On and Off

“Here we have Joan [Crawford], four handsome men.
We could have given you as many as ten.
They’re all ‘related,’ that you can be sure,
But how, when or why? — oh, c’est lamour.”
— “On and Off the Hollywood Marry Go-Round,” Movie Play, Jan 1955

The main topic of discussion in midcentury fan magazines should have been movies and moviemaking, right? But no. Stardom? Not exactly. In a word, the subject was love, in all its stages: passion and romance, marriage and family, heartbreak and goodbye. Fan mags often grouped features by themes such as “Loves That Make News” — “Lana needs a new ending for an old story”; “Ava: ever beautiful, ever miserable” (Movieland’s 1958 Annual) — and “Marital Mishaps” — Nat and Bob, “Please call the calling off off”; “Is it Sayonara for Shirley [MacLaine] and Steve [Parker]?” (Screen Annual 1962). Some even produced special love-themed issues, like Liz Taylor’s Loves, Hollywood Romances and Movieland and TV Time Lovers. The industry’s publicity machine, then, consistently rewarded those Hollywood denizens who managed to maintain a high-profile, ever-changing love life.

Sometimes by design, sometimes by outright artifice, but mostly thanks to the Tinseltown lifestyle, many stars and almost-stars were able to reap those rewards. Typically the story line was one of serial marriage, or almost-marriage — Glenn Ford, for example, was paired with everyone from Debbie Reynolds to Barbara Stanwyck to Connie Stevens, while Sinatra bounced from Ava Gardner to Lauren Bacall, Jill St. John, Juliet Prowse and, of course, Mia Farrow. Poor Frank, Modern Screen (Oct 1964) reported, “is, deep in his heart, a painfully unhappy, lonely man. There’s an anguished emptiness in his heart that only a woman — a wife — can fill.” And of course Liz, married three times in the ‘50s alone, remains unsurpassed in drama, wedding jewelry and fan mag coverage. (“She gazes at the world with eyes as old as time, with hand outstretched, beseeching, the 20th century Cleopatra, Elizabeth Taylor, reaching for the love that has always eluded her” — Elizabeth Taylor’s Loves, 1962.)

A special court was reserved for those who played doubles in the Hollywood tennis match. With surprising frequency, the very same couples enacted — and reenacted — the romantic cycle with each other, month after month, year after year. And if gossip columnists and feature writers sometimes wearied of the repetition, fans apparently did not. Follow the bouncing ball for a few notable examples of seemingly endless on again, off again midcentury pairs. (HfOH favorites Troy and Suzanne are a consummate example, but enough about them; see my earlier blogs for details.)

As Screen Album (July 1963) put it, “One day they’re up, the next day they’re down, but one thing never changes — life in the Mansfield-Hargitay marriage is as hectic as a playground with school out.” Jayne Mansfield married bodybuilder Mickey Hargitay in early 1958, against her handlers’ career advice, she said, though they needn’t have worried; the turbulent relationship provided plenty of fan mag fodder, with fights and slights and separations galore. Mansfield filed for divorce in 1962 and again in 1963, but as Modern Screen’s Hollywood Yearbook (No. 7, 1964) put it, “The one thing nobody expected of Jayne Mansfield was that she’d end 1963 exactly the way she started it, celebrating a brand-new reconciliation with Mickey Hargitay. Last winter when she left the reluctant embrace of Enrico Bomba and went back to Mickey, everyone knew it was for love; it couldn’t have been for publicity, because there was a newspaper strike on right then. This winter it might have been love or publicity, but then it might have been because Jayne learned she was going to present Mick with his third and fourth offspring.”

Alas, the happy reunion didn’t last; some months later, gossip columnist “Snooper” (Motion Picture, July 1964) reported, “Jayne and Mickey are at it again. No, not that. Fighting. Everything seemed to be hunky-dory, what with the pink, heart-shaped lights aglow in the pink, heart-shaped swimming pool under the watchful eye of pink cupids, and music playing in the pink home and supper just finished and the pink plates in the pink sink and the kids and the dogs all in the pink and Jayne all heart shaped, so Mickey suggested they go out and have a pink gin somewhere.” But, “Snooper” noted, Mickey began flirting with someone and so Jayne “hauled off and belted [him] right in the grin — and then all hell broke loose. Jayne is still fretful about it. ‘You should have seen her,’ she said the other day. ‘She had no bust!’”

The Efrem Zimbalist Jrs’ ups and downs offered fewer fireworks but more longevity than the Mansfield-Hargitay match — though one separation apparently resulted from Efrem shoving wife Stephanie into a ping-pong table (Movie Life Yearbook No. 30, 1962). From an earlier iteration of Movie Life Yearbook (No. 27, 1960): “Lonely widower Efrem Zimbalist met and married socialite Stephanie Spaulding in 1956. Outwardly blissful, the marriage was strained by public demands on his time, her interest in sports — and her recent attacks of hepatitis. After a midwinter separation, reconciliation, Efrem established residence for divorce proceedings. ‘This is his idea,’ was Steffi’s only comment. With the final decree nearly ready, Efrem is now linked with Sinatra’s once-playmate, starlet Kipp Hamilton.” By summertime, Movieland and TV Time (July 1960) reported, “Efrem Zimbalist, Jr.’s reconciliation gift to his wife, Stephanie, was a new station wagon, and pals now believe that the crisis is passed.” Then, approaching year’s end, Movie Life (Nov 1960) issued this bulletin: “Just as we go to press the most exciting things are happening in Hollywood… romancewise! Edd Byrnes has let it be known he no longer considers Tuesday Weld too young, and Efrem Zimbalist is more than unusually cozy with seductive co-star Angie Dickinson.”

A year later at least some gossip mavens were beginning to see the trend. Sheilah Graham (Silver Screen, Dec 1961), for example, wrote, “This time the Efrem Zimbalists say they’ve had it. I’m still skeptical.” But in the same issue, Dorothy O’Leary ran this item in her column: “Sorry to report that Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., and wife Stephanie are seeing their lawyers. They’ve separated and reconciled before but this ‘split’ seems serious.” The split was serious, as it turned out; a small blurb in the New York Times (Dec 5, 1961), announced the divorce, noting, “Mrs. Zimbalist received custody of their daughter, Stephanie, 5 years old. She also received $39,000 cash, a station wagon [wait, so it wasn’t a gift after all?] and the couple’s horses.”

But that wasn’t the end. “Snooper” (Motion Picture, July 1962) reported, “We don’t know whether Efrem and Stephanie will ever get together again, but we do know she wishes with all her heart her husband would come back. And he just happens to drop in to see her almost every day. You take it from there.” The two remarried, and remained together until her death in 2007.

Aside from Troy-and-Suzy and the bogus pairing of Rock Hudson and perennial date Marilyn Maxwell, the couple who perhaps made the most of “will they-won’t they get married?” (answer: they won’t) was All the Fine Young Cannibals costars George Hamilton and Susan Kohner. Their romance began hitting the fan mags about the time of that 1960 film, but trouble ensued quickly: “It looks like Susan Kohner isn’t going to sit back and weep while George Hamilton renews old ties (and flames) in Florida. She and Fabrizio Mioni have been dating” (TV and Movie Screen, Aug 1960). And, a few months later, “Howcum George Hamilton, sooo in love with Susan Kohner, has been seen about town recently with Dolores Hart and Connie Francis?” (Movie Life, Nov 1960).

The couple resumed, but more trouble arose: “The George Hamilton-Susan Kohner romance didn’t stand up under the parting when George had to go to Europe to make a film. They saw each other — twice. Now Susan is in Europe again for Freud. But George is back in America” (“Sheilah Graham’s Intimate Gossip,” Silver Screen, Dec 1961). Months later: “There’s a few years difference in their ages, but ex-Princess Soraya and George Hamilton don’t care. I hear he has made her forget that Hugh O’Brian ever existed, and George really lost interest fast in Susan Kohner. But Susan’s seeing Montgomery Clift!” (Cal York, Photoplay, Feb 1962). Soon, though Soraya and Clift were history and Motion Picture (May 1962), in a layout mimicking a newspaper’s front page, ran this headline: “George Captures Susan in Surprise Victory!” The article’s lead: “It’s happened! Susan Kohner has definitely said ‘Yes’ to George Hamilton! It’ll be a summer wedding. They announced their engagement almost the minute Susan returned to America after many months of moviemaking in Munich.”

Of course, as summer came and went, so did the engagement. By autumn, Rona Barrett’s “Young Hollywood” column (Motion Picture, Nov 1962) reported, “Susan Kohner bounced right outta G. Hamilton’s heart, into Peter Mann’s. YH predicts a merger.” That marriage didn’t happen, either, but in 1964 Kohner wed novelist and fashion designer John Weitz. The two remained together until his death in 2002; their sons, Chris and Paul Weitz, are film producers and directors, with credits including American Pie, About a Boy, the Twilight saga’s New Moon and Grandma, among others. Hamilton went on to date Lynda Bird Johnson and, in 1972, married actress Alana Stewart. Though the two divorced in 1975, they cohosted a daytime talk show in the ‘90s. That’s Hollywood for you!

Image credits, first photo collage, clockwise from upper left: (1) Liz as bride, Movie Stars Parade, June 1950; (2) Sinatra, playboy of the Western world, Hollywood Romances 20, 1963; (3) cover of Movieland and TV Time Lovers, Special Edition 1, 1963, featuring Brigitte Bardot; (4) Debbie Reynolds and Glenn Ford, with Maria Schell added in (5), both from Movie Stars TV Close-Ups, July 1960; (6) Liz and Burton on the cover of Hollywood Romances 20, 1963.

Image credits, second photo collage, clockwise from upper left: (1) Troy and Suzanne, Lovers Must Learn, Movieland and TV Time, Apr 1963; (2) Mickey Hargitay and Jayne Mansfield, Modern Screen, Feb 1957; (3) George Hamilton and Susan Kohner, Screen Annual 1962; (4) Efrem and Stephanie Zimbalist, Movie Life Yearbook No. 27, 1960; (5) Natalie Wood, Robert Wagner, George Hamilton and Susan Kohner in ad for All the Fine Young Cannibals, Movie Life, Aug 1960; (6) Mickey and Jayne with baby Miklos (Mickey Jr), Modern Screen, Apr 1959.