9/26/23
Newsletter #470
The Crack of Dawn
This is such an awful story that even though I told it 465 newsletters ago, the guilt persists, so I will now tell it again.
As a kid of twelve or thirteen, of all the lovely, attractive actresses in movies, I particularly loved the actress, Joan Leslie. She was so cute and charming and spunky that she just tickled the shit out of me. I truly thought, “If I could have any girl, I want her.” She also had what may well be the most crazily impressive, though shockingly short, career on Hollywood history. Seriously, Joan Leslie’s enormous popularity lasted for three movies – in a row – but my goodness, they were big movies. She plays the club-footed Velma who breaks Humphry Bogart’s heart (and mine) in High Sierra (1941). This was the movie that finally rocketed Bogart to stardom. But Joan Leslie was right in the middle of her fame. That same year Leslie co-starred with Gary Cooper in Sergeant York (1941), which was the biggest blockbuster hit film of the year. Barefoot, wearing overalls and sporting an overly broad southern accent (living in the “holler” in Tennessee), she plays the girlfriend of Alvin York, conscientious objector, then great hero of WWI. I thought Joan Leslie was just too cute for words. The way she kept hollering his name, “Ail-vin!” Then, incredibly, her next film she co-starred with James Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy and is not only terrific, but she also holds her own with Cagney every second. James Cagney and Joan Leslie sing the song, “Mary’s a Grand Old Name” together on camera. It’s a George M. Cohan standard that’s gotten stuck in my head many times. “Mary, Mary, plain as any name can be/But with propriety, society will say, Marie.”
So, maybe ten years ago (I just looked it up and Joan Leslie died in 2014 at the age of 90, so it was nine years ago, but I was close), I decided to purchase the song Yankee Doodle Dandy sung by James Cagney from the original soundtrack from the now defunct iTunes. Gosh darn if iTunes didn’t have a special going that for a mere two dollars more, I could own the entire soundtrack, so I went for it. As I subsequently listened to the whole soundtrack, I slowly realized that it was not Joan Leslie singing, even though she had clearly and obviously sung the song in the movie. I went back to iTunes and read the credits for the album, and this is what it said.
11. "Mary's a Grand Old Name" – Sung by Joan Leslie (dubbed by Sally Sweetland).
13. "Mary's a Grand Old Name" (reprise 1) – Sung by Joan Leslie (dubbed by Sally Sweetland).
14. "Mary's a Grand Old Name" (reprise 2) – Sung by Irene Manning.
As I kept searching around on the internet, looking at Joan Leslie photos and memorabilia, well, son of a bitch, if she wasn’t still alive. She was 90 years old and still accepting fan mail. So, (I blush) I wrote her a gushing fan letter — something I have truly have never done before — ending with, “Why aren’t you on the soundtrack recording?” She wrote back, “I’m not? Well, I certainly did my own singing in the movie!” She died very soon thereafter. I may not have killed her, but I certainly helped. Joan Leslie. Ridiculously cute, spunky Joan Leslie. Long, long after she thought she was safe and that she had put all of the grief of Hollywood behind her, I was able to bring her just a little bit more misery right before she died.
Hollywood tried to sell her as both a bad girl and a sexy vamp, but neither worked at all. She had a part here and there over the next few years, but nothing clicked. So, she retired. And undoubtedly lived in peace and harmony for the next 65 years, until some asshole told her that they’d dubbed her perfectly fine singing voice on the album.
Joan Leslie quite possibly had the most astoundingly glorious, though insanely short, Hollywood career of anyone.