Harlow and Powell

I didn't know they were engaged.


Is your bed made?
Is your sweater on?
Do you want to
Like you know I do
http://i48.tinypic.com/35161rc.jpg

He gave her a huge sapphire ring which HARLOW thought of as an engagement token. But he never proposed, which left Jean heartbroken. The fact that he wouldn't marry her was one of the reasons he was so distraught at her funeral--guilt.

But even if they'd wed, nothing could have saved her life.

I have a theory that the Powell/Harlow relationship was set up by MGM and was fake. If there was ever a pairing that screamed Hollywood set up from the first cliche to the last, it was that one. Then she died and they had to romanticize it or it would have made her seem pathetic. And the publicity was so INSISTENT and constant, right down to the exploitation trailer for this film.

It's just too weird/odd a relationship otherwise. The weirdest part was how long it supposedly endured (three years) despite not being either happy or passionate, and the two having nothing in common. And then conveniently ending just as Powell's contract was ending (they were over when she died).

And there's a lot of weird, contradictory press from the time, like the publicity department is trotting out different versions of the relationship. It seems to be happening in the press, not between them, and they only show up at "places to be photographed". He looks like he's in pain, she looks like she's going along with things.

It's only after she died that for a year afterwards the MGM publicity department did this tragic love publicity about them. They also paid off Harlow's mother/gave her a small lifelong pension. That's not something they did for everybody - some of their actors starved after the contracts weren't renewed. I think it was to keep Harlow's mom's mouth shut.

And the more I read, the more apparent it becomes that the studios controlled their lives - EVERYTHING. In the early 1930s, Harlow was box office but had made some lurid films, had a super lurid personal life event (murder of Paul Bern) and hung out with mobsters. There had been some terrible scandals, such as the murders of Thelma Todd and William Ince, and Todd's was definitely mob-related. Harlow was barely into her twenties, had three failed marriages, one ending in murder, and she was the third party in a threatened divorce action by Max Baer's wife. She dated mobsters, was the godmother to Bugsy Siegels' daughter, and her stepdad was a mob crony. This was no longer good publicity for an MGM superstar, but she was box office for them, so they had to do something.

Anyway, the movies she'd done and the image she presented weren't acceptable anymore, and they wanted to protect her because she made them money. At the exact same time, William Powell had finally become a really big star, and he was MGM's new property with a brand new three year contract (before the Thin Man was a hit, he just had a two picture deal with MGM). He was at least ten years older than MGM's other leading men (in his forties), and most of the leading ladies they paired with him were much younger than he (Myrna Loy herself was 13 years younger than he was). His real hair was turning white, and it was dyed. His personal life was mostly known for being dumped by Carole Lombard, who was sixteen years younger. So his offscreen image needed a youthful jolt.

Paired with Harlow, it sexed his image up and made people think, well, two young hot blondes were all for him in real life - he's got something for sure. And pairing HIM with Harlow gave her respectability. Yes, she was by every account an extremely nice girl, but she drank a great deal, associated with mobsters like her sometime bf Abner Zwillman, and her personal life was messy. The public affiliation with Powell calmed things down. So the studio was very anxious to promote this, which it did for three years.

To me, this would explain the reason why, by all accounts, he didn't treat her well. Why? There's no report that he treated anybody else badly, including his first two wives. BUT, if he were mocking the situation and her, that would explain the sarcasm, and maybe the embarrassment. It would explain why she fawned over him, to compensate for the situation. By most accounts, she went overboard when anyone did anything nice for her. If this was an arrangement, she may have been trying to make make up for his attitude. It also explains the giant, yet cheap, sapphire. That was sort of satirical.

Jimmy Stewart, who, IMO, was not in the habit of lying, told his wife Gloria that he'd had a fling with Harlow during Wife v. Secretary. Stewart isn't my cup of tea, but the women of the era chased him like he was the hottest thing on two legs (Ginger Rogers, Loretta Young, Florence Rice, Margaret Sullavan, Marlene Dietrich.) Wife v. Secretary was right in the middle of Powell/Harlow. Stewart liked Harlow, but said it didn't go past a fling because of the mob factor in her life. This doesn't fit the "official" narrative or legend of Harlow/Powell, but Stewart spoke up about a lot of things other actors didn't.

Anyhow, I started researching this because I was so eager to see "Harlow/Powell" on screen, and yet in this movie, he barely looks at her, there's always a buffer in the scene with them, all of her romantic scenes are with Franchot Tone, and when Powell first proposes to her, she's asleep, and when he proposes again, her back is turned and she's on stage. There is no basic actor intimacy - he ducks her on camera and the directing and script helps. And it's pretty much the same in Libeled Lady. Although comic, he acts past her. I contrast that with other actors. I think there was a fake with them that he couldn't or wouldn't get past on camera, so they worked around it.