Ann Rutherford,
America's Sweetheart  

By Mike McLeod

The name Ann Rutherford may not at first ring a bell, but when you remember she played Scarlett's sister Careen in Gone With The Wind and Mickey Rooney's girlfriend Polly in all the Andy Hardy movies, then, oh yes, you remember "America's Sweetheart." Ann Rutherford is a classic actress with about 60 movies to her credit, but even more to her credit, she is a delightful person and a font of interesting stories about the Golden Era of Hollywood.

This past 4th of July, Ann joined some of the other surviving cast members from Gone With The Wind (Cammie King Conlon who played Bonnie Blue Butler; Patrick Curtis, Baby Beau Wilkes; and Mickey Kuhn, 7-year-old Beau Wilkes) for a "A Star-Spangled Scarlett Weekend" in Marietta that was sponsored by the Marietta Gone With The Wind Museum.

Ann Rutherford's acting career spans decades, from her first movie (Waterfront Lady) in 1935 to the 1970s. During that time, she acted in movies almost every year, and sometimes made three, four or five movies in a year. An Ann Rutherford movie premiered every year except two over 30 years, which is a reflection of her talent and her popularity.

Despite her relatively small part in Gone With The Wind, it has been one of the highlights of her career.

"I have been so fortunate to work with virtually everyone in the business, but Gone With The Wind has turned my golden years into platinum," Ann bubbled. "I went to six or seven events for it last year alone."

Ann remembered the day Louis B. Mayer called her into his office and said his son-in-law David O. Selznick wanted to borrow her for his movie. Ann was under contract to MGM at the time, and Selznick had his own studio. Mayer said he wasn't going to let Selznick have her because it was a "nothing" part.

"I burst out crying and carrying on, and said, 'But it's the book! To be part of that wonderful story, I don't care. I'll carry a tray; I'll open a door! Anything!" Ann exclaimed.

Exasperated with her hysteria, Mayer let her go. In fact, he told Ann that her nelly had already been sent over to the other studio. A "nelly" was a canvas and cotton duplicate of an actor's body that was used for making costumes so the actor or actress was not required to be present for all the fittings.

Ann's landing a part in the most famous movie of all time was not just a lucky coincidence. She knew Selznick from MGM, and she intentionally made an impression on him when they bumped into each other on a train.

"I met David Selznick at MGM when he worked there. One night, I saw him on a train coming toward me from the dining car. When I said, 'Mr. Selznick, I have some advice for you,' his eyes rolled heavenward, thinking I was going to hit him up for a job. I said, 'Look at me, look at my eyebrows.'"

"'Yes,' he said. 'I see them.'" "In the book, Scarlett is described as having 'raven's wing eyebrows.' No women had tweezers back then. Only doctors had tweezers.'"

It seems MGM and other studios were pretty fanatical about plucking the eyebrows of their actresses, but that was not how women really looked in the 1860s, of course. David Selznick took a notepad out of his pocket and jotted down Ann's advice.

And he took it. "I did eventually see that they [the actresses] grew their eyebrows back."
When Ann went over to Selznick's studio to begin work, she gave him some more advice. The clothes for Careen were too fancy for a girl her age.

"She had more lace, petty coats and pantalets than she should have. I told Mr. Selznick that I had done westerns set in the 1850s and knew how they dressed. Careen wasn't allowed to go upstairs at the barbecue (where the young ladies were resting in their underclothes) because she was just 13, too young. I told him he was spending too much money on clothes for her."

This time, Selznick set Ann straight. "Your father, Gerald O'Hara, is the wealthiest man in the county, and that's how he dresses his daughters!"

Selznick had originally tried to get Shirley Temple and Judy Garland for the part of Careen, but Garland was busy with The Wizard of Oz at the time. Temple was also unavailable. So Ann's eyebrow advice ­ and her superior acting talent ­ led to a role in the best movie of all time.

But Ann reports that Selznick had no clue that GWTW would be such a huge blockbuster, let alone the top movie in history.

"Even Selznick had no idea. He even gave away his profits in it to get Clark Gable from MGM."

Clark Gable is another of Ann's fascinating stories. Even though she did no scenes with him, they shared the same sound stage while waiting for their cues.

"All I recall is his popularity with the crew. Between scenes, Clark would straddle a bench and play a hand of cards with them. He was one of them. He came up the hard way and had nothing when he started. If the crew liked a performer, they're okay. That was the acid test."

With Vivien Leigh, Ann was awe-struck. "I was filled with admiration for this woman. I had never seen anyone who worked longer hours or was on the set earlier. She knew her lines perfectly. It was a good thing that Selznick started filming scenes near the beginning of the book first because by the time Vivien Leigh had worked for two or three months, she'd lost weight. The apples of her cheeks were getting flatter. Vivien worked like a slave during filming. She was in almost every scene."

The next time you watch GWTW, look closely at Scarlett's cheeks in the early scenes when she is at Tara at the end of the Civil War.

Despite the grueling hours, Ann remembered Vivien as "just a delight to work with."

Seeing the movie and the reaction of those watching it thrills Ann to this day. "I am amazed each time I see it. A while back, I went to a film festival, Festival Romantique, in Honolulu. The only romantic film they wanted to see in the theater itself was Gone With The Wind. There was a full house for it in this huge movie palace."

GWTW was actually the 32nd movie in Ann's career. It hit theaters in 1939 when she was about 19. As if GWTW wasn't enough, Ann acted in eight movies that premiered that same year.

Ann Rutherford has worked with many of the greats in Hollywood. Just a few were: John Wayne in The Oregon Trail (1936) and The Lonely Trail (1936); Gene Autry in Comin' Round The Mountain (1936) and Public Cowboy No. 1 (1937); Mickey Rooney in about a dozen Andy Hardy movies; Lana Turner in Dancing Co-Ed (1939) and These Glamour Girls (1939); in Pride and Prejudice (1940) with Greer Garson (as Elizabeth Bennet), Laurence Olivier (as Mr. Darcy), and Maureen O'Sullivan (as Lady Catherine de Bourgh); Red Skelton in Whistling in the Dark (1941), Whistling in Dixie (1942), and Whistling in Brooklyn (1943); Errol Flynn in the Adventures of Don Juan (1948); and Danny Kaye and Boris Karloff in The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (1947).

Her favorite actors were: Errol Flynn, "a funny, dear, professional who was no better than he should be"; Jimmy Stewart, "a joy, so nice"; and Mickey Rooney who "had more talent than the law allows. He should have been a director. He did not tap all his talent. He was so creative and inventive, a wonderful teacher. He could explain anything. And he could play anything. When the band would take five, Mickey would pick up an instrument and play it. He had no lessons, but he could play almost any instrument. He played the piano by ear."

As for comedians, Danny Kaye and Red Skelton were her favorites.

"One time, I was working with Red Skelton, and mother thought I was coming down from a lung ailment because when I got up in the morning, I could hardly breathe. She took me to the studio doctor, and he checked me out. Then he asked me who I was working with. I said, 'Red Skelton.' He said, 'Go back to work. Every time somebody works with him they come up with aching ribs from laughing so much.'"

"He was so creative, so funny. I do recall during almost any scene I could see the Director S. Sylvan Simon sitting in his chair under the camera, and tears were running down his cheeks ­ he was laughing so hard. And he was shoving a handkerchief in his mouth to not ruin scene. Red Skelton would do such funny things. He was a darling man, a wonderful man."

Ann's long career in movies began with a job in radio. Roller skating her way home from school one day, she passed a radio station, KFAC, on Wilshire Boulevard. She'd watched them broadcasting through the window before, and this time, she saw some kid actors in there. She went in to apply for a job and was sent to the casting director. He asked her about her experience, and, "I looked him right in the eye and named every play my mother had taken my sister and me to. He wrote down something nice and took my phone number. I didn't tell my mother, and six weeks later, she was waiting for me after school ­ with her arms folded. She'd gotten a call from KFAC."

Her mother thought Ann was in trouble for tapping on the glass window or something because the station had called, and they wanted to see her right away. There, she found two lines of kids, one of boys and the other girls. Each was handed three pages of dialogue to read for the test.

"I noticed an actor who had drawn lines on his pages, so I made a line on mine like I knew what I was doing." Ann had also watched how radio actors extended their hands beyond the microphone so they silently turned the pages of their scripts. "When I was called in, I reached way out with the pages so they wouldn't make noise. By George, I got the job! It was a serial called Nancy and Dick, and we did it every Saturday. It was sponsored by a department store and the D.A.R. (Daughters of American Revolution)."

Dick was played by Richard Quine, who later became a director and worked with many stars like Jimmy Stewart, William Holden, Kim Novak, Jack Lemmon, Mickey Rooney and many more.

"I did radio for two and a half years, and then one evening, I got a call at the radio station. A man asked if I'd be interested in getting in pictures. He needed a leading lady for a movie because his had eloped. Now, I had heard about dirty old men asking girls if they wanted to be in pictures, so I hung up on him politely."

Fortunately for Ann, the man, Nat Levine, was indeed a producer, and he worked for a company that would eventually become Republic Pictures. He was also not to be deterred.
"He looked up all the Rutherfords in the phonebook, and he got my mother on the second call. When I came home, he was in the living room talking with her."

Levine liked Ann's personality on the radio show and in person so he offered her the job, which was her first movie, Waterfront Lady. Her leading man was Frank Albertson, who made scores of movies and played Sam Wainwright in It's A Wonderful Life (George's friend, the successful businessman, who says "Hee-haw" to George).

Her next movie was Melody Trail with Gene Autry. "I made more money than he did because I had an agent. I made $150 per week, and Gene made $100 per week."

Later, Ann made movies with John Wayne. Eventually, she was signed by MGM at $350 per week. This was a handsome salary for those days during the Depression for anyone, particularly a teenage actress who was working for Louis B. Mayer. At MGM, Mayer was known for pampering his actors and actresses with everything but money.

Ann saw two actresses come out of Mayer's office who had been turned down for raises, so she came up with a plan. She told her mother, "I have to take my bank book every time I go to work. I'm going to be prepared."

Two months later, "I got the call, and I had my bank book. I said, 'Mr. Mayer, if I can't get my raise, I'll have to go someplace else. I've been saving my money to buy a house for my mother.'"

She showed him her bank book, and he got misty-eyed.

"Mayer had a soft heart for mothers. He named everything in the commissary after his mother. He told me, 'Don't you worry, I'll talk to New York, and I'll work it out.'

Ann concluded, "I always got my raises."

Despite being tough when it came to money, Ann readily admits that the studio spoiled them rotten. In those days, they worked for 40 weeks per year and had twelve off. During her vacation, Ann often went to the publicity department and offered to do interviews, cover photos for magazines or other promotions. Consequently, she was sent to New York by train with her mother more than once to promote her movies. Ann remembers one time being rushed around from theater to theater in an ambulance. "They'd stop the movie, I would get up on stage and answer questions for about ten minutes, and then I'd be off to another theater."

Her sister Judith came on one trip, and they were met, as usual, at the train station by representatives from the Lowe's movie theater chain. One of the reps was Al Simon. They took a liking to one another and eventually married. Al Simon, you may remember, later became a screenwriter for many episodes of some great old shows like The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, Green Acres, Mister Ed, I Love Lucy, and several others.

Ann was married twice. Her second husband, William Dozier, was previously married to Joan Fontaine, and he also produced TV shows, like The Green Hornet and Batman. It was his voice we heard inviting us to watch next week's episode at "the same bat-time, the same bat-channel."

Delightful Ann loves life everyday. "I've just had a fairy tale life. It's been so special. I was lucky enough to be part of the Golden Era."

And she has some great advice for everyone. "You can get away with a lot in life if you get out and live it. Today's 80 is yesterday's 60. You know, women no longer just sit and rock so get up, clamp yourself together (laughs) and get cracking. Celebrate your birthdays, but don't count them. Don't think of the number of years in your life; think of the life in your years."

Ann Rutherford is still a sweetheart.

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Many of the photos for this story courtesy of www.picking.com/ann-rutherford.html