Vintage Music News
No. 6 — Autumn 2009
–––––——————— THE OCTOGENARIAN ADVENTURER ————————––––
Carl Sandburg and his Hollywood liaisons
A rare and historic guitar owned by Carl Sandburg (1878-1967), poet, author, socialist, guitar player, folksong collector, newspaperman, movie reviewer and restless vagabond, has surfaced 52 years after he bought it. With it are documents that reveal a previously unreported link between the octogenarian adventurer and classical-music critic Mildred Norton Loewenthal (1910-2000) and several other Hollywood notables during the late 1950s and early 1960s.
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| PHOTO: Irving Loewenthal Carl Sandburg and Mildred Norton, Inglewood CA, c. 1958 |
The guitar is a 1933 Martin OM-18 owned by vintage guitarist and concert performer Ken Lelen. Built by C.F. Martin & Co. of Nazareth, PA, it is one of 765 OM-18 models that sold for $55 to $60 between 1930 and 1933. Guitarists, seeking volume and playing ease, snapped them up. Today, an OM, or orchestra model, from this period is treasured as much by vintage guitar collectors as by musicians seeking a guitar with an authoritative bass, crisp mid-range bark and clear treble voice.
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| Sandburg's 1933 Martin OM-18 |
In addition to its iconic status in American guitar design, the guitar draws its renown by association to its previous owner, who bought it in a Los Angeles pawnshop sometime in 1957 or 1958. Sandburg had played guitar for many years, starting in the late 1910s when he began singing folk and traditional songs after poetry readings, speeches and public appearances. When audience members began offering alternative verses for the songs he performed, he amassed several hundred folksongs and notes on index cards. Ultimately, this collection formed the heart of the 200 or so tunes published in his American Songbag of 1927.
He owned and played many guitars during his lifetime, including a Washburn Bell, Washburn parlor and several classical guitars. Six are currently housed at his Flat Rock, NC residence, which is owned and managed by the National Park Service.
Sandburg kept the 1933 Martin OM-18 with Mildred Norton on the West Coast so he could play it while on extended visits there during various consulting projects for the motion picture industry. He'd bought it while visiting Norton, who covered classic music for the L.A. Daily News and other periodicals during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.
Working with his literary agent Lucy Kroll, Sandburg was hired by Hollywood producer and director George Stevens to write the script for The Greatest Story Ever Told. According to letters from Kroll to Sandburg archived by NPS, Sandburg was paid a $125,000 fee between late 1960 and early 1964 for a six-month writing project. However, in June 1963, when the project ran past its original budget and production schedule, Sandburg agreed to subordinate his 1% participation in net profits behind a $5 million completion loan to the movie's producers. The movie, which ultimately cost $20 million to produce, did not see public screening until April, 1965 and grossed $12 million worldwide by December, 1969.
Sandburg was the life of the party during his many visits to California in the late 1950s and early 1960s. At two Hollywood parties in March, 1962 the 84-year-old Sandburg danced and played guitar for a 36-year-old Marilyn Monroe. One contemporary source recently said Sandburg was a regular visitor to the star's studio trailer at 20th Century Fox and traded poetry with her during the last six months of her life, which ended in August, 1962. Nevertheless, despite years of gossip about Sandburg's relationship with younger women in Chicago, Hollywood and elsewhere, such liaisons may best be considered "more grandfather and granddaughter than anything else," asserts Sandburg biographer Penelope Niven.
After Mildred Norton's passing in 2000, the guitar was sold into the vintage guitar market by a West Coast guitar dealer. In the past decade the Sandburg OM has seen many repairs, including: patched upper-bout damage; refinished body; oversprayed top; neck reset to gain proper playing angle; replaced bridge, saddle and nut; and repairs to the original bridge plate. Today, the guitar has a strong bass, mid-range honk, ringing treble and clear complement of overtones found only in a long-scale, mahogany-bodied, 76-year-old Martin.
He owned and played many guitars during his lifetime, including a Washburn Bell, Washburn parlor and several classical guitars. Six are currently housed at his Flat Rock, NC residence, which is owned and managed by the National Park Service.
Sandburg kept the 1933 Martin OM-18 with Mildred Norton on the West Coast so he could play it while on extended visits there during various consulting projects for the motion picture industry. He'd bought it while visiting Norton, who covered classic music for the L.A. Daily News and other periodicals during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.
Working with his literary agent Lucy Kroll, Sandburg was hired by Hollywood producer and director George Stevens to write the script for The Greatest Story Ever Told. According to letters from Kroll to Sandburg archived by NPS, Sandburg was paid a $125,000 fee between late 1960 and early 1964 for a six-month writing project. However, in June 1963, when the project ran past its original budget and production schedule, Sandburg agreed to subordinate his 1% participation in net profits behind a $5 million completion loan to the movie's producers. The movie, which ultimately cost $20 million to produce, did not see public screening until April, 1965 and grossed $12 million worldwide by December, 1969.
Sandburg was the life of the party during his many visits to California in the late 1950s and early 1960s. At two Hollywood parties in March, 1962 the 84-year-old Sandburg danced and played guitar for a 36-year-old Marilyn Monroe. One contemporary source recently said Sandburg was a regular visitor to the star's studio trailer at 20th Century Fox and traded poetry with her during the last six months of her life, which ended in August, 1962. Nevertheless, despite years of gossip about Sandburg's relationship with younger women in Chicago, Hollywood and elsewhere, such liaisons may best be considered "more grandfather and granddaughter than anything else," asserts Sandburg biographer Penelope Niven.
After Mildred Norton's passing in 2000, the guitar was sold into the vintage guitar market by a West Coast guitar dealer. In the past decade the Sandburg OM has seen many repairs, including: patched upper-bout damage; refinished body; oversprayed top; neck reset to gain proper playing angle; replaced bridge, saddle and nut; and repairs to the original bridge plate. Today, the guitar has a strong bass, mid-range honk, ringing treble and clear complement of overtones found only in a long-scale, mahogany-bodied, 76-year-old Martin.
Documents that accompany this guitar are remarkable. They include: hand-written notes in post-marked envelopes by Sandburg to Norton; letters to Norton by music industry executives; magazine article and poetry manuscripts; autographed photograph of Sandburg; and other ephemera that connect the illustrious poet with his OM guitar and his West Coast admirers.
Sandburg's letters to Norton reflect their mutual love of poetry and music. For example, on December 6, 1958, writing from his homestead in Flat Rock NC, Sandburg hand-wrote in his familiar fountain pen a birthday note to Norton in California and acknowledged a heartfelt absence:
Sandburg's letters to Norton reflect their mutual love of poetry and music. For example, on December 6, 1958, writing from his homestead in Flat Rock NC, Sandburg hand-wrote in his familiar fountain pen a birthday note to Norton in California and acknowledged a heartfelt absence:
Who can write birthday poems?
Who knows how to write one to
live with? Who can fashion forth
line after line with changing time
beats & sweet cartoons? You're
good, very special good & I always
told you so. And I expect to tell you
again should you be willing to listen.
Carl
A short time later he penned a hand-written note to Norton on letterhead from the Knox Alumni Association of Galesburg, IL (his birthplace). Addressing her by a pet name (Mibs), his letter promises he'll send her a longer letter in the future.
Dear Mibs - One of these days,
you shd know, I'm going to write
you the longest letter you ever
had written to you. It will consist
of facts & prophecies & a few
statements burnished with color
& music which will linger in your
excellent & sensitized ears.
Yrs Carl
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| Gary Merrill me Carl Sandburg |
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| Mildred Norton |
It was sometime in 1957 or '58,
when he was my house guest in
Inglewood, Calif. He bought it
without looking at any others.
I think he may have written a
check for it, for the store owner,
seeing Carl's signature, said "For
a moment I thought you were the
famous poet." I was standing behind
Carl and I grinned and nodded. I
thought the guy would faint.
thought the guy would faint.
Norton said Sandburg stayed at her home several times during the late 1950s and early 1960s while he visited the West Coast for movie consulting projects.
When Twentieth Century Fox persuaded him to act as
consultant for the George Stevens film, "The Greatest
Story Ever Told,’ the studio moved him into the Bel Air
Hotel, but I visited him there occasionally.
After Sandburg's passing in 1967, the OM remained with Mildred for another 33 years. In 2000, less than a year before she passed away, she sold it to a guitar dealer Yabonka.
It represented a treasured period in my life,
spent in the company of a rare and beautiful
soul, whose multi-faceted personality was
only partially reflected in his poetry.
spent in the company of a rare and beautiful
soul, whose multi-faceted personality was
only partially reflected in his poetry.
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© 2012 Ken Lelen - All Rights Reserved
