Today December 3rd would have been the 99th birthday of actress Anna Sten, a talented beauty from Russia who has gone down in Hollywood history primarily as one of producer Samuel Goldwyn’s most extravagant missteps.  Fashioned with a Svengali-like fervor by Goldwyn to become his studio’s very own version of Greta Garbo, the capable Sten instead became the unfortunate victim of, if anything, her own publicity, which in her case was too much of a good thing.

Discovered in Russia by the great director Stanislavsky, the young Sten started her career on the stage then graduated into Russian and German silents films, and easily made the transition into sound with her low and seductive voice.  She came to Hollywood’s attention–more specifically Samuel Goldwyn’s attention–so the story goes, either while he was on a trip to Poland and saw her German version of The Brothers Karamazov there, or when he spotted Sten’s face in an ad for the movie which was playing in NY, and ordered a print flown to Los Angeles so he could screen it.  He was immediately smitten with her, although she was far from the cool, angular beauty of a Garbo.  Instead Sten was exactly what Goldwyn liked personally in a woman — fresh-faced blonde beauty with a curvy figure.  Onscreen she wasn’t particularly mysterious or unattainable, but rather friendly and appealing, even though Goldwyn looked to her to become more like Garbo or Dietrich.  Still, he was convinced he had found the right woman to become his star, and he had her brought over to America and put under contract in 1931.

For nearly two years Goldwyn had his battery of speech teachers–Anna Sten didn’t speak a word of English–dieticians (Sten liked to eat), dress designers, still photographers, dance instructors, singing coaches, and every other cinematic makeover expert working on the case, transforming his Russian favorite into the screen’s newest sensation.  He decided on an adaptation of Emile Zola’s Nana (1934), an adaptation so watered-down that the credit officially read “suggested by the novel” and promising nothing more.  Nana began production under the direction of George Fitzmaurice, who directed Garbo in Mata Hari, but after a month Goldwyn, unhappy with what he saw (too boring and Sten wasn’t very good, either) junked the footage and decided to start over again with a new director and a new script.  After getting a turn-down from George Cukor, Goldwyn approached the talented female director Dorothy Arzner who had directed Katharine Hepburn in Christopher Strong.  With high hopes that Arzner could do for Anna Sten what she did for Hepburn, Goldwyn turned the production over to her and Arzner did what she could.

Though critics were generally kind to Sten, praising her good looks but not buying Goldwyn’s continued touting of her as heir to Garbo’s glamour mantel, they didn’t like the screenplay and along with the paying public rejected the movie.  Undaunted, Goldwyn next cast Anna opposite the rising Oscar-winner (for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde) Fredric March for We Live Again (1934), a remake of a Tolstoy novel.  For director Goldwyn got Rouben Mamoulian, fresh off Queen Christina with (you know it) Garbo.  The screenplay came complete with dialogue additions from playwrights Maxwell Anderson, Thornton Wilder, and new Hollywood writing talent Preston Sturges.  Even with all that talent in front of and behind the camera, and again with decent reviews for Anna Sten herself, audiences simply would not go see the movie.  Two down, one to go.

Goldwyn kept up his battle.  For her next movie he would try to put her over in a contemporary romantic drama opposite sexy screen sensation Gary Cooper.  1935's The Wedding Night was the story of a Connecticut novelist who falls in love with the daughter of a Polish tobacco farmer.  Director King Vidor was less than thrilled to work with Cooper and his understated acting style, but soon changed his mind when he experienced Coop’s onscreen charisma.  He never ended up being quite won over by Sten; Vidor felt the dialogue was simply too intricate for her and he was frustrated by her continuing troubles with English pronunciation.  Even so, she gave a sweet performance but despite fairly decent notices The Wedding Night was another flop for the Goldwyn/Sten alliance. 

Anna Sten and Samuel Goldwyn decided to part ways, but she continued acting, sometimes in films produced by her husband Eugene Frenke (Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison; The Barbarian and the Geisha).  Anna died in 1993, many years after she had been uprooted from Europe by Goldwyn, whose biggest mistake was undoubtedly that he had pushed too hard in trying to ensure Anna’s acceptance by American moviegoers.  Goldwyn also tended to believe that the more money you threw at a problem, the better it would be solved, and certainly he spared no expense in building Anna Sten up and plastering her image in every publication he could find.

Anna Sten’s career was over before it started, Goldwyn’s overeager expectations having set her up for failure before a single frame of film went through the camera.  “Goldwyn’s Last Sten” one Hollywood wag dubbed the whole unfortunate business, but we shouldn’t forget that a lovely and talented young actress named Anna Sten tried her hardest to make Goldwyn happy, against all odds.  Anna Sten, born today, December 3rd, 1908.