Finding Myrna Loy

From 1938 on, Clark Gable was known as The King of Hollywood and the name has stuck to him even now. Myrna Loy was crowned The Queen of Hollywood at the same ceremony, but unfortunately the title did not stick to her like it did Clark. Nonetheless, from then on, Clark affectionately  called her “Queenie.”

“Queenie,” much like Clark, was a small-town kid who seemed unlikely to gain worldwide fame, but did thanks to her star power and perseverance.

I recently found myself in Myrna’s gorgeous home state of Montana and followed her around a bit.

Myrna Loy was born Myrna Adele Williams on August 2, 1905 to David and Della Williams. She was born in the mining town of Radersburg, Montana, although many sources cite Helena as her birthplace. Radersburg was a town of 1,000 people when little Myrna was running around the place. Now, it is considered an “unincorporated village” of just 66 people. It’s on the way if you’re driving between Bozeman and Helena, and is surrounded by beautiful mountains,  endless greens of farmland, and many cows.

Myrna’s paternal grandparents, David and Ann Williams, who had both emigrated from Wales in the 1850’s, arrived in Radersburg in 1870, when it was a booming gold rush town. David and Ann had a total of ten children but, as unfortunately was common in those times, five died young. Myrna’s father David Franklin was their sixth child.

David and Ann died just months apart in 1904, the year before their granddaughter Myrna was born. They are buried together in the modest Radersburg Cemetery. Their children Nellie, aged 3, Edward, aged 10, David aged 3, Thomas, aged 3, and Hattie, aged 19 are buried behind them.

Myrna recalled in her 1988 autobiography, “I went back there recently and time has stood still. Radersburg is virtually a ghost town now, but the graveyard, the proud Williams stone, and the ranging mountain sentinels stand as I remembered them.”

Myrna’s parents David Williams and Della Johnson were both born in Radersburg and later moved to Helena. They were married in the summer of 1904 in Helena and then went back to Radersburg to work the family ranch. David became frustrated with ranch life and the family moved back to Helena when Myrna was five.

Myrna had fond memories of her childhood in Helena, growing up a street away from a young lad named Gary Cooper, who would also find his way to Hollywood. When Myrna’s father David died in the Spanish flu epidemic in 1918, her mother Della moved her and her brother David Jr. to California.

With the stage name Loy, Myrna was declared “The Perfect Wife” (a label she hated) thanks to her smart and sassy portrayal of Nora Charles opposite William Powell in The Thin Man series. She played the female lead opposite many of the male stars of her era, among them Spencer Tracy, Robert Taylor, Cary Grant, Robert Montgomery, and yes, Clark Gable. She later admitted to being in love with only one of them: “I had a big crush on Tyrone Power. It didn’t do me any good.” Myrna was passed over for an Academy Award nomination many times and ultimately was given the Lifetime Achievement Award in 1991. Late in life she scoffed, “Some perfect wife I am. I’ve been married four times, divorced four times, have no children, and can’t boil an egg.”

In her later years, Myrna’s career shifted more towards the stage than the screen. Like many of her contemporaries, she moved from the Los Angeles area to New York City. She was living there when she died from complications from surgery in 1993. She was 88.

Upon her death, Myrna did not want to be buried in New York or be placed in one of the many star-filled cemeteries in Los Angeles. It was her wish to be buried with her parents in Forestvale Cemetery in Helena, Montana.

Myrna said, “While flying East in a terrible storm, I once scrawled on a little piece of paper, ‘Don’t put me in Forest Lawn.’ I had attended funerals there, and the artificiality repelled me—all those stuffed canaries in that little chapel making bird sounds. It’s a beautiful, scrupulously manicured park, no question about it, but to me it represents a peculiarly Southern Californian tendency to avoid the inevitability of death. Instead of coming to grips with it, which is the best thing to do—although not the easiest—they seem to move away from it.

“My mother died in 1966 and my brother had her cremated at Valhalla, a North Hollywood mortuary, then I returned the ashes to Montana for burial…I went into that old cemetery beneath Mount Helena, full of worn crosses and moss-covered stones, and it was real. There wasn’t this hiding, this getting away from the idea of death. Not that one should indulge oneself in a situation like that, God knows, but face it.”

And so Myrna’s cremated remains are at the foot of her parents’ graves back in Helena.

Forestvale is a peaceful, beautiful place, with deer wandering amongst the headstones.

Myrna Loy is not forgotten in Helena. A prominent theater in town is named “The Myrna Loy.” Erected in 1891, the large stone building was the Lewis and Clark County Jail up until the 1980’s. I don’t imagine little Myrna thought that one day the county jail would bear her name! Inside, the theater boasts many pictures of Myrna, as well as one of her suits.

So nice to see you, Queenie!