March 14, 1950: A Senator Denounces Ingrid Bergman

March 14, 1950, 70 years ago: Swedish actress Ingrid Bergman is denounced on the floor of the U.S. Senate, for her "immorality."

Bergman had starred in Casablanca; the film version of Ernest Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls; Alfred Hitchcock's films Gaslight (winning an Academy Award for Best Actress), Spellbound and Notorious; and had played a nun in The Bells of St. Mary's, and a saint in Joan of Arc. She was not only beloved around the world, but was viewed as worthy of those nun and saint roles. She was Catholic, but she was married, to neurosurgeon Petter Lindström, with a daughter, Pia.

In 1949, she wrote a letter to Italian director Roberto Rossellini, saying she admired his films and wanted to work with him. He invited her to star in his film Stromboli. They began filming, and they began an affair. As a result, she became pregnant.

On February 2, 1950, Renato Roberto Ranaldo Giusto Giuseppe Rossellini, nicknamed "Robin," was born. On February 9, Bergman obtained a "quickie" Mexican divorce from Lindström. On February 12, Stromboli was released in America. It did well in Europe, where their affair wasn't considered as big a deal. In spite of Italy being, historically, a very conservative country, the film was awarded the Rome Prize for Cinema as the best film of the year.

But in America, it was a box-office bomb. RKO Pictures, the American distributor, lost $200,000 on it. Most reviews suggested that the film was weak, but fell short of being nasty: American critics seemed willing to dislike it on merit.

On March 14, Senator Edwin C. Johnson, Democrat of Colorado, a baseball executive who built the original version of what became Mile High Stadium in Denver, denounced Bergman on the floor of the U.S. Senate. He said that she had once been his favorite actress. But now:

Now that the stupid film about a pregnant woman and a volcano has exploited America with the usual finesse, to the mutual delight of RKO and the debased Rossellini, are we merely to yawn wearily, greatly relieved that this hideous thing is finished, and then forget it? I hope not. A way must be found to protect the people in the future against that sort of gyp.

At this point, the Hays Code was still in effect, and cuts to Rossellini's film had been made to make it fit for American release. But Senator Johnson wanted to go further: He proposed a bill wherein movies would be approved for licenses based on the moral compasses of those behind the picture, insisting that Bergman "had perpetrated an assault upon the institution of marriage," and going so far as to call her "a powerful influence for evil."

There was a double standard at work: Male actors were able to work their way through the bedrooms of Southern California without being shamed into stopping. Her co-star in For Whom the Bell Tolls, Gary Cooper, slept with pretty much all of his female co-stars. So did her co-star in The Bells of St. Mary's, Bing Crosby -- who, in that film and its prequel, Going My Way, had played a priest, and was known as a Catholic moralist. The affairs of male actors may have been poorly-kept secrets in Hollywood, but the legitimate news outlets kept them quiet.

(Both Cooper and Crosby had co-starred with Grace Kelly, who fooled around with them, and with pretty much every male co-star she had. It's been suggested that the reason she was allowed to marry Prince Rainier III of Monaco was to cover up a coming revelation about her character.)

Bergman allowed nationally-syndicated columnist Art Buchwald to read her mail during the scandal. In an interview years later, he said, "Oh, that mail was bad: Ten, twelve, fourteen huge mail bags. 'Dirty whore.' 'Bitch.' 'Son of a bitch.' And they were all 'Christians' who wrote it." (Buchwald was Jewish.) Bergman later said, "People saw me in Joan of Arc, and declared me a saint. I'm not. I'm just a woman, another human being."

On May 24, she married Roberto Rossellini. On June 18, 1952, she gave birth to twin daughters, Isotta and Isabella. She could not return to America, but made the film Anastasia in 1956. It had been 6 years, and Ed Sullivan was willing to believe that America would welcome her back. He flew to Europe and filmed an interview with her, intending to air it on The Ed Sullivan Show. But when he got back to New York, CBS, which normally gave him a lot of leeway due to his show being the most popular one on the network, put its foot down, and said no, she could not appear, not even on film. Ed had wasted a lot of money, time and effort in a good cause.

But on March 27, 1957, she was announced as the winner of her 2nd Academy Award for the film, and the audience in the NBC Century Theatre in New York gave the announcement a rousing round of applause. Former co-star Cary Grant, one of the few celebrities to stick up for her all that time, accepted the award on her behalf, and brought it to her in London. She, Grant, Sullivan, and everyone else who had stood up for her were vindicated.

Later that year, she and Rossellini were divorced, following his affair with another actress; and she was reunited with her daughter Pia, in Rome. Petter Lindström, however, remained bitter towards Bergman. In 1958, Ingrid married Swedish theatrical producer Lars Schmidt. That marriage ended in divorce in 1975, the year she won a 3rd Oscar, for Best Supporting Actress for her role in Murder On the Orient Express.

She died in 1982, of cancer, on her 67th birthday. Rossellini had died in 1977. Lindström lived until 2000; Schmidt, until 2009. Pia Lindström became a journalist, Robin Rossellini a director like his father, Isabella Rossellini a model and an actress like her mother, and Isotta Rossellini became a literature professor. All 4 of Ingrid Bergman's children are still alive.

And Edwin C. Johnson? After serving 3 terms in the Senate, he did not run for a 4th in 1954, seeking to return to an office he had previously held, that of Governor of Colorado. He won, but did not run again in 1956, and never ran for office again. He died in 1970. In 1972, Senator Charles Percy, Republican of Illinois, officially entered an apology for Johnson's denunciation of Bergman into the Congressional Record.

November 26, 1942: "Casablanca" Premieres

November 26, 1942, 75 years ago: Casablanca premieres at the Hollywood Theatre -- not in the Hollywood section, or any other section, of Los Angeles, but in New York. It is the greatest movie of all time.

No, Gone with the Wind is not the greatest. Nor is Citizen Kane. Nor is The Godfather. Nor is Star Wars (and certainly not The Empire Strikes Back).

Casablanca was based on Everybody Comes to Rick's, a play written in 1940 by Murray Burnett and Joan Allson, but not yet staged. It was written after the writers had visited Vienna in 1938, and saw what the Nazis were doing, including the refugee situation they were creating. They couldn't get anyone to produce the play, and sold it to the Warner Brothers film studio for $20,000 -- about $300,000 in today's money.

So the play was re-written by twin brothers Julius and Philip Epstein, and Howard Koch. (Philip's grandson is baseball executive Theo Epstein.) All 3 were Jewish New Yorkers.

The director was Michael Curtiz, a Hungarian Jew, although not a refugee: He came to America in 1926 because the Warner Brothers had been impressed with his work in the film industry in Germany's interwar Weimar Republic. He directed Errol Flynn in Captain Blood and The Adventures of Robin Hood. He directed James Cagney in Yankee Doodle Dandy. He directed both Cagney and Humphrey Bogart in Angels with Dirty Faces. And he would later direct Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye in White Christmas. So he was equally at home with adventure films and musicals, and Casablanca has elements of both.

Casablanca is set in December 1941, apparently just before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, in Casablanca, in French-controlled Morocco -- or, as Captain Renault called it, "Unoccupied France." In the film, as in real life, it was a link in a chain of refugee ports. People would flee their various European homelands as they were taken over by the Nazis, and arrive in North Africa.

The example cited at the beginning of the film: French people would take the train from the capital of Paris to the port city of Marseille; then a ferry across the Mediterranean seat to Oran, in Algeria, then controlled by France; then, any way they could across the North African desert, on foot if they had to, to Casablanca.

From there, they would try to obtain an exit visa, or a letter of transit, to get on a plane from Casablanca to Lisbon, Portugal. (Like neighboring Spain, Portugal then had a fascist government; but, also like Spain, they were neutral in World War II, not aiding the Nazis, and did not turn refugees over to them.) And from Lisbon, they would get on a transport ship to America. But if they couldn't get an exit visa or a letter of transit, they were stuck, to be preyed upon by the city's price-gougers and con artists.

The major characters:

* Humphrey Bogart plays Rick Blaine, a New York native who, for a reason the film never reveals, cannot return to America. Although he says he is neutral in the war, Captain Renault reveals that Rick aided both Ethiopia when invaded by Fascist Italy in 1935, and the Spanish Republic when the fascists started the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Rick says he got paid handsomely both times. Renault reminds him that the winning side would have paid him more, and accuses him of secretly being a sentimentalist.

Rick runs what he calls "a saloon," but is also a casino. He does well, and is respected by the refugees, some of whom he employs, one of whom is his girlfriend. But he is also willing to allow Nazi officials inside. He receives 2 letters of transit for safekeeping, because the man who had them had killed 2 Nazi officers to get them, and is soon himself arrested and killed in custody.

* Dooley Wilson plays Sam (his last name is never revealed), Rick's piano player, who had been with him in Paris as well. Although Sam is black, and calls Rick "Boss" to his face and "Mr. Rick" to others, Rick treats him as a friend, and trusts him completely -- to the point where he hides the letters of transit in Sam's piano. In real life, Wilson was a drummer, and had never played piano before, so he had to fake playing it.

* Claude Rains, an English actor, plays Captain Louis Renault, police prefect of Casablanca. He tries to stay out of politics: "I blow with the prevailing wind, and the prevailing wind is from Vichy." Meaning the Nazi-dominated new French government. He is the man who must decide whether to approve exit visas from the city, and, with women, is not above trading them for sex  -- something the film can only imply, due to the Hays Code. But Rick says Louis always keeps his word. And there have been times when Louis has had to close Rick's saloon, and Rick has had to bribe him to reopen it.

* Ingrid Bergman, a Swedish actress, plays Ilsa Lund, a Norwegian woman with a flair for languages. In a flashback sequence, we see Rick and Ilsa in love in Paris. He asks her why she is not already married. She says she was, but that her husband is dead. As the Nazis arrive in June 1940, they have to flee. At the last minute, just as Rick and Sam are to board the last train out of Paris to Marseille, Sam hands Rick a note from Ilsa: She can't come with him. She had found out her husband was alive.

* Paul Heinreid, an Austrian actor, plays Victor Laszlo, a Czech resistance fighter, who has escaped from a Nazi concentration camp, and is trying to reach America. He is Ilsa's husband. And they show up at Rick's together.

* Conrad Veidt, a German actor with a Jewish wife, who rather enjoyed playing Nazis in order to make them look bad, plays Major Heinrich Strasser, the Nazi officer pursuing Laszlo.

Laszlo has been promised the letters of transit, to use for himself and Ilsa. Renault finds out that Rick and Ilsa used to be an item, and bets Rick 10,000 francs that he'll end up using the letters for himself and Ilsa, stealing Laszlo's wife and leaving him to the wolves.

Rick has a plan, which includes selling his casino to a rival, Signor Ferrari, played by Sydney Greenstreet, with the promise to keep all his employees, including Sam, on at the same salary. In order for his plan to work, he has to let Renault -- and Ilsa -- think that Rick's prediction that he will sell Victor out is exactly what he's doing.

But when they get to the airport -- filmed at the Van Nuys airport outside Los Angeles, the only scene not filmed on a Hollywood soundstage -- Rick gives Laszlo the letters, and reveals that he's no longer neutral: He's on the Allies' side.

He then tells Ilsa to go with Victor, with the famous speech that if she doesn't, "you'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of your life." She asks, "But what about us?" He says, "We'll always have Paris." And he closes by giving her the toast he used to deliver there: "Here's looking at you, kid."

As the plane is taxiing down the runway with the Laszlos aboard, Strasser arrives. He gets on the phone to air-traffic control to try to stop the plane. He and Rick shoot at each other, but Rick shoots first and kills him.

Renault discovers/recovers his patriotism as well, and covers for Rick, and tells him that the 10,000 francs he owes Rick will cover their escape expenses. As they walk off, not into a sunset like Western movie heroes but into a fog, the same fog into which the plane disappeared, Rick says, "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."

The 10,000 francs that Rick and Louis had bet? In December 1941, that was worth considerably less than it sounds to current American ears: About $214, or about $3,568 today, 75 years later. Still not an amount you want to lose, if only for pride. In current French money? 3,163 euros.

There was an urban legend that Ronald Reagan, then a rising star in Hollywood, was the original choice to play Rick. It wasn't true, and it probably came about due to the facts that Reagan went on to become President, and "casa blanca" is Spanish for "white house."

It would take until 1991 for Everybody Comes to Rick's to be staged, as written, anywhere in the world, in London, running for 6 weeks. That same year, the Hollywood Theatre in New York, having long since become the Mark Hellinger Theatre, became the new home of the Times Square Church. The address is 237 West 51st Street.

Given how much the characters smoked and drank in the movie, it's enough to make a viewer wonder how any of them survived to see the end of the war. Indeed, Conrad Veidt had a bad heart, and died in 1943, only 50 years old, 2 years and a few days short of V-E Day.

Humphrey Bogart also smoked himself to death, dying in 1957. He was preceded in death by Dooley Wilson, who died in 1953 from an undisclosed long-term illness. Sydney Greenstreet, who played secondary character Ferrari and co-starred with Bogart in several films including The Maltese Falcon, died in 1954. Peter Lorre, who played Ugarte, the man who gave Rick the letters of transit, and who was also in The Maltese Falcon, died in 1964, which pretty much buried a plan to film a live-action version of The Lord of the Rings, with Lorre playing Gollum.

Claude Rains lived until 1967, Ingrid Bergman until 1982, and Paul Heinreid made it to 1992. The last living actor from Casablanca was Madeleine Lebeau, who played Yvonne, who starts the film as Rick's girlfriend and ends it as the French refugee who had tearfully sung along with Laszlo's leading of "La Marseillaise." She left us on May 1, 2016.

November 26, 1942 was a Thursday. In America, it was Thanksgiving Day. What was actually going on in Casablanca at the time? Two weeks earlier, the Allies launched Operation Torch, the invasion of North Africa -- in a manner of speaking, World War II's 1st "D-Day."

Among the Allied troops was the U.S. Third Army, commanded by General George S. Patton. Among those under his command was George Goldberg, who later changed his name to George Golden, so his wife wouldn't have to deal with the anti-Semitism that he faced. He hated war, but he hated the Nazis as much as they hated the Jews. So he found himself a non-combat role, but a critical one: He was an Army stenographer, vital in getting communications through.

He rose to the rank of Staff Sergeant, came home, and became a commercial photographer, a New York taxi driver, a husband, a father, and a grandfather -- my grandfather.

The NFL didn't play games on Thanksgiving during World War II. There were college games:

* Virginia Tech played, but not the University of Virginia: The Cavaliers had already finished their season the preceding Saturday. UVa and VT (or VPI, as Virginia Polytechnic Institute was then usually called ) did play on a holiday, but it was Halloween, and Tech won. On Thanksgiving, Tech played the Virginia Military Institute, beating them 20-6 at Victory Stadium in Roanoke.

* Elsewhere in Virginia, the College of William & Mary, ranked Number 19 beat the University of Richmond, 10-0 at City Stadium in Richmond.

* Wake Forest beat South Carolina, 33-14 on more or less neutral ground at American Legion Memorial Stadium in Charlotte, North Carolina.

* Louisiana State beat arch-rival Tulane, 18-6 at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. 

* Missouri beat arch-rival Kansas, 42-13 at Memorial Stadium in Columbia, Missouri.

* The University of Tulsa came in ranked Number 6, and beat Arkansas, 40-7 at Skelly Field in Tulsa. They rose to Number 4, before losing the Sugar Bowl to Tennessee.

* Number 18 Texas beat Texas A&M, 12-6 at Memorial Stadium in Austin.

* The University of Cincinnati beat arch-rival Miami University of Oxford, Ohio, 21-12 at Nippert Stadium in Cincinnati. 

* In those days, Colorado had a major rival, but it wasn't Colorado State or Nebraska. It was the University of Denver. On Thanksgiving Day 1942, Colorado beat Denver, 31-6 at DU Stadium in Denver. That stadium hosted the DU program from 1926 until its suspension in 1960, and also hosted home games for the Air Force Academy from 1955 to 1961, and 1 home game for the Denver Broncos in their expansion season of 1960. It was torn down in 1971.

* Also in the Rocky Mountains, the University of Utah beats the University of Idaho, 13-7 at Ute Stadium in Salt Lake City.

However, most teams, including Rutgers, had already finished their seasons the preceding Saturday. Most of those that didn't played the following Saturday, including Notre Dame, who beat USC in Los Angeles; and Boston College, who blew a shot at the National Championship by getting clobbered by their arch-rivals in that era, Holy Cross. But that led to the cancellation of a victory party at the Cocoanut Grove nightclub in Boston, which caught fire and killed nearly 500 people.

Baseball was out of season, and there was no NBA yet. But there was NHL action, with four of the "Original Six" in action. It's worth noting that Canada does have a holiday named Thanksgiving Day, but it's in mid-October. For that reason, the NHL's 2 Canadian teams, the Montreal Canadiens and the Toronto Maple Leafs, saw no reason to play on the day.

The Detroit Red Wings beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 2-1 at the Olympia Stadium in Detroit. And the New York Rangers beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 2-1 at the Chicago Stadium. The Ranger goals are scored by Lynn Patrick, son of general manager Lester Patrick; and Clint Smith, who lived until 2009, thus making him the last survivor of not just this game, but of the Rangers' 1940 Stanley Cup winners.