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Authors: Todd McCarthy
Tags: Biography
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and facilities, Hawks went out for no sports teams. He did, however, keep a meticulously assembled scrapbook intowhich he pasted local newspaper articles highlighting the exploits of all the prep school and Ivy League sports teams.
His academic record was grim. In the highly competitiveand demanding scholastic environment of Phillips Exeter, Howard Hawks, never a notable student, simply couldn’t cut it. The academic year was divided into three terms; in the first of them, Hawks received Cs in mechanical drawing and physics; Ds in math, German, and history; and no grade at all in physical training. During Christmas break, Howard forwent the long trip back to California and, instead,stayed with a family in Brookline, Massachusetts. As the many ticket stubs and playbills obsessively pasted into his scrapbook attest, the young man attended nearly every theatrical production playing in Boston that season. Returning for the winter term in January, he managed a B in mechanical drawing, got Cs in physics and physical training, but earned Es in German and history. Such marks, indicativeof a near-total failure to live up to his potential or to apply himself, were fatal at an institution with the standards of Phillips Exeter, and Hawks did not return for a third term to finish the year there. The school was designed for “the boy of good ability, good character, and earnest purpose,” and not for “the careless, thoughtless, unambitious boy, who burdens so many schools withhis deadening lethargy and lack of worthy ambition.” In the view of the administrators, there was no question to which group Howard Hawks belonged.
With his tail between his legs, Howard returned during Easter break to Glendora, where the family was still living and where Kenneth, two years younger than Howard, was in his junior year—officially one class year ahead of his older brother. Throughsome clever card shuffling, it was arranged for Howard to reenroll in Pasadena High in April 1914 as a senior. Back on home turf, his performance improved immeasurably. He excelled in trigonometry, with a ninety-five, and did reasonably well in physics, with an eighty-five. On his official school records, Fs and Os in German and American history are strangely written over with eighties in bothsubjects. The meaning of this is unclear, but Howard, in any event, did not graduate with the rest of the students in June. He was forced to take summer school, in which he got a ninety in American history and an eighty-five in German, and he finally graduated on July 31. Conveniently, in May the family had moved back to Pasadena, where William and Grace reentered the Polytechnic School.
Evenmore mysterious than Hawks’s acceptance at Phillips Exeter is precisely what induced Cornell University, one of the leading schools ofthe Ivy League, to admit a young man with Hawks’s thoroughly haphazard and unpromising academic record; Hawks did not even apply to the university until August, a month before classes began. Once again, it can only have been his family’s social position in a well-to-docommunity, financial considerations, and, possibly but untraceably, his parents’ connections to old friends with influence back East; Helen, after all, had attended Wells College, the pioneering women’s school in central New York, and might well have been able to pull the right strings to have her son taken by Cornell, located in Ithaca, only twenty-five miles away.
In September 1914, Hawks enteredCornell at age eighteen as a mechanical engineering major. Unfortunately, all school academic records for the period Hawks was a student have been destroyed, so his grades and athletic affiliations are unavailable; but all indications point to an indifferent academic career there. In his freshman and sophomore years, he was a member of the Exeter Club, although he had not graduated from thatschool, and he eventually joined the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. The secretary of Hawks’s
His academic record was grim. In the highly competitiveand demanding scholastic environment of Phillips Exeter, Howard Hawks, never a notable student, simply couldn’t cut it. The academic year was divided into three terms; in the first of them, Hawks received Cs in mechanical drawing and physics; Ds in math, German, and history; and no grade at all in physical training. During Christmas break, Howard forwent the long trip back to California and, instead,stayed with a family in Brookline, Massachusetts. As the many ticket stubs and playbills obsessively pasted into his scrapbook attest, the young man attended nearly every theatrical production playing in Boston that season. Returning for the winter term in January, he managed a B in mechanical drawing, got Cs in physics and physical training, but earned Es in German and history. Such marks, indicativeof a near-total failure to live up to his potential or to apply himself, were fatal at an institution with the standards of Phillips Exeter, and Hawks did not return for a third term to finish the year there. The school was designed for “the boy of good ability, good character, and earnest purpose,” and not for “the careless, thoughtless, unambitious boy, who burdens so many schools withhis deadening lethargy and lack of worthy ambition.” In the view of the administrators, there was no question to which group Howard Hawks belonged.
With his tail between his legs, Howard returned during Easter break to Glendora, where the family was still living and where Kenneth, two years younger than Howard, was in his junior year—officially one class year ahead of his older brother. Throughsome clever card shuffling, it was arranged for Howard to reenroll in Pasadena High in April 1914 as a senior. Back on home turf, his performance improved immeasurably. He excelled in trigonometry, with a ninety-five, and did reasonably well in physics, with an eighty-five. On his official school records, Fs and Os in German and American history are strangely written over with eighties in bothsubjects. The meaning of this is unclear, but Howard, in any event, did not graduate with the rest of the students in June. He was forced to take summer school, in which he got a ninety in American history and an eighty-five in German, and he finally graduated on July 31. Conveniently, in May the family had moved back to Pasadena, where William and Grace reentered the Polytechnic School.
Evenmore mysterious than Hawks’s acceptance at Phillips Exeter is precisely what induced Cornell University, one of the leading schools ofthe Ivy League, to admit a young man with Hawks’s thoroughly haphazard and unpromising academic record; Hawks did not even apply to the university until August, a month before classes began. Once again, it can only have been his family’s social position in a well-to-docommunity, financial considerations, and, possibly but untraceably, his parents’ connections to old friends with influence back East; Helen, after all, had attended Wells College, the pioneering women’s school in central New York, and might well have been able to pull the right strings to have her son taken by Cornell, located in Ithaca, only twenty-five miles away.
In September 1914, Hawks enteredCornell at age eighteen as a mechanical engineering major. Unfortunately, all school academic records for the period Hawks was a student have been destroyed, so his grades and athletic affiliations are unavailable; but all indications point to an indifferent academic career there. In his freshman and sophomore years, he was a member of the Exeter Club, although he had not graduated from thatschool, and he eventually joined the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. The secretary of Hawks’s
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