November 20, 1934: The Marines Are Coming premieres. It is the final film of William Haines -- by his choice, if not entirely so.
I wanted to tell Haines' story, but I couldn't find either the date of his arrest, the date of his ultimatum from MGM, or the date of his response to it.
Charles William Haines was born on January 2, 1900 in Staunton, Virginia. He was discovered by a talent scout, and signed with Goldwyn Pictures in 1922. His career gained momentum when he received favorable reviews for his role in the silent film The Midnight Express in 1924. (This was not the same story as the 1978 prison-escape film Midnight Express.)
Haines was cast in the 1926 film Brown of Harvard, and his performance solidified his screen persona as a wisecracking, arrogant leading man. By the end of the 1920s, Haines had appeared in a string of successful films, and was a popular box-office draw. The change from silent films to "talkies" helped him, as audiences could now hear his wisecracks.
On a trip to New York in 1926, Haines met James Shields. Haines convinced Shields to move to Los Angeles, promising to get him work as an extra. The pair soon began living together, and viewed themselves as a committed couple, though newspapers did not mention their relationship. Haines also became one of the top interior designers in Southern California. For all I know, he may have been the source of the stereotype of interior designers tending to be homosexual.
In 1933, "Billy" cheated on "Jimmie." Worse, he got arrested in the process, caught fooling around in gay activity with a sailor. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer boss Louis B. Mayer gave him an ultimatum: Marry a woman or lose every job he has in Hollywood. This was the depth of the Great Depression, so the threat of poverty was very real.
William Haines told Louis B. Mayer what he could do with his threat, and stuck by his boyfriend. Maybe he caught some courage from that sailor. But it was a huge risk, because Mayer probably had more power in Los Angeles than the Mayor, Frank Shaw, did at that point.
Haines took a hell of a gamble with his defiance, at a very inopportune time. It paid off: Not only did he and Shields stay together for the rest of Haines' life, but Haines' actor friends stood up for him, and continued to hire him to design or redesign their homes. He lost his fame, but not his fortune.
He only appeared in 2 more movies, in small "poverty row" studios: Young and Beautiful and The Marines Are Coming. The latter film was about a young Marine who is discharged in disgrace -- not for the same reason as Haines faced disgrace in real life -- and ends up becoming a soldier of fortune and proving himself there. It wasn't quite a mirror of his real life, but it was a great way to go out.
William Haines beat Louis B. Mayer and "the studio system," but he also smoked, and cancer is an opponent that doesn't care if you're straight or gay, rich or poor. He died on December 26, 1973, at St. John's Hospital -- a Catholic hospital, which apparently didn't care, or perhaps didn't know, that he was gay -- in the Los Angeles suburb of Santa Monica, California, a few days short of his 74th birthday. Shields couldn't take it, and, just 10 weeks later, took some barbiturate pills and got drunk, and joined Haines in death.
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November 20, 1934 was a Tuesday. This was also the day of the premiere of Lillian Hellman's play The Children's Hour, which depicted a fictional gay scandal. I have a separate entry for this event.
Baseball was out of season. Football was in midweek. The NBA hadn't yet been founded. There were 3 games in the NHL:
* The New York Americans lost to the Montreal Maroons, 3-0 at the old (but then fairly new) Madison Square Garden.
* The Boston Bruins beat the Detroit Red Wings, 1-0 at the Boston Garden.
* The Toronto Maple Leafs beat the St. Louis Eagles, 5-2 at the St. Louis Arena.
* And the New York Rangers and the Montreal Maroons were not scheduled.
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