For over a decade, Karina Longworth has pulled back the curtain on some of Old Hollywood’s most fascinating and, at times, salacious behind-the-scenes stories with the acclaimed podcast You Must Remember This. Now, the film critic and historian is taking her deep knowledge of cinema on the road for a cross-country tour that includes two stops in Iowa.
To quote Longworth’s signature introduction to the show, You Must Remember This is a deep-dive exploration of “the secret and/or forgotten histories of Hollywood's first century.” From Joan Crawford to Jane Fonda, Longworth has covered a myriad of film legends, but the show’s new season focuses on a lesser known name on the periphery of Hollywood history: Libby Holman.
“For a lot of the performers that I talk about, maybe there's a little bit of interesting personal life stuff, but I'm kind of more interested in how they were perceived as a star and in telling that story through looking at their movies,” Longworth said. “But with Libby, there was so much crazy personal life stuff. There weren't any movies, really, to talk about — at least I thought there weren't at first.”
Entitled “The Bisexuals,” the latest season of You Must Remember This traces Holman’s tumultuous life and career, from her early success on Broadway in the 1920s as a “torch singer” to her being indicted for the murder of her first husband (the charges were later dropped) to her on-again, off-again relationship with film star Montgomery Clift.
As a bisexual woman in the early 20th century, Holman defied the norms of the day in more ways than one; she moved in social circles that included a number of sexually fluid friends and lovers, including Tallulah Bankhead, Josephine Baker and, above all, Clift, who remained closeted throughout his life.
“In a lot of ways, I think Libby's relationship with Monty was perhaps the most successful that she ever had with a man; and certainly, Monty's relationship with Libby is the longest that there's a record of him having with a woman,” Longworth said. “It just seems like they found something in each other that kind of went beyond gender and went beyond anybody's conceived notions of who these people were.”
Longworth will be discussing Holman, Clift and more during her first stop in Iowa on Sunday, Nov. 8. That evening, she’ll present the 1951 melodrama A Place in the Sun at the Varsity Cinema in Des Moines. Directed by George Stevens, the film stars Clift alongside Elizabeth Taylor and earned six Academy Awards.
When discussing Clift’s place in Hollywood history, Longworth referred to him as “one of the greatest screen actors of the 20th century.” She was quick to explain why.
“What he was able to accomplish that is unique to him — or maybe, in some ways, began with him — is the ability to communicate an inner life without dialogue and without ‘doing too much,’” Longworth said. “There's something really magical that happens when you put Montgomery Clift in a close-up. You can really see what he's thinking and feeling, but you can't necessarily pinpoint what he's doing with his face to tell you that.”
Longworth’s second stop in Iowa will be on Monday, Nov. 9, in Iowa City. There, she’ll continue her Holman-related movie tour with a 35mm screening of the 1948 film noir Key Largo at FilmScene. The film, which stars Humphrey Bogart, Lauren Bacall and Edward G. Robinson, doesn’t feature one of Holman’s personal friends, but it does contain a memorable rendition of the song that she first made famous.
“The only reason why I talk about Key Largo in ‘The Bisexuals’ is because of ‘Moanin’ Low,’ which was Libby Holman's signature song from this revue that she starred in, in 1929 on Broadway, called The Little Show,” Longworth explained. “She introduced that song in that show, and then it became kind of a standard of the American Songbook for decades… For the first half of the 20th century, it was a well-known song, and she was 100% associated with it until Claire Trevor sings it in Key Largo.”
Trevor ultimately won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in the film. As for Holman, her time in the limelight was mostly over. She would remain active in her later years, however, becoming a philanthropist and even befriending Martin Luther King Jr. during the Civil Rights Movement.
Unfortunately, Holman’s life would come to a tragic end. In 1971, after suffering from several bouts of depression, she would die by suicide at the age of 67.
Despite leading a life marked by chart-topping successes, headline-grabbing controversies and ahead-of-her-time activism, Holman has been curiously overlooked by historians in recent years. With this new season of You Must Remember This and her accompanying film tour, Longworth is setting out to change that.
“The writings about her that were available were all at least 30 years old, and they were just sort of leaving all of this fascinating racial and sexual stuff to talk about on the table,” Longworth said. “I just felt like her story needed a new lens, and I wanted that lens to be mine.”
Event information for the screenings of A Place in the Sun and Key Largo are available at the Varsity Cinema and FilmScene, respectively.
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FilmScene and the Varsity Cinema are sponsors of Iowa Public Radio.
