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Hollywood Cats
ISBN: 978-1-85149-678-5
9
781851 496785
54500 ÂŁ25.00 / $45.00
Hollywood Cats
Photographs from the John Kobal Foundation
Introduction by Gareth Abbott
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Hollywood Cats Photographs from the John Kobal Foundation
Edited by Gareth Abbott
ACC EDITIONS
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Introduction Gareth Abbott
Pepper the cat, 1912
When a tiny grey cat emerged from underneath a stage at Mack Sennett’s Keystone Studios in 1912, who would have guessed that a star to rival some of the great names of the silent era had just been discovered? Stories of chance encounters and fortuitous meetings are legion in Hollywood and have provided scriptwriters with precious material since the first singlereel film was in the can. Yet it was an example of life imitating art that captured the imagination of a film-loving world and thrust a young kitten into the Hollywood spotlight. Pepper, as she was to be christened by Sennett, may have been the first but was by no means to be the last feline artist to earn the respect, admiration and love of both studio executives and audiences alike. Perhaps we should not be surprised that Sennett’s instinct was to carry on filming when he first saw this young kitten appear. Regarded as the greatest innovator of slapstick comedy in film, intuition must have told him that Pepper had a star quality that would not only leave a mark on audiences of the day, but would also secure her a place far above the mere footnotes of any cinematic history that attempts to analyse what made the Hollywood film industry so successful in the first decades of the twentieth century. Sennett famously was often as silent as his films when pushed by the press to comment on his own work. Yet when it came to 4
talking about his animals, he could be vocal. In 1919 he released Rip and Stitch: Taylors – when asked for his opinion of the film he neglected to mention any of its human stars and went on to single out Pepper as the real reason he imagined the film would achieve success. She was, he said, “the most remarkable animal ever seen on screen”. There were an impressive number of animal stars in the silent era. Not just cats but also dogs, lions, monkeys, elephants, parrots, horses and any number of other species that could find a part to play in the dozens of short films that were produced every month. Pepper could lick cream off her paws on command and play checkers, but then Teddy the Great Dane could drive a train, and Josephine the monkey could play pool and golf. With studio contracts and the potential to earn sums equal to those of their human co-stars, it was no wonder that animals (and their trainers) were ever present. Cats, however, had something of a unique place within this menagerie. Hollywood was born out of wilderness. It was the desert of California that provided the footprint on which the early soundstages and studio offices were built. It was the natural habitat of strays and when the studios were built they became the playground of these homeless interlopers. Perhaps surprisingly, they were more than tolerated, in-fact they were welcomed. Hundreds of kittens must have been born over the years – some, like the young cat that sits on Marlon Brando’s knee in a famous scene from The Godfather, found themselves a place in cinema history, but most simply lived out their lives within the confines of the studio lots untroubled by dreams of stardom. The following pages contain a multitude of images of stars with cats that lived on studio property. Elizabeth Taylor, Ava Gardner, Lilli Palmer, Arlene Dahl and Cary Grant are all photographed with nameless cats who roamed both on and off set with no fear of eviction. Feeding stations were dotted around the properties and we are lucky enough to know (thanks to the surviving press releases that accompanied many of the images in this book), that strong bonds were often formed between the cats, the stars and the studio staff. In 1929 Maurice Chevalier arrived in Hollywood from France and was promptly photographed with Puzzums. It had become obvious by now that owners and trainers of cats could experience the vicarious thrill of Hollywood through their pets. Nadine Dennis had grown up, like any number of young girls, with a dream to become a star of the screen. A truly successful career in front of the cameras eluded her, but when in October
Orangey playing Rhubarb alongside actor Gene Lockhart, 1951
1926 she came across a small stray kitten outside her bedroom window, she had unconsciously discovered a barely imaginable route into the world of which she had dreamed for so long. Puzzums possessed many of the qualities required from a cat in order to be successful on screen. Besides being able to cross his eyes on command, he could stay focused for long periods of time, had a relaxed demeanour and an ability to get along with not only strangers but other animals too. These were the qualities that got him noticed when Dennis acted on impulse one day and made the trip out to the Sennett Studio. She was immediately offered a contract for Puzzums worth $50 for the first week, rising to $250 a week by the end of the three-year term. The days when Puzzums and his surrogate mother, a Persian named Ko-Fan, used to accompany Dennis on her rounds of the studios whilst she looked for bit parts in inconsequential productions were over. The two cats that used to sit patiently on
the sidelines waiting for her to finish filming now became used to a very different lifestyle. So rich were the rewards that, by the early 1930s, Dennis had given up all intention of striving for stardom herself. The fan magazines of the day were full of their story. With an insatiable appetite for news of their favourite stars, editors and publishers were only too pleased to feed a film-loving public with photographs of their favourite feline artists. Long and elaborate features were written and mock interviews given professing to represent the true feelings of the animal. It was not unusual to read articles written in the first person in which the cat discussed, in the manner of an autobiography, his or her rise to stardom, what they enjoyed most about working in the industry and their feelings about their co-stars. The readers lapped it up and it is not difficult to imagine articles being glued into scrapbooks and stuck onto bedroom walls. Pepper’s and Puzzums’ screen work would undoubtedly 5
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have been recognised by Hollywood had there been an award to acknowledge the contribution they made to film. Alas, they were born too early and died too young to live in the era of the PATSY award. An acronym for Picture Animal Top Star of the Year, the award was conceived in 1939 by the American Humane Association following the death of a horse on the set of 20th Century Fox’s Jesse James. For some undetermined reason the first actual PATSY was not awarded until 1951 (when it went to a mule) and we had to wait until the following year for a cat to take the top honour. Then the lucky cat was Orangey, who starred as Rhubarb in the title role of the eponymous film. Orangey is the only cat to have won the top PATSY award twice. His second was for his role as Holly Golightly’s ‘Cat’ in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. It was undoubtedly the pinnacle of his career, but the feeling that this red tabby was tolerated for his talents rather than genuinely liked by either his co-stars or the studio crews is difficult to escape. Branded as the ‘World’s meanest cat’ by one studio executive, he displayed remarkable patience in front of the camera and took direction well, but once filming ended he turned into a spitting and scratching tiger. His trainer, Frank Inn, even took to posting guard dogs at exits to prevent Orangey from fleeing and shutting down production until he could be found again. The irony of the PATSY awards are, of course, that the beast who pads away with the prize on the night may not have been the real star of the show at all. Orangey may wear the crown but no less that fourteen cats were used to portray Rhubarb during filming, each one of them trained to perform a different trick. When Syn won his PATSY in 1966 for his portrayal of DC in That Darn Cat, he was one of countless look-alike Seal Point Siamese cats that appeared in the film, and when Jackie the lion took the first of his two awards for his role in Fearless Fagan, it went unmentioned that Fagan had actually played himself for the majority of the film. Jackie was merely a stand-in who was used to film certain sequences that were beyond Fagan; whilst tame, the latter was not as well trained as the famous MGM lion. The art of training cats for the cinema was not for the impatient – it was at times painstakingly laborious. Whilst some cats were expected to do little more than appear comfortable in whatever surroundings they were placed, others were required to perform tricks. Whitey had an array of impressive skills that, by 1935, had earned him a contract with RKO worth $125 a week. Yes, he was happy to lounge quietly in a chair or on the floor as he did in Alice In Wonderland, Village Tale and Chasing Yesterday, but he was also able wash his face on command (as he did in Universal’s 1933 production of The Invisible Man), as well as lie down and play dead, hang limply over an arm, climb to the top of a ladder and curl his paws under his body to paint a picture of contentment. Each of these tricks took over two months of training on a daily basis to perfect, and were fine-tuned by Whitey’s trainer Henry East, aided by the knowledge that this particular feline thespian would have given up eight of his nine lives for a spoonful of icecream. 6
The Black Cat, 1941
Whitey was only the second cat in Hollywood to have a permanent stand-in (the first was Puzzums). When Betty Grable was photographed with Whitey in 1935 outside an RKO soundstage you can be certain that his double would not have been far away undertaking the menial tasks that couldn’t possibly be expected of a true star. Like his human counterparts, Whitey declined to tire himself out posing for long periods whilst the camera and lights were being arranged in readiness for shooting. Often he refused to leave his paw-print on the publicity photographs that were requested by the sackful by adoring fans, and he certainly never allowed himself to be chased by a dog when the script demanded it. All of these duties had the appearance of being a burden and were left to an impersonator. In some ways, film has proved itself to be no different to any medium that concerns itself with the art of storytelling. At the behest of scriptwriters and directors it constructs scenes and scenarios using an archive of cultural symbols that reflect the current order of things. It may seem far-fetched, but the truth is that cats were often selected for roles with all of the care that a director and producer would reserve for casting a human in a lead role. Henry East, for example, kept up to thirty cats on his five-acre ranch outside Hollywood and could provide a comprehensive variety of breeds according to the needs of the script. Siamese cats were used for exotic sets, Manx for oriental films, Persians for wealthy homes, black cats for horror films and plain alley cats when a stray was required. Black cats have been blamed throughout history for all
manner of disorder and turmoil, and whilst the idea of the cat as the witch’s familiar has its origins in Britain, Hollywood was not indifferent to casting a cat that could truly get lost in the shadows as a symbol of fear and loathing. In 1934 Universal released The Black Cat. Starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, it was an early example of the satanic cult film. The film alludes to Edgar Allen Poe’s classic horror tale of the same name without actually referring to anything in it other than the black cats that appear occasionally to strike fear into Lugosi’s character. As with so many films that preceded it, and those that followed, the title alone can be seen as a nod to the weight of the symbolism that resides with this particular beast. Hollywood Cats, however, is not just a record of those feline friends that found themselves in front of a movie camera – it also provides a glimpse of the stars with some of their adored pets. For every Pepper or Puzzums, there was a Joan and a Jinx, beloved companions of Dolores del Rio and Eartha Kitt respectively. Marian Marsh had Precious, Jean Harlow had His Royal Highness and James Mason was so devoted to his cats that in 1949 he and his wife Pamela co-authored and illustrated the book The Cats in Our Lives. Told through amusing and sometimes touching anecdotes, it was, as the title suggests, a tribute to all of the cats the actor had known and loved. In the minds of the adoring public it was often difficult to separate the star from the cat, so frequently were certain celebrities photographed with their pets. Vivien Leigh’s house was overrun with cats (at one point she lived with sixteen) and she was so regularly snapped with certain members of her ‘family’ that they became almost as well known as she was. Kim Novak bonded so completely with the Siamese star of Bell Book and Candle, named Pyewacket (another winner of the PATSY award), that she adopted the cat and they seemingly spent a large part of the next few years being photographed together. The choice of a Siamese cat to play Pyewacket was an interesting one. It was a departure from the traditional use of a black cat in the role as a witch’s companion and is an early example of Hollywood feeding directly into a contemporary trend. By the1950s the choice of pedigreed cats in America was typically limited to only six: Abyssinian, Burmese, Manx, Persian, Siamese and Domestic Shorthair. All were popular but none were coveted as much as the Siamese. The following pages bear witness to the popularity of the breed – its association with royalty as much as its nature helped to make it the most photographed of cats in Hollywood at the time. All of this was in spite of a film industry that was, at times, happy to reflect an anti-Asian prejudice associated with World War II and Korean War propaganda, via the casting of the breed as sneaky, treacherous and sly. Walt Disney was particularly culpable of this when ‘casting’ the two troublesome Siamese cats in his animated yarn The Lady and the Tramp. Not all of the cats in the book are known – some are nameless props of no distinct breed or origin, often brought in by publicists and photographers to humanise the stars or present a softer side of a contract player hitherto unrecognised by the film-going public. Hired from one of the numerous animal
trainers for the day, or even an hour or two, they were a part of the machinery that churned out countless images for the myriad of publications that demanded both original and charming material. In digging deep into the extraordinary trove that is the John Kobal Foundation Archive for the images that are included in this book, one thing gradually became obvious – the overwhelming number of photographs in Hollywood Cats were going to be of women (interestingly this is in contrast to Hollywood Dogs, the companion volume to this book). Whilst the archive is made up of an incalculable number of original negatives and prints, as well as interviews with photographers and other material that may have shone a light on this particular peculiarity, it did not offer up any concrete evidence as to why this would be so. It simply appears, either by choice or by direction, that whilst men were happy to be photographed with dogs and other animals, the majority of male stars were not happily coupled with cats. Whilst the overwhelming focus of Hollywood Cats is on the type of creature that we might be happy to let lounge around our homes and clear our yards of mice, it is impossible not to mention the role that their larger relatives played in the history of Hollywood. Lions, tigers, leopards, cheetahs, and jaguars were attractive to filmmakers as a practical means of creating a very real spectacle. Lions had become so popular in slapstick comedies that by the mid-1920s specialised farms sprung up in neighbourhoods close to the studios. The most famous of these were Goebel’s Lion Farm and Gay’s Lion Farm, the latter of which had over 200 lions on it premises at the height of the mania for these animals. Besides grasping every possible photo opportunity with these ‘wild’ animals, every star of the era was cast alongside a lion or a tiger at some point. Indeed, they had become so prevalent that they were subject of a 1923 Hollywood spoof entitled The Extra Girl – the story of an aspiring actress, played by Mabel Normand, who encountered unimaginable numbers of the animals when hanging around a movie set. The attraction of these big cats faded with time and by the 1940s most of the farms were closed. Animal rights activists played a part, but largely it was down to the simple fact that there were only so many films that could be made with these supposedly wild animals – the audiences craved something more sophisticated than yet another lion tale. The first true feline star of the screen simply disappeared one day following the death of her greatest friend, Teddy the dog. Mack Sennett issued a press release expressing his gratitude to his friend Pepper and added in true Hollywood style ‘at least she retired at the top’. Despite her passing, and that of every other cat in the following pages, one constant remained – in whatever capacity, cats continued to play an important role in the life of Hollywood. There is a saying that you never really own a cat, rather the cat owns you. If that really is the case then we should be grateful that they allowed themselves to be photographed at all, for they are just as much the stars of the show as their generally better known human counterparts. 7
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Chorus Line, MGM, 1941
Emerging from a giant oyster with a pearl at her feet and a white Persian on her lap, this was one of the members of the chorus line to feature alongside Lana Turner, Hedy Lamarr and Judy Garland as three aspiring artists seeking fame as one of Broadway’s Ziegfeld Girls. Directed and choreographed by Busby Berkeley, the musical numbers are still amongst some of Hollywood’s most famous routines.
Sophia Loren, c.1961
With a string of credits already to her name, the Italian actress arrived in Hollywood in 1957 and was cast in roles opposite the likes of Cary Grant, Marlon Brando, Gregory Peck, Paul Newman and Charlton Heston
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Anita Ekberg, Universal International Pictures, c.1952 Following her victory in Miss Sweden 1950, Ekberg travelled to the United States to compete for the Miss Universe title. Although she did not win, as one of six finalists, she did earn a contract with UIP. Ekberg is photographed here in an early publicity shot with a kitten perched on her shoulder
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Maurice Chevalier, Paramount Pictures, 1929
Wearing bow ties and matching hats, Chevalier and Puzzums pose together in the year the French actor appeared in his first Hollywood movie. Puzzums worked freelance most of the time and in his heyday earned $250 a week. Found abandoned as a kitten, he was used widely by the producer Mack Sennet in his comedies and could famously cross his eyes on command. Puzzums died from complications caused by an ulcerated tooth in August 1934, aged eight, and is buried in the Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park Photograph by Orville Logan Snider
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Stan Laurel, MGM/Hal Roach Studios, 1927
The British actor cradles a kitten during the filming of the silent comedy The Finishing Touch
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Lauren Bacall, Warner Brothers, c.1946
An early studio publicity shot of Bacall with two black cats. Her debut role was opposite Humphrey Bogart in To Have and Have Not in 1944 – it was to be the beginning of both an illustrious career and one of Hollywood’s most fabled relationships – Bogart and Bacall married in 1945 when she was aged twenty
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Vera-Ellen, 1944
In an early publicity shot Vera-Ellen takes time out on the beach with a black cat. A year later Samuel Goldwyn cast her to star opposite Danny Kaye after spotting her in a Broadway musical. She became something of a dancing sensation and is one of only a few stars to have danced alongside both Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire
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Gloria Swanson, Paramount Pictures, 1919
Swanson re-enacts the role of The Lion’s Bride in Cecil B. DeMille’s silent drama Male and Female. Swanson insisted on doing the sequence with the lion herself even though DeMille had originally forbidden it; on set with the twenty-year-old star were two lion handlers and her father. The film was Paramount’s biggest hit of the year
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Dolores Costello, Warner Bros, 1927
Having starred with John Barrymore and a cat in When A Man Loves, the two were to marry a year later in a union that brought together two of Hollywood most famous acting dynasties. At one time known as the ‘Goddess of the Silent Screen’, her transition to the era of the talkies was not smooth – she spoke with a lisp and required two years of speech therapy before being comfortable in front of a microphone. Her father, Maurice Costello, was one of the most popular matinee idols of his day
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Phyllis Haver, Mack Sennett Comedies, 1921 By the time she retired from acting in 1929, and after just fifteen years in Hollywood, Haver had over one hundred credits to her name, reinforcing her reputation as one of the silent screen’s busiest actors Photograph by Kenneth Alexander
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Elizabeth Taylor, MGM, c.1950
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A publicity shot taken in her Hollywood garden
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Marian Marsh, Warner Bros, 1932
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Photographed with her cat Precious. With thirty credits already to her name, Marsh’s big break came when she was cast opposite John Barrymore in the 1931 film Svengali – she received rave reviews for her role and her reputation in Hollywood rose accordingly. Unfortunately, her position as one of Hollywood’s rising stars was unsustainable and within a few years she had fallen out of favour with Warner Bros
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Marlon Brando, c.1955
Brando obviously loved animals – he kept both cats and dogs, as well as a raccoon called Russell who was a present from his mother
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Greta Garbo, MGM, 1926
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Swedish-born actress Greta Garbo poses with Leo the MGM lion Photograph by Don Gillum
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Heather Angel, Fox Film Corporation, 1934
The British actress was in great demand following her move to Hollywood and is best remembered for her role in the Bulldog Drummond series of films. This photograph is from a series of images of famous Hollywood actresses with their pets that was made commercially available to the public in the early 1930s.
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Ingrid Bergman, c.1958
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After starring in Casablanca in 1942, Bergman became one of Hollywood’s top box-office draws, and despite a seven-year exile from Hollywood during the early and mid-1950s, she was still able to return and maintain her status as a major star in films such as Indiscreet and The Inn of the Sixth Happiness
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Jane Russell, RKO Radio Pictures, 1951
Posing with her white angora cat on the set of His Kind of Woman
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Veronica Lake, Paramount Pictures/United Artists, 1942
Photographed on the set of I Married a Witch Lake remains seated with a sizable cat who fell asleep during shooting. The production was beset with problems due to Lake’s alleged unprofessional behaviour, and she was subsequently regarded in low esteem by her costars, including Frederic March who nicknamed the film ‘I Married a Bitch’ in a direct reference to Lake
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Suzan Ball, Universal Pictures, 1952
An early publicity shot with a Siamese cat to announce her first credited role in Untamed Frontier. Ball was discovered after scouts saw a newspaper picture of her receiving first prize in a baking contest. Soon Hollywood cameramen were calling her ‘The Girl With Five Faces’ as they said she bore a striking resemblance to no less than five stars – Jane Russell, Lana Turner, Linda Darnell, Elizabeth Taylor and Ava Gardner
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Harriet Hammond, Mack Sennett Comedies, 1921
The jewelled star of the silent screen pictured with her cat Photograph by Harold Dean Carsey
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Kim Novak, Columbia Pictures, 1958
Novak loved Siamese cats so much that she owned nine of them. She is most famously associated with a witch’s cat called Pyewacket in the film Bell Book and Candle
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Laurence Olivier, 1946
At home in London with New Boy, one of Vivien Leigh’s many Sealpoint Siamese cats. New, as he was known, was a constant travelling companion of Leigh’s and was named after London’s New Theatre. Olivier knew how much her cats meant to Leigh and often bought gifts for them, including an ornamental collar with gilt bells for New. Sadly, New was run over by a car in 1948 when the couple were away performing with the Old Vic Company in Australia
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Marlene Dietrich and Victor McLaglen, Paramount Pictures, 1931
Dietrich stars as Maria, an Austrian prostitute seduced into spying on the Russians – an activity that ultimately leads to her death by firing squad in Dishonored. Known simply as X27, Dietrich’s character is devoted to the black cat that is ever-present and accompanies her on missions. The director of the film, Josef Von Sternberg, was not initially keen on the cat appearing, but conceded when the star insisted that ‘cats always bring me luck’
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Norma Shearer, MGM, c.1938
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Labelled as ‘The First Lady of MGM’ Shearer won an Oscar in 1930 for her role in The Divorcee (she was nominated a further five times). Shearer attempted to retire in 1936, following the death of her husband, but was persuaded by the studio to sign a new six-picture contract. Despite this, she manages to look extremely content in this studio publicity shot
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Jean Simmons, Wessex Film Productions, 1947
In between takes of The Woman In the Hall Simmons would often wander over to the local farm near Pinewood Studios and make friends with all of the animals. Here one of the farm kittens is on the receiving end of her affection
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Judy Garland, MGM, 1938
All of the studios shot promotional material to celebrate occasions such as Halloween. A wide-eyed Garland is seen here a year before the release of The Wizard of Oz Photograph by Eric Carpenter
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Barbara Shelley, Hammer Film Productions/Universal, 1961
A staple of the British horror film, Barbara Shelley plays Beth Venable in The Shadow Of The Cat. She is seen here with Tabatha, a family pet hell bent on gaining revenge after witnessing the murder of her mistress and Beth’s aunt Ella
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Charley Chase and Edna Marion, Hal Roach Studios, 1928
The prolific star of more than 270 short films, Chase was originally hired as a director before Roach recognised his ability as a comic actor. He is seen here protecting his co-star from a harmless kitten whilst shooting one of the twelve films they made together
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Brigitte Helm, Matador/Pathe-Natan, 1931
Taken five years after her debut role as Maria in Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, Helm looks affectionately at her Siamese cat. Unlike her contemporary Marlene Dietrich, Helm refused to move to Hollywood, prefering to remain in Berlin. She prematurely retired to Switzerland in 1935, upset by Hitler’s takeover of the German film industry, and never spoke of her career in the film industry again
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Cary Grant, Paramount Pictures, 1934
Between takes Grant offers some words of advice to a black cat on the set of Kiss and Make-Up
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Jean Parker, MGM, 1935
The American actress holds a kitten aloft in an MGM studio portrait
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Alice White, Warner Bros, 1931
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At California’s Luna Park Zoo with a puppy and one of their new arrivals, an infant jaguar named Baby Olga. White’s big break came five years before this photograph was taken, when she secured work for Charlie Chaplin, who saw her potential and encouraged her to take a screen test
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Ava Gardner, Universal Pictures, 1946
Between marriages to Mickey Rooney and Frank Sinatra, Gardner was also briefly married to the band leader and musician Artie Shaw. She is photographed here in 1946 with Shaw’s two Siamese cats
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Anita Ekberg, Riama Films, 1960
In a scene from Federico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita, Swedish actress Anita Ekberg cradles a tiny kitten in her hands. It is the scene where she gets soaked in the Trevi Fountain, however, for which she is most famously remembered
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Betty Grable, RKO Radio pictures, 1935
Wearing Whitey like a scarf, Grable poses for an early publicity shot. Earning $125 per week, Whitey was under contract to RKO. His trainer, Henry East, recalled that it took about two months for the cat to learn each new trick he was required to perform. He had three very distinct meows that he could perform on command and was so valuable to the studio that there was a stand-in cat available at all times when he was on set
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Mary Pickford, Mary Pickford Company, 1916 A familiar and conventionally honeyed image of Pickford with a kitten on her shoulder. In reality she was an enormously shrewd businesswoman who made barely imaginable sums of money from both onand off-screen activities
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Billie Dove, Paramount Pictures, 1925
A star to rival all the great names of the silent era, Billie Dove retired in 1932, just a few years after the talkies became so popular. Rumour has it that she was left dismayed by the role William Randolph Hearst played in her character being savagely cut from the film Blondie of the Follies – apparently Dove had outshone top-billing star of the show and Hearst’s lover Marion Davies
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Josephine Baker and Chiquita, c.1931
Baker rose to fame in France during the 1920s as a cabaret star. It was during her time spent in Paris that Baker was gifted a cheetah who she named Chiquita – she was often seen wandering the streets of the capital with the pet wearing a diamond-studded lead and collar. Besides being a prominent civil rights activist, Baker adopted no less than twelve children, as well as assembling a menagerie of pets that included, pigs, cats, dogs, parrots, rabbits, a goat and a calf, many of which took up residence in her dressing room every time she performed
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Loretta Young, First National Pictures, 1930
Young appeared in her first movie as a one-yearold child. It was the beginning of a journey that would culminate in an Oscar-wining performance in the 1947 film The Farmer’s Daughter
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Arlene Dahl, MGM, 1951
Taking time out in her dressing room on the set of Inside Straight, Arlene Dahl finds time to play with this small feline visitor – one of the many cats who made their homes on the studio lots with no fear of eviction
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Anne Sheridan, Warner Brothers, 1942
Given the success of many of her films and in protest over the salary of $600 a week Warner Bros paid her, Sheridan had gone on a six-month strike the year before this studio portrait was shot. She wanted more but was back to work within six months as the studio held their nerve
Gene Tierney, Twentieth Century Fox, 1954
A promotional shot for the hugely ambitious production The Egyptian, in which Tierney makes every effort to coordinate her attire with her pet leopard
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Elizabeth Taylor, MGM, 1946
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A fourteen-year-old Taylor affectionately strokes her cat under the chin. Taylor was already a huge star by this time, having starred opposite Mickey Rooney in the phenomenally successful National Velvet
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Audrey Hepburn, Paramount Pictures, 1961
Orangey worked steadily throughout the 1950s and 1960s and won his second PATSY (Picture Animal Top Star of the Year) award for his role as ‘Cat’ in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. His first was for the title role in Rhubarb in 1951
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Joan Collins, 20th Century Fox, 1957
Protecting herself from the sun, Collins plays with a kitten during the filming of Island In the Sun on location in Barbados
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Jean Simmons, 20th Century Fox, 1954
The British actress relaxes with her Siamese in the year she starred opposite some of Hollywood’s greatest leading men including Marlon Brando, Robert Mitchum and Peter Ustinov Photograph by Baron
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Ruth Roman, Warner Brothers, 1949 A studio portrait of Roman holding her pet cat Photograph by Bert Six
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Gloria Grahame, c.1955
Photographed with her pet Siamese at her San Fernando home. Despite receiving acclaimed reviews for films such as It’s a Wonderful Life and Oklahoma, as well as an Oscar-winning performance in The Bad and the Beautiful, Grahame’s career was somewhat unsettled. Frequently moving between studios, she brought with her a reputation for being less than straightforward
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Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, MGM/Hal Roach Studios, 1927 During the filming of the silent short The Finishing Touch
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John Gilbert, MGM, 1924
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Photographed at home with his pet cat and two dogs, Gilbert was one of Hollywoods leading male actors of the silent era. However, his career was affected by clashes with MGM head Louis B. Mayer and despite several hugely successful starring roles opposite Greta Garbo, the studio refused to renew his contract in 1933. Gilbert died in 1936 from a heart attack believed to have been brought on by years of alcohol abuse
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Carleton Carpenter, MGM, 1952
During their circus act together, Carpenter leaps atop a tall parallel to escape from Fagan the lion in Fearless Fagan. The film was based on the real exploits of Floyd Humeston and his pet lion, and the events that followed his draft into the US Army
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Joan Crawford, MGM, c.1934
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Famous for her love of dogs, Crawford presents a scene of domestic harmony as she feeds her cat some of the sardines after which it has been hankering
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Sylvia Sidney, Paramount Pictures, 1932
Still in full costume, Sidney relaxes with a Siamese cat during a break in filming. The star plays the tragic figure of the geisha Cho-Cho San in the cinematic version of Madame Butterfly. The reviews for the film were not particularly flattering despite a cast that also featured Cary Grant in a starring role
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Cyd Charisse, MGM, 1952
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Looking more than a little concerned, four kittens hang precariously from a washing line on the set of The Wild North. The film was released in the United States in the same week as Singing In The Rain, in which Charisse played a leading role opposite Gene Kelly – it was the role that made her a star
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June Lockhart, 1960
George the cat took a daily dip in Lockhart’s Hollywood swimming pool. He was one of five cats owned by the star of Lassie and is seen here being blow-dried after one of his swims
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Leila Hyams, MGM, 1932
On a visit to the Goebel Lion Farm in Los Angeles, Hyams feeds a lion cub called Metro who was a descendent of Leo, the original MGM trademark lion (his two brothers were somewhat predictably christened Goldwyn and Mayer)
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Myrna Loy, MGM, 1938
In a break from filming Too Hot To Handle Loy cradles the two newborn lion cubs of Leon. Presented to her by Clark Gable, the two actors were at a party he threw for her at the MGM Studios to celebrate her namesake’s saints day
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Sabu, Universal Pictures, 1946
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The star of The Jungle Book holds a leopard cub aloft on a visit to Miami
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Eartha Kitt, 1953
Some fourteen years before she would famously star as Catwoman, Kitt checks her make-up with her cat Jinx, who is well known for having liked the comfort of her mistress’ dressing room
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Natalie Wood, Columbia Pictures, 1950
Twelve-year-old Natalie Wood plays the role of the daughter of a dying woman in No Sad song For Me, seen here on set with the cat that played the family pet in the film
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Patty Duke, Playfilm Productions/United Artists, 1962
Duke plays the frustrated and violent Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker, the story of a blind, deaf and mute girl’s struggle to communicate with the world. It was on the Californian ranch where the film was shot that Duke came across this tiny kitten, who seems only too pleased to accept a makeshift saucer of milk. Duke won an Academy Award for the role and for many years the sixteen-year-old was the youngest person ever to win an Oscar
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James Mason, c.1950 Mason and his wife Pamela were devoted to their cats – so much so that in 1949 they co-authored The Cats in Our Lives. Written and illustrated by the couple, the book tells the story of the cats they had known and loved during their lives, including Flower-Face, Folly, Sadie and Whitey
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Julie Christie, 1963
Two years before appearing in David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago and becoming an Oscarwinning actress for her role in Darling, Christie was photographed attempting to engage with a cat on the streets of Birmingham whilst appearing at the city’s Repertory Theatre Photograph by Michael Ward
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Oliver Reed, Hammer Film Productions, 1961
Watched by his cat Felix, Reed studies the script for the horror film The Curse of the Werewolf. Reed’s son Mark recalled after his father’s death that ‘He never passed a cat without stroking it’
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Hayley Mills and Dean Jones, Walt Disney Productions, 1965
On set with one of the traditional Seal-Point Siamese cats who collectively played DC in That Darn Cat
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Lupe Velez, c.1932
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One of only a handful of Mexican actors who achieved real success in Hollywood during the pre-war era, Velez went on to star in a series of hugely successful films. Known as the Mexican spitfire, her personal life was less successful. Sadly she was unable to cope with a series of failed relationships (including a tempestuous marriage to Johnny Weissmuller) and committed suicide in 1944 whilst pregnant
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Carole Lombard, Paramount Pictures, c.1932
Seen here posing with a black cat in a studio publicity shot Photograph by Eugene Robert Richee
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June Allyson, MGM, 1955
Shown here with Jackie the MGM lion. As well as being the first MGM lion to roar, and appearing in the opening credits of MGM films for nearly twenty years, Jackie also appeared in over 100 films for the studio
James Stewart and Kim Novak, Columbia pictures, 1958
With a natural flair for witchcraft (and having grown bored with the company of fellow sorcerers), Gillian Holroyd and her Siamese cat Pyewacket cast a spell over her handsome neighbour, played by Stewart, in Bell Book and Candle. Pyewacket won a PATSY Award (Picture Animal Top Star of the Year award) in 1959 for his role in the film
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Terry Moore and Glenn Ford, Columbia Pictures, 1948 On the set of The Return of October Moore and Ford look on in amusement as their pets, somewhat surprisingly, get along with each other
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Ursula Andress, Eon Productions, 1962
Photographed with an Oriental Shorthair in the year that the Swiss actress famously starred as Honey Ryder opposite Sean Connery’s James Bond in Dr No.
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Clark Gable and Carole Lombard, 1940
This relaxed portrait of Gable and Lombard was taken at their home in the San Fernando Valley soon after they married. Other than these Siamese siblings, the couple kept dogs and various farmyard animals. A few years later Lombard was to die in a plane crash in Nevada
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Grace Kelly, 1948
Aged nineteen and several years before moving to Hollywood, Kelly worked as a part-time model in New York, advertising among other things Old Gold Cigarettes
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Dorothy Hart, Universal Pictures, 1948
A studio publicity shot taken in the year she starred in the award-winning film The Naked City. Having grown to dislike Hollywood so much, Hart brought her film career to a premature end in 1952. It was less than five years since her debut in Columbia’s Gunfighter’s with Randolph Scott
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Elizabeth Taylor, MGM, 1953 Finding time to play with a kitten in her dressing room between takes of The Girl Who Had Everything
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Odile Versois, United Co-Productions, 1958
With concern written all over her face, Versois desperately holds on to a kitten, a rare symbol of innocence in Passport To Shame, a British exploitation drama about prostitution and the white slave trade. The tag line for the film was ’A Picture Best Understood by Adults!’ Photograph by Ray Hearne
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Hayley Mills, Walt Disney Productions, 1965
Mills gives DC the cat a hug in this scene from Disney’s suspense-comedy That Darn Cat
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Maria Montez, Universal Pictures, 1941
Montez stars as the local beauty on a South Pacific Island and bewitches four seamen who drift ashore in South Of Tahiti. With a pet leopard by her side, this was one of numerous low-budget Technicolor features released during and in the years immediately after the Second World War
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Steve Cochran, MGM, 1957
Cochran had good reason to thank his nineweek-old kitten Terrible Touhy after the young cat dashed in front of his owner and pounced on a 4ft (1.2m) rattlesnake. The snake struck the cat between the eyes knocking it to the ground. Thankfully there was a happy ending as Terrible Touhy was given first aid at a nearby animal hospital and went on to make a full recovery
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Buster Crabbe, Sol Lesser Productions, 1933 Crabbe stars as the fabled man raised by apes in Tarzan the Fearless
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Evelyn Keyes, Paramount, 1948
Taken whilst filming Cecil B. DeMille’s Union Pacific, Keyes is still most famous for her role as Suellen O’Hara in Gone with the Wind (MGM, 1940), as well as for the many well-known husbands and lovers she had
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Rhonda Fleming, Selznick International Pictures, 1945 Teaching a cat new tricks. This was the year that Fleming starred alongside Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck in Hitchcock’s Spellbound
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Dirk Bogarde, 1954
Photographed at home in London with a rescued Siamese cat who Bogarde christened Cliff
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Lilli Palmer, Warner Bros, 1946
The wife of Rex Harrison, Palmer starred alongside Gary Copper in Cloak and Dagger. She is seen here in between takes playing with a black cat who for several years made its home on the studio lot, becoming a firm favourite with many of Warner Bros employees in the mid-1940s
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Dolores del Rio, Warner Bros, 1935
Photographed at the home she shared with her husband, the MGM art director Cedric Gibbons, and her Bombay Black cat Joan
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Stewart Granger, MGM, 1954
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Holding a kitten aloft in the year he made Green Fire with Grace Kelly. At home he and his wife, the actress Jean Simmons, were keen owners of Siamese cats
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Kim Novak, Columbia Pictures, 1959
Photographed at home with one of the many Siamese cats she owned during her lifetime
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Walt Disney, 1961
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Walt Disney attempts to coax a reaction from his cat by presenting an image of Mickey Mouse to his feline friend
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Vivien Leigh, 1946
Leigh was devoted to cats and at one point her daughter recalls that there were no less than sixteen living with the actress at the same time. She is seen here with New Boy, a gift from her husband Laurence Olivier. The Siamese was to become Leigh’s favourite breed. ‘Once you have kept a Siamese you would never have any other kind. They make wonderful pets and are so intelligent they follow you around like little dogs’, she commented in 1948 while in New Zealand with her husband
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Peter Lorre and Vincent Price, Alta Vista Productions, 1961
The two actors audition black cats for the horror movie Tales of Terror Photograph by Ralph Crane
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Elizabeth Taylor, MGM, 1953
A tiny kitten hitches a ride in Taylor’s pocket on the set of The Girl Who Had Everything. Despite Taylor being one of Hollywood’s brightest stars this was the only film featuring her that MGM released this year
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Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard, Paramount Pictures, 1961 Animal actor Orangey stars as ‘Cat’, Holly Golightly’s ‘poor slob without a name’ in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Hepburn obviously had a natural affinity with cats as she went on to say that the scene where she throws ‘Cat’ into the rain from a New York cab was the most distasteful thing she ever had to do on film
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Margaret Sullavan, Columbia Pictures, 1950
On the set of No Sad Song for Me Sullavan sits with the family pet. In this sentimental melodrama Sullavan stars as a woman who encourages her husband to find a replacement wife when she finds out she only has ten months to live Photograph by Van Pelt
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Catherine Deneuve, c.1965
The French actress and her feline companion look absolutely at ease with each other in a photograph that was taken around the time she starred in Roman Polanski’s critically acclaimed Repulsion
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Alain Delon, MGM, 1964
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Delon comes down to the level of this wide-eyed kitten in Joy House, a thriller set on the French Riviera that also starred Jane Fonda
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Jane Fonda, Warner Bros, 1971
Fonda won an Oscar for her role as Bree Daniels, a New York City call girl who becomes the key figure in a detective’s search for a missing man in Klute. Fonda’s character is memorably seen using a spoon to eat her pet cat’s food straight from the tin in one scene
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Mia Farrow, 1965
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Photographed with her cat Malcolm who, besides being deaf, shunned cat food in favour of jars of baby food
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Gayle Hunnicutt, Universal Pictures, 1969
In The Eye Of the Cat a man and his girlfriend attempt to defraud his wealthy aunt when they visit her mansion. Unfortunately for the two conspirators, the house is overrun by vengeful cats who seem only too aware of their plans
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Jennifer Jones, Paramount Pictures, 1952
Used to publicise her role in Carrie, Oscar-winning actress Jennifer Jones is seen here holding a Siamese cat. In the film she starred opposite Laurence Olivier, who at the time was married to Vivien Leigh, herself a very keen owner of numerous Siamese cats
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James and Pamela Mason, MGM, 1949
Seated below a portrait of Mrs Mason, the couple had only recently become residents of Hollywood when this portrait was taken. Not prepared to leave England without their beloved cats, they eventually purchased Buster Keaton’s former mansion and whilst renovating discovered several reels of films, previously thought lost, by the famous silent film star
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Elizabeth and Howard Taylor, 1944
Throughout her life Taylor had a deep affection for all animals and is seen here with her brother and three of the family pets
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Marilyn Monroe, 20th Century Fox, 1961
Taken on set during filming John Huston’s fabled The Misfits. Monroe starred opposite Clark Gable and sadly it was to be the last film either of the stars completed
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Dorothy Lamour, Paramount Pictures, 1942
Left orphaned on a tropical island after her parents are killed by rampaging elephants in Beyond the Blue Horizon, Lamour is raised and protected by wild animals. Lamour was known as the ‘Sarong Queen’ and is seen here wearing her traditional attire as one of the island’s tigers towers over her
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Jean Harlow, MGM, 1932
An avid animal enthusiast, Harlow poses at home with her Black Persian named His Royal Highness. Harlow also kept two alley cats she found – she christened them simply Good Cat and Bad Cat
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Greer Garson, MGM, 1941
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The British actress and her pet cat relax in their Hollywood home just two years after being discovered by Louis B. Mayer whilst he was scouting for talent in London
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Frances Langford and Jon Hall, Universal Pictures, 1945
Hall never enjoyed acting and would surely have been thrilled to steal a moment away from the set relaxing at home with his wife, the very well known singer Frances Langford, and their pet cat
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Groucho Marx, c.1950
Mimicking his famous stoop, Groucho peers into a refrigerator whilst a cat eagerly watches his every move. One of the famous family of comic actors, Marx was widely known for his quick wit and innuendo-laden one liners, as much as for his glasses, cigar and thick greasepaint moustache and eyebrows Photograph by Gene Lester
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Ann-Margret, Universal Pictures, 1964
Ann-Margret plays with a Siamese kitten presented to her during filming of Kitten With a Whip. In the film she plays a runaway from juvenile detention who causes havoc in the life a politician after she moves into his house against his wishes and forces him on a road trip to Mexico
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Peter Sellers, Salamander Film Productions, 1966
Sellers plays the role of the eccentric Dr Pratt in the black comedy The Wrong Box. Besides the numerous cats and kittens that overrun his office, the cast list reads like a who’s who of classic comedy actors from the era
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Clark Gable, MGM, 1945
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Gable poses with one of the cats that lived on his 22-acre ranch in the San Fernando Valley. The actor had just finished filming Adventure when this publicity photograph was shot. It was his first credit following his service in the Army Air Corps and MGM promoted the film with the line ‘Gable’s back and Garson’s got him’. Despite audiences at first lining up to see his return, the film received poor reviews and proved to be a commercial failure. Gable was so disappointed with the finished product that it was over a year before he agreed to act again
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Ann Rutherford, MGM, 1941
With the prize cat Sonny Boy, a shaded silver Persian who competed at the California Annual Cat Club Show. Rutherford famously starred as Scarlett O’Hara’s sister, Carreen, in the 1939 production of Gone With the Wind
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Jayne Mansfield, c.1965
In her trademark leopard skin Mansfield strikes a pose with the Siamese pet of her friend and Hollywood columnist May Mann
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Lois Maxwell, Oscar Film Productions, 1954
In the cinematic version of Verdi’s opera Aida, Maxwell stars as Amneris, the King of Egypt’s daughter, and is seen here with the requisite cat that so often seems to help signify ancient Egypt. Eight years later Maxwell was to find fame starring as Miss Moneypenny in the first of the James Bond films, Dr No. It was a role she played fourteen times in total
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Kathleen Hughes, Universal International Pictures, 1953
A portrait of a relaxed Hughes taken in the year she starred in the cult classic It Came From Outer Space. The film was Universal’s first forray into in 3-D film making
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Elsa Martinelli, Paramount Pictures, 1962
In a publicity shot for Hatari!, Elsa Martinelli appears unsettled by the arrival of a leopard whilst she takes a bath. In the film Martinelli plays the role of a wildlife photographer on assignment in Africa whose presence proves a distraction for her co-star John Wayne and his comrades. Howard Hawkes’ film was Paramount’s highest grossing film of the year
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Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn, RKO, 1938
Nissa stars as the eponymous Baby in RKO’s comedy hit Bringing Up Baby. The leopard was particularly fond of Hepburn and would often be found in the company of the actress during breaks in filming; Grant, on the other hand, kept his distance and insisted on a puppet being used in certain scenes
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Cecil B. DeMille, Paramount Pictures, 1956
As the producer of one of Hollywood’s greatest historical epics, DeMille sits in his office with one of the 15,000 animals he used for shooting some of cinema’s most ambitious scenes in The Ten Commandments. The film cost thirteen million dollars to make but for years was one of the most successful movies of all time, ranked second only to Gone With the Wind
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Mary Martin, Paramount Pictures, 1941 Martin holds the ship’s cat aloft in the romantic comedy New York Town
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Bella Darvi, 20th Century Fox, 1954
Playing the role of the courtesan Nefer in The Egyptian. As with her film career, Darvi’s real life was full of drama and tragedy. Born in Poland and brought up in France, she was interned in the Osnabrück (Neuengamme) and Auschwitz concentration camps following Germany’s invasion of France in 1940. Having survived these ordeals, she was ‘discovered’ and brought to Hollywood. Things did not go well, however, and following various scandals she retreated to Europe where she committed suicide, burdened by debts
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Laird Cregar, 20th Century Fox, 1945
Cregar holds a Siamese cat during the filming of Hanover Square. The film was Cregar’s last – he died shortly after filming finished due to complications brought on by a crash diet devised to make him lose weight so he could play a broader range of roles
Susanna Foster, Paramount Pictures, 1939
Nurtured by MGM as a child, Foster was never used by the studio. She subsequently signed for Paramount and is seen here in a promotional shot for her film debut in The Great Victor Herbert
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Olivia de Havilland, Paramount, 1949
De Havilland won her second Oscar for Best Actress in a Leading Role in The Heiress. She is photographed here during a break in filming. The film won a further three Academy Awards for Art Direction, Costume Design and Musical Scoring
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Maureen O’Sullivan, MGM, 1938
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Best known as Tarzan’s partner Jane, O’Sullivan relaxes with a cat in the year she starred in five films, including A Yank In Oxford, opposite Robert Taylor
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Edward G. Robinson, Columbia Pictures, 1935
With his cat Abelard and his canary Heloise, Robinson plays a mild-mannered clerk mistaken for a notorious gangster in The Whole Town’s Talking. With growing indignity surrounding the perceived vulgarity of gangster movies, it was only due to its comedy content that the film avoided falling foul of the code William Hays drew up to enforce prohibition on subversive content in film – the principles of which went on to govern film narrative in Hollywood at the time
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Josephine Hutchinson, 1932
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In this very early publicity photograph Hutchinson is seen holding the Chesire Cat in a stage production of Alice In Wonderland. It was the role that first brought her to the attention of Warner Bros and two years later she arrived in Hollywood under contract to the studio
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Janet Blair, Columbia Pictures, 1945 Relaxing with a cat in the year she starred alongside Rita Hayworth in Tonight and Every Night
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Charlie Chaplin, Charles Chaplin Productions/United Artists, 1928
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With a particular talent for comedy, and a long list of credits to his name, Numa was considered to be the besttrained lion in Hollywood at the time and therefore a natural choice to star alongside Chaplin in The Circus, the eighth highest grossing silent film in cinema history
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Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard, Paramount Pictures, 1939
With a cat hanging limply from her hand, Goddard appears amused by something the comic actor Bob hope has said during the filming of The Cat and the Canary
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Margaret Lockwood and Ronald Shiner, Herbert Wilcox Productions, 1954 On their way to Singapore with the ship’s cat in Laughing Anne
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Yvonne De Carlo, c.1950
Relaxing between takes on one of the seventy productions in which she featured during the 1940s and 1950s
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Anne Francis, MGM, 1956
Francis appears remarkably relaxed given the attention she is receiving from George, the sixth MGM lion, who made his debut in the opening credits of her movie, Forbidden Planet
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Susan Hampshire, Walt Disney Productions, 1964
Hampshire plays the role of the mysterious Lori MacGregor in The Three Lives of Thomasina, a story of a cat whose resurrection from near death helps heal the fractured relationship between a widowed father and his daughter. Filming was held up for several days when one of the cats used to play Thomasina refused to perform a stunt for which she had been specifically trained
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Keenan Wynn, Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis, MGM, 1952
Disproving the theory that only dogs like sticks. Leigh and Wynn starred alongside Fagan the lion in Fearless Fagan and are joined here by Leigh’s husband, the actor Tony Curtis, outside the MGM sound stage. Fagan’s performance in the film was widely praised, although it was Jackie, MGM’s trademark lion and stand-in for some scenes, who went on, somewhat unfairly, to win a PATSY (Picture Animal Top Star of the Year) award for the film in 1953
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Charles Laughton, Universal Pictures, 1944
Laughton teases a kitten with a fan in The Suspect, a thriller set in Victorian London. This playful shot helped to reinforce Laughton’s character in the film as a decent man, despite being accused of murdering his thoroughly pernicious wife
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Hume Cronyn and Marsha Hunt, MGM, 1946
A scene from A Letter for Evie, the story of a GI who finds himself in a predicament after responding to a letter intended for a more handsome and muscular comrade. Having featured in over fifty films in the fifteen years leading up to the end of the 1940s, Hunt’s career was subsequently seriously affected by her McCarthy-era blacklisting in the early 1950s
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Danny Kaye and Dana Wynter, Dena Productions/Paramount Pictures, 1961
Kaye struggles to hold on to the pet Siamese cat of an English General he is impersonating in On the Double. The cat, with great feline intuition, appears unfooled, as does the General’s wife, played by Wynter
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Piper Laurie, Universal International Pictures, 1953
Decorating her bedroom for the festive season in Mississippi Gambler, Laurie entwined a red California Poinsettia in her ruffled window curtains and completed the colour scheme by tying red satin bows around the necks of her two grey Persian kittens
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Index of Stars in Photos Allyson, June, 85 Andress, Ursula, 86-7 Angel, Heather, 24-5 Ann-Margret, 128 Bacall, Lauren, 14 Baker, Josephine, 52-3 Ball, Suzan, 28-9 Bergman, Ingrid, 26 Blair, Janet, 146-7 Bogarde, Dirk, 99 Brando, Marlon, 22-3 Carpenter, Carleton, 66-7 Chaplin, Charlie, 148 Charisse, Cyd, 70 Chase, Charley, 41 Chevalier, Maurice, 10-11 Christie, Julie, 78-9 Cochran, Steve, 95 Collins, Joan, 60 Costello, Dolores, 18 Crabbe, Buster, 96 Crawford, Joan, 68 Cregar, Laird, 140-1 Cronyn, Hume, 157 Curtis, Tony, 154-5 Dahl, Arlene, 54-5 Darvi, Bella, 138-9 De Carlo, Yvonne, 150-1 de Havilland, Olivia, 142-3
del Rio, Dolores, 101 Delon, Alain, 112 DeMille, Cecil B., 136-7 Deneuve, Catherine, 111 Dietrich, Marlene, 34-5 Disney, Walt, 104 Dove, Billie, 52 Duke, Patty, 77 Ekberg, Anita, 10, 48-9 Farrow, Mia, 114-5 Fleming, Rhonda, 98-9 Fonda, Jane, 112-3 Ford, Glenn, 86 Foster, Susanna, 141 Francis, Anne, 152-3 Gable, Clark, 88-9, 130 Garbo, Greta, 24 Gardner, Ava, frontispiece, 47 Garland, Judy, 38-9 Garson, Greer, 124 Gilbert, John, 66 Goddard, Paulette, 148-9 Grable, Betty, 50 Grahame, Gloria, 63 Granger, Stewart, 102 Grant, Cary, 42-3, 136 Hall, Jon, 125 Hammond, Harriet, 30-1
Hampshire, Susan, 153 Hardy, Oliver, 64-5 Harlow, Jean, 122-3 Hart, Dorothy, 90 Haver, Phyllis, 18-19 Helm, Brigitte, 42 Hepburn, Audrey, 58-9, 108-9 Hepburn, Katharine, 136 Hope, Bob, 148-9 Hughes, Kathleen, 134 Hunnicutt, Gayle, 116 Hunt, Marsha, 157 Hutchinson, Josephine, 146 Hyams, Leila, 72-3 Jones, Dean, 80-1 Jones, Jennifer, 117 Kaye, Danny, 158 Kelly, Grace, 89 Keyes, Evelyn, 96-7 Kitt, Eartha, 74-5 Lake, Veronica, 28 Lamour, Dorothy, 121 Langford, Frances, 125 Laughton, Charles, 156 Laurel, Stan, 12-13, 64-5 Laurie, Piper, 158-9 Leigh, Janet, 154-5 Leigh, Vivien, 104-5 Lockhart, Gene, 5
Lockhart, June, 70-1 Lockwood, Margaret, 150 Lombard, Carole, 82-3, 88-9 Loren, Sophia, 9 Lorre, Peter, 106-7 Loy, Myrna, 66-7, 73 Marion, Edna, 41 Marsh, Marian, 22 Martin, Mary, 138 Martinelli, Elsa, 135 Marx, Groucho, 126-7 Mason, James, 78, 118-9 Mason, Pamela, 118-9 Maxwell, Lois, 133 McLaglen, Victor, 34-5 Mills, Hayley, 80-1, 92-3 Monroe, Marilyn, 120-1 Montez, Maria, 94-5 Moore, Terry, 86 Novak, Kim, 32, 84, 102-3 O’Sullivan, Maureen, 144 Olivier, Laurence, 33 Palmer, Lilli, 100-1 Parker, Jean, 44-5 Peppard, George, 108-9 Pickford, Mary, 50-1 Price, Vincent, 106-7 Reed, Oliver, 80 Robinson, Edward G., 145
Roman, Ruth, 62-3 Russell, Jane, 26-7 Rutherford, Ann, 130-1 Sabu, 74 Sellers, Peter, 129 Shearer, Norma, 36 Shelley, Barbara, 40 Sheridan, Anne, 57 Shiner, Ronald, 150 Sidney, Sylvia, 68-9 Simmons, Jean, 36-7, 61 Stewart, James, 84 Sullavan, Margaret, 110 Swanson, Gloria, 16-17 Taylor, Elizabeth, 20-1, 58, 901, 107, 119 Taylor, Howard, 119 Tierney, Gene, 56 Velez, Lupe, 82 Vera-Ellen, 14-15 Versois, Odile, 92 White, Alice, 46 Wood, Natalie, 76 Wynn, Keenan, 154-5 Wynter, Dana, 158 Young, Loretta, 54
First published 2014 © The John Kobal Foundation Introduction © Gareth Abbott World Copyright Reserved ISBN 978 1 85149 757 7
The right of The John Kobal Foundation to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor to be otherwise circulated in any form or binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Images on pages 13, 24, 39, 77, 97, 104, 125 courtesy Getty Images. With thanks to Derek Felsen and Steve Robinson.
With the exception of those mentioned above, all of the images in this book are from the John Kobal Foundation Archive. Enquiries should be sent via email to admin@johnkobal.org or can be made by visiting the website www.johnkobal.org British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A CIP catalogue record for the book is available from the British Library.
Printed and bound in China for ACC Editions an imprint of The Antique Collectors’ Club Ltd, Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK www.antiquecollectorsclub.com
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Front Cover: Elizabeth Taylor, MGM, 1945
Back Cover: Hayley Mills and Dean Jones, Walt Disney Productions, 1965
Frontispiece: Ava Gardner, MGM, 1949 Pinning flowers in her hair, Gardner relaxes with a stray cat in the Californian sunshine Photograph by Nat Dallinger
Hollywood Cats D/J Final
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Hollywood Cats
ISBN: 978-1-85149-678-5
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Hollywood Cats
Photographs from the John Kobal Foundation
Introduction by Gareth Abbott