"Myrna Loy: Being and Becoming" By James Kotsilibas-Davis & Myrna Loy [Borzoi] Pub.: Alfred P. Knopf, Inc. Excert: Pages, 158 - 159, 191

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Pages 158 - 159 ["The Rains Came"]

"....Despite Darryl's machinations, it was a happy film. Nigel Bruce, who played my husband, was a darling man we called "Bunny," He and his wife were denizens of the English colony, which we dipped into quite a bit. Arthur, being half English, after all, enjoyed that crowd. So did I.

Maria Ouspenskaya played the Maharani. Oh, Maria was so dear, a tiny little thing, just a bag of bones but just beautiful. And such an accomplished woman! She had been with the Moscow Art Theatre in Russia, then played on Broadway and ran an acting school before coming to Hollywood. The first time I saw her, she was lost in the maze of lamps and cables outside the set. You can't believe what a jumble it is-hazards everywhere. And here this tiny creature stood, all done up in her costume for a test. "Oh, my gootness," she enthused, "iz such fun to be barefoot." Her exquisite little feet had only skimpy strings of pearls around them. "You have to watch out for nails and things," I warned, swooping her up and carrying her onto the set.

Clarence Brown and I worked together several times. He had a deft hand, and I had a lot of confidence in him. Darryl did his best to break that up, but it didn't work-we just went right on. "You know, people don't die with their eyes closed," Clarence suggested during my death scene. "Why don't you try dying with your eyes open. You've just got to bold your breath." I held my breath, staring at some fixed object until I began to see stars and everything started to blur and run together. I was turning a, little blue when he finally called "Cut!" When you trust a director, you'll do anything for him.

I had another near-miss on that picture. They created an amazi gly authentic Indian street on the old 20th Century-Fox back lot-which no longer exists; you have all these hotels and office buildings there now. Tyrone Power and I rode horseback down that street to a temple where the rains of the title started. I thought nothing of doing my own riding, having been raised on a horse, but when they let go with the rain my horse reared up, turned around, and headed back up the street. Further disoriented by all the stalls and hawkers and racket, he shot out of there hell-bent for the main part of the studio. As we raced past little roads between deserted sets, I still felt some control, but when we hit the cobblestone courtyard in front of the commissary, let me tell you, I've never been so scared in my life. If he'd dumped me there, it would have been all over. I lay very low, hanging on to the bridle and his inane. He darted toward the commissary, reached the steps, and, by God, stopped-just like that, as terrified as I was.

All these wranglers and so forth came running; you know, they were going to save me. In a pig's eye! Why I wasn't thrown I'll never know. Oh, was there a scandal afterward! The people who supplied those animals were usually trustworthy, but they'd run out of experienced horses and, without telling anybody, sent one that had never worked in films. Heads rolled over that blunder.

I went right on with my next scene, a romantic interlude with Tyrone Power in the temple. Poor Ty seemed more upset about my impromptu ride than I did. He was out of his mind because a wrangler had taken his horse to come after me, leaving him helpless to join the rescue attempt. Ty Power was one of the nicest human beings I've ever known, a really divine man, perceptive and thoughtful. That happened to be a bad time for me. There were problems at home, the beginnings of real trouble with Arthur. I felt my world falling to pieces around me. I never discussed it with Ty---- didn't know him that well then-but he sensed it and made it his business to cheer me up. When I came on the set one morning, he approached with a long-stemmed bird of paradise in a Coke bottle, bowing and making a grand gesture of presenting it to me. That typified the little things he would do. I'm sorry to report that we weren't lovers, but close to it. I loved him, but he was married to that damn Frenchwoman.

He had a very strong sense of other people, heightened by a kind of mysticism, a spiritual quality. You saw it in his deep, warm eyes. It seemed perfect casting when he played that sort of person in The Razor's Edge. That was Ty. He used to invent games for us to play on the set, just to keep my mind off other things. "If you weren't who you are, he asked, "what would you like to be?" "I haven't the slightest idea," I replied. "Do you know what you'd like to be if you weren't Ty?"

He made a graceful sweeping gesture with his hands: "I would like to be the wind, so I could be light and free and be anywhere I want at any time. I could go all around the world and look in people's windows and share their joys and sorrows." When he died, that's all I could think of I said to myself, "Well, all right, he's the wind."

1942 - 1947

Page 191:

"....When Japan surrendred, I was back in Hollywood feeling a new sense of self-understanding and well-being after ten months of analysis. "You're finished," Dr. Brunswick had decide, and threw me out. That straightened me out. There wasn't that much difference in my looks or demeanor, but Tyrone Power immediately sensed a change when he saw me at the Zanucks' house one Sunday. "What's happened?? he exclaimed. "You look wonderful!" It was our first meeting since I'd come back from New York and he?d been discharged from the Marine Crops, so there hadn't been time to share my experiences. He just knew, with his instinctive sense of other people, that I was in one whole piece."