Elwood P. Dowd And His Friend, Harvey, Celebrate Their 75th Anniversary In 2025

Elwood P. Dowd is about to begin another busy day with his friend, Harvey, an invisible rabbit who stands six feet, three inches tall.   The fact that his day will be full is of major interest to his sister, Veta Louise Simmons, who is planning a gathering at their home for her daughter, Myrtle Mae, to “introduce” her to polite society.   Having an invisible rabbit interrupting the festivities could be disastrous.

 

As soon as Elwood departs, Veta Louise is on the phone to her friend, Judge Omar Gaffney, to give him the head’s up that her brother is out and about.   The prearranged plan is to have Elwood’s movements tracked to ensure that he is nowhere near the family home when Myrtle Mae’s big event takes place.

The best laid plans of mice and men, it is said, sometimes go astray.  In this case, Gaffney’s man, who has been assigned to keep an eye on Elwood, slips and falls on a wet floor and is out of action.   Meanwhile, Elwood and Harvey arrive at Charlie’s, one of his favorite watering holes, and he soon gets wind of Veta Louise’s party plans.

Without giving it a second thought, Elwood decides to head back home, with Harvey in tow, and attend his niece’s party.  Being a gentle man, a patient man and one known for his courtesy and manners, Elwood proceeds to introduce Harvey to the various ladies of society attending the gathering.  One by one, taking the time, being so polite … and one by one they scurry out the door.   

Myrtle Mae’s chances of attracting a husband have been ruined and her mother is having none of it any longer.   It is time for action and Veta Louise takes Elwood — brother or no brother — to Chumley’s Rest to have him committed.  

In another one of those best laid plans regarding mice and men, during the confusion of having Elwood committed Veta Louise is diagnosed by Dr. Sanderson as the crazy one and has her locked up instead.   Meanwhile, during the chaos, Elwood continues to introduce Harvey to anyone he meets, who pay him no notice.

Elwood wanders outside and encounters Mrs. Chumley and being very polite, asks her if she’d like to join him for a drink.   She defers and Elwood asks her, if she sees Harvey, to send him along.   He tells her that Harvey is a Pooka.

The confused Mrs. Chumley goes inside and relates the story to her husband and it is at that moment the mix-up is realized.   Sanderson is fired, Veta Louise is sent home and attendant Marvin Wilson is dispatched to track down Elwood.

Once at home and calmed down, Veta Louise decides that she is going to sue Dr. Chumley for the abuse and embarrassment that his staff inflicted upon her.   It is about this time that Wilson arrives looking for Elwood, but instead comes face to face with Myrtle Mae … there is an instant attraction.   Soon Chumley shows up, dispatches Wilson to check out the train station as he tries his best to calm Veta Louise down.  The phone rings, it’s Elwood, who is at Charlie’s and is looking for Harvey.  Chumley immediately heads over to Charlie’s.

Sometime later, Wilson returns to the sanitarium and finds both Dr. Sanderson and Nurse Kelly there, but no Chumley.   Worried, the trio head over to Charlie’s and find Elwood there, who calmly explains that Chumley, Harvey and himself had several rounds of drinks and then Chumley and Harvey left together.

Wilson goes in pursuit, while Sanderson and Kelly remain with Elwood.   A nice conversation (backstory on how Elwood met Harvey) ensues and eventually Elwood persuades the couple to dance and enjoy the evening.  Just when all seems right with the world, Wilson returns with the police and Elwood is taken back to Chumley’s Rest.

No sooner do Wilson and Elwood arrive at the sanitarium, when Chumley, to everyone’s surprise, wants a private meeting with Elwood.   In his office, Dr. Chumley tells Elwood that he also sees Harvey and Elwood proceeds to share with the doctor details about the Pooka. 

Among the things that Harvey, the Pooka, can do is stop time, send you anywhere you like and then bring you back without time passing.   Chumley fantasizes about spending two weeks in Akron with the woman of his dreams.

The lobby suddenly fills up as Veta Louise, Judge Gaffney and Myrtle Mae, Sanderson is rehired and a compromise is reached.   Dr. Sanderson will inject Elwood with serum 977 — which will render Elwood harmless, normal and without the ability to see Harvey.

Sanderson, Nurse Kelly and Elwood are shuffled off to Sanderson’s office for the procedure to take place.  The cab driver comes in and demands to be paid, comments that he brings loons up to Chumley’s Rest all the time for the treatment and then takes mindless zombies back to the city.   

Veta Louise suddenly finds her missing coin purse and realizes that Harvey has given her a sign … she desperately tries to stop Dr. Sanderson from giving serum 977 to Elwood, but is too late?

She is in time to stop Sanderson.   Elwood, preparing to leave, notices that Myrtle Mae and his nemesis, Marvin Wilson, are in love and invites him over for dinner the next night.  Outside he spots Harvey on the porch swing, who tells him that he will be remaining with Dr. Chumley to facilitate a visit to Akron.

A little sad, Elwood P. Dowd leaves Harvey behind and exits the grounds of the sanitarium.   The gate is closed by the guard and then just moments later it reopens.  Pookas, remember, can stop time, so Dr. Chumley had his two weeks in Akron and Harvey, preferring Elwood, is also ready to depart Chumley’s Rest. 

    Production Credits

Director: Henry Koster, Assistant Director: Frank Shaw, Producer: John Beck, Writer: Mary Coyle Chase, Oscar Brodney, Myles Connonly (contributor), Story: Mary Coyle Chase, Cinematography: William Daniels, Editor: Ralph Dawson, Sound: Leslie I. Carey, Joe Lapis, Art Director: Bernard Herzbrun, Nathan Juran, Production Manager: Howard Christie, Makeup: Bud Westmore, Music Composer: Frank Skinner, Hair Styles: Joan St. Oegger, Constume Designer: Orry-Kelly, Script Supervisor: Nagene Searle 

Chase Writes It, Pemberton Produces It ... Pulitzer Prize   

Mary Coyle Chase was a newspaper reporter out in Denver.   She was happily married to Bob Chase, who was also a newspaper reporter at the Rocky Mountain News … together they had three boys.   Writing was in her blood.

In 1943 she sent a draft version of a stage play she had written titled “Harvey” to Broadway producer Brock Pemberton, who also had his beginnings as a reporter for the Emporia Gazette, which eventually led to the drama section of The New York Times.   By the 1920s he was producing plays and had become quite good at it … so influential in fact that he changed the name of the “Antoinette Perry Award” to simply Tony Awards and it stuck.

Pemberton liked what Chase had fashioned and spent an entire year corresponding with her to work out the rough edges, fixing this and that … and making “Harvey” just perfect.

There were just two minor things that had to be worked out once Pemberton felt that Chase’s work was ready for the Great White Way.   He brought in veteran Antoinette Perry (remember, Tony Awards named after her, so she is tops) to direct the production.  

Pemberton kept telling the New York press that the play had a new name.   First, he changed Chase’s title from “Harvey” to “The White Rabbit.”   Then a little while later he switched out “The White Rabbit” for “The Pooka.”  And yes, you guessed it, back to “Harvey.” 

With the cast in place, including Frank Fay as Elwood P. Dowd, and the question of the title settled, Pemberton still had one nagging little concern.  One final piece to the puzzle needed to be put in its proper place, so he took the company out of town and held preview sessions in Boston.

He invested $650 in a white rabbit suit and settled the final question … how would the audience react at a crucial point in the play with the appearance of a white rabbit or no white rabbit on stage.  That was the only time the white rabbit suit was used … no rabbit!! 

Chase’s play opens at the 4th Street Theatre on Nov. 1, 1944 and runs for four solid years … 1,775 performances and then goes on the road.  As a bonus Chase won the Pulitzer Prize for Best Drama.

Welcome to Hollywood  

Hello Hollywood!   You’ve got a monster Pulitzer Prize-winning Broadway play, so the next step is to adapt it for the screen … let the masses in on the fantasy action of Edward P. Dowd and his buddy, Harvey, the white rabbit; the Pooka.'

This “next step” happens in June of 1947 when it is announced that Universal-International has purchased the screen rights for an unprecedented $1,000,000.   There are a few conditions attached to this blockbuster deal.   Among them, there will be no movie produced until the play has run its course, which means this won’t likely be until 1950.  Chase will also be involved in the screen adaptation.  

Universal’s General Manager, John Beck, is given the production reins … he will be busy with production assignments for The Countess of Monte Cristo, One Touch of Venus, Family Honeymoon and Kill the Umpire before Harvey gets the green-light.

Whether it was a coincidence or not, in July of 1947, one month after the deal is signed with Universal, James Stewart takes over the role of Edward P. Dowd for a six-week stint as Frank Fay takes a much-needed vacation.   Maybe a little like Wally Pipp taking the day off with Lou Gehrig as his replacement … we all know how that worked out.

Drama critic Florence Fisher Parry is having done of it.  She begins her onslaught with the backstory of Fay and his former wife Barbara Stanwyck, who stuck by Fay as long as she could when his film career went into a death spiral.   She relates how three years ago the miracle happened with his Broadway performance in “Harvey” and that Fay is “our greatest living comedian.”  She cites numerous examples of how he brought nuance to the role, while his replacement, Jimmy Stewart … “in every role he plays Jimmy Stewart.”

She says, “This to me puts the finger on the very spot of Hollywood’s greatest weakness.”  Continuing, “Until our motion picture producers rid themselves of this ‘marquee name’ complex and start to give us great screen productions the casts of which will be filled by those best qualified to enact them, motion pictures will remain the juvenile product that they are as compared with the adult entertainment which the theater offers us.”   Ouch!

Did Parry make the connection as early as July of 1947 that the fix was in?   Film deal signed in June and suddenly Jimmy Stewart is getting a Broadway tryout as Elwood P. Dowd in July.   It was just a coincidence … right?

Skip ahead to the summer of 1949 and Frank Fay is starring in a touring company production of Harvey, which just happens to be booked into venues up and down the state of California, home to Universal-International.  Remember, no film until the play runs its course.

Goodbye Frank Fay ... Hello Jimmy Stewart

That same summer Stewart and June Allyson star in the hit film, The Stratton Story.  In August he marries Gloria Hatrick (they will remain together until her death in 1994) and by September — after Fay had just left the state with the touring company — it is announced that Stewart is in final negotiations with Universal-International to star in Harvey.  In October the deal is done.

In January of 1950, Henry Koster gets the directing assignment.  Koster had to flee Germany in the 1930s, first to Budapest and then through Joe Pasternak — Universal’s European production head — to Hollywood.   He directed a series of comedy hits for the studio, so he was a natural for the Harvey assignment (this would be the first of five films Koster would direct starring James Stewart — also, No Highway in the Sky, Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation, Take Her, She’s Mine and Dear Brigitte).

The Bunny Battle Royal 

On February 20 both the AP and the UP issue wire stories — out of Denver — that Universal and Chase are at odds over whether Harvey, the Pooka, should be seen in the movie.  The studio insists on following the play, no rabbit, but Chase is quoted as saying, “will moviegoers pay good money not to see the principal character in a picture?”

By March 13 it is a “battle royal” between Chase and the studio according to Louella Parsons.  She writes in her nationally syndicated column, “It has now become a battle royal with Mrs. Chase pounding desks and saying she wants her play back if her wishes aren’t adhered to.”  

On April 3, in Edwin Schallert’s “Drama” column we learn two things.   The beginning of production on the movie has been moved from April 10 to the April 14 and “Universal-International is just about set to shoot two different endings to ‘Harvey’ to bring the aura of peace to this production, because Mary Chase, the author, wants to show the rabbit, and William Goetz, head of production, and Henry Koster, director, are opposed.”  He continues, “Preview tryouts will determine which ending is favored, if the plan is carried out.”

The battle rages on during summer, production wraps and then on Aug. 14 “The Battle of the Bunny” ends with both sides winning.  Koster had an oil painting commissioned showing Elwood and Harvey and a scene was inserted into the film where Elwood brings it home and places it so that his sister will have something of a meltdown.   Problem solved! 

Those joining James Stewart from the original Broadway play are Josephine Hull as his sister, Veta Louise, and Jesse White (making his film debut) as Martin Wilson, the orderly at Chumley’s Rest.

The role of Myrtle Mae, Elwood’s niece, was not announced until the day before the film was scheduled to go into production.   Victoria Horne (as Nabura in the Secret Agent X-9 serial) nailed it during an impromptu screen test. 

In late November it is announced that Harvey will have its world premiere at the Astor Theatre in New York City to benefit the Louise Baer Memorial Fund of the New York Heart Association.   The date will be Dec. 20.  

Doors opened the next day at 9:30 AM for the general public, with a multi-city expansion (Los Angeles, etc.) to take place on Christmas Day.

In February of 1951 the Oscar nominations were announced and both James Stewart (Best Actor) and Josephine Hull (Best Supporting Actress) were nominated … Hull would take home the golden statue on March 29.

 

The Prehistoric Women • Kerry Vaughn - Tulle

Who were the “Prehistoric Women” who made cinematic history with just 17 days of footage shot mainly on a studio sound stage?

Kerry Vaughn - Tulle

 

Born Elizabeth Kerry Vaughn in 1926 to Cylon Vaughn and Charlotte Kerry Vaughn of Houston, the stone-age Tulle proved to be something of an enigma.

She shows up in July of 1944 “fully formed” in a studio-generated publicity photo as the “first contestant” to enter producer Walter Wanger’s contest to find the “most beautiful girl in America.”   

The film he was promoting was Salome, Where She Danced and she appeared to be the “bait” … the ante to the promotional pot that ended up generating some 20,000 entries.  Her pin up photo ran nationwide (AP wire) in newspaper after newspaper during the entire month of July.

When the contest was over, surprise, Kerry Vaughn is one of the “contestant winners” and is cast as one of “Salome’s girls,” with Yvonne De Carlo in the title role.  

While Universal struggled with re-writes to the Salome, Where She Danced script over Production Code “violations” during the summer of 1944, Kerry Vaughn shows up once again in the press as an entrant in the Miss America contest to represent California … she was being supported by the Coast Guard as “Miss Minter Field.”   Shirley Ballard, who was the 1942 National Junior Singles Bowling Champion, punched her ticket to Atlantic City and Vaughn went back to her movie career.

In early September of 1944, Vaughn is back in the press again as being one of five “bathing beauties” to appear in director A. Edward Sutherland’s Having Wonderful Crime, starring Pat O'Brien, Carole Landis and George Murphy.

Both 1945 and 1946 are a repeat, lots cheesecake publicity photos and uncredited bit parts in such films as Shady Lady, Frontier Gal, Scarlet Street, Summer Night and Night in Paradise.

And then in 1947 and 1948 she vanishes … by some accounts she got married to actor Peter Coe.   In March of 1949, Edith Gwynn’s syndicated “In Hollywood” column has this tidbit: “Kerry Vaughn, the blonde Texas beooty(sic), who dropped her career when she married Peter Coe a few years ago, is resuming and movie testing at 20th Century-Fox.”

On Wednesday, April 26, 1950, the Los Angeles Times reports, “Jo Carroll Dennison and Kerry Vaughn have been signed by Producer Albert J. Cohen for ‘Prehistoric Women,’ Gregg Tallas will direct.”  This is the day before the film began shooting at the General Service Studios in Hollywood.

Then we get this, according to Charles Culbertson, Tony Fontane’s biographer and author of “A Bargain with God: The Tony Fontane Story,” recording artist Tony Fontane married Kerry Vaughn on May 2, 1950.   What’s odd about this date is that it is right in the middle of the 17-day shooting schedule of Prehistoric Women.  

In short order, Fontane has the hit single “Cold, Cold Heart” for Mercury Records in 1951, the couple have a daughter, Kerry Char-ae Fontane, who was born on Jan. 12, 1952 and in 1954 he signs for the Australian-produced musical production “Zip Goes a Million” and the family heads down to Sydney, Australia in March of 1954.

It is there that Fontane does an extensive interview for The Sun-Herald newspaper in Sydney where he says, “I met Kerry when she was a guest artist on one of my T.V. shows.”   This would have been “The Tony Fontane Show” in Chicago.

He continues, “I flew down to Cleveland to take her out and in two weeks I flew to seven different towns just to see her … We were married four months later.”

Things are wonderful for Fontane: a happy marriage, a beautiful young daughter and a terrific recording career.   He had just wrapped a rehearsal session at NBC and was headed home on the afternoon of Sept. 3, 1957, when he was blindsided by another car.  One of those who happened upon the accident scene reached in the driver’s side window of his totaled car and felt for his pulse, couldn’t find one and declared him dead.  The passerby was wrong.  It took the Los Angeles Fire Department rescue team over two hours to remove Fontane from the twisted wreckage.

He had two broken legs, a crushed chest and a severe head injury (that’s just for starters).  Fontane is in a coma for 30 days and it is during this time that two events occur (echoed in Culberton’s book and played out in the 1963 Christian-themed biopic, The Tony Fontane Story).   

The first of these was with Kerry, at his bedside, she prays to God for his forgiveness, asks for her husband to return to her and promises to give her life to Jesus Christ.  The second event is when Tony awakes from the coma and starts on his road to recovery, he says that he had a vision from God that he was going to have a second chance at life.   

He gave up his pop music career, which generated a lawsuit from the William Morris Agency, who represented him with Mercury Records.  Between the medical bills and the legal issues, Tony Fontane was essentially bankrupt.

Tony and Kerry Fontane then embarked on a new joint-career journey.  He devoted himself to Gospel music, with her constantly at his side.   At first it was a struggle, but by the early 1960s he was well-established in the field.  His venues were no long nightclubs and concert halls, but churches.   He died June 30, 1974, at the age of 47 from cancer.

On Nov. 26, 1996, Kerry Vaughn Fontane died in Nashville.   The stone-age Tulle was gone.

The Prehistoric Women • Mara Lynn - Arva

Who were the “Prehistoric Women” who made cinematic history with just 17 days of footage shot mainly on a studio sound stage?

Mara Lynn - Arva

 

Born Marilyn Moiser, a Muncie, Ind. dancer who started studying age nine, by 15 she had adopted the stage name Mara Lynn and did a stint with the Detroit Opera Company — found time to graduate from Muncie’s Central High School — and then went on the road with her hometown mentor and instructor Marjorie Jeanne Field (“Marjorie Jeanne’s School of Dance”) to New York City in the fall of 1947.

Mara Lynn appeared in Lou Walters’ Latin Quarter production of “The Harem” (“Every Girl a Dream of Luscious Loveliness”) signed with Connover to do some modeling and returned for the Broadway production of “Inside U.S.A.,” starring Jack Haley and Beatrice Lillie.

The Connover representation seems to have paid off as Mara Lynn is featured in an Oct. 2, 1949, pictorial in the Buffalo Courier Express titled “Girdles Take the Hurdles.”   Her job was to wear a girdle and do “arabesques, leaps and entrechats” so that the manufacturer, the designer, cutter and fitter could “watch with clinical interest.”  

The piece continues, “By leaps and bounds, the dancer shows interested spectators how new foundations can follow active body motions without pinching or slipping.  Just in case some prospective girdle customer is interested in a ballet career or plans to ride the IRC.”

During her New York stay she was featured on the “Ed Sullivan Show,” was named “Miss Liberty” (her title was stripped from her two days later when they judged her to be too tall) and finished off in October of 1949 as a dancer in George Abbott’s “Touch and Go.”

Oh, and one other little thing: in 1948, while dancing at the Hurricane Club, she crossed paths with New York City reporter Harold Conrad.   He was doing a “Broadway” column for the New York Mirror at the time.  This would be a life-changing encounter for both of them.

On Wednesday, March 22, 1950, she is featured in the opening of the Leighton Brill and William Trinz musical revue “Of All Things” at the Century Theater in Los Angeles.  The reviews were solid.

And on April 4 there is a funny piece in the Los Angeles Mirror about Mara Lynn’s agent landing her a promotional tie-in with a sour cream company where she is named Miss Sour Cream of 1950!   She is quoted as saying “I’ll bathe in the stuff, if it’s good for my career, like the man says.  But I’ll be damned if I’m gonna eat it, too!”

The musical generated a lot of follow-on publicity, including her being pictured in costume in the Sunday edition of the Los Angeles Times on April 16 with the caption, “Dancer – Mara Lynn is creating considerable attention with her dancing in musical, ‘Of All Things,’ at Century.” 

Cohen must have seen the picture because Edwin Schallert’s “Drama” column in the Los Angeles Times on Thursday, April 20, has the news: “Mara Lynn, that dazzling dancer of the stage revue, ‘Of All Things,’ at the New Century Theater, who has been besieged with studio offers, has finally accepted one of the top assignments in Prehistoric Women, Albert J. Cohen production, with Laurette Luez, Allan Nixon and Tony Devlin.”

Remember that meeting at the Hurricane Club in New York City back in 1948 with newsman Harold Conrad?   On Oct. 2, 1950, they were married by a Beverly Hills Justice of the Peace.

Mark Jacobson’s “The Hippest Guy in the Room” tribute to Harold Conrad in Esquire Magazine in December of 1991 says it all.  It is a terrific read, which can be accessed at http://www.thestacksreader.com/the-hippest-guy-in-the-room/… 

Conrad had been a sports writer in New York City since 1935 and would branch out into writing books and promoting boxing events.  Indeed, by 1963 he’s promoting the second Sonny Liston and Floyd Patterson fight at the Las Vegas Convention Centre in July of 1963.  As Jacobson relates it, Conrad, his son Casey (from his first marriage), Mara Lynn and the family cat decided to make it a six-week cross-country road trip from New York to Las Vegas.   The cat, during the trip, destroyed the interior of the Ford Woody.

Conrad and Mara Lynn were divorced in 1956.  That didn’t last.  It was also in 1956 that Conrad’s life was encapsulated in the film, The Harder They Fall, starring Humphrey Bogart.

A few years later Conrad and Mara Lynn were back together again and remained so for the rest of her life.   

After Prehistoric Women, she co-starred with comedian Sid Melton in Leave It to the Marines and Sky High in 1951 (both produced by Sigmund Neufeld and distributed by Robert L. Lippert), did some uncredited dancing numbers in several films in the 1950s, was Lily Nyles in Marilyn Monroe’s 1960 release of Let’s Make Love and was Lillian in Norman Mailer’s 1968 film, Wild 90.

She peppered these return trips to Hollywood with some stage and musical productions, but for the most part she spent her time travelling with Conrad from one fight promotion to the next.  She was a “bigger than life” figure at these events.  They were inseparable.

Mara Lynn became gravely ill, battling cancer, and despite Conrad’s efforts to find a treatment the end came on April 6, 1988 … in their last hours together they were re-married, shared a joint and Conrad then said goodbye.  Arva was gone.

The Prehistoric Women • Judy Landon - Eras

Who were the “Prehistoric Women” who made cinematic history with just 17 days of footage shot mainly on a studio sound stage?

Judy Landon - Eras

 

Judith Brenna Landon, a professional dancer by trade, played the stone age Eras.   

Born Judith Brenna Levine, she was granted a legal name change by the California Superior Court at the age of 13 in September of 1941 to that of Judith Brenna Landon … she was at the time a “professional stage and film dancer.”

Landon is in several Los Angeles-area musical productions during the war years, including the “Waltz King” in 1943, later as a dancer with the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera Association and then a spell with the Jack Cole Dancers in New York City.   

Her skill set landed her an uncredited dance role in director Henry Levin’s The Pretty Girl, starring Robert Cummings and Joan Caulfield in September of 1949, so she’s back to Hollywood.  MGM’s troubled Annie Get Your Gun production re-launched in October of 1949 and Landon gets an uncredited spot as one of the “cowgirls.”

Then the magic happens, she is tapped by Albert J. Cohen to be one of the six starring women in Prehistoric Women, literally on the eve of production.   Her 17-day stint in the stone age jungle gets her only billed theatrical credit, despite appearing as a dancer in 23 other productions.

Why she wasn’t awarded a film credit by MGM for her appearance as “vamp” star Olga Mara in Singin’ in the Rain will forever be one of those sweet mysteries of life.  

As the story goes, Landon was working as a dancer on director George Marshall’s production of Red Garters on the Paramount lot in the summer of 1953 when she met rising film star Brian Keith in the commissary one afternoon and they hit it off.   

On June 24, 1954 they were married, which was the same day that he obtained a divorce in Mexico from his first wife Francis Helm. The California Superior Court ruled on Feb. 1, 1955 that the divorce was legal and adultery allegations filed by Helm in the interim were settled out of court.

Three months later, on May 16, 1955, Landon gave birth to their son, Michael James Keith.  She never danced in the movies again.  A daughter, Mimi, followed … and along the way Brian and Judy Keith adopted three children.

During the Christmas season of 1963 every parent’s worst nightmare happened.  Michael died of pneumonia on Dec. 20.   Four years later, as she testified in divorce proceedings, Brian Keith walked out of their Beverly Hills mansion one day and never returned.   Landon eventually filed for divorce, which was granted on May 2, 1969.

In 1970 she married legendary Royal Ballet dancer, Stanley Holden, who ran one of the most important dance studios — Stanley Holden Dance Center — in California (if not the world) for three decades.   They were married for 37 years until his death on Friday, May 11, 2007.

Brian Keith, successful screen and television actor with an impressive resume, suffering from cancer and emphysema, took his own life on June 24, 1997, which would have been the 43rd anniversary of his marriage to Landon.

Judith Brenna Holden died on Halloween, 2021 at the age of 93.  Eras had left us.

The Prehistoric Women • Joan Shawlee - Lotee

Who were the “Prehistoric Women” who made cinematic history with just 17 days of footage shot mainly on a studio sound stage?

Joan Shawlee - Lotee

 

Joan Shawlee was Lotee.   She began her entertainment career under the stage name Joyce Ring (her mother’s maiden name), a Broadway hoofer at a very young age … and she was damn good at it.  So much so that she went from the chorus, to an under-study, to the stage in the Rodgers and Hart 1942 Broadway hit musical “By Jupiter,” starring Ray Bolger.  

She was spotted by a 20th Century-Fox scout and signed to a film contract, reverted to her birth name, Joan Fulton, and was given court approval for her contract with the studio in April of 1943, along with two other 17-year-old discoveries, Cara Williams (soon a star and a future Oscar-nominee for Best Supporting Actress in The Defiant Ones) and Jeanne Crain (also soon a star and also a future Oscar-nominee for Best Actress in Pinky).

The 20th Century-Fox talent scouts were on a roll, they knew talent when they saw it, but with Joan Fulton they didn’t know about her actual age.  Fulton is 5 feet, 9 inches tall, by any standards she’s up there as far as women go, so she looked “her age.”  But when the studio found out she was only 16, they voided her contract and sent her packing.

It must have been quite the journey for the teen, cross-country train travel during World War II all the way back to New York City.   Dejected, she was soon dancing at the Copacabana, where Lou Costello (who must have known of her studio troubles from the press), persuaded her to give it another try, only this time with his studio, Universal Pictures, which took the form of signing her to a contract under his “Biltmore Productions” banner.

Shawlee had a number of uncredited bit roles at Universal, including Frontier Gal and Men in Her Diary in 1945.   It wasn’t until the February of 1946 and the horror entry from director Jean Yarbough, House of Horrors, featuring “The Creeper” (Rondo Hatton) that she actually got billing.  The film was a hit for the studio and a half-dozen other film roles quickly followed, including director William A. Seiter’s Lover Come Back, starring Lucille Ball.

In 1947, her friend and mentor, Lou Costello, brought her onboard the Abbott and Costello comedy hit, Buck Privates Come Home as Lt. Sylvia Hunter.   Soon after, she met and married businessman Walter Shawlee (a little unclear, but sometime in 1948 … he was in the printing business) and gave birth to a son, Walter Jr., in November of 1949.  She was now out of show business.

Out of the blue, “Joan Shawlee” is announced on Apr. 26, 1950 (the day before filming began) as being one of the last cast members of the stone age tribe of men-hating women in Cohen’s Prehistoric Women.   Little Walter is only five months old, but she found the time to become a genre legend with her 17-day shooting schedule as Lotee.

Shawlee had the 20th Century-Fox false start, the Universal Pictures second chance and now for the next three years it is just uncredited day work and bit parts in a number of films.  It wasn’t until her friend Lou Costello started giving her frequent guest shots on The Abbott and Costello Show that her third try at stardom finally happened.

The work is steady after this and then she becomes a screen icon when filmmaker Billy Wilder casts her in the role of “Sweet Sue” in Some Like It Hot, the leader of the “all girl” band that Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon join to avoid being rubbed out by George Raft.

She’s finally a star.  Sylvia in The Apartment, Amazon Annie in Irma la Douce, even Roger Corman paid homage to her by having cast her as Momma Monahan in his 1966 biker hit, The Wild Angels.  Shawlee was “Fat Candy” opposite Frank Sinatra in Tony Rome, “Big Nellie” in George Peppard’s 1971 Spaghetti Western, One More Train to Rob and in the same year, she played Alice in director Daniel Mann’s horror smash, Willard.   She even starred in her own television series, Aggie.      

  

Her career was non-stop right up until her untimely death from cancer on March 22, 1987.  Sad, but Lotee was gone.

The Prehistoric Women • Jo-Carroll Dennison - Nika

 Who were the “Prehistoric Women” who made cinematic history with just 17 days of footage shot mainly on a studio sound stage?

Jo-Carroll Dennison - Nika

 

Nika, a member of the man-hunting tribe, burst upon the national scene at just 18 in September of 1942 when she won the Miss America crown.   It was front-page headline news in her then home town of Tyler, Texas … her win was covered in the press nationwide, which was something of a break from the weary war news.

By March of 1943, gossip columnist Louella Parsons was reporting that Dennison was under contract to 20th Century-Fox.   There was some hang-up over some legal issues with the studio and it took a superior court judge in August to give final approval to her seven-year deal with Fox.

During 1943 she had uncredited walk-ons in The Song of Bernadette and The Gang’s All Here, but spent most of her time doing publicity for the studio and selling war bonds.  It’s not until February of 1944 that she is even mentioned as being cast in a film, which is director Louis King’s Ladies of Washington — she appeared as Frieda, but received no screen credit.  

She’s on the road from March to early June selling war bonds and generating name publicity, reminding everyone that she won the Miss America crown.  There’s even a self-effacing PR plant, where she relates how the studio was frustrated that she couldn’t do a Texas accent — her diction was perfect, she had no drawl — and one director (unnamed) during a casting call chided her for wearing a bathing suit, she didn’t have the body for it (it was the same suit she wore in the Miss America competition).

Finally in late June there is casting news that she has been cast in director Lewis Seller’s Something for the Boys.  It was an uncredited bit part, but she did meet fellow cast member Phil Silvers on the set … and the Hollywood gossip columns were alive with the “dating” news.  

In July, the studio puts her back on the road in the “Winged Victory” tour, which would be her next film for Fox.  This is director George Cukor’s big Christmas-season film about flight students who end up manning a bomber in the South Pacific with the name of “Winged Victory” … she gets a “name credit” as playing Dorothy Ross, the wife of flyer-in-training Allan Ross (played by Sgt. Mark Daniels, who was on active-duty at the time and a real pilot), who will end up flying the bomber in combat.

On March 2, 1945, the news hit the wire (AP story) that Phil Silvers and Jo-Carroll Dennison had married … several wire photos followed.   If this marriage affected her contract with Fox or not it is uncertain, but soon after the studio began “loaning” her out. 

First it was to Monogram for one of Kane Richmond’s “The Shadow” entries, The Missing Lady, and then to Columbia Pictures for director Alfred E. Green’s biopic, The Jolson Story, where she played Ann Murray, the adult version Jolson’s childhood friend (childhood version played by Ann Todd), who jolts him for another man.   Her film career is all but finished.

In the fall of 1949 Dennison separates from Silvers and in March of 1950 they are divorced.  No sooner is the separation news in the press when she lands the female lead, Mollie Rayburn, in Gene Autry’s Beyond the Purple Hills, which went into production in December, the same month she filed for divorce.   

Four years since she had been in the movies and Dennison is back. Then came the big news, almost as an aside (oh, and by the way) on April 18, 1950, the month after her divorce from Silvers became final, she is cast as Nika in Prehistoric Women!

After her 17 days of filming Prehistoric Women, Dennison landed roles in several films, including writer/director Hugo Haas’ Pickup (as Irma), some episodic television and then in October of 1954 she marries CBS filmmaker and future producer Russell Stoneham (Cannon, Barnaby Jones, The Streets of San Francisco) and retires from show business.   

She raised two sons, wrote and published her autobiography (“Finding My Little Red Hat”), settled down in Idyllwild, California where she spent her time helping others in hospice care, which she found fulfilling.

Jo-Carroll Dennison left us on Oct. 18, 2021 at the age of 97.  Nika was gone.