Girl With a Poetic Touch
By Kyle Crichton
Colliers Magazine, October 30, 1948 pages 71 and 83
 |
Cathy O'Donnell trekked from Oklahoma to Hollywood to see DavidSelznick. But instead she got detoured to SamGoldwyn who have her a lift to stardom. She finally met Selznick,following a friendship smashup that rocked the movie capital.
On the afternoon of July 16, 1948, in the city of Hollywood, U.S.A.,the professionally important cinematic idyl of SamuelGoldwyn and Cathy O'Donnell exploded with a detonation heard in partsof the Pacific Northwest. It ended a tutorial relationship as touchingas the celebrated association of Abélard and Héloïseand was featured by letters, poetry and sage advice.
Mr. Goldwyn hadtaken Miss O'Donnell as a young and unknown actress. Guided her as a noviceand student, and finally launched her in TheBest Years of Our Lives. That was followed by the creation of the newromantic acting team, Cathy O'Donnell and Farley Granger-- and now, tothe amazement of the Western world, Cathy was leaving Goldwynand going to Selznick.You could have knocked people down all over Hollywood with a club.
The astonishment was greater by reason of They Live By Night, andO'Donnell-Granger venture made by RKOand a supercharged bundle of sadism, bank busting and vigor, neatly coveredwith a fine coating of young love. It was fondly predicted that this wouldstun America with delightfully devastating financial results.
It had all started so simply. While still living in Oklahoma as AnnSteely (her real name) Cathy had sent a letter and picture to DavidO. Selznick. He had replied he would be glad to see her if she evergot to Hollywood. She did get to Hollywood and was interviewed by Selznick'scasting director and a date was made for the great Davidto see her a week hence.
In the meantime, while she was sitting demurely at Schwab's pharmacyabsorbing a chocolate malted, Ben Medford, an agent, sidled up and said,"You ever been in movies?"
Cathy looked at Mr. Medford with interest and said, "No, sir;I can't rightly say as how I have but I sure enough mean to be." Theseare not the exact words and are given merely to indicate that Cathy originallyhad an accent compounded of equal parts of Gullah and Lone Prairie, sinceshe had lived in Alabama to the age of twelve and after that in OklahomaCity. Medford felt his way carefully through this miasma of sound and ledher over to the Goldwynoffices.
Mr. Goldwyn sawher immediately and decided to listen to her in a scene from Romeo andJuliet. After a few yards of what should have been golden Shakespeareanstrands, Sam looked around in befuddlement and said:
"What's she sayin'?"
This presented a pretty dilemma because if Samdidn't understand Cathy, Cathy didn't understand Sam,who talks in a strange way through his teeth. Sam,however, had the advantage of being in a position to state his case. Hearranged for a screen test, then signed her to a contract before seeingit.
What Sam saw inCathy is still a mystery. She was an infant and not pretty in the Hollywoodsense. Her accent was frightening. But Goldwyntakes pride in his clairvoyance and set out to prove he knew a future starwhen he saw one. He sent her over to the Pasadena Community Playhouse,where she acted in studio plays and studied diction under Natasha Lytess.Then he shipped her off to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in NewYork.
She lived at the Barbizon, a hotel for women, in New York, and hadnothing to distract her. She cried a great deal during these months andrelieved herself with a spate of poetry to send to Sam. Her poetry makesup the bulk of the famous O'Donnell-Goldwyncorrespondence.
Mr. Goldwyn saidevery time her poems were great and not to forget to wear her coat on autumnnights, which could be mighty cold at that season of the year in New York.
After six months it was decided that Cathy should have acting experience,and it was discovered that the Goldwynname was more potent in Hollywood than elsewhere. Even with letters fromMiriam Howell, Goldwyn'srepresentative in New York at the time Cathy had to make the customaryrounds of casting offices. She finally got to Oscar Serlin, was hired forthe second company of Life with Father, and toured the country after arun in Chicago.
"Coy" Role Was Too Boring
Cathy got bored with the job and kept up a constant plea with Mr.Goldwyn to get her outof it. To make the case even stronger, she enclosed a poem each time. "Iam getting more coy every performance," she wrote, "and I thinkit would be better if I got into You Touched Me, which is by TennesseeWilliams and he is a very poetic man and I would like to work for him."
She also wanted to change her name to "Lark." Mr. Goldwynreplied that her poems pleased him more each time but that "Lark"didn't really strike him favorably and she had better stick to Father.
When the season ended she started looking for stage jobs again andwas getting nowhere when Goldwynrecalled her to Hollywood for what turned out to be TheBest Years of Our Lives. Cathy played the wife of the handless veteran, Harold Russell. She considers him one of the great characters in history.
"I don't want to sound sappy," she says, "but he hasa-- a saintlike quality. He must have been that way even before he losthis hands. Everybody who met him felt better about the world."
When the picture was done Cathy O'Donnell went back to studying.Farley Granger returned from the wars, and he and Cathy read and rehearsedtogether, all part of the Goldwyngrooming of his new stars.
The idea of teaming them in They Live By Night was Granger's andnot Goldwyn's. Grangerhad the role and worked on it with Cathy as part of their study course.RKO had another girl in mind forthe part and Granger did a screen test with her. He then suggested thatthey might like to try Cathy.
"I had to pretend I'd never seen the script before," saysCathy. "I guess that wasn't quite accurate."
Murder Finances Honeymoon
The plot concerns a young punk (Granger) who has broken out of prisonwith two older thugs and meets the girl (Cathy) in his travels. They fallin love, get married and hope for a better life-- but his ambitions inthis regard are complicated by the fact that he engages in another bankhold-up and murder to get the money for his honeymoon.
The remarkable thing is how the spectator acquires a rooting interestfor the young man, although there is never any chance that fate will excusehim. He and Cathy strive desperately to hide away and enjoy their few weeksof happiness. The authorities close in on him and he is killed. It is strong,heart-warming fare despite the aura of murder, violence and waywardness.
Despite her Irish name, Cathy is of French, English and German stock.Like so many Hollywood actresses she is the product of a divided family,her mother and father separating when she was quite young. Last April sheeloped to Las Vegas, Nevada, with Robert Wyler, returned to Hollywood andspoke of an annulment, made up, separated and finally decided to make itwork. Bulletins will be issued on this at intervals.
No matter what happens she works on her acting and writes her poems.There is the threat that a book of these will be published in the nearfuture but the effect on her acting career will probably be very slight.The number of movie-ticket buyers who read poetry is infinitesimal.
What she brings to the screen is a quality of sincerity quite rareamong the young beauties who labor in the cinematic factories. Goldwyn,who operated the famous Vilma Banky-Ronald Coleman team in the past, wasguiding the O'Donnell-Granger duo with great astuteness when the blowupcame. He was putting them into red-meat dramas far removed from the saccharineyoung love epics of yore.
And now it is all over. Cathy finally got around to the interviewwith David Selznickthat had been skipped years before and will be appearing in due coursein The Greatest Show on Earth, a circus story utilizing the resources ofRingling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey, Inc.
It was a great thing while it lasted. Cathy learned a lot from Goldwyn,and he learned something from Cathy. Samlearned a lot of poetry.
© 1948 Colliers Magazine
