Just starting out to become a major star.
Posted on 02/15/2006 11:04:31 AM PST by Fedora
Was that the Rat Pack reunion show that was on a few years ago on A&E or something like that? I think I may have recorded that.
Checkout Geroge Jacobs' book---very articulate guy---talented Black guy who had class enough to spill all the dirt after Frank died. Even though he could have done so earlier and was in financial straits for a long while.
Frank fired him after years of service b/c George accidentally met Mia in a disco and innocently danced with her. This was after the Frank/Mia split. Even though Frank used to put George in charge of keeping his women occupied-and out of trouble--that went for Ava, and Marilyn, too.
Frank was mercurial and not very predictable in his personal behavior.
Oh and lest we Forget Ugly man Harry used to be a boxer. How many dives did he take?
The whole area of H'wood financing is interesting.
Of course you know that AP Giannini, the founder of the huge Bank of America (first known as the Bank of Italy) was Hollywood's major financier, way back when.
Unlike Penn-is and KKKLooney, Mr. S actually supported, and loved, this country.
Thanks!--that's different than what I was thinking of; I'll check that out.
Now that I hadn't heard! Harry Reid as a Boxer--hmmm--maybe that's where the phrase Rope-a-Dope really came from :-)
Just starting out to become a major star.
For info about Joseph Kennedy's Hwood fling, read Gloria Swanson's autobio. She was involved with him both personally and professionally and has a lot to say.
Jacobs' book also has info about the elder Kennedy---and what a racist he was.
My all-time fave story about the slippery slope to Hollywood fame and fortune is singer Eddie Fisher's tale.
At his peak he was making so much money, it was rolling in like high tide.
He was offered a piece of a Las Vegas company planning to build a casino called Ceasar's Palace. No money, all he had to do was to agree to appear there exclusively, giving the owners a connection to get top talent to perform there.
But b/c he was in the throes of the infamous Elizabeth Taylor break-up during the Cleopatra filming, Fisher stupidly declined the offer.
He would have been a billionaire today.
Sorry for the ping recidivism here, but there's no getting away from A.P., it seems.
AP Giannini made a career out of lending to out-of-favor industries. He helped the California wine industry get started, then bankrolled Hollywood at a time when the movie industry was anything but proven.
In 1923 he created a motion-picture loan division and helped Mary Pickford, Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and D.W. Griffith start United Artists. When Walt Disney ran $2 million over budget on Snow White, Giannini stepped in with a loan.
Giannini, had helped Cecil B DeMille complete The Ten Commandments in 1923, when the film's producers threatened to cut off DeMille's funding. Organizers have filmed over 40 hours of interviews with old-timers and DeMille associates, all now deceased, who worked on The Ten Commandments. The interview material will eventually be donated to the Arts and Communication Archives at Brigham Young University, which houses the collected papers of Cecil B. DeMille.
A PBS documentary profiled Bank of America founder Giannini on or about November 14, 2004. Just after the big San Francisco earthquake in 1906, an Italian fruit peddler guided a horse-drawn cart of oranges through North Beach. But there was bread as well as oranges on that cart, and that was no produce man: It was banker A.P. Giannini, secretly moving $80,000 in cash and gold from his recently founded Bank of Italy to his home in San Mateo. He then deposited the deposits in his fireplace's ash bin.
In the next few days after the disastrous quake, banks were ordered closed -- most of their vaults were too hot from the fires to open anyway. Only Giannini was paying out, lending San Franciscans money to rebuild their lives: He'd opened a loan office on the street.
I'll try to read Swanson on that sometime. I have Ronald Kessler's biography of Joseph Kennedy, which is pretty good. On Fisher, I guess that goes to show that casino investment is always a gamble--no pun intended. . .
The film that is referred to here is "They Made America" by Harold Evans, who did a 15 minute segment on Giannini.
A.P. was a BIG FDR supporter, even though the Dems screwed him on his nation-wide branch banking bill. FDR did, apparently (and this was something Bonadio didn't bother to check) allow the BofI to reopen in the "Bank Holiday," even though by government standards some think it was not solvent.
See my post to Liz, above.
In "Doublecross" that you reference some time was spent on Giancanna's development of "southern" politicians that could be used by the mob.
I would think an enterprising investigative reporter could find some very interesting connections between Hot Springs and Chicago.
Other random thoughts on the Kennedy's were written in the autobio of Oleg Cassini, famous for designing Jackie Kennedy's wardrobe.
Cassini claimed Joe K was a womanizer and tried to put the moves on Grace Kelly at the time she was Cassini's inamorata.
Cassini was close to the JFK presidency and spent time in the WH. He wrote that he never knew of or saw JFK fooling around and that JFK was a devoted Catholic and would not quote Catholic antagonists in his speeches.
A most memorable quote Cassini attributes to JFK: "The weakness of man should not weaken the image of God."
Thanks for the very interesting information. I have not seen that covered in anything I've read on FDR, that I can remember.
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