Vera Caspary
Encyclopedia
Vera Caspary was an American writer of novels, plays, screenplays, and short stories. Her best-known novel Laura
was made into a highly successful movie
. Though she claimed she was not a "real" mystery writer, her novels effectively merged women's quest for identity and love with murder plots. Independence is the key to her protagonists, with her novels revolving around women who are menaced, but who turn out to be neither victimized nor rescued damsels.
Following her father's death, the income from Caspary's writing was at times only just sufficient to support both herself and her mother, and during the Great Depression she became interested in Socialist
causes. Caspary joined the Communist party
under an alias, but not being totally committed and at odds with its code of secrecy, she claimed to have confined her activities to fund-raising and hosting meetings. Caspary visited Russia in an attempt to confirm her beliefs, but nonetheless became disillusioned and wished to resign from the Party, although she continued to contribute money and support similar causes. She eventually married her lover and writing collaborator of six years, Isidor "Igee" Goldsmith; but despite this being a successful partnership, her Communist connections would later lead to her being "graylisted", temporarily yet significantly affecting their offers of work and income. The couple split their time between Hollywood and Europe until Igee's death in 1964, after which Caspary remained in New York where she would write a further eight books.
After her graduation from high school in 1917, her father enrolled her in a six month course in a business college, and by January 1918, Caspary found herself working as a stenographer. Caspary went through a string of menial office jobs, looking for one where she could write instead of taking dictation from people with bad grammar. While working at an advertising agency composing copy, she invented the fictitious "Sergei Marinoff School of Classic Dancing", a mail order dance course. Caspary wrote all the materials for this and other correspondence courses she had little knowledge of, including one that taught screenwriting. She was also producing articles for publications such as Finger Print Magazine, and the New York -based Dance Lovers Magazine. By 1922, she had turned down a raise from $50 to $75 to write from home and work on her first novel.
she was inspired to write The White Girl, published in January 1929. Its plot was reminiscent of Fannie Hurst
's Imitation of Life, about a Southern black woman who moves North and passes as white. The reviews were better than she had hoped and some people speculated that it was written by a black woman who was indeed passing.
By 1928, Caspary was writing for Gotham Life: the Metropolitan Guide, a free entertainment guide distributed through hotels. This job provided free tickets to theater shows, concerts, and nightclubs and introduced her to a wide circle of press agents and celebrities. While at Gotham Life, she had lived under an assumed name in a "working girl's home". In March 1929, she again quit her job to write full time, and her 1930 novel Music in the Street would be set in a working girl's home. Moving back to Chicago, she co-wrote the play version Blind Mice with Winifred Lenihan
, which would feature an all-female cast and would form the basis for the 1931 film Working Girls. She and her mother moved to Connecticut to do the rewrites on the play. The play was disastrous – Caspary's inexperience with the process caused her to take everyone's advice, altering the play's text constantly. When she and Lenihan weren't present, the producers even rewrote the play themselves. When Caspary returned, the true original copy could not be found and the play closed in two weeks.
Back in New York in 1932, Caspary was supporting herself and her mother writing magazine articles, including interviews for Gotham Life. She also wrote Thicker than Water, a thinly veiled roman a'clef about her own family. Caspary was almost broke, but after bumping into a story editor from Paramount
, she came up with Suburb, a forty-page original story written over a weekend for which Paramount paid her $2,000. Caspary admits in her memoir, that she would rewrite and resell this exact plot exactly eight times in the coming years. The week after she sold it to Paramount the first time, Liveright
publishers gave her a $1,000 advance on Thicker than water.
, and after one spat, she no longer received writing assignments. Since her contract had five more months, she merely stopped going to the studio and spent her days at the beach while her agent picked up her paycheck. Again wanting to write her own material she got her contract canceled and set sail for New York.
, The Daily Worker and other materials. Though not truly committed, she allowed her work to be affected by changing attitudes, but found that having never been a proletarian, she could not write the great proletarian novel. She would help raise funds for causes and sign petitions but never actually become a true believer. Nonetheless, one of the last things her mother would do before she died was to scold her for associating with "filthy reds". Upon returning to Greenwich village, Caspary was invited to join the Communist party by a very prominent playwright, and did so, though under the alias of 'Lucy Sheridan'. Caspary found the Party's code of secrecy to be contrary to her search for truth and questioning of values, which had led her to join in the first place. Though claiming to never actively trying to recruit anyone, she admits performing Party chores such as fund-raising and hosting the fortnightly Confidences Club meetings at her home, which were mostly for socializing.
In April 1939, Caspary used the profits of a Hollywood story sale to travel to Russia to "see how people lived" in what the Daily Worker had described as a paradise. During her trip across Europe she was nearly persuaded from guilt to marry an Austrian Jew in order to get him to the United States, but due to a slowness in paperwork she was saved that fate. She later learned that he made it to America on his own steam. She traveled through Germany by train, being strip-searched at border crossings. She visited Moscow and Leningrad, visiting factories, seeing the "worker's paradise", and finding time to attend the ballet, where a Russian Jewish gentleman proposed to her during the intermission. On her return trip through the Finnish border, the first-class car was empty, save for Caspary and Ivan Maysky
, the Russian Ambassador to Britain, who would have been carrying the ill-fated Russian offer for "collective security
" to the Court of St. James's
.
Stalin
's pact with Hitler
disillusioned many Party members, including Caspary. In her words, "Loss of faith is a slow process, and painful. A last desperate effort to cling to belief attacks the nerves. I became irritable, disliked my friends, slept badly, lost tolerance. Haunted by ghosts of deeds and statements. I felt filthy." By December 1939, she was actively trying to resign from the Communist Party; she was informed that she couldn't just exit, but could be asked to leave if she was brought up on charges. She called their bluff and agreed to it; however they were reluctant to let her go quietly, and agreed to call it a "temporary leave of absence". In January she closed up her house and moved back to Hollywood.
. She also taught classes in writing screenplays to raise funds to bring refugee writers to America. In June 1941, Germany attacked Russia, and Hollywood Benefits for Russian war relief drew huge crowds. During this time Caspary started tinkering with a murder mystery, but instead of producing an original story for the screen she was encouraged to turn it into a novel. It was finished by October, and to get some perspective she went to work on a story about a night plane to Chungking for Paramount Studios. When the United States declared war on Germany and Japan in early December, that story was canceled, and Caspary asked to be laid off and returned happily to her murder mystery. During Christmas 1941, she typed "The end" on the last page of Laura
.
1942 found Caspary working on a dramatization of Laura with George Sklar, while waiting around for some meaningful war-related work to come from the Office of War information, she tried to join the Army but was turned down. She had just met future husband, and recent European émigrée Isidor "Igee" Goldsmith. Within a few days they were inseparable.
Producer Dorothy Olney had taken an option on Laura and Caspary traveled to New York to assist with preproduction on the play. Despite their efforts, Olney could not secure backing and gave up the option on the play. When Caspary returned to Hollywood Igee was waiting for her with bouquets of red roses. Caspary moved into a Mexican farmhouse on Horn Avenue across from Humphrey Bogart
and began work on Bedelia
. Igee, who had grown annoyed at the Hollywood habit of keeping producers on the payroll and not giving them anything to produce, was overjoyed at her request for assistance in working on Bedelias rough patches. At Christmas 1942, their love affair was interrupted as every able-bodied British citizen was recalled to help with the defense of England. Igee, born in Austria, had emigrated to England in 1932 and would have to return there. She would not see him again for thirteen months.
Meanwhile, every director who read Laura wanted to put it on the stage, but no producer or backer would finance it. Otto Preminger
bullied Darryl Zanuck into buying the property for 20th Century Fox
, convincing him that the production would be inexpensive. Tired of shopping it around and against her own advice, "Once a writer sells a story to Hollywood, they can kiss it goodbye," she sold it to Fox.
, the State Department, Good Housekeeping
, the Stork Club and the White House, which would bring her to England. Good Housekeeping was running it as a serial, and Houghton Mifflin
was publishing it in the spring. J. Arthur Rank could only pay a fraction of what a Hollywood studio could pay for the rights, but Caspary didn't want the money, she wanted Igee.
Herbert Mayes, editor at Good Housekeeping had conceived the idea of Murder at the Stork Club, and chose Caspary to write the story. Thus during the nine weeks she was in New York waiting for her passport, Good Housekeeping paid all her expenses and all her Stork Club dinners were free. Unfortunately one night she was seated next to Otto Preminger, and they proceeded to start a fiery argument regarding the script for Laura and the resultant film. Caspary and Igee pestered every official they knew and didn't know on both sides of the Atlantic, trying to grease the wheels of bureaucracy. As part of the deal with the British Ministry of Information she agreed to write articles about wartime England for American newspapers and magazines. Finally on January 12, 1945, Vera Caspary disappeared from New York only to reappear on a dock in England, just in time to see the British stage production of Laura open at the Q theater in London on Jan 30th, with Sonia Dresdel
as Laura.
"I should have never committed that murder," Caspary would complain. The English Harper's Bazaar
magazine also wanted Murder at the Stork Club, and its editor Ben McPeake, like Mayes in New York would continually check on the story's progress. Unfortunately, there were too many distractions for her to write in London, but luckily she had the loan of W.R. Hearst's
Castle in Wales, St Donat's – all but empty and abandoned during the war it provided much needed seclusion for her to write the story. She returned to London and Igee, where they enjoyed the few months they had left, but when the war ended and the screenplay was finished the Ministry of Information sent her packing back to Hollywood; another separation without a foreseeable end. Igee had to stay and finish the picture.
was too old for the part (yet had much influence), the producer was inexperienced and intimidated letting Hopkins run "rough shod" over the production, the lighting designer was replaced as was the stage manager and finally the director himself. Caspary and her co-writer Sklar would see the work of a year destroyed day by day. The play ran for 44 performances.
By May 1946, Igee had returned to her and they lived openly together in their house in the Hollywood hills. They were terribly happy in post-war Hollywood, jobs were plentiful, salaries high and the parties seemed endless – Caspary's new found fame brought her into contact with anyone who was anyone. Her stories improved by Igee's contribution were selling at inflated prices, yet her salary rose due to high demand for her work and her limited availability. Caspary made it a practice only to accept jobs of adaptation; she found it more creative and fun, as in the case of John Klempner's book Letter to Five Wives, filmed under the title A Letter to Three Wives
. To streamline the film, one wife was eliminated by Caspary, and when the script reached production, Joseph L. Mankiewicz
removed another one. Due to a loophole in the Academy Awards nomination rules, Mankiewicz alone was nominated and won the Oscar for Best Screenplay. However when the same screenplay won the Writers Guild of America
award for Best Written American Comedy, Mankiewicz was forced to share the award and credit with Caspary, the original adaptor.
Despite their arrangement and a previous wife long-abandoned in England, by 1948 Igee was anxious to marry Caspary, though she had serious reservations about the practice. After three years of physical separation, Igee got his divorce on the grounds of abandonment. While in Europe finalizing the divorce, Igee traveled to visit his grown son in Switzerland and, while there, bought Caspary a small chalet in nearby Annecy
. After living together for the better part of seven years, they were married within the week.
Taking advantage of their new-found success and status, the couple formed a production company, "Gloria Films", producing the comedy Three Husbands with Eve Arden
and Ruth Warwick, and the film noir the Scarf starring John Ireland
and Mercedes McCambridge
. Unfortunately, Caspary and Igee forgot the first rule of finance, "never use your own money", and had put all their own funds and savings into the company. Their films were contracted to United Artists
, and when United Artists went into bankruptcy and restructuring in 1950, the films of Gloria Films were tied up in litigation and the couple lost everything. Many small production companies went bankrupt as a result of United Artists' troubles – Caspary could not afford to, as she would have lost future royalties for works she had already written and any payments for reprints of her books. Igee was devastated at the loss, he would never get to be the bread winner of the couple. In December, Caspary drove to MGM
and sold them a story treatment for $50,000 dollars, with a 50% advance. In January she sold them another for $45,000 and in February sold one to Paramount for $35,000. This last sale, the couple deposited in New York, which was fortunate as it would be a long time before they worked again in Hollywood.
, the House's rabid anti-communist investigations pitted Hollywood's residents against one another. If you testified you were a "friendly" witness, if you were named a communist sympathizer you were "blacklisted", either way your side was chosen for you. The couple were preparing to leave for Europe, as Igee was negotiating a French remake of Three Husbands, when MGM abruptly and illegally questioned Caspary regarding her Communist links. They were duly worried, as they had just bought two expensive stories from her, and if she were named and blacklisted they would not be able to release them. Since Caspary had left the Party before she came to Hollywood, she told the truth about which committees she attended and the initiatives she had worked on, but the one thing they never asked was if she had ever been a member.
Caspary was concerned; if she was subpoenaed to appear she would not be able to leave the country, unless she became a "friendly witness" and named names. On a lawyer's advice the couple left the country as soon as possible. They remained in Europe, Igee going from studio to studio trying to finance new projects or remake old ones, finally inspiring Caspary to write a musical comedy, Wedding in Paris. It was while working in Austria on the musical adaptation of Daddy Long Legs, Caspary learned she had been added to the gray list and told to abandon the project. If you had appeared before the HUAC committee and refused to name names, you were blacklisted, if your file indicated that you had signed pledges, attended congresses or contributed to doubtful causes, you were graylisted. Caspary described the former as hell, while the latter merely purgatory.
The couple returned to Hollywood early in January 1954, but found the climate in Hollywood had gone from chilly to severe. They left again after six months, and what followed were two more years or bad luck. In 1956, Caspary and Igee returned to Hollywood when the HUAC had finally lost interest in their playthings. A job was waiting for her; an old friend Sol Siegel had purchased the rights to the book Les Girls
, and was eager for her to adapt it for the screen. However MGM wouldn't employ her, unless she wrote a letter stating that she had never been a member of the Communist Party; under such duress Caspary capitulated and wrote the letter. Years later, Caspary would remember Cukor's
Les Girls with Gene Kelly
and Mitzi Gaynor
as her most enjoyable studio experience.
came ouf of retirement long enough to denounce it as obscene.
She could no longer work with the intensity and fervor of her youth, but she still needed to earn a living and pay their debts. Caspary even broke a twenty year vow and took work from Columbia Pictures
and the ever irascible Harry Cohn
. She reworked an idea that she had begun in Austria and had been rejected in London, altering it to fit American situations, and to her shock 20th Century Fox offered $150,000 for it. They wanted it for Marilyn Monroe
; a deal was made for the 100-page treatment of Illicit, the contract signed and the first payment sent, then Monroe became undisciplined and unreliable, and was suspended by the studio. Caspary completed a first draft but the film was never made.
The good feeling from being financially secure for the first time in ages, was lost when Igee was diagnosed with lung cancer. In between surgeries and bouts of illness the couple traveled; Greece, Las Vegas, New England all the places they had meant to go. They traveled until Igee was no longer fit to; he died while they were in Vermont in 1964.
Caspary returned to New York after Igee's death, where she continued to write and published eight more books, including The Rosecrest Cell, a study of a group of frustrated amateur Communists; and a memoir, The Secrets of Grown-ups. None equaled the popularity of her early suspense work. In her 18 published novels, 10 screen plays and 4 stage plays, Miss Caspary's main theme, whether in a murder mystery, drama or musical comedy, was the working woman and her right to lead her own life, to be independent. Caspary died of a stroke at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City in 1987.
Laura (novel)
Laura is a detective novel by Vera Caspary. It is her best known work, and was adapted into a popular film in 1944, with Gene Tierney in the title role.-Publication history:...
was made into a highly successful movie
Laura (1944 film)
Laura is a 1944 American film noir directed by Otto Preminger. It stars Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews and Clifton Webb. The screenplay by Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, and Elizabeth Reinhardt is based on the 1943 novel of the same title by Vera Caspary....
. Though she claimed she was not a "real" mystery writer, her novels effectively merged women's quest for identity and love with murder plots. Independence is the key to her protagonists, with her novels revolving around women who are menaced, but who turn out to be neither victimized nor rescued damsels.
Following her father's death, the income from Caspary's writing was at times only just sufficient to support both herself and her mother, and during the Great Depression she became interested in Socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
causes. Caspary joined the Communist party
Communist party
A political party described as a Communist party includes those that advocate the application of the social principles of communism through a communist form of government...
under an alias, but not being totally committed and at odds with its code of secrecy, she claimed to have confined her activities to fund-raising and hosting meetings. Caspary visited Russia in an attempt to confirm her beliefs, but nonetheless became disillusioned and wished to resign from the Party, although she continued to contribute money and support similar causes. She eventually married her lover and writing collaborator of six years, Isidor "Igee" Goldsmith; but despite this being a successful partnership, her Communist connections would later lead to her being "graylisted", temporarily yet significantly affecting their offers of work and income. The couple split their time between Hollywood and Europe until Igee's death in 1964, after which Caspary remained in New York where she would write a further eight books.
Biography
Vera Louise Caspary was born prematurely in November, 1899, in Chicago – her mother, already over forty with three other nearly-grown children had hidden her condition. Her father Paul Caspary was a buyer for a department store; he and her mother Julia née Cohen Caspary where both second generation German and Russian Jewish immigrants. Being such a surprise to her family, Caspary was thoroughly spoiled as a child.After her graduation from high school in 1917, her father enrolled her in a six month course in a business college, and by January 1918, Caspary found herself working as a stenographer. Caspary went through a string of menial office jobs, looking for one where she could write instead of taking dictation from people with bad grammar. While working at an advertising agency composing copy, she invented the fictitious "Sergei Marinoff School of Classic Dancing", a mail order dance course. Caspary wrote all the materials for this and other correspondence courses she had little knowledge of, including one that taught screenwriting. She was also producing articles for publications such as Finger Print Magazine, and the New York -based Dance Lovers Magazine. By 1922, she had turned down a raise from $50 to $75 to write from home and work on her first novel.
New York
By the time her father died in 1924, Caspary was fully supporting her mother, who was impressed that her daughter could pound money out of a typewriter. She moved to Greenwich Village in New York as Dance Lovers Magazines new editor, achieving a Bohemian lifestyle. Here she met lifelong friend and collaborator Sam Ornitz, then editor of Radio Lovers Magazine. Once again leaving a job to write her own material, Caspary wrote her first published novel Ladies and Gents which would not be published for two years due to a publishers delay. When her mother fell ill, she took still another job writing a Charm and Beauty correspondence course. While living in Greenwich villageGreenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
she was inspired to write The White Girl, published in January 1929. Its plot was reminiscent of Fannie Hurst
Fannie Hurst
Fannie Hurst was an American novelist. Although her books are not well remembered today, during her lifetime some of her more famous novels were Stardust , Lummox , A President is Born , Back Street , and Imitation of Life...
's Imitation of Life, about a Southern black woman who moves North and passes as white. The reviews were better than she had hoped and some people speculated that it was written by a black woman who was indeed passing.
By 1928, Caspary was writing for Gotham Life: the Metropolitan Guide, a free entertainment guide distributed through hotels. This job provided free tickets to theater shows, concerts, and nightclubs and introduced her to a wide circle of press agents and celebrities. While at Gotham Life, she had lived under an assumed name in a "working girl's home". In March 1929, she again quit her job to write full time, and her 1930 novel Music in the Street would be set in a working girl's home. Moving back to Chicago, she co-wrote the play version Blind Mice with Winifred Lenihan
Winifred Lenihan
Winifred Lenihan was an American actress, writer and director. She studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts before making her debut in 1918...
, which would feature an all-female cast and would form the basis for the 1931 film Working Girls. She and her mother moved to Connecticut to do the rewrites on the play. The play was disastrous – Caspary's inexperience with the process caused her to take everyone's advice, altering the play's text constantly. When she and Lenihan weren't present, the producers even rewrote the play themselves. When Caspary returned, the true original copy could not be found and the play closed in two weeks.
Back in New York in 1932, Caspary was supporting herself and her mother writing magazine articles, including interviews for Gotham Life. She also wrote Thicker than Water, a thinly veiled roman a'clef about her own family. Caspary was almost broke, but after bumping into a story editor from Paramount
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
, she came up with Suburb, a forty-page original story written over a weekend for which Paramount paid her $2,000. Caspary admits in her memoir, that she would rewrite and resell this exact plot exactly eight times in the coming years. The week after she sold it to Paramount the first time, Liveright
Horace Liveright
Horace Brisbin Liveright was an American publisher and stage producer. With Albert Boni, he founded the Modern Library and Boni & Liveright publishers. He published books from numerous influential American and British authors...
publishers gave her a $1,000 advance on Thicker than water.
Hollywood
Thicker than Water came out with good reviews, but by then even her publisher Liveright was feeling the pangs of the Great Depression and Caspary was again nearly broke. In March 1933, a Fox story editor called and asked for another original just like Suburb, which had been filmed as the Night of June 13. She spent that summer in Hollywood, writing a treatment for Fox and working on a play with Samuel Ornitz. Caspary could not sell that play and by winter she was broke again, but Ornitz insisted they write another and brought her back to Hollywood where her luck was always better. Within a week she had sold three stories to studios and gotten a five hundred dollar-a-week contract. She bought herself a completely new wardrobe and brought her mother from New York. Like most people, Caspary did not get along with Harry CohnHarry Cohn
Harry Cohn was the American president and production director of Columbia Pictures.-Career:Cohn was born to a working-class German-Jewish family in New York City. In later years, he appears to have disparaged his heritage...
, and after one spat, she no longer received writing assignments. Since her contract had five more months, she merely stopped going to the studio and spent her days at the beach while her agent picked up her paycheck. Again wanting to write her own material she got her contract canceled and set sail for New York.
Reds
By this point in the Depression many intellectuals were flirting with Socialist causes, and Ornitz tried to interest Caspary by giving her the Communist ManifestoThe Communist Manifesto
The Communist Manifesto, originally titled Manifesto of the Communist Party is a short 1848 publication written by the German Marxist political theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It has since been recognized as one of the world's most influential political manuscripts. Commissioned by the...
, The Daily Worker and other materials. Though not truly committed, she allowed her work to be affected by changing attitudes, but found that having never been a proletarian, she could not write the great proletarian novel. She would help raise funds for causes and sign petitions but never actually become a true believer. Nonetheless, one of the last things her mother would do before she died was to scold her for associating with "filthy reds". Upon returning to Greenwich village, Caspary was invited to join the Communist party by a very prominent playwright, and did so, though under the alias of 'Lucy Sheridan'. Caspary found the Party's code of secrecy to be contrary to her search for truth and questioning of values, which had led her to join in the first place. Though claiming to never actively trying to recruit anyone, she admits performing Party chores such as fund-raising and hosting the fortnightly Confidences Club meetings at her home, which were mostly for socializing.
In April 1939, Caspary used the profits of a Hollywood story sale to travel to Russia to "see how people lived" in what the Daily Worker had described as a paradise. During her trip across Europe she was nearly persuaded from guilt to marry an Austrian Jew in order to get him to the United States, but due to a slowness in paperwork she was saved that fate. She later learned that he made it to America on his own steam. She traveled through Germany by train, being strip-searched at border crossings. She visited Moscow and Leningrad, visiting factories, seeing the "worker's paradise", and finding time to attend the ballet, where a Russian Jewish gentleman proposed to her during the intermission. On her return trip through the Finnish border, the first-class car was empty, save for Caspary and Ivan Maysky
Ivan Maysky
Ivan Mikhailovich Maisky was a Soviet diplomat, historian, and politician, notable as that country's ambassador to London during much of World War II...
, the Russian Ambassador to Britain, who would have been carrying the ill-fated Russian offer for "collective security
Collective security
Collective security can be understood as a security arrangement, regional or global, in which each state in the system accepts that the security of one is the concern of all, and agrees to join in a collective response to threats to, and breaches of, the peace...
" to the Court of St. James's
Court of St. James's
The Court of St James's is the royal court of the United Kingdom. It previously had the same function in the Kingdom of England and in the Kingdom of Great Britain .-Overview:...
.
Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's pact with Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
disillusioned many Party members, including Caspary. In her words, "Loss of faith is a slow process, and painful. A last desperate effort to cling to belief attacks the nerves. I became irritable, disliked my friends, slept badly, lost tolerance. Haunted by ghosts of deeds and statements. I felt filthy." By December 1939, she was actively trying to resign from the Communist Party; she was informed that she couldn't just exit, but could be asked to leave if she was brought up on charges. She called their bluff and agreed to it; however they were reluctant to let her go quietly, and agreed to call it a "temporary leave of absence". In January she closed up her house and moved back to Hollywood.
Laura
However, her conscience would not let her simply abandon causes she believed in. Caspary would continue to sign petitions, contribute money, write to congressmen and keep up her memberships in the Anti-Nazi League, the League of American WritersLeague of American Writers
The League of American Writers was an association of American novelists, playwrights, poets, journalists, and literary critics launched by the Communist Party USA in 1935...
. She also taught classes in writing screenplays to raise funds to bring refugee writers to America. In June 1941, Germany attacked Russia, and Hollywood Benefits for Russian war relief drew huge crowds. During this time Caspary started tinkering with a murder mystery, but instead of producing an original story for the screen she was encouraged to turn it into a novel. It was finished by October, and to get some perspective she went to work on a story about a night plane to Chungking for Paramount Studios. When the United States declared war on Germany and Japan in early December, that story was canceled, and Caspary asked to be laid off and returned happily to her murder mystery. During Christmas 1941, she typed "The end" on the last page of Laura
Laura (novel)
Laura is a detective novel by Vera Caspary. It is her best known work, and was adapted into a popular film in 1944, with Gene Tierney in the title role.-Publication history:...
.
1942 found Caspary working on a dramatization of Laura with George Sklar, while waiting around for some meaningful war-related work to come from the Office of War information, she tried to join the Army but was turned down. She had just met future husband, and recent European émigrée Isidor "Igee" Goldsmith. Within a few days they were inseparable.
Producer Dorothy Olney had taken an option on Laura and Caspary traveled to New York to assist with preproduction on the play. Despite their efforts, Olney could not secure backing and gave up the option on the play. When Caspary returned to Hollywood Igee was waiting for her with bouquets of red roses. Caspary moved into a Mexican farmhouse on Horn Avenue across from Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey Bogart
Humphrey DeForest Bogart was an American actor. He is widely regarded as a cultural icon.The American Film Institute ranked Bogart as the greatest male star in the history of American cinema....
and began work on Bedelia
Bedelia (novel)
Bedelia is a novel by Vera Caspary first published in 1945 about a couple of newlyweds where the initially blissfully happy husband finds out during the first months of their marriage that his wife may have a criminal past...
. Igee, who had grown annoyed at the Hollywood habit of keeping producers on the payroll and not giving them anything to produce, was overjoyed at her request for assistance in working on Bedelias rough patches. At Christmas 1942, their love affair was interrupted as every able-bodied British citizen was recalled to help with the defense of England. Igee, born in Austria, had emigrated to England in 1932 and would have to return there. She would not see him again for thirteen months.
Meanwhile, every director who read Laura wanted to put it on the stage, but no producer or backer would finance it. Otto Preminger
Otto Preminger
Otto Ludwig Preminger was an Austro–Hungarian-American theatre and film director.After moving from the theatre to Hollywood, he directed over 35 feature films in a five-decade career. He rose to prominence for stylish film noir mysteries such as Laura and Fallen Angel...
bullied Darryl Zanuck into buying the property for 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
, convincing him that the production would be inexpensive. Tired of shopping it around and against her own advice, "Once a writer sells a story to Hollywood, they can kiss it goodbye," she sold it to Fox.
"My agent wrote one of the worst contracts ever written. I signed it as carelessly as a five-dollar check. As I would be reminded in restaurants and parking lots, I had signed away a million dollars. Who would have thought that a film which for all its elegance, was not expensive, whose stars were not then considered important, would become a box office smash and a Hollywood legend?"
Bedelia
Late in 1944, tired of the long separation from her love, Caspary devised a method to reunite her with Igee. The war had made civilian travel generally difficult, and to Europe nearly impossible. However, Caspary cabled Igee that he could have the film rights to Bedelia for a British production, if she could be brought over to write the screenplay. Thus putting into motion a plan involving two British Ministries, J. Arthur RankJ. Arthur Rank
Joseph Arthur Rank, 1st Baron Rank was a British industrialist and film producer, and founder of the Rank Organisation, now known as The Rank Group Plc.- Family business :...
, the State Department, Good Housekeeping
Good Housekeeping
Good Housekeeping is a women's magazine owned by the Hearst Corporation, featuring articles about women's interests, product testing by The Good Housekeeping Institute, recipes, diet, health as well as literary articles. It is well known for the "Good Housekeeping Seal," popularly known as the...
, the Stork Club and the White House, which would bring her to England. Good Housekeeping was running it as a serial, and Houghton Mifflin
Houghton Mifflin
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is an educational and trade publisher in the United States. Headquartered in Boston's Back Bay, it publishes textbooks, instructional technology materials, assessments, reference works, and fiction and non-fiction for both young readers and adults.-History:The company was...
was publishing it in the spring. J. Arthur Rank could only pay a fraction of what a Hollywood studio could pay for the rights, but Caspary didn't want the money, she wanted Igee.
Herbert Mayes, editor at Good Housekeeping had conceived the idea of Murder at the Stork Club, and chose Caspary to write the story. Thus during the nine weeks she was in New York waiting for her passport, Good Housekeeping paid all her expenses and all her Stork Club dinners were free. Unfortunately one night she was seated next to Otto Preminger, and they proceeded to start a fiery argument regarding the script for Laura and the resultant film. Caspary and Igee pestered every official they knew and didn't know on both sides of the Atlantic, trying to grease the wheels of bureaucracy. As part of the deal with the British Ministry of Information she agreed to write articles about wartime England for American newspapers and magazines. Finally on January 12, 1945, Vera Caspary disappeared from New York only to reappear on a dock in England, just in time to see the British stage production of Laura open at the Q theater in London on Jan 30th, with Sonia Dresdel
Sonia Dresdel
Sonia Dresdel was an English actress, whose career ran between the 1940s and 1970s.She was born Lois Obee in Hornsea, East Riding of Yorkshire, England and was educated at Aberdeen High School for Girls....
as Laura.
"I should have never committed that murder," Caspary would complain. The English Harper's Bazaar
Harper's Bazaar
Harper’s Bazaar is an American fashion magazine, first published in 1867. Harper’s Bazaar is published by Hearst and, as a magazine, considers itself to be the style resource for “women who are the first to buy the best, from casual to couture.”...
magazine also wanted Murder at the Stork Club, and its editor Ben McPeake, like Mayes in New York would continually check on the story's progress. Unfortunately, there were too many distractions for her to write in London, but luckily she had the loan of W.R. Hearst's
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...
Castle in Wales, St Donat's – all but empty and abandoned during the war it provided much needed seclusion for her to write the story. She returned to London and Igee, where they enjoyed the few months they had left, but when the war ended and the screenplay was finished the Ministry of Information sent her packing back to Hollywood; another separation without a foreseeable end. Igee had to stay and finish the picture.
Igee
Though the success of Laura had increased her salary fivefold, Caspary was unhappy in Hollywood without Igee. Her work on a new novel was interrupted by preproduction on the doomed stage version of Laura. Unfortunately the play was dreadfully miscast, Miriam HopkinsMiriam Hopkins
Ellen Miriam Hopkins was an American actress known for her versatility in a wide variety of roles.Hopkins was born in Savannah, Georgia, and raised in Bainbridge, a town in the state's southwest near the Alabama border...
was too old for the part (yet had much influence), the producer was inexperienced and intimidated letting Hopkins run "rough shod" over the production, the lighting designer was replaced as was the stage manager and finally the director himself. Caspary and her co-writer Sklar would see the work of a year destroyed day by day. The play ran for 44 performances.
By May 1946, Igee had returned to her and they lived openly together in their house in the Hollywood hills. They were terribly happy in post-war Hollywood, jobs were plentiful, salaries high and the parties seemed endless – Caspary's new found fame brought her into contact with anyone who was anyone. Her stories improved by Igee's contribution were selling at inflated prices, yet her salary rose due to high demand for her work and her limited availability. Caspary made it a practice only to accept jobs of adaptation; she found it more creative and fun, as in the case of John Klempner's book Letter to Five Wives, filmed under the title A Letter to Three Wives
A Letter to Three Wives
A Letter to Three Wives is a 1949 film which tells the story of a woman who mails a letter to three women, telling them she has left town with the husband of one of them. It stars Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell, Ann Sothern, Kirk Douglas, Paul Douglas in his film debut, Jeffrey Lynn, and Thelma Ritter...
. To streamline the film, one wife was eliminated by Caspary, and when the script reached production, Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Joseph L. Mankiewicz
Joseph Leo Mankiewicz was an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Mankiewicz had a long Hollywood career and is best known as the writer-director of All About Eve , which was nominated for 14 Academy Awards and won six. He was brother to screenwriter and drama critic Herman J...
removed another one. Due to a loophole in the Academy Awards nomination rules, Mankiewicz alone was nominated and won the Oscar for Best Screenplay. However when the same screenplay won the Writers Guild of America
Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is a generic term referring to the joint efforts of two different US labor unions:* The Writers Guild of America, East , representing TV and film writers East of the Mississippi....
award for Best Written American Comedy, Mankiewicz was forced to share the award and credit with Caspary, the original adaptor.
Despite their arrangement and a previous wife long-abandoned in England, by 1948 Igee was anxious to marry Caspary, though she had serious reservations about the practice. After three years of physical separation, Igee got his divorce on the grounds of abandonment. While in Europe finalizing the divorce, Igee traveled to visit his grown son in Switzerland and, while there, bought Caspary a small chalet in nearby Annecy
Annecy
Annecy is a commune in the Haute-Savoie department in the Rhône-Alpes region in south-eastern France.It lies on the northern tip of Lake Annecy , 35 kilometres south of Geneva.-Administration:...
. After living together for the better part of seven years, they were married within the week.
Taking advantage of their new-found success and status, the couple formed a production company, "Gloria Films", producing the comedy Three Husbands with Eve Arden
Eve Arden
Eve Arden was an American actress. Her almost 60-year career crossed most media frontiers with supporting and leading roles, but she may be best-remembered for playing the sardonic but engaging title character, a high school teacher, on Our Miss Brooks, and as the Rydell High School principal in...
and Ruth Warwick, and the film noir the Scarf starring John Ireland
John Ireland (actor)
John Benjamin Ireland was an actor and film director.-Biography:Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, he was raised in New York City from the age of 18. He started out in minor stage roles on Broadway...
and Mercedes McCambridge
Mercedes McCambridge
Carlotta Mercedes McCambridge was an American actress. Orson Welles called her "the world's greatest living radio actress."-Early life:...
. Unfortunately, Caspary and Igee forgot the first rule of finance, "never use your own money", and had put all their own funds and savings into the company. Their films were contracted to United Artists
United Artists
United Artists Corporation is an American film studio. The original studio of that name was founded in 1919 by D. W. Griffith, Charles Chaplin, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks....
, and when United Artists went into bankruptcy and restructuring in 1950, the films of Gloria Films were tied up in litigation and the couple lost everything. Many small production companies went bankrupt as a result of United Artists' troubles – Caspary could not afford to, as she would have lost future royalties for works she had already written and any payments for reprints of her books. Igee was devastated at the loss, he would never get to be the bread winner of the couple. In December, Caspary drove to MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
and sold them a story treatment for $50,000 dollars, with a 50% advance. In January she sold them another for $45,000 and in February sold one to Paramount for $35,000. This last sale, the couple deposited in New York, which was fortunate as it would be a long time before they worked again in Hollywood.
Gray list
Hollywood in 1951 was the feeding ground for the House Un-American Activities CommitteeHouse Un-American Activities Committee
The House Committee on Un-American Activities or House Un-American Activities Committee was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives. In 1969, the House changed the committee's name to "House Committee on Internal Security"...
, the House's rabid anti-communist investigations pitted Hollywood's residents against one another. If you testified you were a "friendly" witness, if you were named a communist sympathizer you were "blacklisted", either way your side was chosen for you. The couple were preparing to leave for Europe, as Igee was negotiating a French remake of Three Husbands, when MGM abruptly and illegally questioned Caspary regarding her Communist links. They were duly worried, as they had just bought two expensive stories from her, and if she were named and blacklisted they would not be able to release them. Since Caspary had left the Party before she came to Hollywood, she told the truth about which committees she attended and the initiatives she had worked on, but the one thing they never asked was if she had ever been a member.
Caspary was concerned; if she was subpoenaed to appear she would not be able to leave the country, unless she became a "friendly witness" and named names. On a lawyer's advice the couple left the country as soon as possible. They remained in Europe, Igee going from studio to studio trying to finance new projects or remake old ones, finally inspiring Caspary to write a musical comedy, Wedding in Paris. It was while working in Austria on the musical adaptation of Daddy Long Legs, Caspary learned she had been added to the gray list and told to abandon the project. If you had appeared before the HUAC committee and refused to name names, you were blacklisted, if your file indicated that you had signed pledges, attended congresses or contributed to doubtful causes, you were graylisted. Caspary described the former as hell, while the latter merely purgatory.
The couple returned to Hollywood early in January 1954, but found the climate in Hollywood had gone from chilly to severe. They left again after six months, and what followed were two more years or bad luck. In 1956, Caspary and Igee returned to Hollywood when the HUAC had finally lost interest in their playthings. A job was waiting for her; an old friend Sol Siegel had purchased the rights to the book Les Girls
Les Girls
Les Girls, also known as Cole Porter's Les Girls, is a 1957 musical comedy film made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed by George Cukor, produced by Sol C...
, and was eager for her to adapt it for the screen. However MGM wouldn't employ her, unless she wrote a letter stating that she had never been a member of the Communist Party; under such duress Caspary capitulated and wrote the letter. Years later, Caspary would remember Cukor's
George Cukor
George Dewey Cukor was an American film director. He mainly concentrated on comedies and literary adaptations. His career flourished at RKO and later MGM, where he directed What Price Hollywood? , A Bill of Divorcement , Dinner at Eight , Little Women , David Copperfield , Romeo and Juliet and...
Les Girls with Gene Kelly
Gene Kelly
Eugene Curran "Gene" Kelly was an American dancer, actor, singer, film director and producer, and choreographer...
and Mitzi Gaynor
Mitzi Gaynor
-Life and career:Gaynor was born as Francesca Marlene de Czanyi von Gerber in Chicago, Illinois to Pauline Fisher, a dancer, and Henry von Gerber, a violinist, cellist, and music director. The family first moved to Detroit and when she was eleven to Hollywood, California.She trained as a ballerina...
as her most enjoyable studio experience.
Time out
The couple split their time between Hollywood and Europe. The novel Evvie about two emancipated girls in the 1920s and heavily based on her own experiences, was begun in London, continued in New York, finished in Beverly Hills and proofed in Paris. The novel won faint reviews, but Caspary considered it one of her best novels and famed New York Times reviewer Fanny ButcherFanny Butcher
Fanny Butcher was a long time writer and literary critic for the Chicago Tribune newspaper. Butcher graduated from Lewis Institute in 1908...
came ouf of retirement long enough to denounce it as obscene.
She could no longer work with the intensity and fervor of her youth, but she still needed to earn a living and pay their debts. Caspary even broke a twenty year vow and took work from Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures
Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. is an American film production and distribution company. Columbia Pictures now forms part of the Columbia TriStar Motion Picture Group, owned by Sony Pictures Entertainment, a subsidiary of the Japanese conglomerate Sony. It is one of the leading film companies...
and the ever irascible Harry Cohn
Harry Cohn
Harry Cohn was the American president and production director of Columbia Pictures.-Career:Cohn was born to a working-class German-Jewish family in New York City. In later years, he appears to have disparaged his heritage...
. She reworked an idea that she had begun in Austria and had been rejected in London, altering it to fit American situations, and to her shock 20th Century Fox offered $150,000 for it. They wanted it for Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe
Marilyn Monroe was an American actress, singer, model and showgirl who became a major sex symbol, starring in a number of commercially successful motion pictures during the 1950s....
; a deal was made for the 100-page treatment of Illicit, the contract signed and the first payment sent, then Monroe became undisciplined and unreliable, and was suspended by the studio. Caspary completed a first draft but the film was never made.
The good feeling from being financially secure for the first time in ages, was lost when Igee was diagnosed with lung cancer. In between surgeries and bouts of illness the couple traveled; Greece, Las Vegas, New England all the places they had meant to go. They traveled until Igee was no longer fit to; he died while they were in Vermont in 1964.
Caspary returned to New York after Igee's death, where she continued to write and published eight more books, including The Rosecrest Cell, a study of a group of frustrated amateur Communists; and a memoir, The Secrets of Grown-ups. None equaled the popularity of her early suspense work. In her 18 published novels, 10 screen plays and 4 stage plays, Miss Caspary's main theme, whether in a murder mystery, drama or musical comedy, was the working woman and her right to lead her own life, to be independent. Caspary died of a stroke at St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City in 1987.
Novels
- A Manual of Classic Dancing. (as Sergei Marinoff) Chicago: Sergei Marinoff School, 1922
- Ladies and Gents. NY: Grosset and Dunlap, 1929
- The White Girl. NY: Sears & Company, 1929
- Music in the street. NY: Grosset & Dunlap, 1930
- Thicker than Water. NY: Liveright, 1932
- LauraLaura (novel)Laura is a detective novel by Vera Caspary. It is her best known work, and was adapted into a popular film in 1944, with Gene Tierney in the title role.-Publication history:...
. Boston Houghton Mifflin Company, 1943 - BedeliaBedelia (novel)Bedelia is a novel by Vera Caspary first published in 1945 about a couple of newlyweds where the initially blissfully happy husband finds out during the first months of their marriage that his wife may have a criminal past...
. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1945 - Stranger Than Truth. NY: Random House, 1946
- The Murder in the Stork Club. NY: AC. Black, 1946
- The Weeping And The Laughter. Boston: Little, Brown & Company, 1950
- Thelma. Boston: Little Brown, 1952
- False Face. London: W.H Allen, 1954
- Evvie. NY: Harper, 1960
- Bachelor in Paradise. NY: Dell, 1961
- A Chosen Sparrow. NY: Putnam, 1964
- The Man Who Loved His Wife. NY: Putnam, 1966
- The Husband. NY: Harpers, 1967
- The Rosecrest Cell. NY: Putnam, 1967
- Final Portrait. London: W.H. Allen, 1971
- Ruth. NY: Pocket, 1972
- Dreamers. NY: Simon and Schuster, 1975
- Elizabeth X. London: WH Allen, 1978
- The Secrets of Grown-Ups. NY: McGraw-Hill, 1979
- The Murder in the Stork Club and Other Mysteries. Norfolk, VA: Crippen & Landru, 2009. Collection of novelettes.
Short Stories
- "In Conference"
- "Marriage '48", Colliers, Sept–Oct 1948
- "Odd Thursday"
- "Out of the Blue", Today's Woman, Sept 1947
- "Stranger in The House", 1943
- "Stranger than Truth", Colliers, Sept–Oct 1946
- "Suburbs"
Plays
- Blind Mice, (1930) w/Winifred LenihanWinifred LenihanWinifred Lenihan was an American actress, writer and director. She studied at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts before making her debut in 1918...
- Geraniums in My Window; a Comedy in Three Acts, w/Samuel Ornitz, (1934)
- June 13; a Mystery-Drama in Three Acts, w/Frank Vreeland, (1940)
- Wedding in Paris, w/Sonny Miller, (1956)
- Laura,w/George Sklar (1947)
Film Credits
- Working Girls, (1931; play "Blind Mice")
- The Night of June 13, (1932; story "Suburbs")
- Private Scandal, (1934; story "In Conference")
- Such Women Are Dangerous, (1934; story "Odd Thursday")
- Hooray for Love, (1935; contributor to treatment; uncredited)
- Party Wire, (1935; story; uncredited)
- I'll Love You Always, (1935; writer)
- Easy Living, (1937; story)
- Scandal Street, (1938; story "Suburb")
- Service de Luxe, (1938; story)
- Sing, Dance, Plenty Hot, (1940; story)
- Lady from LouisianaLady from LouisianaLady from Louisiana is a 1941 disaster film starring John Wayne. It was produced and directed by Bernard Vorhaus for Republic Pictures.-Plot:...
, (1941; screenplay) - Lady Bodyguard, (1943; story)
- LauraLaura (1944 film)Laura is a 1944 American film noir directed by Otto Preminger. It stars Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews and Clifton Webb. The screenplay by Jay Dratler, Samuel Hoffenstein, and Elizabeth Reinhardt is based on the 1943 novel of the same title by Vera Caspary....
, (1944; novel) - Claudia and David, (1946; adaptation)
- Bedelia, (1946; novel; screenplay)
- Out of the BlueOut of the Blue (1947 film)Out of the Blue is a 1947 comedy based on the short story by Vera Caspary who also co-wrote the screenplay. It stars George Brent, Ann Dvorak, Turhan Bey and Virginia Mayo...
, (1947; story) - A Letter to Three WivesA Letter to Three WivesA Letter to Three Wives is a 1949 film which tells the story of a woman who mails a letter to three women, telling them she has left town with the husband of one of them. It stars Jeanne Crain, Linda Darnell, Ann Sothern, Kirk Douglas, Paul Douglas in his film debut, Jeffrey Lynn, and Thelma Ritter...
, (1949; adaptation) - I Can Get It for You WholesaleI Can Get It for You WholesaleI Can Get It for You Wholesale is a musical with music and lyrics by Harold Rome and a book by Jerome Weidman based on his 1937 novel of the same title. It marked the Broadway debut of 19-year-old Barbra Streisand, who was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in...
, (1951; adaptation) - Three Husbands, (1951; screenplay; story)
- Give a Girl a Break, (1953; story)
- The Blue Gardenia, (1953; story)
- The 20th Century-Fox Hour, (1955; episodes)
- Les GirlsLes GirlsLes Girls, also known as Cole Porter's Les Girls, is a 1957 musical comedy film made by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. It was directed by George Cukor, produced by Sol C...
, (1957; story) - Bachelor in Paradise, (1961; story)
- Laura, (1962; TV; writer)
- Laura, (1968; TV; novel)
External links
- Allmovie Biography
- New York Times Obituary, June 17, 1987
- "Dangerous Women: Vera Caspary's Rewriting of Lady Audley's Secret in Bedelia" by Laura Vorachek, Clues: A Journal of Detection 28.2 (2010)
- Vera Caspary at the Internet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie DatabaseInternet Movie Database is an online database of information related to movies, television shows, actors, production crew personnel, video games and fictional characters featured in visual entertainment media. It is one of the most popular online entertainment destinations, with over 100 million...
. - Vera Caspary at the Internet Broadway DatabaseInternet Broadway DatabaseThe Internet Broadway Database is an online database of Broadway theatre productions and their personnel. It is operated by the Research Department of The Broadway League, a trade association for the North American commercial theatre community....