A Look Back: Noreen Nash
Interest in the earlier days of Hollywood were kindled by my recently having met Christa Fuller who was married happily for many years to the controversial and magnificent director Sam Fuller. I have been experiencing through stories what life was like “back then” (from the ’40s through the ’80s — remember “White Dog” and the controversy about racism that drove Sam Fuller out of U.S. to Paris? Anyway, that is not what this is about. Christa knew I was enchanted by her stories and suggested I meet and interview Noreen Nash, a former movie star with a different allure.
When Noreen Nash opened the door to her home on Maple Drive, I was immediately struck by her beauty. Born April 4, 1924 as Norabelle Jean Roth, she has reached age 94 with a loved and loving family around her.
Christa had paved the way for me to ask her questions about her life and career(s) since her first job in 1942 when she was crowned ”Apple Blossom Queen” in her home town.
Nora: I’ve had several different lives. I was the Apple Blossom Queen of Wenatchee, Washington and they sent me down here to be on the radio and advertise the apples and a talent scout from Warner Brothers saw me and wanted to give me a screen test. So I went home and graduated and then I came back. They didn’t sign me but Metro did.
Shortly after that I met Dr. Siegel. I only knew him six weeks and we got married. So my mother said, “OK, if you promise not to have any children for two years”…she thought then we’d know, so we all agreed to that.
So we did. And then we had two sons.
So what drew you to Dr. Siegal? He was not part of the Hollywood world…or was he?
He was. He was the doctor at 20th Century Fox. The majority of his patients were in the movies. It was a wonderful thing. He was 16 years older than I but we were married for 47 years until he died and we had a FABULOUS time. He was very close to Darryl Zanuck who took us all over the world.
Was he his physician also?
Yes. It was funny because he went to his office. …the doctor who was supposed to see him couldn’t come, so my husband went instead and my husband said to his secretary, “I’d like you to tell Mr. Zanuck that his time is as valuable to him as mine is to me. I won’t wait more than five minutes.”
She said to him, “You’re not going to tell that to Mr. Zanuck?” and he said, “Yes I am”.
So Mr. Zanuck came out IMMEDIATELY and said, “Dr. Siegal, you will never wait more than five minutes”. He was just crazy about my husband. They’re not used to being told like that!
You at that time were under contract at MGM…
Yes and then, I left MGM and the producer of the film Jean Renoir was going to do came to our house and said, “Oh you’d be perfect for this film.”
So I said “Oh let me get all dressed up” — he said “no” — I didn’t have any makeup on and my hair was in pigtails…and he said “No, just come as you are.”
So I went and got a little part from Jean Renoir in a picture called The Southerner.
[The Southerner is a 1945 American drama film directed by Jean Renoir and based on the 1941 novel Hold Autumn in Your Hand by George Sessions Perry. The film received Oscar nominations for Best Director, Original Music Score, and Sound. Renoir was named Best Director by the National Board of Review, which also named the film the third best of 1945. The film, now in the public domain, portrays the hardships of a poor family struggling to establish a cotton farm in Texas in the early 1940s.]
It was the first time I ever had any lines to speak and I said my lines and he said “That’s Perfect! Let’s do it again.” So I did it again. And he said “Perfect! Let’s do it again.” And then I realized, after I knew…we became very, very close friends… that for him, he thought that perfection ruined everything. It’s the little imperfections that make things interesting.
[Editor: As Noreen expressed it in her book about Jean Renoir, Titans of the Muses, he said, “Perfection is not a desired goal. It is sterile and does not make great art or great people. I believe it is often a person’s imperfections that make them dearer, that make them more human.”]
And we became lifetime friends until he died.
He spent many a time sitting here. And Henry Miller was also a friend of ours so we got the two of them together and they were sitting where we are now, talking and talking…Henry Miller and Jean Renoir…
So what did they talk about? Books? Movies?
Everything. They talked about everything…politics…who they liked, and their favorite authors…and…religion, art, music…
And after The Southerner?
Then I worked for 22 years in film. I was under contract later to Eagle Lion Films and I st[rred in quite a few forgettable films.
[Ed.: Eagle Lion was a U.K. company owned by J. Arthur Rank and run by Arthur Krim in 1946…]
And then I did a television show…I did a lot of television… Charles Boyer and I did a television show, a TV movie, I played Natalie Wood’s mother. (Four Star Playhouse’ The Wild Bunch, 1955).
The last one that I did was called Wake Me When It's Over (1960) and it was on TV just a couple of months ago…Directed by Mervyn Leroy, it starred Dick Shawn and I played his wife.
In the next movie, I committed suicide over Vincent Price and my son said, “Mother, I think they’re trying to tell you something. I think it’s time you quit acting and go to college” (because I got married when I was 18.)
I said, “But I’ll be in my 40s before I graduate.”
He said, “Mother you’re going to be in your 40s anyway.”
So I stopped acting and I went to college. It took me six years because I was married, and when I graduated he said, “Now you have to write”.
Which son is this, your older one?
This was the younger son. My older son, the professor, never told me anything, but my younger son was always telling me something. He’s the doctor”
Christa told me to ask you about the book you wrote on medieval medicine…but when I looked at Wikipedia, it said you wrote a novel…so what did you write?
I wrote a novel but it’s based on a true story. It starts in 1556 and I started out to make it a true story about Vesalius, the first anatomist. And then I decided, No what I’m going to do is, I’m going to make it a novel and I’m going to make him the doctor to Catherine de Medici. So I wrote this book called By Love Fulfilled, about a doctor in the court of Catherine de Medici.
Is it around now? Can I order it?
Yes you can read it online.
My agent wanted to make it into a series. RKO was interested but the only way they would do it is if they could get Richard Chamberlain (Dr. Kildare). But they didn’t.
I was later at a party and sat next to Richard Chamberlain and said to him, “You turned my book down and he said he didn’t know anything about it.”
Anyway, life is funny.
And then I wrote a book called Agnès Sorel, Mistress of Beauty. It’s about Agnes Sorel who was the first mistress of France and she died very mysteriously.
WIKI: Agnès Sorel (1422–9 February 1450), known by the sobriquet Dame de beauté (Lady of Beauty), was a favorite, and chief mistress, of King Charles VII of France, by whom she bore four daughters. She is considered the first officially recognized royal mistress. She was the subject of several contemporary paintings and works of art, including Jean Fouquet’s Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels.
And then I wrote with Jeanne Rejaunier, about Henry Miller and Jean Renoir called Titans of the Muses: When Henry Miller met Jean Renoir. That’s probably more upscale…
Did you like writing more than acting?
I had had enough of acting., I was ready to quit. And the reason I was writing was that my husband during his last ten years was not well. It was perfect for me to stay at home and write.
But I always found writing was difficult and it’s not something I ever want to do again.
What about you?
I want to write.
You love it.
I love it but I want to write a huge novel and it’s daunting.
Yes and for me anyway, I don’t know about you, at least, it’s very hard nowadays to get anything published. Don’t you think so?
Yes, I’m not even thinking about that.
Non-fiction is easier to publish. Fiction is very difficult. And most people I know are doing it themselves, they’re self-publishing.
But with your history you probably could sell it.
I don’t know that I can. I just want to write it. It is really hard. And getting your historical facts together…
That’s what I really loved. I just loved the research, I went to France and I went to all the places that I loved. But I find writing very difficult … and I gave it up.
Once I decided to write fiction then I gathered all the facts about Catherine de Medici and that was fun. And then I just had to make the doctor and I fashioned him after a doctor at that time…I enjoyed sitting up in my little room…And in those days it was so different. I gave it to my agent and a week later he had sold it …to Warner Books.
It was a different world.
Right now I’m in a part of my story I really want to get right and I am scared of it; scared to touch it.
(She laughs). Yes I know just what you mean!!
So what was it like as an actress…at MGM, you were a showgirl?
I started out as a showgirl and then I decided I didn’t want to be a showgirl and that’s when I did that little part for Jean Renoir. And then after that, my agent sold me to a studio called Eagle Lion…It’s an English company…I did a lot for them. They had premieres but I don’t think they were very memorable films.
What were “showgirls”? Did you dance and kick your legs up?
Showgirls were — elegant ladies that just walked through…no dancing or anything…
There was another film you were in that was not forgettable at all…
Giant — was the littlest part I ever had and I didn’t want to do it because I had a B picture that was offered to me, but my agent talked me into doing it. I played the movie star.
You had a lovely husband so I imagine you were kind of safe from the wolves and predators of Hollywood…
I had no problems whatsoever. Now I knew that if a man said, “Come to my office tonight for dinner” you knew not to do that…I had no problem. You don’t do that.
I was married, so if they made a pass, I would say “I am married”.
You were lucky.
You were the queen of cherry blossoms so you were beautiful but you had an intellectual life as well…
We had such interesting friends, Gregory Peck...We had wonderful parties in the dining room, and the most interesting people. We were constantly entertaining in dining room…
My husband had so many interesting people in his life. Susan Hayward was a patient of his. I want to show you that picture that was taken here…
Did you organize the parties yourself?
Yes. I didn’t send invitations, I called…
In the last ten years of our marriage before my husband died, we didn’t do as much entertaining.
And then I remarried. I married James Whitmore in 1998 and we moved to Malibu and my son and his wife moved inv here.
My son is a doctor. He was head of cardiology at Cedars-Sinai Hospital, Los Angeles. He and his wife moved in, and are living there now. I live in the guest house above the garage. My daughter-in-law is fabulous and she gives wonderful parties, The whole living room was tables and she just had 38 people to Sedar this past Sunday.
The other son lives in Hawaii, he was a professor of world religions and has written around 15 books, many about India. I think they’re all online. Lee Siegal is his name.
Do you have any thoughts on aging?
Olivia de Haviland is 103 or 104. People are living longer.
Aging is not bothering me at all. Every day I say well I’ve got another day. I’m so lucky because I have a son and fabulous daughter-in-law, and my other son, four grand-children and now I have a great-grandson!
You live in the moment. That’s all you have is the moment.
One last question. Christa told me to ask you about being a model in Chicago with Marilyn Monroe.
It was 1942 and Marilyn Monroe was 16. I was 18. She was Norma Jean Doughery and she had just gotten married to Dougherty.
My agent wanted to shoot the two of us. It was the first shoot she ever did. She looked nothing like she did later.
She was late. We arrived to shoot at 9 o clock and she was still in bed and we sat and waited. She arrived at 10. She wasn’t that pretty but the minute she looked at the camera, it was like a light went on.
A few years later, I saw her again and she looked completely different.
She had a funny sense of humor. Someone asked her, “What did you have on before you took the nude picture?” And she said “The radio”.
She had this wonderful sense of humor.
My husband cared for her during the last years of her life as he was the doctor at 20th Century Fox. She was doing a picture (The Misfits, 1961) at 20th Century Fox and he was the doctor so he was taking care of her. He told the head of the studio, the only way you can shoot with Marilyn Monroe is to start shooting at 12 or 1 but the studio head said no, and fired her. Clark Gable’s wife always blamed Monroe for their waiting in the hot sun on the set…and then they would have to do 16 takes…his wife blamed her for his getting ill.
[Ed: According to IMDb: On the last day of filming, Clark Gable said regarding Marilyn Monroe, “Christ, I’m glad this picture’s finished. She damn near gave me a heart attack.” On the next day, Gable suffered a severe coronary thrombosis and died ten days later at age 59. A doctor was on call 24 hours a day for both Marilyn Monroe and Montgomery Clift during the filming because both were experiencing health problems with alcohol and medical stimulants.]
I always felt her suicide was an accident…she was taking sleeping pills…I can understand that. You take one sleeping pill and you have been drinking and then you take another one…And when she went to sing for the president…devastatingly beautiful…She really had something unique.
It was a joy meeting you…Thank you.
