Siegel S., Siegel B. The Encyclopedia Of Hollywood
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dancing prowess as he elicits a confession from the “bad guy”
and provides the framed Latifah with her freedom. Martin has
established himself as an outstanding comic who has a creative
mind and a flair for taking on unusual roles.
Marty The 1955 Academy Award-winning movie was the
cinematic version of the
PADDY CHAYEFSKY
story originally
produced for TV. Its success on television prompted its
precedent-making remake on film for theatrical release.
Marty became the sleeper box-office hit of the year, winning
a total of four Oscars.
At first glance, a movie about a shy, lonely, middle-aged
Bronx butcher, Marty, played by
ERNEST BORGNINE
, who
finds love with a plain-Jane schoolteacher (Betsy Blair) would
hardly seem like a sure-fire money-maker, but the sensitively
written screenplay by Chayefsky (who had also written the
teleplay) turned Marty’s tentative attempt to find love into a
universal experience.
The success of Marty caused Hollywood to look to tele-
vision as a source of future films and as a source of talent.
Actors, directors, and writers soon graduated from TV to
movies, in large part thanks to Marty.
The movie’s four Oscars were for Best Picture (Harold
Hecht, producer), Best Director (Delbert Mann), Best Actor
(Borgnine), and Best Screenplay. The movie also was hon-
ored with Best Supporting Actor/Actress nominations for Joe
Mantell and Betsy Blair.
Marvin, Lee (1924–1987) He was the roughest,
meanest, toughest of Hollywood’s heavies during the 1950s.
When he took on heroic roles in the mid-1960s, he was at his
best unleashing the sinister charisma that characterized his
earlier screen successes. With his wolfish grin and deep,
growly voice, Lee Marvin ultimately had as powerful a screen
presence as any other star of the modern era.
Though one might assume from his performances that he
grew up in rough circumstances, Marvin was actually born to
an upper-middle-class family in New York City. His hard-
boiled attitude came from a stint in the Marine Corps during
World War II. After the war, while working as a plumber’s
assistant in summer-stock theater, he found himself filling in
for a sick actor—and so his acting career began.
He studied his craft and worked on the stage in New
York, eventually making his film debut (along with Charles
Buchinski/Bronson) in You’re in the Navy Now (1951). Marvin
worked steadily in the movies, gaining a reputation as an
effective villain. By 1953 he was fourth-billed in the explosive
FRITZ LANG
crime drama, The Big Heat, in which he was at
his vicious best throwing scalding coffee in Gloria Grahame’s
face. When he wasn’t stealing scenes as a heavy, Marvin was
playing corrupt authority figures to the hilt in films such as
the underrated
ROBERT ALDRICH
war movie Attack! (1956).
Marvin was the avatar of villainy as the title character in
John Ford’s masterpiece, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance
(1962). He was the only Hollywood actor of his era who
could have successfully played a heavy to balance the com-
bined heroic status of his two costars,
JOHN WAYNE
and
JAMES STEWART
.
After his Oscar-winning portrayal of twins—one a drunk
and the other a gunfighter with an artificial nose—in the com-
edy western Cat Ballou (1965), Marvin was finally offered more
conventional starring roles. In the best of these roles, Marvin
was only marginally good hearted; his heroic status was rela-
tive to how rotten the other characters were. In films such as
The Professionals (1966), The Dirty Dozen (1967), and Point
Blank (1967), he played characters that were hard and cruel,
but they were fighting for higher ideals in an amoral world.
Marvin’s career was going so well that it seemed as if
nothing could diminish his popularity—until the nonsinging
actor agreed to star (with Clint Eastwood) in the movie musi-
cal version of Paint Your Wagon (1969). The film was a criti-
cal and financial disaster. In retrospect, it marked a turning
point in Marvin’s career. He had some fine roles after that,
such as in Prime Cut (1972) and Emperor of the North (1973),
but even his better films didn’t often succeed at the box
office, and the bad ones were often bombs. The best role of
his later career brought him back to World War II, starring
as a tough sergeant in Sam Fuller’s autobiographical war
movie, The Big Red One (1979).
There were even fewer good roles for the aging tough
guy in the 1980s. In the end, he received more press for his
involvement in a landmark palimony case than for his acting
during the last decade of his life.
Marx Brothers, The The funniest and most influential
comedy team in Hollywood history, their humor paved the
way for such later film comedians as
MEL BROOKS
and
WOODY ALLEN
.
In a mere 13 films, only a handful of which were consis-
tently good from beginning to end, the Marx Brothers—
Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and (in their first five movies)
Zeppo—were a veritable comedy attack force, slinging a
wild, anarchic style of humor at movie audiences, the likes of
which they had never experienced. Their movies’ plots, weak
as they are, are of small concern; the real attractions of any
Marx Brothers film are Groucho’s rapid-fire punning and his
ever-present leer, Chico’s lame Italian accent and his inven-
tive piano playing, and Harpo’s silent lechery and his coat
that hides all manner of things.
Chico (1891–1961), born Leonard Marx, acquired his
nickname from a strong and persistent interest in “chicks”;
Harpo (1893–1964), born Adolph Marx, came by his nick-
name from his playing the harp; Groucho (1895–1977), born
Julius Marx, picked up his nickname as a result of his moody
behavior; Zeppo (1901–79) was Herbert Marx until, accord-
ing to Harpo, he picked up his nickname from constantly
doing chin-ups like “Zippo,” a popular monkey act in vaude-
ville; and a fifth brother, Gummo (1893–1977), born Milton
Marx, was tagged with his nickname because he wore gum-
soled shoes. Gummo, however, left the act early on and never
appeared in any Marx Brothers film.
The boys were the children of a poor tailor, Sam Marx,
and an aggressive mother, Minnie Marx, who pushed her kids
MARTY
268
into show business with the considerable help of her brother,
vaudeville star Al Shean, of the team of Gallagher and Shean.
The brothers’ individual comic personalities evolved over
a long stretch spent in vaudeville. Harpo’s mute clown, for
instance, was the result of an act written by their Uncle Al in
which Harpo was given but three lines. In a review of the act
published the day following its opening, a local critic wrote
that Harpo was brilliant as a mime, but that the magic was
lost when he spoke. Harpo never spoke in character again
(except for a sneezed “achoo” in At the Circus (1939).
When the Marx Brothers arrived on Broadway in a
loosely written play called I’ll Say She Is in 1924, the knock-
about vaudevillians suddenly became the toast of the Great
White Way. A year later they opened in The Cocoanuts, a play
written for them by George S. Kaufman and Morrie Ryskind,
with music and lyrics by
IRVING BERLIN
. The play was
another hit and was eventually filmed in Astoria, Queens,
even while the team was performing in another hit play, Ani-
mal Crackers.
Paramount put the Marx Brothers under contract, releas-
ing The Cocoanuts in 1929 and Animal Crackers in 1930. The
latter film contained the tune that would become Groucho’s
theme song, “Hooray for Captain Spaulding.”
The brothers made three more films for Paramount, all of
them in Hollywood. These included Monkey Business (1931)
and the hilarious send-up of higher education, Horsefeathers
MARX BROTHERS, THE
269
The Marx Brothers (from left to right), Harpo, Groucho, Zeppo, and Chico, have long been cult favorites, but they were
also heralded in their own time, as evidenced by the hoopla over their making hand prints in cement at what was then
Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood. Sid Grauman, the famous movie exhibitor, looks on.
(PHOTO COURTESY OF
THE SIEGEL COLLECTION)
(1932), followed by Duck Soup (1933), in which the team
turned politics and the institution of war into sheer hilarity.
These last two films are arguably their finest.
Unfortunately, Duck Soup was not a rousing success at the
box office. Paramount chose not to renew the Marx Brothers’
contract, and Zeppo quit the team to become a theatrical
agent. Though Paramount no longer wanted the Marx
Brothers,
IRVING THALBERG
at MGM did. He proposed,
however, that they be paid 25 percent less than before
because Zeppo had quit the team. Groucho retorted that
they were twice as funny without Zeppo; Thalberg relented
and a deal was struck. In any event, Margaret Dumont, who
played the perfect dowager foil to Groucho in seven Marx
Brothers movies, was ultimately more important to their
films than Zeppo ever was.
Believing the brothers to be actually too funny, Thalberg
sought to slow their movies down and attract a female audi-
ence by adding a love interest. He also thought it would be a
good idea for the boys to take their comic bits out on the road
to hone them for their pictures. The result of Thalberg’s
brainstorm was A Night at the Opera (1935), the most com-
mercially successful of the Marx Brothers’ movies. A Day at
the Races (1937) was only a slightly lesser follow-up, but MGM
seemed to lose interest in the team after Thalberg died, and
their films were soon beset by sillier romantic subplots.
Nonetheless, there were still wonderful moments in their
movies, particularly in At the Circus (1939) and Go West (1940).
Among other later movies were the film version of the hit
play Room Service (1938), The Big Store (1941), an independ-
ent production of A Night in Casablanca (1946), and Love
Happy (1949), the team’s last movie together and the only one
in which Harpo had top billing. Love Happy also featured
future female superstar
MARILYN MONROE
and was produced
by the first female superstar,
MARY PICKFORD
.
The Marx Brothers never made another movie together as
a team after Love Happy—though they each appeared in sepa-
rate segments of the all-star film The Story of Mankind (1957).
Of the three brothers, only Groucho remained fully active in
show business. In addition to his hit radio and TV series, Yo u
Bet Your Life during the 1950s, he also appeared solo in several
films, including the Carmen Miranda vehicle Copacabana
(1947), Double Dynamite (1951) with Jane Russell, A Girl in
Every Port (1952), and, finally, Skidoo (1969). Groucho also
cowrote a screenplay with Norman Krasna for The King and
the Chorus Girl (1937), a film starring
JOAN BLONDELL
.
See also
AGENTS
;
COMEDY TEAMS
;
DUCK SOUP
.
Mason, James (1909–1984) An actor with one of the
richest, most evocative speaking voices in the history of the
cinema. A one-time matinee idol in England, he came to
Hollywood in the late 1940s but never became the superstar
that many predicted. Though he had a number of triumphs,
particularly in the early 1950s, he eventually became a reli-
able and highly valued character actor. In his later years, his
smooth acting style and mellifluous voice brought him a
measure of the fame and praise that had eluded him in ear-
lier decades.
Born in England and educated as an architect, he
nonetheless chose a career in the theater, making his debut in
The Rascal in 1931. He continued acting on the stage
throughout the 1930s and the very early 1940s, but he was
one of the few stage-trained actors who publicly professed to
prefer the camera to the boards. He began to work in film in
the mid-1930s, starring in a number of low-budget English
movies, the first of which was Late Extra (1935). His first
important film role was a small part in Alexander Korda’s Fire
over England (1937).
Clearly interested in pursuing a movie career, however,
Mason helped produce and script his own starring vehicle on
a shoestring budget called I Met a Murderer (1939). The crit-
ics liked the film, but it didn’t go over well with the public.
Mason would later produce several films on his own, none of
them commercial hits.
By 1941 he had begun to act in films full time, making his
big breakthrough in The Man in Grey (1943). Mason special-
ized in playing hard-hearted men who treated their women
badly but were redeemed by the end of the movie. Women
moviegoers couldn’t get enough of his handsome young man
who was such a rotter. During the next three years he became
England’s most popular movie star. He made his reputation
as a serious actor in a top-notch drama, Carol Reed’s Odd
Man Out (1947).
Hollywood wanted Mason. He arrived in America in
1947 but was unable to act on film in the United States by
court order due to contractual problems. He was forced to
bide his time. Unfortunately, it was time ill spent: He went
on to flop in a Broadway show and made inadvertent unkind
remarks about the American film industry that were made
public. By the time he starred in his first Hollywood vehicle,
Caught (1949), he was tarnished goods.
Mason struggled along in mediocre movies, his stock
diminishing every year, until he had a short streak of strong
roles in good movies, most notably in The Desert Fox (1951),
Five Fingers (1952), and in Joseph Mankiewicz’s highly
regarded all-star version of Julius Caesar (1953), in which he
had perhaps the greatest role of his career, Brutus. His most
famous role, however, was that of the fading star, Norman
Maine, in
GEORGE CUKOR
’s A Star Is Born (1954). The film
was obviously a
JUDY GARLAND
vehicle, but Mason was the
character who held the emotional center of the story. Origi-
nally,
HUMPHREY BOGART
was slated for the part and, later,
CARY GRANT
actually signed to play Norman Maine, but
when the dust settled Mason ended up with the meaty role,
winning an Oscar nomination for Best Actor.
Mason went on to play challenging roles in only a hand-
ful of notable films from then on. He was memorable as a
victim in
NICHOLAS RAY
’s Bigger than Life (1956), as the vil-
lain in
ALFRED HITCHCOCK
’s North by Northwest (1959),
and, in a tour de force that should have resurrected his fad-
ing fortunes, as Humbert Humbert in
STANLEY KUBRICK
’s
Lolita (1962).
After several flops, however, Mason had become solidly
entrenched in supporting character parts—many of them in
English films. Though his roles were smaller, at least his
films were good, as were his reviews. Among his better films
MASON, JAMES
270
during that era are The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), The
Pumpkin Eater (1964), Lord Jim (1965), The Blue Max (1966),
and Georgy Girl (1966).
His film choices became considerably more indiscrimi-
nate in the later 1960s and throughout the rest of his career;
he was an actor who simply kept working, regardless of the
material. Still, there were a number of good films amid the
schlock. The best of them were The Last of Sheila (1973), 11
Harrowhouse (1974), Voyage of the Damned (1976), Heaven Can
Wait (1978), The Boys from Brazil (1978), The Verdict (1982),
and The Shooting Party (1984), his final film.
master shot An entire scene photographed from begin-
ning to end as recorded by a single camera and without any
edits. Although the master shot may be used in a film exactly
as it is photographed, it is more often intercut with close-ups,
reaction shots, and the like, all of which are photographed
separately to correspond to the master.
For example, a master shot of a typical gunfight in a west-
ern might have the camera recording the scene from slightly
behind the hero and off to his right. Whether the camera
itself moves or not, the film must run continuously as the
hero and villain approach each other, size each other up, then
draw and shoot their guns, with (let us suppose) the bad guy
crumpling to the ground. If the director likes this particular
take, he or she has a master shot.
The director might then establish new set-ups and roll
the cameras again to get close-ups of the two characters’
facial expressions as they approach each other. The director
might also choose a subjective shot capturing one gunman
from the other’s point of view, as well as a close-up of a hand
reaching for a gun. Finally, the director might have a medium
close-shot of the villain as he falls to the ground. All of these
scenes would be carefully shot so as to “match” the visual
information recorded on the master; otherwise the fully
edited scene would be full of visual inaccuracies.
Matthau, Walter (1920–2000) A late-blooming star,
Matthau came to prominence in the latter half of the 1960s,
specializing in comedy but equally adept in action and the
occasional romantic role. With his beat-up-looking face and
body, a shuffling gait, and a decidedly ethnic-sounding vocal
quality, Matthau hardly seemed a candidate for movie star-
dom, but thanks to an abundance of talent, the right roles,
and a receptive audience, he became a top box-office attrac-
tion and an Oscar-winning performer.
Born Walter Matuschanskayasky to a former Catholic
priest and his Russian Jewish wife, Matthau grew up in
poverty on New York City’s Lower East Side. His job at the
age of 11 of selling soda in a Yiddish theater during intermis-
sion led to his acting on stage in bit parts.
After serving in the air force as a gunner, Matthau stud-
ied acting on the G.I. Bill at the New School’s Dramatic
Workshop. With his peculiar mug, he seemed best suited for
character parts, and he played them with ever-increasing suc-
cess on stage until he made his film debut in The Kentuckian
(1955). He played the villain—as he would in virtually all of
his films during the next decade.
Matthau worked constantly from 1955 to 1965, appear-
ing on Broadway, starring in a short-lived TV series, Talla-
hassee 7000 in 1959, and playing bad guys in the movies, most
memorably in A Face in the Crowd (1957), King Creole (1958),
and Charade (1963). He even directed himself in a film, a low-
budget affair called Gangster Story (1958).
A highly respected actor, Matthau merely needed the
right vehicle to show off his abilities. Director
BILLY WILDER
wisely cast Matthau in his black comedy The Fortune Cookie
(1966). Matthau’s brilliant performance as a sleazy ambu-
lance-chasing lawyer brought him a Best Supporting Actor
Academy Award. He also came away with a lasting personal
and professional relationship with his costar
JACK LEMMON
.
Playwright-screenwriter
NEIL SIMON
provided Matthau
with another important vehicle, penning the role of Oscar
Madison in the play The Odd Couple expressly for him. The
critical and public response to his performance as Madison
made Matthau an undisputed star, at least in New York, and
when he later reprised the role in the film version of the play
in 1968 (costarring with Lemmon), he solidified his standing
as a major comic film talent. Simon has since provided a
great many other excellent roles for Matthau in such films as
Plaza Suite (1971), The Sunshine Boys (1975), which garnered
him one of his two Best Actor Oscar nominations, and Cali-
fornia Suite (1978). Jack Lemmon directed him in Kotch
(1971), for which Matthau received his other Oscar nomina-
tion as Best Actor.
Matthau’s portrayal of a modern-day
W
.
C
.
FIELDS
play-
ing cranky comic characters led to either critical or commer-
cial success in such films as A New Leaf (1971), The Bad News
Bears (1976), and Little Miss Marker (1979). Having proved
himself in comedy, Matthau also exhibited a wider range of
acting talent. He first showed his dramatic potential in the
seriocomic film Pete ’n’ Tillie (1972). His next three films
were pure action movies, all well reviewed, and all of them
hits: Charley Varrick (1973), The Laughing Policeman (1973),
and The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974). In yet
another display of versatility, Matthau, then in his late fifties,
starred in House Calls (1978), a light romance with Glenda
Jackson. The film was such a hit the pair was reunited in
another romantic comedy, Hopscotch (1980).
Due to ill health, Matthau appeared with less frequency
in the movies during the 1980s—and also with less commer-
cial success than in the past. Despite generally good personal
notices, films such as First Monday in October (1981), Buddy,
Buddy (1981), The Survivors (1983), and The Couch Trip (1988)
were not hits.
Aside from a television appearance in 1989 as a lawyer in
The Incident (1989) and a bit part in
OLIVER STONE
’s JFK
(1991), Matthau did not appear in a film between 1987 and
1993, when he and Jack Lemmon were reunited in Grumpy
Old Men. The duo continued their bickering and sparring as
they fought for Ann-Margret’s affections; in 1995’s sequel,
they were Grumpier Old Men, this time with Sophia Loren as
the love interest. In fact, the Matthau-Lemmon team would
appear in more films (Out to Sea [1997] and Neil Simon’s The
MATTHAU, WALTER
271
Odd Couple [1998]), but the material became increasingly
stale. Matthau seemed to be at his best playing a grump, and
he was the inevitable choice to play Mr. Wilson in Dennis the
Menace (1993). In I’m Not Rappaport (1996), Ossie Davis filled
in for Lemmon in another geriatric donnybrook. In two sup-
porting roles Matthau was outstanding: He portrayed Albert
Einstein in I.Q. (1994), a romantic comedy, and in Hanging
Up (2000) he played an elderly show-business veteran, mod-
eled after Henry Ephron.
Mature, Victor See
SEX SYMBOLS
:
MALE
.
May, Elaine (1932– ) An actress, writer, and director
specializing in humorous subjects, she was one of the first
women in the modern Hollywood era to write and direct
major motion pictures. Unfortunately, her career took a seri-
ous tumble in 1987 due to her direction of the failed Ishtar,
the biggest bomb of the late 1980s.
Born Elaine Berlin to a theatrical family, she performed
in several plays in the Yiddish Theater with her father, Jack
Berlin. While at the University of Chicago, she met
MIKE
NICHOLS
, another aspiring young actor, and the pair formed
a comedy team that proved to be enormously popular during
the 1950s. The act broke up in 1961 and May began to write
and direct for the theater, though she soon found herself
temporarily drawn back into performing, appearing in Luv
(1967) and Enter Laughing (1967).
During the 1970s May was one of a rare breed: a female
screenwriter and director. She wrote the script of Such Good
Friends (1971) under the pen name Esther Dale and wrote,
directed, and starred in the hit comedy movie, A New Leaf
(1971). When she followed that success with yet another hit,
The Heartbreak Kid (1972), directing her daughter, Jeannie
Berlin, to a Best Supporting Actress nomination, it appeared
as if May were going to become a major new directorial
force. But her next film, Mikey and Nicky, went considerably
overbudget (presaging her greatest disaster), spent years
being edited, and didn’t arrive on movie screens until 1976.
It was not a success.
In 1978, she cowrote the smash hit Heaven Can Wait and
stepped in front of the cameras again in California Suite, but
she was little heard from again until she directed
WARREN
BEATTY
and
DUSTIN HOFFMAN
in the colossal flop Ishtar
(1987). A comedy that went stupendously over budget, it was
ripped apart by the critics and ignored by audiences despite
the film’s star power. Beatty and Hoffman took a lot of the
critical heat for the disaster, but Elaine May’s reputation suf-
fered a terrible beating nonetheless. Ishtar proved very dam-
aging for May, who appeared in only one more film, In the
Spirit (1990), and never directed another movie.
Mayer, Louis B. (1885–1957) The studio chief at
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the famous film company that bore
his name. Like all the Hollywood moguls, he was a ruthless,
demanding executive with a paternalistic style of doing busi-
ness. As John Douglas Eames has noted in The MGM Story,
Mayer saw his studio as a family, with himself as the patriarch.
He therefore treated everyone beneath him—and there were
as many as 6,000 employees at the studio—like children.
Born in Minsk, Russia, Mayer grew up in Canada after his
family immigrated there when he was still very young. He
was no sooner out of elementary school when he joined his
father’s scrap metal business, eventually opening a similar
business of his own in Boston. Successful, Mayer put his
profits into a failing movie theater, managing to turn it into a
money-making proposition. He soon bought other theaters
until he owned New England’s largest chain of movie houses.
A powerful exhibitor in the growing film business, Mayer
then involved himself in the distribution of movies, becom-
ing an officer of Metro Pictures until he resigned to form his
own production company in 1917. His first film under the
banner of Louis B. Mayer Pictures was Virtuous Wives (1918).
Mayer continued to make movies but was one of the
smaller players in a business that was beginning to solidify
into larger concerns. His company was finally bought in 1924
by Loew’s, Inc., which added the studio to two recent pur-
chases to form Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Mayer’s company
was bought by Loew’s largely to obtain the business acumen
of its president. Mayer was quickly made vice president and
general manager of the new MGM.
Mayer’s influence as studio chief was muted by the
acknowledged brilliance of
IRVING THALBERG
, MGM’s head
of production, who received most of the credit for the studio’s
better offerings during the latter 1920s and early 1930s. But
after Thalberg died, Mayer put his own stamp on MGM’s
films, turning the company toward wholesome family films
such as the Andy Hardy series that starred
MICKEY ROONEY
.
Although virtually all of the Hollywood moguls were
tyrannical, Mayer was the most visible of the pack due to his
station as the head of the most powerful studio, and his com-
pensation reflected his power and influence—he earned more
than $1.25 million per year, making him the highest-paid
executive in America.
In 1951, with revenues falling at MGM and across all of
Hollywood due to the inroads of television, Mayer was finally
replaced by his assistant, Dore Schary. The mogul went on to
become a consultant to Cinerama before making a desperate
attempt to regain his job at MGM via a stockholder insur-
rection. His bid failed, and he died the following year.
See also
METRO
-
GOLDWYN
-
MAYER
.
Maynard, Ken (1895–1973) An exciting cowboy star
who was arguably the greatest trick rider ever to appear in
WESTERNS
. He is also noteworthy for being the original
singing cowboy, introducing musical interludes into his films
in the early 1930s, several years before the advent of the king
of the singing cowboys,
GENE AUTRY
, whom Maynard intro-
duced in In Old Santa Fe (1934). Maynard became a star in
the late 1920s and the early 1930s, his career lasting into the
1940s. His remarkable horse, Tarzan, was nearly as famous as
he was; the animal even starred in his own movie, Come on
Tarzan (1932).
MATURE, VICTOR
272
Maynard, like so many of his fellow cowboy stars, was a
former rodeo champion. He started to appear in bit parts in
westerns in 1923, quickly rising in popularity thanks to his
daredevil stunt riding, so similar to that of the hugely suc-
cessful
TOM MIX
. By the end of the 1920s, Maynard was a
major western star, having made such hit films as Gun Gospel
(1927) and Wagon Master (1929).
The years 1929 to 1934 marked the peak of Maynard’s
career. He often wrote, produced, directed, and starred in his
own “B” movies, among them Sons of the Saddle (1930) in
which he sang for the first time, King of the Arena (1933), and
Gun Justice (1933).
Unfortunately, Maynard had a severe drinking problem
that undermined his ability to perform. His younger brother,
Kermit Maynard, sometimes doubled for him, before becom-
ing a serviceable “B” movie western star in his own right in
the mid-1930s.
Ken Maynard continued to work in low-budget westerns
until the end of the 1930s. After making personal appear-
ances at rodeos in the early 1940s, he returned briefly to Hol-
lywood to make a handful of additional minor horse operas,
such as Arizona Whirlwind (1944). But the magic was gone.
So was Tarzan; the horse had died in 1940.
Maynard was all but forgotten when he was given a bit part
in the low-budget Bigfoot (1971). Soon thereafter, though, his
drinking caught up to him, and he was put in the Motion Pic-
ture Country Home. He died of stomach cancer in 1973.
Mazursky, Paul (1930– ) A one-time actor, he has
become a writer-director-producer sharply attuned to popu-
lar taste, infusing his usually comic films with trenchant
observations on our times. Sometimes criticized for merely
skimming the surface of timely issues, it would be fair to say
in Mazursky’s defense that he is one of the few commercial
filmmakers who is willing to make cultural statements of any
kind in his movies.
Mazursky began to perform while in school and, after
graduation from Brooklyn College, continued to pursue his
career, though with little success. He first appeared on film in
STANLEY KUBRICK
’s Fear and Desire (1953) and later had a
significant role in The Blackboard Jungle (1955). Though he
continued to find occasional roles in films and on TV
throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s, he made his first
important breakthrough as a writer, penning sketches for the
high-quality comedy/variety TV series, The Danny Kaye
Show. His writing credits helped him sell his first screenplay
(written in collaboration with his early writing partner, Larry
Tucker), I Love You, Alice B. Toklas! (1968).
Given a chance to direct his own script (written with
Larry Tucker), Mazursky hit a home run his first time up
with his lively comedy about wife-swapping, Bob & Carol &
Ted & Alice (1969). The film didn’t quite have the courage of
its convictions, but it dealt with what was still a shocking sub-
ject for a Hollywood comedy in the late 1960s.
Averaging a film every two years since his debut as a
director, Mazursky has seriously flopped only when he has
been either obviously autobiographical or pretentious.
Among his critical or box-office failures are Alex in Wonder-
land (1970), Next Stop, Greenwich Village (1976), Willie and
Phil (1980), and The Tempest (1982). None of these films,
however, are disasters—Mazursky has the uncanny ability to
make even his poor films interesting.
He began to produce as well as write and direct his
movies with his third film, Blume in Love. It was with this
movie that he hit his stride, establishing an intimate visual
style. He followed that success with the warm yet unsenti-
mental Harry and Tonto (1974). His biggest success of the
1970s was the seriocomic An Unmarried Woman (1978).
Mazursky was the first mass-market filmmaker to focus on
the social and emotional upheaval divorce can inflict on
women. The film was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar.
During the 1980s, Mazursky has excelled as a director of
comedies, making several critical and commercial hits,
including Moscow on the Hudson (1984) and Down and Out in
Beverly Hills (1986), as well as the less successful Moon Over
Parador (1988). Mazursky also directed Enemies: A Love Story
(1989), Scenes from a Mall (1991), The Pickle (1993), and
Faithful (1996).
Mazursky, it should be noted, is a student of the cinema.
A number of his films have been based on foreign film clas-
sics. For instance, his Willie and Phil is an American version
of François Truffaut’s Jules and Jim (1961), and Down and Out
in Beverly Hills is similar to Jean Renoir’s Boudu Saved from
Drowning (1932).
Interestingly, the acting bug still bites the director. In
addition to appearing occasionally in small roles in other
directors’ films, such as A Star Is Born (1976), Mazursky is
visible in small roles in many of his own films, including Alex
in Wonderland, Blume in Love, An Unmarried Woman, Down
and Out in Beverly Hills, and Moon over Parador. In the latter
film, he played
RICHARD DREYFUSS
’s mother. As a director
who loves acting, Mazursky has been able to elicit top-notch
performances from the stars of his films, many of whom have
done some of the best acting of their careers with him,
including Jill Clayburgh, Richard Dreyfuss, Bette Midler,
NATALIE WOOD
, and
ROBIN WILLIAMS
. Other parts have
included performances in Enemies: A Love Story (1989), Scenes
from a Mall (1991), Carlito’s Way (1993), The Pickle (1993),
Miami Rhapsody (1995), Faithful (1996), Crazy in Alabama
(1999), and Do It for Uncle Manny (2002).
McCarey, Leo (1898–1969) A director, screenwriter,
and producer who, at the height of his career in the late 1930s
and early 1940s, found an ideal balance between humor and
sentiment, creating a string of memorable hit movies.
McCarey’s background was rather unusual for a director
who started in the silent era. Many early movie directors had
backgrounds either in engineering or the theater, but
McCarey had been a lawyer—a bad one. He once told
PETER
BOGDANOVICH
that he had been literally chased out of a
courtroom by one of his clients, and he kept on running until
he reached Hollywood in 1918. He received his training in
the early 1920s as an assistant to director
TOD BROWNING
.
He was given the opportunity to direct his first feature film
McCAREY, LEO
273
at
UNIVERSAL PICTURES
, Society Secrets (1921). Unfortu-
nately, the young director wasn’t quite ready to handle such a
responsibility, and the movie was a dismal failure.
During the balance of the 1920s—from 1923 through
1929—McCarey wrote, supervised production, and directed
comic short subjects at the Hal Roach Studio, gaining expert-
ise as a gag man and learning how to fashion cinematic com-
edy. During those years, he either wrote, directed, or
supervised the production of Laurel and Hardy’s greatest
shorts, including their classic, Big Business (1929).
McCarey took a second stab at feature-film directing in
1929 with a minor effort called The Sophomore. This time, he
passed muster and continued directing feature films until
1962. There was nothing special about his earliest work until
he began to direct comedy stars such as
EDDIE CANTOR
in
The Kid From Spain (1932), the
MARX BROTHERS
in
DUCK
SOUP
(1933), and
MAE WEST
in Belle of the Nineties (1934). He
directed a different kind of star in 1935 when he chose
CHARLES LAUGHTON
as the lead in Ruggles of Red Gap. The
film was a critical and box-office hit, firmly establishing
McCarey as a director of note.
After a noble but failed attempt at resurrecting
HAROLD
LLOYD
’s career with The Milky Way (1936), McCarey went on
to produce and direct the most unflinchingly honest film ever
made in the 1930s about the American family and the Great
Depression. The movie was Make Way for Tomorrow (1937),
and it had surprisingly good humor despite its heart-wrench-
ing story of an aging couple who lose their home and dis-
cover that their grown children are either unwilling or unable
to help them live the last few years of their lives together.
The two old people are parted forever in one of Hollywood’s
most haunting film endings.
Beginning with Make Way for Tomorrow, McCarey pro-
duced every movie he directed save one, and from 1939
onward, he either supplied the stories for his own films or
cowrote the screenplays. For a solid decade, he had hit after hit.
He started his hit parade after Make Way for Tomorrow
with a delightful screwball comedy starring
CARY GRANT
and
IRENE DUNNE
, The Awful Truth (1937), a movie that boldly
and quite comically dealt with the issue of divorce. McCarey
won an Academy Award as Best Director for 1937, ostensibly
for The Awful Truth but most likely because he had shown
such remarkable directorial range that year.
He showed still more range when he directed his most
lushly romantic movie, Love Affair (1939), a film rarely seen
today because McCarey remade it himself in 1957 as An
Affair to Remember and the earlier version was removed from
circulation. Those who have seen both consider Love Affair
the superior film.
McCarey’s career was building to a high point when he
made Once upon a Honeymoon (1942). He reached the apex
when he directed Going My Way (1944), starring
BING
CROSBY
. The movie was a spectacular hit, and McCarey won
Academy Awards for his story and for his direction. He fol-
lowed that success with a sequel to Going My Way, The Bells
of St. Mary’s (1945), and it, too, was a smash hit.
McCarey began to make movies less often, directing only
one in the late 1940s, the moderately successful and sweet-
natured Good Sam (1948), starring
GARY COOPER
. Four years
later, McCarey’s career took a nosedive when he made My Son
John (1952), an incredibly heavy-handed anticommunist film
that is almost unwatchable today. He recouped with An Affair
to Remember in 1957, but McCarey’s humor—his greatest
asset—was sadly lacking in Rally Round the Flag, Boys! (1958),
and the drama was flat in his last film, Satan Never Sleeps (1962).
McCrea, Joel (1905–1990) In a career spanning five
decades, he is best remembered as an agreeable light comic
actor who had his heyday in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
In the early 1930s, he usually had the less important male
lead opposite bigger female stars. From the mid-1940s until
his retirement, he appeared almost exclusively in westerns.
But whatever he played in, Joel McCrea’s easy, likable man-
ner made him a bankable if not altogether exciting film star
throughout his career.
McCrea grew up in southern California and set his sites
on the movie business from a very early age. He pursued the-
ater in college and acted in local community productions, all
the while working as an extra in Hollywood whenever he got
the chance.
He found his first nonextra role in The Jazz Age (1929)
and proceeded to work at many of the major studios, princi-
pally MGM, RKO, and Goldwyn, during the 1930s. McCrea
made a lot of movies, some of them of reasonable quality, but
nothing that made him stand out. Even when he starred in
the
WILLIAM WYLER
classic
DEAD END
(1937), he was
upstaged by
HUMPHREY BOGART
cast in a lesser role. That
same year, however, he starred in his first western, Wells Fargo
(1937), and carried the film, turning it into a major hit. Union
Pacific (1939) ensured his standing as a credible western star.
The early 1940s brought McCrea his highest level of pop-
ularity. He showed his dramatic range as an actor in
ALFRED
HITCHCOCK
’s Foreign Correspondent (1940) and then teamed
up with
PRESTON STURGES
at Paramount in that director’s
golden period, starring in the delightful comedies Sullivan’s
Travels (1941) and Palm Beach Story (1942), as well as the lesser
Sturges comedy/drama, The Great Moment (1944).
Beginning in 1946, McCrea acted almost exclusively in
westerns, none of which are worth mentioning other than
SAM PECKINPAH
’s highly regarded Ride the High Country
(1962). As an aging lawman with nothing left but his princi-
ples, McCrea was truly superb. Nonetheless, his costar,
RAN
-
DOLPH SCOTT
, stole the picture from him.
McCrea temporarily retired after Ride the High Country,
returning to the big screen just a few more times over the
next two decades in low-budget westerns.
Though generally considered in his day a second-string
GARY COOPER
in action films and a second-string
CARY
GRANT
in contemporary comedies, in his open, honest style,
McCrea was probably closest to
HENRY FONDA
. In any event,
he was a serviceable and attractive actor.
McDaniel, Hattie (1895–1952) A black actress who
breached the color barrier in a number of significant ways in
McCREA, JOEL
274
the film, radio, and TV industries. Limited opportunities for
blacks in films resulted in few roles other than demeaning
stereotypical ones, but McDaniel made the best of a bad sit-
uation, making her presence felt in a great many films from
the 1930s until the early 1950s.
The daughter of a Baptist minister, McDaniel was accus-
tomed to singing in church. She began her show-business
career as a band singer, becoming the first black woman to
perform on radio. She began her acting career in the early
1930s, often in the role of a maid. With her warm, friendly
style, she was often chosen to play in support of sharp-edged
performers such as
MARLENE DIETRICH
(in Blonde Venus
[1932]) and
MAE WEST
(in I’m No Angel [1933]). In the latter
film, she was the recipient of Mae West’s famous line, “Beu-
lah, peel me a grape.”
McDaniel worked steadily in films, often (although not
exclusively) in either contemporary or period pieces that
were set in the South. For instance, she played supporting
roles in Judge Priest (1934), The Little Colonel (1935), Show
Boat (1936), Maryland (1940), and Song of the South (1946).
Her most famous role was in Gone With the Wind (1939), for
which she won an Oscar as Best Supporting Actress, the first
black actor in Hollywood history to be so honored.
McDaniel also acted on radio, appearing on the Eddie
Cantor Show, Amos ‘n’ Andy, and eventually her own show,
Beulah, turned into a TV show in 1952 in which she briefly
held the limelight before her death.
See also
RACISM IN HOLLYWOOD
.
McLaglen, Victor (1886–1959) A big, barrel-chested
former boxer who became a raw, though popular, actor first
in England and then in the United States. McLaglen was a
long-time favorite of
JOHN FORD
who directed him a dozen
times, often giving him a good role just when the actor’s
career needed a shot in the arm. He was a major (if unlikely)
star in the latter 1920s and through most of the 1930s before
he became a serviceable character actor.
McLaglen was born in Great Britain and spent a colorful
youth as a soldier, miner, and professional prize fighter, going
six rounds with the then world heavyweight champion, Jack
Johnson. In 1920, he was spotted in England by a producer
who thought the fighter could make a dashing film star. Cast
in The Call of the Road, a surprise hit, McLaglen suddenly
became a bankable actor. Within just two years, he was one
of England’s biggest stars. But when the bottom dropped out
of the English film market, the actor suddenly found himself
in need of work.
When Hollywood beckoned, McLaglen quickly
responded. His first American feature was The Beloved Brute
(1925), an aptly named movie that also defined the actor’s
film personality. Among his silent films were The Unholy
Three (1925), in which he costarred with
LON CHANEY
; The
Fighting Heart (1925), his first film under the directorial
guidance of John Ford; and What Price Glory (1926), in
which he had his most important silent screen role, playing
Captain Flagg. The latter film made $2 million at the box
office and spawned several sequels with McLaglen good-
naturedly battling his friend Sergeant Quirt (played by
Edmund Lowe).
John Ford directed McLaglen in his first talkie, The Black
Watch (1929), but after a few successes, such as Dishonored
(1931) with
MARLENE DIETRICH
, his career began to fade.
Ford, as always, was there to help him, giving him a starring
role in The Lost Patrol (1934). The film was a hit, and it led
Ford to cast McLaglen in The Informer (1935). McLaglen was
at his boozy, brawling, brutish best, turning his character,
Gypo Nolan, into a sympathetic man tortured by guilt. He
won a Best Actor Oscar for his performance.
The latter 1930s were uneven for McLaglen. He starred
in several pictures and played supporting roles in others. His
best films of this period were Professional Soldier (1936), Wee
Willie Winkie (1937), the Ford-directed
SHIRLEY TEMPLE
film, and the magnificent Gunga Din (1939).
Though McLaglen worked fairly regularly, his career
began a steady slide in the 1940s. He was soon playing vil-
lains in “B” movies. Though he continued to appear in “B”
movies throughout the rest of his life, he did manage to
appear in a handful of quality films, all of them directed by
his friend and protector John Ford. The director cast him as
a tough, hard-drinking but lovable sergeant in Fort Apache
(1948), She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949), and Rio Grande
(1950). Ford used him again as John Wayne’s foil in The Quiet
Man, although a double stood in for McLaglen in the long
fight scene that concludes the film.
The actor continued to appear in small character parts
throughout the 1950s, and he lived long enough to be
directed by his son, Andrew V. McLaglen, in The Abductors
(1957). He died two years later of a heart attack.
McQueen, Steve (1930–1980) An actor who was the
personification of “cool,” he built his considerable reputation
in the 1960s and 1970s around a macho, loner image. His
weathered good looks made him a sex symbol to women, and
his tough action roles earned him the admiration of men.
McQueen was never considered an accomplished actor
(although he was very effective within his limitations), but he
was every bit the movie star, with a charisma that was unmis-
takable on the big screen. In addition to being one of the
highest-paid actors of the late 1960s and early 1970s, he also
had the distinction of being among the first television stars to
make what was then the very difficult leap to major movie-
star status.
McQueen had a difficult childhood, having been aban-
doned by his father when he was three years old. He spent
much of his youth in trouble, getting the better part of his
education in a reform school. He held a variety of jobs, such
as carnival worker, sailor, and lumberjack, before joining the
marines. He was not the perfect soldier, going AWOL at one
point and spending a portion of his military service in jail.
Directionless and headed for hard times when he left
the marines, McQueen drifted from job to job, making
money as a poker player when all else failed, until an aspir-
ing actress girlfriend suggested he become an actor. He was
accepted at New York’s Neighborhood Playhouse and
McQUEEN, STEVE
275
began to learn his craft there on the G.I. Bill in 1951, later
studying with Uta Hagen.
McQueen had on-the-job training in stock and on televi-
sion. His big break came in 1956 when he replaced Ben Gaz-
zara as the star of the Broadway production of A Hatful of
Rain. That same year he finally broke into the movies in a bit
part in Somebody Up There Likes Me (1956).
He first became known to the mass audience when he was
cast as Josh Randall in the TV series Wanted: Dead or Alive.
He played a bounty hunter in the western action show, and
its success for three and a half years (1958–61) made him a
famous TV personality. McQueen continued to act in movies
and make TV guest appearances during the run of his own
show. For instance, he had the lead role in the low-budget
science fiction film The Blob (1958), and he also appeared in
The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery (1959) and Never So Few
(1959). But the film that suggested he might have a career
beyond television was The Magnificent Seven (1960), in which
he gave a strong supporting performance.
The film industry saw McQueen’s potential and he was
cast in several films in the hope that he’d emerge a star. After
such flops as Hell Is for Heroes (1962) and The War Lover
(1962), he finally clicked in The Great Escape (1963), the film
with which he is still most closely identified.
Again, McQueen’s career stalled with several interesting
failures, among them Love with the Proper Stranger (1963) and
Baby the Rain Must Fall (1965). He finally hit his stride with
The Cincinnati Kid (1965), a poker version of Paul Newman’s
pool-hall saga, The Hustler (1961), and nearly as successful.
(For the rest of McQueen’s career, he and Newman would be
considered Hollywood’s top male action/sex symbols.) The
hits kept coming for McQueen: Nevada Smith (1966), The
Sand Pebbles (1966), for which he won his only Best Actor
Oscar nomination, The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), Bullitt
(1968), and an off-beat comedy, The Reivers (1969).
After The Great Escape, McQueen’s love for motorcycles
and fast cars became well known to film fans. The automo-
tive fast track seemed to suit him in Bullitt, a movie full of
chase scenes, and racing cars were at the heart of Le Mans
(1971), his first major flop as a megastar.
After having made a number of films through his own
production company, Solar Productions, including the Le
Mans fiasco, he decided to join a more powerful organiza-
tion, becoming, in 1971, a founding member of First
Artists, together with
BARBRA STREISAND
,
SIDNEY POITIER
,
and
PAUL NEWMAN
.
DUSTIN HOFFMAN
joined First Artists
the following year, which led to his teaming with McQueen
in Papillon (1973), which was one of McQueen’s last com-
pelling movies. In fact, the early 1970s marked the final
flowering of the actor’s worldwide appeal to film audiences.
He scored with such
SAM PECKINPAH
films as Junior Bonner
(1972) and The Getaway (1972), meeting and later marrying
and divorcing his costar, Ali McGraw. His appearance in the
all-star The Towering Inferno (1974) brought him a stagger-
ing $12 million.
He was off the screen for several years after The Towering
Inferno, returning in 1977 in a film that surprised but did not
delight his fans or the critics, an adaptation of Henrik Ibsen’s
An Enemy of the People.
He was again off the screen for several years, returning in
1980 with his last two movies, Tom Horn and The Hunter, nei-
ther of which were major hits.
McQueen died of a heart attack after a long fight against
terminal cancer employing what many in the traditional
medical community considered to be unorthodox methods.
Menjou, Adolphe (1890–1963) A dapper leading
man during the silent era who went on to be one of Holly-
wood’s most polished character actors in 76 sound films.
Known for his black waxed mustache and sartorial splen-
dor—his reputation as one of Hollywood’s best-dressed men
sometimes overshadowed his reputation as an actor—Men-
jou became the quintessential “other man” in celluloid love
triangles. He excelled at playing the rich, sophisticated,
somewhat decadent older gentleman who threatens the
romantic bliss of hero and heroine.
Of French extraction, Menjou was born in Pittsburgh and
grew up to become an engineer, a profession he found little
time for when he stumbled upon his acting career. He
MENJOU, ADOLPHE
276
What Steve McQueen lacked in acting ability, he more
than made up in charisma. Playing vulnerable loners and
tough guys, he won audience sympathy. With his piercing
stare and weathered good looks, he also won the
admiration of men and the adoration of women.
(PHOTO COURTESY OF MOVIE STAR NEWS)
appeared in one film in 1916, The Blue Envelope Mystery, and
several others in 1917 before heading off to war in Europe.
When he returned, he pursued his acting career in the theater,
acquiring the poise that would later mark his acting style.
Menjou returned to Hollywood in 1921 and was immedi-
ately cast in significant roles in such major films as The Three
Musketeers (1921) and The Sheik (1921). The film that
brought him stardom, however, was
CHARLIE CHAPLIN
’s A
Woman of Paris (1923). The movie was a serious drama that
Chaplin wrote and directed as a vehicle for Edna Purviance,
his longtime leading lady. Menjou shined in the film as a
suave, sophisticated boulevardier, a role he never fully aban-
doned, playing variations on it throughout much of the rest
of his career.
Despite having a wonderful speaking voice, Menjou
could not quite hold onto his star status after the advent of
sound in the late 1920s. Nonetheless, he gracefully made the
transition to being an excellent supporting player in Morocco
(1930), in which he tempts
MARLENE DIETRICH
with his
wealth and power to forget her love for
GARY COOPER
.
Despite his continued success, largely as a major charac-
ter actor, Menjou did have several important leading roles in
the 1930s, the most memorable of which came in The Front
Page (1931), for which he won a Best Actor nomination. But
even in a leading role, he usually supported a more popular
star, such as
KATHARINE HEPBURN
in Morning Glory (1933),
SHIRLEY TEMPLE
in Little Miss Marker (1934), and
DEANNA
DURBIN
in One Hundred Men and a Girl (1937).
Though he was usually cast against major talent, Menjou
was not above stealing a few scenes when he had the chance,
as he did in Roxie Hart (1942), playing a wildly dramatic
lawyer defending
GINGER ROGERS
. Among his other fine
performances during the 1940s and 1950s were those in State
of the Union (1948), The Sniper (1952), and
STANLEY
KUBRICK
’s classic antiwar film Paths of Glory (1957), in which
he had his last great role, as an imperious French officer in
World War I. His final film was Pollyanna (1960), once more
in support of a child actress, this time Hayley Mills.
Meredith, Burgess (1912–1997) In a career span-
ning approximately 50 years, he proved himself a tireless
actor, director, writer, and producer in virtually every area of
popular entertainment.
Meredith had any number of colorful jobs in his youth,
among them reporter, vacuum-cleaner salesman, tie clerk at
Macy’s, Wall Street runner, and seaman. By 1930, however,
he began to work steadily in the theater, gaining glowing
reviews and the award for Best Performance of the Year by
the New York Drama Critics for his work in Little Ol’ Boy
(1933) and She Loves Me Not (1933). A small, elfin man, he
commanded attention, thanks in large part to his distinctive
speaking voice. It was his 1936 starring role on Broadway in
Winterset, that brought him to the attention of Hollywood.
He recreated his role of Mio for the film version of the play
in 1936.
A good deal of film work followed, most notably in major
supporting parts in movies such as Idiot’s Delight (1939), Sec-
ond Chorus (1941), That Uncertain Feeling (1941), and Tom,
Dick and Harry (1941). On the rare occasions when he had
true starring roles, Meredith was riveting. He gave what
many consider to be his most memorable performance as
Lenny in Of Mice and Men (1939), but he also earned raves
for his portrayal of Ernie Pyle in The Story of G.I. Joe (1945).
Meredith wrote, coproduced, and costarred with his wife,
Paulette Goddard, in the Jean Renoir-directed version of
Diary of a Chambermaid (1945), which remains one of his
most admired works. In 1947, Meredith directed (for the first
and last time) and starred in Man on the Eiffel Tower.
During the 1950s, Meredith was little seen in the movies.
He directed plays, starred in the theater, and gave his talents
to television until finally he made an impressive comeback on
the big screen in Advise and Consent (1962). He later appeared
regularly in films, making noteworthy contributions in mod-
est roles in such films as The Cardinal (1963), Madame X
MEREDITH, BURGESS
277
Burgess Meredith’s impish smile graced dozens of films in
a long and extremely varied career. Despite his starring
role in many classic films he was probably best known for
his performances as Sylvester Stallone’s manager in the
first three Rocky movies.
(PHOTO COURTESY OF
BURGESS MEREDITH)