John Gilbert: The Last of the Silent Film Stars

Chapter Twelve

215 Chapter Twelve With each picture I made I knew I was sinking lower and lower. —John Gilbert, 1933 MGM’s other silent-era male leads were not doing much better. Chipper , brash William Haines was still in his late twenties when talkies hit, but he was already becoming slightly pudgy, and his hair was thinning. What really killed his career was the type of parts he played: the wise-ass frat boy who charms and wheedles his way into a girl’s heart. In silent films this could indeed be cute and charming—in talkies it was obnoxious . In such light romantic comedies as The Girl Said No, Way Out West, and Just a Gigolo, he harasses and stalks and prods his leading ladies to the point where any sane woman would take out an order of protection—instead, of course, they lose their hearts to him. Like Jack, Haines was put into cheaper and cheaper vehicles, none of which showed him off to good effect (except for the terrific but little-seen Are You Listening?). He was out of MGM by 1932, and out of films by 1934. Haines had a happy afterlife as one of the nation’s leading interior designers, and he enjoyed one of Hollywood’s longest, happiest marriages , with his partner Jimmie Shields (who committed suicide shortly after Haines’s 1973 death). Haines’s open and unabashed homosexuality had nothing to do with the end of his career: neither Mayer nor anyone else in charge at MGM cared about their stars’ sexual orientation as long as it was kept out of the press. Ramon Novarro, too, was gay, but he was neither open nor un- 216 The Decline abashed about it. From a very religious family (several siblings became priests and nuns), poor Novarro was tormented by his situation. He drank heavily and never had a steady partner to give him ballast. Novarro ’s problem at MGM was his accent, though his excellent singing voice was utilized in a film or two. He, like Haines, was getting rather paunchy in his early thirties (the drinking did not help matters—it made Jack lose weight, but Novarro became doughy). And his MGM talkies were easily as dreadful as anything Jack was assigned—even worse, many of them. He had Ruritarian romances and musicals (Daybreak, Devil-May-Care, The Cat and the Fiddle, The Night Is Young), he played a cringe-making Indian (from India, in Son of India) and Indian (as in Navaho, in Laughing Boy). He was even Chinese (as was Helen Hayes!) in the truly awful The Son-Daughter. Ramon Novarro was dropped by MGM in 1935, but after a rough middle age he had a comeback as a very busy and dapper character actor in films and on TV. He was still acting in 1968 when he was murdered in his home by two male prostitutes (his killers got life sentences, but both were paroled in the 1970s). John Barrymore was lucky—things might not have gone well for him: as the talkies hit he was pushing fifty and his lifestyle was catching up to him. Within just a couple of years he had become flabby and debauched looking. But his talent and his wonderful voice were untouched, and he managed to segue into character roles. Barrymore was never again effective as a lover in talkies—and we shall discuss Grand Hotel shortly—but as a dramatic actor (A Bill of Divorcement, Dinner at Eight, Counsellor at Law) and an over-the-top comic actor (Twentieth Century, Midnight), he was matchless. Jack’s longtime pal Richard Barthelmess, too, seemed to become middle-aged overnight. Only thirty-four in 1929, he looked easily fifty. His voice was serviceable, though, and First National kept him working in leads for several years (most notably in The Dawn Patrol and The Cabin in the Cotton, opposite a vampy young Bette Davis). He was amazing in William Wellman’s dark, pre-Code Heroes for Sale as a drug-addicted, out of work World War I veteran. But age, competition , and increased weight had him down to supporting and character roles by the time he retired (very wealthy, through real-estate investments ) in 1942. Chapter Twelve 217 Of all Jack’s friends and contemporaries, it was Ronald Colman who hit the jackpot. No one else had a voice like that: dark velvet, with a dreamy, posh...