silentfilm wrote: And should we not write biographies of D.W. Griffith, John Wayne, Adolphe Menjou, Frank Capra and Cecil B. DeMille because they were too conservative for us?
I think any author of a biography comes to a subject with a certain set of biases--based on what one has heard and read and the impressions that others have offered. I know when I set to work on "Cecil B. DeMille's Hollywood" I was influenced by all the horror stories that I'd heard about DeMille, including the infamous 1950 SDG meeting. The real question, from a methodological point of view is this: Does one look only for those "facts" that supports one's biases pro or con; or does one remain open to discovering a more well-rounded, and ultimately more human character.
What impressed me as I went through the DeMille archives were a number of things that painted a much different picture of DeMille--but which might easily be dismissed by another researcher looking only to confirm what has already been written. Here are a few examples:
Virtually every letter received by DeMille's office (except for the most kooky) was answered by DeMille or one of his staff. A small gesture--certainly a matter of public relations--but still indicitive of someone with a basic sense of courtesy.
When DeMille was back at Pramount to make "The Sign of the Cross," at a time when he couldn't get arrested in Hollywood and thought it would be his last picture, DeMille threatened to quit shooting if the extras he'd promised work to wer nit called by Paramount's casting office. If he was such an ogre, why would he care if an extra was called or not?
DeMille went out of his way to offer work to down-and-outers (if they didn't drink), up-and-comers, and former associates going back to his earliest days in the theater. Everbody in Hollywood had forgotten Mildred Harris--but she worked for DeMille in picture after picture even if only in small bits. Maude Fealy, who was briefly a star at Thanhouser in the early 1910's and who had worked with DeMille at Elitch's Garden in Denver in his stage days, also found work (with her mother) in picture after picture for DeMille.
One also has to use one's brain in unravelling some stories. In "Hollywood Posse" Diana Sera Cary writes about a "plot" to kill DeMille during the filming of the battle scenes for "The Crusades." He was hated that much by the cowboy stuntmen. Well, I have no doubt that the story may have circulated around Hollywood--but it really doesn't seem plausible. One, DeMille hired lots of extras and bit players--they came to rely on his pictures to get long stretches of work and from all the evidence I've seen in the DeMille files, he was generally loved by the ranks of extras. And two, the big battle scenes with horses in "The Crusades" were all second-unit work. DeMille probably wasn't even on location when they were being shot!
And one can't discount that others who might speak ill of your subject may have their own agendas. Fred Zinnemann and Jospeh L. Mankeiwicz both railed that at the legendary 1950 Screen Directors Guild meeting DeMille had deliberately mispronounced the names of director emigres like William Wyler and Billy Wilder to emphasize their European and Jewish (and therefore un-American) beackgrounds. It turns out that Zinnemann wasn't even at the meeting. He was in New York at the time. And Mankiewicz was lying (or addle-brained). The rules of SDG meetings precluded the mentioning of anyone by name in order to avoid the potentional for "personalities," and though the rules were not strictly enforced, a reading of the transcript shows that DeMille never mentioned anyone's name during the meeting with or without accent, and in fact had been against requiring the Guild membership to sign a loyalty oath!
There are several reasons why there are so many scandalous (both scandal-ridden and scandalously researched) Hollywood bios. Number 1, I'm sure is attributable to the old adage: "sex sells." Painting Valentino as a "bugger boy" or Clara Bow as a "nympho" will get attention, and one can site all sorts of dubious sources for these oft-repeated allegations, so one can claim due dilligence without really breaking a sweat. Number 2, many enthusiastic and well-meaning writers simply don't know how to reasearch beyond easily accessible secondary sources. Charles Higham is somewhat guilty of this. He does genuine research to come up with a half dozen facts that no one has discovered before, but the rest of his texts are compiled from perusing secondary sources. Again, he can cite chapter and verse and claim due diligence without doing any heavy lifting. And 3 (You'll note that all three points are essentially related), doing real research is hard work--and you don't get paid for research--you get paid for the book when it comes out. Only the insane (or the truly dedicated) will spend the years it might take to exhaust all the potential surviving primary sources.
