Part I – Honeymoon on Location (1958)

The Byron Blog consists of writings, photographs, and anecdotes related to my father, Byron Dobell (1927-2017)

In the course of things, I met and marveled at movie stars, world leaders, tycoons, scientists, scholars, athletes, poets, and assorted wise men and women, and lunatics. I’ve never spent much time thinking about famous people I’ve known – it was, after all, the nature of the business – but, to misquote Tennyson’s Ulysses, “All that I have met are part of me” – and it was great fun.

–– from Byron’s speech when he was inducted into the American Society of Magazine Editors Hall of Fame in April 1998

When my parents, Byron Dobell and Ande Rubin, got married on October 24, 1958, Byron was the picture editor of Pageant magazine.

Pageant was a monthly digest-sized magazine (published in the US from 1944-1977). 

Pageant April 1959 issue, containing Byron's account of his time on location in Dublin with the cast and crew of Shake Hands with The Devil

Pageant, courtesy of the film distributor United Artists, was sending Byron to Dublin and Madrid to cover the filming of two movies, Shake Hands with the Devil, starring James Cagney, and Solomon and Sheba, starring Tyrone Power and Gina Lollobrigida. So Byron and Ande made this trip their honeymoon, intending to go to Dublin, then to Paris for a few days on their own, and finally to Madrid.

Byron was 31. He had lived in Paris in 1949 (thanks to the GI Bill), but this trip was his first to Dublin and Madrid. Ande was 32. She had been to Europe a number of times. It was Byron’s second marriage and Ande’s first.

The Cagney piece that appeared in Pageant in April 1959 (after Byron had left Pageant to be picture editor of This Week magazine) was a much abbreviated and altered version of the draft Byron kept all these years (illustrated with a different batch of photos from the ones he saved). See below for excerpts from the draft he retained, with selected photos. 

The film is set in Dublin in 1921, where the Irish Republican Army battles the Black and Tans, ex-British soldiers sent to suppress the rebels. The cast includes Cagney, Don Murray, Dana Wynter, Glynis Johns, and Michael Redgrave. 

(Source: Wikipedia)

In Byron's words . . .

Dublin Diary

The Irish have opened their first movie studio [Ardmore Studios in Bray, County Wicklow] and one of the first films being made there is Shake Hands with the Devil. I arrived when the cast, starring James Cagney, was on location in Dublin on a dock along the slate-gray River Liffey.

Met Cagney. Discussed Ireland with him, its poverty. Ireland haunts not only the Irish, but tourists and visitors as well. He said, “You couldn’t have arrived at a better time.” Gun duel, armed raid, jump into river, and high dive from tower, climaxed by explosion, all to be shot in the next two days. Even the cast was excited.

Cagney on set (Photo: B. Dobell)

Dockside had been shielded from street view by putting up canvas walls painted like brick. But persistent thousands of Irishers, anxious to get a look at the gunplay, had torn holes in the canvas and poked their heads through in ludicrous fashion. Before each “take,” they had to be shooed off.

Most persistent problem was the sun. The director [Michael Anderson] was willing to shoot his outdoor scenes in either shade or sun, but not both, and sun wouldn’t make up its mind. Elaborate scene involving armored car bearing IRA members out to capture one of their members from the British was rehearsed. Each time scene was ready to be filmed, sun went behind clouds. Waiting for the sun kept the entire cast and street traffic paralyzed for 20 minute stretches. Finally, word would echo over amplified megaphone, “Action!” Then cameras rolled.

Floating population on set puzzled director. He swore half of Dublin had sneaked onto the dockside. And the commissary at lunchtime was packed with faces unfamiliar to him. He didn’t mind the extras bringing their relatives to lunch, but these, in turn, seemed to be bringing their relatives.

Crisp weather made food at lunchtime and teatime of major concern to cast. Tea served buffet style on outdoor carts with actors and actresses spreading slices of white bread thickly with apricot jam, honey, and cheeses. Mugs of hot coffee downed throughout the long morning and longer afternoon. Moviemaking is hard work, tedious. But everyone was cheerful.

Irish boy extra (Photo: B. Dobell)

Dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Cagney [and Ande]. He is a warm, intelligent man. Told stories of his experiences with movie stuntmen, how he admired them as a breed. Mrs. Cagney very attentive to her husband; they are an old team and work in unison. He was concerned about his daughter at Mills College, wanted an explanation of her working as a waitress. “Is that progressive education, or what?”

After dinner, we walked to a dance hall where Cagney was supposed to watch a folk-dance performance. Along street, had most moving experience of Dublin trip. Twenty urchins spotted Jimmy and trailed us for four or five blocks.

“Are you Jimmy Cagney?” they asked.

Cagney said no.

“Sure, you’re Jimmy!” they cried, beseeching him to listen to them. They sang aloud, almost did handstands to amuse him. Touched, he kept walking briskly but tousled the hair of several of the lads. They had seen movies, he said, he no longer remembered, shouting the plots to him and lines he had spoken many years before. The Dublin movies had been running his old films for the last few months.

“Where do these kids come from?” he asked.

 Finally, he stopped and asked, “Where’s your mother and father?”

“They’re in England.”

And so answered another and another.

“Come on!” Cagney said. “Don't give me that. You're making up a story, aren’t you?”

“No, no!” they cried.

These are the children of Dublin’s streets, abandoned to their old aunts and grandmothers, while their parents leave for years at a time to earn their living elsewhere.

We dug for small change and gave it to the kids. They milled around and in a moment it seemed as if the group would multiply into one hundred shouting boys. But Cagney was firm and said, “No more.” The older boys knew he meant what he said and drifted away. But several lads no older than seven or eight held onto his coattails until he was inside the dance hall. Cagney shook his head in amused, sad bewilderment.

Cagney at dance hall (Photo: B. Dobell)

From Dublin, Byron and Ande went to Paris, where they stayed in the Hotel Meurice. Ande came down with pleurisy, so she stayed in Paris while Byron went to Madrid as planned to cover Solomon and Sheba. (I’m not sure when Byron’s coverage of Solomon and Sheba appeared in Pageant, if ever. He kept a number of photos from this shoot, including the ones below of Tyrone Power and Marisa Pavan.) Byron then returned to Paris, and he and Ande flew home to New York on November 10.

Solomon and Sheba, directed by King Vidor, originally starred Tyrone Power, along with Gina Lollobrigida, Marisa Pavan, and George Sanders. 

Two thirds of the movie had been shot and the unit was in Madrid when on November 15, in the midst of filming a duel scene, Power complained of a pain in his left arm. He died later that day of a heart attack. Yul Brynner took over Power's role as Solomon.

Marisa Pavan (born in Italy in 1932) acted on film and TV for several decades. She is the twin sister of Pier Angeli, a film actress who died in 1971.

(Source: Wikipedia)

Marisa Pavan and Tyrone Power (Photo: B. Dobell)

Marisa Pavan (Photo: B. Dobell)

Marisa Pavan (Photo: B. Dobell)

Stay tuned for Part II of The Byron Blog