john houseman - the man behind the man

[jaime marzol]

from the other thread that was locked before it could be resurrected.

harvey, i didn't say houseman was a failure, this is what i said:
--houseman, who had an undynamic carreer compared to what he could have had had he worked better with welles--

after welles, houseman was a regular studio producer, of which there were many.

had houseman been able to put up with welles because welles was no day at the beach, and had houseman not been trying to romance welles, imagine where that ship could have sailed. the volcano would have exploded instead of imploded. both men would have been better of with each other than wthout. It's obvious from reading the books that welles had very little patience, and houseman was very effective as the buffer between welles and the money guys.

imagine if houseman would have been with welles instead of jack moss when they sodomised the ambersons. it would have been a different story.

i don't think houseman was a huge success, he was no selznik, he was no zanuk, he was no speigel. he wrote one movie, he directed one movie, produced a bunch of forgetable movies, and 4 good movies, not great, good. had it not been for houseman's association with welles and KANE, i don't think too many oeople would be talking about him today.

i never meant to give the impression that i thought houseman was a failure, he certainly had a more comfortable life than welles, but so did all the undynamic studio guys that lived driving distance from the studios.

[jaime marzol]

IMHO, i think everything houseman did after the mercury theater, campbel radio show, and KANE was a step down.

[L French]

So there are only four Houseman produced films that are worth looking at? I disagree completely.

Obviously, from Houseman's own point of view -- and the only aspect that would seem to matter to Hollywood, both then and now -- namely, box-office and the critical acclaim -- Mr. Houseman was always a major producer. In fact, he was far more successful as a producer at MGM and RKO than he ever was with Welles at the Mercury Theater. And despite the fact he had a very public falling out with Welles, this does not deny the fact that on his own Houseman was a producer of extraordinary talent, as a mere look as his credits will attest to:

They Live By Night, The Blue Dahlia, Letter From An Unknown Woman, Julius Caesar, Lust For Life, On Dangerous Ground, The Bad and The Beautiful, Moonfleet, The Cobweb, Two Weeks In Another Town...

And these are just a few of the films Houseman produced. He also had a very substantial career as a director on the stage... Galieo, King Lear, Merchant of Venice, etc. So while I don't agree with Houseman's bad-mouthing of Welles over his contributions to the Citizen Kane script, I do think he was a very good producer... he even tried to hire Bernard Herrmann for Julius Caesar (but was turned down by MGM) but did manage to get the very difficult Herrmann to score On Dangerous Ground at RKO, which on it's own is worth quite a lot, I think.

[jaime marzol]

hands down houseman tickled the box office much more than welles. welles had the miserable life of an outsider making films that he got kicked around for and were appreciated only after his death. houseman made money, and lived well.

this is just my opinion, i'm not trying to nazi any one into thinking like me:

They Live By Night - i love nick ray, and this is a good movie not a great one, and you can't pin tis on houseman.

The Blue Dahlia - a decent noir, but it's no OUT OF THE PAST, and you can't blame houseman for that.

Letter From An Unknown Woman - never saw it

Julius Caesar - loved brando's performance, but the mank brother is not one of my fave directors. this movie has cardboard sets, and the acting does nothing to fuse the sets into the story. look at THE MAN WHO SHOT LIBERTY VALANCE, it's such a great story and the acting is so great that you don't even care about the cardboard sets. and you can't blame that on houseman, he was just the producer.

Lust For Life - hard to sit through - and can't blame houseman for that

On Dangerous Ground - an ok film, and it's not houseman's fault

The Bad and The Beautiful - darn good, and how much credit does houseman get?

Two Weeks In Another Town - loved it.

i never said he's a bum, he just worked on a lot of stuff that you can't credit him for, or blame him for, so how do we judge him?

after making radio history, stage history, and film history with welles, he became just another guy in a bow tie. no college film classes make you study houseman. last time i looked the only books available on houseman were written by houseman. no one so far has wanted to spend 4 years writing a book about him. his only area of interest is the time he spent with welles, and he has recorded that quite well.

these are my thoughts on houseman, but as always, contact with intellegent people can shape opinions. maybe this thread will get me to re-evaluate houseman's contribution to the world, if we can figure out how to judge what he did!

[Orson&Jazz]

I find it kind of odd that there isn't as much discussion regarding Welles' radio work. This part of his life is amazing.


And I agree with the fact that Houseman and Welles were a formidable team in creating the most memorable radio and theatre shows. The Mercury Theatre, The Campbell Playhouse, Voodoo Macbeth, Julius Caeser, Cradle Will Rock, all from Welles and Houseman. These were groundbreaking shows. They were innovative. They were able to produce shows that were so much different from the mainstream.


Even though they had some what of a tumultuous relationship, they created masterpieces. It sort of proves the saying, not verbatim of course, "one must truly suffer to write.", something along those lines any way. They were able to shine even though they were butting heads. I have a feeling that some of the best scripts came out when they were at odds with each other!


And thank you Jaime for the image of Houseman trying to romance Welles. That was fantastic! I find it amusing that Houseman portrayed Welles as a petulant spoiled child, while Welles portrayed Houseman as a clingy and annoying closet homosexual.

[jaime marzol]

in the lilly collection there is a letter from houseman to welles - 'you big poopy head, you changed your number and didn't give me the new number.'

untill that 'poopy head' letter, i had some doubts about houseman romancing welles.

and yes, they did some great stuff, they made history in every medium they touched.

[Orson&Jazz]

Poopy-head?

That is too much!

For some reason I can just hear Orson groan and roll his eyes while reading that.

[GM]

But then, I remember years ago seeing a Houseman special on the Bravo cable channel (back in the days when Bravo was dedicated to genuine fine arts programming rather then "Queer Eye For the Straight Guy" and "Celebrity Poker"), in which they showed a note Welles had scribbled to Houseman during their partnership. The note was a drawing showing two hearts connected with a single arrow.

The point being that, what we think we know about Welles's own sexuality in our "fanboyish enthusiasms" is not necessarily what we do know about him-


Old tierranet thread

[jaime marzol]

why in the world would houseman show the drawing of 2 hearts? was he trying to prove he and welles were lovers? doesn't sound like a very smart thing to do. only thing hollywood hates more than maverick homosexuals is 2 old queens. if the bravo show you refer to that has houseman showing the 2 hearts, is the south bank show, i have that show, and there is no note with 2 hearts.

the whole thing sounds pretty pathetic if you try to visualize it, decrepit old houseman showing love notes from welles? it just doesn't jive. i don't believe you.

far as i know, no one has gone on record saying he fired welles, or threw flaming dish warmers at welles because of welles' homosexual advances. though it happened to houseman.

the point of this thread was that welles wanted nothing to do with houseman, and both men suffered because of the separation. and though i didn't believe it at first the rumors about houseman, when i saw the 'poopy head' letter, i was swayed to believe the sordid rumors.

so welles acted with perkins in 4 movies. ford used the same guys in a bunch of movies, were they all homos also? ward bond, wayne and ford rolling in bed and skipping through wheat fields? i don't see it.

speculating on welles' sexuality without fact you will just anger a bunch of people that post here, and you might get this thread locked up.

[Harvey Chartrand]

There is no mention of a Welles-Perkins romance or indiscretion in Charles Winecoff's revealing (and rather explicit) bio SPLIT IMAGE: THE LIFE OF ANTHONY PERKINS. Sure, Perkins worked with Welles four times, although they had no scenes together in IS PARIS BURNING? But this is no big deal. Perkins and Welles both traveled in the same circles back then - two expatriate actors in Europe.
Although it is not mentioned in the book, Perkins would likely not have been physically attracted to Welles. Tony liked 'em young and slim and needy. Welles was 17 years older than Perkins, fat and very much his own man.
I recommend Winecoff's book unreservedly. It is a hell of a page-turner. It's sad to discover how Perkins was conned into thinking he could change teams and become a hetero by the New York psychiatrists who wrote HOW TO BE YOUR OWN BEST FRIEND. Perkins married the late Berry Berenson (an actress/photographer) and they had two sons. However, after the marriage, Perkins continued to haunt gay bars, pursue young men (including rough trade) and load up on gay porn, always denying his gayness and claiming he was now a happily married family man.

[etimh]

Does anyone else notice a very creepy homophobic undercurrent to these conversations about sexuality in regards to Welles? I'm not just referring to the lazy use of tired stereotypes and offensive slang in some of the posts (c'mon, everyone here should know better), but also to a more general air of heterocentric panic and defensiveness that seems to boil up when speculating on or about Welles' "true" desiring sexuality.

From whatever collection of historical artifacts and personal accounts, I’m sure we can make some relatively educated speculations about Welles' and Houseman's sexual lives and the very complicated relationship they shared. But as I’m sure most of us are aware, human sexuality is a notoriously difficult "thing" to account for--I mean historically, institutionally, psychologically, even biologically--because of various pressures, both public and private, enacted in dominant ideological society. Consider also some of the most recent theorizing about human sexual desire (ideas which complicate the old binary model of hetero/homo in favor of more fluid sexualities) and the ability to pin down people’s most interior and personal desires becomes difficult indeed. My point here is that regardless of the “evidence” accumulated on any side of this issue, we must acknowledge that the only persona we are able to construct for these guys may be far from the reality of their true selves.

So recognizing the obvious problems in ever really getting to the bottom (or top) of this question of whether our man Orson was gay or not (it really is SO boring, after all) why not examine the far more troubling fact of our own unacknowledged prejudice and bigotry as it manifests on this board. Now, of course, I am aware of the extremely varied factors that contribute to the indoctrination of homophobic attitudes in so many people. Twisted religious morality, battles over political capital, and straight out ignorance all have their hand in this process. But in the context of this board, something additional seems to be occurring. Within the generalized defensiveness about Welles and his character that dominates this entire community, the staunch guard against any questioning of his sexual orientation is the most anxious and determined. It seems like there is this almost desperate attempt to secure and protect Welles’ assumed heterosexuality as a matter of fact. This not only serves to deter the emasculating threat that such a revelation would be to the heroic fiction of the man himself, but also serves to maintain the wider ideology of dominant masculine privilege that the Welles’ myth plays into so effectively. Whether you support this kind of ideological hegemony through acknowledged consent or ignorant complacency, all it does is contribute to a further trivialization of the real critical relevancy of examining Welles’ life. And implicating him in the context of such a reactionary political philosophy denigrates not only the privacy and memory of the real man, but also the best and most appreciated parts of his spirit as artist, rebel, and provocateur. In his heart of hearts, Welles may have been clear in his heterosexual identification. But to adopt some contemporary political parlance, he was clearly “culturally queer,” openly sympathetic to the progressive ideals, politics, and communities that this identification today implies.

In the end, really, who cares if he was straight, gay, bisexual, or whatever? We can only hope that he was getting some from somebody on a regular basis. And on that account, I will give my historical imagination the benefit of the doubt and assume that he did, indeed, get his fair share.

Tim

[jaime marzol]

i never really gave his or houseman's sexuality much thought. it's the work they did that i'm interested in. i've always known that welles hated houseman even before they seperated. then years later i hear rumors about houseman, then a few years later that poopy head letter. it's all amusing but it means nothing.

i'm not trying to secure welles' hetro sexuality, i do have a hard time hearing BS like welles and perkins were in 4 movies together so they were an item. it's that inquirer mentality. harvey pretty much deflated that. and i have a hard time picturing old houseman on tv showing love notes from welles.
sound ridicolous.

citizen kane and chimes, and touch of evil and everything else he did is great regardles of his sexual preference. but it is funny picturing welles throwing dishwarmer at houseman.

[jaime marzol]

my fave response from welles is when he's asked if he really threw dishwarmers at houseman. welles said, "no, i didn't throw dishwarmers AT him, i threw them in his direction."

[Tony]

I always considered Welles rare in that he was tolerant of gays- it didn't seem to mean too much to him at all, though the theatre community has always been this way. If Welles had had an affair, someone would have talked about it- but in 90 years, nothing has ever even been suggested. He was, however, interested in human sexuality, although he had the old fashioned aversion to showing it onscreen- that is, until the 60's/ 70's cultural/sexual revolution in the west, the loosening up of censorship, and Oja Kodar. Welles joked that Bogdanovich had made his own "porn' movie" (The Last Picture Show"), and that now Welles would make his own. And Oja has said how she influenced him to be more open about depicting sexuality in his films. Unfortunately, he only had one opportunity- "The Other Side of the Wind" which attacks the myth of the macho man- which Welles always said he hated, i.e. the "Hemingway syndrome"; but TOSOTW contains only allusions to Hanneford's repressed homosexuality, and how the repression of that sexuality has warped Hanneford's personality, whereas it contains an explicit sexual scene between Oja' character and Bob Random's character. And in the Big Brass Ring, Blake Pellarin is not gay, but has been loved by Kim Menaker (Orson's character) his former teacher, for years. It's a political thriller, but with strong sexuality involved. But neither of this films falls into what one could categorize as expressions of Welles' gay sexuality. I think a better argument might be the twinning of male characters in so many of Welles' films:Kane/Leland, Eugene Morgan/ Georgie Minafer, Kindler/Wilson, Michael O'Hara/ Arthur Bannister, Othello/Iago, Arkadin/Guy Van Stratten, Quinlan/Vargas, Quixote/Sancho, Humphrey Baxter/Allan Brody, Joesph K/ Hastler, Falstaff/Prince Hal, and Clay/Levinsky.

If we analyze these relationships, we can see the obsession for Welles was not sexuality, but power relations between men, often with a woman invovled in some way:

1. Leland, Kane's best friend, is dissapponted by Kane, and finally disloyal; it's Leland who says that all Charlie ever wanted was love. but it's Leland who knew Emily, Kane's first wife, first: he went to dancing school with her, and tells Thompson " She was a little nicer than all the other girls." There might be an element of jealousy here, with revenge in the form of the bad review (even though it was to have been honest) and disloyalty, by requesting to go to Chicago.

2. Georgie wants to destroy the relationship between his mother and Morgan because of jealousy: he ends up destroying his mother.

3. Wilson is out to destroy Kindler: he does so through Kindler's wife.

4. Bannister wants to destroy O'hara for having an affair with his wife; his wife wants to destroy him: they end up destroying eachother; this is a Welles anomolay, as his character is relatively benign, and escapes from death in the end.

5. Iago wants to destroy Othello, probably for reasons of professional and sexual jealously; he does so by planting the idea of Desdemona's being disloyal in Othello's mind, but ends up destroying all three of them.

6. Arkadin wants to destroy Van Stratten because of jealousy over his daughter: he destroys himself, but is successful in parting his daughter from Van Stratten.

7. Vargas must destroy Quinlan because of Quinla's illegal tactics; Quinlan must protect himself by trying to destroy Vargas, and try to do this through Vargas's wife; however, a criminal murdered Quinlan's wife years before, and there's an element of jealously in Quinla's motivations. In the end, Quinlan loses.

8. Baxter must destroy the relationship between Brody and Carolyn; through devious means, he does, and wins her back. A lighthearted verion of the usual theme, for television. Welles calls this a story of the "eternal triangle- between one woman and two men."

9. Quixote/Sancho: Perhaps the most optimistic and loyal of all relationships netween men in Welles's work: Even though the Don drives Sancho crazy, and is truly crazy, Sancho never leaves the Don- he is eternally loyal- perhaps Welles' favourite story- and the woman is only one of fantasy.

10. Joseph K/Hastler: This one doesn't quite fit: Hastler merely represents the state in human form, and it's the state which is trying to destroy Mr. K; K fights and loses: the various women he meets along the way are only different reptresentations of the state, as are all the men: K's crime might be just not understanding what everyone else does, and playing the game.

11. Falstaff: In order to gain power, Prince Hal must destroy his spiritual father, and be loyal to his real father, who represents power and wealth in the form of the king. There are only incidental women in this one.

12. The Immortal Story: Clay tries to achieve some kind of power in the form of immortality by forcing a myth to be true; Levinsky is loyal, and warns him, but Clay destroys himself: this story has two younger males: Levinsky and the sailor.

13. The Other side of the Wind: Hanneford wants to prove his potency by sleeping with the girlfriends of his male stars, all the while covering up that it's the stars he is in love with: so he must always destroytthe young male stars: this time though, he fails and destroys himself.

14. In The Big Brass Ring, Menaker tries to destroy Pallarin because of sexual jelaousy, but fails and is destroyed himself.

Welles was obssessed with rrelations between males, but in terms of power and loyalty rather than sexuality; Welles seems to have been pretty regular in the latter department.

IMO

[etimh]

Hey, thanks to you guys who took the time to reply on this topic. Some get really SCARED discussing the issue...

Tony; totally agree with you about the thematic thread of male power struggles within Welles' films. This brief list that you have compiled is excellent--I'll definitely keep it as a reference.

Tim