Cinema: A Star Is Born

(5 of 6)

That Well-Bred Strain. A week after Deborah's arrival, Hornblow was ready to shoot the crucial test. Gable, Deborah was told, had agreed to make it with her. An old set was found and redressed. Gable sent flowers. Hornblow sent flowers. The cameras rolled. Gable made his pass and his proposition. Kerr gently but firmly rebuffed him.

Hornblow was elated. That well-bred strain certainly came through. Gable was swept off his feet (Clark recognizes talent when he sees it). Next day Hornblow cut the test. It looked wonderful. The High Council declared it had never seen a better one. By orders from on high, the rest of the studio was allowed to see it, too. Louella Parsons noted in her column that they "all but cheered." Deborah was officially announced for the part.

Until then, Miss Kerr had been on trial. But at 2 o'clock one afternoon, she was called in unexpectedly, and by 3 she was in front of the cameras. This time it was no test; it was for keeps. Gable had managed to materialize six dozen red roses. He sent them to her dressing room with a note: "Good luck on your opening night from your leading man, Clark Gable."

The script called for Miss Kerr to make an exit from the elevator of a swank Manhattan apartment building on Gable's arm, and gracefully to sidestep a mild verbal pass. Gable's palms were sweating, as they always do before a scene. Deborah, a paragon of self-composure, sailed through without a slip. Cried Gable: "My leading lady, hell! I'm her co-star!" Said Deborah: "I always wondered what it would be like. You come 6,000 miles and then suddenly—bang! crash! wallop!—you've done it. It's like having a tooth out."

Hornblow was completely won over. Studio executives began shyly to confess that from the beginning they had suspected that Deborah had the makings of a great star. But the credit really belonged to L.B. The scuttlebutt in the fourth floor steam room was thicker than the steam: never had there been a girl better suited to the studio's peculiar requirements. That flowerlike beauty would thrive in a hothouse atmosphere. Between sessions on the massage table, it was noted that, while she could act like Ingrid Bergman, she was really a kind of converted Greer Garson, womanly enough to show up nicely in those womanly roles which have always proved so soothing to Metro audiences.

All that remained was for people to see The Hucksters, and Deborah would be a star, and quite possibly a major star, overnight. L.B. had bet close to $3,000,000 on that, and L.B. would not have that kind of money to throw around if L.B. had been wrong very often. Down from Olympus rang the declaration: the day after the picture is released, Deborah Kerr will be a big star.