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look, he
had the build; but he couldn’t open his mouth without sounding like a New England lobsterman. I mean, can you imagine Jack Kennedy on a horse or behind a badge—with that accent? They brought in the best speech coaches in the world to work with him. A waste of goddamn money. He ended up sounding like Cary Grant with a sinus problem.
    You can’t believe the parts he didn’t get because of his voice. Y’know, at one point Twentieth wanted him for The Misfits with Marilyn Monroe—now, that would have been a picture. Can you imagine Kennedy and Monroe? Pure screen magic. But it never happened. His voice again. No, as far as I know, they never even met.
    But that was always the problem. Finding the right picture for Jack. George Pal, the Puppetoon guy, gave him his first big break with War Of The Worlds over at Paramount, but Jack always hated science fiction. Afraid he’d get typecast. He saw what happened to Karloff and Lugosi. He thought of science fiction as the same kind of stuff.
    The funny thing was, the picture was a big hit, but that only made Jack unhappier. He knew the audience had come to see the Martians, not him. That’s when he swore, no more science fiction. And yeah, he really did say it, that famous quote: “Never play a scene with animals, children or Martians. They always use the Martian’s best take.”
    Hitchcock had a good sense of how to use Kennedy, but he only worked with him once. North By Northwest. Another big hit. Kennedy loved the film—he loved all that spy stuff, he always wanted to play James Bond—but he didn’t like the way Hitchcock treated him. And he made the mistake of saying so to an interviewer. Remember? “Hitch doesn’t direct. He herds. He treats his actors like cattle.” That remark got back to Hitch, and the old man was terribly hurt by it. So, instead of casting Jack in his next film, he went to Jimmy Stewart. Who knows? Maybe that was best for everybody.
    Jack spent nine months sitting on his ass, waiting for the right part. Nothing. Finally, he went to Bobby and said, “Help me get some of the good parts.” By now, Bobby was running MGM, and this gave him control over one studio and a lot of bargaining power with all the others—he was the biggest deal-maker in town, buying, selling, trading contracts right and left to put together the right package.
    Even so, Bobby still had to twist a lot of arms to get Jack into The Caine Mutiny. Van Johnson had already been screen-tested. He’d been fitted for his costumes, everything—suddenly, he’s out on his ass and
here’s Jack Kennedy playing opposite Bogart. I can tell you, a lot of feathers were ruffled. Bogey knew how Jack got the part and he never forgave him for it. But, y’know—it helped the picture. Bogey’s resentment of Jack shows up on the screen in every scene. Bogey should have had the Oscar for that one, but Bobby bought it for Jack. There was so much studio pressure on the voting—well, never mind. That’s a body best left buried.
    Anyway, in return, Bobby asked Jack to help him out with one or two of his problems. And Jack had no choice but to say yes. See, when Bobby took over MGM, one of the projects about to shoot was a thing called Forbidden Planet. Shakespeare in outer space. Dumb idea, right? That’s what everybody thought, at the time. They couldn’t cast it.
    They were having real trouble finding a male lead, and they were about to go with ... oh, let me think. Oh, I don’t remember his name. He ended up doing a cop show on ABC. Oh, here’s a funny. At one point, they were even considering Ronald Reagan for the lead. Very strongly. But they finally passed on him—I guess Bobby remembered the McCarthy business. And that’s why Reagan went and did Queen Of Outer Space. Never mind, it doesn’t matter. Bobby finally asked Jack to play the captain of the spaceship.
    And I gotta tell you. Jack didn’t want to do it—more of that science fiction crap, right?—but he