Barbara, Bette, Joan, and Kate

In The Golden Age of Hollywood, there’s only so much room at the top, not just career-wise, but historically speaking. Memory is embarrassingly limited when it comes to the once-popular, and some of Hollywood’s most popular and beloved actresses have been relegated to bloggers’ fantasies or the occasional TCM “Star of the Month” tribute. Yes, we film buffs know and love them, but the majority of actresses aren't as well known and just don’t measure up to the four who remain the quintessential icons of their (and every subsequent) generation.When discussing the Golden Age, four actresses loom large above all others. Let’s call them The Big Four. Listing them by just their first name (though I've included their mugshots, too) is just one indication of their stature:

Barbara

Bette

Joan

Kate

…and then there’s everyone else: I might as well include 1950s & 1960s actresses in this latter category, because no matter what their achievements, those women just don’t stack up to the four, first-name basis luminaries. When looking at The Big Four’s contemporaries, I find it hard to believe that these diversely talented Golden Age “heavyweights” haven’t enjoyed the same recognition as The Big Four. I will limit them to the 1930s-40s. The notable also-rans:

Ginger Rogers- Equally adept at light comedy and melodrama. She won an Academy Award over Bette and Kate in 1940. Oh, and she danced & sang a little in ten movies with Fred Astaire. Her solo career has been largely dismissed.

Irene Dunne- Another triple threat: hilarious in comedies, effective in dramas, and sang like an angel. In fact, Dunne really wanted to be an opera singer.

Carole Lombard- She’s known more nowadays for being Clark Gable’s wife than she is for being the greatest screwball comedienne ever. She was excellent at dramatic parts, and she died young. World events “upstaged” her untimely death.

Jean Harlow- Comedic brilliance and stylistic immortality; known more for the latter than the former. Too bad.

Myrna Loy- Surprisingly modern but pretty tame, Loy was the most popular female star in 1937; she was “Queen” to Gable’s “King” title. Maybe it was playing the ideal wife in so many movies that did her in, even though she began her career playing exotic vamps. In real life she was as gutsy as The Big Four in battling studio heads for pay befitting her status.

Claudette Colbert- This Oscar winner who could charm you (Midnight) or make you cry like a baby with her dramatics (Since You Went Away). Today, people are apt to think she’s Stephen Colbert’s grandmother.

Joan Fontaine- She and hated sister Olivia De Havilland were wildly popular Oscar winners and both had long-running careers. Now just a footnote, though both are still living. Probably because both are waiting for the other to die; hatred’s funny that way.

Rosalind Russell- Four-time Oscar nominee. Roz epitomized the strong, independent career woman. But her choice of roles did her in, as she only has four or five bona fide classics to her name.

Greer Garson- Always seemed to land all the melodramatic “women’s pictures” and was a perennial contender at Oscar time.

Greta Garbo- She quit making movies by 1941 and has been reduced to a punch line for shut-ins (“I vant to be alone...")

Marlene Dietrich- Best known for her sexually ambiguous attire and being a stylistic influence on pop star Madonna.

Honorable Mentions: Norma Shearer, Janet Gaynor. Their careers reach back to the Silent Era. That probably hurts them.

What made The Big Four so great? Why does the mainstream remember them over the rest? They certainly weren’t the most beautiful, and didn’t sing or dance with any great ability. Bette and Joan weren’t comedic actresses, at least not intentionally. Barbara and Kate excelled in the few they did. Bette and Joan were raconteurs of the highest order, so it would seem that comedy came naturally to them. Was it their longevity? All four were active for at least forty years. How about their twenty-nine combined Oscar nominations? Maybe it’s just the fact that no other actresses produced that high a quality of work for such a long period of time. Maybe it’s the public’s notorious short-term memory. Perhaps it’s because their off-screen lives were infinitely more interesting than anyone else’s. It was probably all of these things, and a hundred more variables I haven't thought of yet. Or, maybe there’s just only so much room at the top. I don’t think that there’s a definitive answer, but it’s a question worth asking, and a fun one to ponder.

And I apologize for having put Bette and Joan adjacent to one another, given their history...

Ginger Rogers' Oscar Moment

Thanks to a tip from Carrie at her excellent blog, Classic Montgomery, I was able to search LIFE magazine's photo archives and found another picture of Ginger Rogers' Oscar win at the 13th Annual Academy Awards in 1941. "The little Rogers gal" looks genuinely moved and in awe of the moment, in what would be the pinnacle of her career.

1941 also marked the first year that Oscar results were kept secret from the press and public until the actual opening of the envelope, so I'm sure that Ginger wasn't acting when she was announced as the winner (for Kitty Foyle). The presenter is stage actress Lynn Fontanne.

Gail Patrick: Deco Dame

Gail Patrick (1911-1980) was best known for her numerous roles in the 1930s and 1940s as the bitchy, cold-as-ice, "other woman." The stauesque (5'7"), strikingly beautiful actress possessed a wonderfully distinct speaking voice (Oh, why don't women speak like that today??? ). Gail Patrick is a quintessentially Thirties dame. She is best known for her work in My Man Godfrey (1936), where she played Carole Lombard’s conniving sister Cornelia who, after being dumped into an ash pile by William Powell’s title character, plans to ruin the “Forgotten Man”-turned family butler by framing him for the theft of her jewel necklace. Patrick has many deliciously bitchy exchanges with both Powell and Lombard, but it is Patrick’s vulnerability that makes her Cornelia Bullock so memorable, adding a level of pathos to her spoiled rich girl facade. After seeing Patrick among one of the best ensemble casts in movie history, you’ll want to seek out her other memorable roles. Unfortunately, Gail Patrick’s more obscure movies do not make the rounds at Turner Classic Movies and are unavailable on DVD. There must be a dozen or so of her movies that I'm just dying to see, including Tales of Manhattan (1942) , and the original Brewster's Millions (1945) . Luckily, her best-known films are available for your infinite enjoyment.

Stage Door (1937) Patrick’s role as Linda Shaw was a nice follow up to My Man Godfrey, and she gets to lock horns with an at-her-best Ginger Rogers, who, to be honest, destroys Patrick in this one. Gail does get off some fine salvos, though. Stage Door features not to be missed ensemble work by the likes of Katharine Hepburn, Eve Arden, Lucille Ball, and a teenaged Ann Miller.

My Favorite Wife (1940) Patrick in perhaps her ultimate “other woman” role, she is Cary Grant’s new wife after Grant has his first wife (Irene Dunne) declared dead after she goes missing in the Pacific Ocean for seven years. Patrick is actually quite sympathetic here, as her character, Bianca, is completely unaware of and therefore befuddled by Grant’s suddenly bizarre behavior after he sees Dunne at the hotel where he and Patrick will spend their honeymoon.

Love Crazy (1941) This William Powell-Myrna Loy confection finds Gail as Powell’s ex-girlfriend. Patrick plays her Other Woman role with a great deal of humor and charm. She’s also at her most flirtatious, with the nasty characteristics that mark most of her roles notably absent. This is my favorite Gail Patrick role. She's surpisingly good in a lighter role and it came as a pleasant surprise after having seen her in her typical performances.

After her acting career ended in the late 1940s, Gail Patrick started her own children's clothing business designing her own line and having many Hollywood stars as clients. An accomplished woman in every aspect of her professional life and a memorable presence onscreen.

The "Undeserved" Oscars of 1940

I've always loved this shot of Ginger Rogers & Jimmy Stewart taken at the 1941 Academy Awards. Ginger won for Kitty Foyle & Jimmy copped his for The Philadelphia Story. Ginger looked so good as a brunette, didn't she? Wow!!! And Jimmy was at his Philadelphia Story-looking best. He sure was a lucky man to have her swipe his "innocence." It's certainly better than having him go to the MGM Whorehouse (for more on that bit of hilarity, read Marc Eliot's Jimmy Stewart: A Biography or go Here). It amuses me no end that the ambitious, predatory Ginger got a hold of "boy next door" Jimmy. That these two Hollywood legends would come together (pun somewhat intended!) on Oscar night only enhances my amusement. I love it!

As for their respective Oscar wins, many believe that both were undeserving of their awards. The other nominees that year were:

Charlie Chaplin, The Great Dictator

Henry Fonda, The Grapes of Wrath

Raymond Massey, Abe Lincoln of Illinois

Laurence Olivier, Rebecca

Stewart and Henry Fonda were the two leading contenders that year. The consensus in subsequent years is that Henry Fonda should have won that year for The Grapes of Wrath, but I disagree! It's easy to dismiss Stewart's win as compensation for not having won in 1939 for Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, but In The Philadelphia Story, Stewart was never more charming or witty, and unabashedly romantic. He displayed more characterization and nuance in his expressions as Macaulay "Mike" Connor than in virtually any role he's done--only his memorable turn in Anatomy of a Murder comes close-- and I'm betting that his drunk scene *alone* earned him his Oscar. Apparently, much of the scene was ad libbed and the results make for the best scene in the whole movie. I wish to heck Stewart had taken more roles like this, instead of the "aw, shucks" stuff he usually played. And while Henry Fonda's role in The Grapes of Wrath is a tremendous, dramatic role, comedy almost never wins the lead acting awards and the fact that Stewart's performance won indicates something special: brilliantly balanced light comedy with that "everyman" straightforwardness, plus a romantic side of the actor we seldom got to see. I can't help but grin appreciatively while watching his scenes with Hepburn. If Stewart hadn't gone to war during the peak of his career, who knows what he might have achieved Oscarwise. As for the "controversy" of his winning: Maybe Stewart beat out Fonda by one vote!

Defending Ginger Rogers' Oscar victory presents a tougher challenge. It was well known that she wanted to do dramatic roles and get away from the Fred Astaire association as a light comedy and dance specialist, so the first big chance Ginger got was Kitty Foyle. Ginger hadn't done anything quite like this and the role was "showy" and even controversial at the time. The fact that she beat out proven dramatic actresses that year proves what a change this was for her, and when one considers Oscar politics and Rogers' reputation circa 1940, it is understandable why she won. 1940's other Best Actress nominees were:

Bette Davis, The Letter

Joan Fontaine, Rebecca

Katharine Hepburn, The Philadelphia Story

Martha Scott, Our Town

I can see Rogers beating out newcomer Martha Scott, but those other actresses were in peak roles, and in virtually any other year those three tinseltown titans could have scored an Oscar. However, Hepburn, thanks to her role in The Philadelphia Story, was just emerging from her "Box Office Poison" tag so Academy voters weren't going to give her another award so soon. Davis had already won twice, (1935's Dangerous and Jezebel in 1938) and Fontaine only had seven films under her belt as a lead actress (Fontaine would win the very next year, for Suspicion). All of these factors open the door for Ginger's win. I suppose Rogers was "America's Sweetheart" at that time and her performance as a "real life" woman is what won her the Academy Award. However, if there was a best perfomance that year, it was Rosalind Russell in His Girl Friday...talk about a career-defining performance!

Now let's allow the winners to enjoy the spoils!