During the 1930s, the big film studios often suggested that their
stars were more virtuous and honourable than was really the case.
However when fashions in pin-ups changed in the 1940s,
publicity campaigns on behalf of some actresses suggested they were
less virtuous than they really were. The most famous example was
Jane Russell. While posters were asking "What are the two main
reasons for Jane Russell's success?" and "How would you like to
tussle with Russell?", Jane herself led a very proper private life, went
to church regularly and was loyal to her family. One of her hobbies
was singing hymns. Jane was not unique. Rhonda Fleming has also
been a regular church goer, a singer of hymns, and has done
considerable work for charity. This was not publicised during her
career.
In two respects, Rhonda came at the right time. First, coming a few years later than
Rita Hayworth, she avoided the problems with make-up in colour movies that Rita experienced
in the mid-1940s. Second, Rhonda
was physically equipped to take advantage of the new style in pin-up
pictures. Rhonda had a good face with humorous, teasing eyes, well
shaped legs, an excellent figure, and lustrous red hair that placed her alongside Rita Hayworth and Maureen O'Hara -
exalted company indeed. It is not surprising that Rhonda looked especially
good in colour movies or that several films showed her in revealing costumes.
High quality stills
of Rhonda have always been in demand, and the Internet is full of glamorous pictures
of her.
Given that Rhonda was a strikingly good-looking woman with a rapport with Technicolor,
why did she not become a bigger star? (Certainly Rhonda
was busy for 16 years, but mainly in co-features. She made few
major movies and she failed to reach the front rank of stars.) Possibly the
parts she played and her screen persona did not endear her to audiences. In a
period well before "women's liberation", Rhonda frequently played unruffled,
self-sufficient women who met men on equal terms without relying on charm
or vulnerability. She also often played adultresses, mean-spirited women and
villainesses.
Rhonda born
Marilyn Louis in 1923 in California and went to school in Beverly Hills. Her
mother, Effie Graham Louis, had been a singer in musicals and light opera.
Rhonda aspired to follow in her mother's footsteps and while still a child
trained as a singer, but only rarely did she use her singing voice in movies.
She did however record an album of "standards" in the 1950s, and
these recordings demonstrate that Rhonda had quite a good voice, hampered
by slightly shaky pitch. (This album, "Rhonda", has recently been
issued on an Australian CD, coupled with an album by Marie MacDonald, "The
Body Sings".)
Working under her real name,
Rhonda secured bit parts in two movies in the early 1940's and eventually
came to the attention of David O. Selznick who placed her under contract and
changed her name. (What was wrong with Marilyn Louis?) Selznick gave her the
conspicuous part of the mental patient in the opening sequence of "Spellbound",
where Rhonda's screen presence was strong enough to take the audience's attention
away from Ingrid Bergman. In those days Selznick bought and sold actors like
slaves, and before long he sold Rhonda's contract to RKO through whom he was
then releasing his films.
Although Rhonda also secured a separate contract with Paramount, RKO were involved with many of
her most memorable films. Rhonda was particularly good in "Out Of The Past" (a.k.a."Build My
Gallows High"), as a duplicitous secretary involved in a murder scheme. She brought to her scenes
with Robert Mitchum an undertone of humour and sexual teasing, while remaining calm, sleek and
cold.
At Paramount Rhonda started well enough, appearing opposite Bing
Crosby and Bob Hope in grade A movies, but she quickly drifted
into routine co-feature adventure films helmed by mediocre
directors. Most of her work at Paramount has been long forgotten.
Rhonda drifted further to
Universal Studios where she made very humble movies set in Arabia or the tropics.
With titles like "Yankee Pasha" and "Little Egypt", these
films were so banal that Rhonda's status was irreparably damaged. Today even
television no longer wishes to broadcast them. (Paradoxically, because they
are never screened, these films are now much sought after by Rhonda's most
dedicated fans, and stills and bootleg DVDs fetch good prices.)
Then Rhonda had some luck. For producer Benedict Bogeaus she
made two pictures for release though RKO with veteran director
Allan Dwan and cinematographer John Alton. Alton at the time was
resented by his fellow professionals because of his carelessness in
matching the lighting in different camera angles of the same scene, but today he
is admired by film cultists because of
his work in black and white crime films. In fact, John Alton is one
of the great photographers of women, ranking alongside William
Daniels, Jack Cardiff and Charles Lang, and is possibly the finest of them all
when working in colour. (His lensing of Elaine Stewart in "Take
The High Ground" is superb). Rhonda never looked better
than in her two films with Alton. In "Slightly Scarlet", a film where
Rhonda's femininity wipes the floor with Arlene Dahl's ungainly attempts to
be seductive, there is a scene where Rhonda wears shorts and high heel shoes and is a
quintessential 50's pin-up. Cult admirers of John Alton who think of him only
in terms of film noir chiaroscuros should compare this scene with the drab
way
Rhonda was photographed in the 'exercise' scene in "While The City Sleeps". In "Tennessee's
Partner", one of the few films where Rhonda does any singing, Alton does full Technicolor justice to Rhonda's face and hair.
Towards the end of her contract with Paramount, Rhonda was cast in a big budget western,
"Gunfight At The OK Corral", one of the very few movies Rhonda made at Paramount that stands the
test of time. Once again she played a self-sufficient, morally ambiguous woman who is unruffled by
the opposite sex. "Gunfight
At The OK Corral" is key film for assessing Rhonda Fleming because,
unusually, she was playing opposite a strong leading man, Burt Lancaster,
one of the most forceful actors in movies. For most of her career, Rhonda's
leading men were adequate but uncharismatic actors like John Payne, Jeff Chandler
and Ronald Reagan. That Rhonda was not "blown away" by Burt Lancaster,
even though her role was little more than a token "love interest"
part, suggests that she was a capable of more than she was allowed to demonstrate
in her lack-lustre co-feature movies. It would have been interesting to see
Rhonda in outdoors movies opposite John Wayne or Clark Gable, and in glossy,
romantic thrillers with Cary Grant or David Niven.
Rhonda retired from the screen in the early
1960s and, while still appearing occasionally on stage and television, has
concentrated on charity work.
Her sister suffered from ovarian cancer and this
gave Rhonda an insight into the problems faced
by women with this disease. Together with her
husband Ted Mann, Rhonda established the
Rhonda Fleming Mann Resource Center For Woman With
Cancer. Ted Mann died in 2001 but Rhonda
has since remarried, and continues to support several other charities. (A
full list of these charities can be found in Rhonda's official web-site
which also contains a large number of pristine photographs of her.)
The difference between Rhonda's screen persona - her looks, the parts she
played - and what Rhonda has done with her life
since retiring should be a lesson to all those
who believe the public images of celebrities. It is regrettable that she has
not written her autobiography. It would be interesting
to learn Rhonda's views today on being a Hollywood glamour queen and on the pressures that brings, as
she has survived so well, in contrast to stars like Marilyn Monroe.
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