JK Remembers "The Alamo"!

Hello!

Jack Kelly played movie critic in 1961, expressing his candid opinions about a cinematic epic and film award campaigns to columnist Lee Belser:

"Jack Kelly shot what may be his last Maverick the other day and then trundled off with his wife to a neighborhood theater to see The Alamo.

"He found it 'a gigantic episode of heroism that was completely uncalled for'.

"'But, it is a good picture,' he added, 'and interesting from a money standpoint. It's fascinating to see what can happen when there's an unlimited bank account handy.'

"Jack concluded that, in his opinion, the film would have sold itself without the publicity campaign conducted by John Wayne's press agent, Russell Birdwell.  

"'Birdwell,' he said, "reminds me of an Orry-Kelly with a typewriter. If I had a million-dollar publicity budget, I could be a star tomorrow morning.

"Kelly had some kind things to say about Wayne's possibilities as a director.

'"'If he's responsible for any of the direction of that picture,' he said, 'he never should have become an actor. Even Laurence Harvey was superb in it and I can't stand Laurence Harvey.'"

"Kelly, a non-joiner (and if he joins, he doesn't attend), says that, for once, he'd like to voice an opinion--as a member of the Motion Picture Academy. 

"'I wish,' he said, 'that they would classify pictures according to type. They should even have an award based on cost.

"'There should be no publicity campaigns,' he added, 'and nominees should be prohibited from displaying pictures of themselves and rundowns on their accomplishments, other than what is handed them by the free press.

"'I feel also', Jack went on, 'that voters should be forced into seeing every picture that's up for an award, and every voter should be forced to register and to see the picture only under the auspices of the Academy.'

After setting the record straight on the Academy Awards, Jack admitted he's pretty much in the dark on the future of Maverick.

"'I don't know what will happen,' he said. 'We'll go into reruns for the summer, but then we just finished shooting 32 segments and we're supposed to start shooting again in June or July.'

"'I'm gonna ride the bandwagon as long as I can,' he added. 'I'm taking 99% of my salary and investing it in real estate and land, so when the magic lantern burns out I won't have to end up on the street.

"'I own real estate,' he confided, 'from Puget Sound to San Diego.'

"There may be a motion picture coming up for Jack--The Devil in Bucks County with Simone Signoret, last year's best-actress award winner. "

As you can see, JK wasn't shy about speaking his mind! 

Incidentally, The Alamo was infamous at the time for its over-the-top award campaign, especially when supporting actor Chill Wills' agent went overboard in seeking a golden statuette for his client. 

And, despite gossip columnists proclaiming this or that actor (JK, Henry Fonda, Robert Taylor, Jackie Gleason, Dick Shawn, Shirley Knight, etc.) would be co-starring with Ms. Signoret in The Devil in Bucks County for Warner Bros., the movie was never made. 

It's probably just as well. The 1959 novel on which the film was to have been based was considered daring in its day. However, more contemporary reviews I found described the book as "trashy",  "campy" and "unreadable".    

Statistician-turned-novelist Edmund Schiddel set the story in a thinly-disguised version of a real-life artists' colony called New Hope in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and peopled it with characters whom those "in the know" would recognize. As one reviewer on Amazon said, "Fun book if you live in Bucks County. More fun if you know the characters. Dull reading if you don't." 

What will JK sound off on next? Please stay tuned to TDS and find out! :)

Make Room For JK! (Pt. II)

Happy Wednesday Everyone!

Here's Part II of Zuma Palmer's 1961 interview with JK, conducted in his plush dressing room at Warner Bros. studios:

JK in a screenshot from "The Golden Fleecing" episode of Maverick, which was filming when this interview was conducted. 

“Jack Kelly is one person who ‘loves his job and thrives on work.’

“’I like television when it on the prestige level it is now,’ he said.

“How does the actor look at Bart Maverick, his role in the Maverick series? 

“’[Bart] is not an outright hero and not a bum,’ he stated. ‘He is not a crook. He legitimately earns his living with gambling devices. He backs off from cheating.’ 

“How does [Kelly] classify the series?

“It is sophisticated, high-style comedy,’ Kelly declared. ‘During the [1960] writer’s strike we had to use straight dramatic material. Some viewers noticed the difference and objected. We did not want to do an anthology, that should be left up to Dick Powell who does it so well.’

“’Casting is basically not a problem,’ he continued, ‘Writing is roughly our only problem because where sophisticated comedy is concerned, it is not easy to pick up acceptable material.’

SITS IN

"Kelly sits in on the Monday story conferences with Arthur Silver, (the supervising producer), the director and the writer. ‘I have five years of Maverickian knowledge,’ he remarked.

“The actor likes all the directors under contract at Warner Bros., but the three with whom he believes he can ‘punch out the work better’ are Irving Moore, Michael O’Herlihy and Les Martinson.

“’They are sympatico with the Maverick idea,’ Kelly explained. ‘They know comedic facial values, for instance, and keep me from going overboard in the matter of grimaces to remarks and situations.’

“The actor has a key group on the set, the same gaffer or head electrician, cameraman, wardrobe and prop man. ‘I don’t have so many questions to answer,’ he said.

FIRST JOB

“The first job of Kelly was as a model in a soap advertisement. He was two weeks old. His pay was ‘a finn’, a five-dollar bill which he still has.

“His father, the late John A. Kelly, was a real estate operator; his mother, Ann M. Walsh, an actress. He was not the only member of the family to inherit acting ability. His sisters, Nancy and Carol, are actresses. Brother William chose to be an art student. He is not the only professional in his own home, his wife being May Wynn (Donna Lee Hickey). 

“Kelly was a law student at UCLA when World War II was declared. Sent to Alaska as a weather observer for the Air Force, he was on the first B-29 to fly over the Arctic Circle.

OPINIONS

“Kelly is of the opinion that ‘producers who don’t have responsibility will not make the kind of pictures people will want to watch’.

“He believes that it is the responsibility of parents ‘to instill spiritual values in their children so that will become the type of citizens they should be.’”

***

OPINIONS: JK DID HAVE 'EM! PLEASE STAY TUNED NEXT TIME WHEN HE SPEAKS HIS MIND ABOUT A WESTERN ICON TURNED DIRECTOR AND AN ACTOR HE DIDN'T (BUT DID) LIKE! 

Make Room For JK!

Howdy!

Previously in TDS, I discussed dresses which appeared in Maverick. Now, let’s take a fun and insightful visit to Jack Kelly’s DRESS-ing room at Warner Bros. 

Columnist Sheilah Graham had reported in early 1961 that since JK was now the top star of Maverick he'd been given "a new plush dressing room on the Warner lot complete with hi-fi, FM radio tape recorder, etc., etc.".  Another veteran newspaper scribe, Zuma Palmer, visited JK in his posh studio digs later the same year: 

“There was a guard at the parking lot, a guard sitting at a desk inside the door to the publicity department and a guard in a covered place at the entrance to the dressing room and stage area. 

“In walking to dressing room suite No. 9, Ted Ashton of the Warner Bros. publicity department, [publicist] Eddie Kafafian and I passed a half-marked tennis court. The other half had been used in a scene in Task Force and was pitted by explosives.

“Jack Kelly did not answer the knock so we knew lunch break had not yet come for the Maverick cast. 

“Jack L. Warner’s shuttered private dining room was on the way to the soundstage. Kelly, who is Bart Maverick, was stretched out on a settee dozing while Paula Raymond was before the cameras in a riverboat setting.

“’It is easy to go to sleep when you’re up at 6,’ Kelly remarked.

“For a TV set there seemed to be many costumed actors around. Richard Loo was the Chinese [actor]. Kelly later said there were 40 [extras] for atmosphere. ‘The Golden Fleecing’ by Charles B. Smith is the tentative title for this Maverick episode. [B27- Of course, this was also the final title of the ep.]

JK with Paula Raymond as "Adele Jaggers" in "The Golden Fleecing" 

episode of Maverick, which first aired on October 8, 1961

“The first actions of Kelly upon reaching his dressing room were to tune into music and loosen his shirt collar. 

LUNCH

“The lunch, ordered by Ashton from the commissary, was brought by a man in a spotless white suit. Off the main room of Kelly’s suite is a small dining and kitchen area.

“When the actor saw the steak, the peas, French fries, sliced tomatoes and onions and fruit cup, he remarked, ‘I usually just have milk with Knox Gelatine and that gives me time for a nap or to work on a hobby.’

"Beside the amplifier on which he had been working was a rack of plastic handles for tools. On a shelf was model of the ship Essex.

“Upon returning from making a motion picture in Hong Kong, Kelly learned that Warner Bros. was looking for someone to play Bart.

“Kelly said he told William Orr and Hugh Benson, TV head and assistant top man [respectively], ‘There is no use of your spending $5000 on a [screen] test. I played in a series here ("Kings Row") which flopped and I have been in pictures. You know what I can do. I will ad lib on the set with Garner before the cameras.’

HIRED

“’I am 6 feet and Jim is about 6 feet four,’ the actor continued. ‘I was standing in a hole. I was hired. Jim and I worked well together.’

“Some time later there were contractual problems.

“’Jim had some other things in mind he wanted to do,’ Kelly reported. ‘I wanted to stay. I liked the steady salary, the first time in my career I had had one. I came down in my asking price and Jack L. Warner came up.’

“’I have been studying about real estate,’ he said, ‘and buying up acreage, not to develop, someone else can do that. I am not interested in buying houses. I have had unfortunate experiences with them.'”

MUCH MORE IN STORE IN PT. II--PLEASE STAY TUNED! :)

Who Wore It Best?

Hello Everyone!

A fellow Jack Kelly fan just let me know about a fascinating Maverick-related subject which was recently a topic of discussion elsewhere. Namely, how actresses who appeared on different episodes of the series all wore a certain dress.

I got to thinking about this, which led me to look through Maverick stills in the Kellection. And, by golly, they were right—that little plaid dress did get around!

The phenomenon of the frequently-used frock wasn’t unique to Maverick or to Warner Bros., which was notorious for recycling other elements of its television productions including sets, scripts and even characters. Most TV westerns of the era didn’t have huge wardrobe budgets, so re-using costumes was the norm, particularly when it came to dresses.

As an article titled “Hollywood Hand-Me-Downs” in a 1959 issue of TV Guide explained, “Television costumers often find themselves in the same predicament as Scarlett O’Hara of Gone With the Wind. Poor Scarlett had to fashion a velvet gown out of draperies; TV costumers, when stuck with low budgets, frequently must resort to hand-me-downs. The problem of ‘making do’ arises especially with shows about the Old West. This was a period when women’s clothes were voluminous, of elegant fabrics and elaborately hand-ornamented. Today, it is expensive to copy such garments. Materials cost up to $20 a yard, highly skilled seamtresses as much as $35 a day. A replica of an 1880 dress may cost from $400 to $700. Understandably, such a creation can’t be discarded after one show, so it is returned to Wardrobe to be used later ‘as is’, or it may undergo repeated alterations and become a glorified hand-me-down.”

Thus, as the TV Guide story illustrates, the long-sleeved gray wool suit jacket one actress wore on Laramie could be re-worked into a bolero for an actress on Wagon Train and then further altered to costume yet another actress on Riverboat.

And, so it was with the women’s wardrobe on Maverick. Now, the only question remaining about the ubiquitous plaid dress is, “Who wore it best?”

Was it Roxane Berard in "The Royal Four Flush":

Or, Gail Kobe in "Marshal Maverick":

Or, Sharon Hugueny in "The Devil's Necklace":

Or, Suzanne Lloyd (wearing an altered version in this original color slide from the Kellection) in "Last Stop Oblivion"?

I'm sure other actresses also acted in the popular plaid dress. And, it wasn't the only women's costume which had a recurring role on Maverick.

For example, there was this dance-hall outfit. Who (barely) wore it best:

Was it Anna Lisa in "The Judas Mask":

Or Arlene Howell in "Alias Bart Maverick"?

A more demure costume was also seen in numerous scenes. Who wore it best:

Dawn Wells in "The Deadly Image":

Or, Merry Anders in "The People's Friend"?

Here's one last example of a dress which did double (or more) duty in Maverick. Who wore it best:

Whitney Blake in "The Burning Sky":

Or Joan Marshall in "The Substitute Gun"?

Of course, the correct answer is that ALL of these lovely ladies wore these outfits the best, thanks to talented and resourceful costumers who "made do" and made every performer in Maverick look great, even in Hollywood hand-me-downs. 

Please stay tuned for more about JK in TDS! 

 

Happy National Day of the Cowboy 2021!

Howdy!

To celebrate National Day of the Cowboy 2021, here's a magnificent pic of those marvelous Maverick brothers, Bret and Bart! (And, yes, that's Goldie with Bart in this original vintage still from the Kellection):

Have a rip-snortin', rootin' tootin' day, everyone! :)

Happy Fourth of July 2021!

 Image courtesy VintageHolidayCrafts.com

Happy Fathers Day 2021! :)

 

Vintage illustration courtesy ClickAmericana