But in her bungalow, No. 24, it was so cool to be in there, she would have her awards, you know, on a shelf, on the wall -- and she had this large, framed, black and white photograph of she and Boris Karloff in a scene from FRANKENSTEIN. It had a gold plaque with it that read, 'FRANKENSTEIN -- MAE CLARKE, BORIS KARLOFF, UNIVERSAL PICTURES, 1931.' Someone had given it to her many years ago. Well, of course I would stare at it for hours. I loved it! And one day, for my birthday, she gave it to me as a present! That was many years ago, but still to this very day, I have been given many things by the grace of God, many blessings, but that one gift stands, you know, among the top five coolest things of my life. And of all the things she gave me, of all the wonderful memories I have of her, my favorite memories are of her telling me about her experiences working in the motion picture FRANKENSTEIN, with Karloff. I treasure those. She'd be sitting across the kitchen table from me, at my house, and telling me these wonderful stories...
Photo courtesy of Michael W. Schwibs.
Well, we want to hear them too!
I loved it! I was a Frankenstein freak. One of the things that she told me about working in the picture -- I really don't know where to start, there are so many wonderful stories. And again and again, she would regale me with these tales, and I always wanted to hear them, over and over. I never got tired of hearing them. I felt as if I must be the chosen one, to get to, as I said, sit at my kitchen table, or to stay up late at night when she would be at my home, telling me these stories. She'd say, 'Do you really want to hear it again?' I hung on every syllable that fell out of her mouth, because I was absolutely spellbound, just riveted. I felt like I was living a great piece of history. And her stories were always consistent, and never wavered in their detail.
I have seen FRANKENSTEIN countless times over the years. I just watched it again this morning, and it still has its effect on me.
Yes! I would tell her things like that. And one of the great things, too, was that back then, VHS was new. I'm not even sure what we called them, VCRs, I guess. It sounds so long ago and obsolete, but the VHS was great. We would actually watch FRANKENSTEIN many times together, Mae and myself, and I would invite other people too, friends of mine. It was grand to watch it with her, and she never seemed to get bored or tired of it. It was always interesting for me to watch it. I would say, 'Now, where was this scene filmed?' There's a scene where she's in a large hat, and she's having lunch with Colin Clive. I said, 'Was that at the studio?' 'No,' she said, 'That was in someone's backyard that James Whale knew, at a house in Pasadena.' I thought that was fascinating. It was this beautiful, beautiful yard, she was wearing this very large hat, like a sun hat, a very feminine look, and she and Colin are having lunch in the scene, and there were all these flowers and trees, and it was very outdoorsy, but it was someone's backyard in Pasadena. All the rest, in fact, I guess every bit of the rest of the film FRANKENSTEIN was filmed on the lot at Universal. I would say, 'Where was that?' 'Oh, that was the studio,' she'd say. 'Well now, where was this?'
Legions of movie fans want to know any details like that you can recall, since you are the one living person she told it all to, over the years. We're going to get more in-depth about FRANKENSTEIN very shortly, but I wanted to ask you about Mae's career leading up to that point. Now, in early 1931, she appeared in PUBLIC ENEMY with James Cagney, and became well-known for being on the receiving end in the notorious 'Grapefruit Scene'. But she also starred in WATERLOO BRIDGE and THE FRONT PAGE, earning widespread acclaim for her performances in those movies, which are considered classics today.
She loved doing both WATERLOO BRIDGE and THE FRONT PAGE. Her favorite, I wish that she could have said to me, 'My favorite film was doing FRANKENSTEIN, or even PUBLIC ENEMY, where she got the grapefruit. Unfortunately, they were not. She had great things to say about both of them, and some not so great things about the grapefruit, but her favorite film of her own career was WATERLOO BRIDGE.
James Whale directed WATERLOO BRIDGE, is that right?
Indeed he did. Mae did three pictures with James. Obviously, she was his favorite. And she wanted to be a little more than that, but that wasn't going to happen, sadly for her. She really had a huge crush on him. She had been selected to be the lead in WATERLOO BRIDGE, which was, by the way, a very sought-after part by many of the actresses of the day, especially the contract actresses at Universal. It was clear it went to Mae Clarke because of James Whale, and she was brilliant in it. She loved doing that movie, she was just thrilled by it. She really loved THE FRONT PAGE, too. Mae had come from the theater. She had been a vaudevillian, and her first husband...
She must have been very young at that time.
She was very young. Mae was born Violet Mary Klotz, and her family lived in Philadelphia. She was in weak health as a baby, and the doctor said they should move her to the seashore, so they relocated to Jersey. She was only 14 when she left home to become a dancer. So she was very young. Her mother and father would come to visit her on the weekends. Her roommate was a girl by the name of Ruby Stevens, though you would probably know her as Barbara Stanwyck. She was Mae Clarke's roommate from about 1924 to 1928. Mae said that they were roommates and also the very best of friends. She would tell me about some of the other people she knew while she was in the theater in New York, when she was a chorus girl, and she then got small parts in plays. Eventually she worked her way up to a wonderful play, with Stanwyck by the way, called THE NOOSE. She and Barbara Stanwyck appeared in that together, and it was that role, that play, that got her seen by a scout, and got her a screen test to come to Hollywood in 1929. As I recall, her first motion picture was called THE BIG TIME, I think. I'm pretty sure that's what she would tell me. She would always joke and say, 'I really thought I was, too.' She thought she was in the big time, because she was on her way to being a movie star.
As it turns out, she was right.
She was right. 'God gave it to me', she would say. God gave her that gift, not because she wanted it so badly, but she really had no other training. As I said, she got started very early as a dancer. She married a fellow by the name of Lew Brice. This was in 1927. He was a famous vaudevillian. His sister was even more famous, her name was Fanny Brice. She was a major star of the day in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in the Ziegfield Follies, Miss Fanny Brice. So when Mae married Lew, for her wedding present, her sister-in-law Fanny Brice gave her a silver purse, which was really cool, a silver mesh purse. Fanny also had an act, a vaudeville act, written for them, for a couple, which included skits and dance routines and jokes, and you know, all of the elements of a good Broadway act of the day. And it was a good act! And they loved it. And in doing so, they had some pretty good success with it. But, I think he drank. I think Lew drank, which led to the uh, you know, the breakup of the marriage, just a few years into it. And that's when she went back to the theater, and then did THE NOOSE, and was seen by a scout. So, that's how Mae got her entrance into Hollywood and the motion pictures.
So towards the end of 1931, Mae was still just in her early twenties, with beauty, ability, experience, and some great performances already to her credit. But that grapefruit scene in PUBLIC ENEMY really made her famous. Like other all-time great moments from classic movies, there's a story behind it, isn't there?
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