Melvyn Douglas mini-bio: Multiple Oscar-winner Melvyn Douglas was one of the finest actors ever produced by the United States. In addition to his two Oscars, he also won a Tony Award and an Emmy. Douglas would enjoy cinema immortality if for no other reason than his being the man who made Greta Garbo laugh in Ernst Lubitsch's classic comedy Ninotchka (1939), but he was much, much more.
He was born Melvyn Edouard Hesselberg on April 5, 1901, in Macon, Georgia, to a Russian-Jewish immigrant father and a mother of Scots heritage (thus, the stage name "Douglas"). His father was a concert pianist who supported the his family by teaching music at university-based conservatories. Melvyn dropped out of high school to pursue his dream of becoming an actor.
He made his Broadway debut in the drama "A Free Soul" at the Playhouse Theatre on January 12, 1928, playing the role of a raffish gangster (a part that would later make Clark Gable's career when the play was adapted to the screen). "A Free Soul" was a modest success, running for 100 performances, but his next three plays were flops: "Back Here" and "Now-a-Days" each lasted one week, while "Recapture" lasted all of three before closing. He was much luckier with his next play, "Tonight or Never," which opened on November 18, 1930, at legendary producer David Belasco's theater. Not only did the play run for 232 performances, but Douglas met the woman who would be his wife of nearly 50 years: his co-star, Helen Gahagan. They were married in 1931.
The movies came a-calling in 1932 and Douglas had the unique pleasure of assaying completely different characters in widely divergent films. He first appeared opposite his future "Ninotchka" co-star Garbo in the screen adaptation of Luigi Pirandello's As You Desire Me (1932), proving himself a sophisticated leading man as, aside from his first-rate performance, he was able to shine in the light thrown off by Garbo, the cinema's greatest star. In typical Hollywood fashion, however, this terrific performance in a top-rank film from a major studio was balanced by his appearance in a low-budget horror film for the independent Mayfair studio, The Vampire Bat (1933). However, the leading man won out, and that's how he first came to fame in the 1930s in such films as She Married Her Boss (1935) and Garbo's final film, Two-Faced Woman (1941). Douglas showed that he could play both straight drama and light comedy.
Douglas served as a director of the Arts Council in the Office of Civilian Defense before joining the Army during World War II. He was very active in politics and was one of the leading lights of the anti-Communist left in the late 1930s and early 1940s. Helen Gahagan Douglas, who also was politically active, was elected to Congress from the 14th District in Los Angeles in 1944, the first of three terms.
The late 1940s brought the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) to Hollywood, a move that sowed the seeds of the McCarthyist "anti-Red" hysteria that would wrack Hollywood and sweep America in the 1950s. In 1950 Helen Gahagan Douglas ran as a Democrat for the U.S. Senate and was opposed by the Republican nominee, a small-time Red-baiting Congressman from Whittier named Richard Nixon. While Nixon did not go so far as to accuse her of actually being a Communist, he did charge her with being "soft" on Communism due to her opposition to HUAC. Nixon tarred her as a "fellow traveler" of Communists, a "pinko" who was "pink right down to her underwear." She was defeated by the man she was the first to call "Tricky Dick" because of his unethical behavior and dirty campaign tactics.
The Douglases, like their friends Ronald Reagan and Edward G. Robinson, were liberal Democrats, supporters of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his New Deal, a legacy that increasingly came under vicious attack by the political right after World War II. They were NOT fellow-travelers, as Douglas had been an active anti-Communist. He was someone the Communists despised.
Returning to films after the war, Douglas' screen persona evolved and he took on more mature roles, in such films as The Sea of Grass (1947) (Elia Kazan's directorial debut) and Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House (1948). His political past caught up with him, however, in the late 1940s, and he - along with fellow liberals Robinson and Henry Fonda (a registered Republican!) - were "gray-listed" (not explicitly blacklisted, they just weren't offered any work).
After appearing in six films from 1947-49, Douglas appeared in just two more - supporting roles at RKO in 1951 - until he reappeared a decade later in Peter Ustinov's Billy Budd (1962) in 1962. In the meantime, Douglas did play the eponymous private detective in the TV series "Steve Randall" (1952) in the 1952-53 season for the doomed DuMont network (it failed the next year) and, following the example of his old friend Ronald Reagan in his stint on "General Electric Theater" (1953), appeared as the host of the western omnibus TV series "Frontier Justice" (1958) in 1958. Throughout the 1950s Douglas secured roles on such prestigious omnibus drama showcases as "Playhouse 90" (1956) and even appeared on Reagan's "G.E. Theater."
Then there was the theater. Douglas made many appearances on Broadway in the 1940s and 1950s, including in a notable 1959 flop, making his musical debut playing Captain Boyle in Marc Blitzstein's "Juno." The musical, based on Sean O'Casey's play "Juno and the Paycock", closed in less than three weeks. Douglas was much luckier in his next trip to the post: he won a Tony for his Broadway lead role in the 1960 play "The Best Man" by Gore Vidal.
In 1960, with the election of the Democratic President John F. Kennedy, the black- and graylists went into eclipse. Kennedy, who was married to Vidal's step-sister Jacqueline Kennedy, would appoint Helen Gahagan Douglas Treasurer of the United States. About this time, as the civil rights movement became stronger and found more support among Democrats and the Kennedy administration, former liberal activist and two-term Screen Actors Guild President Ronald Reagan was in the process of completing his evolution into a right-wing Republican. Reagan and Douglas' friendship lapsed. After Reagan was elected President of the United States in 1980, Douglas said of his former friend that Reagan had begun to believe in the pro-business speeches he delivered for General Electric when he was the host of the "G.E. Theater."
Douglas' own evolution into a premier character actor was complete by the early 1960s. His years of movie exile seemed to deepen him, making him richer, and he returned to the big screen a more authoritative actor. For his second role after coming off of the graylist, he won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar as Paul Newman's father in Hud (1963). Other films in which he shined were Paddy Chayefsky's The Americanization of Emily (1964), "CBS Playhouse" (1967) (a 1967 episode directed by George Schaefer called "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night", for which he won a Best Actor Emmy) and The Candidate (1972), in which he played Robert Redford's father. It was for his performance playing Gene Hackman's father that Douglas got his sole Best Actor Academy Award nod, in I Never Sang for My Father (1970). He had a career renaissance in the late 1970s, appearing in The Seduction of Joe Tynan (1979), Being There (1979) and Ghost Story (1981). He won his second Oscar for "Being There."
Helen Gahagan Douglas died in 1980 and Melvyn followed her in 1981. He was 80 years old.
In 1967, he became the fifth performer to win the Triple Crown of acting. Oscar: Best Supporting Actor, 'Hud' (1963) & Best Supporting Actor, 'Being There' (1979), Tony: Best Actor-Play, 'The Best Man' (1960), and Emmy: Best Actor-Drama, 'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night' (1967).
Grandfather of Illeana Douglas.
His son Peter was born in 1933. His daughter Mary Helen was born in 1938.
Won Broadway's 1960 Tony Award as Best Actor (Dramatic) for "The Best Man."
According to the March 31, 1941 issue of 'Time' magazine, Douglas and Edward G. Robinson bid $3,200 for the fedora hat that Franklin D. Roosevelt had worn during his three successful campaigns for the Presidency. They acquired the hat at a special Hollywood auction to benefit the Motion Picture Relief Fund. Both Robinson and Douglas were identified as "loyal Democrats." Douglas was extremely active in liberal causes in the 1930s and '40s, which opened him up to charges of being a "Fellow traveler" during the McCarthyite period. Douglas' wife, Helen Gahagan Douglas would later serve as U.S. Representative (Democrat-California) and be defeated in her 1950 bid for the U.S. Senate by Republican Congressman Richard Nixon, who dubbed her the "pink lady" for her leftist leanings. (President John F. Kennedy would appoint her Treasurer of the United States in 1961.) About Democrat-turned-Republican Ronald Reagan), Douglas said after he was elected President of the United States in 1980 that his former friend (and former liberal Democrat) had begun to believe in the speeches he delivered for General Electric when he was the star of a Western TV series sponsored by GE.
Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume One, 1981-1985, pages 240-242. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1998.
Death:
4 August 1981, New York, New York, USA. (pneumonia and cardiac complications)
