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LaLa Gonzalez of Santa Paula holds a copy of Salt of the Earth, the controversial 1954 film she appeared in that will be the focus of a free screening Friday at the Universalist Unitarian Church. |
Salt of the Earth: Santa Paula woman had role in classic, and controversial, film
February 24, 2016
By Peggy Kelly
Santa Paula News
Salt of the Earth, the classic 1954 film depicting striking Mexican-American zinc miners in New Mexico, has strong ties to Santa Paula both on and off the screen.
LaLa Gonzalez, a 97-year-old Santa Paulan, will be a special guest at the February 26, 7 p.m. free screening of the film to be held at the Universalist Unitarian Church, 740 E. Main St.
Gonzalez appeared in the film with her late husband Joe but also worked for the family of Paul Jarrico, the producer of Salt of the Earth, whose son Bill will attend the screening and answer questions following the film.
Salt of the Earth is unusual on many levels ranging from its writer Michael Wilson, director Herbert Biberman and Jarrico all being blacklisted during the notorious “Red Scare” of the early 1950s. Biberman, one of the Hollywood 10 that were particularly targeted by the hearings sparked by accusations by Senator Joseph McCarthy that Communists had infiltrated government and the film industry, even spent time in prison.
The three were blacklisted from mainstream Hollywood studios.
Subsequently, Salt of the Earth, financed by unions and employing the three men post-hearings, was a blacklisted film.
Gonzalez had a close relationship with Jarrico and his family: his mother-in-law owned a dress shop on Main Street and “She asked me if I wanted to work for the family in Hollywood…Bill was only 8 months old and I worked for the family until he graduated from college!”
Even when Paul Jarrico was blacklisted and moved to Europe they flew Gonzalez for visits; Bill was about 3 years old when the film was made, a child she still has close ties to.
“I practically raised Billy,” she said. “His father was busy making movies and his mother worked at UCLA…Billy thought he had two Mommies! He called me Mama LaLa.”
Gonzalez said Salt of the Earth “was sort of political…there was a lot of discrimination then and finding places to shoot the movie was hard. A lot of people were against it,” said the film depicting the strikers in New Mexico, “wasn’t true…there was discrimination, I went through it.”
And chauvinism: according to a press release on the screening, “When an injunction is issued against the workers, the wives carry on the battle and the men are left to care for the home and children,” culture shock for the men suddenly in charge of the family.
The script depicts the situation’s humor and its drama and the film — starring Mexican actress Rossaura Revueltas, deported during filming amid accusations she was a Communist — won awards in Europe. Actual miners and their families were actors in the film as was Gonzalez and her husband who appeared in a few scenes.
Born in Los Angeles, Gonzalez’s family moved to Santa Paula when she was about 3 years old.
“There was a lot of work here picking lemons,” said Gonzalez, who started working in the orchards when she was 12 years old.
“Kids today are spoiled, they don’t appreciate what they have. I appreciate what I have because I worked, took care of my mother, my sister, my brother…and when my husband passed away I kept paying for the house.”
Her husband had been a paratrooper in World War II and she noted the discrimination she suffered changed thereafter: “After the war everybody had to be nice to each other…”
Gonzalez, her late husband and other relatives are seen in the film in a scene showing the striking miners and their families coming down a hill.
“It was supposed to be something serious but we were all laughing and the director” Biberman, “kept saying, don’t laugh, be serious, but it was hard for us to do all together like that…and we were just amateurs.”
Gonzalez said although lost in the crowd during that scene later she was singled out: “The only place you really see me is at the end of the movie, the writer, Michael Wilson — he was so handsome he should have been an actor! — was describing me and says ‘LaLa Gonzalez, the pretty one…’ ”
Paul Jarrico was killed in a traffic accident in 1997 when returning to his Ojai home after an event commemorating the beginnings of the blacklist 50 years earlier.
The last time Gonzalez saw the film was at an Ojai screening but “I still feel like I’m Bill’s mother, he does not forget me,” and keeps in close touch with his second Mommy.
Audrey Vincent, who studied film in college, and Margaret Wilson, in charge of selecting the films the Social Concerns Committee screens at the UU Church, joined Diana Borrego Martinez on a recent visit to Gonzalez, who lives across the street from Martinez.
It was Martinez who first heard about Gonzalez’s affiliation with Salt of the Earth.
“Sometimes a random conversation with an elderly person can reveal some surprising stories,” and Martinez noted that it was a chance remark by Gonzalez, who asked if her neighbor had ever seen Salt of the Earth.
“It startled me,” said Martinez, who told Gonzalez.
She admitted she wondered how Gonzalez had even heard of the film until her neighbor said she had appeared in it and told her of her links to the Jarrico family and her role in the movie.
“It’s an incredible movie,” said Martinez who said she also finds it incredible that her neighbor Gonzalez was part of not only such a groundbreaking film but also such an intimate friend of the Jarrico family.
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LaLa and her late husband Joe Gonzalez both appeared in Salt of the Earth, made by a blacklisted team of filmmakers; LaLa worked for many years for the family of producer Paul Jarrico. Gonzalez still keeps in close touch with Bill Jarrico, whom she helped raise and who will attend Friday’s free screening. |
