Your Incredible Neighbors: Local author sheds light on celebrity friendships

“When Elizabeth Taylor was about to turn 40, Bob and I received a telegram inviting us to her birthday party in Budapest, Hungary. She was there because her husband Richard Burton was on location filming Bluebeard.

“The message had been improperly addressed and arrived just one week before the party. We would have to prepare for the trip in a huge hurry!”

Local resident and author Jane Loew was there to wish the star birthday greetings.

Loew recalls her friendship with the legendary screen icon and many and high profile dignitaries and other celebrities such as Janet Leigh, Errol Flynn, Nancy and Frank Sinatra in her recently released autobiography, “Out of the Limelight.”

With collaboration by Shaw David Kinsley, editing by Jennifer Newcomb, and advice from friend and author Don Hall, Loew’s self-published book details her extraordinary upbringing and life the past 80 years.

Loew, who remains close to her many friends and family from her Southern Arizona home, says she wrote her book after acquaintances encouraged her to share her story and memories.

“I realized I had a long and interesting life that not even my children knew about,” Loew writes.

Loew’s two grandfathers, Marcus Loew and Adolph Zukor, emerged from what Loew describes in her book as “poverty, later living the “American dream.”

Her grandfather Loew was an American business magnate and a pioneer of the motion picture industry who formed Loews Theatres and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Beginning with a small investment from money saved from menial jobs, he bought into the penny arcade business. Soon, in partnership with others, Loew acquired a nickelodeon and over time he turned Loews Theatres into the largest chain of movie theaters in the United States.

Jane’s Grandpa Zukor, as she called him, was the founder of Paramount Pictures, and one of the greatest film moguls of all time.

Although her Grandpa Loew died in 1927 when Jane was four, her Grandpa Zuckor lived to be 103 and her fondness for him can still be seen in her eyes when she recalls their times together.

“Grandpa Zuckor exploited the star system by signing contracts with all the best stars: Douglas Fairbanks, Gloria Swanson, and Mae West, among others,” Jane recalls. “His biggest star was Mary Pickford who single-handedly captured the hearts and minds of the audiences of that time in away difficult to imagine today.”

Born on Oct. 26, 1922, Jane Contance Loew lived with her parents in a 10th floor apartment on Park Avenue, two blocks from Central Park.

She also spent many years staying at her Grandfather Loew’s beloved New York estate, Pembroke, a 52-room neo-classical mansion with an enormous glass palm house, acres of gardens, marble statuary, a tennis court, orchards, a farm and private harbor. The house had a frontage of 400 hundred feet overlooking Long Island Sound.

Many years after her parents divorced, she and her mother and younger brother Arthur moved to The Beresford at Central Park West.

Eventually taking up residence in Tucson on a doctor’s advice due to her brother’s poor health, Jane and her mother and brother stayed winters at the Arizona Inn.

Jane moved to Arizona permanently in 1937 and attended Tucson High School. She revisited Pembroke every summer where her father would host lavish parties and include Jane in his favorite three pasttimes—tennis, bridge and boating.

Highly competitive, her father even once goaded Cary Grant, who was boasting about his pingpong skills, into taking Jane on in a game.

As Jane recalls, “Cary Grant’s boasting cost him seven hundred dollars and a bruised ego that night.”

Jane, a right hander, even beat him left-handed, adding to his humiliation.

Jane admits her childhood was not an easy one.

“I basically didn’t have a happy childhood,” she writes. “That’s not to say I was crying my eyes out all the time, but there was a dark cloud over me because I lacked my Dad’s affection and approval.”

Jane’s ancestry did offer her the opportunity to hobnob with the rich and famous and her autobiography describes in detail some of her most intimate relationships with people most of society just reads about or remembers from the silver screen.

Jane befriended Elizabeth Taylor and after her first husband Michael Todd was killed in a plane crash, Jane went to Beverly Hills to comfort her friend.

Richard Burton even asked for Jane’s blessing to marry Elizabeth Taylor when he and Taylor were in Rome during the filming of “Cleopatra.”

“On days Elizabeth and Richard didn’t work, Elizabeth sent her car for me and we would be together at their villa,” Jane writes. “I liked Richard a lot. He was a very bright, interesting man with a great sense of humor. I could see why Elizabeth or any woman would be captivated by him.”

Jane doesn’t hide her own four failed marriages in her book. Her first, to Boyd Morse, ended in divorce. She had four children by him: Lynda, Boyd Jr., Kendall and Michael.

Her second was to Bob Shelton, the entrepreneur she met in Tucson who eventually restored Old Tucson Studios where some of the most legendary classic Westerns were made, including “El Dorado” directed by Howard Hawks in 1966, starring John Wayne and Robert Mitchum.

Her marriage third husband Guy Greene and fourth to Philip Sharples also ended in divorce.

Jane confessed to “cherishing fondly those days when she could be herself, even with the most famous people.”

“Film people prefer staying in motels because they can come and go without being constantly stopped for autographs,” Jane explains in her book. “On a number of weekends, I enjoyed many marathon card games in Duke’s (John Wayne) suite at the Ramada Inn while he was working on ‘El Dorado.’”

Jane also sat in on a hand with “Pappy” Ford, aka John Ford, considered one of the most respected directors of all time.

Jane met other Western stars at the time such as Ronald Reagan during his acting years while filming of “The Last Outpost” at Old Tucson in 1950.

Jane’s life wasn’t always about screen stars and glamour.

She used her influence to help spearhead Angel Charity for Children in Tucson, an organization with a mission to improve the lives of children in Pima County. Bob Shelton helped support his ex-wife by supplying public service announcements starring celebrities such as Sammy Davis Jr., Dom DeLuise and Michael Landon.

Jane survived the death of her grandson Timothy Ryan and her beloved brother Arthur, as well as other heartaches, but looks back on her life, recalling the good and the bad.

Her autobiography features a collection of family photos from her grandparents’ collections, as well as those given to her by her mother and father.

“Out of the Limelight” is on sale at Tortuga Books in Tubac, The Arizona Inn in Tucson and the Arizona Historical Society Museum gift shop.

Jane Loew will have an upcoming book signing at the Tubac Center of the Arts in November.

rford@gvnews.com