When good Americans die, they go to Paris ― Oscar Wilde

Maisie Hollywood / Part Five: Josephine Baker and a cheetah named Chiquita.

Read part four, One.Tough.Town: here

In 1919, D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford, Doug Fairbanks, and Charlie Chaplin founded United Artists, wresting artistic control of their careers from the commercially-oriented studios, prompting Louis B. Mayer to make his famous remark: “The inmates are running the asylum.”

In 1925 Gloria Swanson, considered the most bankable star of the era, turned down a one-million-dollar-a-year (fourteen-million-plus of today’s dollars) contract with Paramount to set up the Swanson Producing Corporation and accept a six-picture distribution offer from UA president Joseph Schenck.

Garbo rebelled. She demanded more varied roles. She said, I do not want to be … doing nothing but tempting men. Threatened with having her visa canceled, being forced to return to Europe, she fell in line.

In that climate, Paramount was in no mood to be lenient with their obstreperous junior star and her playing-games advisor.

Maisie’s latest picture, The Canary Murder Case, had wrapped. Walter Wanger convinced B.P. Schulberg to grant her a six weeks sabbatical. Bea had an offer to lecture on Modern Dance at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. She wanted Maisie along to share the experience.

Maisie wanted to be along. She’d created a series of dances to perform in Paris. An exotic wardrobe was in the works, for both on-stage and off, dramatic, architectural pieces in bold color choices.

Maisie, exploring Bea’s library, having discovered a volume containing Leon Bakst’s costume designs, had fallen in love with his sketches for the ballet Scheherazade.

Heavily influenced by Bakst, she drew her own ideas. The studio costume designer went to work translating her doodles into pieces of wearable art. Bea monitored the progress of a wardrobe to be worn (so their story went) on a publicity tour of Europe. The highly skilled seamstresses of the workshop enjoyed the silliness, regarding it the merriest of games. They went all out, beyond what was asked of them in terms of beading and embroidery.

In 1928, Wallace Beery was one of Hollywood’s biggest stars. Top billed on Partners in Crime, he had the leverage to insist his friend Marcelline Mulot be cast alongside him in the comic crime caper. She had her chance to shine in a non-kiddie-flick, as the assistant to Roxy, the cigarette girl with whom he was (cinematically) involved. William Powell was in the film as well. Neither he nor Mulot a major character, they hung out together between their scenes.

Powell’s next project was The Canary Murder Case. It was his first starring role (as detective Philo Vance). He asked that Maisie–with whom he’d had a pleasurable experience on Partners–be brought on. The plodding script (no way was he going to be handed a first-rate project, not at that stage of his career) would benefit from a comic touch.

Maisie reprised her bit as a cigarette-girl, peddling smokes in a night club. A miniature tray slung from her shoulders bore the slogan ‘Peachy’s Puffs’. Lou-Ann summoned to a table, Peachy (Maisie) would strut across the table (ya, table-tops again) to deliver the item (cigarettes or cigar), accept payment, and shimmy back to her boss-lady. Lou-Ann’s tips went through the roof. She watched her adorable assistant like a hawk. The other ciggy-girls would have loved to get their hands on the talented teeny-weenie.

St. Clair and Powell understood they had a turkey on their hands. They knew they had to juice up a dud script. Maisie was written into the poker-game sequence, during which Vance formed his conclusion regarding the identity of the murderer.

Their alternate strategy: Lou-Ann, going out of town, asked her friend (the Canary) to take care of her mouse for the weekend. Maisie sat in a birdcage feet from the couch during the ghastly strangulation. Vance posited to the suspects that she might, face to face with the perpetrator, recoil or otherwise react in a telling manner. Absurd? No dumber than the writer’s concept, and a lot more fun.

Bea prepared her for the challenge, modeling expressions that she practiced in front of a mirror. Bea assured St. Clair, she’s ready. She understands what’s needed. Her recent performance in The Letter clinched it. I have only Maisie’s description of the scene. That footage was destroyed when she refused to return from Europe.

Powell showed glimmers of the delightful leading man he was to become. The director, Mal St. Clair, pushed to showcase his commandingly pleasant speaking voice. Other studios were experimenting with sound. Why not them?

He presented the idea to B.P. Schulberg. Schulberg agreed. Scenes would need to be reshot, and dialogue dubbed, but it had to be done. To release the film as a silent would have been box-office suicide.

The original version, the one we see on YouTube, went like this: Killing time in a police precinct, four suspects played poker. Vance (Powell) deduced, from the style of their betting, who was cunning/daring enough to have committed the crime.

Maisie’s footage was judged a great improvement. She (by her telling) nailed it. (In our time together, she often quoted a lyric from the show Funny Girl, “I got thirty-six expressions, sweet as pie to tough as leather, that’s six expressions more than all them Barrymores put together.”)

I’d been on the receiving end of some of those looks. Believe me, it was no idle boast.

The film is painful to watch, with a thin plot and a ridiculous ending. I’ve dug into some of Canary’s reviews. They are sad.

Film Daily, 1929: “The mystery … never particularly impresses. The story is another instance of magazine material making indifferent film fare.”

A more recent comment: “William Powell is left to amble through unengaging scenes with lots of rather meaningless dialogue which drives little audience engagement.”

And: “Lines are spoken at an almost ponderous pace. There are awkward gaps in conversations, giving the crude sound system time to capture the dialogue properly. We watch interview after interview, each more boring than the last.”

It was a dumb-ass script, there’s no other way to put it. Powell survived the bad start, he went on to a legendary career. This was the film that ended Mulot’s stint in Hollywood, but not for an inadequate performance. She did it to herself.

She wasn’t in Paris two weeks when Paramount demanded Bea haul her home. Maisie was living it up. She was the toast of the town. She and Bea were welcomed in the leading salons: Princess de Polignac’s gatherings, drawing creators and fans of avant-garde music, the receptions of Madame de Noailles, where one might meet Proust, Colette, Gide, Frédéric Mistral, Paul Valéry. They talked books and art with Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. Whew, right?

She’d made up her mind to extend the visit. Cut it short? Forget it. Bea conveyed her mindset as diplomatically as she could figure to do.

Schulberg pleaded. Mulot would not budge. He offered a huge bonus. No soap. He didn’t need her for re-takes. He wanted her to do pre-publicity for the film, to give it a big boost. It had been screened for the press. The critics had slammed it, but Maisie could charm the paying public into overlooking the reviews. Between her antics and Powell’s considerable charm, the film might still succeed.

Get her butt back here now, Schulberg wired Bea.

Bea replied, Our cutie exhausted, needs long rest. Push back premier. Extra month won’t make or break you.

Two years earlier Schulberg might have agreed. After Swanson’s snub, no way. He wired back, Stay there till Hell freezes over.

Maisie Mulot was out at Paramount, but she didn’t give a damn. She was in love with Paris. And Paris was in love with her.

Paris in the twenties was mad for Americans, and for American culture.

At the age of 15, Josephine Baker headed to New York City, finding work in the chorus lines of groundbreaking Broadway revues, Shuffle Along in 1921 and The Chocolate Dandies in 1924. These shows handed her an opportunity to appear in Paris. She opened in La Revue Nègre in 1925, at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées, and she was an instant success.

She performed in a costume consisting of a string of artificial bananas, often accompanied by her pet cheetah, Chiquita. Chiquita frequently escaped into the orchestra pit, terrorizing the musicians, adding another element of excitement to the show.

Baker was hot. Her erotic agitations were hot. She danced to the hottest music around, Ragtime. The scandal which erupted over her nearly nude dancing gave way to acclaim for her unbridled Charleston, and for the music she jiggled to, for jazz.

The Charleston and the Shimmy were all the rage. A mania for all things American had infected the culture. At the Folies-Bergère, Baker writhed. Maisie was performing not far away. They knew of each other, they were both heavily covered in the press. It was all but inevitable that they would meet.

Maisie’s gyrations were of an intellectual nature, similar to what she had done with Denishawn. Baker went for no-holds-barred outrageous, but, artistically, they were sisters, each having discovered a style of movement that satisfied a need for self-expression.

In the audience one evening,

Maisie and Bea were recognized and hustled backstage to be introduced to the star. In the dressing room, a radio blared ‘Sugar Foot Stomp’. On the spur of the moment, Maisie jumped to a table top and performed a spectacular Charleston. Wowed, Baker put forth an inspired idea. The two cooked up a treat for a public that adored the both of them.

Baker had been gifted a cunning papier-mâché bracelet, a copy of the loincloth she romped in nightly, with bananas the perfect scale for a mousie. A week later, many of the town’s movers-and-shakers in front row seats, they gave the maddest performance of a mad decade.

Maisie told me, “It never occurred to me the kit-cat would share the stage with me, roaming free. I was unaware of that until the last minute. We stood in the wing. Directly behind me, the devil in cat clothing. I couldn’t believe it! I said, Bea, I ain’t goin’ on with that thing breathing down my neck. Bea conveyed my concern to Josephine.

“She’s part of my show, said Jo. I talk to her, I snuggle with her. People expect her out there with me. I begged, Bea, put your foot down. I hear it attacks the pit. Jo–had she heard me?–said, she jumped the cymbalist one night, but it was choreographed, for laughs. Honest, she’s a sweetheart.

“I hissed, A sweetheart if you’re five-five. Something tells me she’s no sweetheart if you’re five inches. Me shaking my ass off has to hold a fascination all the training in the world can’t counter.

“Bea pleaded with me, Honey! Pull yourself together! Our friends are out front. And press, I tipped off the press. Josephine is not going to put you in harm’s way. She knows what she’s doing. I’ll be just off stage, ready to render assistance in a heartbeat. I gave in, damn me, against my better judgment.

“We had our cue. Jo shimmied onto the stage, me clutched to her bosom, concealed in cupped hands. Her back to the house, she deposited me,” Maisie sighed, “on another table top. I can’t get away from them.

“The first number erupted from the pit. She shimmied clear of me. There I was, in my bananas and my feathers. (As in the Ziegfeld Follies, she wore a towering feather headdress, to render her more visible to the far seats.) We wiggled in place until the cheering faded. Then she did a wilder step, challenging me to match it, her attitude, top this, small stuff. I did–they didn’t call me twinkle-toes back home for nothing. The cheers resumed. The Ragtime quit, Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé replacing it. I demonstrated my modern-dance technique, inviting her to attempt my style of prancing. The audience roared. From there, we cut to the chase, a boogie-oogie-woogie shim-sham-shimmy.

“I don’t blame Chiquita. The flurry of feathers and flapping fruit was too much for her. She lunged at me. A cry from Bea alerted me just in time. I took a leap, landed on Jo’s Banana hip-hug, scaled her boobies and dug in atop her lacquered locks. The crowd was on its feet. Jaws, you knowm the pussy-cat, watched me with evil eyes, waiting for me to fall. Jo danced, I held on to her helmet-hair for dear life. She paused, I went at it. I didn’t give the performance of my career, but no one seemed to notice.

“My terrified face, they thought it part of the fun. You never knew what The Black Pearl had in store for you.”

Meanwhile . . . back in L.A.

A nationwide talent search for Maisie’s replacement was announced, in print, and in clips screened in theaters before every feature.

Movie-Aficionados of America! Miss Marcelline Mulot refuses to meet the demands of her employment. We have ‘The Rajah Regrets’ in development. Help us find Paramount’s next Junior Star of Tomorrow.

The response was instantaneous and overwhelming. As it went after Shirley Temple, discovered at the Ethel Meglin Dance Studio, turned out to be a gold mine, the star machine kicked into high gear. (By the way, Temple started out in one-reelers with all-kid casts that satirized adult stars. She spoofed Mae West, among others. Sound familiar?)

Rodent acting academies sprang up everywhere. People poured into Los Angeles lugging caged mice and rats, enrolling them in packed schools, besieging the offices of talent scouts, pleading for them to have a look at an outstanding prospect.

On a lighter note: Once the new ‘It’ girl was selected, no one wanted to take the losers home. They were turned loose, fueling a take-over of L.A. by gangs of high-kicking, syncopated-stepping rodents. Sit on a bench in the moonlight, strum a guitar, you’d be treated to a show to rival anything you might see in a top club on the strip.

Next: Maisie in Hollywood / Part Six / The Gypsy Joyride Couldn’t Go Forever. Read it here