Poster for Film

Most people recognize Peter Bogdanovich as the director behind The Last Picture Show, Paper Moon, and What’s Up Doc? and as the host of TCM’s “The Essentials” a couple of years ago. Those who have a good memory for the salacious might recall that Bogdanovich was involved in a scandal some 20 years ago in which actress Dorothy Stratten was brutally murdered by her estranged husband. Bogdanovich and Stratten were an item at the time, and her husband was enraged that he could not win back the affections of the former Playboy model. Some time after the murder, Bogdanovich married Stratten’s younger sister, Louise.

            I have always admired Bogdanovich because he is also a film historian, and today’s directors would greatly benefit if they knew half as much about cinema as Bogdanovich. For years, he interviewed the major directors of Hollywood’s Golden Age, recording the details of their impressive careers before death pushed many of them into obscurity. His hard work resulted in several well-respected books and publications that I have used in my own research and writing. Thus, Bogdanovich – a scandal survivor, a film historian, and a director – was the perfect person to tackle The Cat’s Meow, the film version of one of Hollywood’s most significant secrets.

            The Cat’s Meow exposes the story behind the mysterious death of real-life film industry pioneer Thomas Ince. At least, it offers a plausible version of how Ince ended up dead during a weekend outing aboard William Randolph Hearst’s yacht, the Oneida, in 1924. Hearst, the legendary multi-millionaire, and his mistress, actress Marion Davies, played host to several Hollywood denizens that weekend, including producer Ince, writer Elinor Glynn, and the biggest star in the world at the time, Charlie Chaplin. A variety of Hollywood hangers-on rounded out the guest list, most notably reporter Louella Parsons, who worked on one of Hearst’s New York papers at the time.

Davies

            The actors in the film offer wonderful interpretations of the real-life person each plays. Noted character actor and History Channel narrator Edward Herrmann plays the 61-year-old Hearst; Kirsten Dunst, who became a big-name star in Spiderman, plays the 27-year-old Davies. Dunst, still a teenager during the shooting of the film, gives Davies a vitality and youthfulness that was said to be the appeal of the much-maligned actress. Comedian Eddie Izzard, known for his comedy routines in drag, is Chaplin; British TV star Joanna Lumley is the acerbic Elinor Glyn; and, squeaky-voiced Jennifer Tilly offers an interesting interpretation of a young Louella Parsons. Cary Elwes, a chameleon of a character actor, plays the ill-fated Thomas Ince. Yet, it is not the performances that make you want to know more about this titillating tale of fame and fortune; it is the rumors, whispers, and half-truths surrounding the real-life participants that are so intriguing.

Ince

            Ince had joined the group aboard the Oneida on November 16, 1924, as a belated birthday present to himself. According to The Cat’s Meow, he was desperate to merge his operations with Hearst’s production company, Cosmopolitan Pictures, because he was experiencing  financial difficulties. But, this runs counter to recent film scholarship, which generally describes Ince as a successful studio head who often forged partnerships and associations with fellow filmmakers and producers. One account purports that it was actually Hearst who sought the deal with Ince.. Whatever Ince’s exact financial circumstances, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time when Hearst mistook Ince for Charlie Chaplin and then fatally shot him in the head.

            The idea that the era’s most famous multi-millionaire would purposefully try to shoot the world’s most recognizable movie star seems preposterous. Yet, in real life Hearst was incensed at the attention Chaplin had been paying to Davies for several weeks. The two had gotten chummy while Chaplin was beginning The Gold Rush, and she was making Lights of Old Broadway. Only a few days before the Oneida outing, columnist Grace Kingsley in the New York Daily News commented, “Charlie Chaplin continues to pay ardent attention to Marion Davies,” and then confided the two had been cozy at a night spot called the Montmartre. Whispers around town circulated that the two were having an affair, though there is no proof of such a relationship. Fred Laurence Guiles, one of Davies’ biographers, is of the opinion that the two were like brother and sister – not lovers. To complicate matters, Chaplin had just learned that Lita Grey, a 16-year-old actress he was “mentoring,” had become pregnant by him. The question remains whether the possessive Hearst invited Chaplin onboard the yacht to dispose of him, or did the big man simply take a potshot at the Little Tramp in the heat of the moment. Either way, Ince was the victim, though clearly not the target.

Hearst

            Early on the morning of November 17, the Oneida docked in San Diego, and an unconscious Ince was carried off the ship and transported to his home, where he died on November 19.  The conflicting stories, half-truths, and varying explanations began immediately. Though a very early edition of the Los Angeles Times reported that Ince had been shot, evening editions mysteriously told a different story. Evidently, someone had reached the editor of the Times and suggested they run another version of events. The first official story from the Hearst newspapers claimed that Ince had taken ill at the Hearst ranch with a heart ailment related to a stomach condition. At that point, he was supposedly driven home by ambulance, where he died a few hours later “in the bosom of his family.” But, too many people knew that Ince was aboard the Oneida that weekend, so the Hearst papers later amended their account to read that he had taken ill aboard ship. Davies piped up to reporters during interviews that there were no guns aboard, though that was a suspicious statement to volunteer without being asked.

            Rumors flew around town disputing the official story, many fueled by Chaplin’s secretary, who had come to pick up his boss at the dock on the morning of the 17^th .  He apparently saw Ince being carried off the ship and noticed what looked like a bullet wound in the head. Finally, the district attorney of San Diego could no longer ignore the rumors and reluctantly began an official inquiry. He interviewed Dr. Daniel Goodman, a Hearst employee onboard the Oneida that weekend, who claimed that Ince had complained of heart pains just hours before “the attack.” With that explanation, the official cause of death was given as heart failure brought on by acute indigestion or ptomaine poisoning. The d.a. closed the investigation without calling any other witnesses or interviewing the family.

            As it turned out, the widow, Mrs. Nell Ince, could not have been reached for comment anyway. With the financial assistance of Hearst, Nell had left for an extended tour of Europe immediately after her husband’s cremation, which occurred just 48 hours after his death. And, apparently, she had refused an autopsy.

            Elinor Glyn later told actress Eleanor Boardman that everyone aboard the Oneida had been sworn to secrecy, and not wanting to offend or anger Hearst, who continued to hold lavish parties for the Hollywood crowd, they did not talk openly about the incident. In his autobiography, Chaplin insisted he was not even on the ship, then elaborately muddied the chronology of events by claiming he, Marion, and Hearst had gone to visit Ince at his home a few days after he was taken ill. Chaplin asserted that Ince died about three weeks later. In reality, press photos from the period show Chaplin attending Ince’s cremation on November 21, which occurred before the date Chaplin claimed to have visited Ince with Davies and Hearst. Three days after the cremation, Chaplin quietly sent Lita Grey and her mother to a shabby little town in Mexico. The Little Tramp followed a short time later, and the couple were married without publicity or fanfare. It was not a marriage made in heaven. Louella Parsons gained the most from the tragedy. She supposedly used what she knew about Ince’s death to coerce Hearst into making her his number-one Hollywood columnist. Parsons eventually became the scourge of the industry with her gossip column, which she wielded like a sword against any movie star not willing to court her allegiance.

            If the participants weren’t talking, other Hollywood notables did. D.W. Griffith, who had been Ince’s friend and one-time partner, noted, “All you have to do to make Hearst turn white as a ghost is mention Ince’s name. There’s plenty wrong there, but Hearst is too big to touch.”

            The Cat’s Meow, which go credible reviews but little fanfare upon release, offers a lively account of this notorious footnote to film history, capturing what was truly “roaring” about the 1920s. Though the script for the film is derived from Steven Peros’ play, Bogdanovich had heard the story of Ince’s death from his friend Orson Welles years before. Welles, in turn, had heard it from Marion Davies’ nephew, screenwriter Charles Lederer.

            In The Cat’s Meow, Bogdanovich used what he knew about Hollywood’s scandalous past to probe the very nature of Hollywood as a culture and an industry. Beneath the surface of the glamorous parties, the crazy antics, and the award-winning movies lies the darker side to the dream factory – where perception overshadows truth, power is more important than accomplishment, and blackmail is the shortest path to success.