ANN RORK : J. PAUL GETTY'S MISTRESS TURNED INTO 4th WIFE

According to Russel Miller's book, The House of Getty, Paul Getty was 31 and living with his parents when he announced that he had married. The lucky first bride was Jeanette Dumond, an 18 year old of Polish Catholic heritage who he married in October of 1923 in Ventura, California (which is just north of Los Angeles). Within weeks of the marriage Jeanette was pregnant and Paul was back to proving to his father that he could make it in the oil business without working for him.  He kept an extreme work schedule, again hands-on, and was barely home which was the pattern that would fail his personal life.  His son George Franklin Getty II was born, and Jeanette left Paul soon after.  Their divorce was granted in February of 1925.  (Marriage #1)

Then he befriended two rich girls he met in Mexico, Allene and Belene Ashby, who were studying at the National University in Mexico City. From the looks of things it seemed he was romancing both, or friends guessed he'd marry Belene.  His summer romance ended with a marriage to Allene there but within weeks he went back to Los Angeles and she went home to Texas. They agreed to keep the marriage and divorce a secret from family but Paul's dad George had already decided to put most of his estate and control of the business into his wife, Sarah's, hands, and this is important because it is Sarah Getty's trust that endured and became the key to the family's enduring wealth.  (Marriage #2)


In 1928 in Vienna, Paul met Adolphine Helmle, called Fini, and just 18 years old.  Her father was a doctor and her family from Germany was vacationing.  Paul was 38.  Once again he charmed and there was a sneaky element to the relationship.  His divorce from Allene wasn't done and he said nothing to Fini about it.  She found out he was a divorced man in December 1928 when she was about to marry him.  They moved in 1929 to Los Angeles and he moved her with his parents,  The idea was for Sarah to introduce her around and keep her company and Sara truly liked Fini. The pattern included a pregnancy, the birth of a son, Paul's workaholism preventing him from actually having a relationship, the wife feeling neglected and abandoned.  In this case it was also Fini's father, always opposed to the marriage, that wanted his daughter home.  (Marriage #3)

Paul had become a shareholder in his father's company, which had been performing poorly, and hoped he could prove himself by turning it around.  By 1926 he was also the general manager of his father's oil companies, the original Minnehoma, and the Getty. 

Fini took their son, Ronnie, and went back to Germany, allowing her father to negotiate a divorce with Paul. When Paul Getty finally admitted to his mother that he was divorcing Fini and marrying Ann, she wept. 

In the chapter called, "He Should Dress You In Sable," after his father's death, Paul finds out that he was left a half million dollars but his mother has 90% of the estate and control over the companies.  Author Russel Miller tells us that while Paul was still not done with Fini, it was well known in Los Angeles that Paul was in a relationship with an actress named ANN RORK.  Rork's father was the manager of "It Girl" Clara Bow, who was our Mistress of the Month previously, as well as a film producer, and Paul had met the father and daughter when Ann was fourteen.  At 17 Ann was doing small parts in the new Hollywood films with sound, the "talkies."   Paul escorted her around town and the couple were photographed, so it wasn't just a secret kept by close personal friends.  (And Fini may have known too...)

In New York City, while still negotiating with Fini's father, Paul Getty and ANN RORK made vows to each other in a ceremony so simple there was no minister.  (If there had been, Paul Getty would've been a bigamist.)  They pledged to each other that they were married in a hotel room. Then he started calling her "Mrs. Getty," when he introduced her around.  She was already pregnant when they got married, having waited out the divorce from Fini.  They married when Paul was 40, Ann was 20, and Eugene Paul Getty was born soon after.

Once again Getty went back to work leaving a wife alone.  Ann lived in Santa Monica near the beach in a twelve room house full of visiting friends (a bit like Hearst's Mistress Marion Davies did, though her "cottage" was massive in comparison).  Ann became pregnant a second time, giving birth to son Gordon Peter Getty.  Then she too wanted out of her lonely existence.  (Marriage #4)

Using the e-book version, and read on Overdrive,  on pages 60 and 61 of this chapter, I'm excerpting this telling passage:

"The fourth Mrs. Getty was privy to none of these negotiations (business), but did not care. Abandoned at the beach house in Santa Monica while Paul devoted himself to business, Ann began to despair of ever making her marriage work.  She hated playing second fiddle to Getty, Inc, hated everything to do with the oil industry.  She often compared herself to the long suffering heroine of J.M. Barrie's play, "The Twelve Pound Look," about the neglected wife of an overworked businessman who decides to pull out all the stops to save her marriage."

Paul came home late, as usual, she insisted he sit down while she played (acted) the climatic scene...A few days later Ann told him she was suffocating in her "gilded cage" and wanted a divorce.  Paul raised no objection..."

Reading to this point, I was aware that Paul Getty was getting more unconventional about relationships with women, especially for his times, as he got older.  Perhaps the pressure to marry was some of that.  Perhaps if he had been born later he might have had affairs with women rather than marry them.  Certainly he was aware that promising a woman marriage was seduction too, for if he had not been able to divorce Fini, he would have found himself in a society scandal.

In the chapter called "My First Thought Was This is THE girl," we learn that NEXT DOOR to Paul and Ann's Santa Monica beach house was the comparatively massive "cottage" that Hearst had built for his Mistress Marion Davies. The cottage had at least a hundred rooms.  Paul was friendly with the couple and in my opinion was inspired by their collections.

In 1934 Ann Rork filed for divorce and said that Paul's interest in her began when she was 15.  Then they went through "a form of marriage" in a rented apartment in New York.
To me this emphasizes Ann's mistresshood.

Reading pages 38- 39 of this chapter on e-book, "In court Ann painted an extraordinary picture of life with Getty. She complained of being "forced" to live in a "dismal apartment" in Paris; her husband refused to take her out because she was pregnant and her "only companion: was a little scotch terrier called Sophie." 

Her complaints included being "forced" to pay $200 a month rent out of her $600 allowance, being called a "gold-digger," and other allegations of Paul's cheapness and other women.  She eventually settled for $2500 a month for herself and $1000 a month for their 2 sons.

After that, J. Paul Getty VOLUNTARILY increased payments to Jeanette and Fini.


C 2018 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot.  All Rights Reserved.

BBC DOCUMENTARY ON CLARA BOW : HOLLYWOOD'S LOST SCREEN GODDESS

CLARA BOW :  Schulberg owned Preferred Pictures, which was not considered to be the best of the studios. He and his studio made a fortune on her, especially as he lent her out to other studios. In this BBC Documentary called Hollywood's Lost Screen Goddess, it's said that he worked her like a dog. In 1925 she made 15 films. She was called "Box Office Gold."









CLARA BOW married Rex Bell and had two sons, Joe and Tony, but by 1949 she had checked into a mental hospital having been plagued by insomnia and head aches.  She had electroshock therapy and tried to forget her childhood, that her mother had tried to kill her and that her father had raped her.

CLARA BOW on the COVER OF MOTION PICTURE CLASSIC MAGAZINE

Image From Google Image

search for Public Domain Clara Bow Magazine

DECLARATIONS FOR MISTRESSES ; Equal Pay For Equal Work

"I will research to find out if my pay is competitive, within my company and within my field."

Missy here!  I remember the day that my boss at a horrible job I held, badly underpaid, decided that my researching this very thing was an act of disloyalty to him and the company.  The company was making a fortune.  I could barely keep my used car going.   What a jerk!  One of the women who held a higher position than me but who was on commission told me that researching comparative pay was the first step in asking for a raise. How would I know if I was being reasonable or not? 

Alas, I must tell you that this could happen to you too, but the year is new and your future is bright, so the very least you can do is find out this information.  It's easier these days because so much is published about job skills, college degrees, and pay.  And Hollywood woman actors are saying that they are paid incredibly less than men actors even when they are at the top and the peak.

That said, if you LOVE your job, and your pay is livable, you may have to do a little Clara Bow kind of thinking and decide how much you work for a living and how much you don't think of it as work because you love it!

C 2016 Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot

OF ALL THE GIN JOINTS : MARK BAILY on CLARA BOW and MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW

Paraphrased from this interesting book (and some of this information is also available through web site searches and other sources):

Clara Bow was the first celebrity to be called an "It Girl" ; the phrase was from her 1927 film "It Girl."  She captivated audiences in silent films with her natural performances which seemed as though she was natural, not acting. 

But Clara had a bad reputation in Hollywood, even among other actors who were hardly prudish. Perhaps her reputation was undeserved but they basically thought of her as a "tramp from the slums of Brooklyn."  "She did in fact grow up in poverty."  When she came to Hollywood in 1923 she was thought to be vulgar and talentless but her "sincere and uninhibited performances struck a chord with movie goers."  (Page 12)

"She was always incredibly sweet, professional, and beloved by the film crews she worked with."  But she was not to be invited to parties.  At least not the parties of anyone who wished to remain among the respectable Hollywood elite. (Page 15)

This saucy teenager was from (gasp!) Brooklyn, her mother was insane, and her father a lecherous hanger-on who was bleeding her dry through a series of failed business ventures. Bow herself was so licentious that she could shock even jaded old Hollywood types. As Budd Schulberg, son of Paramount president B.P. Schulberg and later a gifted screenwriter (On the Waterfront) recalled, "They all thought she was a low-life and disgrace to the community."  (Pages 12-13)

"But the truth about Bow was simpler. She was a scared 20 year old tomboy with little formal education. Her childhood friends were boys, and as a result, the things she enjoyed doing were almost exclusively reserved for men; drinking, gambling, swearing, and screwing.  She was also completely sincere.

A fun-loving innocent, at first Bow behaved no worse that a typical 20 year old. Sure she had parties with USC undergraduates, but they only ended in front yard wrestling matches, like an 11 year old on the streets of Brooklyn. Sure, she kept the back door open so cops could stop by and grab a beer. Who wouldn't?

But Clara Bow had so few friends that she usually played cards with her maid and cook. She ended her multiple affairs with powerful men before they got bored and told her what they really thought. One such powerful men was the elder B.P Schulberg himself - who - in addition to keeping Bow as a mistress had her under contract at Paramount.

(Note; According to the BBC documentary she met and signed with B.P at age 17.)


MISTRESS MANIFESTO BOOK REVIEW : OF ALL THE GIN JOINTS

This book covers the Silent Era, the Studio Era, the Postwar era, the 1960's to the "new Hollywood" of the 1970's and includes places the stars went to drink and dine, like the Ambassador Hotel and the Coconut Grove, recipes for the fancy drinks featuring hard liquor (the authors had a bar tender consultant), and profiles of some of the legendary hard users of drink who were famous in Hollywood, mostly actors, names you know. A small and fun book, you may be tempted to spend some time sight-seeing and bar hoping even if you're a local.

CLARA BOW : ACTRESS, FIRST "IT GIRL" and ROARING TWENTIES MISTRESS OF OLD HOLLYWOOD FILM PRODUCER B.P. SCHULBERG

Image from Wikimedia Commons/ Google Images

(1905-1965) 

 

CLARA BOW  - THE FIRST "IT GIRL"

 

 

This month we celebrate CLARA BOW, the first woman to ever be called an "It Girl," which was after she appeared in a film called "It!" in 1927.  She was 22 years old.  Clara's ability to use facial expressions to transmit a myriad of emotions and thought processes was invaluable for a Silent Screen actress and some say she was the very best actress in that era. But in the end she mostly made other people rich. Nor did her fans know the truth of her hard life. 

   

Film and Hollywood historians consider Clara Bow to have been both overworked and underpaid since she made 58 films from 1922 to 1933, while living in a small 7 room house, in what is now the expensive and exclusive Beverly Hills, but which at the time was a new undeveloped suburb. (46 of these were Silent films and 11 were "talkies.")  As for talkies, her strong Brooklyn accent was at odds with her screen image. 

 

The man who she was mistress to, at least for a while prior to their marriages, B.P. Schulberg, got her work, lots of it, and made most of the money. That she was his mistress is told in the book below, ALL THOSE GIN JOINTS, which says that B.P. Schulberg's son, Budd, who also wrote a book about his father that said so, and other "first hand accounts" admitted as much. By 1931 Clara had left the studio. B.P. married Adeline Jaffe in 1933 and until then only "dated."

 

So we have questions:  Was Clara Bow so thrilled with being an actress and making films that she didn't mind the bad pay? Was this just the way it was for all or most women in Hollywood, or most actors, in the early days of film making?  (As we know right now there's a movement for equal pay for Hollywood actresses lead by Patricia Arquette.) How much did B.P. provide her? 

 

There are clues that he was generous when he had to be and that he was embarrassed by her but also solidly on her side for some time.

 

Raised in a working poor family with mental illness (her mother) and alcoholism (her father) taking its toll, and likely molested by her father, who continued to expect her financial support after her mother tried to kill her and was placed in a mental hospital, Clara was supporting a family she couldn't cut loose even as they tormented her.  And they made her socially unacceptable if her hard drinking, talking, and frank sexuality did not.

 

While associated with the party of the Roaring Twenties, Clara Bow was considered to be an uninhibited girl who grew up on the tough streets, a tomboy who frankly liked sex and was accused of breaking up marriages. Though Hollywood's morals were barely there, she was even shunned by the Hollywood community for her looseness.  Today we might say that she failed to have boundaries.  She thought nothing of French kissing a stranger she'd just been introduced to.  But then maybe she was drunk.

 

In 1931 she married Rex Bell, a cowboy film actor and retired from film making after 1934.  She had two sons and settled into motherhood.  If only the marriage normalized her life!  But Clara Bow had mental breakdowns herself and was often in financial trouble.

 

*****************************************************************

*****************************************************************

 THE FILM CALLED "IT" STARING CLARA BOW

*****************************************************************

 

 Research into Clara Bow included this book, with excerpts coming up, as well as Internet resources like Find A Grave.  In this book on page 13, it states that Schulberg enjoyed the pleasure of her company but needed her to appear less scandalous.  "In an effort to clean up her image, he made her hire a female secretary/chaperone... When she had a nervous breakdown, he sent her off to Reno, but she returned with $100,000 in gambling debts."

 

*********************************************************************                

HOLLYWOOD WALK OF FAME - see the links below!

WALK OF FAME B.P. SCHULBERG  (Benjamin Percival Schulberg, credited as being a Hollywood Pioneer film maker.)

 

WALK OF FAME CLARA BOW 

Now, if you're interested in Clara Bow, you may be interested in other Hollywood actresses who were also mistresses covered here at MISTRESS MANIFESTO. You might also like to read about FAITH DOMERGUE, my Mistress of the month for May 2014, LOUISE BROOKS, my Mistress of the Month for February 2014, MARION DAVIESD, my Mistress of the Month for July 2013, and GLORIA SWANSON, my Mistress of the Month in December 2009.

Please read on for more on CLARA BOW and B.P!

C 2016 All Rights Reserved including International and Internet Rights  Missy Rapport/ Mistress Manifesto BlogSpot