A life lived in pictures

Veteran director Vincent Sherman can’t believe he’ll be 98 on July 16.

And for good reason: He looks and acts like a man in his 70s. He has a girlfriend, actress Francine York, who is a good 30 years his junior. He even has a website where he sells his autobiography and autographed photos.

Sitting in the dining room of his pleasant Malibu hilltop home, Sherman is nattily dressed -- his blue sweater and ascot show off his blue eyes and white hair. Though he wears hearing aids, Sherman certainly doesn’t have trouble being heard as he relates his experiences as one of the top directors at Warner Bros. during the 1940s and early 1950s. During more than 40 years as a director, Sherman worked with Bette Davis (“Old Acquaintance,” “Mr. Skeffington”), Ida Lupino. (“The Hard Way”), Ann Sheridan (“Nora Prentiss”), Joan Crawford (“The Damned Don’t Cry”), Rita Hayworth (“Affair in Trinidad”), Errol Flynn (“The Adventures of Don Juan”) and even Ronald Reagan (“The Hasty Heart”).

This Saturday, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s film department is celebrating Sherman’s 98th birthday with a screening of the director’s cut of his 1944 hit, “Mr. Skeffington,” a juicy melodrama for which Davis and Claude Rains received Oscar nominations. Beginning July 13, LACMA will feature four Sherman films during its Tuesday matinee series.

So what’s the secret to his longevity?

“Well, a little exercise,” says the Georgia-born charmer, who still possesses a slight Southern accent. “As you get older, you don’t eat as much as you used to. I could eat enough for two people. I think the important thing is to be able to sleep well at night and not have any guilt feelings. Of course, I have been jealous of a few things in life.”

Like losing out on making “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.” While an actor in New York in the 1930s, Sherman frequented a progressive bookstore. “It sold communist literature but also sold a lot of other things you couldn’t buy in a regular bookstore. I picked up of a copy of ‘The Treasure of Sierra Madre.’ ” And when he was made a director, he went to head of production Hal B. Wallis about the project. “Wallis read it and turned it down. When John Huston came to Warner Bros. two or three years later, Huston liked it and they bought it for him.”

Sherman also wanted to make “Casablanca.”

The play “Everybody Comes to Rick’s,” on which the film was based, was making the rounds at the studio when it landed on his desk one afternoon. “I didn’t think it was well-written. I didn’t think it was a terribly important piece, but I thought it was great entertainment and a great love story.”

“Casablanca” eventually went to Warner Bros.’ top director, Michael Curtiz, who ended up winning the Oscar. “I liked Curtiz,” Sherman says. “So I could not object.”

Rules of attraction

Even though he was married with a family, Sherman said he had affairs with three legendary Hollywood stars -- Davis, Joan Crawford and Rita Hayworth.

It was during the production of “Skeffington” that Sherman and Davis became an item. The Oscar-winning actress, Sherman says, fell in love with him the year before when they worked on “Old Acquaintance.”

“I liked her and thought she was very attractive and very appealing,” he says. “I catered to her [on ‘Old Acquaintance’] no more than I would have catered to any star.”

On the last night of the film, production lasted until 2 in the morning. Davis asked Sherman if she would drive her home. On the way home, Davis, who was also married, told Sherman she loved him.

“I thought she meant like we say in the business, ‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’ ” So I said, ‘I love you too.’

She said, ‘I mean, I really love you.’ Well, I didn’t know what to say. I liked her, but that floored me. I said I am flattered. What else could I say?”

When Sherman and Davis -- whose husband died before production -- started work on “Skeffington,” he was shocked that she was as cold as ice to him and a hellion on the set.

“It got worse and worse,” Sherman says. “I was not happy with what was coming off the screen. She was giving it a heavy quality that I didn’t think it needed or deserved. The picture was falling behind schedule. She was terrible to me to the point I was so angry that I wanted to kill her. Finally, one night we had to work late again....”

That night the two became lovers.

“The thing that was embarrassing is the next day of shooting, she came in and she was like a different person. Everybody wondered what happened. I was the only one who knew” -- until his wife figured it out. “She guessed,” he says. “I told her the whole story. She said, ‘Get through the picture.’ I was sure when the picture was over the romance would be over too.”

But it didn’t end until one day while he was editing “Mr. Skeffington” and Davis told him that studio head Jack Warner wanted them to reunite for “A Stolen Life.”

“I said fine, if we have an understanding. We can’t both direct the picture. I want to tell you, it was like I had thrown a red rag in front of a bull.... She got in her car and drove off, and that was the end of our relationship.”

*

Vincent Sherman screenings

When: 7:30 p.m. Saturday

Where: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Leo S. Bing Theater, 5905 Wilshire Blvd.

Price: $8 general admission; $6 for museum and AFI members, seniors and students with valid ID.

Contact: (323) 857-6010

Also

When: Tuesdays at 1 p.m. July 13-Aug. 3

Price: $2 for general admission; $1 for seniors

Schedule: “The Hard Way,” July 13; “Pillow to Post,” July 20; “The Adventures of Don Juan,” July 27; “Nora Prentiss,” Aug. 3.