THE DARK SIDE OF JOAN DAVIS

I found this great article online from The Life And Times Of Hollywood blog. I do not believe they are publishing new articles anymore, but this is an interesting story...

Joan Davis was a comedienne that was in vaudeville, radio, film and television. She never achieved the success of fellow Comic actresses such as Lucille Ball, Ann Sothern or even Eve Arden. Her television show and one great Abbott & Costello film (Hold That Ghost) are what she is primarily remembered for today, however she had a much more extensive career.

Davis appeared in vaudeville with her then husband Sy Wills ( their act was much like Burns & Allen), did shorts then films, lots of radio even nightclubs. On her second attempt for a tv series, she tried to duplicate Lucille Ball’s success with I Married Joan which staggered for three years(1952-1955).

When I talked to those who worked with her including her television husband Jim Backus, her TV director John Rich, actor/ producer Sheldon Leonard, actress Hope Summers, actor Hal Smith ( Otis the drunk on Andy Griffith), actress Sandra Gould and others- one clear word was heard from all- asshole.

John Rich, whose extensive career as a legendary tv director for everything including the Dick Van Dyke Show, All in the Family and even as the owner/producer of McGyver( with Henry Winkler) detested Joan. John was young and caught what he though was a lucky break to become the primary director of the second year of I Married Joan.

“She was a bitch on wheels. An insecure diva. A drinker. One year with her and I couldn’t wait to get away. She had the aspirations of being Lucy but did not have that fundamental talent, ” Rich told us. ” She was an absolute nightmare. She was cruel to the crew and every actor- she even demanded that her own untalented daughter, was cast as her f**cking sister, for christsakes…”

The dislike between actor Jim Backus( later Thurston Howell III on Gilligans Island) made the unhappy relationship between Vivian Vance and William Frawley seem like a love affair. Backus absolutely detested Joan and the way she berated the crew and fellow actors. He told us that she even picked on the elderly Bernard Gorcey (Louie Dumbrowski of the Bowery Boys). We later talked to Sandra Gould (second Gladys Kravitz of Bewitched), Hope Summers (Clara on Griffith Show) and Hal Smith ( Otis the drunk) who confirmed her abuse of fellow actors).

When Backus’ contract was up in the third year, he ran for cover. Backus told us that she aspired to be Lucy although he said she was not disciplined. He also said that she tried to push the career of her daughter, Beverly Wills, who played her daughter. Backus claimed that her daughter- who looked like Joan and wanted to be a clone of her mother- was deeply troubled and often drank on the set.

Wills later tragically burned to death in her late mother’s Palm Springs home when falling asleep smoking a cigarette at the age of 30 in 1963 Her two young sons and grandmother ( Joan Davis’ mother) also died in the fire.

Backus and Davis had zero chemistry. on “I Married Joan” It was due to the fact that Davis and Backus HATED each other and it showed on screen.

Backus told us stories of Davis once slapping a little boy at a restaurant only because the child asked for an autograph and that she sued a beauty salon in Hawaii when in a fit of rage she knocked over a bottle of bleach.

Backus later wrote about Davis that “her psyche, if indeed she had one, was as dark and uncharted as the wide sargasso sea.”

According to the great producer, Paul Henning who created The Beverly Hillbillies, Green Acres, Petticoat Junction and wrote Burns and Allen- who had an early job writing the Rudy Vallee radio show had known Joan who appeared on Vallee’s show. He claimed that Joan and Eddie Cantor had a longtime affair in the 1940s. They had co-starred in two features, Show Business (1944) and If You Knew Susie (1948).

After I Married Joan, Davis attempted another pilot with her daughter that was never bought. She had ownership of I Married Joan which had become a juggernaut in syndication. With the dearth of other shows in syndication, stations had no choice to buy and repeat the series. Having become wealthy, Davis retired to a beautiful home in Palm Springs but died of a heart attack at the yong age of 53 in 1961, soon followed by her daughter, grandkids and her mother....

SOURCE

GUEST REVIEW: IF YOU KNEW SUSIE

This time around we are printing the review of Eddie Cantor's last feature film If You Knew Susie (1948). I don't have the author's name, but the review is well written and his blog link is below the story...


Today is the anniversary of the release date of the Eddie Cantor comedy If You Knew Susie (1948). This movie is interesting for several reasons. For one, it’s Cantor’s last starring role. While still as popular as ever on radio, his film career had been grinding to a halt for over a decade. The sparkling, fast-paced, Goldwyn/ Busby Berkley musicals of the early 30s were far behind him now. He was already having difficulty solving his film career when World War 2 came along to interrupt things still further.

By 1948, Cantor was 56 years old, and he needed a different character from the fast-talking, brash but timid New York street kid. These were years of reinvention for him. The Cantor of If You Knew Susie was the one Americans knew from his late radio and tv work, a post-war presence not unlike so many others, a middle class, middle aged family man not worlds away from Bing Crosby, Perry Como or Danny Thomas.

Thus, though the title of If You Knew Susie is cribbed by one of Cantor’s most popular, iconic hits of the 1920s, it doesn’t evoke the spirit of that era at all. It merely has that name because it’s the name of the character played by his co-star Joan Davis. Fellow radio star Davis had also co-starred with Cantor in his previous film Show Business (1944), and the two were said to be having a long term affair (so much for the family man!) In Susie, the couple play a pair of retired vaudevillians who move to a small Connecticut town where every one shuns them for being showfolk. Then they just happen to stumble on a latter from George Washington that seems to indicate that he knew Eddie’s ancestor — and owed him money. In the world of the film, this ingratiates him with the locals whose families have all lived there since Colonial times. And truly, this is a FASCINATING bellwether of the tenor of the post-war period. On the one hand, there is an obvious eye-winking joke about Cantor’s Jewish identity: Washington BORROWED MONEY from him? Really? On the other hand, his Jewish identity is buried. His last name is Parker, and as far as the film is concerned he’s as white bread as everyone else. This kind of conformity was the spirit of the age, a definite leap backward from the expansiveness of the 20s and 30s. Even the fact that the Parkers have put show business behind them, and are seeking to ingratiate themselves with the establishment hierarchy. Is the movie funny? Mildly. But mostly you just want the two characters to tell their neighbors to go to hell...

REVIEWER RATING: NOT GIVEN

MY RATING: 6 OUT OF 10

SOURCE

JOAN DAVIS: FUNNY AND TRAGIC

Joan Davis was one of those rubber faced comedians of the 1930s and 1940s, that highlighted any film she was in. Many comedians led tragic lives, but Davis' life was relatively happy. The sad tragedy happened after Joan Davis died at a young age.

Born Madonna Josephine Davis in St. Paul, Minnesota, on June 29, 1907, zany comedienne Joan Davis began her show business career in vaudeville as a child. In the summer of 1931, Davis married vaudeville veteran straight man Si Wills, with whom she had become a comedy act; two years later their daughter Beverly was born. By the mid 1930s, Davis made her way to California in an attempt to break into films. She was almost immediately successful, securing a role in the Mack Sennett short Way Up Thar in 1935. Upon the release of the short in 1935, RKO signed Davis to a contract, but Davis and RKO parted ways soon after. In 1937, 20th Century-Fox put her under contract with much greater success.

As Davis' success grew, her marriage faltered. The couple parted ways in 1947. There were also reports that Davis was having an affair with vaudville comedian and singer Eddie Cantor. Cantor and Davis made two movies together - "Show Business" (1944) and "If You Knew Susie" (1948). Davis continued making movies through 1952, when her final film Harem Girl was released.

Leaving movies for television, Davis started her own production company, which produced Davis's NBC comedy I Married Joan from 1952 through 1955. Somewhat surprising is that she hired ex-husband Si Wills to write for the series. Davis also cast her daughter Beverly Wills in the role of Joan's younger sister. After I Married Joan left the air in 1955, Davis more or less retired.

Unknown to audiences the retirement was brought on by a growing heart problem. On May 22, 1961, Davis suffered a heart attack and died in Palm Springs at the age of 53. Her daughter and ex-husband made headlines after her death, wrangling over the million-dollar estate of Joan Davis, which was eventually settled in favor of her daughter. Tragically, on October 24, 1963, Davis's daughter Beverly Wills fell asleep smoking a cigarette; her Palm Springs home caught fire, killing her, her two sons, and Davis's mother. It was a tragic post script to an entertainer that delighted audiences in nearly every medium of entertainment...