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TCM Schedule for Thursday, December 9, 2021 -- Met On Set: Short & Sweet
Throughout the day, TCM is saluting the King of the Jungle, Tarzan, with Buster Crabbe, Bruce Bennett, Glenn Morris, and, the "real" Tarzan, Johnny Weissmuller. Then in prime time, it's the second night night of a four-part salute to Met on Set. Tonight features Short & Sweet, torrid romances that didn't last.Thursdays in December / 25 Movies
Make-believe passions can become quite real on a movie set, where costars and their directors sometimes fall in love for real, often establishing long-term relationships and occasionally creating international scandals. With this Spotlight, TCM looks at couples who found real magic amid the artifice of filmmaking.
Our roundup of lovers who “Met on Set” is broken into four categories beginning with Classic Hollywood Sweethearts.
The story goes that, when Katharine Hepburn was introduced to Spencer Tracy on the set of Woman of the Year (1942), she said to him, “Mr. Tracy, I’m afraid I’m a bit too tall for you,” and producer Joseph L. Mankiewicz interjected, “Don’t worry, Kate, he’ll soon cut you down to size!”
Tracy and Hepburn costarred in nine films and enjoyed a love affair that had to remain private because he was both Catholic and married. Their romance, which was Hollywood’s best-kept secret thanks to a discreet press, lasted until Tracy’s death in 1967.
Lauren Bacall was 19 and Humphrey Bogart 45 when they met on the set of To Have and Have Not (1944), the film in which she famously intoned to him, “If you want anything, just whistle.” Bogart left his third wife, Mayo Methot, to wed Bacall.
The Bogart-Bacall marriage was, from all descriptions, one of Hollywood’s happiest. The couple made a total of five films together and remained married until Bogart’s death in 1957. Later Bacall wrote in her memoir that “No one has ever written a romance better than we lived.”
Other entries with Classic Hollywood Sweethearts include No Man of Her Own (1932, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard), The Silver Cord (1933, Joel McCrea and Frances Dee), His Brother’s Wife (1936, Robert Taylor and Barbara Stanwyck), Brother Rat (1938, Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman) and Too Many Girls (1940, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz).
Short & Sweet couplings include Lana Turner and clarinetist/bandleader Artie Shaw, who appeared together in Dancing Co-Ed (1939), an MGM romantic comedy with music. In 1940 the pair eloped, entering a marriage that lasted only six months.
Shaw was the first of seven husbands for Turner, who married one of her partners (Stephen Crane) twice. Shaw had a total of eight wives including actresses Ava Gardner and Evelyn Keyes.
George Brent and Ann Sheridan, both stars at Warner Bros. during the 1930s and ’40s, first dated in 1939 as part of studio-arranged publicity. They hit it off both offscreen and on, eventually costarring in Warners’ romantic comedy Honeymoon for Three (1941).
Brent and Sheridan married in 1942 but remained together only about nine months. They were divorced exactly a year after their wedding. Sheridan had a total of three marriages, while Brent had five (plus reported affairs with such other costars as Greta Garbo and Bette Davis).
Other films with costars who had relatively short marriages include Man of the World (1931, Carole Lombard and William Powell), Downstairs (1932, John Gilbert and Virginia Bruce), Today We Live (1933, Joan Crawford and Franchot Tone), All About Eve (1950, Bette Davis and Gary Merrill) and Bundle of Joy (1956, Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher).
Among Passionate Affairs that began on film sets was the one that flamed between Joan Crawford and Clark Gable. They were first teamed in Dance, Fools, Dance (1931), and offscreen romance quickly ensued.
Crawford and Gable made a total of eight films together during the period 1931- 1940. Whether as lovers or friends, their relationship endured until his death in 1960. Crawford was quoted as saying, “We had an affair – a glorious affair – and it lasted longer than anybody knows.”
Perhaps the most scandalous and highly publicized love affair to begin during the making of a film was shared by Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton when they costarred in Cleopatra (1963). Each was married to someone else at the time, and their coupling sparked international outrage.
Taylor and Burton, who made 10 films together, were married (and divorced) twice. Each had other marriages, but Taylor was quoted by Vogue as saying, “I was still madly in love with him the day he died. I think he still loved me, too.”
Other films that sparked Passionate Affairs include Flesh and the Devil (1926, Greta Garbo and John Gilbert), Dark Victory (1939, Bette Davis and George Brent), Johnny Eager (1941, Robert Taylor and Lana Turner) and Stromboli (1950, Ingrid Bergman and director Roberto Rossellini).
Modern Hollywood Couples have included Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw, whose meeting during filming of The Getaway (1972) led to an affair and MacGraw’s divorce from her then-husband, producer Robert Evans.
McQueen and MacGraw were married from 1973 to 1978. After McQueen’s death in 1980 MacGraw acknowledged to People magazine that the marriage had been tumultuous. “He was incredibly attractive most of the time,” she recalled. “But there was also danger. There was a bad boy there.”
Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell fell in love during the making of Swing Shift (1984). (They originally met some years earlier when both were cast in the 1968 film, The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band, when she was 21 and he was 16.) They have acted together in a total of five films.
The pair, who have children by previous marriages and a son of their own, have chosen not to marry and continue to seem happy with their union as it stands. Hawn said in an interview with Woman’s Day that “I think the secret is to know when to depend on somebody and when not to… The other part is to stay as sexy as you can and be sure you focus on all respects of a healthy relationship.”
Other movies spotlighting Modern Hollywood Couples: The Last Picture Show (1971, Cybill Shepherd and director Peter Bogdanovich), Klute (1971, Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland) and Blood Simple (1984, Frances McDormand and director Joel Cohen).
Make-believe passions can become quite real on a movie set, where costars and their directors sometimes fall in love for real, often establishing long-term relationships and occasionally creating international scandals. With this Spotlight, TCM looks at couples who found real magic amid the artifice of filmmaking.
Our roundup of lovers who “Met on Set” is broken into four categories beginning with Classic Hollywood Sweethearts.
The story goes that, when Katharine Hepburn was introduced to Spencer Tracy on the set of Woman of the Year (1942), she said to him, “Mr. Tracy, I’m afraid I’m a bit too tall for you,” and producer Joseph L. Mankiewicz interjected, “Don’t worry, Kate, he’ll soon cut you down to size!”
Tracy and Hepburn costarred in nine films and enjoyed a love affair that had to remain private because he was both Catholic and married. Their romance, which was Hollywood’s best-kept secret thanks to a discreet press, lasted until Tracy’s death in 1967.
Lauren Bacall was 19 and Humphrey Bogart 45 when they met on the set of To Have and Have Not (1944), the film in which she famously intoned to him, “If you want anything, just whistle.” Bogart left his third wife, Mayo Methot, to wed Bacall.
The Bogart-Bacall marriage was, from all descriptions, one of Hollywood’s happiest. The couple made a total of five films together and remained married until Bogart’s death in 1957. Later Bacall wrote in her memoir that “No one has ever written a romance better than we lived.”
Other entries with Classic Hollywood Sweethearts include No Man of Her Own (1932, Clark Gable and Carole Lombard), The Silver Cord (1933, Joel McCrea and Frances Dee), His Brother’s Wife (1936, Robert Taylor and Barbara Stanwyck), Brother Rat (1938, Ronald Reagan and Jane Wyman) and Too Many Girls (1940, Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz).
Short & Sweet couplings include Lana Turner and clarinetist/bandleader Artie Shaw, who appeared together in Dancing Co-Ed (1939), an MGM romantic comedy with music. In 1940 the pair eloped, entering a marriage that lasted only six months.
Shaw was the first of seven husbands for Turner, who married one of her partners (Stephen Crane) twice. Shaw had a total of eight wives including actresses Ava Gardner and Evelyn Keyes.
George Brent and Ann Sheridan, both stars at Warner Bros. during the 1930s and ’40s, first dated in 1939 as part of studio-arranged publicity. They hit it off both offscreen and on, eventually costarring in Warners’ romantic comedy Honeymoon for Three (1941).
Brent and Sheridan married in 1942 but remained together only about nine months. They were divorced exactly a year after their wedding. Sheridan had a total of three marriages, while Brent had five (plus reported affairs with such other costars as Greta Garbo and Bette Davis).
Other films with costars who had relatively short marriages include Man of the World (1931, Carole Lombard and William Powell), Downstairs (1932, John Gilbert and Virginia Bruce), Today We Live (1933, Joan Crawford and Franchot Tone), All About Eve (1950, Bette Davis and Gary Merrill) and Bundle of Joy (1956, Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher).
Among Passionate Affairs that began on film sets was the one that flamed between Joan Crawford and Clark Gable. They were first teamed in Dance, Fools, Dance (1931), and offscreen romance quickly ensued.
Crawford and Gable made a total of eight films together during the period 1931- 1940. Whether as lovers or friends, their relationship endured until his death in 1960. Crawford was quoted as saying, “We had an affair – a glorious affair – and it lasted longer than anybody knows.”
Perhaps the most scandalous and highly publicized love affair to begin during the making of a film was shared by Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton when they costarred in Cleopatra (1963). Each was married to someone else at the time, and their coupling sparked international outrage.
Taylor and Burton, who made 10 films together, were married (and divorced) twice. Each had other marriages, but Taylor was quoted by Vogue as saying, “I was still madly in love with him the day he died. I think he still loved me, too.”
Other films that sparked Passionate Affairs include Flesh and the Devil (1926, Greta Garbo and John Gilbert), Dark Victory (1939, Bette Davis and George Brent), Johnny Eager (1941, Robert Taylor and Lana Turner) and Stromboli (1950, Ingrid Bergman and director Roberto Rossellini).
Modern Hollywood Couples have included Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw, whose meeting during filming of The Getaway (1972) led to an affair and MacGraw’s divorce from her then-husband, producer Robert Evans.
McQueen and MacGraw were married from 1973 to 1978. After McQueen’s death in 1980 MacGraw acknowledged to People magazine that the marriage had been tumultuous. “He was incredibly attractive most of the time,” she recalled. “But there was also danger. There was a bad boy there.”
Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell fell in love during the making of Swing Shift (1984). (They originally met some years earlier when both were cast in the 1968 film, The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band, when she was 21 and he was 16.) They have acted together in a total of five films.
The pair, who have children by previous marriages and a son of their own, have chosen not to marry and continue to seem happy with their union as it stands. Hawn said in an interview with Woman’s Day that “I think the secret is to know when to depend on somebody and when not to… The other part is to stay as sexy as you can and be sure you focus on all respects of a healthy relationship.”
Other movies spotlighting Modern Hollywood Couples: The Last Picture Show (1971, Cybill Shepherd and director Peter Bogdanovich), Klute (1971, Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland) and Blood Simple (1984, Frances McDormand and director Joel Cohen).
Enjoy!
6:45 AM -- Fear (1954)
1h 24m | Drama | TV-PG
The wife of a prominent scientist is blackmailed after her extramarital affair is discovered.
Director: Roberto Rossellini
Cast: Ingrid Bergman, Mathias Wieman, Renate Mannhardt
The last film Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman made together before their divorce in 1957.
8:15 AM -- Tarzan the Fearless (1933)
1h 25m | Adventure | TV-PG
The jungle king helps a young woman rescue her father from the high priest of a lost city.
Director: Robert F. Hill
Cast: Buster Crabbe, Jacqueline Wells, Eddie Woods
Buster Crabbe was an Olympic Swimmer.
9:45 AM -- Tarzan and His Mate (1934)
1h 45m | Adventure | TV-PG
The jungle king fights to protect his wife from a greedy ivory hunter.
Director: Cedric Gibbons
Cast: Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O'sullivan, Neil Hamilton
The only appearance of the two-piece Jane costume, subsequently replaced by a long one-piece costume in all the sequels due to pressure from the Hays Office as they felt it was too revealing.
11:45 AM -- The New Adventures of Tarzan (1935)
1h 14m | Adventure | TV-PG
Tarzan goes to Guatemala to find his lost friend and help discover hidden treasure.
Director: Edward Kull
Cast: Bruce Bennett, Ula Holt, Ashton Dearholt
Tarzan's chimpanzee is called "Nkima" (not "Cheetah"
, true to the Edgar Rice Burroughs books.
12:45 PM -- Tarzan Escapes (1936)
1h 35m | Adventure | TV-PG
Jane Parker's cousins try to kidnap the jungle king to get their hands on her inheritance.
Director: Richard Thorpe
Cast: Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O'sullivan, John Buckler
Three films into the series, Tarzan and Jane's nest-like home in the trees has expanded into a Swiss Family Robinson-like home with running water and an elephant-manipulated elevator to bring people up to the home.
2:30 PM -- Tarzan's Revenge (1938)
1h 10m | Adventure | TV-PG
Tarzan saves Elenor from the evil grip of ruler Ben Alleu Bey.
Director: D. Ross Lederman
Cast: Glenn Morris, Eleanor Holm, George Barbier
Producer Sol Lesser considered casting New York Yankees baseball great Lou Gehrig as Tarzan, but changed his mind after seeing his legs, which were "more functional than decorative."
3:45 PM -- Tarzan Finds a Son! (1939)
1h 30m | Adventure | TV-PG
The jungle king adopts the infant survivor of a plane crash.
Director: Richard Thorpe
Cast: Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O'sullivan, John[ny] Sheffield
Tarzan had to "find" a son, because censors would not allow Jane to become pregnant because she and Tarzan were not legally married.
5:15 PM -- Tarzan's Secret Treasure (1941)
1h 21m | Adventure | TV-PG
Prospectors kidnap Jane and Boy to force the jungle king to reveal the location of a golden treasure.
Director: Richard Thorpe
Cast: Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O'sullivan, John[ny] Sheffield
Reminiscent of how cowboys never need to reload their six-shooters, Tarzan swims under water at least a tenth of a mile and overturns multiple canoes, blowing bubbles all the while, and not taking a single breath until a crocodile tosses him in the air.
6:45 PM -- Tarzan's New York Adventure (1942)
1h 11m | Adventure | TV-PG
When a circus kidnaps Boy, Tarzan and Jane follow him to New York City.
Director: Richard Thorpe
Cast: Johnny Weissmuller, Maureen O'sullivan, John[ny] Sheffield
The final time that Maureen O'Sullivan would reprise her role as the character "Jane" in the Weissmuller Tarzan Franchise.
WHAT'S ON TONIGHT: PRIMETIME THEME -- MET ON SET: SHORT & SWEET
8:00 PM -- Man of the World (1931)
1h 11m | Comedy | TV-G
A young American woman travels to Paris and is romanced by a novelist who is blackmailing her uncle.
Director: Richard Wallace
Cast: William Powell, Carole Lombard, Wynne Gibson
This was the first of three movies that Powell and Lombard made together. They met on the set and married the same year the movie was released.
9:30 PM -- Today We Live (1933)
1h 53m | Romance | TV-G
An aristocratic English girl's tangled love life creates havoc during World War I.
Director: Howard Hawks
Cast: Joan Crawford, Gary Cooper, Robert Young
Joan Crawford met Franchot Tone while working on this picture. They would marry two years later (her second, his first) - and divorce in 1939.
11:30 PM -- All About Eve (1950)
2h 18m | Drama | TV-PG
An ambitious young actress tries to take over a star's career and love life.
Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Cast: Bette Davis, Anne Baxter, George Sanders
Winner of Oscars for Best Actor in a Supporting Role -- George Sanders, Best Director -- Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Best Writing, Screenplay -- Joseph L. Mankiewicz, Best Costume Design, Black-and-White -- Edith Head and Charles Le Maire, Best Sound, Recording -- Thomas T. Moulton, and Best Picture
Nominee for Oscars for Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Anne Baxter, Best Actress in a Leading Role -- Bette Davis, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Celeste Holm, Best Actress in a Supporting Role -- Thelma Ritter, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White -- Milton R. Krasner, Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White -- Lyle R. Wheeler, George W. Davis, Thomas Little and Walter M. Scott, Best Film Editing -- Barbara McLean, and Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture -- Alfred Newman
Bette Davis fell in love with her co-star Gary Merrill during the shoot of this movie, and the two married in July 1950, a few weeks after filming was completed. They adopted a baby girl, whom they named Margot.
2:00 AM -- Bundle of Joy (1956)
1h 38m | Musical | TV-PG
A recently fired shop girl is mistaken for a single mother when she finds an abandoned baby.
Director: Norman Taurog
Cast: Eddie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds, Adolphe Menjou
In her autobiography, Carrie Fisher says that her mother, Debbie Reynolds, was pregnant with her whilst making this film. This accounts for several shots where Reynolds is hidden behind a shop display or wearing a cloak-style coat
3:45 AM -- Downstairs (1932)
1h 15m | Drama | TV-G
An evil chauffeur seduces and blackmails his way through high society.
Director: Monta Bell
Cast: John Gilbert, Paul Lukas, Virginia Bruce
John Gilbert wanted to do this movie so badly he sold the story to MGM for $1.00. Ads for the movie proclaimed "starring Mr. and Mrs. John Gilbert" since he and Virginia Bruce were married shortly after the production completed filming.
5:15 AM -- Dancing Co-Ed (1939)
1h 20m | Drama | TV-G
A college girl fights to survive in academia and show business.
Director: S. Sylvan Simon
Cast: Lana Turner, Richard Carlson, Artie Shaw
This is the first of two times that the Love Interest of Richard Carlson's Character in a Movie eloped with an Orchestra-Leader Co-Star. In this Movie, Lana Turner, shortly after, eloped with her Co-Star, Clarinetist/Orchestra-Leader, Artie Shaw. In the Movie Too Many Girls, Lucille Ball, shortly after, eloped with Co-Star, Singer/Orchestra-Leader, Desi Arnaz.
