Leading Man. It`s a musty term that smells as old as a grandmother`s attic. It conjures up Cary Grant in his trademark tuxedo strolling into a party given by Grace Kelly. Or John Wayne striding into a dusty, western town as a larger-than-life moral repair man.
Or maybe it`s slow-talking, slow-walking Gary Cooper doing what a man`s got to do. Or, perhaps, it`s Humphrey Bogart at a foggy airport or Errol Flynn with a flashing saber and smiling face.
But they are all dead.
Clint Eastwood is perhaps the closest example today of the old-fashioned leading man. It`s hard to remember the titles or the plots of the Dirty Harry movies but it`s impossible to forget his craggy face sighting down a magnum and shoving it into the face of a street punk. But Eastwood`s an exception.
In years past, especially during the `30s and `40s, the major movie studios signed their performers to long-term contracts: Flynn and Bogart at Warner Brothers; Henry Fonda at Fox; Cary Grant and Fred Astaire at RKO and James Stewart and Clark Gable at MGM.
The writers were told to fashion stories around the images of the leading men-images that were, for the most part, created in the publicity and the promotion departments. The entire movie studio machinery was cranked up to promote a star.
”In those days most of us worked for the same studio under long-term contracts,” said James Stewart, in a recent interview. Stewart said his studio, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, was a team where all the efforts went into movies.
”It was in the interest of the studio to promote the stars,” he said.
”From the beginning, I was groomed to be a leading man. When you weren`t acting, they sent you to fencing classes or to the gym or out to promote someone else`s movie. If the studio was promoting you, they were also promoting themselves.”
From the `30s until the early `50s, moviegoers were more likely to refer to a movie by the name of the star rather than the title. I recall my aunt taking me to see the ”new John Wayne picture” rather than ”The Searchers.” Advertisers would use the name of the major star above the title. Leading men led.
That also was a time when actors such as Grant, Stewart and Wayne were making three pictures a year and not, as many do now, one movie every three years.
”In three years, a lot of those guys would make enough pictures to fill a career today,” said producer-director Stanley Kramer, whose work includes Humphrey Bogart in ”The Caine Mutiny” and Spencer Tracy in ”Inherit the Wind.” ”The stars literally went from one picture to another without stopping. That`s why the studios worked with the fan magazines to create stories and build up their careers.”
Or, as Stewart explained, ”It made public relations and financial sense to build up the actors at the expense of the film, itself. The studio knew the actor would be around a lot longer than the movie. Those were the days when double bills changed every week.
”In many ways, MGM was like a family but it was also very clear that they knew how to protect their investments.”
One advantage studio veterans had over their contemporary counterparts is that writers were assigned to write pictures for particular stars.
”It was hard to interest the studio in something that wasn`t Warner Brothers material,” said Julius J. Epstein, veteran screenwriter-produce r. He, along with his late brother Philip, wrote dozens of memorable films, including ”Casablanca,” ”Arsenic and Old Lace” and ”The Man Who Came to Dinner.”
”They would look for things that were appropriate to their stars. You wrote a picture for Bogart or Flynn or Cary Grant or, God forbid, Ronald Reagan.”
Epstein went on to explain that different studios promoted different stories because of the leading men and ladies they had under contract. ”The stars had considerable power,” Epstein said, ”the writers didn`t have any.” ”But all that changed,” Stewart pointed out, ”when the studio system dissolved and almost all the actors began to freelance. The studios began to promote the pictures rather than the people. That was pretty much the end of the term `leading man.”`
”There are no more leading men,” said Kramer. ”Just actors. You can`t really build a picture around a man or woman except for a handful of stars nowadays. Maybe Nicholson . . . Eastwood. Even Paul Newman can`t carry a picture by himself anymore. Instead of the business being built around the studios, it`s built around single pictures.”
The evolution of leading men into actors, like everything else in Hollywood, is mostly business.
”There is still a difference between an actor and a star but there are really no such things as leading men,” said producer David Brown, whose work includes ”Jaws” and ”Cocoon.”
”An actor is an artist or craftsman like Robert DeNiro-someone who is a great performer but whose name has limited box office appeal. Eddie Murphy and Tom Cruise are stars because it appears that no matter what films they do, they make money. The leading men were stars.”
Paul Newman, Robert Redford and, particularly, Jack Nicholson, represent the transition generation between those stars groomed by the studios and those who have developed as independents.
When Nicholson first arrived on the scene in the early `60s, he was desperate for a studio job but, by then, studio jobs had been phased out. Instead, he went to work for Roger Corman`s low-budget New World Pictures.
”No one looked out for you,” Nicholson said, in a recent interview.
”You looked out for you. I mean, my friends helped me out but, professionally, you had to take care of yourself.
”In some ways, the studio system was better. They created an image for you. But it was also artificial. It`s harder, now. But I like the
independence. As you can tell, I have mixed feelings.”
Dennis Quaid, one of a new breed of movie star, rejects both the star and leading man labels.
”We`re all freelancers now,” said Quaid, in a recent interview.
”Promotion is part of the profession but the decision rests more with the actor than with the studio. If you want to do publicity, you do it. If not, you don`t. I like to help a movie I`m in by doing interviews. It helps business. But it`s my decision to make.”
William Hurt, who seems to be an annual Oscar nominee, dislikes the publicity machinery that transforms an actor into a star. ”It`s all part of an organic whole,” he once said in an interview. ”The further you get away from the work, the worse it gets. By the time a film is finished, so am I. I don`t want to become a salesman.”
But what about the new generation?
Except for Tom Cruise and Eddie Murphy, none of the young male actors seems to have the talent to carry a picture. The Brat Pack-among them, Andrew McCarthy, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez-has evaporated in failure.
”You must have the basic ability to do the work,” said Nicholson.
”Everything comes from that. Frankly, I`m glad to see the day of the traditional leading man pass us by. I think playing a character is the essence of acting. In those days, they molded the character to the star. Now, it`s the other way around.”
Although the leading man era is over, their performances are frozen in time on their many video releases. Cary Grant`s suit will never need pressing. James Stewart will eternally stutter. John Wayne will always limp and Bogart will always smoke and never die.
”We just try to play life,” said Nicholson. ”They were bigger than that.”
