A Life in Three Acts Actor Politician Diplomat
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JOHN DAVIS LODGE A Life in Three Acts Actor Politician Diplomat Thomas A. DeLong SACRED HEART UNIVERSITY PRESS FAIRFIELD, CONNECTICUT 1999 Copyright 1999 by the Sacred Heart University Press All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, contact the Sacred Heart University Press, 5151 Park Avenue, Fairfield, Connecticut 06432-1000. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data DeLong, Thomas A. John Davis Lodge: a life in three acts: actor, politician, diplomat / Thomas A. DeLong. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-888112 -03-04 1. Lodge, John Davis, 1903-1985. 2. Legislators-United States-Biography. 3. United States. Congress. House-Biography. 4. Ambassadors-United States-Biography. 5. Governors-Connecticut-Biography. 6. Actors- United States-Biography. I. Title. To Francesca Lodge, who invited me back through time and into a timeless friendship, and To Richard Gentile and Wally Woods, who led me forward and across the finish line Contents Preface / ix Acknowledgments / xii An Illustrious Lineage / 1 A Young Francophile / 8 In Class and On Stage / 17 Francesca / 28 Stage-Door Johnny / 37 Marriage, the Law, and Greasepaint / 47 Personality in Pictures / 60 Britain's Clark Gable / 77 Watch on the Rhine / 95 A Military Bearing / 105 Politics: The Family Business / 119 Challenge of the Hour / 132 Congressional Camaraderie / 145 Affairs of State / 153 Strife and Fair Play in the Political Arena / 167 A Lincoln Republican / 186 New Constituents / 206 Life in Spain / 221 A Spanish Abrazo / 228 Casting About / 244 .. Vlll CONTENTS 21. Political Tightropes / 256 22. Relations, Foreign and Domestic / 268 23. The Road to Argentina / 283 24. Showing the Flag / 296 25. Man of the Right / 313 26. The Last Homecoming / 327 27. A Life of Service / 342 Notes / 349 Bibliography / 377 Index / 383 Illustrations follow page 166 Preface ohn Davis Lodge might have remained a faceless New York lawyer J had it not been for an attraction to the theatrical career of his wife Francesca and the lure of his "family business," which was government service. The grandson of Senator ~enr~Cabot Lodge of ~assachusetts, one of the Republican Party's most influential leaders in the early 1900s, John grew up in an atmosphere of patriotic duty, dynastic privilege, and unequivocal accomplishment. Often overshadowed by his grandfather's political heir and his older brother, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., John struggled for his own place in the sun, a platform where he could use his skills as a public speaker, writer, linguist, and debater. Meeting dancer Francesca Braggiotti while an undergraduate at Harvard, Lodge took the first steps that would one day remove him from trusts and estates and take him to Hollywood as a potential star. He put aside the law for acting in early talking pictures. Proficient in French, he went on to starring roles in fourteen films in France, England, and Italy. The outbreak of war interrupted his screen work. ~ollowin~three and a half years of military service, he returned home and entered Connecticut politics, winning a seat in Congress in 1946. Four years later, he became Governor. Defeated in 1954, Lodge began a new "act." President Eisen- hower appointed him as ambassador to Spain. He later served his country in Argentina, Switzerland, and at the United Nations. Lodge's full and active life encompassed three segments of major accomplishment: acting, politics, and diplomacy. His wife often observed that she had five or six husbands because he successfully chang-ed careers and jobs time after time during their fifty-six years of marriage. Who, then, was this public figure-lawyer, actor, legislator, governor, diplomat? Politically, he stood out as a conservative among Republicans, yet he spoke up for broadly progressive legislation and believed that x PREFA CE politics is the art of inclusion for varied schools of thought and action. As a diplomat, he represented the United States at its best, but met criticism when he seemed to dwell too much on the cultural and social aspects of his posts. On screen, he played his parts well, yet often projected a stiff, unbending demeanor that generally lost audience favor. He was a man of puzzling contradictions. A; undisguised Brahmin, he could on occasion indulge in cajolery and self-promotion, or break into light-hearted song and humorous repartee. Controversy and conflict were always close by, as were the envy and guile of embassy aides and political ward heelers, in part because he did not go up the political or diplomatic ladder. And all too frequently, his party cut him loose at key moments and left him dangling as he struggledto retain or regain a foothold. A chronic sibling rivalry fostered by brother Cabot and his ambi- valence toward John's public service frustrated John. This competition began in their early schooldays, and contributed to John's momentary periods of a facial tic and nervous stutter. With the untimely death of his father, John unremittingly-. relied on his mother for direction, comfort, and praise. But it was Francesca who gave his life purpose, fulfillment, joy, and adventure. While both were willing to discuss virtually any subject on the table, the matter of the unknown and youngest Lodge daughter would never be addressed. Veracious and intelligent, proud and sensitive, John Lodge always wanted to be wanted by his country and his -.party. He is remembered as a hard-working, conscientious, and articulate citizen-a man of achieve- ments who never turned down a job and who never sought retirement. Setting forth a life as sweeping and complex as John Lodge's inevitably involves placing the biographical narrative of actions and events within a broad panorama of the social, political, and geopolitical activities of much of the twentieth century. However, my focus is only intermittently on an analysis of the nuance; of politics and foreign affairs of his times. John Lodge, A Life in Three Acts is more the story of a man, his wife, and their families as he ventured forth in a life of service, a life that he characterized as well spent. In the 1960s John Lodge gave serious thought to writing an autobiography. But at age sixty or so, he concluded that his public service careers and contributions were far from over. In fact, for another two decades, he would serve his country, virtually to the very end of a long and momentous life. Lodge built up an enormous mass of papers and correspondence covering his various callings and travels. Before his death, he made arrangements for the inclusion of this material in the Hoover Institution archives at Stanford University. It was his hope that this material would PR EFA CE XI become the pivotal research source for his biography, a story that had not been published in extensive book form. In the 1970s his brother, Henry Cabot Lodge Jr., a distinguished U.S. Senator and Ambassador, had written two memoirs, and author Alden Hatch had recounted the story of six generations of the New England Lodges. But John felt Cabot's book barely acknowledged a sibling and his place in the family, and Hatch's narrative skipped over many achievements and contained numerous factual errors. Two years after Lodge's death in late 1985 at age eighty-two, I was asked by his widow, Francesca Lodge, to help organize and inventory the papers of both John and Francesca as well as thousands of photographs. As these arduous archival tasks unfolded, it readily became clear that the life of John Lodge needed to be told. From 1988 to 1994, I spent untold hours in interviews and conver- sation with Francesca Lodge at her homes in Connecticut and in Spain. She had known John since his undergraduate days at Harvard, nearly a decade before their marriage in 1929. Their lives together formed a unique and successful partnership in the arts, politics, and diplomacy. Her observations and insights, although often laced with broad hyperbole and limited by diminishing recall, proved an invaluable frame of reference and source of dramatic acumen. Albeit there were structured interviews with Francesca Lodge, information was increasingly gleaned piecemeal across a dining room table or en route to destinations near and far, by car, plane or foot. The unattributed quotations from Francesca in the text come from these conversations. Francesca also directed me to scores of individuals to interview. Ultimately, I contacted nearly 300 persons who had known the Lodges in some capacity or were family members. In addition to the Lodge Papers at the Hoover Institution, initially contained in more than 550 large boxes, I utilized the Governor John Lodge Papers at the Connecticut State Library, Hartford; Former Members of Congress archives, Washington; various Lodge family papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston; Alden Hatch Collection at the University of Florida, Gainesville; and the Francesca Braggiotti Lodge files, Villa Santa Matilda, Marbella, Spain. The Acknowledgments section provides a full summary of collections and special libraries used in my research and a list of those individuals interviewed or consulted. The ultimate narrative stands as my own interpretation of the life of a remarkable man whose life spanned most of the twentieth century and who touched and was touched by many of its major figures and events. Thomas A. DeLong Southport, Connecticut Acknowledgments wide range of institutional archives and libraries, as well as A government collections and units, and their staff members, contrib- uted to the narrative: Hoover Institution, Stanford, CA (Carol A. Leadenham, Elena Danielson, Grace Hawes, Katherine Reynolds, Charles G. Palm);,. Oral History Research Office, Columbia University; Alden Hatch Papers, Rare Books and Manuscripts, University of Florida, Gainesville (Carmen Russell Hurff); Former Members of Congress Oral History Collection at the Library of Congress; Connecticut State Library-Archives, History and Genealogy Unit, Hartford (Mark H.