The Star Machine Read online

  According to the Photoplay article, Eleanor Powell, the famous “pulsating” tap dancer who had thrilled them in Broadway Melody of 1936, was the “acknowledged Ugly Duckling of the Great White Way.” The story’s author, Mary Watkin Reeves, in cooperation with MGM, writes: “Eleanor has given me the complete, intimate details behind…the greatest change I have ever seen in a girl in all my life.” On Broadway, Reeves writes, Powell was “homely, freckle-faced, spindly-legged…she was an unlovely youngster if ever one lived.” In case this seemed too unbelievable—after all, the public had just seen a beautifully turned out, well-dressed, and wholesomely attractive Powell on screen—the article drags in an opinion from Powell’s mother. Herself cooperating with the studio machinery, Mrs. Powell is quoted as saying, “Eleanor wasn’t even a pretty baby. She was too fat when she was four, too thin when she was eight, and at ten she was a-a-a problem. Bashful, awkward, gawky…” The consensus of one and all, including Mom, Eleanor herself, and the voices of Broadway and Photoplay magazine was a killer: Eleanor Powell was an ugly duckling with a plain face and a disproportioned figure. There naturally would be no future for her in films—but wait! What ho! Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer is here to save the day.

  At this point, the article cleverly tacks off in a different direction. The purpose, after all, was to sell the star. Powell is suddenly praised for her dancing and also thrown a bone. “In her own unusual way, she was refreshingly attractive…boisterous…she looked clean-cut and intelligently nice…When she sat, she sprawled, but when she danced, she was lightning.” Because of her talent, not her beauty, says the story, Eleanor Powell was known as “the Baby of Broadway.”

  The article then repeats a piece of false information spread by MGM that Powell had made a screen test for Fox that flopped. This was to shift blame for her lackluster physical appearance in George White’s Scandals of 1935 away from themselves. Scandals is never mentioned by name, yet she had just appeared in it in neighborhood theatres a few months earlier. Thus, the role of the rival studio in discovering and developing Eleanor Powell is simply eradicated from her story. The way Powell looked in the “test” is described. “In the eyes of the camera…she was just plain hopeless, without the fundamentals on which an artificial beauty could be built.”

  Treating Broadway Melody of 1936 as the film debut that made Powell an “overnight sensation,” the magazine story goes on to cleverly and coldly define the actual star machine process that made her over. Every detail is documented. At first, the story says it is Eleanor herself who, seeing her screen test, realizes she must take action if she wishes to be a star. She begins “from the inside out and the top down…to deliberately achieve beauty.” Powell is given credit for rethinking her hair, nails, makeup, and the studio is given credit for her health regimen, her new costumes, for creating a special mesh netting to hold her hair in place when she danced, and for the way she was presented in her “first” movie. For instance, there was one absolute rule for the camera when it looked at Eleanor Powell: Only long shots would be taken of her bare feet. (This, says the article, was because she wore a size six shoe and had dancers’ toes.)

  Powell is quoted in the article as commenting on her preparation for stardom. “I haven’t any idea how many people actually had a part in changing me for the screen. There seemed to be everybody from Mr. Mayer on down to my maid making suggestions, trying different things…Now it takes me two hours just to get ready for bed at night…But it’s worth it.” The fans knew it was worth it. Just look at her!

  This article and others like it were part of an elaborately manufactured profile for Eleanor Powell—and it worked. It would not have worked, however, if the fans had not liked Powell and if she couldn’t dance. As a dancer, she had few, if any, female peers. In tights and tap shoes, she was the girlfriend of the whirling dervish. She was more than worth the money MGM invested in her. Powell emerged from her very first MGM film not only a star, but also a real fan favorite, the “Queen of Taps.” Her next film, Born to Dance, was written especially for her. From George White’s Scandals in 1935 to 1945, she appeared in thirteen feature films, ten of which starred her. All of her movies except Scandals and her last feature, Sensations of 1945, were made for the studio that had originally invested in her, MGM.*

  Powell had ten years of stardom, which is about par for the average female in the movie business. During her time on top, Metro quickly figured out how to use her, showcase her, and shape her films to both her and their own best advantage. It was not difficult. Just find a simple story, lard it with musical numbers, get her tapping and smiling, and try to end up with a big-bang spectacular production number in which she could come out and tap her butt off, sending everyone home happy. Sometimes Powell’s number was a solo; sometimes she was surrounded by lots of dancing extras, usually men who could toss her around. Sometimes the numbers took place in natural settings, as if she were just tap-tappin’ around town for the fun of it, and sometimes they were allegedly actual numbers for a proscenium stage. Whichever or whatever, Eleanor Powell’s dance numbers were spectacular, highly entertaining, and emblematic of their era. Rosalie (1937) is typical, containing a variety of routines. Powell does a “natural” little dance in her dorm room among friends; she dresses up like Pierrette and thunder-taps down an elaborate (and dangerous) “staircase” of drums designed in gradually increasing sizes; she disguises herself as a cadet and leads a rhythmic “drill” of young male dancers, ultimately twirling around so fast her cap falls off and her long hair reveals her as a female; and, finally, she puts on a show-stopping wedding gown and stands beside her co-star, Nelson Eddy, for a pseudo-military wedding. Eddy booms out a little “O Promise Me” and then segues into the title song (“Rosalie”) while eight pipe organs and a sixty-piece orchestra blast away. (This enormous set was well publicized. “Sixty acres of the MGM lot and twenty-seven cameras and two thousand people were involved.” The audience was no doubt dumbstruck by the heady combination of Zeigfield Follies values and American military iconography.)

  Eleanor Powell in one of her patented super finale dance numbers with guns and guys, Born to Dance.

  In Born to Dance (1936), Powell is in fine form on the deck of an Art Deco battleship, sliding down a long pole with a happy grin on her face, one arm and one leg extended and held perfectly in place until she hits the ground. Then she taps her way around the big guns at high speed, ending up with a front flip and a snappy close-up salute. (This number was so popular, part of it was recycled in I Dood It [1943], a rare thing in old Hollywood.) And these finales include Powell’s screen moment for latter-day movie parody: In Ship Ahoy she taps out a Morse code SOS to warn the hero about endangerment from spies, all the while she’s supposed to be doing her regular nightclub number in the old Ship Cafe. Powell can also be enjoyed throughout the film, of course, often doing simple solos and other times being tricked out in specialty presentations. She does a hotcha hula that irritated Hawaiians, a mock bullfight, and a hokey cowboy number with spinning lariats she twirled and jumped through. In Sensations of 1945, she’s a human pinball tapping her way around the machine, lighting it up as she goes while Woody Herman’s band blasts away.

  Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer had only one problem in creating properties for Eleanor Powell. Her powerful, low-to-the-ground tap dancing tended to blow any male partner out of the water. She was physically stronger than most of the men available to play opposite her, and she certainly could out-tap everyone. The problem was solved by casting a non-dancer as her love interest. She was paired with Robert Taylor (an actor), Jimmy Stewart (during his own years of star machine development),* Nelson Eddy (a non-dancing singer), and Red Skelton (a comic). Powell’s most successful dance partner (other than Buttons the dog or Starry Night the horse) was the incomparable Fred Astaire in Broadway Melody of 1940.

  Conventional wisdom has it that Astaire and Powell are mismatched. (For some people, Astaire is always mismatched if he isn’t with Ginger Rogers.) The truth is that Powell bring
s Astaire more than a dash of Ginger. Her clean, crisp taps—no faked additional dubbing needed—give him a challenge that he clearly relished. In their underrated tap jitterbug in an Italian restaurant, the “Jukebox Dance,” they are two old pros on top of their game, but the film’s highlight, and its most often excerpted number, is their incomparable “Begin the Beguine” finale. Against a black sky studded with stars, Fred and Eleanor flow across a liquid-looking black-mirrored floor, twirling sensuously underneath wispy palms of shimmering lamé, framed by cellophane curtains. In this first section of the number, the last hurrah of 1930s escapist glamour, they are dressed in pure white evening clothes and seem to be literally dancing among the stars. In the second half, they change to more casual clothes. Eleanor leads Fred out onto the floor, flirtatiously looking over her shoulder, beckoning him on with a twinkle in her eye. Their eyes meet, and she seems to be saying, “Come on, baby, let’s show ’em what tap dancing is supposed to be.” Astaire never looked happier in a dance number. Reflected in the mirrored background of the set, they let it rip in a boogie version of the song. In one long take (finally broken near the end), they just tap dance, escalating the intricacy and power of their steps as they go along. At one point, the musical accompaniment drops out, as if the musicians know there’s no use trying to keep up. The only sound heard is the full thunder of their tapping feet.

  MGM knew the pairing of Astaire and Powell would generate big interest. Although the film was shot in only twenty-seven days, the studio went all out for the “Begin the Beguine” number. Merrill Pye designed what he called “a desert oasis look” for the largest dance set ever constructed until that date (6,500 square feet of mirrored floor). It took eight weeks to build, contained thirty-foot mirrors, and required more than ten thousand lightbulbs to simulate stars. Dance director Bobby Connolly worked harmoniously with the two dancers, and the result is both beautiful and exciting. The film was heavily promoted (“It’s as big as Broadway and twice as gay!”* and “A mighty musical triumph!”). Audiences still missed Ginger, however, and Powell and Astaire were never reteamed. Privately, Astaire always paid tribute to Eleanor Powell, a real professional and a perfectionist like him. Although it’s often said they were “too much alike” to be interesting as a pair, it’s possible to see them as a perfectly matched couple of great tap dancers who enjoyed mutual affection and respect.

  Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell, from their tap-dancing tour de force to “Begin the Beguine” in Broadway Melody of 1940.

  Seen today, Eleanor Powell is astonishingly contemporary. Because her wardrobe is always chic and streamlined, she looks modern. She has a straightforward, no-nonsense style. Her dancing is authoritative, almost masculine. She owns tap dancing. The characters she plays are self-confident and poised, and success comes easily to them or is already established when the movie opens. She is never undone by romance. As an actress, she was without guile. She couldn’t act and she doesn’t try; she just comes out and presents her character, as if acting were the same as dancing: “Now I’ll do my routine for you.” She seems always to understand what she was good at and what fans wanted her to do. In the long run, she became her own genre: outstanding female tap dancer.* She was (with few exceptions) in charge of choreographing her own dance numbers, and she could be tough-minded about what she would and would not do.

  Her movie career was mostly one long specialty number, with her plots and co-stars thrown in around her as an excuse for her dancing. In this regard, she was like a Sonja Henie or an Esther Williams—hired for the thing she could do that was athletic and amazing—and Powell’s tap dancing was nothing short of amazing. Her solos were a combination of tap, acrobatics, and ballet, all executed with great strength and drive. To watch her perform one of her own original signature steps—she kicks her leg up in the air right alongside her chin, then bends backward all the way to the floor—is to wonder if she’s human. She would do this astonishing step once, turn to the other side and repeat it, then turn back, and yet back again for four executions of a movement that required both pretzel-like flexibility and iron strength. And she did it slowly, deliberately, holding each section of the move, showing off her strength, balance, and control—every part of her staying rock solid and steady. Other dancers could fling themselves around; no one but Powell could hold like that.

  It was inevitable that, just as ice-skating numbers and swimming numbers lost favor, Powell’s style of pumped-up and dramatically mounted dancing would pass out of favor, too. Powell didn’t seem to mind. As the 1940s opened, her films began to be about someone other than her. In Lady Be Good (1941), Ann Sothern was the film’s key character, with Powell more or less relegated to glamorous sidekick. In I Dood It and Ship Ahoy, she was the musical background in support of the studio buildup for her leading man, comic Red Skelton. Many of the films announced for her were never made. There was to be a Broadway Melody of 1944 to co-star her with Gene Kelly that never happened. There was a rumored role in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944) that never materialized, and an unreleased film, The Great Morgan.† Most of all, there was Glenn Ford. Powell had ended a long-term relationship with art director Merrill Pye in 1941, and met Ford in early 1942. His career was beginning and was in no way equal to hers at that point. Powell was thirty years old and had often said, “If I could meet that someone, I’d give up my career, right here and now. I’d never make another picture.”

  Eleanor Powell spent time entertaining the troops, considering offers, and making her last feature. In June 1943, she quietly left MGM with nine months left on her contract. The official statement about her departure was that she wanted more time to entertain troops during the war effort. Screenland magazine claimed she had turned down a renewal of her seven-year contract with MGM, but whether that was true was never confirmed. She kept her plan to retire after the war. On October 23, 1943, she married Glenn Ford.* In June 1944, her last feature, Sensations of 1945, was released, and in February 1945, her only child, a son named Peter, was born. For all practical purposes, her movie career was over, and she devoted the rest of her life to religious work, winning five Emmys for her show Faith of Our Children, and becoming a minister in the Unity Church. Although she did return to the nightclub circuit with great success,† and agreed to a specialty number in the 1950 Duchess of Idaho for MGM, Powell never seemed to regret leaving her stardom behind. She had had the best of it, and MGM had had the best of her. Eleanor Powell really was born to dance. (Eleanor Powell died on February 11, 1982.)

  Eleanor Powell’s story is a classic example of the Hollywood star machine process. Hers is the version in which someone with an amazing single talent was scooped up, transformed, and put on the market with relative ease, creating a fiction known as the “overnight sensation.” She had already made one, possibly two movies, before she was a hit, and she had been a working professional since childhood. That truth, however, was nowhere near as interesting as the belief that she stepped into fame overnight. Not only was that concept more appealing and dramatic, but it also held out a sweet promise to all those in the audience who, like little Eleanor Powell once had, were plunking down a buck a week for tap-dancing lessons.

  Hollywood never believed in the overnight sensation, or even the “star is born” myth. But if it sold tickets to let an audience believe that Eleanor Powell, the Queen of Taps, was an overnight sensation, that, folks, was showbiz.

  WHAT MGM DID TO TRANSFORM Eleanor Powell was in no way unique. The product was special, not the process. Her “star is born” story illustrates the star machine process every studio in town was using. As it had with Eleanor Powell, it always began with finding the talent. To do this, the studios hired hundreds of “talent scouts” and studio employees to travel around America and much of Europe looking for young men and women who might be turned into movie stars.* Every studio was willing to look at any possibility. An enormous amount of money went into these searches. No play—on Broadway or on tour—went unattended and no vaudeville act unseen. N
o nightclub act was skipped, no radio broadcast was unheard. If a pretty young girl won the Miss Potato Pancake of 1932 title, she was offered a ticket to Hollywood and a screen test. If a handsome young man with a good body won a diving contest, someone spotted him and gave him his ticket. No waitress, no lifeguard, no elevator operator was unscrutinized. Potential stars were “discovered” everywhere: on the covers of magazines, in fashion shows, at the Olympics, and—as legend would have it—sitting on drugstore soda-fountain stools. “The thing that astounded me,” said Ray Bolger, “was that they bought people. It was like you would go into a grocery store and say, ‘Give me four comics and three toe dancers, and I want five girls and five male singers. I want nineteen character actors and I want some unique personalities.’”

  Every studio was looking for the same thing—someone it could turn into a real movie star. When they thought they had come across such people, they grabbed them up and tried them out, just as they had with Eleanor Powell. For instance, a young girl named Lucille Le Sueur was put under contract by MGM in late 1924. She was about eighteen years old; no one really knows her exact age. She was five foot three and a half inches tall, a natural redhead, haphazardly educated, relatively inexperienced, and freckled. She was going to be paid a hefty (for the times, and in her mind) $75 per week but, under the terms of her contract, would have to provide her own underwear and silk stockings. When she boarded a train for Hollywood on New Year’s Day 1925, she was the longest of long shots, just another girl with a passion to succeed, but she turned out to be one of the best investments the studio ever made, paying off for well over a decade and at top dollar. “Joan Crawford,” as she was renamed, earned her keep. And then some. “If you want to see the girl next door,” she later said, “go next door.”