Free A Star Is Born: The Making of the 1954 Movie and Its 1983 Restoration by Ronald Haver

for utilizing slang, which he alternated with some of the most clever,
literate, and graceful combinations of words ever put to music. With his
brother he had co-written the songs for eighteen shows; for one of them,
1932'S Of Thee I Sing, he became the first lyricist ever to be awarded a
Pulitzer Prize. In the course of working together on Life Begins at 840 (the title was a Gershwin variation on the best-seller Life Begins at Forty),
Gershwin and Arlen formed a close and lasting friendship.

    After George's death in 1937, Ira was coaxed out of temporary retirement by Moss Hart, who prevailed on him to supply the lyrics to Lady in
the Dark in 1941. Following his work with Weill, he had collaborated with
the cream of American composers, including Jerome Kern, Aaron Copland,
Arthur Schwartz, and Harry Warren, on a number of shows and films.
When the offer came for A Star Is Born, Gershwin had just finished work
with Burton Lane on MGM's Give a Girl a Break, a "little" picture about
kids trying to break into show business. After seeing a rough cut, his wife,
Lenore, asked him if he owned any stock in the company. When he told
her he did, her advice was succinct: "Sell it!"
    After signing Arlen and Gershwin, Sid Luft continued wooing Cary Grant.
"I'm taking Cary to the races virtually every day. I'd pick him up, we'd go
to Hollywood Park. Just because you go to the races with a guy, you don't
necessarily talk business to him. First of all, his maximum bet was ten
dollars and he'd only bet on [jockey Willie] Shoemaker." But Luft did
manage to find out what Grant's price was, and it was stiff: "His deal was
one thing and one thing only-three hundred thousand dollars against io
percent of the gross. I told that to Jack, who said, `Offer him a flat four
fifty'-he would not give him io percent of the gross at all." Warner's
willingness to go as high as he did indicates that he was already thinking
beyond the fairly modest original budget of $1,5oo,ooo. Added to the
money already committed in salaries, his offer to Grant boosted the preproduction cost of A Star Is Born to $ i million, which meant that the picture
could conceivably end up with a $3 million budget-a considerable sum for
what was planned as an intimate musical drama with few characters and
no lavish production numbers.
    Two of MGM's most recent spectacular musicals, An American in Paris
and Show Boat, had both cost about that much, but they had been made
with people under contract to the studio, while for A Star Is Born, all talent
had to be contracted individually at considerably higher costs. At $3 million, A Star Is Born would have to gross nearly double that just to break
even, and the highest gross on any Garland film had been the $7 million
from 1948's Easter Parade, in which she had co-starred with Fred Astaire.
Warner, gambler that he was, was obviously playing against the odds and betting heavily on Garland's resurgent popularity-which, judging from
the amount of coverage and audience response she continued to generate,
was bigger and more broadly based than ever before.

    While Luft wooed Grant and the budget escalated, Moss Hart, happily
ensconced in Palm Springs, was beginning his work on the screenplay.
Since no scripts of the original were available, Hart prepared himself by
watching the 1937 film several times, outlining the structure, the main
characters, and situations that could be retained in his musical treatment.
    In the Academy Award-winning story by director William Wellman
and writer Robert Carson, the heroine, Esther Blodgett, is a movie-struck
kid who lives on a North Dakota farm with her uncle and her aunt, who
discourages notions of "Hollywood foolishness" in her niece. Only her
grandmother encourages her dreams of getting into the movies; she gives
Esther her life savings to finance a trip to Hollywood.
    In Hollywood, Esther is befriended by Danny McGuire, a young assistant director, who gets her a