Is It Really True?

One of the attractive things about being a movie fan is that, on screen, our heroes never die and they do nothing wrong. After all, in Hollywood everything is make-believe. But offscreen, movie people are like us. But is everything we read about them true?

If you're like me, you love the history of Hollywood and the motion picture industry. But the more I read, the more things I read that seem to be, at best, unlikely or, at worst, that I know to be untrue and its pretty much always negative. It's one thing to write that an actor played a particular role seven times when it was actually twice or a certain movie was released a year later than it really was or an actress won an oscar when they were only nominated. That's just laziness on the part of the author. Repeating salacious stories is something else. If you believe everything you read, it seems that everybody who has ever worked in Hollywood is homosexual or bisexual, has a drug addiction, is a raging alcoholic or all of the above and more. Those things were never discussed during the golden age. The studios had publicity departments that made sure their stars had a positive reputation. They knew that damaged merchandise didn't sell tickets. Nowadays, that safeguard is gone but, paradoxically, it is no longer needed as there is no stigma for poor personal behavior on the part of celebrities. It's as if boorishness is expected and attractive.

For example, I recently read, for the first time ever, that Steve McQueen was a closeted homosexual whose death was due to AIDS. True or not? Personally, I choose not to believe, chiefly because that source is the only one I've seen to state that. I also don't believe that Clara Bow sexually serviced the entire USC football team or that Fatty Arbuckle sodomized Virginia Rappe with a bottle. While such stories make for sensational reading, buyer beware. Truth is in the mind of the beholder and lies become the truth only if you want them to be.
 

Meet The Baron (1933)

Meet The Baron was a feature-length comedy made by MGM in 1933 and was recently brought to us by my heroes at TCM. It's a laugh riot from beginning to end (with a couple of musical numbers from the "Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Girls" thrown in). The lead actor was Jack Pearl, who popularized a character named Baron Munchausen (kind of a German version of Jimmy Durante) on radio. As the movie opens, Pearl and Durante are servants to adventurer Baron Munchausen and they are lost in the african jungle. The Baron abandons his servants in a dispute over a dwindling water supply, a search party finds the servants the next day, Durante tells them that Pearl is the Baron, and we're off to hilarity. Pearl has great scenes with radio interviewer Ben Bard, school headmistress Edna May Oliver, and maid Zasu Pitts. The movie also features Ted Healy and his Stooges in the second of their six movies made for MGM from 1933-34. An interesting side note is that the youngest Howard brother is billed as Jerry in the opening credits but is addressed as Curly in the movie. Within three years Healy would be dead and the Stooges would be well into their near quarter century run at Columbia. When he heard the news of Healy's death, Moe Howard cried. The movie concludes on a happy note with Pitts agreeing to marry Pearl. Once again, TCM has hit a home run by bringing us this classic.

In an unrelated event, today I picked up an interesting bit of memorabilia when I found an autographed copy of Garson Kanin's book Hollywood at a used bookstore. The inscription reads "Garson Kanin Pasadena 1974." The book looks like it will be interesting reading as well.