Zita Johann Unveiled: Hollywood's Mystic Rebel
A few months ago, I made a video ranking the women of the Universal Monster movies, and I found myself really regretting not having paid more attention to these actresses individually. They all led such fascinating lives, some full of triumphs, some full of struggles but with each one I find myself feeling that the more I know, the more I want to know! So today, we are starting with the woman that Universal once called “Hollywood’s latest enigma”. She had a career that was bright but brief. She is the haunting, the beautiful, the stunning, the talented, the wonderful, Zita Johann.
The haunting, the beautiful, the stunning, the talented, the wonderful, Zita Johann.
Zita Johann was born July 14, 1904 in the Austro-Hungarian empire, in a village that’s now part of Romania. At 7 years old she moved with her family to New York City, and by high school she was already appearing in school plays. It’s undeniable that Zita Johann had a talent that the industry just responded to. She quickly started touring on stage and made her Broadway debut in 1924. She continued acting on Broadway, even turning down the lead in Universal’s 1929 version of Show Boat, so she could star in Machinal with a young Clark Gable.
She then signed a contract with MGM and she took full advantage of her script approval clause, which even that tells you just how much Hollywood wanted her, because most actresses were not getting script approval clauses. She turned down everything that came her way, even once asking Irving Thalberg why he made such awful pictures, and about 6 months later she asked to be released from her contract.
Zita Johann and Clark Gable in Machinal (1928).
Zita Johann was an admirer of D.W. Griffith and in 1931 finally made her film debut in The Struggle, about a man struggling with alcoholism - partially inspired by Griffith’s own struggle with alcoholism. This is a fun fact, I guess, a little off topic, but I just love it. This film was partially funded by a tax refund that DW Griffith had invested in 1929 and that did well despite the Great Depression. The Struggle wasn’t a success, but it did lead to a role in Tiger Shark with Edward G. Robinson. She then signed on to do Laughing Boy at Universal, written by John Huston, and perhaps it was fate, but it was the cancellation of that film that led her to do The Mummy, the role she is most famous for today.
It’s so perfect she was cast in The Mummy because Zita Johann was a believer in mysticism and reincarnation. She even claimed to be able to levitate. She plays the role of Helen and Anck-es-en-amon so well in this way that just captures my full attention at all times, but behind the scenes of The Mummy, things were not good. Karl Freund was under a lot of pressure directing one of his first films on a tight schedule, and Zita became his scapegoat. He was looking for any reason to give her trouble so he could call her temperamental so he could just point to her as the problem.
He refused to get her a chair with her name on it and would make her stand against a board on the wall for hours so as not to wrinkle her dress and made her film a scene unprotected amongst lions while he and the crew, of course, were protected behind cages and the scene ultimately got deleted from the movie. He once told her that she would have to appear naked from the waist up, which she absolutely did not want to do, but thankfully she was also smart enough to know that the censors were never going to allow it. So, she simply told him that if he thought he could get away with it she would be happy to. Finally, she worked so hard on this movie that one night she literally passed out cold on set.
Zita Johann in The Mummy (1932).
There’s no doubt she soured on Hollywood, and I’m sure The Mummy was a big part of it. In 1932 she gave an interview where she said she would do one more movie and then head back to the stage. She didn’t care if she was making $25 or $2500. She didn’t like the Hollywood production methods, she didn’t like the long days, and she didn’t like the parts she was being offered. She felt like Hollywood wasn’t interested in acting, only in personality and sex and she felt exploited by studio moguls who would sell stars the same way a grocer would sell a 39 cent can of tomatoes.
Generally speaking, she just didn’t like being on camera. There was a barrier between her and the audience on stage that she didn’t feel when the camera was on her. She liked that she had more rehearsal time, and it was less rushed, and she wasn’t as exhausted at the end of the day. With all of this, she just couldn’t find the art in film the way she could on stage.
For Zita, the greatest things in her life were private. When in Hollywood, she spent most of her time at home in Malibu with her husband John Houseman, where she would paint, or read, or play violin. Though the greatest things in her life were private, it doesn’t mean that everything in her private life was great. She and John Houseman divorced in 1933, and she briefly dated John Huston. That quickly ended after she suffered injuries being thrown through the windshield of his car when they got in a car accident while he was driving drunk.
And though the greatest things in Zita’s life were private, it doesn’t mean that everything in her private life was great.
Her second marriage was to agent John McCormick after just a 7-day courtship, but he turned out to be an alcoholic and quite controlling so it didn’t last. For her third marriage, she hoped to find somebody completely outside of the industry. I think she thought that that was going to be the key to finding someone nice. She married economist and publisher Bernard Shedd, but after their marriage found he didn’t have much money, and he didn’t care to contribute much to their marriage. After they divorced, she just took no interest in marrying again and she never had any kids. With her third husband, Zita Johann moved back to New York, and bought a house in Rockland County. I think New York was her first and most consistent love. She lived there for decades and turned her life toward community and charity.
New York City was Zita’s first and most consistent love.
She especially loved spending time with children. She ran acting classes for kids out of her home, and in the 1970s, she filmed a show, that I don’t think ever made it to air, called Zita and Her Friends. It featured kids from the area and Zita hoped that parents would watch the show and have stronger relationships and better communication with their kids.
I can’t stress enough how much Zita Johann loved art and creativity, but just didn’t like the promotion side of things. She wrote scripts under the name Joan Wolfe and Elizabeth Yorke. I, of course, have to wonder if there’s more out there that we don’t even know. Though she didn’t care about top billing, or becoming a name, or promoting her work. She wasn’t ashamed of it either. If you went to her house, she had pictures all over the house of her work and scrapbooks of newspaper clippings and playbills. It just wasn’t the core of her fulfillment.
I see how Zita’s life away from the camera, away from the stage even, brought her the most joy. She wanted to connect with others. She wanted to make a difference, to make art, and to do good in the world. During World War II she raised money for war related charities. At her third wedding, she raised money for Finnish orphans and while she worked with children of all ages and abilities, she took a special interest in working with children with disabilities.
Zita Johann’s final film appearance in Raiders of The Living Dead (1986).
In 1986, Zita Johann made one final, kind of random appearance, as a librarian in the horror film Raiders of the Living Dead. She died September 24, 1993, at 89 years old. Because of Zita’s short career, and because of her aversion to publicity and self-promotion, she is a stunner of an actress, with tons of talent, who does not get near the recognition she deserves. I am so grateful she that she took the role in The Mummy, a film that has endured the test of time, so at least her name gets brought up as often as it does. She is the epitome of the more I know, the more I want to know.
I am definitely going to be on the lookout for footage from Zita and Her Friends, I hope it exists. I am trying to find live interview footage of her, she lived so long, it’s got to be out there. If you know where any of this stuff lives or exists, please let me know. The one place I found so far that I would love to go to is the New York Public Library. I saw they’ve got a pretty great collection, let me know if you know anything else. Who’s the next Universal Leading Lady I should make a video about?