Carole Lombard’s Early Career Hurdle

A quintessential figure in the legacy preservation of legendary Hollywood actress Carole Lombard, Dr. Olympia Kiriakou is an author and Carole Lombard historian. She grew up interested in the subject of classic Hollywood as a kid thanks to her mother and began seriously pursuing the topic as a teenager around the age of 15. Olympia was kind enough to pen a piece on Lombard’s early career for us. You can pick up her book Becoming Carole Lombard: Stardom, Comedy, and Legacy here. 

Carole Lombard’s Early Career by Dr. Olympia Kiriakou

One of the most misunderstood aspects of Carole Lombard’s star narrative concerns her early career automobile accident. The conventional, details-light myth that developed during Lombard’s lifetime is as follows: sometime in either 1925 or 1926, she and her date were involved in a serious car accident that left her with permanent facial scars. According to a trade biography published by Lombard’s home studio, Paramount, when she was recovering from the accident, she was informed that her Fox contract (signed in 1925) had been terminated (1937 pg. 69). Various reasons for the termination have been proffered through the years including one by biographer Larry Swindell, who claimed Lombard violated a contractual clause that stated all Fox players must take full “responsibility for their physical being” (1975 pg. 52). Another biographer, Wes Gehring, explains that Lombard’s termination resulted in a “year long hiatus” from the screen (2003 pg. 48). According to both Gehring and Paramount, Lombard eventually signed a contract with Mack Sennett to pay off her mounting medical bills but was reluctant to do so because she believed slapstick comedy was a “comedown from her previous feature film work” (ibid pg 53). These sources weave an interminably dark narrative about Lombard’s early career, one that was riddled with false starts, rejection, and desperation. But was this period as bleak as it seems?

The short answer is not really. Reconfiguring the chronology of Lombard’s accident is important for the sake of historical accuracy, and also because it helps us better understand her mindset and actions in her early career. As is often the case with Hollywood, it’s tempting to print the legend. However, historical documents pertaining to the accident paint a gloomy, but significantly less dire picture. After a bit of archival digging, here’s what I know: an article in the Garrett Clipper (published near Lombard’s hometown of Fort Wayne, Indiana) notes that on the evening of September 19, 1927 Lombard was driving along Santa Monica Boulevard with her date, sixteen year old Harry “Heinie” Cooper. Suddenly, “through Cooper’s negligence” (ibid) he crashed his vehicle into another car. Carole’s body shot forward and shattered Cooper’s windshield in what she recalled as a “fireworks explosion” (Matzen 2013,  pg. 13). A large shard of glass cut a bone deep gash on Lombard’s face, stretching from her nose across her left cheek to just under her left eyebrow. Cooper’s injuries were minor, but Lombard was rushed to the hospital to undergo emergency surgery without anesthesia due to a now-debunked medical opinion that muscle relaxers would cause permanent scarring (Wilson 1939, pg. 76). Fourteen stitches later, Lombard’s eyelids were taped down for four hours and she was instructed to lie still for the next ten days as her wounds recovered (ibid). The surgery was a success, but Lombard was left with visible scarring for the rest of her life.

For reasons that are unknown to me, Lombard buffs have had difficulty pinpointing the precise date of the automobile accident and have proposed conflicting details about the aftermath. Contrary to popular belief, Lombard was not under contract with Fox at the time of the accident. In Swindell’s book, he claims that Fox paid for Lombard’s hospital expenses but not her plastic surgery. That rationale does not make sense because 1) it’s unreasonable to believe that the studio would pay the medical debts of someone they just fired; and 2) when the accident occurred, Lombard was already under contract to Mack Sennett. In reality, sixteen year-old Lombard had signed her $75 per week Fox contract in 1925, and was initially cast in plum roles in such films as Marriage in Transit (Neill, 1925) and Hearts and Spurs (Van Dyke, 1925). By Lombard’s and Fox’s mutual admission (as indicated in studio archival records), her acting chops were not up to par; at the end of her first year, her option was not renewed. For the next several months, Lombard joined a local theatre group to study “dramatics, poise, and voice culture” (Wilson 1933, pg. 70). When she wasn’t taking lessons, she landed bit parts in such films as The Road to Glory (Hawks, 1926), but most of her time was spent away from the Hollywood studios.

Lombard’s devotion to her craft paid off, and by July 1927, she had signed a $50 per week contract with slapstick filmmaker, Mack Sennett. As an aside, Lombard’s Sennett salary varies depending on the source – for example, Lombard testified it was $300 per week, while Sennett himself claimed it was quickly raised from $50 to $400 (2000, pg. 174). Nevertheless, it appeared that Lombard’s career was back on track. While Gehring and Paramount intimate that she was unhappy to work with Sennett, without any other career prospects it is unlikely she would high-hat his offer. In fact, Lombard saw her Sennett contract as a promising opportunity, having realized actresses like Phyllis Haver, Marie Prevost, and her screen idol, Gloria Swanson, all got their breaks at Keystone. Lombard later allegedly admitted to columnist Frederick Russell that she “wouldn’t trade that experience for anything” (1936, pg. 17).

Further confirmation that the accident occurred while Lombard was working with Sennett comes in the form of a lawsuit. In October 1927 Lombard and her mother, Elizabeth (Bess) Peters, sued Cooper and his parents (John Cooper, VP of the Security First National Bank, and Austeene, daughter of an old Pasadena family) for $35,000 in damages, arguing that “the scar greatly detracts from her appearance before the camera” (“Suit Over Scar…” 1927, pg. 21). In the suit, Lombard – who is identified by her birth name, Jane Peters – explains that “where she formerly was able to earn a salary of $300 monthly as a Sennett girl, she is now unable to obtain employment of any kind.” The language here confirms Lombard’s professional association with Sennett, and gives us a sense of the immense frustration she must have felt in the weeks following her accident. In the lawsuit, she claims that “the damage is in the form of two deep scars on [her] cheek, which she asserts have permanently defaced her beauty and completely shattered her screen ambitions.” Her weariness was entirely justified, especially when we consider why her Fox contract was not renewed. With the Fox rejection still fresh in Lombard’s mind and only a few Sennett shorts under her belt (including her debut, Smith’s Pony, which ironically was released the day before her accident), her facial scarring appeared to be yet another obstacle to screen success. Eventually, the lawsuit was settled out of court and Lombard received $3000. Still, Lombard had reason to be skeptical. In a town like Hollywood where physical perfection could make or break an actor’s career, why would Sennett be loyal to a neophyte with noticeable facial scarring?

Fortunately, he was. Sennett’s filmmaking style was informal and, as biographer Robert Matzen once described to me, lacking in “languid close ups.” His fast-paced physical comedy worked to Lombard’s advantage because it shifted the focus away from her face and to her body. Sennett saw something in her, and as she was at home recovering, he reassured her that not only was her contract secure, but that he would do his best to boost her star profile by giving her lucrative roles and ample publicity. When Lombard felt well enough to resume work, she returned to the Sennett lot to perform as one of his “bathing beauties” in such films as The Swim Princess (Goulding, 1928) and The Campus Vamp (Edwards, 1928). In addition to Lombard’s new leading lady status, Sennett also bestowed upon her a new nickname – “Carol of the Curves” – which drew focus away from her facial scarring and, critically, worked thematically with the physicality and female sensuality that were typical of Lombard’s “bathing beauty” roles.

Carole Lombard worked with Mack Sennett until 1929, upon which time she signed a short-term contract with his distributor, Pathé and, later in 1930, a seven-year contract with Paramount. Her relatively unstable, pre-stardom career path meandered through Hollywood, detouring through several studios and film genres. The automobile accident was a devastating (and painful) setback, but it was not career ending. Except for fleeting moments in her films, her scars were almost entirely airbrushed out of star ephemera. But on those rare occasions where they are visible, they are good reminders of Lombard’s luck, circumstance, and perseverance – three qualities that are essential to Hollywood stardom.

WORKS CITED

“Carole Lombard (Paramount Player).” Biographies of Paramount Players and Directors, 1936 – 1937 edition. 69-70.

“Former Fort Wayne Star Seeks $35,000 Damages.” Garrett Clipper, October 3, 1927, 3.

Gehring, Wes D. Carole Lombard: The Hoosier Tornado. Indianapolis: Indiana Historical Society, 2003.

Kiriakou, Olympia. Becoming Carole Lombard: Stardom, Comedy, and Legacy. New York: Bloomsbury, 2020.

Matzen, Robert. Email to author. July 7, 2016.

Matzen, Robert. Fireball: Carole Lombard and the Mystery of Flight 3. Chicago: GoodKnight Books, 2013.

Russell, Frederick. “The Life Story of Carole Lombard – part two.” Film Pictorial. July 4, 1936.

Sennett, Mack and Cameron Shipp. King of Comedy. San Jose: iUniverse.com, Inc., 2000.

“Suit Over Scar on Girl Settled.” The Los Angeles Times. October 15, 1927, pg. 21.

Swindell, Larry. Screwball: The Life of Carole Lombard. New York: William Morrow & Co., Inc., 1975.

Twentieth-Century Fox Collection. Walt Disney Archives, Burbank CA.

Wilson, Elizabeth. “Carole’s Colorful Career.” Screenland. November 1933, pgs. 56, 69-70.
Wilson, Elizabeth. “Serious Side of Screwball.” Screenland, February 1939, pgs. 30-31, 76.