Hollywood operated in a different world in the mid-1930s than it does today. The Technicolor production of September 1936's "Ramona" was delayed by 20th Century Fox because the "official" word was its scheduled star, Loretta Young, was recuperating from exhaustion after appearing in back-to-back movies, Cecil B. DeMille's 1935 "The Crusades" and "The Call of the Wild" with Clark Gable.
The true story emerged years later as to why Young delayed the studio's shooting of "Ramona." Well after her acting days were long over, Young sat down with writer Joan Anderson to relate her life story for her autobiography, which wasn't released until after her death in 2000. The actress confessed that her supposed adopted daughter Judith Lewis was the result of an affair she had with Clark Gable, 34, while on the remote location filming "The Call of the Wild." As a good Catholic who didn't believe in abortion, Young carried the child throughout the pregnancy, unbeknownst to the studio and the public. Young, 22 at the time, became invisible, 'vacationing' in England until she returned to California to deliver her daughter.
A few weeks passed before Young handed Judith, named after the patron saint of difficult situations, St. Jude, over to an orphanage with the intentions of adopting her, which she did 19 months later. With her marriage to film producer Tom Lewis in 1940, Young gave her daughter his last name. But the ploy failed to fool many who saw Judith develop into a female version of Clark Gable. Despite being pressed numerous times over the years to admit the obvious, Young continued to deny the true father's identity for fear it would ruin the actor's reputation.
Seeking a possible replacement for the unavailable Young, Winfred Sheehan, head of Fox Films, felt that young Rita Hayworth, 18, whom was being groomed by the studio to become the next Dolores del Rio, could play Ramona, a half-white, half-Native American that fit perfectly with Hayworth's Hispanic background. But head of the newly-merged 20th Century Fox, Darryl F. Zanuck, nixed Sheehan's choice, selecting little known actress Rochelle Hudson instead. And the president made another historic choice, figuring "the story is in the special class and deserves more elaborate treatment than formerly called for." His studio spent the extra money to film "Romana" in the new Technicolor three-strip format, the fourth Hollywood feature movie to do so. The production, planned for mostly exterior shooting, was considerably delayed by long periods of rain in Southern California. When filming was ready to begin in the spring of 1936, the marquee actress Loretta Young became available. She was still feeling the effects of her daughter's delivery, and a body double was substituted for long shots whenever she experienced postpartum effects.
Helen Hunt Jackson's 1884 novel 'Ramona,' set in the Mexican colony of California, was brought to the screen twice before as silent movies, and was cinema's first sound version of the tale of a racially-mixed young woman whose attraction with several prominent gentlemen in the region took a back seat of an Indian chief's son, Alessandro (Don Ameche). "Romona's" plot ironically has Young's character become pregnant by Alessandro. Both find life difficult as the Indians' background makes it hard to begin life as respectable farmers.
The Kenosha, Wisconsin-native Dominic Felix Amici took up acting during his college days at the University of Wisconsin. The 22-year-old adopted the stage name Don Ameche when he was behind the mic in 1930 for a popular Chicago radio station. Zanuck heard his dynamic voice over the airwaves and immediately signed him to a studio contract. "Ramona" was Ameche's second appearance on film.
"Ramona" was a success at the box office, helped by the studio's first use of Technicolor. With each motion picture it produced, Technicolor improved its color quality, making tremendous advances with its relatively new technology. The New York Times film reviewer noticed that "Chromatically, the picture is superior to anything we have seen in the color line." Variety concurred, adding, "the fact that the color angle becomes less noticeable as the picture unwinds, and never interferes with the telling or reception of the story, is evidence that color has finally found its place in film production."
