For a movie fan, there's nothing sadder than the rising career of a talented actor or actress cut short by an unexpected or untimely death. A few years ago while watching THE LODGER (1944) I was mesmerized by an actor I had not seen before named Laird Cregar. Where did he come from and why hadn't I seen more of him? Cregar, who was a good-sized man, had come onto the movie scene in 1940. Cregar did not like his extra weight and had gone on an extreme diet to slim down that would tax his body. Cregar would pass away in 1945 from a heart attack due to his sudden weight loss at the age of 30, dying before his last film HANGOVER SQUARE (1945) was released. Other fine actors who have passed away too soon and before their star could become brighter include John Cazale (THE GODFATHER, cancer), River Phoenix (MY OWN PRIVATE IDAHO, drug induced heart failure), Robert Donat (THE 39 STEPS, poor health throughout his career), John Belushi (ANIMAL HOUSE, cocaine overdose), and Heath Ledger (THE DARK KNIGHT, accidental prescription drug overdose). The most famous example of someone we lost way to early is James Dean who made only three films including REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE (1955) before his career was cut short in a car crash in Central California. There's one actress I kept hearing about who briefly dazzled audiences with her voice and blonde hair and won an Academy Award for the performance of her life that left us far too soon. That actress is Judy Holliday.
If you had never heard of Judy Holliday, don't despair. Neither had I. But I kept hearing about what a great comedy BORN YESTERDAY (1950) was starring Holliday. Who was she? Why hadn't I come across her before in some other film. Holliday first came to Hollywood's attention a year earlier in Geoge Cukor's ADAM'S RIB (1949) in a supporting role to stars Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn. Cukor's next project was BORN YESTERDAY, based on the play by Garson Kanin that starred Judy Holliday who had played the role of Billie Dawn for three years on Broadway. Columbia Pictures wanted a star like Irene Dunne for the film version, but Dunne turned the part down. Holliday got to reprise her stage role. If you look at the credits, Holliday seems overshadowed by bigger names like Broderick Crawford (ALL THE KINGS MEN) and William Holden (a newcomer at the time but fresh off Billy Wilder's SUNSET BOULEVARD). With her blue-collar voice and platinum blonde locks, Holliday was a competing version of rising blonde star Marilyn Monroe only Holliday may have had better comedic abilities and range that set her apart.
Holliday would stun Hollywood and win the Academy Award for Best Actress in 1950. The world should have been her oyster. Instead, after one more film, Holliday was called to appear before the Un-American Activities Committee in Washington D.C to testify about her political alliances and if she had Communist sympathies (supposedly she acted like her dumb blonde character in BORN YESTERDAY when questioned). She escaped becoming blacklisted, but her career suffered. Holliday continued to work on the stage but only sporadically in films throughout the rest of the 1950s. Holliday's last film would be Vincent Minnelli's BELLS ARE RINGING (1960) with Dean Martin. At just 43, Holliday would pass away far too early due to breast cancer.
Film immortalizes actors and actresses for eternity and for that we will always have BORN YESTERDY to remember Judy Holliday's finest performance. Directed by George Cukor with a screenplay by Albert Mannheimer (with uncredited revisions by Garson Kanin who wrote the stage play), BORN YESTERDAY begins with the arrival of scrap metal tycoon Harry Block (Broderick Crawford), his fiancée Billie Dawn (Judy Holliday), a former chorus girl, and Block's cousin/runner Eddie (Frank Otto) to Washington D.C. They take over a wing of a fancy hotel. Block is in town to try and buy the influence of U.S. Congressman Norval Hedges (Larry Oliver). Block's a bully, yelling at everyone from the maid to Billie to his lawyer Jim Devery (Howard St. John). Devery asks Billie to sign some documents related to Harry's numerous business dealings. Devery arranges an interview between Harry and newspaper reporter Paul Verrall (William Holden) hoping that the story will introduce Harry to the Washington D.C. elite.
Congressman Hedges and his wife Anna Hedges (Barbara Brown) arrive at the hotel room to meet with Harry and Billie. The social meeting goes badly as Billie comes off as dumb and uncouth. Harry and Jim decide that Billie needs a makeover, a tutor to teach her to be more sophisticated. Harry hires newsman Paul at $200 a week to turn Billie into a Washington D.C. socialite. Paul shows up with books and newspapers for Billie to read. The two of them end up kissing, complicating matters. The next day Paul takes Billie around Washington D.C. They go to the Capitol and its Rotunda, the Library of Congress, the Jefferson Memorial, and catch a Beethoven concert from a rowboat on the Potomac. All the reading and culture begins to transform Billie.
One day as Paul and Billie discuss one of Paul's articles, Harry walks in, interrupting Billie's learning. Harry begins to notice that Billie looks different. Different clothes, different hair style. Billie begins to realize that she might inadvertently be a silent partner in many of Harry's various shady dealings. Harry loses his temper with Congressman Hedges and his attorney Jim for taking too long to wrap up his business requests. Harry storms out leaving Billie to chat with Congressman Hedges. Hedges even notice the change in her. Jim wants Billie to sign more papers. This time, Billie asks what are the papers for? Jim tells her it's for a merger. Billie refuses to sign until she reads the whole contract. Enraged, Harry hits Billie, forces her to sign the documents. Billie runs out on Harry and the hotel. She finds solace at the Jefferson Memorial.
Billie calls Paul to pick her up. Paul asks Billie to marry him. Harry's ready to cut ties with Billie. She's become too much of a liability. Devery had persuaded Harry to sign over his assets to Billie to hide his crooked business dealings from the government. Paul shows up at the hotel, tells Harry he's quitting as Billie's tutor. As Harry tries to force Billie to sign those assets back to him, Paul secretly sneaks out Harry's merger papers and mails the documents to himself. Harry and Jim know if those documents become public, they will go to jail. Billie promises to sign the papers and give them back to Harry. Only she's going to sign the thick paperwork and send it back to Harry one page at a time. Paul and Billie leave Harry and Jim. BORN YESTERDAY ends with Billie and Paul pulled over by a D.C. policeman as they head out of Washington D.C. just married and heading to their honeymoon.
Judy Holliday was an underdog for Best Actress in the 1950 Academy Awards. She up against heavyweights Gloria Swanson for her haunting performance as aging screen star Norma Desmond in SUNSET BOULEVARD and Bette Davis and all her great lines as veteran Broadway star Margo Channing in Joseph L. Mankiewicz's ALL ABOUT EVE fighting off young upstart Anne Baxter (also Best Actress nominee) as Eve Harrington. Some think that Holliday won because Swanson, Davis, and Baxter cancelled each other out with their dramatic performances. I think the fact that Holliday was in a comedy might have helped separate her from the pack. But it's her evolution from uneducated chorus girl to enlightened woman appreciating art, literature, politics, history, philosophy, and law that grabbed audiences and critics alike. It's a delight to watch her metamorphosis as she learns to use her newfound empowerment to thwart her brutish boyfriend Harry Block.
Not only does the education of Billie Dawn change Billie in profound ways, but it also begins to rub off on other characters in BORN YESTERDAY specifically Harry's lawyer Jim Devery (Howard St. John). Devery was a bright, idealistic attorney when he fell under the corrupt spell of Harry Block. Devery has sold his soul to the devil, making Block a wealthy man but losing his ideals and principles along the way. When Devery sees how Billie has changed and can now stand up to Harry using her brain, it emboldens Devery. When Billie and Paul walk out on Harry after his last attempt to buy Paul and keep Billie, Devery lays it out in plain English for Harry. "To all the dumb chumps and all the crazy broads, past, present, and future, who thirst for knowledge and search for truth...who fight for justice and civilize each other...and make it so tough for crooks like you...and me." Devery would like to walk out on Harry too but the lawyer who once clerked for Oliver Wendell Holmes is in too deep with Harry to leave.
Scrap metal tycoon Harry Block is the one character who will not change. He only knows one way. To be brash, a bully. To get what he wants, he'll buy and bulldoze his way to the top. Ironically, it's Harry who sets in motion Billie's journey to knowledge and bettering herself, hiring reporter Paul Verrall to tutor her. As Billie becomes smarter, Harry becomes smaller, less of a threat to Billie. Harry even laments to Devery "I love that broad. Hey, you think we could find somebody to make her dumb again?" If only someone could make Harry smarter and less of a crook. Even though BORN YESTERDAY was made 73 years ago, its commentary is as acute now as it was in 1950. As Paul tells Billie, "A world full of ignorant people is too dangerous to live in."
Once again, director George Cukor showcases himself as one of the preeminent directors of sophisticated romantic comedies (besides Howard Hawks) with BORN YESTERDAY. Like Cukor's THE PHILADELPHIA STORY (1940), BORN YESTERDAY is based on a stage play. Cukor masterfully keeps BORN from feeling stagey with his editing and blocking of the actors within a scene and the hotel wing set. With the film taking place in our nation's capital Washington D.C., Cukor's able to take his characters to the real locations: the Jefferson Memorial, the Capitol Building, and the National Gallery. It gives BORN YESTERDAY a more naturalistic, authentic feel, opening up the play to its cinematic possibilities, taking advantage of filmmakers using real locations more and more. Cukor and Holliday would work together twice more in THE MARRYING KIND (1952) with Aldo Ray and written by Garson Kanin and his wife Ruth Gordon (Cukor favorites who wrote Cukor's two best Tracy/Hepburn comedies) and IT SHOULD HAPPEN TO YOU (1954) co-starring a young Jack Lemmon and written by Garson Kanin
As reporter Paul Verrall, William Holden shows his versatility, revealing he could play comedy just a well as his dramatic roles. In both Billy Wilder's SUNSET BOULEVARD (also 1950) and STALAG 17 (1953), Holden played cynical anti-hero characters with barely a drop of compassion in either of them. In David Lean's THE BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI (1957), Holden is an opportunistic American Navy man who escapes a Japanese prisoner of war camp only to be found out upon his return to civilization that he's been impersonating a dead officer. He'd rather chase nurses than go back to blow up a bridge. In BORN YESTERDAY, Holden plays an idealistic (not jaded) reporter who becomes beguiled by Holliday's Billie Dawn. As Paul watches Billie change as she becomes educated, Paul finds a new appreciation in life and the possibility his written words can change people for the better. Holden would appear in another comedy, Billy Wilder's SABRINA (1954) only this time playing the spoiled younger brother to Humprey Bogart.
Like Holliday, Broderick Crawford had played the role of Harry Block in BORN YESTERDAY on Broadway for three years. Crawford was the obvious choice. Crawford was coming off his own performance of a lifetime as corrupt politician Willie Stark in Robert Rossen's ALL THE KING'S MEN (1949) based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Robert Penn Warren. Block is a tricky role. He's a cruel man, a thug who makes up for his lack of education by throwing around money to solve all of his problems. Crawford somehow makes Block likable at times. Crawford would play Block so well that he would find himself becoming typecast as the heavy. Crawford would change his fate by taking the lead in a television series called HIGHWAY PATROL (1955-1959) as chief of the Highway Patrol. Crawford would mostly work in television for the rest of his career.
I was relating to a fellow coworker who likes old movies a few weeks ago that I had just watched BORN YESTERDAY. She thought I was talking about Luis Mandoki's BORN YESTERDAY remake from 1993 starring Melanie Griffith (SOMETHING WILD) as Billie Dawn, John Goodman (THE BIG LEBOWSKI) in the role of the burly Harry Brock, and Griffith's husband at the time Don Johnson (TV's MIAMI VICE) as reporter and love interest Paul Verrall. I have run into that situation several times where my generation sees what they think is an original new film and doesn't realize that it's a remake of a classic older film. I have not viewed the remake. My gut feeling is that Griffith (who made a career playing slightly rough, street wise blondes and other hair-colored characters) wasn't able to capture the nuances and spontaneity that Holliday brought to Billie. Griffith would have better success five years earlier in Mike Nichols WORKING GIRL (1988) co-starring Harrison Ford and Sigourney Weaver playing a working-class Staten Island secretary striving to find success on Wall Street.
When at first watching BORN YESTERDAY and Judy Holliday's entrance as Billie, you think she's just going to play the stereotypical ditzy, dumb blonde with a squeaky voice. But as the man who discovered her as a film actress first in ADAM'S RIB and then BORN YESTERDAY, director George Cukor saw more. Cukor said that Holliday had "that depth of emotion, that unexpectedly touching emotion, that thing that would unexpectedly touch your heart." A promising career cut short and with only a dozen or so films to showcase her talent, BORN YESTERDAY is Judy Holliday's crowning achievement and a memorial to her legacy.
