HOLLYWOOD  THE GOLDEN YEARS: THE RKO STORY

“A Woman’s Lot”(S1;E3) ~ July 17, 1987

“Hollywood
the Golden Years: The RKO Story” is a six-part series produced and
aired on the BBC in 1987. Each
episode is at least an hour long, and touches on a different aspect
of the studio’s history (1928 to 1957) mixing comments, clips, and
interviews. Interviews with Lucille Ball are part of episodes 3 and 6.  

• “Birth
  of a Titan” (S1;E1) – July 1, 1987
• “Let’s
  Face the Music and Dance” (S1;E2) – July 8, 1987
• “A
  Woman’s Lot” (S1;E3) – July 17, 1987
• “It’s
  All True” (S1;E4) – July 24, 1987
• “Dark
  Victory” (S1;E5) – July 31, 1987
• “Howard’s
  Way” (S1;E6) – August 7, 1987

Edward
Asner (Narrator) 

Featuring Interviews with

• Lucille Ball 

• Ginger
  Rogers

• Katharine
  Hepburn 
• Douglas
  Fairbanks Jr. 

• Pandro S. Berman (Producer)

• Garsin
  Kanin (Writer)
• Fay
  Kanin
  (Writer)
• Linwood
  Dunn
  (Optical Effects)

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This
episode begins with the last of the Astaire and Rogers films
(detailed in the previous episode). Ginger Rogers wins her first
Academy Award for Kitty
Foyle (1940),
a solo effort without Astaire.

Interviews
with Pandro S. Berman and Katharine Hepburn’s talk about her start at
RKO and the film Morning
Glory
(1933), a film originally intended for another RKO star.  

Lucille
Ball talks about Ginger Rogers’ mother, Lela, who was an acting coach
who provided workshops on the RKO lot. Lucy would later replicate this by creating the Desilu Playhouse. 

Lucy talks about life on the
lot as an RKO contract player, getting a few lines, meeting people, and
learning how to conduct herself on the set. 

A clip from her brief
appearance in Roberta
(1935) is shown. Lucy was under contract to RKO for seven years.

Lucy:
“There
were people who made demands. I was not one of them.”

Lucy:
“One day I saw on a script ‘Lucille Ball type.’ That was one of the
biggest thrills I could imagine. And I didn’t get the part!”  

Lucy: “I liked it. I enjoyed it. I was learning. I was part of ‘the biz’ finally.”

Hepburn
says that RKO was one big family and everyone knew everyone else.
Rogers, conversely, says that there were hundreds of people and there
were many people she never met working there at the very same time.

Ed
Asner reads a fan letter to Ginger Rogers from a young English
policeman pledging his devotion should she employee him as a butler
or chauffeur. Rogers says she regrets she never got the letter, nor any of the
other thousands the studio regularly received. This leads to a clip
from Professional
Sweetheart
(1933).

The episode presents a clip of Sylvia
Scarlett
(1936) with Katharine Hepburn doing drag. Hepburn says she knew the
film was going wrong while making it.  Asner says it was considered
the worst ‘A’ picture ever released by RKO. Asner reads some of the
original preview audience’s comments from the film, all uniformly
negative. The film’s sexual ambiguity made it a cult movie with
modern audiences, something Hepburn cannot fathom.

Hepburn
(about
Sylvia
Scarlett):
“It
just didn’t go anywhere. And it still doesn’t go anywhere. It makes
absolutely no sense.”

Writer
Garsin Kanin tells the story of how Ginger Rogers was keen to play
Queen Elizabeth in Mary
of Scotland
(1936) opposite Hepburn in the title role. RKO was worried that
Rogers’ casting would trivialize the serious film. Determined, Rogers
made her own screen test, and left her name off the finished test.
Producers eventually discovered it was Rogers and the role went to
relative newcomer Florence Eldridge.

Hepburn:
“I don’t think I was very suited to Mary of Scotland. I would have
liked to have played Elizabeth. I always thought Mary was an absolute
jackass.”

Writer
Fay Kanin says that this was the period of the ‘strong woman’ –
both the actors and the characters. Kanin mentions the only female
film director of the 1930s Dorothy Arzner, and her film Christopher
Strong
(1933) starring Hepburn.

RKO’s
Stage
Door
(1937) was the only time Hepburn and Rogers (along with Lucille Ball)
appeared together.  

Lucy
says she was terrified of Hepburn. Ball, not known for her celebrity
impressions, imitates Hepburn’s lockjaw voice while talking about
her. 

Hepburn says they went into the shooting without a script
(despite that the property had first been a stage play). Director
Gregory La Cava tailored the dialogue to the actors.

Optical
Effects expert Linwood Dunn talks about the special effects involved
in having Hepburn and Cary Grant star opposite a live leopard in
Bringing
Up Baby
(1938). The film is considered a classic screwball comedy today, but
lost RKO $365,000. This ended Hepburn’s tenure at RKO. She retreated
to New York and didn’t emerge for two years – and then only for
MGM.  

Fay
Kanin discusses ‘meet cute’ plot conventions in RKO films of the late
1930s.

Kanin
and Berman discuss Bachelor
Mother
(1939), a film Rogers refused to do, until she was taken off payroll
for three weeks and finally relented. Although audiences loved it,
Rogers continued to loathe the film calling it “a
dog.”
Asner reads a variety of typed messages from Rogers to producers, rejecting
their various script submissions.  

The
Hunchback of Notre Dame
(1939) ends the decade on a triumphant note for RKO. The scene where
Quasimodo
rescues Esmerelda from the gallows is presented. “Sanctuary!
Sanctuary!”

Berman
resigned from RKO when new president George Schaeffer reorganized the
studio.  

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“Howard’s Way” (S1;E6) ~ August 7, 1987

This episode (the final installment) concerns the Howard Hughes years at RKO (1948 to 1955).  It ends with the sale of the studio to Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball’s company Desilu, who needed more space. In 1956 they paid six million dollars. Lucy says it was like a ghost town when she toured the set before her purchase of it. 

Lucy: “It was depressing.”  

Lucille Ball concludes the six part series with the apocryphal story that as a young contract player she marched onto the RKO lot and said “Some day I’ll own all of this.”  

Lucy: “The last thing I ever thought of was owning the studio.”

After the divorce of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, Desilu was dissolved and Ball sold the studios to Paramount.  

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“Ginger Rogers Comes to Tea” (HL S4;E11) ~ November 22, 1971