Conspicuous Consumption, Part 2

“Give Her the Simple Things” headlined a 1961 fan magazine feature on Doris Day (Movie Mirror Yearbook No. 3), claiming that “America’s top box office attraction doesn’t live like a typical Hollywood star. At home she is more like a typical suburban wife and mother — the roles she loves the best.” Yes, the feature admitted, she lives “in elegance. But there is a simplicity about this elegance and luxury.”

Looking elsewhere, though, we learn that such simplicity included fabulous gowns, furs — husband Marty once gave her three in as many weeks (“Hot Pelts,” Screen Album May-July 1956) — and almost as many houses as furs: “Their dream house [is] still dreamy, but [Doris] and Marty had such fun at the beach last summer that they’re looking for two beach houses, one in California, one in Connecticut, so they can be in the swim all the time (“Smart Doris,” Screen Album, May-July 1960).

Such contradictory details, as introduced in my previous blog post, are rampant in the fan magazines. Amid the homey, “just folks” images of stars at home and at play, it’s easy to find eye-popping reports of conspicuous consumption. Although none quite rise to the level of the joking gift to actress Barbara Nichols, who “met a Texan who’s so rich and who loves Christmas so much, he just bought [her] the whole month of December” (Mike Connolly, Screen Stories, Jan 1963), a few come surprisingly close.

Houses. By midcentury the fan magazines’ focus on the magnificence of stars’ homes tended to be minimal— with a few notable exceptions. Glamor-seeker Debra Paget lived “in amazing splendor” in a 27-room Mediterranean style mansion with “jeweled mermaid murals in the hall,” a parallel to her jewel-encrusted automobile (Maxine Arnold, “Half Saint — Half Siren,” Photoplay, March 1957). Ongoing attention was paid to the famously extravagant George Hamilton’s “royal estate” (May Mann, Screen Stars, June 1965), and to Laurence Harvey’s Beverly Hills home, whose walls “are huge slabs of black, white, and gold onyx, the same kind of onyx used in jewelry” (Mike Connolly, Screen Stories, June 1961).

Over-the-top actress Jayne Mansfield’s equally outsized mansion was also a frequent gossip column topic. Dorothy O’Leary (Silver Screen, October 1961) described Mansfield’s first home improvement project after returning from a long stint of filming in Europe: “adding two more bathrooms to her Pink Palace. It had only 13 before!” And Mike Connolly (Screen Stories, Oct 1957) reported that “Jayne is having a life-size image of herself carved in the bottom of her swimming pool.” Everyone had a swimming pool of course, but not everyone behaved like Mansfield — or Frank Sinatra, who “moved his Palm Springs pool to the other side of his yard on a moment’s fluke” (Rona Barrett, Movie Mirror, June 1964).

When the unbridled luxury of Natalie Wood and Bob Wagner’s Beverly Hills home became a costly casualty of the Wagners’ divorce, pundits used it as yet another object lesson in the need for stars to remember that “beneath the veneer of glamor and tinsel, they are still people.” According to Movie World (“What Went Wrong?” Nov 1961), “the estimated cost of the alterations for Natalie’s bedroom and Bob’s den alone was $50,000. Her bedroom was finished with smoked mirrors, gilt walls, Louis Quatorze furniture in green antique velvet. Her huge dressing room has a sunken Roman tub with statuary swans spouting water. Yes, Natalie played the glamor image all the way. Could it be that she was too busy being a star to be a wife?”

According to Wood’s extensively documented biography (Suzanne Finstad, Natalie, 2020), what really went wrong with the marriage was that Wood caught Wagner in bed with his butler. But of course the fan magazines didn’t know — and wouldn’t have reported such a story even if they did.

Exotic locales. Residences in exotic locations were always worthy of note: “Like a queen Liz Taylor arrived in Italy, with one husband, three children, six pets, a chauffeur, cook, personal physician and luggage by the score. Like royalty she was soon ensconced in a 14-room villa on the Appian Way” (“Liz Taylor’s Private Life in Itally,” Motion Picture, Jan 1962). Not to be outdone, Burt Lancaster’s “shack” in Palermo, Italy, was even “better than Liz’ pad in Rome. He has eight drawing rooms, five kitchens and a score of bedrooms” (Hedda Hopper, Photoplay, Sep 1962). Walter Winchell reported that “the newest of the upper-set’s hideaways is Sardinia’s Emerald Coast on the Mediterranean. Aga Khan has built a hotel there for his royal friends and the movie elite. So have Ingrid Bergman and David Niven” (Photoplay, Feb 1963). And few places could match director John Huston’s “moated castle” in Galway, Ireland, which as visitor Mike Connolly described, was “heavy with his priceless collection of pre-Colombian art and his ‘Moulin Rouge’ paintings by Toulouse-Lautrec” (Screen Stories, Nov 1964).

Gifts. Tokens of love offered perhaps the ultimate arena for stars’ conspicuous — and highly competitive — consumption. Jewels, of course were popular: “Zsa Zsa Gabor’s new husband gifted her with a thirty-nine carat blue-white diamond which sister Eva says, ‘makes Liz Taylor’s look like a chip’” (Hedda Hopper, Photoplay, March 1963). For their anniversary, Maverick actor Jack Kelly gave his wife a diamond bracelet; “she discovered it around the neck of her toy poodle, which is just the size of Mrs. K’s wrist” (Sheilah Graham, Silver Screen, June 1962). Flipping that scenario and seeking to one-up a rival, actor Trax Colton bought a diamond choker to match the expensive tiara presented to Diane McBain by another suitor — but gave the choker for McBain’s poodle to wear (“Hollywood Take 5,” Hollywood Screen Parade, Dec 1961). In addition to gifting Dorothy Provine with “a few little jewels,” Frank Sinatra showered her with “more stuffed animals than FAO Schwartz” as well as “a complete miniature orchestra which runs by electricity and actually plays tunes” (Modern Screen, Jan 1962).

Sinatra wasn’t the only suitor who got creative with his gifts. As a wedding present Janet Leigh gave Tony Curtis’ successor, Bob Brandt, “a completely equipped gymnasium in the basement of their house” (Fred D. Brown, Movieland and TV Time, April 1963). Roger Smith’s sports-themed gift to Ann-Margret was “an electric golf cart covered with gold leaf” (Hedda Hopper, Photoplay, April 1966). And Richard Johnson, seeking to prove his love for young Geraldine Chaplin, gifted her with “a four-foot long python!” (Sheilah Graham, Motion Picture, Jan 1965).

Photo credits, clockwise from upper left: Photoplay, March 1957; Movie Mirror Yearbook No. 3, 1961; Screen Album, May-July 1956; Screen Album, May-July, 1960; Motion Picture, Jan 1962.