Who was Charles Brackett?
Most people know Charles Brackett because of his partnership with Billy Wilder, with the two men co-writing screenplays, Brackett producing and Wilder directing such classic films as Five Graves to Cairo, The Lost Weekend, A Foreign Affair, and, of course, Sunset Blvd. He was a highly educated, Republican gentleman of the old school, who was drama critic of The New Yorker in the 1920s, the author of five novels, who came to Hollywood in 1932, initially working at RKO and then beginning a long-time relationship with Paramount, where he was teamed with Billy Wilder.
When did you first become aware of the diaries that Charles Brackett kept?
Back in 2008, I was asked by Brackett’s grandson, Jim Moore, to value his diaries, which Jim had donated to the Margaret Herrick Library at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. That initial donation included the diaries from 1932 through 1949, and I realized what a tremendous research source was here, documenting not only the films that Brackett worked on with Wilder, but also the films he worked on separately. Charlie was an inveterate partygoer and the diaries were filled with anecdotes relating to Hollywood celebrities. He was also for many years president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and there was much here on the inner workings of that organization.
What was involved in editing and publishing the diaries?
Well, first I had to get permission from Jim Moore, and he and his wife were most friendly and helpful. The major problem with the diaries was that Brackett wrote them in longhand, and his writing was absolutely indecipherable. Luckily, he had had his secretary, Helen Hernandez, transcribe all of them, or at least most of them. Some that were not transcribed, Jim and I worked on trying to decipher. You would figure out one word, and then work from that. Obviously, the editing was long and arduous, with my inputting the edited version into my computer, and figuring out appropriate footnotes. I wanted a major publisher for the book, and, after much discussion and academic analysis of the text, Columbia University Press agreed to take it on. We had fantastic, almost unbelievable publicity, in both America and the U.K., but, sadly, the book didn’t sell well. Only a couple of thousand copies.
How did this current volume come into being?
Jim Moore and I had assumed that the diaries only existed through 1949. But then, a couple of years ago, Jim discovered additional volume covering the years 1950 through 1955. Columbia University Press declined to publish a second volume because of the poor sales, but, happily, Ben Ohmart stepped in and agreed that BearManor should take on the project. It was a slow process editing the remaining diaries, which begin at Paramount in 1950, with the filming of the scene in Sunset Blvd. where Gloria Swanson walks down the staircase, and Brackett producing his last film for the studio, The Mating Season. At the end of 1950, Brackett signed a long-term contract with 20th Century-Fox, and the diaries cover the production of such films there as Niagara, Titanic, The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing, and The King and I.
Why do the diaries end in October 1955?
I don’t know. The final entry is dated October 21, 1955, and then there are no more entries. Were there perhaps additional diaries and they are lost? Or did Charlie just get tired on writing them? When you think about it, keeping those diaries for so many years was an onerous task. Every night before going to bed, he wrote up the day’s happenings in his diary, often in great detail. He did this for twenty-three years!
What can one expect to find in the diaries?
Obviously, details on each of Brackett’s films, the casting, the choice of director, and problems on the set. Brackett was under contract to 20th Century-Fox, and there is much here on Darryl F. Zanuck, his working methods, his thoughts on film, and some of his more outrageous antics. There was seldom a night when Charlie didn’t attend a party, with guests ranging from Cole Porter and Ethel Merman to Judy Garland and Clifton Webb, and he has many stories to relate. Brackett spends a lot of time with Margaret Herrick at the Academy, and discusses her love affair with Kemp Niver, who gained fame for his supposed restoration of the Paper Print Collection at the Library of Congress. I think you learn a lot about Brackett’s personality, his politics, his likes and dislikes. I know that claims have been made that he was gay, but I do not believe that to be true, and I don’t really discuss it in the book. I have not included too much about Brackett’s family life, but certainly this is covered in Jim Moore’s introduction, in particular Charlie’s strange, almost incestuous relationship with his grandson. I should note that Charlie was married twice; after his first wife died, be married her sister. And he had two daughters by his first wife.
And Billy Wilder?
Yes, there is much about Billy Wilder. This book puts the lie to the claim that the two men had nothing or little to do with each once they split up. In fact, they spoke almost daily, and Wilder tried to interest Brackett in getting together for at least two film projects.