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What is the point of becoming a movie star unless you are allowed to lose your temper? Look back into cinema history and you’ll find plentiful incidents of big-name actors becoming furious at something or other. Sigmund Freud’s phrase ‘His Majesty the child’ springs to mind when you consider the antics of actors who eat garlic before love scenes, yell at technicians, sit in a sulk off-camera or wreck their trailers.
Bette Davis was famous for misbehaving, turning down roles she didn’t like (thereby exasperating her paymasters at Warner Brothers) and feuding with Joan Crawford. Katharine Hepburn was nicknamed "Katharine of Arrogance" because of her high-handed ways with fans early in her career. Male stars could be just as wilful. James Mason, one of Britain’s finest actors, caused consternation on the set of The Wicked Lady in 1945 by hitting the director Leslie Arliss in the face on the first day of shooting. Why? He had been kept waiting and didn’t much like the film anyway. Marlon Brando took sulking to method-acting extremes during the shooting of Mutiny On The Bounty. Trevor Howard became so exasperated by Brando’s erratic and self-indulgent behaviour that, fed up with waiting for the US star, he simply walked off the set. It is not only actors who misbehave, directors like a good yell too. Otto Preminger was rarely happy unless he had bawled out his cast. Lana Turner walked off one of his movies because she couldn’t stand his bullying. Bale isn’t the only combustible contemporary actor. In recent years, we have had Russell Crowe (Bale's co-star in 3.10 To Yuma) hurling a telephone at a hotel employee and haranguing a TV executive who cut short an awards acceptance speech. Sean Penn vents his fury from time to time at journalists and filmmakers who have not taken him seriously enough (for example, the creators of South Park). We like it when stars rage. It gives them a humanity and a vulnerability that is not evident when publicists are around to monitor their every utterance. As the tantrums attest, not everything is perfect in their worlds either, even if they are paid millions. Vincente Minnelli's Two Weeks In Another Town (1962) makes you feel sorry for petulant actors fallen on hard times. In the film, Kirk Douglas plays an actor whose career is in rapid decline. When he was at the top, he treated everyone so badly they feel little sympathy for him. His celebrity was his armour. As the film makes clear, a star's bad behaviour is only indulged as long as his movies are making money. The moment his career falters, he is fair game for anyone to mock or humiliate. That's the lesson that Christian Bale ought to bear in mind. — By arrangement with The Independent
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Hollywood
divas are expected to have tantrums. As Gloria Swanson once put it,
"I have gone through enough of being a nobody. I have decided
that when I am star, I will be every inch and every moment the star.
Everybody from the studio gateman to the highest executive will know
it."