Oscar Profile #133: John Steinbeck

Born February 27, 1902 in Salinas, California of German, English and Irish descent, John Steinbeck’s father was the Monterey Country treasurer. Having graduated from Salinas High School in 1919, he spent five years at Stanford University, leaving in 1925 without graduating. He was then variously employed as a sales clerk, farm laborer, ranch hand and factory worker for the remainder of the 1920s, even traveling by freight from Los Angeles to New York, where he was a construction worker in 1925. From 1926-1928, he was a caretaker in Lake Tahoe, CA. He did not publish his first novel, Cup of Gold, until 1929, the year before his first marriage.

Steinbeck’s episodic 1933 novella The Red Pony, set outside Salinas, was first published in magazines over a period from 1933-1936. His first critically acclaimed work was 1935’s Tortilla Flat which is set in Salinas. The author achieved even greater acclaim with Of Mice and Men, written as a play and set in the Depression era west in 1937 and The Grapes of Wrath, set in the Oklahoma dust bowl and various California locations in 1939, winning the Pulitzer Prize for the latter. Both were made into highly acclaimed films, Of Mice and Men in 1939; The Grapes of Wrath in 1940.

Steinbeck himself wrote the story and screenplay for the 1941 documentary, The Forgotten Village. His 1942 novel, The Moon Is Down about the Norwegian resistance during World War II, was made into a film in 1943, the year his first marriage ended and his second began.

His screenplays for 1944’s Lifeboat and 1945’s A Medal for Benny both earned him Oscar nominations. His 1948 and 1949 screenplays for his novellas, The Pearl and The Red Pony were also highly praised. Divorced from his second wife, with whom he had two children, he married third wife Elaine Anderson in 1950 after her divorce form Zachary Scott.

1952 was a busy year for Steinbeck. He wrote the screenplay for Viva Zapata! for which he received his third Oscar nomination; appeared as the on-screen narrator of the episodic O. Henry’s Full House and began work on his epic novel, East of Eden, which was published in 1954. The 1955 film version is based the second part of the novel.

Steinbeck’s works were out of fashion in the U.S. by the early 1960s, but remained popular in Europe and he unexpectedly won the 1962 Nobel Prize in Literature to the consternation of his American critics. In 1964 he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Eisenhower.

John Steinbeck, a lifelong smoker, died of a massive heart attack on December 20, 1968 at 66. His popularity has only increased since his death. By the 1990s he was declared the most popular deceased author in the U.S.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

OF MICE AND MEN (1940), directed by Lewis Milestone

This was the first of three acclaimed film versions of Steinbeck’s 1937 novel, which was written as a play and first performed on Broadway with Wallace Ford and Broderick Crawford, who won acclaim for his portrayal of the slow-witted Lennie. Burgess Meredith and Lon Chaney, Jr. starred as the itinerant farm workers with Chaney achieving instant stardom as Lennie. The 1981 TV movie starred Robert Blake and Randy Quaid as Lennie and the 1992 theatrical remake starred Gary Sinise and John Malkovich as Lennie.

This first version was nominated for four Oscars including Best Picture.

THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940), directed by John Ford

Steinbeck’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel used to be considered the closest thing to “the Great American Novel”. Similarly Ford’s film version could be called “the Great American Movie”, it’s that good.

The difference in the works is that Steinbeck’s novel was bleak and uncompromising whereas Ford’s is somewhat sentimentalized particularly with its “we’re the people” ending which is not in the book.

Henry Fonda had his greatest screen role as everyman Tom Joad and character actress Jane Darwell had the role of a lifetime as his stoic mother, Ma Joad. Nominated for seven Oscars including Best Picture, it won only for Ford’s direction and Darwell’s performance.

LIFEBOAT (1944), directed by Alfred Hitckcock

Steinbeck received the first of his three Oscar nominations for the original story of Hitchcock’s famous one-set film featuring Tallulah Bankhead, William Bendix. Walter Slezak, Mary Anderson, John Hodiak, Henry Hull, Hume Cronyn, Heather Angel and Canada Lee. The film also received Oscar nods for Hithcock and the film’s cinematography.

Steinbeck himself was critical of Hitchcock’s film. He was outraged by what he considered Hitch’s racism as manifested in his condescension toward the character played by Canada Lee.

EAST OF EDEN (1955), directed by Elia Kazan

Kazan’s film of Steinbeck’s novel is adapted from the second part of the book in which the sons of the novel’s central characters take center stage. That works well for the iconic performance of James Dean as Cal Trask, the performance that earned him the first of his two posthumous Oscar nominations.

Nominated for four Oscars, the film’s only win was for Jo Van Fleet, named Best Supporting Actress for her portrayal of the evil Kate. The character, however, was much more evil in the novel as Jane Seymour’s Golden Globe winning portrayal in the 1981 TV mini-series attests. That version with Timothy Bottoms as Adam, Bruce Boxleitner as Charles, Sam Bottoms as Cal, Karen Allen as Abra and Hart Bochner as Aron is much more faithful to the novel, perfectly capturing Steinbeck’s intent.

See the 1955 version for Dean; see the 1981 version for Steinbeck.

THE RED PONY (1973), Directed by Robert Totten

Steinbeck himself wrote the screenplay for the 1949 version of his novella in which Myrna Loy as the mother of the ten year-old central character and Robert Mitchum as farmhand Billy Buck have star billing. In this more richly detailed version, Henry Fonda as the boy’s father and Maureen O’Hara as the mother receive star billing. The boy is played by Clint Howard, Ronny’s little brother.

The character of the father played by Shepperd Strudwick was seen as weak and retiring in the 1949 version, leaving all of the chores and most of the interaction with his son to be played out by Mitchum’s character. The newer version still paints the father as something of a jerk but he is a much stronger character in Fonda’s hands, so much stronger that Mitchum’s character is completely omitted. O’Hara, too, seems a much more realistic farm woman than Loy. Whereas Loy stayed in the house and did the cooking, O’Hara milks cows, stitches her husband’s wounds and even helps with the birthing of a colt.

Fonda and Jerry Goldsmith’s score were nominated for Emmys.