The New Biographical Dictionary of Film: Completely Updated and Expanded (32 page)

Jacques Becker
(1906–60), b. Paris
1934:
Le Commissaire est Bon Enfant
(s) (codirected with Pierre Prévert). 1935:
Tête de Turc
(s);
La Vie est à Nous
(codirected with Jean Renoir, Jean-Paul le Chanois, André Zwoboda, Pierre Unik, and Henri Cartier-Bresson). 1939:
L’Or du Cristobal
(codirected with and credited to Jean Stelli). 1942:
Dernier Atout
. 1943:
Goupi Mains-Rouges
. 1945:
Falbalas
. 1946:
Antoine et Antoinette
. 1949:
RendezVous de Juillet
. 1951:
Edouard et Caroline
. 1952:
Casque d’Or
. 1953:
Rue de l’Estrapade
. 1954:
Touchez Pas au Grisbi
. 1955:
Ali-Baba et les Quarante Voleurs
. 1956:
Les Aventures d’Arsène Lupin
. 1957:
Montparnasse 19
. 1960:
Le Trou
.

Becker was a humane, observant, and inventive director who seemed willed into films by his apprenticeship to Jean Renoir on
Boudu, Chotard et Compagnie, Madame Bovary, La Vie est à Nous, Partie de Campagne, Les Bas-Fonds, La Grande Illusion
, and
La Marseillaise
. He lacked the master’s innate passion for cinema, and he never properly discovered either a style or a subject matter in which he could immerse himself. His work is therefore very variable, more often exploring and searching than actually discovering truths. As if aware of the gap between himself and Renoir, he never entirely shrugged off modesty and worked as a sort of tribute: “I believe in the possibility of entertaining friendship and in the difficulty of maintaining love. I believe in the value of effort. And I believe above all in Paris. In my work I do not want to prove anything except that life is stronger than everything else.” It might be from a devotional article on Renoir by a willing disciple who had observed and understood greatness but could never find it in himself. It was a kind gesture of Renoir’s to revive the trio from
Casque d’Or
in
French Can Can
.

He was assistant to Renoir from 1932 onward, often playing small parts in the master’s films: the poet who meets
Boudu
(32) in the park, or an English officer in
La Grande Illusion
(37). He withdrew from
L’Or du Cristobal
, his first feature, as war began, but managed to work during the war and came to notice with the rural film,
Goupi Mains-Rouges
. After the war, he veered from the deliberate social study of
RendezVous de Juillet
to the Paramount-like airiness and inconsequentiality of
Edouard et Caroline
to the full-blooded romance of
Casque d’Or
. That is his richest film, a fated love story in the Paris of the 1890s, looking like Auguste Renoir, but with a summery sensuousness that is Becker’s most personal achievement. Simone Signoret’s blonde in bloom in it is one of the most convincing women in French cinema.

Thereafter, Becker seemed to lose his way. Jean Gabin was excellent in the carefully authentic
Touchez Pas au Grisbi
, but
Ali-Baba
was Fernandel fodder. He took over the subject of the life of Modigliani when Max Ophuls died, but despite Gérard Philipe, Lilli Palmer, and Anouk Aimée,
Montparnasse 19
was more decorative than affecting. His last film was his greatest departure:
Le Trou
is a story of prisoners attempting to escape—intense, claustrophobic, realistic but with all the unassertive faith in decency and feelings that distinguishes Becker’s best work.

Wallace Beery
(1886–1949), b. Kansas City, Missouri
The movie world has always required gobetweeners to reassure audiences—who are essentially plain, insignificant, and anxious—that they need not be overawed by the flawless beauty of people in films. The movie comedians were envoys of the pathetic dream nursed by every man that he might be as athletic as Fairbanks, as conquering as Valentino, or as ardent as John Gilbert. But the comics are clearly isolated figures, benign inmates from an asylum who have been allowed out and who commune with themselves. Wallace Beery is the most notable example of the ugly, stupid, boorish man who was as successful in films as heroes or lovers. Although for most of the 1920s he played villains, that did not detract from the idea of homespun genuineness beneath such fearsomely ordinary features. In a world of unmitigated glamour, it is tacitly acknowledged that Quasimodo is an honest man. It is reality that shows in his face and promises a kindly sense of human woes.

Beery was the older half-brother of Noah Beery. As a youth, he joined the Ringling Circus and went into vaudeville and summer stock where he specialized in playing old ladies. From about 1912 he had small parts in movies, and in 1914 he made a series of one-reel comedies at Essanay in the role of a Swedish housemaid. He moved on, in the same skirts, to Universal, where he also worked as a director. At this time, he eloped with Gloria Swanson, who was a teenage ingenue in some of the Sweedie films, and they were briefly married. Divorce came in 1919, proving that two separate layers from the Dream could not coexist. It persuaded Beery to stay in trousers and he settled into a run of colorful villains and blundering oafs:
The Little American
(17, Cecil B. De Mille);
The Love Burglar
(19, James Cruze);
Soldiers of Fortune
(19, Allan Dwan);
Victory
(19, Maurice Tourneur);
The Virgin of Stamboul
(20, Tod Browning);
The Mollycoddle
(20, Victor Fleming); as Magua in
The Last of the Mohicans
(20, Tourneur);
A Tale of Two Worlds
(21, Frank Lloyd);
Wild Horsey
(22, Wesley Ruggles);
I Am the Law
(22, Edwin Carewe);
The Man from Hell’s River
(22, Irving Cummings); as Richard the Lion-Hearted in
Robin Hood
(22, Dwan);
The Flame of Life
(23, Hobart Henley);
Bavu
(23, Stuart Paton);
Drifting
(23, Browning);
Ashes of Vengeance
(23, Lloyd); as the villain in
The Three Ages
(23, Buster Keaton and Eddie Cline);
The Spanish Dancer
(23, Herbert Brenon);
The White Tiger
(23, Browning);
The Signal Tower
(24, Clarence Brown);
The Sea Hawk
(24, Lloyd);
The Red Lily
(24, Fred Niblo); as Professor Challenger in
The Lost World
(25, Harry O. Hoyt); and
The Devil’s Cargo
(25, Fleming).

His stock had risen steadily and he was signed up by Paramount:
Coming Through
(25, Edward Sutherland);
Adventure
(25, Fleming);
The Wanderer
(25, Raoul Walsh);
The Pony Express
(25, Cruze); on loan to play with Colleen Moore in
So Big
(25, Charles Brabin). Then Paramount teamed him with Raymond Hatton in a series of comedies:
Behind the Front
(26, Sutherland);
We’re in the Navy Now
(26, Sutherland);
Fireman, Save My Child
(27, Sutherland);
Now We’re in the Air
(27, Frank Strayer);
Wife Savers
(28, Ralph Cedar);
Partners in Crime
(28, Strayer); and
The Big Killing
(28, F. Richard Jones). The series did well, until
The Big Killing
. Paramount doubted Beery’s staying power now that he needed to talk, and they let him go after
Beggars of Life
(28, William Wellman);
Chinatown Nights
(29, Wellman);
The Stairs of Sand
(29, Otto Brower); and
River of Romance
(29, Richard Wallace).

It was a notable mistake. MGM picked up Beery and made him a leading star of the early 1930s: as a convict in
The Big House
(30, George Hill); as Barnum in
A Lady’s Morals
(30, Sidney Franklin); as Pat Garrett in
Billy the Kid
(30, King Vidor); with Marie Dressler in
Min and Bill
(30, Hill); with John Gilbert in
Way for a Sailor
(30, Sam Wood). With Fredric March he shared the best actor Oscar for his work in
The Champ
(31, Vidor), and for the next few years was at his peak:
Grand Hotel
(32, Edmund Goulding); as a wrestler in
Flesh
(32, John Ford); with Dressler again in
Tugboat Annie
(33, Mervyn Le Roy); the husband of Jean Harlow in
Dinner at Eight
(33, George Cukor);
The Bowery
(33, Walsh); in the title part of
Viva Villa!
(34, Howard Hawks and Jack Conway); as Long John Silver in
Treasure Island
(34, Fleming); and as
The Mighty Barnum
(34, Walter Lang).

He slipped gradually into supporting parts, always looking for a replacement for Marie Dressler, who died in 1934:
China Seas
(35, Tay Garnett);
O’Shaughnessy’s Boy
(35, Richard Boleslavsky);
Ah, Wilderness!
(35, Brown);
A Message to Garcia
(36, George Marshall);
Slave Ship
(37, Garnett);
Port of Seven Seas
(38, James Whale);
Stablemates
(38, Wood);
Stand Up and Fight
(39, W. S. Van Dyke);
Sergeant Madden
(39, Josef von Sternberg); and
Thunder Afloat
(39, George Seitz). Marjorie Main was Beery’s partner in his last years in films of decreasing importance:
Twenty Mule Team
(40, Richard Thorpe);
Wyoming
(40, Thorpe);
The Bad Man
(41, Thorpe);
Barnacle Bill
(41, Thorpe);
Jackass Mail
(42, Norman Z. McLeod);
Barbary Coast Gent
(44, Roy del Ruth);
This Man’s Navy
(45, Wellman);
A Date with Judy
(48, Thorpe); and
Big Jack
(49, Thorpe).

David Begelman
(1921–95), b. New York
It’s easy to assume that David Begelman—who was seventy-four when he died—had been in the picture business all his life, and that he therefore stands as one of its creations. That is not the case. The son of a tailor, he was raised in the Bronx, and he served in the Air Force during the war on a technical training program. Afterwards he drifted, and went into insurance. It wasn’t until around 1950 that he met Freddie Fields, two years his junior and an agent at MCA. That contact allowed Begelman to get work at the agency in the mid-fifties. He rose swiftly, and he and Fields created the Creative Management Association.

That’s when the Begelman persona developed. Though less than handsome, he dressed well and became very attractive to women. He was charming, funny, reckless, and unafraid. He lied, he gambled, and it is fairly obvious now that from an early stage he cheated whenever he felt the need. He was a limousine confessor, a man who picked up tabs and then charged them to other enterprises. He was also a very effective agent who would win the loyalty, the admiration, and the affection of such stars as Judy Garland, Paul Newman, Steve McQueen, Robert Redford, and Barbra Streisand. He also fucked Garland, and screwed her financially—but she was a mess, and she depended on him, and also had some of her best later years (as a concert performer) in his hands. The other careers he helped build involved a less intrusive relationship, but they didn’t need it. By the late sixties, Begelman was one of the key power brokers in the business, an immense character, with a proven record of success, widely popular—and just as widely esteemed as a prince of a companion who’d steal your balls if you weren’t alert, but do it with charm, and when he brought them back they’d have stories to tell. He was, as they said, “Hollywood.”

And, as if to prove that such worldly assets were what made the business work, he was invited to be president of the ailing Columbia Pictures in 1973. Since the death of Harry Cohn (in 1957), Columbia had had mixed fortunes, led by Abe Schneider, Leo Jaffe, Mike Frankovich, and Stanley Schneider. With Alan Hirschfield, Begelman gave Columbia a far better ride—for which he deserved nearly as much credit as he took. It was a time of films as diverse as
Shampoo, Funny Lady, Taxi Driver, The Deep
, and
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
. At the same time, almost out of habit, Begelman had been committing check fraud. These were for small amounts, but they involved people like actor Cliff Robertson and director Martin Ritt. Was the money needed (to meet gambling debts)? Or was the theft a form of personality disorder—a version of low self-esteem—as Begelman’s defense and doctors would claim?

All of this is the material of David McClintick’s book
Indecent Exposure
. The fascination of that remorseless inquiry is that so many people in, and around, Columbia were disposed to let Begelman off—because he was liked, and because the behavior was decreed normal. In the end, much against the advice of Begelman’s fierce ally Ray Stark, Alan Hirschfield insisted on Begelman being fired. But the board decision was far from united. In fact, Hirschfield’s end was close, and Begelman came back. By 1980, he was the head of MGM. It didn’t last. He slipped into independent production and he made some dire films—
The Sicilian
(87, Michael Cimino),
Mannequin
(87, Michael Gottlieb),
Weekend at Bernie’s
(89, Ted Kotcheff). Nothing could stop his fall, and he was by now an older man.

In the end, he checked into the Century Plaza Hotel, took a good room, and shot himself. For years, it was said, he had carried a gun, just in case.

Harry
(Harold George)
Belafonte
, b. Harlem, 1927
When the splashy
Introducing Dorothy Dandridge
opened on TV in 1999, with Halle Berry as the nearly forgotten actress, no one asked out loud, “So where’s the Belafonte biopic?” For the fact is that Belafonte and Dandridge became significant screen performers in the same film, as the lovers in
Carmen Jones
(55, Otto Preminger). That was only Belafonte’s second film, for he was four years younger than Dandridge, as well as far less experienced in movie work.