The Year Was 1938 – August 20

NEWS AROUND HOLLYWOOD

• Tough guy Humphrey Bogart married actress Margot Methot. His third wife, her third husband. (He divorced his second wife stage actress Mary Philips on 8/11). The ceremony was scheduled for 8pm this evening in Bel Air at the home of screenwriter, Melville Baker. They will honeymoon up in Portland, OR with the bride’s parents. [The marriage date in some sources is listed as August 21, but the best I can determine is that those sources took the date of the newspaper, and did not notice that the article cited the evening of August 20 as their wedding date. Melville Baker worked at WB, and contributed to the screenplay treatment on the film with Bogey entitled ‘Men Are Such Fools.’ For 1939, Baker had a full credit on ‘Joe and Ethel Turp Call on the President’ at MGM].

• Margaret Hamilton interviews for the role of the Wicked Witch for ‘The Wizard of Oz.’  [Her audition was at an earlier date. However, the trades reported around this time that Gale Sondergaard was tapped for the role. An idea for the Wicked Witch was floated early on to copy the evil queen from Snow White. Sondergaard had played a sinster villainess in her debut film ‘Anthony Adverse,’- a film for which she won the first supporting actress oscar. ‘Adverse’ was a Mervyn LeRoy production at WB and now that he had switched to MGM with Oz on his docket, Sondergaard was thought to have the inside track for the role].  
• Lawyer Harry Weinberger arrived here today to “investigate certain angles” of the million dollar plagerism law suit brought against MGM by the widow of flyer and writer, James Collins over their film ‘Test Pilot.’ They are also attempting to bring an injunction to stop further exhibition of the film. (See July 12). [Weinberger specialized in civil liberty cases, {radical Emma Goldman was a client) and copyright law (he represented Eugene O’Neill)].
• News on the Miller – Baldey lawsuit (see 6/13/38) Mrs J A Collier, the mother of actress and dancer Ann Miller, filed a suit in answer to the one filed by Mrs Hilma Pearson Baldey, who was trying to collect agency fees claimed by her for Ann’s recent employment. Mrs Collier claims that nothing is due for two reasons – Baldey was not a licensed theatrical agent and had negated any contract when she failed to any parts for Ann for four months straight. [In the LA City Directory for 1938, Mrs Baldey and her husband Charles are listed; Charles as a salesman, residing at 1244 N Genessee, and she with Hugh A Clark as theatrical agents, working at 7402 Santa Monica Blvd. In the 1939 Directory, she is no longer listed as an agent. Hugh Clark is listed at the same home address, but he is styled as a booking agent instead].

OUTSIDE HOLLYWOOD

From his home in Kentucky, silent film director D. W. Griffith protests Sam Goldwyn’s plans to tear down old sets on the United Artists lot to make way for new. (See August 6) He registered his protest with John Abbott, curator of the Museum of Modern Art Film Library in New York, and asks that the sets, once used by himself, Mary Pickford, and Douglas Fairbanks, be added to the museum’s permanent collection. Goldwyn weighed in about the matter, saying that if the museum could work out a plan to do so, he would cooperate.