Alice Faye: A Life Beyond the Silver Screen

Chapter 4: New Studio, New Star

The upheavals occurring at the top reaches of the studio’s administration had little immediate effect on the day-to-day lives of the contract players. During most of 1935 Alice Faye continued to work in the Sheehan productions to which she had been assigned. The studio released these films at regular intervals throughout the year: George White’s 1935 Scandals in March, Music Is Magic in November, with Paramount’s Every Night at Eight reaching the screens in August. Between releases, the Fox publicity machine , under the direction of Harry Brand, kept her name before the public as much as possible. “I’d read stories about Alice Faye in the papers— stories the studio publicity department had planted—and I would wonder who that girl was,” Alice said. “It didn’t sound like anybody I knew.” The fictive Alice Faye of the studio’s imagining maintained a busy and, at times preposterous, schedule according to the newspapers. In November 1934 they reported that she had a clause inserted in her contract that allowed her to quit work at 4:00 P.M. on Thursdays in order to listen to the Fleischmann Hour each week. Another piece claimed she simply had a radio installed on the set. The previous month the New York Times ran an item announcing that Alice had been cast in the lead role of a screen version of Dante’s Inferno. In May 1935 the papers said she had achieved her goal of owning a mink coat and that she planned to become an opera singer after her career in movies came to an end. And always there was 68 New Studio, New Star CHAPTER 4 the speculation about her personal life. As the rumors of her involvement with Vallée died down, the press linked her name with Nick Foran, then actors Lyle Talbot and Nelson Eddy, then finally nobody at all. The dearth of men in her life purportedly prompted this claim: “Alice Faye declared recently she’d rather have a $1,000 husband than a $1,000,000 contract.” Alice’s real life, in contrast, continued to be consumed with the consequences of her rapid rise to fame. She felt overwhelmed by the shift from New York to Los Angeles, the shift from band singer to movie actress, and the shift from poverty to affluence. Like so many other film industry successes, she considered herself undeserving and something of a fraud. Unfortunately, her hectic schedule provided little time for the reflection necessary to make the mental adjustment to all the new demands she faced. “There I would be,” she said, “unsure and unsteady, wondering why I was there and how I could possibly justify the big money I was getting and the luxurious life I was leading.” Many “overnight successes” in countless other industries felt similarly anxious. Alice could not realize just how common her confusion about her new circumstances were or how easily self-doubt lured the unwary into self-destructive behavior. In the studio environment, such psychological distractions as alcohol, drugs, sex, or gambling were readily available, and she may have been aware of other performers who chose those means of escaping their problems. Their solution was not Alice’s, however. For whatever reason—her family, an innate sense of morality, or simply a stubborn sense of self-preservation— Alice grappled with her sense of inadequacy without resorting to pills, drink, or financial and sexual recklessness. She thereby avoided one of the biggest hazards of a movie career, one that ruined the lives of many of her costars in years to come. Alice continued to live quietly, enjoying her family and friends, who had their own adjustments to make. Her brothers had moved to California sometime in 1934, and she and her mother rented a house, with a swimming pool, to accommodate everyone. Sonny, according to Fox press reNEW STUDIO, NEW STAR 69 leases, had been an agent for General Motors in New York, although given his chronic arthritis one wonders what kind of responsibilities this position entailed. His decision to join his mother and sister in California was doubtless influenced by his need to seek relief from his illness. Once he arrived Alice helped him find work as an assistant director at Fox. Later in 1934 Sonny met and married an M-G-M contract actress named Bonnie Bannon and they set up house for...