Grey Gardens Costumed Viewing Party (Blogger Meetup Success!)

Good morning!

Whew, what a weekend it was, this weekend past! What did you get into? I spent mine in a flurry of activity as I hosted my second blogger meetup on Saturday night. Watch out, Elsa Maxwell, I'm still vying for the title "hostess with the mostess." Themed parties are even more fun than regular wingdings, so I made good on a promise elicited several months ago between Kimmie, Rae, Eartha and myself to have everyone over for a showing of Grey Gardens. I am always down to watch this movie for the 1,000,001 time, and wouldn't it be fun to see all the girls for a good reason?

If you haven't seen the Maysles's seminal documentary of East Hampton eccentricity (or the HBO tv movie based on the real life characters, which is ok/not too bad), I strongly urge you to get to the library and grab a copy. Or if you have Hulu, both the original Grey Gardens and its semi-sequel The Beales of Grey Gardens are available through their Criterion collection. The movie is a must-see! It presents an indelible portrait of Big Edie and Little Edie Bouvier Beale, Jackie Kennedy's aunt and first cousin, respectively, who live in relative isolation in a falling-down New England mansion filled with cats, raccoons, and memorabilia from their halcyon days as members of high society. The real star of the show is Little Edie, whose eye-grabbing improvised wardrobe choices are truly some of the strangest/most inspired things you'll see this side of a fashion runway or mental hospital. Edie wears a series of scarves/bathtowels as headwraps and combines swimsuits, upside-down-pinned-together-skirts, turtlenecks, and an iconic brooch into what she deems "the best costume for the day". 

I knew if I was going to do a viewing party, a big part of the hype should be the "come in costume" portion of the invitation. And yours truly did spend the better part of a whole evening a week or two ago throwing together tights with headwraps in an attempt to get as close to Edie as I could. Was my room ever a mess! My first attempt, which involved an actual-sweater-as-headgear in a gesture of true fidelity to the original, ended with me looking like some kind of hijab-wearing chorus girl. Fail. I eventually settled on this much less severe, hugely oversized kerchief, and finally figured out how 1970s girls tie those dadblasted things to look like Rhoda (tie two ends tightly at the back, shift gently to side, keep in place with a bobby pin or two). See below: muuuuch better on the second try.

From Sharif he don't like it  to a staunch character S-T-A-U-N-C-H

With the headwrap locked down, I added my Esther-Williams style actual main bathing suit, a wrap around skirt I purposefully gathered the bottom of and tied at the hip, a black turtleneck, black tights, and, for the kicker, white sandals for about as-close a Grey Gardens look as I could pull together from my own closet:

Cheesecake shot of me which only serves to remind me to eat less cheesecake :p

Next, I sent out invitations via email with this image:

My favorite Windows-paint created format: ransom note chic.

And started thinking of how I wanted to do the table. The most important party planning to me involves what the table will look like and what we'll actually do at the party. I get excited to try and pull in creative ideas that will make it memorable (and give me a challenge in the meantime of how to pull it off). In this case, I knew I wanted stacks of newspaper, empty cat food cans, and a raccoon of some kind, along with a portrait of Edie and maybe some tiny American flags in homage to her third-act Fourth of July dance. I put in a call to my cat-owner friend Kelsey to save clean cat food cans she would otherwise recycle and put on my thinking cap for what else I could do.

Voilà the finished product! I made a sign like the one of the two Edie had made for herself and her mother (her mom's says "The Great Singer Big Edie Bouvier Beale" and hers, as you see below, omits the "r" on "dancer" but touts her prowess at an old soft shoe or waltz), spread a parcel of ads I got in the mail earlier that week all across the table, printed off a life size raccoon on cardstock at Office Depot, and arranged the cans into a little pyramid about the faux critter's feet.

As for activities, I was stumped. I knew we were going to watch the movie, but in googling "Grey Gardens party", I couldn't find any suggested activities other than dressing up and watching the movie (both of which I had covered). So I went back to my teaching resource days and found a Bingo generator. The OTHER best part of the movie, besides Edie's clothes, is definitely how memorable a lot of the dialogue is. So I went through and copied down some of my favorite lines in the movie and made them into a series of unique bingo cards-- if you use a site like this, you can scramble the order of the spaces so each card is individual. Also, imagine if you haven't seen the movie before and you're reading through this card like, "Uh...is this what I'm in for?" I was really happy with the finished result!

As before any social event held at my house, the biggest nail-biting part of the party-throwing is not making the devilled eggs and the cake and cleaning the house (which are practically rote at this point for me), but worrying about whether or not anyone will show up! Real talk: about an hour before any party, I'm always stricken with a pang of self-doubt and an internal monologue of "Oh, God, why did I plan a party, what if like two people show up, I should never do anything" before Matthew eventually talks me down from the ledge (or I get cheered up by my outfit, lol). A few people sent their regrets, and 14 people RSVP'd over the mass email chain I'd sent out to lady bloggers of Nashville. "Hm," says I, "I figure that means I should plan for 10 and actually expect about 8." Well, color me surprised/shame on me for being pessimistic, but each and every of those fourteen people showed up! I should have known with the caliber of kiddies I was talking about that they would come out in force!

Group shot minus Sarah and Rory and Quincy

I stole an idea from a friend of mine's Halloween party (shout-out, Kate McC!) and passed around a selfie-stick with Matthew's phone on it to ensure lots of (albeit blurry) photos! Cast of characters included:

Eartha from Ranch Dressing With Eartha Kitsch and Rae from Say It Ain't So... Eartha knocked it out of the park in her movie-quality Big Edie costume and Rae was part of the pantsless swimsuit and tights club with yours truly:

Jamie and Kimmie from That Girl in the Wheelchair, showing off some patriotic pride with a tiny flag-- Kimmie also wins the prize for "most brooches":

1) Aubrey from Adventures in Aubreyland, Amanda from Junebugs and Georgia Peaches, Jenna from Kitty Cat Stevens, and another appearance from Jamie and Kimmie; 2) the aforementioned minus Jenna, Jamie, and Kimmie but PLUS Quincy from Qsdayream (you can't see her polkadot skirt but it was super cute). Check out Aubrey's spot on headwrap and Amanda's magnifying glass (nice touch!). Jenna came from another event, so we can't hold it against her she didn't want to show up to a non-Edie-Beale-themed-party in Edie Beale attire, lol.

Lauren from Lladybird.com and Devon from Miss Make, lookin' fabulous:

Rory and Sarah from sarahcomo.com (they should get a shout out for being so color coordinated/ adroit at taking selfie stick selfies):

And last but not least, Quincy gave Matthew her phone to take a few group shots, and ended up with Bub taking like 10 selfies after he took the desired group photo. He cracks me up.

Most everyone brought something to eat or drink, but a special shout out to Eartha, who brought this cake with a message. I about died. The quote is (duh) from the movie and perfect:

Verdict? We had a ball! At one point, I think every chair in the house was in the living room for the actual screening, but every one of the guests were real troupers and put up with the sea-of-people squeezed into my front room! The first three winners of Grey Gardens Bingo were Kimmie, Sarah, and Amanda, respectively, and there were some honorable mentions passed around along with certificates of achievement (who doesn't like to win?). We finished the movie and watched clips from Documentary Now!, where Fred Armisen and Bill Heder do a pretty accurate spoof of the Beale ladies (minus the New England accents! I don't know why they decided not to do them when they're such a big part of the movie!), and then just sat around and caught up. The cheerful, high decibel din of people having a good time is about the best you can ask for from a party, and overall, I thought it was a success! I'm so glad to know so many fun and interesting gals in the Nashville area and happy we could all get together even during this busy holiday season!

I bid my last guests good night around 11:30 and promptly went to bed, lol. But I still had cake and hummus to eat Sunday, and a clean house to enjoy, which is the SECOND best part about throwing a party. :)

The lady of the hour, Miss Beale

Thanks to everyone who came out to celebrate! And we need to do it again soon! (hint hint, nudge, cough, *karaoke party Rae* cough).

How about you? Are you a Grey Gardens fan? What would you wear for an Edie inspired costume? Had any great themed parties to attend lately? Let's talk!

That's all for today... but shame on me, I'm going to try to be better about updating this space! Have a fantastic week and I'll talk to you soon. Til then!

Movie Star Paper Dolls (1940's-1950's)

Good afternoon!

How's tricks? I was felled by illness most of last week, so I've been steamrolling along trying to catch up at work THIS week...but that doesn't mean I've forgotten my blood oath to return to a regular blogging schedule! Not in the slightest. The last week, in between book slinging here at work, I've been reading Glenn Ford: A Life on Overdrive, listening to a lot of New Wave via this Youtube channel, and poring over 1940's and 50's paper dolls on Google image search, all thanks to the ceaseless wonder we call the internet. Since the third topic lends itself naturally to a visual medium like this very blog, want to take a look with me at some of the particularly eye-popping instances of Hollywood high glamour? I knnooooow thatcha doooo.

Allons-y....

Hello, gorgeous! I'm to the chapter in the Glenn Ford book where he's making Gilda, so doesn't that just dovetail nicely with this discovery!

When I was a young, American Movie Classics network obsessed kid in the 90's, I can remember seeing Tom Tierney's Hollywood and other historic paper doll collections in Waldenbooks and the like. The books were (and are) fascinating for fashionistas and cinephiles alike, particularly in the case of the movie-related ones as the screen-worn costumes were recreated in miniature manipulative versions for the titles ("Ah, look! It's her little tam o'shanter from the part where Dana Andrews says he's in love with another woman! And you can put the opera coat over the cocktail dress from the ballroom scene...but she might like the Walter Plunkett one from the first scene better...hmm..." ad infinitum).  Since then, I've seen my share of of-the-era vintage paper dolls at estate sales, and don't they always catch my interest for the gorgeous colors and heart stoppingly wonderful clothes illustrated in their little paper trousseaux. So many interests intersect here, and the best part, for a collector-- you can store like 1,000 outfits in a manila envelope. Do you know how much easier my life would be if this were true of clothes in the real world? 

Speechless with jealousy over this girl's estate sale find on Collector's Weekly's website...hot tamale....!! I spot at least two Hedy Lamarrs, a Greer Garson, two Gene Tierneys, a Dorothy Lamour and a Judy Garland...can you? #itsjustlikeispy

I know it's the not the same as having the original, lithographed print of these vintage pieces to gawk and gander over, but one of my favorite things to do on Google image is punch in the name of one of my favorite actresses along with "paper dolls vintage" in the search box and limit the results to supersized pictures so I can see every sketched button and bow on the costumes in question. While a simple search will yield up everyone from Rock Hudson to Jane Fonda (as a "groovy" young go-go type, no less, waaay pre-Vietnam and Klute), I chose just four of my favorite screen personalities from the forties' and fifties' to talk at you about today. Let's take a tour of "wardrobes I would like to own" by yours truly.

Lana Turner

Is the turban AND the star of India sized medallion too much? Nay, I argue that it IS NOT ENOUGH. Also those sleeves.

Laaaaaana Turrrrner. I feel like LT doesn't get mentioned as much as she should when people talk about the big stars of the golden age of American cinema, because how could you have gotten any "bigger" of a star than Lana Turner circa 1940-something? I never liked the original movie version of The Postman Always Rings Twice (I know, I'm crazy, but I couldn't get over my general disinterest in John Garfield to properly appreciate much more than Lana Turner's iconic all white ensemble in that entrance in that first scene between the two of them), but a recent viewing of Johnny Eager with Robert Taylor put me squarely in the pro Lana Turner camp....she's just. SO. CUTE. And cute isn't really the word for it, there's vulnerable, sex kittenish thing going on with her that's Marilyn Monroe without the forced bubbliness or vacuity of some of MM's roles. You feel like you might burst into tears if anything happens to her in her movies-- and as you would expect, that's exactly what filmmakers were banking on when they put her in properties where the male lead (from Spencer Tracy to Clark Gable and back again) was the love 'em and leave 'em type. Furthermore, her daughter Cheryl Crane (of the infamous Stompanato incident) wrote one of the best coffee table books on a movie star I think I've read-- I spent an entire snowday this spring up to my neck in Lana: The Memories, the Myths, the Movies, and my appreciation for the woman grew ten fold. 

And her clothes! From the book, the things you see here from her paper wardrobe are a lot like what she would wear in real life-- loud and splashy and fun without an ounce of tacky. She was one of the first people to wear jewels (real and paste) in the daytime in Hollywood, and WHY. NOT. You'd better believe if I had a jewelry box like  Elizabeth Taylor, I would be walking around looking like a Halloween costume of Mrs. Thurston Howell III morning noon and night. Shameless!

Anyway, look at how cute these midriff playsuit ensembles are:

I love the idea that there's nothing new under the sun-- you could take any of these pieces and pair them with a solid blouse or skirt in place of its coordinating piece and look as fresh as paint out on a sunny afternoon, though it be year of our Lord 2015. Do you ever notice with vintage clothing that just about the CRAZIEST print can go from costume to super chic with the addition of some toning-down element? When fall finally comes back around, I'll be busting out my all-over print polyester long sleeved dresses, which, solo, would give people seizures for the gaudiness-- however, pop a skinny black sweater vest on top of the same thing and it not only gives a better silhouette, but looks like perfectly acceptable office wear (in my mind, anyway...who can say about the rest of the world). Also, please see the crazy hat, for which I would give my eye teeth. 

I think  personally I would be more likely to wear one of these mint green outfits...ugh! I love that color so! I would never have thought to pair it with navy blue, as seen at bottom left, so that's interesting, but that big gold applique/possibly braided gold corsage on the shoulder is giving me life. One of my #1 physical regrets in life is that I have the height but not the body type for these kind of high waisted pants, because my GOD, would I be wearing them if I did. Another crazy hat, and could die for how much I love the entire outfit at upper left.

In summation: LANA4LIFE2015.

Rita Hayworth:

MUST. HAVE. SAME. SUIT. WITH. OWN. NAME. OMG.

I've mentioned before on this blog how nuts I am Rita Hayworth (see Life magazine article post on her here...how in the world was that almost four years ago?!), and safe to say nothing has changed. If I could swap corporeal forms with anybody it's a dead heat between Hayworth and Ava Gardner, they're just IMPOSSIBLY beautiful. The illustrator doing this set did a less than perfect job with RH's doll, but I think this transgression can be overlooked in light of the fact that the clothes are out of this world.

I mean:

I'm almost too thunderstruck by the outfit on the right to even say anything about the one on the left, though that canary yellow color and saucy flower placement would still look like a million bucks today. The slightly mutton leg sleeves of the red and cheetah print, plus the nipped in waist...too, too much to handle for this little heart of mine. This dress is one of those so-spectacular outfits that I would buy it out in the wild at an estate sale even if it didn't fit me-- you don't pass up something that will haunt you nights if you can help it, right? Uhhhhmazing.

I was interested in this page because I actually have all the items pictured-- you know about my mink situation, and I bought a winter muff like this at an estate sale as weird bout of "how Victorian!" washed over me. I have a dress in the attic that I doubt would fit me anymore, as it was sk-i-i-i-in tight in high school, but I bought it at a yard sale along with a Lily Munster-esque sixties' dress...probably late forties'/early fifties' black halter top with a voluminous print skirt. Do you ever think of things you've bought "before you were into that" and wonder what opportunities you must have missed when you weren't looking? Who KNOWS what else was at that same yard sale and seventeen year old me yet too ignorant to buy it. At least dumb luck brought me this jewel. I love the idea of wearing everything but the black purse together. Also--do you ever think about how Hollywood women of the era had whole rooms devoted to furs...and live in a climate where you wouldn't need them 90% of the time? I felt bad about my coat closet in mild to moderate Tennessee, but when you compare it to California, I'm sure it seems like Yukon territory w/r/t cold weather.

Last but not least, that dress and this cape. Note the crisp collar and gold epaulets, and the green lining. I am just as giddy as the 1940s child who would have cut these out about how LUXE that outfit is.

Judy Garland

GIVE. ME. THAT. OUTFIT. I don't know if my life will be right until I get a similar get-up together.

Judy, Judy, Judy! It's funny how, I guess grâce à her iconic performances as Esther Blodgett/Vicki Lester and Dorothy Gale, people don't think of her as much of a glamour girl/clotheshorse but her forties' movies beg to differ. Stars back then were dressed to the NINES, and Judy in some of those off-the-production-line musicals looks better than a lot of us 100% dressed up for a Saturday night (one of my favorites is the outfit in this clip  from For Me and My Gal...I could stand up and cheer for it). 

As you can see from these, the illustrator was not playing around with kill-me-cute outfits:

It's interesting that they give the more petite girls these sun suits, I wonder if they look better in general or just give oomph to littler ladies. Even this tall one would love to get her hands on the navy middy inspired piece (THAT. SHOULDER PURSE. SHUT. UP) and the colorful necklace at the top.

I like in this set how each outfit has a corresponding hat. The black straw one paired with the rose dress is maybe my favorite-- I hadn't thought to add a coordinating ribbon to a black accessory to match it back to my outfit, but don't think I'm not going to now #knowledgeispower. That boxy beige coat over a skinny little skirt and sweater set is killing it dead. Not a huge fan of the plaid, but maybe if I saw it on someone I'd like it better?

Side bar: If you're a Garlandite, did you read that Stevie Phillips book that just came out this year? I read it on the plane back and forth from vacation and while I was kind of thrilled to hear a real gutbucket celebrity dish from the nuts-and-bolts part of show business (Phillips was one of the first female talent agents when there weren't a lot of women in the field, and rising from secretary to personal assistant to Garland to that position, no less), I wasn't a big fan of the horror movie like treatment of Judy in it. While I'm sure it was exactly THAT BAD when it was bad, I felt a little wrong/didn't like reading about it at all. #teamjudy [end side bar] 

Ava Gardner:

Last but not least, the aforementioned Ava Gardner couldn't escape my notice in the paper doll category-- she has not one, but TWO sets that I could track down.

This doll and outfit come from the first one, and I included them (and just them) because a) this doll looks the most like AG of all of them and b) that set was not nearly as gorgeous as the second one, in spite of its closer fidelity to the star's actual appearance (sorry, Charlie).

Now THIS set...I mean, just look at this set:

While the girl looks more like Paulette Goddard than she does like Ava Gardner (and she doesn't even look THAT much like Paulette Goddard), the pages of clothes are shockingly good. Take a look:

Can you imagine rooting through a suitcase or a plastic bin at the flea market and finding all this mess? I would lose my ever loving mind. The black hat and gloves with the pink dress and tied pearls is very much something I would like to wear, thank you, please bring these to me, Santa.

Did you or did you not flip when you saw that ski suit complete with stylish glasses? The western outfit is a little much with those pants (if you're going Nudie, go FULL NUDIE [as I trademark that bumper sticker] ), but I will take both the hot pants looking numbers at the top plus Ava Gardner's legs to go with it. Did you know she was only 5'6''? Like (the even shorter at 5'3'') La Crawford, she somehow reads on screen as being VERY tall...long torso? Not sure.

Hold your hats, kids:  the folder it comes in features these pages of "jewelry box" mock ups for you to imagine as you play dress up with AG's clothes closet. You didn't think she was going out unadorned, did you? One of the best parts of vintage children's toys and playthings like this is the aspirational aspect-- you hope to have a house JUST LIKE your dollhouse some day, clothes JUST LIKE your paper dolls or Barbie-- so think about where accessories like this fall in. Me, I just want that charm bracelet. BAD. Do you see the ice tongs?

I borrowed liberally from the internet for all of these, but I think you can find all of the sets (including extra outfits and commentary by the scanner) on the blog Miss Missy's Paper Dolls. You can also find more celebrity and non celebrity paper dolls alike-- the woman has THE BEST examples of vintage pieces and has obviously spent a lot of time scanning them for us to enjoy. I'm obsessed with the Movie Dressographs of Greta Garbo and Doug Fairbanks Jr she's just put up this week, along with a lot of other items 'round that way. So thanks, Miss Missy! And go check her out!

How about you? Seen any of these type of dolls out at the flea market or estate sales? Which starlet's wardrobe is your favorite? Did you have paper dolls when you were a kid? What kind of "things to shoot for as a grownup" toys did you have growing up? I'd love to talk shop!

Gotta get a move on, but have a FABULOUS Friday and I'll talk to you next week! Take care! Til then.

Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Rita Hayworth, Ava Gardner (set one, set two)

Franchot Tone and Barbara Payton and Tom Neal (Hollywood Scandal, 1951)

Good morning!

How's every little thing? I was telling my friend Eartha the other day that I had two or three blog entries I'd started and not even attempted to finish due to a debilitating bout of inertia, but didn't just saying it outloud shame me into taking action on these poor, neglected posts? So, I thought I'd take a minute or two off from catching up on my Turner Classic Movies watchlist and handwringing over various housework projects that need attention (both of which can wait), and share with you a scintillatingly scandalous bit of salaciousness I was researching the other day. Or at least I found it so! I hope you do, too.

People, Barbara Payton and Franchot Tone-- Franchot Tone and Barbara Payton, my people.

Points gained for the hat, points lost for the inebriated 500 yard stare each are giving the photographer.

I was working on a little side project I've been toying with lately about vintage Hollywood scandals when a brief cotton wisp of a thought about Franchot Tone blew by while I was brainstorming incidents in the lives of ye olde classic Hollywood celebrities. Wasn't there something in his biography about a brawl over a young starlet when he was well into his middle age that put him in the hospital? Sketchy with my recollection on that (so many Hollywood Babylon type stories under the bridge), I turned to Wikipedia as an aide-memoire, which obligingly offered up the following:

In 1951, Tone's relationship with actress Barbara Payton made headlines when he suffered numerous facial injuries and fell into a coma for 18 hours following a fistfight with actor Tom Neal, a rival for Payton's attention.

Yeeeeah, that was about the long and short of it! As I tried to find Google results, I leaned on my new favorite source for contemporary accounts of historical events, which is Google Newspapers. Yea bo, can you dig up some old school dirt with the help of that search engine. But let's start at the beginning. How should you know who Franchot Tone is? Here's a little background on the fellow at the center of this 1951 media storm:

• Stanislaus Pascal Franchot Tone (you can't make this up) was born in 1905 in New York state. His father, Frank Tone, was a wealthy industrialist/inventor who headed up the Carborundum Company in Niagara Falls.
• Tone enjoyed some success on Broadway and in New York theater circles before heading west to work in the movies, first with Paramount and then MGM.
• After signing with MGM, he was slated to appear in the WWI movie Today We Live with Gary Cooper. William Faulkner (yes, that William Faulkner) was working on a screenplay adaptation of his short story, "Turnabout", for the film when Louis B. Mayer requested that they put Joan Crawford on the picture in order to use her in an already-in-progress project. Only problem? There were no female parts in the original short story. "Well, put her in as a nurse or something," LB not-so-subtly suggested, and so the men-at-war movie became a men-at-war-trying-to-get-the-same-girl movie.
• Donald Spoto (celebrity biographer and one of the very best), opens the section of the book discussing this movie in his excellent Possessed: The Life of Joan Crawford, like so:
• "Today We Live must be ranked not only as the low point in the career of Joan Crawford but also as one of those most dreadful movies ever made."
• Um, and that's, we're to assume, not only Trog and Berserk, in Joan's own filmography, but all other movies in the history of movies. Harsh but not exactly inaccurate?
• So,the movie was terrible, Joan Crawford should not be required to do an English accent for any amount of time... but in good news, Tone and Crawford hit it off at once, begin dating, and marry in 1935.

Love that face, love those accessories.

For you vintage cinephiles and fellow Hollywood gossip mongerers out there, Franchot Tone is actually at the center of Joan/Bette feud theory. If you remember your camp canon correctly, you'll know that there may have or may not have been a long going for real/not for real/possibly for publicity/but possibly not for publicity tension between two of the greatest 1930's/1940's film stars, immortalized in the first and best entry in either's mid career foray into horror, Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962). Tensions during that filming ran high, but were even worse when the film was successful and a semi-sequel, Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte went into production. Joan dropped out a few weeks in due to "fatigue" and was replaced by Davis bosom buddy Olivia de Havilland, starting a media frenzy as to whether or not the two towering personalities had clashed as much on the set as they did on camera. However, according to The Divine Feud and a host of other separate biographies, the Crawford/Davis rancor actually dates back to 1935, when Bette Davis won an Academy Award, but not her co-star's off screen affections, in Dangerous. 

Better luck next time, Bette.

Joan and Franchot divorced in 1939 but remained lifelong friends...Bette never did get her chance with her co star crush. Tone continued appearing in movies through the thirties' and forties', but as the vogue for Manhattanite roués waned, so did his star power. He's best known for, other than the Crawford and Davis movies, Mutiny On The Bounty, as third billed under the theatrical powerhouse, Charles Laughton, and MGM megastar (and former Joan paramour) Clark Gable. He married a striking blonde actress named Jean Wallace in 1941, but they divorced in 1950, leaving the still-extremely-wealth Tone single and looking-- which is when he fell for the much younger Barbara Payton.

In the movies, Franchot Tone seems to inhabit the same sort of urbane, debonair, wry and slightly patrician man-about-town character from film to film-- someone who would take you to a Park Avenue party and a rally for theater workers unions on the same night in the same tuxedo, before some inelegant mix up involving a runaway heiress or an errant Broadway producer. From the Crawford biographies, you get the sense that he was much the same person in real life...which is why hearing about him being involved in some lurid love triangle that landed him in the hospital is kind of surprising! But don't take my word for it-- I've clipped some news articles from the time and present them here in semi-chronological order so you can see just how wild both the situation and the news reporting that followed got over the course of a few months in 1951.

Exhibit A: 

I love....and I mean I LOVE...how much like a present day news article on DailyMail or People magazine this sounds. Before TMZ or even Entertainment Tonight, you could flip to the celebrity section of your local newspaper (this one, for example, is a syndicated column appearing in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune) and read as much D-I-R-T dirt as you would in our modern age. Hollywood reporters kept on this story for weeks! As you can see in the article, what appears to have happened: Tone takes a swing at Tom Neal, Neal swings back but HARD, and Tone ends up in the hospital.

Barbara Payton was a new name to me-- she was model turned actress discovered in 1950 by William Cagney and chosen to appear in Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye alongside his lookalike brother, movie legend James Cagney. That role lead to other good-to-middling parts at Warner Brothers in the next year, including the love interest in the okay-ish western Only The Valiant (1951), with my boyfriend Gregory Peck:

Hi ya, Handsome!

Payton got involved with Tom Neal, an ex-boxer and B movie tough most famous for Detour (1945), around the same time as she met Franchot Tone. So what do you do, drop Mr. Great Body for Mr. Sophisticated Financial Security? Why would you, when you could just juggle either back and forth? Newspaper clipping-wise, Payton first shows up in Franchot's public life grâce à his divorce proceedings from his second wife. Please read the second column closely. Outloud, if you've got friends or coworkers around, and TELL ME the fifties' weren't about as gossip-hungry a public as we are today:

"Corky". As Gordon Ramsay would say, "Wow, wowowowowow." For Payton's part, the blonde authored an almost incomprehensible memoir in 1963, piquantly titled I Am Not Ashamed, which described the dichotomy between her two lovers like so:

It's... pretty much as badly written as that throughout, so I'll skip ahead a little and explain that it was, according to Payton, Tone's idea to get everyone together to "talk this over in a civilized fashion", which quickly devolved into boozy quarrel, with Neal questioning the age gap between Tone and Payton, and Tone referring to Neal as an "out of work body builder". Fightin' words, son. And yet, it was Tone who threw the first punch...and probably lived to regret it I would say. 

More contemporary newspaper clippings:

The end of the first column should say after a champagne reception something about them going to Duluth.
You get the idea.

I love how Tom Neal throughout is like, "Ok. So?" when asked for comment from the media. Also, as opposed to the bland "off the wire" type sound of a lot of present day celebrity gossip reports, I think it's great how first-person a lot of these accounts sound. Like there's some newspaper man in a slouch hat running down the hallway at the hospital to use the phone. "Here, just take this down as I say it,...'Dateline, Hollywood...' " You can see in the fifties' how the iron-fist control of the studios with regard to publicity begins to break down...Warners had already spent an exorbitant amount of money on building up a celebrity profile for Barbara Payton, so it really is surprising that something like this was splashed across newspapers countrywide. If this happened in the thirties', when Tone's star was on the ascendant at MGM, guaran-TEE he would have gone "out of the country" to "rest" after this while some Swiss plastic surgeon worked his miracles on the man's mangled mug. Also, can you imagine getting in a fight with your girlfriend's boyfriend that is bad enough you end up in the hospital? Maybe I naturally spurn trouble whenever possible, but I think after my nose was broken in four places by my significant other's OTHER significant other, I would be moving on to greener, calmer pastures in the romance department. But I digress.

I think a lot of alcohol was probably also factoring into this equation, because how else can you account for headlines like this?

I'm pretty sure they teach you in Northeastern blue blood charm schools that spitting in a lady's face is ne-e-e-e-ver acceptable. Did you catch that she was a witness in a murder trial as well in that second column? Again, wouldn't this make a crazy movie??

By November, things between the movie actor and the starlet had soured, and the barrage of bad press continues on into the spring of 1952, when the brief marriage began to fizzle but seriously. Read it for yourself! Sooooo much drama.

Throughout the rest of the decade, Franchot nursed his broken heart and face, working onstage and in television as he could, but never recapturing any of his clout in Hollywood. Payton and Neal continued to insist they were getting married, touring in a stage production of The Postman Always Rings Twice to capitalize on their notorious press presence, but broke up for good in 1954. Did either of them go softly into that dark night, though? An emphatic no. Once a troubled star, always a troubled star. Here's an article about Tom Neal from 1965...he was eventually convicted of manslaughter in the case of his wife's death, and served six years in prison before being released and dying of a heart attack in 1971. 

For Barbara's part, she descended into heavy alcoholism, arrested in California for passing bad checks and prostitution. She died in 1968, as, Wikipedia puts it, still holding to:

a childlike belief in her Hollywood stardom, which in her mind had never faded. She was unable to acknowledge that her once-promising career had crashed and burned, never to be resurrected.

I mean, how is this not at least an episode of Mysteries and Scandals? Right click this image for a larger version of this final clipping on Payton:

Well, I have to get going, but tell me what you think if you get a chance. Can you even BELIEVE the drama in these newspaper articles? Are you surprised at seeing early 1950's gossip described so frankly in a newspaper anyone could pick up and read? While I knew people were doing things like this in the fifties', it's pretty wild to be reading about it in contemporary accounts! Have you seen any Franchot Tone movies? Are you not shocked that he would be involved in all this? Let's discuss!!

More vintage stuff around the corner, cross my heart! I hope we get to talk again soon. Take care, til then!