Movie Director

He seemed to be one of the nicest people I ever met. Soon after meeting him in 1958 he gave me a rag doll for my newborn first baby girl. She loved the doll and kept it until she had children of her own. He was a special kind of movie director. Several top stars insisted on having him as a second director in their films. Some of the actors included George Raft, Sonny Tufts, Robert Mitchum and Jane Russell. The director told me Jane Russell was a delightful person with a good sense of humor and a down to earth good attitude. The male actors he represented were playful people who would take a break from filming to go to the races and leave him to make their excuses to the producers. It was his job to try to keep the big wheels turning smoothly adding his own brand of oil to the machinery of making films.

Once while filming on an Army base at Fort Myer, Virginia, he met a young cavalry captain who helped the company make a movie allowing the actors to use army personnel and equipment. Not only cooperative, the officer bent over backwards to help them. One day the captain complained to the movie director that the Army jumping horses were losing in contests with teams from England, Argentina and Japan. The wealthy young captain owned some of the horses himself, and he was a competitor. He said he would pay any price to help the United States jumping team win.

The director told him the movie company employed a horse trainer who was very successful getting movie horses to jump high. The cavalry officer was interested, and the movie horse trainer was consulted.

The horse trainer met with the U.S. Cavalry jumping team and showed them his secret training method. He used a very thin wire stretched parallel to the top rail to be jumped. The horses had a habit of allowing their back hooves to touch the top rails and knock them off. The wire was so small it was perhaps invisible to the horse but it would sting the animal on his back legs. After a few jumps the animal learned to hold his back legs a little higher thus missing the wire and the top rail. The thin wire was easily broken so no damage was ever done to a horse. Very soon, the American horses learned to jump higher without knocking down the high wooden rails. The captain showed his appreciation and gratitude. He was a wealthy man who owned his own limousine and hired his own driver. When the movie shooting was over he loaned his long black car and his private driver to the director so he wouldn't have to travel by train. The director returned to Hollywood in comfort and style. After that, when ever he needed a favor from the Army he contacted the cavalry officer later known as Old Blood and Guts. Even after he became a four star General, George Patton helped the director get Army cooperation for making movies.