Zachary Scott: Hollywood's Sophisticated Cad

PREFACE

vii As a freshman at the University of Texas in Austin, I learned that actor Zachary Scott was a native and favorite son of the city. On one of my introductory tours, my uncle pointed out to me where the actor’s parents lived. Movie fan that I am, I frequently drove my parents and friends by the stately Scott residence when they visited me during my college years, little anticipating that I would one day become a film biographer. To celebrate my retirement from Southern Methodist University after forty years of teaching American cultural history, my surrogate son and I made a train trip with a group of University of Texas alumni to the Grand Tetons, Yellowstone, Glacier National Park, and through Montana to Seattle. Rather unexpectedly my collegiate spirit as a former UT Longhorn was rejuvenated by the happy experience, and I found myself longing to reestablish myself on the Austin campus. Meanwhile I had heard that the Zachary Scott papers had recently been deposited in the university’s Humanities Research Center, and the thought of writing a biography of the Texas actor, a fellow Longhorn it turned out, appealed to me. Fortunately the Scott papers proved to be a treasure trove, and I spent many hours in the HRC doing the kind of research I had come to love. Since I own a cabin in nearby Wimberley, Texas, frequent trips to Austin were more pleasure than hardship, and the Scott research gave me an excuse to reacquaint myself with the city—no longer the overgrown country town I had come to know as a college freshman. A Wimberley artist whose work I admire put me in touch with Ann Swenson, a long-time neighbor of the Scotts. Ann not only gave me my first personal glimpses of the former Warner Bros. star, but also pointed me in the direction of the actor’s sister, Mary Lewis PREFACE Scott Kleberg. Mary Lewis’s recollections of her family were warm and added flesh to what I had been reading in the boxes of Scott letters at the HRC. She also gave me addresses for Waverly Scott Kaffaga, the actor’s daughter, Ruth Ford, the actor’s second wife, and Shelley Scott, Ruth’s daughter, whom Zachary adopted. Tom Campbell, Scott’s nephew, I discovered in Wimberley. Waverly and I had three telephone conversations from her home in Athens, Greece, and she agreed to see me when she visited Austin in the fall of 2002. When I contacted the actor’s daughter shortly after her arrival in Texas, she apologized and said that she had decided not to talk to me. “There are reasons,” she said. I expressed disappointment but accepted her decision as final. I liked Waverly immensely from our phone conversations and found her refreshingly open. I also sensed that she liked me. After declining my request for an interview, toward the end of our telephone conversation in Austin, Waverly remarked almost as a postscript, “Well, we could get together for a drink or dinner.” A few evenings later we met in a Mexican restaurant in south Austin. “I’ve checked you out,” Waverly announced once our drinks had been served. “Oh!” I said with surprise, “and what did you find?” She took a sip from her margarita and said, “You’re not a scandalmonger.” I nodded and responded, “Well, I couldn’t ask for a better report than that.” Then, thinking out loud, I said, “And how did you go about checking me out?” Waverly smiled as she replied, “I had John’s agent make some inquiries.” Suddenly I was flattered beyond belief, since John was John Steinbeck, Waverly’s stepfather and one of my favorite American authors. Perplexed about how to relax and enjoy drinks and a meal with my research subject’s daughter without appearing to interrogate her, I tried to keep the conversation as light as possible. Waverly’s comments about her father were terse yet consistently insightful. After finishing her margarita she switched to beer, saying as she pushed the empty glass aside, “I’m not having any more of those. I’m afraid of you.” She didn’t appear afraid, and we had a thoroughly delightful dinner, although it was clear that she didn ’t want to go into depth about her memories of her father. viii PREFACE Ruth Ford did not answer my letters. The one I sent to...