Lew Ayres: Hollywood's Conscientious Objector

CHAPTER 5. Romantic Comedy

43 Chapter Five ROMANTIC COMEDY The failure of Lew to elevate his performance beyond the pedestrian plot and direction of Don’t฀Bet฀on฀Love was a turning point in Lew’s career. In 1934, similar romantic comedies were increasingly the most popular genre for depression-era audiences, especially screwball comedies dealing with social class and status. Since beginning his career, Lew had projected a degree of refinement which seemed ideal for such films, but his own lack of training in the craft of acting was proving to be a hindrance. If Lew was to survive in the industry, he would need to take control of his career. Lew became more defiant towards Universal and became an early supporter of the growing Screen Actors Guild, a union created to end the exploitation of actors who were often forced into long working hours and automatic renewals of contracts. After five years as a leading man in movies, Lew also attempted to improve his own marketability and began taking regular classes in Hollywood in theatrical training, diction, and movement. The once naturally elegant twenty-six-year-old finally learned how to mold a performance using his natural talent and newfound acting skills. More importantly, however, Lew found a new confidence in his abilities and understanding of his own unique type of onscreen refinement, ideal for new class comedies.1 Although those at Universal may not have taken note of Lew’s skills, there were those aware of Lew’s potentially profitable qualities. Fox, the same studio which had requested Lew to be loaned out to appear in Common฀Clay and State฀Fair, requested another loan-out for Lew to appear in their upcoming movie My฀Weakness. He was cast as a millionaire playboy in the Pygmalion-inspired comedy about a maid who is taught society’s ways by her employer and his uncle. Lillian Harvey, a European film star, was to make her Hollywood debut opposite Lew in the delightful screwball comedy. It was an impressive American debut for Harvey. romAntIC Comedy 44 She would appear in three other comedies for Fox. But the studio was also impressed by the work Lew had done in the role as the upper-class young man. Back at Universal, Lew was quickly put into another quick B-picture . Cross Country Cruise was little more than an attempt to capitalize on the crowd-pleasing Oscar-winner It฀Happened฀One฀Night. Lew played a man who follows the girl of his dreams, played by contract actress June Knight, on a bus trip from New York to California. Knight’s character is traveling west on the bus, alongside her still-married boyfriend and his wife. When the boyfriend murders his wife along the trip, the junior sleuth Lew solves the mystery. Immediately, Lew was cast in his fourth sequential romantic comedy, a convoluted story of a poor married man who pretends to be a rich businessman in Let’s฀Be฀Ritzy. Lew’s frustration with the quality of the films and roles he was offered at Universal came to a head when he was assigned the role of Pinnebery in Little฀Man฀Now฀What, another film he felt had no potential; he refused the role.2 It seemed unfair that while the studio attempted to make prestige pictures with actors they hired Fig. 5.1. Lillian harvey, Charles Butterworth, and Lew in a scene from the Pygmalion modernization My Weakness (1933). private collection. romAntIC Comedy 45 on high price loan-outs, their loyal in-house talent, including Lew, was constantly put into Universal’s quick and cheap films. Like others, Lew’s youthful excitement over being under contract to a movie studio had turned to dissatisfaction with his studio’s policies. As Lew completed Let’s฀ Be฀Ritzy, his agent Ivan Kahn finally came to his rescue. Lew’s contract at Universal was coming to an end and Ivan had a new studio in mind for his client.3 Lew’s most recent on-screen successes had been not with his home studio, but on loan to Fox in State฀Fair and My฀Weakness. Although the latter hadn’t been a massive success, it was well reviewed and made a decent profit for Fox, the reason the studio signed Lew as their newest comic leading man. Now under contract at Fox, Lew was immediately cast in yet another screwball comedy, She฀Learned฀About฀Sailors, this time...