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TV Guide
November 17, 1956
Why is Montgomery willing to spend extra money for them, at the same time exposing his crew to the possibility of traditional temper tantrums from such stars? The answer, in a word: ratings. Viewers, now conditioned by spectaculars to the biggest name stars, will often tune to a dramatic show only if it can boast well-known personalities.
Some TV producers regret they ever thought of casting movie stars. Hollywood personalities, accustomed to having every whim humored while making a movie, often demand the same treatment in a TV studio. There was the Betty Hutton feud with Producer Max Liebman during 'Satins and Spurs.' Margaret Sullavan recently walked out on Studio One. And Noel Coward termed his "Hollywood experience" in making "Blithe Spirit" an unhappy one.
Montgomery, however, anticipated no such trouble from his stars. "TV is like any other business," he said. "Most people who are really good are no problem. They neither require nor demand any special treatment."
Unfortunately, the Montgomery crew says it didn't work out quite that way. Cagney was fine, even though the show marked his introduction to the jet-speed requirements of TV production. "Cagney was no problem at all," said one Montgomery associate. "If he had been a kid trying to make good the first time around, he couldn't have been any easier to work with."
During rehearsals, Cagney seemed less harried than that old TV pro, Montgomery, who scurried frantically around the studio attending to last-minute production details. "No time for that now," he said to a photographer who was trying to get pictures of the show. Cagney merely smiled at the frenzied activity. "Just tell me what to do," he told the photographer.
A Montgomery publicist swore that Miss Bennett had been "extremely cooperative." During a Montgomery rehearsal of 'Onions in the Stew,' however, Miss Bennett, the play's star, was seen angrily objecting to the efforts of a studio floor manager to help her find her way from one set to another. She brushed his hand off her arm, complaining, "Take your hands off me. I can find my own way." As for Miss Colbert, she steadfastly refused, for reasons of her own to permit any color pictures to be taken of her during rehearsals. Nor were photographers permitted near the set during the telecast.
Montgomery claims the show will use name stars "only if we can afford them and if they can carry their weight." Sitting behind an executive-size desk in his plush penthouse office on New York's 5th Ave., he wheeled around in his chair to answer the phone. He completed the call and turned back to his interview without losing his train of thought. "Don't think we hired these people just for their box-office value," he said. "In each case we thought they were perfectly suited for the roles we wanted them to play."
Montgomery paused to gaze thoughtfully around his office walls, on which were hung several pictures of him and a friend, President Eisenhower. "Don't forget that many of these stars are available for the first time to TV," he added. "Some have shied away from TV. They've been frightened by it. But they realize now that, although doing a TV show is a tough job, it can also be rewarding. In many cases, too, film stars have been prohibited contractually from doing television. Very few of them are still under contract to pictures. That means they can do anything they want."
Is the new star system to be considered part of Montgomery's running battle for ratings with the competing Studio One show on CBS? "Not at all," said a Montgomery spokesman for the NBC show. "We did very well opposite Studio One this summer with our repertory group, which had no name stars at all."
It's no coincidence that Montgomery's high-priced talent were all Hollywood movie stars at one time. As star of dozens of Hollywood movies over a 21-year span, Montgomery has the inside track when it comes to signing such people. Many of them worked in pictures with him; some are long-time friends. He did not sign Cagney and the Misses Bennett and Colbert because of their movie backgrounds, he says.
"That had nothing to do with it," he said. "Jimmy and I have been friends for 35 years, even though we never worked in a picture together. He promised me some time ago that if he ever did a live TV dramatic show it would be for us. When I first read 'Soldier from the Wars Returning,' I thought he'd be perfect for it. So I phoned to tell him about it and then took the script up to his place in Martha's Vineyard for him to read. He liked it immediately. You might say that it was my hope and his choice to do that show."
It's too early to determine whether Montgomery's emphasis on big-name stars will attract more viewers to his show. Montgomery himself admits the box-office value of these stars is a nebulous thing on TV. "It's true that they might attract bigger audiences the first or second time on TV because of their reputation," he said. "But if they fail, they can fail just as badly as any actor who is not normally considered 'box-office.'" He paused for emphasis. "After all," he pointed out, "TV is the most disciplined medium in show business."