When Salt Lake City Became Hollywood: The Premiere of Darryl F. Zanuck's Brigham Young

When Salt Lake City Became Hollywood: The Premiere of Darryl F. Zanuck’s Brigham Young

By JAMES V. D’ARC - RONALD L. FOX, PHOTO EDITOR

Star-studded movie premieres— complete with searchlights, parades, and studio-generated ballyhoo—originated in 1922 when the legendary theater entrepreneur Sid Grauman opened his Egyptian Theater on Hollywood Boulevard with the DouglasFairbanks swashbuckler, Robin Hood. Eighteen years later on a warm, late-August evening, that event was eclipsed by the festivities connected with the world premiere in Salt Lake City of a Twentieth Century Fox production, Brigham Young.

Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell, romantic leads in Brigham Young, interact with Officer George H. Volkert during a parade celebrating the film's premiere.

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A band, a contingent from the United States Navy, newsreel cameras, and thousands of Utahns wait at the Salt Lake City Municipal Airport to greet the celebrities. Before they departed for downtown Salt Lake City, the stars and studio officials participated in a short program at the airport. Note the many vehicles at the perimeter of the airfield, an indication of the response to this event.

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In 1938, Darryl F. Zanuck, the head of production at Fox, seized upon the drama of the founding of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the LDS or Mormon church). A junior studio writer had submitted a treatment dealing with the Mormon founder Joseph Smith, his martyrdom in 1844, the persecutions that drove his followers out of the Midwest, and the founding of Salt Lake City, culminating with the 1848 “miracle of the gulls” that helped save the Mormons’ crops from decimation by crickets. Zanuck favored subjects steeped in Americana, and he linked this inherently American saga to the contemporary persecution of Jews by the Nazis. Zanuck engaged the novelist Louis Bromfield to fashion a screen story and purchased the rights to Children of God (1939), by the Idaho author Vardis Fisher. Zanuck’s enthusiasm for the story led him to personally supervise the story conferences, the casting, the choice of director Henry Hathaway, and even the final editing process.

Brigham Young had a budget of nearly two million dollars, making it one of the largest studio productions of 1940. In fact, Zanuck cast his two biggest stars—Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell—as the romantic leads. Surprisingly, given the status of his lead performers, Zanuck put all of the story emphasis on the title role of Brigham Young. For that reason, he wanted to feature a relatively unknown actor as the Mormon prophet. After dismissing casting suggestions that included Walter Huston, Albert Dekker, and Spencer Tracy, Zanuck found his Young in the stage actor Dean Jagger. The thirty-six-year-old Indiana native had scored big on Broadway, but had enjoyed less success in Hollywood movies. Yet Jagger’s authoritative delivery of dialogue and his physical stature, which closely resembled the Brigham Young of the 1840s, convinced Zanuck of his ability to handle a meaty role. Vincent Price, well before his typecasting as a horror star, gave a brief, but powerful portrayal of Joseph Smith. Mary Astor played Mary Ann, Young’s “favorite” wife; the finished film showed four of the prophet’s wives. The veteran character actor John Carradine was a standout as a lively and humorous Porter Rockwell.

Fox Studio celebrities—all smiles, at least for the camera—aboard one of the two twentyone-passenger DC-3 airliners that the studio chartered from United Air Lines for the premiere of Brigham Young. Harry Brand, Fox’s publicity director, sits in the first visible row. A moustached Caesar Romero, whom the studio was currently promoting as the Cisco Kid, and the child star Jane Withers are in the next row back. Brenda Joyce, another Fox contract performer, sits behind Romero. Dean Jagger, who played the title role in Brigham Young, is across from Joyce; Virginia Zanuck, the wife of the studio boss Darryl F. Zanuck, is behind her. Sixteen-year-old Linda Darnell stands in the aisle. Darnell co-starred in Brigham Young as Zina, “the outsider.”

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Brigham Young was distinguished by the fact that most of it was filmed away from Hollywood on location in California’s Big Bear mountains, near Elko, Nevada, in southwestern Utah, and in Lone Pine, California, where more than fifty log cabins were built to replicate early Salt Lake City against the dramatic backdrop of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. The climactic invasion of seagulls that saved the pioneer settlement from destruction was filmed on the shores of Provo’s Utah Lake.

Together with the studio publicist Harry Brand, Zanuck decided to open Brigham Young in Salt Lake City, the headquarters of the church that numbered nearly 700,000 members at the time—most of whom lived along the Wasatch Front. LDS church president Heber J. Grant was all in favor of Zanuck’s plans, as he, along with his counselors David O. McKay and J. Reuben Clark, had watched an advance showing of Brigham Young at the Studio Theater in Salt Lake City three weeks before the premiere. It was an unqualified success. “I thank Darryl F. Zanuck for a sympathetic presentation of an immortal story,” declared Grant afterwards. “I endorse it with all my heart and have no suggestions to make for any changes. This is one of the greatest days of my life. I can’t say any more than ‘God bless you.’” 1 What most church members did not know was that Grant and the LDS apostle John A. Widtsoe had advised Zanuck and his writing team throughout the screenwriting process and gave their approval to the finished storyline. Widtsoe even took Louis Bromfield on a five-day automobile tour of Utah when Bromfield was preparing his story treatment. 2

The stage actor Dean Jagger earned himself a seven-year contract with Twentieth Century Fox as a result of his performance in Brigham Young. A decade later, he received an academy award as “best supporting actor” in Twelve O’Clock High (1949).

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A smiling Mary Astor, who played Mary Ann Young, leads the group arriving from Hollywood for the opening of Brigham Young. The others are Ken Murray; Nancy Kelly and Brenda Joyce, contract starlets whom the Fox studio was eager to promote; Tyrone Power, who played Jonathan Kent, “the Mormon scout”; and Darryl F. Zanuck, the head of production at Twentieth Century Fox. Zanuck took on Brigham Young as one of his few personally produced motion pictures for 1940.

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Hollywood notables emerge from a DC-3 airliner to greet the thousands gathered to see them at Salt Lake City’s Municipal Airport on August 23, 1940. From left to right, they are Ken Murray, unidentified, Tyrone Power, Darryl F. Zanuck, Nancy Kelly, Gregory Ratoff, Brenda Joyce, and Mary Astor. Murray acted as the master of ceremonies at five theaters that evening.

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Back row, left to right: Ken Murray, Nancy Kelly, Mary Astor, Tyrone Power, Dean Jagger, Linda Darnell, Caesar Romero. Front row: Darryl F. Zanuck, Jane Withers, Jean Rogers, Brenda Joyce, and Gregory Ratoff. Rogers played Clara Young, Brigham Young’s second wife in the film.

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Dean Jagger, Mary Astor, and Tyrone Power before the microphone at Salt Lake City’s Municipal Airport moments after their arrival on the afternoon of August 23, 1940.

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A Salt Lake City radio reporter covers the arrival of Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell at the airport as a powerful late August gale threatens to remove their hats. Salt Lake City’s mayor, David Abbott “Ab” Jenkins, is seen at the wheel of his “Mormon Meteor.” A few hours later, the movie stars rode in Jenkins’s famous car for the parade in downtown Salt Lake City.

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Tyrone Power and Linda Darnell wave to the crowd at the parade’s starting point, Temple Square in Salt Lake City. Mayor Ab Jenkins drives them. Out-of-town premieres, complete with parades and appearances at multiple theaters, were rare at this time in the movie industry. Seven theaters sold out for the opening night of Brigham Young.

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Tyrone Power, Fox studio’s biggest star, shares a moment with the director and sometime actor Gregory Ratoff. They are backstage at Salt Lake City’s Center Theatre before making their first of four appearances on premiere night, August 23, 1940. Darryl Zanuck’s emphasis on Brigham Young and the epic trek in Brigham Young resulted in rather colorless roles for Power and his co-star, Linda Darnell.

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The August 23, 1940, world premiere (dubbed “Brigham Young Day” by Governor Henry H. Blood), began with the arrival of Zanuck, Bromfield, the principal stars, and the studio personnel on two chartered DC-3 airliners. One source estimated that Salt Lake City’s usual population of about 150,000 swelled to over 200,000 for the gala parade down Main Street that afternoon. All of the Salt Lake City Police Department motorcycles were necessary to break a path through the packed sidewalk-to-sidewalk crowd. Power and Darnell led the way atop Mayor David Abbott “Ab” Jenkins’s “Mormon Meteor” race car. Dean Jagger and his wife rode in another vehicle, as did Darryl Zanuck and Governor Blood. Zanuck, meanwhile, also used the event to give a boost to his up-and-coming stars Jane Withers, Caesar Romero, and Brenda Joyce. The parade began at the Brigham Young statue and proceeded down Main Street, then across Fourth South, and up State Street to the Lion House, where that evening Grant hosted the Hollywood dignitaries to a buffet dinner before the premiere. 3

Initially, two Salt Lake City theaters were sold out weeks in advance for the premiere, with the Centre Theater serving as the anchor venue. However, interest rose dramatically as the opening day approached. By Friday, August 23, seven theaters were sold out to nine thousand patrons, and this at the increased ticket price of $1.10 (in contrast to normal admission prices of forty to sixty cents). This established a record for the number of theaters sold out for a simultaneous premiere screening. Ken Murray emceed the visits of Power, Darnell, and Jagger, first to the Centre at seven o’clock p.m. and then to four other theaters. The Fox Movietone Newsreel of the day, narrated by Lowell Thomas and shown in theaters nationwide, heralded the premiere events as unprecedented against film footage of a Main Street jammed with star gazers. 4

Jane Withers was a popular child actress under contract

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While Brigham Young’s high budget and publicity costs—and the loss of lucrative foreign markets with the start of World War II—prevented it from bringing in the financial returns for which Zanuck had hoped, the critical response to the film was virtually all positive. Life magazine chose it for its “movie of the week” and devoted several pages to a photo spread about it. A Los Angeles newspaper reviewer called Brigham Young “one of those rare distinguished motion pictures which makes up in two hours for every sin of mediocrity committed in Hollywood. . . . [It] is the best Twentieth Century-Fox production since Grapes of Wrath and a credit to the entire industry.” 5 Other reviewers immediately picked up the connection between the film’s dramatic and sometimes gruesome depictions of persecutions of Mormons and the atrocities visited against Jews by Nazis in Germany. In addressing some criticisms of the film by his own church members, Grant took time at the beginning of his October 1940 general conference address to remind the faithful that “There is nothing in the picture that reflects in any way against our people. It is a very marvelous and wonderful thing, considering how people generally have treated us and what they have thought of us.” 6

Linda Darnell, Jane Withers, and Brenda Joyce—all dressed for a major movie premiere.

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All of this occurred over seventy years ago, when Utah was on the verge of becoming a movie production location that would soon rival any filming site other than Hollywood and perhaps New York City. In a culture not usually associated with parties, Salt Lake City put on the one of biggest movie premieres ever.

James V. D’Arc curates the BYU Motion Picture Archive and directs the BYU Motion Picture Archive Film Series; he is the author of When Hollywood Came to Town: A History of Moviemaking in Utah (2010), now in its updated second edition. He may be contacted at james_darc@byu.edu. Ronald L. Fox owns a public affairs business in Salt Lake City. He is an author, historian, and collector of early photographic images, U.S. presidential material, and material related to political history of Utah.

NOTES

1 “High L.D.S. Officials Preview ‘Brigham Young’,” Salt Lake Tribune, August 14, 1940.

2 Detailed in James V. D’Arc, “Darryl F. Zanuck’s Brigham Young: A Film in Context,” BYU Studies 29, no. 1 (Winter 1989), 5–23.

3 “Salt Lake Offers Welcome to Screen Visitors,” “Premiere, Parade Honor Utah Founder Today,” “Salt Lake City to Become Glittering Capital of Film World for Premiere Showing of Pioneer Epic ‘Brigham Young’,” Salt Lake Tribune, August 23, 1940.

4 Formal studies calculating how many theaters have simultaneously sold out on a premiere night are rare. However, in thirty years of research, I have never read of another premiere with seven sold-out theaters.

5 Louella Parsons, Review, Los Angeles Examiner, August 21, 1940.

6 Heber J. Grant, “Gratitude for Faith of People,” One Hundred Eleventh Semi-Annual General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1940), 96. Grant’s address was reprinted on the “Editor’s Page,” Improvement Era 43 (November 1940): 654.