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Gale recalled for me the breakthrough that jumpstarted her career even though the threats still arrived via the American Legion to stop her from appearing in ANASTASIA, a summer theater production, but the publicity over her being cast as the Empress became news on a national level. “Each performance was sold out and that opening night was the most exciting of my entire career as everybody of importance from government to the American Legion itself was in the audience that night to see if I would have the guts to appear. Well my entrance in the middle of the second act was positively electric, a moment in time that brought me full circle after all those terrible years of being denied the right to practice my craft. All that disappeared the moment I walked out on that stage and stopped the show for an ovation the likes of which I never knew could exist outside of a movie script.”

“Yet the blacklisting was imposed on Hollywood and especially the studios. It would take the independents to start rehiring those who could not work for so many years after the blacklisting finally died away. There were other actors like Hope who believed we were a threat to the American way of freedom; men like John Wayne and Ronald Reagan. The one we all remember was Adolphe Menjou who hated communism more than anyone else in Hollywood and would go out of his way to act like the witch hunter he was in private life.” Gale managed to laugh at one point and told me she got along famously with Hope in their films together “I remember coming home from the set aching from laughter because Bob was so funny, always full of quips. Bob began to change the richer and more Republican he got”

The afternoon wore on and Gale began to tire, asking me if we could perhaps talk more at some other time. This whole experience was so overwhelming. To be in the presence of such a commanding lady, much less having her full attention and trust, was more than I could ever have bargained for from a chance encounter, thanks oddly enough to a Bob Hope movie…..

At the beginning of 1981 Curtis Harrington and I escorted Gale to a screening of what was supposed to be SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE SPIDER WOMAN for a group of Holmes scholars at the motion picture academy who called themselves the “Non-canonical Calabashes” At this point I should explain that Curtis had asked especially for Gale Sondergaard when he was directing a made-for-television horror film called THE CAT CREATURE, and while Gale was working one afternoon the Academy presented her with a statuette for her best supporting actress Oscar, because in 1936 they only had plaques to give out in that newly created category. Ever since then Gale and Curtis had a special bond of friendship.

A print of SPIDER WOMAN could not be found for that evening, so SHERLOCK HOLMES FACES DEATH was quickly substituted. The program was sold–out and as Gale rose to her feet to introduce the film the audience gave her another ovation, giving her the rush she needed to get through it all. Gale spoke with genuine respect for Basil Rathbone, calling him “a dedicated actor who treated Holmes as a real person, making the audience also believe he was Sherlock Holmes.” Gale handled the questions about her character of the spider woman with humor. “I was asked to play this evil yet powerful woman. This spider woman character as scripted had no hint of background or motivation, if you will, and no concept of how to play her as a three dimensional character. I mean what kind of a childhood could she have had? Ultimately I chose to play her as Holmes’ equal and allow their battle of wits to be played out much like a female Moriarty. Both Nigel and Basil were so dear together as they enjoyed those tea breaks at four every afternoon that they worked at Universal, and I was honored to be in their company”

At the end of that evening I suggested to both Gale and Curtis that I was planning a very special going-away party for someone they both would enjoy seeing off, yet I kept the name a surprise and told them both to come to my place the following weekend for an afternoon to remember and that would prove an understatement in the upcoming chapter….

OLD ACQUAINTANCE {THE “PINK FLAME” TOASTS A SPIDER WOMAN}

Gloria Stuart is totally unique in Show business history in that she survived beyond even her wildest dreams all the way into the 21st Century as the oldest person ever to receive an Academy Award nomination, in 1997, for TITANIC. Gloria began as a former contract player with Universal Pictures in the early thirties where she captured the imagination of James Whale, the most successful director on the lot after the overwhelming public response to his masterpiece FRANKENSTEIN. Whale would cast Gloria in three of his films, the most famous being yet another masterpiece, THE INVISIBLE MAN, and the other two being the nearly forgotten THE KISS BEFORE THE MIRROR in which she is killed off at the film’s beginning, and her own personal favorite of the three, THE OLD DARK HOUSE. This may have been Whale’s favorite as well. It had long been regarded as a lost film until Curtis Harrington made it his business to find it while directing GAMES on the Universal lot. The film survives on DVD as the prototype for all “old dark house” films that followed in its wake. Gloria once told me that Whale instructed her to behave “like a pink flame that dances about the old house much like a moth.” He made sure her costume was a pink clinging silk gown, very décolletage, that did give her something to be a flame with. I owe my introduction to this remarkable lady to fellow artist Don Bacardy who had done several portraits of Gloria over the years. I wanted to introduce her to Curtis Harrington, as they both knew James Whale at different stages of the great director’s life.

Gloria was never what you would think of as a “conventional” lady, and age never diminished her energy or zest for living. While she was at that time well into her late 70’s Gloria Stuart was about to take an adventurous vacation to Morocco by jeep with another girlfriend for a month. I decided, upon hearing about this, to throw her a going away party and allow some of my friends to experience this ageless wonder for themselves. My guest list was made up of actors who might know her or would like to, and of course Curtis and my new friend Gale Sondergaard. Both these actresses worked at Universal at different times and in different roles, and were both known for their “horror pictures”

As far as I knew these ladies had never met or worked together, since most of the 40 films Gloria made were in the thirties, and she retired on at least two occasions to devote more time to painting (and had the shows to prove it was time well spent). Gloria had been one of the foundling members of the Screen Actors Guild in 1933 and was also known as a “liberal” when it came to politics. I just knew these gals would hit it off….I decided to make large punch bowls of sangria for the party as it was summer time and it seemed festive for the occasion.

Gale Sondergaard arrived with Charles Higham and wore a brown and white two-piece summer outfit that showed off her amazing figure — the spider woman strikes back and how.

The room was filling up and soon spilled out into the back patio and the party was off and running. At some point Curtis came up to me and said Gale wanted to speak with me in the kitchen. When I went in and saw Gale was waiting rather nervously I asked if anything was wrong and she told me that her late husband was a bitter enemy of Arthur Sheekman who was married to Gloria Stuart. Gale had forgotten that little tidbit until this moment when the two were about to be introduced. I pondered this situation and decided to simply go over to Gloria and explain what was going on with Gale. As I had hoped Gloria could not remember if her late husband had a problem with Biberman or not. You see Gloria was a very liberated woman, and after Arthur died she met a man who was more involved in the arts and they lived together until his death. Knowing this, I knew Gloria was not one to hold on to the past. Once I made Gloria aware of the situation she went into the kitchen and embraced Gale telling her “that the past was just that” and that they had too much living to do to worry about what their husbands were up to in another life, and with that the two became friends for the rest of the afternoon and beyond.

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