Harlow & Faye

Today’s blog post refers to the two leading platinum blondes of the 1930s: Jean Harlow and Alice Faye. Harlow’s film career first began with supporting roles in silent comedies such as “Double Whoopee” (1929) with Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.



In “Brats” (1930), Harlow can be spotted briefly if you look closely at the photo on the mantle. Producer Hal Roach apparently quipped that he got Harlow to appear “for nothing” in this comedy short as well as in 1931’s “Beau Hunks.”



Zooming in:



Harlow’s breakthrough role came in the 1930 war film, “Hell’s Angels.” By 1932, MGM put her under contract and she became a box office favorite with hits like “Red-Headed Woman” (1932), “Red Dust” (1932), and “Dinner at Eight” (1933).



The pencil thin eyebrows, the platinum hair, and the sarcastic wit were all part of her manufactured persona.



Enter Alice Faye (approximately four years younger than Harlow), Fox Studio’s “answer” to Harlow over at MGM. Today, portraits of the two are often confused. Faye was given the same platinum hairdo as well as the hardened makeup that Harlow had been sporting in her early career, as seen in “Now I’ll Tell” (1934), where Faye played the “other woman” opposite Spencer Tracy.



Below, a Gene Kornman publicity shot of Faye for “Poor Little Rich Girl” with Shirley Temple (1936) with this caption:

After she’s through with the day’s dancing sequences in “The Poor Little Rich Girl,” Alice Faye curls up in her favorite chair, clad in her favorite pajamas of black silk velvet lavishly trimmed in white marabou. In this 20th Century-Fox production, starring Shirley Temple, Alice finds herself teamed with Jack Haley, who does pretty well as a dancer himself!



In this, her first Temple film, Faye played the wisecracking wife who nags husband Jack Haley all day long. Faye’s characters up to this point lacked the innocence and vulnerability that made Harlow so appealing underneath the sarcasm. Still, Faye had one thing Harlow didn’t: a gorgeous contralto voice! 20th Century-Fox Studio head Darryl Zanuck saw the potential in Faye and by the time she made her second Shirley Temple film, “Stowaway” (also in 1936), she was almost unrecognizable. In the following publicity still, Alice had graduated from silk velvet and marabou to an outfit that any typical woman of the day might have worn. The accompanying caption:

Attired as comfortably as possible, Alice Faye takes a stroll for the sake of fresh air before reporting for preparation at 20th Century-Fox for her role with Shirley Temple in “Stowaway.”



Zanuck saw the value in making Alice Faye more approachable to both sexes by softening the edges and putting the vocal talents front and center, much to the chagrin of little Shirley who would later recall:

I retired to bed singing “Good Night My Love,” a delectable ballad by Mack Gordon with Harry Revel with lyrics about Dutch dolls, teddy bears, and my dead daddy. Faye then reprised my song outside, under a romantic full moon, using mature lyrics sung in her own silky style. Instantly I knew her rendition had finessed mine. Hers was deeper-throated, more resonant, and her facial expressions insinuated much that I sensed was important without knowing why. Yet my proprietary feeling could not so easily be quenched. It was my song. I had sung it first. Why did I lose when she won?…Perhaps the problem was not my deficiency but her skill. She was older, I brooded, and had beautiful cow eyes to boot.



At the same time, MGM was working hard to soften Harlow’s image, realizing (just like Zanuck) that her appeal would be greater if they moved away from the one-dimensional platinum bombshell approach.

One of the oft-told legends of Hollywood was that MGM wanted so badly to borrow Shirley Temple for “The Wizard of Oz,” that they offered Clark Gable and Jean Harlow for Fox’s production of “In Old Chicago.” Shirley herself even repeated this myth in her autobiography, Child Star. It doesn’t take much digging to figure out that this was a fabrication, although portions of the story are true. When Alice Faye was interviewed by Joe Franklin in her later years, he asked, “Did you get that part [In Old Chicago] when Jean Harlow was about to die?” “That's what I read,” replied Alice. “I read that, but I’m not sure.” “I never believed it,” responded Joe. “I never did either. I wouldn’t mind following Harlow,” Faye said with a smile. “She was pretty dishy!” This speaks to the fact that back in the 1930s and 1940s, the studio bigwigs made trades and deals but the stars themselves were the last to know. They were under contract with the understanding that they would follow along with executive orders without complaint. Shirley Temple herself would not have had any firsthand knowledge about any of this, either. Here’s what we know:

“In Old Chicago” went into production mid-June of 1937, shortly after Jean Harlow’s untimely June 7th death. Thanks to some sleuthing by Melissa (aka “The Colonel”), we know that on May 27, 1937, the L.A. Times was still reporting that Harlow…

…is pretty certain as one feminine lead in that picture, incidentally.

One day later, the Times changed its tune:

With no chance of getting either Jean Harlow or Helen Hayes for “In Old Chicago,” Twentieth Century-Fox is to set about popularizing two of its own feminie players in this banner picture. And that’s not a bad idea either, particularly as one of the young ladies is Virginia Field.

On June 1st, the Evening Courier reported:

I don’t know what would have happened if Darryl Zanuck couldn’t have borrowed Jean Harlow for “In Old Chicago.” He had his heart set on her, but for a few weeks it looked as if M-G-M would have to refuse. In order to swing the deal, Darryl had to promise Tyrone Power in exchange. So it’s set that he will play the boy in “Madame X.” First of course, he co-stars with Jean in the Chicago epic, with Don Ameche in an important part and Virginia Field and Phyllis Brooks in supporting roles. Henry King directs.

Other than Harlow and Virginia Field, the rest of the report panned out. MGM made “Madame X” without Tyrone Power, using Warren William instead. “Madame X” began production mid-July 1937 and was released on October 1. And what about Shirley? Where does she fit into all of this? Based on contemporary accounts, Shirley Temple had zilcho to do with the “In Old Chicago” / “Madame X” swap. MGM didn’t even own “The Wizard of Oz” at the time all of these shenanigans were going on. While the bean counters at MGM wanted the box office stability of Shirley for “Oz” when they did purchase it, the production and creative team all wanted Judy Garland and the story was purchased specifically for her. MGM vocal coach/composer/arranger Roger Edens was sent to Fox for an informal audition of Temple and reported back that her “vocal limitations were insurmountable” for “Oz.” And that was that. 

What would “In Old Chicago” have been like with Harlow? What would “The Wizard of Oz” have been like with Temple? To quote Alice Faye, “You’ll Never Know”!



See more Alice Faye photos at my main website.