends, asked her to stay at [William Randolph Hearst's castle] San Simeon for a few days. "I wound up staying for five months," Anita laughed. "Marion wouldn’t let me go. That’s why I always say never invite me anywhere, ’cause I’ll never leave."
When she returned to Hollywood, she accepted a small role in the film Hitch Hike to Heaven (1936). That would be her last film role until sixty years later, when she appeared in the independent film Sunset After Dark (1996).
In December of 1936, Anita visited the Hotel del Coronado [in San Diego] where she had made The Flying Fleet with Ramon Novarro. One day she went golfing at the Palos Verdes Country Club with her close friend Monroe Owsley, a frequent escort during her Hollywood stay. Invited along that day was Lieutenant Herschel A. House, a young Navy flier on the USS Ranger. The moment she met him, something clicked. "We couldn’t take our eyes off each other from the start," Anita recalled.
"I proposed to her on the 10th hole," House later told friends.
Unfortunately, Owsley was not happy for the couple and regretted introducing them. He also had feelings for Anita and begged her not to marry House. Anita, however, insisted on going through with the wedding. "Well, if he ever mistreats you," he told her, "you let me know."
Herschel married Anita 19 days later, on January 8, 1937, in Yuma, Arizona. The marriage was kept a secret for two months until Anita finished some public appearances in the East. "I’m through with the stage and screen," she told reporters. "Even though news of the marriage is out, we will go through with plans for a second ceremony…"
On March 21, 1937, the couple married again in a religious ceremony on the patio of Anita’s Manhattan Beach home. "He was the handsomest man I ever saw," Anita said.
Less than four months later, Anita’s good friend, actress Jean Harlow, died. There was another death that same day that almost went unnoticed. A small two-paragraph article on the back page reported the death of actor Monroe Owsley, who died in San Francisco of a heart attack.
Over the next 20 years, Anita was a Navy officer’s wife and traveled extensively with her husband. They kept a longtime residence in Washington, D.C., where they attended White House functions and a Presidential Inauguration and Ball.
In the mid-1950s, Herschel, who was now an Admiral, retired because of poor health. They returned to Coronado where they first fell in love and set up residence. Anita became active in local civic and cultural organizations and in 1968 served as social director for the Coronado Community Theater and chairperson of the annual Costume Arts Ball.
Anita lived happily in Coronado until the Admiral’s death in 1991. Shortly afterwards, she suffered a stroke but managed a remarkable recovery. As part of her therapy, Anita returned to her formal limelight, moving back to Los Angeles where she began attending film conventions and making personal appearances.
In 1996, Anita returned to the screen in a costarring role in the independent film Sunset After Dark. In it she played an aging silent film star opposite her friend Randal Malone and former child actress Margaret O’Brien. Since then, she has appeared in small parts in three more low-budget films. "It was marvelous being in front of the camera again after all these years," she asserted.
Anita recently celebrated her 97th birthday (August 4) and had remained active until a few years ago. Recent ill health prevents her from giving interviews or signing autographs, something that she enjoyed doing. In fact, she was very grateful for this "second career."
"I am so honored," she once said. "I sign autographs and the people are so kind. This is one of the most wonderful moments of my career, and to experience it at this time in my life, and at my age, I never would have dreamed."
Glenn Close, made up as the fictitious former silent film star Norma Desmond, and Anita Page, made up as a real former silent film star (or at least real former silent film leading lady) — backstage at a performance of the musical Sunset Boulevard
Photos: Courtesy Allan Ellenberger
Anita Page: Q&A with Author Allan Ellenberger
Q&A with NOW PLAYING Author Anthony Slide
Gay Kiss Clips: Q&A with Montage Creator Robert Eldredge
Barbara Payton: Q&A with Biographer John O’Dowd
Joan Crawford: Q&A with Neil Maciejewski
Claudette Colbert: Q&A with Author James Robert Parish
Miriam Hopkins Biography in the Works
Hedy Lamarr: Q&A with Biographer Patrick Agan
Ann Sheridan: Q&A with Biographer Ray Hagen
Ann Sheridan: Warner Bros. Star of the 1940s
Comments
9 Responses to “Anita Page: Q&A with Allan Ellenberger Part II”
Leave a Reply
NOTE:
All comments are moderated and may take some time before they are posted. Different views and opinions are welcome, but courtesy is imperative. Rude/crass/bigoted comments and name-calling of any sort will be immediately deleted.
Also, please be aware that the Alternative Film Guide has no contact information for the talent mentioned in this blog and no information pertaining to or access to distributors'/producers' film prints.
This was a wonderful article. I would like to point out however, that as of very late July 2007, Anita Page was still signing autographs as she did for me. I also know people whom she still currently signs for with regularity.
I must say how much I enjoyed this article.
It’s really incredible that a star from the
silent/early talkie era is still with us, and
occasionally still making movies! I’ve had an
interest in actresses from the 1920’s-1950’s
for many years. I am a bit confused however,that in the article it is stated that Anita never
became a big star. Several other sources state
that Anita Page was one of the most in demand and
sought after actresses by both industry and the
public, to the extent her fanmail was second
in volume only to Garbo! Surely that makes her
a major star? Also she was at the height of
her popularity when she decided to quit the
business. Perhaps another reader could offer
some insight/opinion on this matter.
David,
Thank you for writing.
I’ve seen those other articles claiming that Anita Page’s mail was second only to Garbo’s. That means a couple of things:
1 – Studio publicists apparently did a pretty good job.
2 – Writers usually don’t bother doing their own research. They just copy what someone else has written, no matter how unreliable the source.
True, I haven’t counted the amount of fan mail Anita Page received in the late 1920s, but during my research for the Ramon Novarro book I wrote I saw how studio publicity — and MGM was a master at that — distorted reality so as to make a performer bigger, more popular, better paid than was the case in reality.
If Anita Page had been that popular with the public, MGM would have starred her in her own vehicle. That never happened.
Also, when Anita Page finally gave up on Hollywood she had been playing second banana to MGM’s leading men (and leading ladies) for several years, and later on had been relegated to work at some of the lowest-of-the-low Poverty Row studios — e.g., Chesterfield, Chadwick/Monogram.
Stories claiming she left Hollywood at the height of her fame are blatantly false.
Hi Andre,
Thanks for offering your insight in regards to
my questions about Anita’s career.
I guess no amount of publicity
such as photos, mag covers, etc is necessarily
an accurate indication as to how popular a performer is.
I wonder if Anita knew my other favourites from
the late 20’s – Fay Wray, and Mary Brian?
It’s certainly strange how some performers become
huge, and others like Anita (also Gloria Stuart,
Rochelle Hudson, Frances Drake) seem to have
both looks and talent, but don’t quite get there!
I suppose there were just so many talented
performers in those days that some just didn’t
have the combination of luck and breaks that they
deserved!!
Hi again Andre,
I forgot to mention in my previous comment
that I enjoyed your book on Ramon Novarro
very much, as he is my favourite silent actor.
I also think biographies on Barbara La Marr
and Nita Naldi are also long over due! A book
on the life of Barbara would make particularly
interesting reading. Do you know if the adopted
son she gave to Sasu Pitts is still living, as
I’ve read he is very keen to keep Barbara’s memory
alive.
What an incredible article! I have been a fan of early talkies, and silent films since I was a kid. Now, at the age of 50 in the year 2008, I never expected to read such fascinating info from someone who, I expect, still has contact with the legendary Anita Page. Is there any possibility of you filming an interview with Anita? If even a simple face to face interview could be filmed it would be wonderful to see it played on TV just prior to televising her movies. Maybe if you allowed Anita control over editing/final cut, she would approve? These great actors who have survived must be captured on film. Their memories must be cherished eternally.
Richard,
Thank you for writing. I’m glad you enjoyed the article.
Anita Page has had some serious health problems in the last 10-15 years. I don’t believe she’d be able to be interviewed at this stage.
She has, however, been interviewed before for television. Perhaps a Google search will yield some results.
I think it is a shame that some mention/honor wasn’t given to Anita at this year’s Oscars since she attended the very first Oscars in 1929.
i have met anita page once back in 1993/94 and she signed an autograph for me, she was so Cuuuutte~ now near 100 she is fabulous-thanks