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Abstract
This article explores the dual star image of Hollywood film star George Sanders (1906-1972), drawing on fan magazines, and other media sources and interviews with a family member. The focus is on the ambivalence of Sanders’ persona and his role in establishing the archetype of the cad. Initially, Sanders was portrayed by fan publications as a pin-up, whose attractiveness even came to briefly have a propaganda function. His association with a type of masculinity that was misogynistic, queer and attractive was paradoxical. His duality was reinforced by the roles he played on screen and by the sudden appearance in Hollywood of his older brother, Tom Conway, who acted as his shadow and his double. Sanders hated his stardom, but he made use of his star status to attempt to establish alternative careers; in writing, singing, and in a particular ill-fated business venture.
Acknowledgment
Thanks to the Watson/Sanders family for their co-operation and to the Noel Coward Archive Trust for access to Benita Hume’s letters. Thanks to Rupert Heath of Dean Street Publishing for his kind advice. Thanks to the Media History Digital Library for access to historical fan magazines online.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Correction Statement
This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1 ‘Unmitigated cad’ was a phrase used to describe the Sanders character in The Moon and Sixpence (1942) and The Private Affairs of Bel Ami (1947), both directed by Albert Lewin.
2 R. VanDerBeets, George Sanders: An Exhausted Life (London: Robson, 1991), 203.
3 Ibid.
4 VanDerBeets, George Sanders, 204.
5 Interview with Brian Watson, nephew by marriage to George Sanders, conducted August 2019; B. A. Aherne, A Dreadful Man (NewYork: Berkley Books, 1979), 255.
6 Ibid.
7 R. Dyer, Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society (Abingdon: Routledge, 1986), 3.
8 R. Dyer, Stars (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 1979), 3.
9 R. Dyer, Heavenly Bodies (Abingdon: Routledge, 1986), 109.
10 Miriam Hansen, Babel and Babylon: Spectatorship in American Silent Film (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1991); Gaylyn Studlar, This Mad Masquerade: Stardom and Masculinity in the Jazz Age (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996).
11 H. Mark Glancy, Cary Grant, The Making of a Hollywood Legend (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020); Gillian Kelly, Robert Taylor: Male Beauty, Masculinity and Stardom in Hollywood (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2019); Emily Chow-Kambitsch and Mark Williams’ essays appear in T. Jeffers McDonald, and Lanckman, L. eds. Star Attractions: Twentieth Century Movie Magazines and Global Fandom (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 2019); ‘A “Ramonite” in the Chariot: Female Spectators and Roman Novarro in Ben Hur’ pp 141–155; ‘England’s Apollo’: Researching Ivor Novello and Divinized Stardom, 1914–36. pp 123–140.
12 G. Sanders, Memoirs of a Professional Cad. (London: Dean Street Press, 2015), 60. Originally published in 1960.
13 T. Thorne, The 100 Words that Make the English (London: Abacus, 2011), 122.
14 Sanders, Memoirs of a Professional Cad, 13. The Scottish-Russian Sanders family made the discovery after Sanders’ death that his father had been the illegitimate offspring of two members of the Russian Royal family who had been fostered by the Sanders family as a favour (Watson interview, 2019).
15 ibid.
16 This colleague was Greer Garson. Following singing lessons from an itinerant white Russian uncle, he went on to appear in revues and musicals. On one occasion he understudied Noel Coward.
17 He had a small but memorable part as a god called Indifference in British film The Man Who Could Work Miracles (Alexander Korda, 1937). Sanders recalled, ‘The part called for me to ride half naked and shiny with grease, at four o’clock in the morning during one of England’s coldest winters, on a horse which was also coated with grease […] I was the only one of the three that didn’t fall off’ 1960/2015, 39.
18 There could be seen a camp persona drawing attention to ‘the gender system through exaggeration, parody and juxtaposition’. As Susan Sontag has noted.
(T)he camp sensibility is one that is alive to a double sense in which some things can be taken. But this is not the familiar split level construction of a literal meaning, on the one hand, and a symbolic meaning, on the other. It is the difference, rather, between the thing as meaning something, anything and the thing as pure artifice. Sontag, S. and Sontag, S., 1964. Notes on “Camp”, 5 https://monoskop.org/images/5/59/Sontag_Susan_1964_Notes_on_Camp.pdf
19 New York Times quoted in VanDerbeets, 35. The Sunday Express, 11 April 1937, 25. The Sunday Times, 11 April 1937, 25.
20 Although Sanders does not appear until nearly an hour into the film, he is extremely memorable. He minces and flounces, waving his walking stick and dramatically wielding his monocle. Sanders noted that during his early days he was always given a Monocle Memoirs of a Professional Cad, 59, which became a symbol of transgression and dissipation on screen in these days (Sanders p). Lloyd’s of London was his break out role and that of Tyrone Power. He would also appear in Power’s last film and was devastated to be acting in a scene with Power when he was struck by the heart attack that killed him (Noel Coward archives). In both of these, he had been playing the camp villain, ideal counterpoint to Power’s own brand of masculinity.
21 Tamar Jeffers McDonald, Lies Lanckman, Sarah Polley, Stars, Fan Magazines and Audiences: Desire by Design (Edinburgh. Edinburgh University Press, 2023).
22 VanDerBeets, George Sanders, 35.
23 Anon, ‘Villain or Hero?, Hoyt News, March 19, 1938, 10.
24 Sanders, Memoirs of a Professional Cad, 40. He described a meeting that was supposedly arranged with Louis B Mayer to discuss his possible status as leading man. He says he did not bother to turn up for it.
25 Melissa Dodd, ‘10 Ways to Avoid Matrimony’, Hollywood, January, 1938, 15.
26 The photograph is from Lancer Spy (Ratoff, 1937) in which George Sanders plays dual roles as World War 1 spy and his double, a German officer.
27 Dodd, 10 Ways to Avoid Matrimony, 1938, 15, 47.
28 Ibid.
29 V. Russo, The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies (New York: Harperand Row, 1981), 6.
30 Cal York, Photo play September 1939, 61.
31 Hamilton, Sara, ‘Round up of Neglected People’, Photoplay, February 1940, 19.
32 Ibid.
33 Cal York, Photoplay, June, 1940, 12.
34 Fredda Dudley, ‘The Secrets of Sanders’, Screenland, August 1941, 51.
35 K. Baskette, ‘Hollywood’s Most Baffling Bachelor’ Modern Screen, June 1941, 44–45.
36 VanDerBeets, George Sanders, 66. Sanders married Susan Larson in October 1940.
37 James F. Scheer, ‘You Girls Are Too Beautiful! Says George Sanders’, Screenland, March 1942, 24.
38 K. Baskette, ‘The Strange Case of George Sanders’, Modern Screen, April 1942, 32.
39 Gladys Hall, ‘George Sanders Puts Women in Their Place’, Photoplay, June 1942, 37.
40 Liza, ‘The Strangely Fascinating Mr Sanders’, Screenland, September 1942, 57.
41 Dawson, Jack, ‘Mystery Man’, Hollywood, September 1942, 64.
42 Tom Conway, Jack Holland, ‘My Brother George and I’, Screenland, December 1942, 51.
43 Scheer, You Girls Are Too Beautiful, 23.
44 ibid.
45 Liza, The Strangely Fascinating Mr Sanders, 51.
46 ibid.
47 Liza, The Strangely Fascinating Mr Sanders, 57.
48 ibid.
49 ‘Women are strange little beasts-you can treat them like dogs, beat them till your arms ache and still they love you.’
50 Sanders, Memoirs of a Professional Cad, 114-5.
51 For example, in contrast to Sanders, in August 1937 edition of Picturgeoer, Raft is described as fiercely monogamist despite his evident serial unfaithfulness to his Catholic wife (13). ‘Tough Guy? No, A Softie’ is the title of a 1939 article in Screenland December, 22.
52 Hall, George Sanders Puts Women, 37.
53 Hall, George Sanders Puts Women, 72.
54 T. Snelson, Phantom Ladies (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2014), 5.
55 Dora Albert, Rosalind Russell, ‘Who Said Women Aren’t Men’s Equals?’ Photoplay, October 1942, 38–39.
56 ibid.
57 ibid.
58 ibid.
59 ibid.
60 Snelson, Phantom Ladies, 150.
61 J. S. Kleinberg, ‘The No-Win Mom: Motherhood in Twentieth Century America’, Women’s History Review, 1999, 391; M. E. Hegarty, ‘Victory Girls, Khaki-Wackies, and Patriotutes: The Regulation of Female Sexuality During World War 2.’ (New York: New York University Press, 2008), 7.
62 Albert, D, Russell, R, 39.
63 ibid.
64 Jack Dawson, ‘Mystery Man’, Hollywood, September 1942, 64.
65 Lupton P. Wilkinson, ‘There’s A Bloke, My Son,’ Screenland, June 1945, 68.
66 Anon, Los Angeles Times, June 23, 1946, 25.
67 As I have written elsewhere, Sanders appeared in a cycle of particularly misogynistic films, which drew on his persona from the late 1940s. They include: The Moon and Sixpence (Lewin, 1945) The Private Affairs of Bel Ami (Lewin, 1947), Scandal in Paris (Douglas Sirk, 1946), The Death of a Scoundrel (Charles Martin, 1957). The Picture of Dorian Gray can also be included in this (Lewin, 1945).
68 ibid.
69 Anon, LA Times, October 10, 1948, 85.
70 M. Orgeron, You Are Invited to Participate: Interactive Fandom in the Age of the Movie Magazine. Journal of Film and Video 61, no. 3 (2009): 3.
71 J. Stacey, Star-Gazing: Hollywood Cinema and Female Spectatorship (London: Routledge. 2004), 5.
72 L. Lanckman ‘In Search of Lost Fans:’ Recovering Fan Magazine Readers: 1910-1950. In T. Jeffers McDonald, and L. Lanckman, eds. Star Attractions: Twentieth Century Movie Magazines and Global Fandom. (IowaCity: Universityof IowaPress, 2019), 45.
73 Lanckman, In Search of Lost Fans, 47.
74 Jean Shephard, Photoplay, March 1941, 75.
75 Ruth King, Screenland, March 1941, 13.
76 Christine M. Schiffer, Screenland, August 1941.
77 Mary Huntingdon, Photoplay, November 1941, 22.
78 Lanckman, In Search of Lost Fans, 51.
79 Marjorie O’Toole, Photoplay, April 1941, 19.
80 J. Frost, ‘Dissent and Consent in the ‘Good War’: Hedda Hopper, Hollywood Gossip and World War 2 Isolationism’, Film History: An International Journal, 2010, 170.
81 M. O’Toole, Photoplay, March 1942, 25.
82 ibid.
83 R. Westbrook, ‘“I Want a Girl, Just Like the Girl that Married Harry James”: American Women and the Problem of Political Obligation in World War II’, American Quarterly 42, no. 4 (1990), 599.
84 L. Mulvey, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema. Screen, 16, no. 3 (1975), 63.
85 Orgeron ‘You are Invited to Participate’ (2009, 4).
86 Claudia C. Thames, Photoplay, August 1942, 20-21.
87 Watson, 2019.
88 T. Jeffers McDonald, Doris Day Confidential: Hollywood, Sex and Stardom (London: IBTaurus, 2013), 41.
89 Orgeron ‘You are Invited to Participate’ (2009, 8).
90 Megan K. Winchell, ‘Good Girls, Good Food, Good Fun: The Story of USO Hostesses during World War II’ (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008), 5.
91 Elizabeth Nicholas, https://theculturetrip.com/north-america/usa/articles/the-little-known-lipstick-battle-of-world-war-ii/2018 (accessed September 21, 2019).
92 Dyer, Heavenly Bodies, 3.
93 Watson/Sanders scrapbook. Nd, np.
94 Elsewhere I argue that, using Eve Kosofsky Sedgewick’s theories of the homosocial triangle (1985/2016: 21), we can see here that ffolliott can be seen as an alternative romance for Johnny Jones to Carol Fisher’s more traditional heterosexual offering. I give a queer reading of Lloyd’s of London and Foreign Correspondent(Owen-King, PhD thesis University of Kent, 2022 Haunted Mirror: British Gothic Masculinity in Transatlantic Cinema).
95 Sanders played The Saint from 1939–41 and the very similar character The Falcon 1941–42.
96 The carnation was a significant symbol for Oscar Wilde’s crowd, who wore a green one to denote their homosexuality.
97 Variety, March 7, 1945, 20.
98 This taken from The Lion’s Roar, an MGM newssheet that appeared in a number of publications including: Photoplay, June 1945, 2; Movie land, June 1945, 4; Screenland, June 1945, 1, Modern Screen, June 1945, 4.
99 The film’s status as queer classic is promoted by Benshoff and Griffin 2006, 71, Cleto, 1999, 311. Sanders also seemed to relish the role of Waldo Lydecker in the 1968 TV version of Laura, directed by John Llewellyn Moxey, starring Robert Stack and Arlene Francis.
100 Chicago Tribune, July 6, 1969, N9.
101 Watson interview and family letters, viewed 2019.
102 C. Parkinson, A Long Way From St Petersburg: The Tom Conway Story. (Online: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2016), 36.
103 Cat People (Tourneur, 1942), I Married a Zombie (Tourneur 1943) and The Seventh Victim (Robson, 1943).
104 Snelson, Phantom Ladies, 3.
105 Holland Conway, ‘My Brother George and I’, Screenland, December 1941, 53.
106 Conway, My Brother George and I, 52.
107 ibid.
108 Conway, My Brother George and I, 66.
109 P. Gates, Detecting Men: Masculinity and the Hollywood Detective Film. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2006), 99.
110 ibid.
111 C. Hart, Heroines and Heroes: Symbolism, Embodiment, Narratives and Identity (Kingswinford: Midrash Publications, 2008), 103.
112 D. Zinman, Saturday Afternoon at the Bijou, (Castle Books, 1973), 222.
113 Owen King.
114 Parkinson, A Long Way From St Petersburg, 77.
115 ibid.
116 Watson, 2019.
117 Anon, LA Times, September 15, 1965, 6.
118 ibid.
119 Anon, LA Times, September 25, 1965, 58.
120 Anon, Obituary, April 25, 1967, 3 The Los Angeles Times. Actually, Tom Conway made 60 films in all.
121 ibid.
122 Anon, ‘George Sanders Dies in Spain of Drug Overdose, Leaves Note’, Los Angeles Times, April 25, 1972, 2.
123 Aherne, Dreadful Man, 8.
124 Aherne, Dreadful Man, 9.
125 G. Sanders, Crime on My Hands. (Written with Craig Rice) (London: Dean Street Press 1944/2015).; G. Sanders, Stranger at Home (London: Dean Street Press, 1946/2015).
126 Sanders, Crime on My Hands, 7.
127 Anon, The Saturday Morning Post, August 18, 1951, 43.
128 ibid.
129 J. Marks, Who Was That Lady?: Craig Rice, The Queen of the Screwball Mystery. (East Sussex: Delphi Books, 2001), loc.1800.
130 R. Irvin, Film Stars’ Television Projects: Pilots and Series of 50+ Movie Greats, 1948-1985. (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland and Company, 2017), 60.
131 Watson, 2019.
132 Sanders, 1958. Now available on Spotify.
133 Sanders was married four times. To Susan Larson, (1940), ZsaZsa Gabor (1949), Benita Hume (1959) and Magda Gabor (1970).
134 Aherne, A Dreadful Man, 27.
135 Aherne, A Dreadful Man, 109.
136 Anon, LA Times, June 30, 1959, 129.
137 Aherne, Dreadful Man, 190.
138 ibid.
139 Anon, Observer, December 4, 1965, 4.
140 ibid.
141 Aherne, Dreadful Man, 211.
142 VanDerBeets, George Sanders, 162.
143 Aherne, Dreadful Man, 79 Brian Aherne assumed Sanders wanted to marry Hume because she was a rich widow. P85. Benita wrote to one of her critics: ‘George […] has been the kindest and most gentleman who brought me out of the depths of despair, made me laugh and helped me to start living again.’
144 Benita Hume’s letters in the Noel Coward Archives, Noel Coward Archive Trust. She described George’s reaction on hearing the news of her breast cancer and mastectomy: Yes it was beastly but then there’s always George who though he might not be widely regarded as a saint is quite certainly an angel, and when I flew blubbing into his arms with the dismal news said in tones of the greatest relief ‘but honey that’s nothing! I mean who needs them, I’ll come in with you I’m dying to get rid of mine!’ which is of course the kind of life saving treatment the red cross doesn’t teach!.
145 Brian Watson interview.
146 ibid.
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Carolyn Owen-King
Carolyn Owen King completed her PhD in Film History at the University of Kent, Canterbury in 2021. Her book, British Masculinity in Transatlantic Cinema: Ronald Colman and Basil Rathbone is being published by Bloomsbury Academic in October 2024. Her academic interests include transatlantic stardom, Victorian Sensation literature, British inter-war writers and film, and the Gothic aesthetic.