Read Online Howard Hawks: The Grey Fox of Hollywood by Todd McCarthy - Free Book Online
Authors: Todd McCarthy
Tags: Biography
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a ninety-one in mechanical drawing, an eighty-seven in English, an eighty-five in geometry, an eighty-three in shop, and a seventy-seven in French. During the first term of his junior year, he scored an excellent ninety-six in German, a split ninety/eighty-six in English, a ninety/eightyin algebra, but a failing sixty in chemistry.
In late 1912, the family left Pasadena and moved east to live a much more rural life among Frank’s orange groves, at 352 North Los Robles in Glendora. The reasons for the abrupt change are unknown, although they could conceivably have had something to do with a desire to leave behind the house at 998 San Pasqual, where little Helen had died, or mighthave been connected to either Grace or Helen’s health.
When the family moved, Howard transferred schools and finished his junior year, from January through June 1913, at Citrus Union High School in Glendora, in the boondocks compared to the quiet elegance and refinement of Pasadena. He did relatively well there, so that Frank and Helen, hoping to set their eldest son even more firmly on an IvyLeague course, decided to send Howard east for the most rigorous formal education available. It remains uncertain exactly how they got him into the Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, the most prestigious prep school in the United States, although money may have played the decisive role in slipping a WestCoast boy with respectable but hardly distinguished grades into a school in which thevast majority of the 572 students at that time were upper crusters from the northeastern states. Howard Hawks, at age seventeen, was accepted into Phillips Exeter but, inexplicably, only as a lower middleclassman, the equivalent of a sophomore, meaning he was two years older than most of the 165 other boys at his level and two years behind where he was supposed to be. After the long train tripacross the country, he arrived in time to start classes on September 15, 1913.
The small town of Exeter, founded by English settlers in 1638, lies ten miles from the Atlantic Ocean about midway along the short stretch of New Hampshire that separates coastal Massachusetts and Maine. The trip to New England marked Howard’s first visit to the area his earliest American ancestors lived in, althoughfamily and sentimental ties meant little to him then or later. Opened in 1783, Phillips Exeter had long been the most elite of secondary schools; among its alumni at the time were eight senators, twenty state representatives, twelve state governors, one associate justice of the Supreme Court, and hundreds of other successful men of academia, the law, medicine, and religion. The most famous graduatewas Daniel Webster. The school prided itself on its adherence to fairness and democratic dealings with all students but insisted “first of all on honest labor. The day’s work must be done. Every boy, high or low, rich or poor, must show actual performance. Not to learn one’s lesson is a breach of trust.”
Although at least half the boys lived in private lodgings off campus, Hawks took studentfacilities in large Webster Hall, a classical four-story, redbrick building in which he shared room 28 with a senior, Horace Alonzo Quimby, of Springfield, Massachusetts. All the evidence suggests that Hawks in no way entered into the spirit of life at Phillips Exeter, certainly not academically and not even in the expected extracurricular activities. Attendance at chapel was required of all students,and Hawks, as one of only three registered Christian Scientists at the entire school, was assigned to the menial position of church monitor for the Christian Science contingent. He automatically became a member of the California Club, of which there were just nine others. He also joined the Assembly Club, which was in charge of arranging social events and inviting outside speakers. Although PhillipsExeter had become very athletically oriented over the previous decade and boasted first-rate sports fields
In late 1912, the family left Pasadena and moved east to live a much more rural life among Frank’s orange groves, at 352 North Los Robles in Glendora. The reasons for the abrupt change are unknown, although they could conceivably have had something to do with a desire to leave behind the house at 998 San Pasqual, where little Helen had died, or mighthave been connected to either Grace or Helen’s health.
When the family moved, Howard transferred schools and finished his junior year, from January through June 1913, at Citrus Union High School in Glendora, in the boondocks compared to the quiet elegance and refinement of Pasadena. He did relatively well there, so that Frank and Helen, hoping to set their eldest son even more firmly on an IvyLeague course, decided to send Howard east for the most rigorous formal education available. It remains uncertain exactly how they got him into the Phillips Exeter Academy in New Hampshire, the most prestigious prep school in the United States, although money may have played the decisive role in slipping a WestCoast boy with respectable but hardly distinguished grades into a school in which thevast majority of the 572 students at that time were upper crusters from the northeastern states. Howard Hawks, at age seventeen, was accepted into Phillips Exeter but, inexplicably, only as a lower middleclassman, the equivalent of a sophomore, meaning he was two years older than most of the 165 other boys at his level and two years behind where he was supposed to be. After the long train tripacross the country, he arrived in time to start classes on September 15, 1913.
The small town of Exeter, founded by English settlers in 1638, lies ten miles from the Atlantic Ocean about midway along the short stretch of New Hampshire that separates coastal Massachusetts and Maine. The trip to New England marked Howard’s first visit to the area his earliest American ancestors lived in, althoughfamily and sentimental ties meant little to him then or later. Opened in 1783, Phillips Exeter had long been the most elite of secondary schools; among its alumni at the time were eight senators, twenty state representatives, twelve state governors, one associate justice of the Supreme Court, and hundreds of other successful men of academia, the law, medicine, and religion. The most famous graduatewas Daniel Webster. The school prided itself on its adherence to fairness and democratic dealings with all students but insisted “first of all on honest labor. The day’s work must be done. Every boy, high or low, rich or poor, must show actual performance. Not to learn one’s lesson is a breach of trust.”
Although at least half the boys lived in private lodgings off campus, Hawks took studentfacilities in large Webster Hall, a classical four-story, redbrick building in which he shared room 28 with a senior, Horace Alonzo Quimby, of Springfield, Massachusetts. All the evidence suggests that Hawks in no way entered into the spirit of life at Phillips Exeter, certainly not academically and not even in the expected extracurricular activities. Attendance at chapel was required of all students,and Hawks, as one of only three registered Christian Scientists at the entire school, was assigned to the menial position of church monitor for the Christian Science contingent. He automatically became a member of the California Club, of which there were just nine others. He also joined the Assembly Club, which was in charge of arranging social events and inviting outside speakers. Although PhillipsExeter had become very athletically oriented over the previous decade and boasted first-rate sports fields
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