Surprisingly, Astor’s career thrived despite the then-shocking details of a long extra-marital affair with legendary playwright George S. Kaufman.
Mary Astor Marries Again Shortly After Sex Scandal
That year, Astor won critical praise for her performance opposite Walter Huston in Dodsworth. The film was shot during the child custody trial in which her sexually explicit diary was read in open court.
A year later, in 1937, she married again, this time to Mexican-born film editor Manuel del Campo. Their son, Anthony (“Tono”) was born in 1939.
1941 was pivotal for the Illinois native, thanks to two films – director-writer John Huston’s The Maltese Falcon (link) and The Great Lie.
The Maltese Falcon is Prelude to Astor's Oscar-Winning Role
Falcon cast her opposite Humphrey Bogart in what is widely considered the first film noir. As femme fatale Brigid O’Shaughnessy, Astor gave a memorably layered performance, holding her own against a diverse ensemble including Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Elisha Cook Jr. and Barton MacLane, among others.
Astor’s second film that year brought her the Oscar for best supporting actress. In The Great Lie, she played a callous concert pianist who used her own child as a pawn in a female tug-of-war for the affections of George Brent. Co-star Bette Davis was instrumental in getting Astor the part -- and the women became close friends.
The 1940s marked the peak of Mary Astor’s film career, with roles in such noted films as Across the Pacific (reuniting her with director Huston, Bogart and Greenstreet), Preston Sturges’ hilarious farce The Palm Beach Story and the memorable musical Meet Me in St. Louis, Astor’s first picture in a new, seven-year contract with MGM.
Astor Descends Into Alcoholism
But off screen, Astor’s drinking, an issue since the 1930s, began to worsen. Her marriage to del Campo broke up in 1942. Astor’s father Otto died in 1943 and her mother, Helen, four years later. Helen Langhanke’s slow death was particularly difficult to take; on her deathbed, Langhanke was delirious, didn’t recognize Astor and complained bitterly about “selfish Lucile.” Worse, Helen’s diary revealed how much she’d hated her own daughter.
Between her parents’ deaths, Astor took a fourth husband, stockbroker Thomas Wheelock. But like the others, the 1945 marriage was not to last.
Mary Astor was also disturbed that MGM increasingly wanted her for maternal roles – including Little Women. Astor hated the parts.
By 1949, she hit bottom and checked into a sanitarium. Two years later, she joined Alcoholics Anonymous – after what police called Astor’s third suicide attempt in two years, with an overdose of pills. (Astor claimed it was accidental.)
Astor Finds Catholicism and a Hidden Talent
During recovery, the actress found religion, converting to Catholicism. Father Peter Ciklic, who was also a psychologist, advised Astor to begin writing as part of her therapy.
The creative outlet was just what Astor needed. In the coming decades, she would publish two forthright, popular memoirs and six novels.
Through the first half of the 1950s, Astor worked on the stage in New York and acted in the fledgling television industry. She returned to Hollywood in 1956 to make a few films over the next decade, including Return to Peyton Place and 1964’s Hush…Hush, Sweet Charlotte. Astor chose to make the latter film, which reunited her with old friend Bette Davis, her final screen appearance.
Mary Astor’s later years were spent writing – while fighting off a persistent heart condition. She lived in Orange County for a time, to be near her son, Tono. But as her health declined, Astor moved to the industry’s retirement home, the Motion Picture Country House, in an outlying suburb of Los Angeles.
The Quotable Mary Astor
It’s not surprising Mary Astor turned to writing later in life because unlike many actors, she was articulate, intelligent and keenly observant. She could express big picture ideas: “A person without memory is either a child or an amnesiac. A country without memory is neither a child nor an amnesiac, but neither is it a country.”
But Astor was also ruefully honest about herself and the film business: “I was never totally involved in movies," she admitted. "I was just making my father’s dream come true.”
And among her best known observations was this gem: “There are five stages in the life of an actor,” she maintained. “‘Who’s Mary Astor? Get me Mary Astor. Get me a Mary Astor Type. Get me a young Mary Astor. Who’s Mary Astor?’”
The real Mary Astor, the only Mary Astor, died there in 1987. She was 81.
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In Part 1, we look at Mary Astor’s early life, her manipulative, grasping parents and the machinations of her early film career.
Barry M. Grey - Barry M. Grey is a non-fiction TV writer-producer in Los Angeles whose love of classic film borders on the dangerously obsessive.
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