The Fred MacMurray Blogathon: The Collaborations of Fred MacMurray & Claudette Colbert

After the success of It Happened One Night (1934), Claudette Colbert became the biggest actress under contract to Paramount Pictures. Although the film had been made at Columbia, its popularity did not escape the attention of Paramount's executives, who decided to capitalize on Colbert's newfound fame as a comedienne. The studio promptly commissioned screenwriter Claude Binyon to create another romantic comedy for the actress. The result was The Gilded Lily (1935), the story of a stenographer who becomes a member of café society and must choose between a dashing English aristocrat and a common newspaper reporter.

Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert appeared in seven pictures together.

Whereas the part of the Englishman was perfectly suited for Ray Milland, there was some difficulty in casting the role of the reporter. Paramount initially wanted Franchot Tone, but Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer refused to loan him out. Cary Grant was then considered, but his light cockney accent made him «not American enough» to play a New York reporter.
 

Meanwhile, Wesley Ruggles, the director of The Gilded Lily, heard from his brother, actor Charlie Ruggles, of a tall, handsome young man he thought had «something.» That young man was Fred MacMurray, whom Charlie had worked with on Friends of Mr. Sweeney (1934). Accepting his brother's suggestion, Ruggles watched the film and, even though it was only a walk-on part, he agreed that Fred had «an imposing screen presence despite his rawness.»

 

Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert in The Gilded Lily.

 

Ruggles wanted to give Fred a chance, but The Gilded Lily was supposed to be a high-profile picture, and the studio expected a bigger star to appear opposite their number-one leading lady. The director then tried to enlist the support of Colbert, who had casting approval, behind Fred. He asked her to watch a screening of Grand Old Girl (1935) and this convinced Colbert of Fred's suitability for the role. She appealed on his behalf with the Paramount front office and, after much insistence, the studio finally agreed to cast Fred. When he learned that Colbert had requested him as her leading man, Fred felt like «all air had been let out of me.»

 

The day Fred met Claudette on the set he «felt all empty and hollow inside and weak in the knees. I felt drained. My mouth was dry and I was hyperventilating. I practically collapsed.» She immediately tried to put her inexperienced co-star at ease, but still the love scene was especially hard for Fred. «We had a big emotional scene,» he later recalled. «Kissing Claudette before the crew, the props and the electricians had me so embarrassed I didn't know what I was doing [...] Claudette rumpled my hair and kidded me, and finally I made it.» Fred would always credit Colbert with giving him the confidence to do a credible job despite his nerves.

 

Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert in The Gilded Lily.

Depression-era audiences were delighted with The Gilded Lily, which was placed on the National Board of Review's list of the ten best films of 1935. Paramount wanted to cash in on the successful duo with more joint features, while also exploiting the chemistry between Fred and Claudette in the fan magazines by fostering the idea that they were a romantic item on and off screen. Although Claudette had recently divorced her first husband, Fred was engaged to Lillian Lamont, whom he would eventually marry in 1936. He later said that Colbert was «a little rich for my blood romantically, though as a friend and a co-worker, she was A-number one.»

With no chance of building a romance between them in real life, Paramount continued to pair Fred and Claudette romantically on film. Their second picture together was The Bride Comes Home (1935), again written by Binyon and directed by Ruggles. It told the story of a penniless socialite (Colbert) who finds work as an assistant to a magazine editor (MacMurray). Like its predecessor, The Bride Comes Homes was a big hit, turning Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray into one of the most profitable teams in Hollywood.

 

Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert in The Brides Comes Home.

 

The duo was next cast in Maid of Salem (1937), their only dramatic picture together. Set during the Salem witch trials in 1692, the film was about a young woman (Colbert) sentenced to death on suspicion of witchcraft, but saved by her dashing adventurer lover (MacMurray). Maid of Salem was a critical and commercial failure, and both stars were disappointed with the outcome. Fred, for instance, always felt that he was miscast, recalling with a laugh, «I was the Irish cavalier. I can remember one review after the picture came out that said, 'At any minute we expected Fred MacMurray to take a saxophone out from under his cape.'»

 

Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert in Maid of Salem.

 

The failure of Maid of Salem made it obvious that Fred and Claudette were better suited to comedies. As such, Paramount again hired Claude Binyon to pen a vehicle for the two stars. He came up with No Time For Love (1943), the story of a magazine photographer (Colbert) assigned to take pictures of a tunnel construction site. While there, she falls in love with a cocky sandhog (MacMurray), after saving him from a fatal accident. Director Mitchell Leisen remembered the film as a «happy collaboration,» saying,

«Fred and Claudette worked so wonderfully together. Many times when I was setting up the next scene, they'd go off in a corner and work it up themselves. They'd show me how they wanted to do it and it would be just right [...] they were talented natural performers and I wanted them to do it in a way that was comfortable for them.»

 

No Time For Love was a great success among fans and critics alike, receiving an Academy Award nomination for Best Art Direction/Interior Decoration (Black-and-White).

 

Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert in No Time For Love.

 

The fifth Colbert-MacMurray collaboration was Practically Yours (1944), which reunited them with Leisen. Fred played a Navy pilot who is presumed dead after crashing his plane into a Japanese aircraft carrier. The footage of the crash and his supposedly final reminiscence of walking in Central Park with «Piggy» and kissing her on the nose is sent back home and he becomes a national hero. Due to a typographical error, everybody thinks that «Piggy» was «Peggy» (Colbert), a girl who worked in his office, when in fact «Piggy» was his dog.

Neither Fred nor Claudette thought that they were right for their parts in Practically Yours. One day during the making of the film, he took her aside and complained, «Claudette, the trouble with his picture is that we're both goddamn old for it!» He was right; their characters should have been in their twenties when in fact Claudette was forty-one and Fred was thirty-six. As such, they were both ready to make the transition to more mature roles.

 

Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert in Practically Yours.

 

Fred and Claudette followed Practically Yours with The Egg and I (1947), based on the eponymous bestselling memoir by Betty MacDonald. They played a married couple who decide to leave the city and move to the country to become chicken farmers. Of course, they have the inevitable problems of adjusting to country life and fitting in. «Claudette and I worked darn hard,» Fred would later recall. «It wasn't easy for her getting all dirtied up, sliding off roofs and what not, but she was a wonderful sport, as always.» Directed by Chester Erskine, The Egg and I was a massive critical and financial success, becoming one of the biggest moneymakers of 1947 and one of biggest box office hits of Fred and Claudette's careers.

 

Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray in publicity stills for The Egg and I.

Their seventh and final picture together was Family Honeymoon (1949), directed by their old friend, Claude Binyon. Colbert played a widow with three children who falls in love with a botany professor (MacMurray). They get married, but find it hard to consummate their wedding vows when her children end up accompanying them on their honeymoon. Family Honeymoon opened to a lukewarm reception, which the two stars saw as an indication that perhaps the Colbert-MacMurray teaming had become outdated as Hollywood prepared to enter a new age.

 

Fred MacMurray and Claudette Colbert in Family Honeymoon.

 

Fred and Claudette enjoyed making Family Honeymoon, but they realized that their teaming was running out of gas. «We had been getting together fourteen years,» Fred said, «and by 1949 Claudette knew as well as I did that things run their good and proper course and then they are simply over. We had a long run, and a rewarding one, and there are no complaints to offer in retrospect.» They would never work together again, but Fred always regarded Claudette as a friend and essential to his career as an actor. «I'll never forget how kind Claudette was,» he recalled many years later. «She was so positive, so kind-hearted, and so unselfish with other players [...] Her work with me in The Gilded Lily set the pace for my future work [...].»

 

 

This post is my contribution to The Fred MacMurray Blogathon, hosted by Phyllis Loves Classic Movies. To view all entries to the blogathon, click HERE.

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SOURCES:

Claudette Colbert: She Walked in Beauty by Bernard K. Dick (University Press of Mississippi, 2008)
Fred MacMurray: A Biography by Charles Tranberg (BearManor Media, 2014)