The Butler Did It: At Home with CARY GRANT & RANDOLPH SCOTT

By the end of the 1930's, screen actors Cary Grant and Randolph Scott were bonafide stars who were quickly on their way to becoming Hollywood royalty.  Their butler, Jim, may have been a star in his own right or in his own mind. In the 1920's and 30's, black maids, butlers, chauffeurs and the like had a certain respected status within Hollywood circles based on their own recognizance.  It's said that while notable black stars might show up on a movie set or at the studio, they were still considered nobodies within the grand scheme of things. But when a white star's domestic help arrived, there was a definite change in the atmosphere.  To begin with, they had to have personality plus in order to survive.  They had to smile, comfort and charm when they didn't want to often with people they really didn't like.  And if they really wanted to get ahead, they had to be shrewd!  They knew how and when to play their hand, with many parlaying careers as domestics into careers on the screen, at the studios and as businesspeople. 

There was much that was commonplace within the industry that could never be brought to the light for fear of ruined careers and the involvement of moral politicians and the church in studio moviemaking.  It was code among the servants exactly what (or what not) to reveal.  Ask Jean Harlow's maid, Blanche Williams, about the suicide of the star's husband, Paul Bern or the black, gay Henry Peavey - the butler in the infamous 1920's William Desmond Taylor scandal - about his employer's mysterious death.  I wonder what Jim (above) could have told us about Grant and Scott - if anyone would have bothered to ask?

Cary Grant and Randolph Scott cohabitated for 11 years and remained life-long friends.  Grant became an icon while Scott's career peaked in the 1950's.  They had seven marriages between them and both - maybe not so ironically - married millionaire heiresses in what were little more than marriages of convenience. Luckily for many stars, the successful black Hollywood servant class of the 1920's and 30's were often great keepers of secrets!  The power servants understood that discretion was the key to being privy to personal information about their employers that they neither wanted or needed to become known.  Many of the male servants shared some of the same proclivities as the famous men they waited on hand and foot.  They knew the haunts and hideaways, the overnight guests, the speakeasys and joints, and the liasons that dared not speak their names.

Not everyone was so close-mouthed!  Interviews with those who knew both Grant and Scott early in their careers say they lived openly gay or bisexual lives until the studios became involved to protect their investments and the men's careers.  It is well-known that before meeting Scott, Cary Grant lived with the gay Hollywood costume designer (John) Orry-Kelly, and many say that Noel Coward wrote Mad About The Boy in celebration of a very young Grant. George Cukor, the iconic film director and himself a gay man, said "Cary won't talk about it ... but Randolph will admit it to friends."  However, the real truthful dynamics of their relationship is still contested to this day, and anything to the contrary is still considered unsubstantiated.  But what would Jim have had to say?  He served breakfast in the morning but he was probably also there the night before.

I'm sure Cary and Randolph must have had their own poolboy.  Perhaps it was someone Jim recommended and knew to be discreet?

Despite the images of devoted (and staged) domesticity, Jim most certainly bought the groceries, did the cooking and cleaned up the dog poop in the game room.

Most likely, Grant and Scott had their own personal secretaries to open and go over correspondence and other mail items.  However, I can see Jim turning them on to all of the latest hot jazz recordings to play on the phonograph

What they didn't need Jim for were the quiet and tender moments at home away from the studios, the fans and the pretense. There were no kleig lights at home nor movie directors telling them what to do. At home, they could just relax and be themselves after the photographers for the fan magazines left, and light each other's fires in the cool, calm, dusk of the evening. But you can bet Jim was there in the morning to make sure there was no incriminating evidence!

Comments

[Greg]

"To begin with, they had to have personality plus in order to survive. They had to smile, comfort and charm when they didn't want to often with people they really didn't like. And if they really wanted to get ahead, they had to be shrewd! They knew how and when to play their hand..."

I wonder Corey if you know just how important the above statement is in reference to the work place of today. Certainly prior to the Civil Rights Movement and the Advent of Affirmative Action policies of the 70's & 80's one had to "act as if...," "Act the niggah!" "Laugh when it ain't funny," and all the other cliches that boil down to using one's wits in order to keep a job. One would think with all that we (African-Americans) have achieved that we no longer need to "Laugh when it ain't funny" in order to get along in a toxic work environment, but that ain't necessarily so. I think with so much covert, swept under the proverbial rug racism & discrimination in the work place it makes for a schizophrenic psyche. One has particular behaviours that are realized at home and particulalr behaviours that are realized at work and sometimes they spill over into the other environment without our realizing it, thereby victimizing those we love.

I watch some of my professional colleagues who are African-American who are well credentialed; "look good on paper," well skilled, etc. and it just amazes me how many of them "cow-tow" & stroke the fragile psyches of "whitey" and Miss Ann" just to have some semblance of peace at work. And I ask myself, are you really at peace after doing the "workplace shuffle?" All the smiling, preening, stroking & smoothing is really nauseating & anger provoking in a supposedly post racial society. But yet, here we are still embracing the "crabs in a barrel" mentality in 2012.

An excellent post as usual my sweet brutha!

[way2ec]

Do you have a last name on Jim? And would an image search find more images of him? Their lives were more private than those of the stars, and yet being the voyeur that I am, I wish I could see the face of Jim, to look at him the way I'm looking at Grant and Scott. The images of Grant and Scott are great, nice selection Corey. Am I reading more into them than I should? Even posed it is way too easy imagine I see or feel a special knowing between them. But as you have done such a good job of adding that other dimension, that of the butler, personal secretary, even a pool boy, you are right, what WERE they privy to? Greg above brings it into the modern work place and describes the living hell that comes with "playing the game". I wonder if Jim found himself "playing the game" or "playing the fame" or both. I wonder if he found himself on the inside of those private lives, more as an equal, almost a participant, or if he was left on the outside, more like a guard posted outside the private doors, what he knew or didn't know was irrelevant, only his ability to preserve the image they wanted to project being what kept him in the "game". I'd like to think that these domestics (dare we still use the word servants?) shared a level of trust that gained them not just the respect of others, but self respect as well. Sure makes me value MY invisibility, like a priceless treasure. You ended your post with the men at home, being themselves, no pretenses (if in fact they could keep their public faces from interfering with their private ones). I'd like to imagine Jim going home finally free to drop any fake smiles, dropping all the others' "secrets" at his front door, and lighting the fires of his lover(s) who are even more private and invisible than Jim, and worlds away from Grant and Scott. Nice piece on the price of fame even as it filters through all others associated with it and them.

[Derrick from Philly]

Fantastic article and photos, Corey. None of the mainstream Gay blogs can do it the way you do (and you know what I mean by "mainstream"). Thank you.

Your article about Stepin' Fetchit prompted me to Google Hattie MacDaniel. I, like everybody else, have always admired her. She played a maid but she was fiece in that role (not backing down to White folks in many of her screen roles). But I was surprised to find out that she often had a contentious relationship with the NAACP and other Black leaders who criticized her work (along with Stepin' Fetchet's). The gossip columnist, Hedda Hopper, even wrote a piece defending MacDaniel from "her own people". That surprised me.

But going back to the Hollywood "help". Yes, I wish the Black Hollywood "help" could have written their biographies including information on the Hollywood stars they "helped" to become legends.