Photoplay (Jul - Dec 1943)

The Strictly Private Life of George Sanders It took months of tireless searching to track down these authentic, never-before-published facts in the life of Hollywood's gay deceiver BY CARL FOSTER MONTHS of patient sleuthing by our best Hollywood newshawks were required to produce this story. Now, for the curious, Photoplay can reveal what until the present has been, in truth, the strictly private home life of George Sanders, can take you into the house George built for his bride, can tell you about Susan and explain the many other mysteries of this debonair deceiver. George Sanders' marriage itself has been a mystery. Beyond the unrevealing news note that he supposedly took Susan Larson for his wife on October 17, 1940, at Hollywood's First Methodist Church, little of his marital status has been known. Even when news of his marriage broke into print the skeptics said, "But where is the marriage license?" They proceeded to ransack the license bureaus of Los Angeles County without result, not thinking to look at the records down at Laguna, seventy miles south, where George had a beach house. No one, in fact, thought to accost the Reverend Glenn Phillips of the First Methodist Church in Hollywood for confirmation that he had performed the Sanders marriage. That is, until Photoplay started on the trail of the hidden life of George Sanders about which the star himself has said, "It's nobody's business. It would not make me a better actor for the world to know what I eat for breakfast." THE Sanders romance was not a sudden infatuation. He and Susan met at Twentieth Century-Fox soon after his arrival in America, to renew a friendship which, some say, began years before in England. Susan, whose parents came from First proof of the first mystery in the Sanders life: A picture of his wife Susan Sweden, as you might guess from her golden Nordic beauty, was born in the U. S. A. After being graduated from Hollywood High School she entered the California Christian College to study piano and pipe organ and finally to teach a music class there. Her first job, according to a biographical form she herself filled out, was waitress at the Wilshire Brown Derby following the death of her father, a boss carpenter at the United Artists Studio, when he fell from a ladder. Here she had the good luck to be discovered by studio executives, given a test at the Fox studios and put under contract. She appeared in "The Man Who Dared." "Walls Of Gold," "Three On A Honeymoon" and "Free Gold." Music always has been her hobby. She also admits being "intrigued by airplanes." And historical novels and history are her choice in reading. Parallel tastes increased the basic attraction between her and George, no doubt. They live, the Sanders, in West Hollywood, in a rambling English house built of dark timbers, cream stucco and brick. Their neighbors, not long ago, were unjustly indignant because George was quoted as saying he had built in a "lousy" part of town to save on taxes. What he actually said was that he had chosen West Hollywood instead of Beverly or Bel Air because the taxes were lower there. The street upon which the Sanders live is charming, with houses set amid gardens and lawns. Surrounding streets, however, have less distinction, with their houses rapidly giving way to moderately priced apartments. George built his house by telephone, so he says, with the slight shrug, amused grin and charming accent which make him so memorable on the screen. He gave his architect the rough plans he had sketched, later okayed the blueprints and, occupied by other things when the house was going up, checked on the progress by phone. There are things he wishes were different. But this doesn't worry him too much. "Nobody ever gets exactly what he wants," he says. "When they built the Queen Mary, (Continued on page 100) 53