Paramount to Universal...

In 1941 Paramount released Susanna’s third film, a follow-up to the decade old success ‘Skippy’ called ‘Glamour Boy’. The star of the earlier film Jackie Cooper, recreated his most famous role, and Skippy, now a soda jerk, romanced Susanna. “Love Is Such an Old Fashioned Thing,” The Magic of Magnolias”, and “Sempre Libera” from Verdi’s La Traviata were sung by Susanna in the movie.

Susanna quickly carved out a reputation at Paramount for being very candid, outspoken and opinionated; Movieland Magazine dubbed her Paramount’s “Impulsive Rebel”. The sixteen year old simply had no patience with the “blowhards” and the “hanger-ons” who offered unsolicited advice on everything from her career to her singing...

Found letter from the Superior Court of California to Les Larson--

The Children's Court of Conciliation

(OF THE SUPERIOR COURT)

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA

Chambers of

BEN B. LINDSEY, JUDGE

MUTUAL 9211 BARBARA M. RUDE

STATION 2114 COURT INVESTIGATOR

February 6, 1942

Mr. Lester L. Larson

1218 N. Serrano St.

Los Angeles, Calif.

My dear Mr. Larson: Re C.C.C. #2448

A petition was filed in the Children’s Court of Conciliation today by your wife, asking for a friendly, confidential conference with the Court as provided by law.

We shall expect you in Department 14 of the Superior Court, located on the 13^th floor of the city hall, 200 North Spring Street. Los Angeles, on March 4^th, 1942, at 2:00 p.m.

The purpose of this conference is to assist in adjusting any difficulties in behalf of your children. It will not be necessary for the children to come into court.

Sincerely,

Ben B. Lindsey

BBL* DA

Found newspaper clipping of unknown origin-

Little Miss Foster is a sort of tough customer who suspects the motives of everybody and speaks her opinions on everything from the amount of salary she gets to the amount of dramatic ability of many of Hollywood’s pet stars. It is only partly through consideration for Miss Foster that I pause here: her criticisms were almost identical to mine. – Cassidy Boyd

Susanna in 'studio school' -second from left.

Some of Susanna's Paramount memories; “Paramount was a lovely lot. I’d see Bing Crosby riding around on his bike and whistling, and Bob Hope, who was so friendly. Because of my age,

I had to go to school on the lot from 9 to 12, and Richard Denning, Martha Driscoll, Barbara Britton and I formed a coterie, having lunch together everyday.”

Alan Ladd: “ I sat in on the screen test Ladd made for This Gun for Hire. Sue Carol, who was Ladd’s agent (she later married him), was there too, of course. I came out of the rushes and, not knowing that Miss Carol was linked romantically or otherwise with Ladd, announced, ‘He stinks!’ Sue Carol didn’t care-she was too enamored by the man. I later came to appreciate Ladd, he was an acquired taste.”

Veronica Lake: “Veronica, like me had been dropped by MGM. While at Paramount, we both went back to MGM to a big convention where Louis B Mayer was speaking, I was going to sing. Well, Veronica was really enjoying it! ‘Oh boy, I’m going to love this!’ she said. ‘Here I am, a big star at Paramount and I’m going back to let MGM know…We’re going in there together, Susanna!’ “ I didn’t really care, personally. Anyway, I sang Kiss Me Again (again!) and a couple of other numbers, I brought the house down. Mayer got up and said ‘Oh Susanna, what a wonderful voice!’ (of course, he didn’t say anything about having let me go) and how he wished they could have me back at MGM under contract. Nicky Layfack was slinked in his seat and wouldn’t look at me. Meanwhile, Veronica was proudly punching me in the ribs!”

Paulette Goddard: “When Jean Harlow died, I was down in Palm Springs and Paulette was in the Hotel Room next to ours, the guest of some Marquis. She would say with a wink, to my mother, ‘Who is that little choir boy in there singing?’ Always, for no reason, she went out of her way to say something nice to me. When we were on the Paramount lot, she’d walk past me and say, ‘Susanna! I heard you on The Chase and Sanborn Hour Sunday. You sang beautifully.’ She had no reason to be nice to me, I certainly was no marquis!”

In the early 1930’s, Universal’s “Crown Prince”, Carl Laemmle, Jr. produced such classics as “All Quiet on the Western Front”, Frankenstein, and Showboat. After bankers sent Laemmle into exile in 1936, it was a brunette soprano by the name of Deanna Durbin who saved the new regime from bankruptcy. Now, in the early 1940’s, repertory of versatile players- Abbott and Costello, Maria Montez, Boris Karloff, Donald O’ Conner, Peggy Ryan, Lon Chancy Jr., Evelyn Anchors, Anne Gywn, Turban Bey - safeguarded the solvency of the San Fernando Valley lot. It was during these booming times that Universal was looking for a new star- ala Deanna Durban. For Durban had rejected the studio’s opulent upcoming remake of 1925’s Phantom of the Opera and was in search of a new singing star to play the role of Christine. And a weapon to keep their reigning soprano in line.

Paramount couldn’t decide how to market Susanna properly, and at age seventeen, she spent the entire last year of her contract doing nothing. In November of 1942, Susanna demanded and received a release from her contract, seriously considered giving up show business, feeling that perhaps “my number was up.” Feeling down and out, she told a reporter; “I’m too tall, my nose is too long, my feet are too big, my legs are too skinny and I’m totally minus the thing the poets call grace.”

Trekking out to Lockheed Aircraft (who at the time was cranking out P-51’s 24/7 )

to obtain an application for a job as a riveter. She had filled it out and was on the verge of mailing it in when she got a call from her agent Myron Selznick- signed with Universal in early December of 1942.

The following is from an article dated July 25, 1943 (*I think from Movieland Magazine)

Written by Donald Hough. Article published when Phantom was about to be released (8/27/43). Mr. Hough had been following her career from ‘The Great Victor Herbert’:

Little Susie wound up and socked Mickey Rooney terrifically on the beezer-and it wasn't a movie. It was a football game on a Hollywood studio back lot. Mickey had intercepted a pass and made a touchdown against Susie's side, and this was not in accordance with her conception of fair play, Susie had, in fact, thrown the pass, which later was described as traveling like a bullet. It was her idea that Mickey's action was against the rules. All the player's got into an argument and it was explained that Mickey's was not only a legal play but a brilliant one. Susie apologized rather snippily. Thus, while at recess from the studio school, Susanna learned something about football, and Mickae Rooney about women.'

Unpleasant Prospect

"I'm not having lunch with any kids, I told the studio.Child actors are not in my line."

'But they told me that she was about to go into a good part in the Great Victor Herbert. And was really something. So I went over for lunch. There were four people in the group besides this little Miss Foster, but spotted easily from a distance because she was talkng ina high pitched voice and unmistakably a brat.'

'When I sat down, this girl began firing questions at me. The first dozen dealt with 12 different subjects, ranging from the broad objectives of the Nazi war plan to the reason for the foreshortening of the background when telephoto lenses are used. I was galassy eyed, but I tried to answer one or two of the easier question, using simple words and short sentences.'

'Susie's eyes narowed. "Don't talk like that." she said. "I can understadn long sentences."
'Mind you manners, I said, when speaking to your elders. I'm old enough to be your father, and then some.' "I'll say," she said."

'I felt like taking her across my knee. But soon I saw she wasn't a smart alec brat brat. She was a natural; she wanted to know things. She was a brilliant kid with one of the sharpest minds, yougn or old, I had met in a long time. It was a good experience, and I liked her tremendously and was glad we took two hours for lunch. She used up all our time asking questions, impatiently brushing aside anything relating to her self as I had to wait until I was back in the silence of the studio offices in order to dind out anything about her.'

'Our young lady, who had been singing in an amateur capacity since the age of three, got into motion pictures in one of the conventional ways. Her mother had her sing for Mary McCormick when that opera star visited Minneapolis, Miss McCormick was so impressed to the extent of recommending her to a picture studio, the studio sent for her, and her parents took her to Hollywood.'

'The studio put her under tentative contract and she went school there with other youngsters being groomed for pictures, and practiced her singing. She spent two years from thirteen to fifteen, doing nothing but this, and poking Mickey Rooney on the nose, and making occasional tests. Nothing came along that she could be cast in, she and her mother and father and her two little sisters; "Baby and Little Sister"-as their father had lost his position in Minneapolis from the hard times-got along as best they could in a small cottage on the beach.'

Then was to come the sad news that the great MGM had lost interest in our Little Susie due to not fitting in their scheme, but Paramount swooped in to rescue the family and our little angel, leading to the test for the role of the singing daughter of Mary Martin and Allan Jones in "The Great Victor Herbert." The test was so good and her movie premier so promising that she was tabbed for immediate casting in further, with a star build-up impending. It was at this period that I had lunch with her. I would learn that she was so successful as the 'singing daughter' that Paramount devised a picture for her called "The Hard Boiled Canary" with Allan Jones and Margaret Lindsey. However, the kid took the title too literally, and partly to give her a slightly more conventional slant and partly for other reasons they renamed it 'There's Magic in Music" in mid-production and under this title it was released. It was only moderately successful, but Miss Foster made a hit and demonstrated so definite a capacity for acting that she was cast opposite Jackie Cooper in "Glamour Boy."

'I saw her recently in the studio commissary and was surprised to discover that she was good-looking! Only a few months ago, it seemed, she was a candidate for "Our Gang" with her wide spaced teeth and her kid-mannerisms and her lack of self-consciousness. Now she seemed almost demure, all dressed up, her face and hair under the care of the studio experts.'

"I'm Beautiful"

I stopped at the table and said hello, and when she asked me to sit down I noticed that she didn't speak so the whole commissary couldn't hear her, as she unconsciously used to. She had poise. "What's happened to you, Susie?" I asked." She grinned. "I'm getting beautiful," she said. "I'm growing up, I'm a movie queen, I'm glamorous. I'm also, if you want to know something, going into the "Phantom of the Opera" with Nelson Eddy and Claude Rains."

'She went into "Phantom' in Technicolor and reports say that she comes out in color like the proverbial million bucks. On top of that, she has a seven year contract with the studio and a picture version of Sinclair Lewis's play "Angela is Twenty Two," to be called "Angela," has been tailor-made for her, and shooting is due to start soon."

'It's pretty hard to imagine Susie, even in her new glamour, as anybody with a name like Angela, Still, it's hard to tell. Sometimes those tomboy youngsters grow up into, as the saying is, a pretty swell dish. Let's hope that our old pal Susie is one of them.'

Modeling winter outfit for Paramount: " As gay as a snowflake is Susanna Foster’s skating costume. Hand-knit of soft white wool, the sweater, cap an mitts are trimmed in a cable stitch of sparkling red and white. Her Helmet type cap buttons under her chin with shiney red buttons, matching the buttons on the sweater. Her white skates have pompons of red wool trimming the toes. Susie is currently appearing in Paramount’s “Glamour Boy."