The Great Depression; Interview with Karen Morley. Part 1

INTERVIEWER:

OK, we're going to start with the Depression, in 1934 in the Depression, and I want you to tell me what it was like.

KAREN MORLEY:

Well, even for somebody protected, you know, working, didn't have to worry about money, it was still awful, because you could not shut yourself off from what was happening. Just to interview people for a nursing job for the baby, or a cook, you know, I had to have a cook and a guy to do whatever they do, and they were, it was just awful, the need for a job was so terrible. I don't know what the figures were, but there was one point when one worker in four was out of a job, and there was no backup, you know, no government help to speak of. By '34, there might have been just a little bit of work's progress, you know, whatever they're called, those initials, but they hadn't really amounted to very much, and a person would be lucky to have two days work a week on one of the government projects, and that was it.

INTERVIEWER:

You had said then that people were-

INTERVIEWER:

OK. Tell me what it was like during the Depression.

KAREN MORLEY:

Well, the Depression was awful, even if you were not scared, you know, not scared for yourself, as I wasn't, I had a job and enough money, but you couldn't escape it, it was everywhere. You know, a quarter of the people in the country were out of work, and for instance, it was just murder to interview people for domestic help because their need was so intense. Without a job, it was terrible to be poor in this country at that time, because their was no dole and no welfare, but to be without a job when you were used to working was especially painful, and what somebody like me tended to do was to hire the people that needed it the worst instead of the people that were best for it, so I was always in terrible trouble. Anyway, my point is that you didn't escape it, even though in the studio and among your friends you tried to, you know, have a good time, that was what life was about after all. It crept in everywhere.

INTERVIEWER:

So, but when you were in the studio you were kind of oblivious to it, it was like, pretended like no problems existed?

KAREN MORLEY:

Inside the studio it was all work and fun. At that time work was fun, most directors wanted a happy set, and there was still music, some people kept music on the set, a hangover from silent times. Of course, the difference was, music didn't play during the acting, only between, but that was a lot of fun. People mostly, you know, they told dirty jokes and tried to have a good time, so that was, that was the atmosphere you found inside, pretty much not conscious of the real world, not conscious of what was happening in Europe, or what was happening, you know, with the farmworkers or much of anything.

INTERVIEWER:

Can you tell me, now that we're talking a little bit about being inside the set, what was it like working at MGM?

KAREN MORLEY:

Well, the work itself was fun and interesting and scary, sometimes, but mostly very exciting. The publicity and the endless costume, you know, standing up and having pins put in you and you didn't get your lunch hour, and the hours were awful. That part of the business was hard, I think, and being so tired was hard because there was no protection. You could work fourteen, sixteen hours, then go home and come back without any particular rest period. But mostly it was fun, and Metro was very proud of being Metro, and you got to see all those exciting people and you even got to work with them, you know, so it was exciting for a young contract player.

INTERVIEWER:

I mean, we get this image that it's all glamorous, you know, the life of a Hollywood star. I mean, was it like that?

KAREN MORLEY:

There wasn't very much glamour to being a contract player. You worked like crazy, all the time. You were either working or doing publicity or doing costume changes, and it was hard, and it wasn't particularly glamorous, and people didn't feel glamorous. They certainly didn't behave as if they were glamorous. The people, an awful lot of them came from the theater, anyway, into movies, and the stars, and the important players, were darling, almost all of them. They really were. It was not fashionable to be temperamental, very, very few people behaved badly. One reason, because you didn't work very long if you didn't get along with people.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, tell me about—did it ever, I think you might have mentioned that sometimes it felt like a factory, or did it feel like that?

KAREN MORLEY:

No, the thing, it was not like a factory, it was like a—well, I answered you, we'll cut that. Being in the studio, there was a lot of, there were politics and a lot of stuff I didn't understand and I didn't want to know about, up there in the big offices, you know. I didn't like any of that, because of the feeling you were so terribly controlled, and I was twenty when I went to Metro. So they felt, and Mayer in particular, that they knew what was best for me, including whether I should get married or how I should behave, Not that I was doing anything very interesting, but they felt total control, including my relationship with my family, what guys I should date, and this kind of thing I found infuriating, and I hated it. I didn't think it was business-like and I still don't think so, but that was, that was rough.

INTERVIEWER:

What about, was there political control, was there a political atmosphere to it or was it mostly social control?

KAREN MORLEY:

There were inter-politics of the studio, that is, what producers were getting ahead and what cliques were doing well and so on, but I didn't know about that. So far as politics, it was pretty Republican on the whole, I think, there may have been Democrats, but I didn't know about them if there were. Certainly no radicals, at that time.

INTERVIEWER:

But like, during the election, you know, an election, particularly the 1934 election, I mean, did they make it clear what, what was best for you to, who to vote for, or what political stand you should take?

KAREN MORLEY:

No.

INTERVIEWER:

OK, tell me about being a working mother.

KAREN MORLEY:

Well, being a working mother in 1934 was easy in one way, it was very easy to get help, and very good help. It was expected that a nurse lived with the family. It's true that she got a day off a week and half a day on Sunday, and you had to have a relief nurse, but help was cheap and good. That was on the good side, if you can call it that. At that same time, it was awful because of the hours, and the studio had no respect as long as you were on your feet, you know. They didn't care what shape you were in, and they didn't look out for your health or any of that, and we worked extraordinarily long hours. There was no guild, you know, at that time. The camera-men didn't have a union, and it was just a company, a 'company' company, and they did as they damn well pleased. There were two people on our lot, Garbo and Wallace Beery, who had it in their contract that they went home at five o'clock. Nobody else had any say about when they worked or how long. Anyway, that's one of the reasons we got a guild eventually.

INTERVIEWER:

You were telling me, then, in I think 1934 you made eleven pictures in one year?

KAREN MORLEY:

No, the first-

INTERVIEWER:

I think you were telling me like, for example, how many pictures you made in a year?

KAREN MORLEY:

Well, my first year at Metro I made the most, that was eleven pictures within a year. Of course those parts were small, but nevertheless it kept me mighty busy, and I was awful skinny by the end of the year.

INTERVIEWER:

Could you tell me about the fifty-percent pay cuts?

KAREN MORLEY:

Oh, well

, when the studios got very frightened that they might be taken over by the banks—this was their great fear always—they declared, you know, agreed among themselves that all of the studios would demand that everybody take a fifty-percent pay cut.

KAREN MORLEY:

Even the producers, in a gracious way, cut their salaries too. A secretary made eighteen dollars a week, so for those weeks, I forget how long it lasted, a couple of months, I think, they got nine dollars. I think I was making a hundred and a quarter, so I got half of that.

INTERVIEWER:

And where were you-