Saturdays with the Stars: Alice Faye

Each month of 2019 we will be looking at the careers of leading ladies of Classical Hollywood who were never nominated for an Academy Award as part of our "Saturdays with the Stars" series.  Last month, we focused on the films of Cyd Charisse, a major musical star in the 1950's for MGM.  This month, we turn back the clock about twenty years and examine an actress largely forgotten by modern audiences who was nonetheless the biggest star at Fox during her years as a leading lady, so much so that they received thousands of fan letters after she retired begging the studio to bring her back to the screen.  Interestingly enough, both Charisse and this month's star shared a husband (singer Tony Martin), though Charisse was married to him a bit longer (sixty years, to be exact), while April's star enjoyed a long second marriage to orchestra leader Phil Harris, so this is the rare Hollywood shared romance that ended well for all concerned.

Alice Faye's rise to stardom sounds an awful lot like a Hollywood cliche.  A Broadway chorus girl, she eventually moved to Hollywood just after finally making a name for herself on Rudy Vallee's radio program.  When Lillian Harvey dropped out of George White's 1935 Scandals, Faye was cast as the lead despite being relatively unknown in cinemas as the time.  The casting ended up being a smart decision by Fox, as Faye was wildly popular with audiences, and studio chief Darryl Zanuck took her under his wing, making her the "girl next door" to counter MGM's platinum blonde box office draw Jean Harlow.

Faye would continue being a cash cow for Fox for the next decade or so, frequently cast in movies just to bolster their profits.  This is probably why she never was nominated for an Oscar-Faye was a natural comedienne, and oftentimes put into films that were beneath her talents.  She did star in major Oscar films, however, most notably In Old Chicago and Alexander's Ragtime Band, both of which were nominated for Best Picture (one of which we'll kick off our series with).  Even in the early 1940's, when Fox started to care more about Betty Grable as a leading woman, Faye was still eminently bankable, and would remain so until 1945's Fallen Angel.

Fallen Angel costarred Faye with up-and-coming actress Linda Darnell, whom both director Otto Preminger and studio chief Zanuck had become quite obsessed with at that point (Zanuck had tried to make advances at Darnell, but according to Darnell these went nowhere).  The editing of the film made Darnell appear like the proper star, despite Faye being the established audience favorite who received top billing.  Faye effectively retired from show business at that point, content to be a mom and homemaker, and disappeared from screens.  She was still under contract to Fox, who would sue her if she made a film at another studio, so she didn't, but Zanuck was hounded by Faye's fans begging him to bring her back to the screen, which he tried to do to no avail.  Faye would decades later come out of retirement for cameos and for one more substantial musical (1962's State Fair), but she largely stuck to her word of retiring after Fallen Angel.  This month, we'll take a look at her heyday at Fox and see why so many film fans were aching to have her back on screens after she retired, arguably at the height of her fame, as well as examine the film that ended her career, Fallen Angel.