May 9

Alice Faye dies of stomach cancer in Rancho Mirage, California, 1998. Along with Greta Garbo and Deanna Durbin, the name of Alice Faye must be added to the very short list of movie stars who left the business at the peak of their careers. Faye, a singer with Rudy Vallee’s band in the early 1930s, followed the bandleader to Hollywood and made her motion picture debut when star Lilian Harvey left the cast of George White’s Scandals (1934). Fox head Darryl F. Zanuck took a liking to her, as did movie audiences of the 1930s and ‘40s, making her one of the era’s biggest stars. Hits included In Old Chicago (1937), Alexander’s Ragtime Band (1938) and Hello Frisco, Hello (1943), which featured Faye singing “You’ll Never Know,” a Harry Warren/Mack Gordon song that became a standard and scooped up the Oscar for Best Song.

In 1940, Faye was teamed with Betty Grable for the musical Tin Pan Alley, playing singing sisters who propel a songwriting team to fortune and fame. The two remained close friends until Grable’s death in 1973, in spite of the Fox publicity department playing up rumors of a rivalry between the two. That same year, Grable replaced Faye when an illness forced her to pull out of Down Argentine Way. Over the next several years, Faye’s popularity remained strong, though Grable rose to become Fox’s next big musical comedy star, often assuming roles that were tailored for Faye. Pleased with her performance in Fallen Angel (1945) yet dismayed at the ham-fisted edit job given the picture, Faye decided to leave the movie business, returning years later in State Fair (1962) and The Magic of Lassie (1978). "When I stopped making pictures, it didn't bother me because there were so many things I hadn't done,” Faye remarked. “I had never learned to run a house. I didn't know how to cook. I didn't know how to shop. So all these things filled all those gaps."

Oscars 1947: Gentlemen's Club

Gentleman’s Agreement brought together Elia Kazan, screenwriter Moss Hart and actors Gregory Peck and John Garfield in the story of a writer pretending to be a Jew in order to experience anti-Semitism in America firsthand. Fox studio head Darryl F. Zanuck championed the film against the advice of fellow studio heads—mostly Jewish—to not even go near such an incendiary topic. Like Wilson three years before, Gentleman’s Agreement was a pet project of Zanuck’s, and both movies received critical acclaim and multiple Oscars. Wilson, however, flopped at the box office; Gentleman’s Agreement went on to become Fox’s top-grossing film of 1948 and also took the top prize that eluded Wilson—a fact the triumphant but still bitter Zanuck mentioned in his Oscar night acceptance speech. “This makes up for the sharp disappointment I suffered some years ago,” Zanuck said to the audience. “I’m sure I will be forgiven from mentioning the name of the pictures, Wilson, of which I am still proud.”

BEST PICTURE
Gentleman’s Agreement

BEST DIRECTOR
Elia Kazan, Gentleman’s Agreement

BEST ACTOR
Ronald Colman, A Double Life

BEST ACTRESS
Loretta Young, The Farmer’s Daughter

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Edmund Gwenn, Miracle on 34^th Street

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Celeste Holm, Gentleman’s Agreement

July 16

Ginger Rogers is born in Independence, Missouri, 1911. She was one of the rare triple threats—she could act, she carry a tune, and gosh almighty she could dance. In 1925 she won a Charleston contest and received a contract in vaudeville. Broadway shows followed until her first film, A Night in a Dormitory (1929). The following decade would prove rosy for the newcomer. “The thirties were such a pretty time,” the actress recalled in a 1975 interview. “I know it was a bad time for an awful lot of people, but not for me. I remember the whole atmosphere, the ambiance of the thirties, with a glow because success was knocking at my door…It was a whole new life for me. I was excited about it. It was happy and beautiful and gay and interesting. I was surrounded by marvelous people, all the top people of our industry.” A career highlight for Rogers in the 1930s was a number in a Busby Berkeley musical that, according to Rogers, sprang from the mind of Darryl F. Zanuck. The song was “Were in the Money” by Al Dubin and Harry Warren, the film was Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) and what made it special was the language—Pig Latin—in which a segment of it was delivered. The public ate it up, and, from that moment forward, she was a star.

Here's a look:

May 16

Henry Fonda is born in Grand Island, Nebraska, 1905. The actor made nine films with director John Ford, including The Battle of Midway (1942), a documentary narrated by Fonda and his costar in The Grapes of Wrath (1940), Jane Darwell. “He would never rehearse, didn't want to talk about a part,” Fonda said about his frequent director. “If an actor started to ask questions he'd either take those pages and tear them out of the script or insult him in an awful way. He loved getting his shot on the first take, which for him meant it was fresh. He would print the first take—even if it wasn't any good.” Among their collaborations were Young Mr. Lincoln (1939), which Fonda turned down until Ford convinced him otherwise after making him do a screen test in full make-up, My Darling Clementine (1946), with Ford overruling Darryl F. Zanuck’s choice of James Stewart in favor of putting Fonda in the lead and Mister Roberts (1955) for which Ford was replaced by Mervyn Leroy reportedly due to conflict between the director and his longtime star. “He had instinctively a beautiful eye for the camera,” Fonda recalled. “But he was also an egomaniac.”

November 28

A key scene is filmed for Miracle on 34th Street, 1946. For the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade sequence, filmmakers saved time and money recreating it for the film by arranging for actor Edmund Gwenn, playing Kris Kringle in the film, to play Santa Claus in the actual parade. Three cameras were stationed throughout the parade route to ensure proper coverage, as retakes were out of the question.

The film, produced by Darryl F. Zanuck, also starred Maureen O’Hara, John Payne and an itsy bitsy Natalie Wood, who was eight years old at the time. Zanuck, realizing more people attend movies in the summer—and wanting to put as many butts in the seats as possible—opted to release the Christmas classic in May 1947. Posters for the film were careful not to show Gwenn as Santa and instead emphasized the relationship between O’Hara and Payne’s characters.

The film was a huge hit and a favorite among critics. The Academy was not exactly hostile to it either, giving it four Oscar nominations, including one for Best Picture. It ended up winning three: Best Writing - Original Story, Best Writing - Screenplay and Best Supporting Actor. “Americans don’t like whimsy,” actor Cecil Kellaway is reported as saying when he turned down the role of Kringle. Gwenn, Kellaway’s cousin, happily stepped in and earned an Academy Award for his efforts. Upon accepting his prize, the actor remarked, “Now I know there is a Santa Claus.”