Gypsy, starring Rosalind Russell, Natalie Wood, and Karl Malden (1962)

Original poster for Gypsy, 1962.

Natalie Wood as Louise, and Rosalind Russell as Rose in Gypsy.

Natalie Wood as Louise and Karl Malden as Herbie in Gypsy. (Note Caroline the cow in the background.)

Natalie Wood, after Louise's transformation into Gypsy Rose Lee. *Sigh* She was so beautiful.

Natalie Wood on the set with the real Gypsy Rose Lee, who was at least 5 inches taller than Natalie.

Natalie Wood in her dressing room. I love this photo, and not just because of what Natalie's wearing. It's such a great composition, the way Natalie is standing is such an interesting pose. She seems unaware of the camera, and there's the mystery of all the people whose faces we don't see. Who are they?

The 1959 Broadway musical Gypsy introduced the world to a character with a huge personality: dedicated stage mother Rose Hovick, whose only ambition in life is to make her daughter June a vaudeville star. No matter that vaudeville is already on the way out, Rose will find a way to make it happen. The character of Rose is widely known in pop culture as “Mama Rose,” but she’s actually never referred to that way in either the play or the 1962 movie version. Gypsy featured a book written by Arthur Laurents, with music by Jule Styne, and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. Laurents and Sondheim had previously collaborated on West Side Story. Oddly enough, Natalie Wood starred in both the movie versions of West Side Story and Gypsy. 

The score of Gypsy is simply fantastic, and it features many great songs like “Small World,” “You’ll Never Get Away From Me,” “All I Need is the Girl,” “Everything’s Coming Up Roses,” and “Let Me Entertain You.” While the Broadway production starred the legendary Ethel Merman as Rose, the movie starred three actors not known for their singing voices: Rosalind Russell, Natalie Wood, and Karl Malden. The decision was made by someone to cut all of the songs that Karl Malden’s character, Herbie, sings, turning it into a non-singing part. That decision meant ditching the super cute song “Together (Wherever We Go),” which was filmed, but then cut. It’s included on the DVD as a bonus feature. Natalie Wood had her singing voice dubbed for West Side Story, much to her annoyance, and she did all of her own singing in Gypsy. Rosalind Russell had appeared in musicals before, as she starred in the original Broadway production of Wonderful Town, with lyrics by Betty Comden and Adolph Green, and music by Leonard Bernstein. But for Gypsy her vocals were mixed with those of Lisa Kirk. Some songs, like “Mr. Goldstone, I Love You” are all Russell’s voice, while others are a mix, and Kirk did an excellent job of matching Russell’s voice. 

In terms of acting, Russell, Wood, and Malden all did excellent work. The role of Herbie, Rose’s long-suffering boyfriend, requires a “normal guy” actor, and Karl Malden certainly fit that bill. Malden is by turns intense and also good-naturedly laid-back, and it’s another superb performance from an actor whose career was full of them. Russell is marvelous as Rose, who comes off as something of a more intense version of Russell’s Auntie Mame. Like Mame, Rose sucks all the oxygen out of any room she’s in. Sometimes in a good way, and sometimes in a bad way. Wood is fabulous as Louise, the plain older sister who is never the star, but finally blossoms into the burlesque queen Gypsy Rose Lee. For the role of Louise, you need someone who is believable as both a shy wallflower and as the belle of the ball. Wood was such a good actress that she pulled it off very convincingly. I know, we all KNOW Natalie Wood is gorgeous, even when she’s dressed up as plain as she can possibly be. The costume designers did a really good job of making Wood look plain as Louise. (Orry-Kelly designed Natalie’s dresses for the burlesque scenes, but I doubt he had anything to do with the drab clothes Wood wears as Louise.)

Gypsy was directed by Mervyn LeRoy, who had a long career in Hollywood stretching back to the dawn of the talkies. An old school studio director who could handle any genre, two of LeRoy’s best known films today are Mister Roberts and Quo Vadis. I really enjoyed the sets in Gypsy. The sets throughout the movie are obviously fake. For example, the train station where Rose sings “Everything’s Coming Up Roses,” and the Western set as Louise becomes the new star of the act after June leaves. I think it was an obvious choice to make the sets look like sets, and I took that to be a way of showing the audience that these characters don’t exist in the “real world.” Their whole lives revolve around showbiz, and they are disconnected from any other kind of reality. Especially Rose, who creates her own reality wherever she goes. 

There aren’t many interesting behind the scenes stories from the set of Gypsy. As a small nod to my ongoing fascination with Warren Beatty, I’ll point out that Beatty was dating Wood during the production of Gypsy, and most days he could be found on the set, being a supportive boyfriend. According to Gavin Lambert’s 2005 biography of Natalie Wood, the reason that Rosalind Russell played Rose instead of Ethel Merman was a simple one: Russell’s husband, theatrical producer Frederick Brisson, owned the film rights to Gypsy, and sold the rights to Warner Brothers on the condition that Russell would play Rose. (Natalie Wood: A Life, by Gavin Lambert, p.184) 

Natalie Wood began her career as an actress at the age of 5, and Wood’s biographer Suzanne Finstad has a rather dramatic view of her role in Gypsy: “Natalie was driven by demons to play the stripper with the stage mother of all stage mothers, Mama Rose-played in the movie by Rosalind Russell-viewing Gypsy as the catharsis for all her years as a child star under the tyranny of Mud.” (Mud was a nickname for Natalie’s mother Maria Zakharenko.) (Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood, by Suzanne Finstad, p.279) However, Christopher Nickens’ 1986 book Natalie Wood: A Biography in Photographs, says the opposite. Nickens writes, “Maria realized early on that Natalie was destined to be a performer, and she was wise enough to encourage her daughter’s talents and help her make the most of them.” Nickens also includes two quotes from Natalie to back up his point. Natalie told Hedda Hopper during the filming of Gypsy, “My mother was the furthest thing from a stage mother.” When asked how she dealt with being a child actor, Wood told the Los Angeles Times: “It all depends more than anything else on the parents. I happened to enjoy it all. I wanted it. I wasn’t being pushed. I was lucky.” (All three quotes from Natalie Wood: A Biography in Photographs, by Christopher Nickens, p.113) 

So, which was it? Was Gypsy just like Natalie Wood’s own childhood? Or was her mother nothing at all like Rose Hovick? The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. I think it’s fair to say that Wood had a sometimes difficult relationship with her mother, and she probably related to Louise in some ways. Natalie’s beautiful rendition of the song “Little Lamb” is proof enough for me that she felt a connection to Louise. 

Another member of the Wood/Zakharenko family who might have felt a close connection to the overlooked Louise was Natalie’s little sister, Lana Wood, who also became an actress but whose career never climbed to the same heights as Natalie’s. 

Wood was at the peak of her movie stardom when Gypsy was released in November 1962, and if you watch the trailer you’ll see that Warner Brothers was really selling the movie as “Natalie Wood Strips,” while in reality it’s only the last 15% of the movie that’s about Louise’s transformation into Gypsy Rose Lee. Wood received some stripping tips from Gypsy Rose Lee herself on the set. Wood was understandably a bit nervous about the stripping scenes, but in the finished film she handles them with aplomb. Because Wood was so petite, with reports of her height ranging from 5’0” to 5’3”, and the real Gypsy Rose Lee was 5’8”, director Mervyn LeRoy and director of photography Harry Stradling Sr. did their best to make Natalie look as tall as possible during the stripping scenes. Natalie’s clothes were made to accentuate her legs and give the illusion of greater height. Most of the camera angles are low, so you’re looking up at Wood, making her look taller. And notice how during the New Year’s Eve strip, the showgirls disappear into the wings by the time Natalie appears on screen, so you never see a showgirl towering over her. Wood certainly looked glamorous and very beautiful and attractive in the scenes where she’s Gypsy Rose Lee.

Gypsy was a financial success, earning $11 million at the box office, making it the 9^th highest grossing movie of 1962. Warner Brothers’ other 1962 musical release, The Music Man, made just under $15 million, making it the 5^th highest grossing movie of 1962. Wood and Russell were both nominated for Golden Globes for Best Actress in a Motion Picture: Musical or Comedy, and Russell took home the trophy. Malden was nominated for Best Actor in a Motion Picture: Musical or Comedy, losing out to Marcello Mastroianni in Divorce, Italian Style. 

Gypsy is a wonderful film of one of the great American stage musicals, and it showcases great performances from Rosalind Russell, Natalie Wood, and Karl Malden.

Bombers B-52, starring Natalie Wood, Karl Malden, and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. (1957)

Poster for Bombers B-52. The poster says it's Natalie Wood's, "most exciting role!" It's lying.

Natalie Wood and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr. make a cute couple in Bombers B-52, even if he is twice her age.

Natalie Wood and Karl Malden as father and daughter in Bombers B-52, 1957.

Natalie Wood’s only movie release of 1957 was Bombers B-52, a movie in which she received top billing, but played a supporting role to the Air Force’s latest long-range bomber. Wood stars along with the always excellent Karl Malden as her father, an Air Force engineer, and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., as a flashy pilot. It takes a while for Bombers B-52 to figure out exactly what kind of movie it’s going to be. At first it seems like an elongated sitcom episode, as the plot involves Malden’s character going on a television quiz show and winning $4,000 by answering questions about baseball. (He buys his daughter a beautiful yellow Ford convertible with the winnings.) There’s conflict between Wood and Malden, as she tries to convince him to take a job in the private sector. Then Zimbalist shows up and gets put in charge of the base where Malden works. Malden is not happy about this. Malden and Zimbalist encountered each other in Korea, and Malden thinks Zimbalist is just a glory-seeking hot shot. But Zimbalist keeps Malden from resigning by showing him the new B-52 Stratofortress planes that the base will get. That’s enough to keep Malden happy. But he’s less happy once Zimbalist starts dating Wood. There’s some drama about test flights of the B-52, but it all ends well. Unfortunately, Bombers B-52 just isn’t a very exciting movie, although it does feature some great aerial photography of the B-52. The unintentional comedic highlights of the film are the mid-air refueling scenes, which just made me think of the opening credits for Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove, in which the sexual symbolism is played up as a B-52 is refueled to the romantic strains of “Try a Little Tenderness.” The most unintentionally funny line of dialogue in the movie is at the end of the refueling scene, when someone says, “Tanker to receiver-you’ve got it all.” Wink wink, nudge nudge. 

I would guess that Bombers B-52 was not a fun movie for Natalie Wood to make, as her character really doesn’t have much to do. Wood was trying to become a serious actress, and Bombers B-52 did not put any strain on her acting talents. It must have been a letdown for her after making great dramas like Rebel Without a Cause and The Searchers. Wood certainly looks beautiful in Bombers B-52, but she’s just window dressing.

We don’t see enough of the romance between Wood and Zimbalist to really care about it, or be invested in their relationship. And while Efrem Zimbalist certainly looks more than capable of piloting a B-52, he’s a little old to be romancing an 18 or 19 year old Natalie Wood. Zimbalist was 19 years older than Wood! A more age appropriate love interest would have been Tab Hunter, who had already made two movies with Wood, but Hunter turned the role down. 

Zimbalist does a fine job in one of his early movie roles. Zimbalist is most well-known for his television work in the 1950’s, 1960’s, and 1970’s, on the long running series 77 Sunset Strip and The FBI. He was a handsome man, with good hair, a strong jaw, and an air of authority. You’d trust him to pilot a B-52. Zimbalist’s father, Efrem Zimbalist Sr., was a classical violinist, and his mother, Alma Gluck, was a soprano who made several popular records in the 1910’s. Both Efrem Zimbalist Sr. and Jr. lived to be 95 years old. Karl Malden made it to 97 years old, which means that Bombers B-52 starred two of the longest-lived leading actors ever. 

Karl Malden was one of the great film actors, as even in a potboiler like this, he gives every line his complete dedication as an actor. Malden’s rather ordinary looks, and his formidable talent, allowed him the versatility of moving between leading roles and character roles. Malden later starred with Wood in two more movies, 1962’s Gypsy and the 1979 disaster flick Meteor. Malden got along well with Natalie Wood, and Wood biographer Suzanne Finstad writes about an interesting anecdote during the filming of Bombers B-52: “Malden glimpsed the loneliness underneath Natalie’s surface gaiety when he discovered she had never been on a family picnic, and arranged to take her on one. She told him, afterward, that it was one of the happiest days of her life, which Malden found desperately sad.” (Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood, by Suzanne Finstad, p.237) Like many child stars, Natalie really didn’t have much of a childhood, and thus she missed out on a lot of life experiences. 

The screenplay for Bombers B-52 was written by Irving Wallace, who wrote many popular novels, and was also one of the editors for The Book of Lists, which makes him a hero in my eyes, since that was my favorite book when I was 13 years old. Yay for books of random trivia!

Bombers B-52 was directed by Gordon Douglas, who has a lot of “second movies in a series” among his credits. He did 1967’s In Like Flint, the second Flint spy movie with James Coburn, and the second movie in which Sidney Poitier played detective Virgil Tibbs, 1970’s They Call Me Mister Tibbs! He also directed Frank Sinatra in five movies. 

Perhaps the best summation of Bombers B-52 was written at the time it was released in November, 1957, when Time magazine called it a “$1,400,000 want ad for Air Force technicians.” It’s no surprise when at the end of the movie there’s a credit expressing the filmmaker’s thanks towards the Air Force. Without the cooperation of the Air Force, there wouldn’t have been a movie.