By Peter Tonguette
In the present environment, Hollywood seems to undertake remakes in a fairly frivolous manner. As long as a studio or streamer controls the intellectual property of a project, a remake can be considered — even if the film being remade is undistinguished, was an outright bomb, or has recently been remade or rebooted. The profusion of remakes in the present environment, however, risks obscuring the fact that numerous films have been remade with care and a clear rationale — sometimes multiple times.
“A Star Is Born” is something of a best-in-class example of how a strong property can stand up to multiple remakes that span generations. The film can date its origins to a project that bore another title: George Cukor’s 1932 film “What Price Hollywood?” starring Constance Bennett as Brown Derby waitress (and, in her own mind, future actress) Mary Evans, who makes her way to Hollywood in the company of a fast-declining director, Max Carey (Lowell Sherman). Under the title “A Star Is Born,” the story has been told, with adjustments and refinements, no fewer than four times, each with a different actress playing the equivalent of the Bennett part: in 1937 with Janet Gaynor; in 1954 with Judy Garland; in 1976 with Barbra Streisand; and in 2018 with Lady Gaga. That each film has its defenders — indeed, that each speaks to the particular epoch in which it was made — reflects the resiliency of the basic material.
Film scholar and journalist Robert Hofler evokes the rich history of “A Star Is Born” (and “What Price Hollywood?”) in his deeply researched, jauntily written new book that drags only in its mouthful of a subtitle: “A Star is Reborn: Gaynor & Garland & Streisand & Gaga — The Most Filmed Hollywood Story of Love Found and Lost.” In the introduction, Hofler describes the real-life Tinseltown couple who provided fodder for Adela Rogers St. Johns, who proceeded to sketch the story for “What Price Hollywood?” “It was the silent film star Colleen Moore and her turbulent seven-year marriage to John McCormick that established the prototype of the successful older man who falls in love with a younger woman and single-handedly turns her into a movie star, only to see his own fame and power plummet just as hers ascends with inverse alacrity,” writes Hofler, whose command of Hollywood history (and scandal) is comprehensively impressive.
Further feeding into the backstory of the “Star Is Born” series was the marriage of future star Barbara Stanwyck and her first beau, erstwhile star Frank Fay, whose union had decided echoes of that of Moore and McCormick. “Both women were stars, and both men were enormously successful until alcoholism upended their respective careers,” Hofler writes of the couples that helped inspire “What Price Hollywood?” and “A Star Is Born.” “The central fact of ‘What Price Hollywood?’ and the four films titled ‘A Star Is Born’ is that both McCormick and Fay played their parts, and Hollywood’s screenwriters were there to turn those two husbands’ influence, major or minor, into an alternate celluloid legend that reeked of the truth.”
‘A Star is Born’ may be the best movie title ever.
For dedicated cinephiles, Hofler’s history of the nearly 100-year-old “What Price Hollywood?” is filled with insights, including the screenplay’s felicitous reordering of the facts of the Moore-McCormick marriage “to avoid a lawsuit or, more important, damage the actress’s friendship with Rogers St. Johns.” “Most significant, the young Brown Derby waitress named Mary Evans, who is discovered by the film director Max Carey, is not the man she loves and marries in ‘What Price Hollywood?’” Hofler writes, pointing to a secondary plot in which Mary becomes entangled with a polo player, Lonny Borden (Neil Hamilton).
Beyond a doubt, though, the book gets going when Hofler turns to the quartet of films known as “A Star Is Born.” The first, though distinct from “What Price Hollywood?”, undeniably repurposed elements from that earlier scenario. Director William Wellman and co-screenwriter Robert Carson “excised the polo-playing husband character from ‘What Price Hollywood?’ and, instead, had the female character fall in love with the alcoholic film director, whom they turned into a major movie star.” In those roles were cast Janet Gaynor as Esther Blodgett, the acting aspirant later rechristened Vicki Lester, and Fredric March as Norman Maine, Esther’s drunkard discoverer. That said, David O. Selznick, producer of both productions, declined to use the provisional title “It Happened In Hollywood” because it resembled “What Price Hollywood?” Instead, “A Star Is Born” was chosen, and as far as Hofler is concerned, it has endured through its many iterations for good reason.
“‘A Star Is Born’ may be the best movie title ever, one that has the advantage of being not only original to the movies but also a complete sentence,” he writes. “The title offers a strong beginning (someone who is talented but unknown). It suggests a strong second act (someone becomes a big success). Best of all, the ending is completely up in the air (what happens to this person?).”
Some seventeen years later, the title — and, of course, the story — proved the perfect inducement to rouse Judy Garland to return to the movies. Her third husband, Sidney Luft, wrested the rights from Selznick to set up the picture, now reconceived as a musical vehicle for Garland, at Warner Bros. “How Sid went about it is one of the reasons I fell in love with him,” Garland said. George Cukor, who had directed “What Price Hollywood?”, was given the directorial reins, but he viewed it as more than a simple retread. “There has to be some compelling reason for making a picture all over again, such as the addition of songs in the case of ‘A Star Is Born,’” Cukor said. Harold Arlen and Ira Gershwin were charged with coming up with the songs, and playwright Moss Hart was tasked with revamping the dialogue. “The attitude of the original was more naïve because it was made in the days when there was a more wide-eyed feeling about the movies,” said Hart, whose script certainly contributed oodles of cynicism.
Although Garland was the centerpiece of the film, Luft, Cukor, and studio boss Jack Warner cycled through numerous names to play Norman Maine. Warner judged Humphrey Bogart to be too drastically different from his co-star; for Warner, Luft reported, “the contrast facially between this young, pretty girl and this older, withered-up man was just too much.” Cary Grant was “mildly curious at best,” but after a reading at Cukor’s house, the director told the star, “This is the part you were born to play.” But Grant hemmed and hawed. “Playing a drunk, out-of-work movie star in a musical where Judy Garland got to sing all the songs did not exactly fit his honed and hard-won image,” writes Hofler, noting that Grant requested a salary of $300,000 and 10 percent of the gross — an offer rejected by Warner — before taking himself out of the running altogether. Finally, James Mason was bequeathed the role and took command of its interpretation, to Cukor’s persistent dissatisfaction. “I fancied that the Norman Mayne [sic] whom Cukor had in mind had all the colours of John Barrymore, whereas I was putting together an actor who resembled much more closely some of my own drunken friends,” Mason wrote in his memoir. In the fullness of time, we can see that the actor’s judgment was superior to the director’s.
Hofler ably retells stories of the protracted, ungovernably expensive production of the 1954 version of “A Star Is Born,” the delays in which are attributed both to Cukor (who, according to Moss Hart, “directed just the way he tells stories, passing the point or not making the point of some scenes”) and to Garland, whose unreliable presence on set is captured in one of countless memos to Jack Warner: “Late last night, Mr. Luft informed that that [sic] Miss Garland would be unable to come to work today, Saturday, to continue in the Malibu home. This information was received too late to cancel any of the crew that had been called.”
Post-production was a chore even without the diffuse storytelling style of Cukor or the hit-and-miss professionalism of Garland. Cukor judged the rough cut ungainly (“Neither the human mind nor the human ass can stand three and a half hours of concentration,” Cukor wrote to Hart), but later was offended by how radically it had been winnowed down. (“I won’t go into detail about how heavy a hand [Warner] used in his depredations — how inept and insensitive — because you might rupture another disc,” Cukor later wrote to Hart.) And the scissors were reached for again, even after the film premiered: as it wended its way around the country, Warner decreed 27 minutes shorn from what had been a 182-minute picture. “We did too much of everything,” Luft said. “Too much movie and too much music. It was good too much.”
Hofler is the author of the 2023 book “The Way They Were,” about the making of the Robert Redford-Barbra Streisand politics-tinged romance “The Way We Were” (1974), and just as Streisand was his most memorable character in that book, she reemerges here with force. In concert with her then-lover and producing partner Jon Peters, Streisand sought to set up her own version of “A Star Is Born.” “The women in the previous films were more passive,” Streisand said. “I wanted my character not to be afraid to say exactly what she thinks and challenge the men.” Fair enough, but Peters’ influence remained — and was too much for talented director Jerry Schatzberg (“The Panic In Needle Park”), who had climbed aboard the project after Warren Beatty, Peter Bogdanovich, and Mike Nichols had demurred. “She was a woman in love,” Schatzberg said of the Streisand-Peters dynamic. “He would come up with something, and she would say, ‘I think that’s a great idea,’ and she’d come back to me.” Eventually, Schatzberg made way for Frank Pierson, but Pierson had to work according to Streisand’s terms. Because her company was making the film and she therefore had a financial stake in its making, Streisand told Pierson, “I’m going to be involved in every decision. You can have the credit, but we basically have to co-direct.” Peters added, in a memorable quotation: “You and Barbra make the picture. I’m here to expedite. You need somethin’, I’ll kick ass to get it.”
Streisand’s involvement did not cease in the editing room, where legendary picture editor Peter Zinner, ACE, was ostensibly in charge but “subject to Streisand’s approval and dictates,” Hofler writes. Pierson “held the right to first cut,” but Streisand retained the more meaningful final cut — and she used various means to achieve it. According to Hofler, Streisand retained “lesser, uncredited editors who worked around the clock” and set up a “state-of-the-art editing studio at her Malibu ranch.” Those in Streisand’s social sphere weighed in with editorial advice, but Streisand herself exerted the most influence, especially when it came to her own performance. “She felt some of the sequences were too heavy with [Kris] Kristofferson,” Zinner said, referring to Streisand’s co-star. “I would say that she made major changes, not so much with the storyline, but as far as the characters were concerned. Her character became much more pertinent.” In the end, Streisand actually sought credits in the editing and wardrobe departments until the intervention of her agent, Sue Mengers, who told her, quite reasonably, “You can’t do a thing like that in Hollywood. There are unions. You’ll have an ugly fight on your hands, and you’ll be the laughingstock of the town!” But even if Streisand had successfully fought for such credits, she would likely have been a laughingstock only within the business, not among the ticket-buying public; this Streisand-centric version of “A Star Is Born” was a massive hit.
“A Star is Reborn” concludes with the making of the most recent remake, which Bradley Cooper took over — as director, cowriter, and star —and which had, at various junctures, been contemplated by the likes of Mike Nichols, Carl Franklin, Oliver Stone, and Clint Eastwood. While Hofler’s account of the 2018 film is definitive, this material is slightly less engaging because the film is so recent in our collective cultural memory. However, an anonymous source captures something of the evolution (and excitement) of Cooper’s film, which costarred Lady Gaga in the Gaynor/Garland/ Streisand part: “You know when you have a first-time director who is also a first-time screenwriter that there are going to be a lot of changes when he’s sitting behind the camera monitor.” Even so, one thing that has remained unchanging for close to a century is Hollywood’s compulsion to tell the story of “A Star Is Born” again and again — and likely again.
“Movie aficionados may have to wait the usual 20 years, or even 40, before another version of the show business legend is made,” Hofler concludes. “Theatergoers are luckier. Warner Theatricals, a subsidiary of the fabled movie studio founded by four Jewish émigré brothers in 1923, is at work on a ‘Star Is Born’ musical for the Broadway stage. A great star is always reborn.”
