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| 1 | Gregory said a chapter in his life closed when Charles Laughton died in 1962. Paul Gregory had been fired by Joseph E. Levine of Paramount after an obscenity-laced criticism of a screenplay of "Harlow" that Paramount had sent him. Quitting Hollywood, Gregory moved to Janet Gaynor's Desert Hot Springs ranch before marrying Gaynor in 1964. Gaynor painted and Gregory raised cows, hogs and pigeons imported from Marseilles, France. Within five years, he was making $1,000 a week from their working ranch. "It was the most fun in my life," he said, "dealing with things that were grateful to get something to eat." He and Gaynor also enjoyed Desert Hot Springs for its privacy. Gaynor was widowed from MGM costume designer Adrian, who told Gaynor he had had a gay fling in the 1930s. Gaynor had been linked with her cinematic leading man, Charlie Farrell, before that, and Farrell also had been rumored to be gay. So Gaynor also fended off rumors that she was gay. "She was severely hurt by the viciousness of wagging tongues," Gregory said. "She was afraid it would hurt her son. Her son said to me, 'I heard she was a lesbian. Was she?' I said, 'It wouldn't make any difference if she were. You're born, and you're here, and you've got a life, and you've got control. The ball is in your court." Rumors of Gregory's sexual orientation followed his association with Laughton, who had a long marriage of convenience with actress Elsa Lanchester. Gregory had two more marriages after Gaynor's death, including one to the late Rancho Mirage art dealer Kay Obergfel. He also had a son out of wedlock who died as a young adult. But it was sometimes assumed Gregory's marriage to Gaynor was one of convenience. "I was very bitter about the whole damn thing," Gregory said. "My ire can be raised very quickly if someone looks at me wrong. Thanks to that dear sweet woman, I got over a lot of it.". |
| 2 | Set against the backdrop of the Depression, "The Night of the Hunter" story-scenario is one of murder and betrayal, but also -- of hope -- and good versus evil. Gregory convinced the master British thespian Charles Laughton to direct iconic American tough guy Robert Mitchum in the 1955 film, "The Night of the Hunter," which became one of the most acclaimed films of all time. The American Film Institute ranked it in two of its "100 Best" categories - for best thrills and villains. In addition to Charles Laughton, who died in 1962, Paul Gregory chose Robert Mitchum to play the larcenous Preacher. Shelley Winters was cast as the hapless wife, and Lillian Gish, the former silent screen actress, was the good-heart-ed spinster who faces down the Preacher. Character actor James Gleason played Uncle Birdie, another of the Preacher's victims. Robert Golden edited the film which was released in 1955. Stanley Cortez was cinematographer. To write the script, Paul Gregory picked James Agee (1909-1955), the former film critic for "The Nation," whose knowledge of movies was matched only by his love of the medium. Unfortunately, this bold gambit proved disappointing. Agee refused to show his manuscript to anyone until it was finished, then gave to Gregory a visual poem on the hardships of the Depression. The producer found the script-treatment un-shoot-able. The versatile Mr. Laughton hastily rewrote the script with the assistance of two brothers, Terry Sanders and Denis Sanders, who were recent graduates of UCLA. "The Night of the Hunter" feature film was financed by United Artists. Max Youngstein helped promote Paul Gregory's deal with United Artists. Max was a wonderful man. Through him Gregory met the president of the company, Arthur Krim. They had Gregory go to Chicago to talk to their money man. They -- United Artists -- were all so pleased when the film paid off for them. The film never paid off for Gregory. Charles Laughton and Paul Gregory never saw any of their profit. Producer Paul Gregory and Charles Laughton presented key members of the crew, like cinematographer Stanley Cortez, each with a one percent interest in the film. This given to them on top of their salaries and is something that is never done. Gregory and Laughton said it was not done to encourage the artists, but reward them for their artistry. This was done over the objections of United Artists. The duo didn't get anything, other than their initial little fee. Gregory and Laughton kept losing points because Gregory would not pressure Charles when he was going over schedule. Laughton was very nervous shooting the picture since it was his first time directing a feature film. Ruby Rosenberg, the production manager, would come to Gregory and say, "You know, you are six days behind." Gregory would say, "Leave Charles alone, I'll take care of it." Charles and Gregory would have their discussions. Gregory knew exactly what Laughton was trying to do. Gregory was with Laughton every single day of the shooting, though Gregory "purposely wasn't on the set because he would think I was watching, or he would take it as pressure. But I would be at his house in the evening or in the cutting room. I worked closely with Hilyard Brown, the art director, and Stanley Cortez, the cinematographer. I had my panic talks with the cinematographer Stanley 'cause he could nudge Charles along faster by making him feel comfortable that Charles had gotten the shot he wanted. It was a matter of coddling, but it was worth it." Charles rehearsed until he thought the summation of a scene was there. Then he shot it. Paul Gregory saw the dailies every night, and "it didn't seem to me that it was shot after shot. By the time we viewed the dailies, the editor Golden had put a lot of the film together. They say they have a lot of outtakes but that's because Charles kept the cameras going to get the expressions on the kids' faces that he wanted. [Billy Chapin and Sally Jane Bruce played the Preacher's stepchildren]. In the outtakes, you can hear Charles talking to the kids in the background. His voice was edited out after he got the effect he wanted." Laughton elicited remarkable performances. He shot the behind-the-scenes action on 16mm film that was recently restored and released on Blu-ray as a special feature of the "Night of the Hunter" DVD. "Watching Charles Laughton direct children, direct Bob Mitchum, direct the great Lillian Gish to craft this movie, I've never seen anything like it," Gregory said. "He was such a perfectionist, but he directed it by reaching in, (with) the actors giving to him rather than him extracting some sort of performance or intimidating or blustering." James Agee's film criticism had a gentleness and a kind of generosity of spirit. As a person? Gregory said he was very sweet, gentle, kind of like someone who was hiding. He had that quality about him. He was very nice to meet, the first time. When he came to Hollywood, he stayed at the Chateau Marmont. By th |
| 3 | But Gregory's "six fantastic years working with Charles Laughton" weren't without challenges. "Handling Charles Laughton was like handling a one-ton elephant with a glass of gin in his hand," Paul Gregory remarked during an interview. "You had to watch him like an eight-layered bear". |
| 4 | Gregory and Charles Laughton had formed a partnership years earlier after Gregory saw Laughton recite from the Book of Daniel on "The Ed Sullivan Show." Gregory went to the New York theater where Laughton was appearing and told him he'd be "throwing away a million dollars" if he didn't talk to him about doing a series of readings. Laughton listened, Gregory quit MCA and, a year later they had $200,000 worth of bookings for Laughton's readings. Their most notable reading was taken from George Bernard Shaw's 1903 play, "Man and Superman." Gregory got the idea after walking past a Tiffany's window and seeing four sparkling diamonds on black velvet. He decided to book four stage stars - Laughton, Charles Boyer, Cedric Hardwicke and Agnes Moorehead - to read just the third act of the play, featuring a philosophical dialogue between Don Juan and the devil. Shaw, at 93, didn't want to let Gregory do it, especially with Boyer, who he thought was too French to play the smooth-talking Don Juan, and Laughton, whom he resented for not fighting in World War II, playing the devil. But a promise of 5 percent of the gross got "Don Juan in Hell" a premiere in Santa Barbara and six months on Broadway. It toured the U.S. three times and ran six months in Europe. It's still frequently presented with other stars. |
| 5 | Gregory remarked: " 'The Night of the Hunter' is still shown at film schools and universities. The movie lasted because Its appeal is in its honesty, its truth. The film ensconced all of the natural fears we have as people. I don't like to use the word symphonic, but it all seemed harmonized. It had a flow of the innocence of the time -- the barren innocence." After "The Night of the Hunter," Paul Gregory produced only one other movie, "The Naked and the Dead," based upon Norman Mailer's war novel. Why did Paul Gregory leave movie making? Gregory responded: "I didn't like movies. There's so much compromise. Today, people have gotten used to it which is why there are so many so-so movies. And I didn't like the cut-throat people who make the movies. I had a man, my production designer Hilyard Brown, who built a house out of the budget for 'The Night of the Hunter.' In the theater, I dealt with more literate people, Mr. Lee Shubert. I had a wonderful group of backers. I was anxious to get out of movies and come back to my natural self. Let me say this: I went to Hollywood a gentleman and didn't want to wind up like the rest of them". |
| 6 | In December 1964, Gregory married Oscar-winning actress Janet Gaynor. In 1982, the couple, along with actress Mary Martin and her manager, were going out to dinner in San Francisco when their taxi was hit broadside. Gregory suffered extensive injuries. America's first "sweetheart" of sound and silent films, Janet Gaynor, survived until her death two years after the 1982 San Francisco car accident. Gregory's second wife, art gallery owner Kathryn Obergfel, died in Palm Springs, California, where Gregory has lived in 2012 for 48 years. Paul Gregory lives in a middle-class neighborhood in Desert Hot Springs, belying his elite position in show business history. Gregory, who turned 93 on Augugust 27, 2012, and Janet Gaynor played host at their former 100-acre ranch in Desert Hot Springs to a span of cinematic heroes Walter and Leonore Annenberg of Palm Desert would have envied - legends ranging from Greta Garbo to John Travolta and Marilyn Monroe. But Gregory, who walks with a cane but can clearly recall casting calls from 60 years ago, never really enjoyed working with actors. Ask him his favorite stars from such colleagues as Henry Fonda, Jack Lemmon, Tallulah Bankhead and Ed Harris, and he can't pick one. Laughton was his most talented actor, he said, and Mitchum, well, Gregory says he was overrated. Miracle Springs is sort of a home away from home for Gregory. He has his own table at its restaurant and is on a first-name basis with the wait staff. Gregory gave a talk there in March of 2012, sponsored by the DHS Historical Society, and told a story illustrating Mitchum's "coarseness." It's such a famous tale that film historian Alan K. Rode added its punch line in a telephone conversation to the reporter covering Gregory's appearance. "Mitchum got drunk and got into a snit about something," said Rode, director of the Arthur Lyons Film Noir Festival, "Mitchum walked out of the RKO-Pathe Culver City Studio's (owned by Howard Hughes) stage , walked over to Paul Gregory's Cadillac parked next to the stage's elephant load-in doors, opened the car's driver side door, urinated on Gregory's driver-side's front-upholstered leather seat. Laughton said, 'You know, Bob, we all have our skeletons in our closet, but, Bob, you must not brandish your skeletons publicly." Mitchum and Laughton were both known for being difficult, Gregory deserves the utmost respect for their collaboration. "Anyone that can bring Charles Laughton and Robert Mitchum together to work harmoniously on a project in the order and magnitude of 'The Night of the Hunter' deserves everyone's unvarnished respect," Rode said. "'The Night of the Hunter,' I don't think there's ever been another movie quite like that. Certainly it's noir, or noir-stained, but it's really almost lyrical - a phenomenal achievement as far as movie-making goes". |
| 7 | Born Aug. 27, 1920, on an Iowa farm between Clive and Waukee, his parents, James Clifford Lenhart, a butcher, and Esther May Taylor, named their son James Burton Lenhart. The family moved to Des Moines when "Burt" was 9 and lived on the south side, where the boy attended Park Avenue Elementary School. At 14, he helped support his family as a Register and Tribune newspaper carrier. The State of Iowa was a hard place during the Depression, and the family had five children. After the father-butcher abandoned his family, "Burt's" mother, because of finances, was forced to send him to England to live with relatives. His uncle was a London solicitor, and the youth attended a school with embassy children. In true Hollywood fashion, "Burt" underwent a sudden reversal of fortune. There were concerts, matinees, the ballet, opera -- all the cultural riches London had to offer. "Burt" returned home to finish high school. He picked up his old newspaper route, and came to the attention of the boss, Mike Cowles, who hired him to read the Sunday funnies on the family's newspaper owned radio station, impressed with the youngster's polished accent. "Burt" attended Lincoln High School in 1938 and 1939, and after graduation, then took off for Hollywood to seek his fortune, with $15 in his pocket and an extra $5 his mother sewed into his coat. The future producer arrived in Los Angeles with fifteen dollars in his pocket and landed a job in a drugstore on Hollywood Boulevard (at Highland Boulevard, one block from Hollywood High School) working behind the soda fountain. Hollywood of the '30s -- '40s was the Los Angeles Beverly Hills of the 1960s -- 2015s. "Burt's" striking good looks soon drew the attention of MGM movie scouts, where the studio moguls renamed him -- "Paul Gregory" -- MGM thought the young actor -- "Burt" -- resembled Gregory Peck and renamed him, using part of the screen star's name. Paul Gregory landed small parts in two MGM movies but decided being an actor wasn't for him. He "couldn't stand being around them," Gregory stated, and preferred working behind the soda fountain to waiting around the set for the cameras to roll. As a boy, Gregory's Cherokee aunt told him "always put away half of what you make," and back at the soda fountain, he took her advice. It was not long before the money proved handy. One day, a dancer, Ruth St. Denis, whom he had seen perform in London, wandered into the drugstore with her manager. Miss St. Denis was one of the pioneers of modern dance but was then out of the limelight. One thing led to another and Gregory and the manager went halves renting a Los Angeles Wilshire Boulevard theater to put on a local performance. The two day show sold out, and the young impresario had found his calling. Gregory stayed at the drugstore but kept his eyes open for another opportunity. A customer to whom he showed the Ruth St. Denis concert program turned out to be the Hollywood Choir's director, and Gregory was soon booking the group which featured MGM actor, Dennis Morgan. Gregory's activities came to the attention of Lew Wasserman, the mighty head of MCA. "Who's this guy handling our clients?" the chairman asked a deputy. "Get a hold of him." The emissary located Gregory at the Hollywood Boulevard drugstore. Instead of taking legal action, the company hired Gregory and placed him in its New York office -- to book "class acts." The young agent was put in charge of handling personal appearances for clients like bandleader, Horace Heidt and pianist Carmen Cavallaro. They were then big names, but Gregory found the work unsatisfying. The bandleader who was unhappy at MCA, was "a pain in the ass," and the pianist, though affable, seemed a "frustrated Paderewski." There had to be something more than this, Gregory felt, and, as it turned out, there was. One snowy Sunday night, as Gregory was about to leave a Third Avenue restaurant, "a big fat man came on the Ed Sullivan Show" and began reading from the fiery Book of Daniel. It was Charles Laughton, the famous British born actor who had been in MGM's "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and "Mutiny on the Bounty." Gregory was mesmerized by the television performance reading. "Oh, my God, I can sell this all over the country." The next night, the young agent dashed over to the Mansfield Theater, and arrived as Laughton was leaving with a female companion. "I would like to speak to you," Gregory told the distinguished actor. "What about, old boy?" Laughton replied. "I would like to speak to you about booking you." "Speak to my agent," the actor responded, nodding to his companion. "I said I want to speak to YOU, sir," Gregory persisted. Laughton appeared uninterested, but the young agent was undeterred. "I knew this was my crown," Gregory noted, "and I was going to put stars in it." He told Laughton: "You are throwing away a million dollars." The novice stage director intrigued by the young man's boldness, Laughton, the actor, invited him to tag along to the Alg |
| 8 | The first movie Paul Gregory produced became a classic. "The Night of the Hunter," an offbeat thriller starring Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters and Lillian Gish, is on many lists of the "best films of all time." The world premiere was at the Paramount Theater in Des Moines on July 26, 1955 - "Paul Gregory Day" -- in the capital, a major event that included a parade of Hollywood stars, a banquet for 550 at the Hotel Fort Des Moines and a convocation at Drake University. |
| 9 | Robert Mitchum was cast as Preacher Harry Powell -- the itinerant minister who had "Love" tattooed on one hand fingers and "Hate" on the other. At one time, Laurence Olivier was mad for the Preacher's part. Gregory originally wanted Olivier to do it. "The whole performance would have taken on a different sound and form." But Gregory couldn't wait two years for Larry to complete other projects. Robert Mitchum was very eager for the part of the preacher. When he auditioned, a moment that particularly impressed Charles Laughton was when Laughton described the character as "a diabolical shit." Mitchum promptly answered, "Present!" Laughton liked Mitchum for the role. "So, I'm stuck with him," Gregory said. "I had taken out a loan for $700,000 to make the picture. I had scheduled a starting date to start filming the feature using that money. We were paying interest on the bloody money. On one side of the business, it's an absolute hierarchy of bookkeeping, and on the other, it is a bunch of children playing around in the mud building mud castles. It's timing is ridiculous." Mitchum was one of the first Hollywood nonconformists, before Marlon Brando or James Dean. In the late 1940s Mitchum did two months in county jail for possession of marijuana. In the interview, Gregory continued, "You know, all these people today want to know -- if -- Mitchum was a wonderful guy. Bob was awful. He'd be drunk. He'd urinate on the set. I had to hire a policeman to go by his house in the morning to make sure he was up and ready to go to work. I was from another mold. You pay people a lot of money and you have a right to get back what you paid them for. Mitchum didn't behave that way. It was all a lark all the time...fun fun fun. I don't know what Mitchum's range was as an actor. I consider him a lucky man. He played himself and was very effective in the part." Mitchum worried Charles to death. Gregory thought Mitchum tired Laughton who went into a long lapse after the film was completed. "Charles didn't even want to read a book. He started going to a doctor and got shots. It took a lot out of Charles." Laughton used to say to Gregory: "That goddamn Mitchum: he's got so much stuff." And: "That son of a bitch. Why is he the way he is?" Laughton had to pull to get out of Mitchum what he got out of him. James Gleason, a veteran character actor, played Uncle Birdie. Mr. Gleason was an old pro. The difference between Gleason and Mitchum was night and day; Lillian Gish was wonderful. At their initial meeting, Lillian Gish asked Charles Laughton why he wanted her for the part; he replied, "When I first went to the movies, they sat in their seats straight and leaned forward. Now they slump down, with their heads back, and eat candy and popcorn. I want them to sit up straight again." Shelley Winters was the widow Harper. Gregory said, "Shelley was filled with all that Strasberg baloney. I call it the armpit school of acting. Production designer Hilyard Brown said Shelley would hold up in the bathroom, preparing for her role. Charles Laughton would say, 'Come on, Shelley. You're in the mood. Let's shoot it!' ". |
| 10 | Born in 1920, deceased in December, 2015 (at age 92), Paul (James Burton Lenhart) Gregory was the son of a part-Cherokee mother and a ne'er-do-well father. Gregory's father ran off with his wife's $240,0000 Indian allotment -- "disappeared after he had spent my mother's Indian money," Gregory recalled, and then "showed up along the Mississippi towns as a roving preacher" going from one small Lutheran colony to another. Years later, when Gregory was looking for his first film property, he read a book in galleys about an itinerant preacher who preyed on the innocent--and "it touched me." He immediately bought the rights to Davis Grubb's first novel, "The Night of the Hunter". |
| 11 | Graduated from Lincoln High School in Des Moines, Iowa (1938) |
$1.1 Million
